You are playing a campaign of any game you can think of. You run into some tough enemies, and -boom- total party kill. What do you do? Are you starting where you left of in the same campaign with new characters, or do you play something else entirely? Something between these two extremes, maybe?

I've only encountered two TPKs. One resulted in the fact I did a little DM intervention and saved two of the party members so they could 'recruit' new blood. (Though they did eventually raise an old character alongside a new one.) The other resulted in me completely changing campaigns because I couldn't see it going on without the same or even similiar PCs.

So while I had two different results, the changes meant we did do things differently from then on.

Quote from: Benoist;441615You are playing a campaign of any game you can think of. You run into some tough enemies, and -boom- total party kill. What do you do? Are you starting where you left of in the same campaign with new characters, or do you play something else entirely? Something between these two extremes, maybe?

Depends on the DM and players.

I've played in games which ended in TPKs, where the game ended completely.

I've also played in games which ended in TPKs, where we started again with new characters in the same campaign.

You missed an option.

Usually yes but sometimes no depending on the specifics.

If the Players like the setting and the system and there is an appetite then a new Campaign can start in the same world.

I voted No, because generally, we keep playing in the same campaign.  However, sometimes a TPK has effectively ended the campaign, but for most groups I've played with, this is rare.

Each TPK that I have presided over was the result of positively stupid decisions by the Players. I choose to just start over with something else.

Quote from: jibbajibba;441619Usually yes but sometimes no depending on the specifics.

Under the options of a poll, that would be a "Yes" vote and a post to point out the exceptions.

The campaign is the characters, not the setting, the NPCs or the over-arching plot. It's what the specifc set of characters brings to the campaign that matters and is of interest.

You can run a new set of characters in an existing setting and continuity and that's cool. But it's an entirely different campaign.

It depends on the structure of the campaign and the plot going on.

For example, in our current Dark Heresy game, we haven't lost anyone yet but if we did, our Inquisitor would simply assemble a new team of acolytes and send them on the trail of the first group.

On the other hand, our Shadowrun ended with a de facto TPK (two dead, one in jail, I retired after escaping a city-wide manhunt by hiding in a Z-Zone) and we decided to let the game die, since a lot of the fun and story was driven by the specifics of the characters (I played my own grandson as a organlegging, narco-terrorist; someone else played an old Shadowrun character from a previous campaign years ago, etc.)

Depends on the game.  

I've had CoC campaigns with multiple TPKs and we continued the campaign arc with new characters who were sent to investigate where the last group vanished or who received a bizarre journal in the mail from one of the dead characters.

Sandbox games easily recover from TPKs, but often the players rather move on to another RPG or we switch GMs as a change of pace.  Its a good switching point.

However in story arc games, the TPK often means Big Bad Wins so even if the world continues, that arc is done and new characters means new campaign.

I'd have voted "Yes, usually, but not always," had there been a similar option...

Seanchai

Most of the time I continue. I leave it up to the group. So far in my HackMaster 4 game I've had 2 TPKs and we're still going.

During our long 3e campaign during high-school, we had about 3 TPKs.  We kept going with the same campaign -- often leaving little "memories" of the old character behind, or tying in a new character with the old.

For ex, the tower we were exploring had old bits of armor, weapons, and other personal trinkets that the original party had dropped.  And one of my newer characters was on an assassination mission to take out my previous one, unawares that his target had been killed already.

Quote from: Benoist;441615You are playing a campaign of any game you can think of. You run into some tough enemies, and -boom- total party kill. What do you do? Are you starting where you left of in the same campaign with new characters, or do you play something else entirely? Something between these two extremes, maybe?

I'm not sure we've ever had a TPK...but I'm sure that it would be a "depends"...I mean, if it was STOP THIS GUY OR THE WORLD DIES and we get a TPK...yeah, probably a new campaign.

But in most cases, it would be a "Well, you guys still wanna keep playing, but with new guys? Or do we bust out [This Other Game] instead?"

same campaign going on 27 years now.  3 TPKs in that time, 5 more near TPKs, just hit 50 full time players (I don't count tourney or short term) and 159 PCs.
Just
call
me
ourtlier....