May 6, 2024
TPK! Or: "Everyone is down! Now what?"
In this episode, the discussion centers around the Total Party Kill (TPK) scenario in role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, providing DMs with strategies to maintain the game narrative following the party's defeat. The conversation progresses...
In this episode, the discussion centers around the Total Party Kill (TPK) scenario in role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, providing DMs with strategies to maintain the game narrative following the party's defeat. The conversation progresses from acknowledging character death as a significant aspect of gameplay to methods for avoiding a premature end to the campaign after a TPK occurs. Key tactics include scenarios such as the 'Left for Dead' situation, where characters are incapacitated instead of killed; 'Adventure in the Afterlife', where characters navigate challenges in the afterlife to return to the living world; and the 'It Was All a Dream' approach, offering a narrative reset. The hosts stress the importance of discussing character mortality and post-TPK game continuation during session zero to manage player attachment to characters, noting changes across different D&D editions. The episode wraps up with an invitation for listeners to share their own strategies for handling TPKs and other campaign obstacles.
Tell us about your best (or worst) TPK! helloadventurerspodcast@gmail.com or helloadventurerspodcast.com/voice
WEBVTT
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Heres the podcast for role players and
game masters to help the level look at
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your game. We are your dungeon
masters. I'm Jason Portiso, I'm Joe
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McCall, and I'm Jim Crocker,
and we're all dead. Yeah. Sorry,
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sorry, guys. It happens.
Not not not what we're expecting,
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but it happened. Sometimes doing it
off screen was kind of a it was
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kind of a bitch move. But
you know, what's what are we talking
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about today, Jim. What we
are talking about today is what we would
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colloquially refer to as a t p
K. That is a total party kill.
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This is when combat either goes wrong
or goes right, depending on what
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kind of d M you are,
and all of the player characters end up
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out of hit points at some point, you know, before the combat is
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over and the monsters win the bad
guys are victorious. I don't forget that
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the K could also stand for a
knockout, depending on what direction you need
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us to go. And that's one
of the things that we're going to talk
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about is and the first thing that
I want to get out of the way
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is that you may well run a
campaign where the dice fall where they may
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we're playered. Sorry, I was
about to say player death where character death.
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Where player character death is a thing
that just happens at the table,
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and without that, there's no stakes. And without that D and D is
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it really fun? And if all
of the characters die in a fight,
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well that's just how it is,
and we restart the campaign. I'm not
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talking to you using your Grognard,
I'm not talking to you. So that's
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cool, Like, go with God, enjoy your game, have a great
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table, you know, skip to
the next episode or you know, if
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you want to see how the other
half lives, but you know, stay
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tuned. But this is not I
under standards. If you can at least
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listen through, like to the ads
and like get us a couple of pennies,
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that'd be great. But what was
the what was the like original one
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of the original modules that was like
impossible, the impossible dungeon, Oh that
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they just remade. It's got Tom
of Horrors. Yeah, two of Annihilations
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of Horrors is the one you're talking
about. Two of Annihilation is the one
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that sounds like it should be that
one, but it's actually quite playable.
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Yeah, a lot of those early
modules were created specifically as competitive tournament modules
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where you'd play them through multiple rounds
on whichever you know, group of them
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actually survived to the end, like
literally one at D and D, which
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is like not a thing kind of
not only would play the game anymore so
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far we've come yes, yeah,
but this is this is for folks who
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don't want that situation where the monsters
win in a fight, either accidentally or
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because you you know, the players
want a really tough challenge and maybe somebody
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miscalculates and you know, and you
get a couple of krits with the Dragon
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Breath or something like that, and
everybody's wiped out. But you don't want
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to end the campaign. You want
to keep playing. Now. You can
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either have this be a thing that
everybody agrees upon at the beginning of the
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campaign. You have a discussion and
you say, look, it's going to
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be possible for you guys to be
defeated, and prepare for that. You
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know, I'm not going to put
the kid gloves on. But if you
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get beat, all that means is
you get beat. And that's like,
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you know, that's like Buffy getting
beat in the show or something like that.
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You know, it's like Spider Man
getting beat. It's like Batman getting
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beat. We know that they can
be defeated, but the story will continue
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from there, and if you want
to do that in your D and D
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games. I like to divide these
into three kind of three basic approaches that
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you can take when you encounter a
TPK, when you encounter this situation where
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the party is defeated. And the
first one I'm going to call left for
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dead. Right, that means everybody's
down to zero hit points and effectively,
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you know they're they're they're killed.
But rather than you know, have everybody
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get buried and make new characters and
restart the campaign, you treat it like
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a TV show where somebody loses a
fight and they all wake up in exactly
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well they wake up, I mean, And you could do this any one
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of several ways. And there's kind
of a couple of variations of this left
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for dead theme. One is literally
left for dead. You know, the
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bandits that they're fighting are in a
hurry, right, and they've got to
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get to you know, you've ambushed, like there's some kind of ambush or
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something. You know, stab stab
stab. People get shot with arrows,
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fireballs go off and they're like,
okay, they're down, We're out of
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here. And then that is when, you know, as the DM,
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you say, okay, ranger,
you know you come to you've got one
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hit point. Everybody else looks like
they're in really rough shape, or the
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cleric or something like that. What
do you do and go from there?
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You know, and this maybe this
is a thing where like the Wizard,
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you wake up with your familiar licking
your face or you know, you know,
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with a healing potion in one claw, pouring it, you know,
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like like a drop of it on
your tongue so that you you know,
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just enough to revive you and now
you can kind of get everybody back on
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their feet, and that's adorable.
Or like exactly, somebody comes along,
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you know, the farmer that knew
that you were going into the woods to
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fight the goblins that were, you
know, playing his farm or something like
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that. Yeah, you know,
their kid followed you and they saw you
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get beat up and stuff, and
so that left for debt scenario, you're
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defeated, but you just kind of
agree that that's you know, whatever,
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the zero hit points and the failed
deat staves and all that kind of stuff
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means you're incapacitated, you certainly can't
get up and fight some more. And
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maybe you've got to go back to
town and get healed, and maybe you
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put some levels of exhaustion on or
something like that in exchange for that.
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You know, the bad guys are
a lot further along in their play.
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Absolutely impose some kind of penalty that
makes sense, some kind of you know,
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narrative, you know, narrative cost
for losing the flight. You don't
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have hands anywhere, Well, that
can be a little I mean maybe until
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you get back to the town.
You got to get back to town and
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grow your fingers back. What do
you mostly hands? You guys been watching
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fallout, so so you can do
that. You can have them wake up
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imprisoned by the bad guy right who
you know took them all down and you
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know, now you're all in shackles
and stuff down in his dungeon or something
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like that, or you know,
kind of another variant of that left for
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Dead is you know, the bandits
knock you down and you wake up and
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you look around and you are in
you know, a cave that is the
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larder of the local hill giant,
right, you know, or a tribe
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of ogres that came along and found
you land there and are like, oh,
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we'll take these guys. We'll lay
them up for a little while to
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tenderize them, and then tournament again, like Empire strikes back exactly, and
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that can you know, you're like
like you wake up and you're like,
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holy crap, what is going on
here? You get the opportunity to kind
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of do a little thing where you
know, maybe you're unarmed for a little
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while and you got to find your
gear and get it back, you know,
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video game style, right, you
know, the middle of Half Life
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where they knock you down and then
all you've got is a crowbar after,
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you know, throwing a gravity gun
around and stuff like this. Right,
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well we call that one the end. Now we have new problems. Yes,
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precedence absolutely a thing that you can
do, but that's the left for
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Dead where you know they're absolutely they're
defeated, but not killed, simply incapacitated,
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and then the story continues from there
after being incapacitated. For that one,
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I like the idea of having them
wake up naturally with like one HP
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is kind of like that's a little
dis x MakingA for my taste. Sure,
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having them be knocked out for some
period of time and then like giving
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them the benefits of a short rest
with maybe with an exhaustion level. Yeah,
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it feels it feels a little more
realistic. Yeah. The ways you
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can do options, yeah, or
you do like the sorry you do the
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man like the Princess Bride. Yep, it's like we're like, we're going
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to bring you back just so we
can torture you. Think of the captured
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route. Yeah. Yeah, and
that's and that's another thing that you can
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do. We have a new problem, Yeah, you know where where you
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know something that the bad guy needs
or the bad guy like like you say,
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wants so so badly to lord it
over you, to you know,
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to kind of gloat in his victory. It literally has you resurrected so that
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he can gloat over you. And
of course that proves to be his fatal
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mistake because you know he's underestimated you. Right, that's totally another monologue figure
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it out, Yeah, for sure. So the second kind of general bucket
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of ways that you can continue after
a TPK, I'm going to call adventure
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in the afterlife. So this is
a thing you can do where everybody did
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get killed, but whoops. For
whatever reason, you know, you all
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wake up in limbo, and in
between you're in Valhalla something like that.
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You're in the you know, the
arena of the gods or something, and
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you have to fight your way or
bargain your way or trick your way out
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of the afterlife. And maybe this
is a thing where you start all the
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characters in their various afterlife, you
know, because they're you know, they
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worship different gods or something like that, or you know, the fact that
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the cleric has been using all that
clerical magic on everybody has bestowed a connection
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to the clerics god, and so
you know, for some reason, everybody
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wakes up in the afterlife of the
cleric right or you know, was his.
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The clerics will to drag them their
souls along, you know, maybe
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you even have the cleric narrate as
you're being pulled up into into you know,
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into vale Halla. You see the
souls of your friends. How do
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you bring them along with you?
Kind of thing like that, And and
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you you run some adventures in the
afterlife. And this is fun because this
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can be kind of a cool sidetrack
to the game. It can get really
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weird. You can do like kind
of kind of crazy stuff. You know,
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you can level up in the afterlife
and so that when you you know,
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figure out how to get out and
come back down, you know,
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you're leveled up. Stuff like this. There's all kinds of things you can
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do. You have to dragon balls
you through that like a lot. Well
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not only that, but you have
to use a like an old phone booth
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to travel to the past to fix
things during this bogus adventure. Yeah,
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but this is like God a War
does some stuff like this right where you
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kind of you know, like you
go into the afterlife and you've got to
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fight the you know, the whatever
ghosts and stuff like this. And this
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is also a really cool way to
do callbacks to characters that were in the
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campaign and like maybe bad guys to
be defeated before. Cool. Now who
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you've got to either fight again or
you come across and they say, man,
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when you guys killed me, I
really learned my lesson. I'm gonna
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help you out here and now get
me allies. Yeah that actually all of
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these things before, including the bad
guy turned good guy spoilers for campaign one
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on that pod. It's also it's
also at least partially the plot for Gladiator
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to the unmade yet unmade Gladiator too. No, Joe, there we go
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Maximus from Maximus is supposed to be
from from the field in the underworld sun
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Sign shining down. He has to
yeah, what do they call that Hades?
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No, no, it's called I
can't think of it. I'll think
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of it later, Okay, But
yeah, he has to like save his
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son, he has to come back, and yeah, look it up.
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It's pretty pretty interesting. In campaign
one, they go from now do they
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have a whole there's a whole arc
in the Night Hells that ends up with
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like one of the big bads,
one of one of the early big bads,
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a little bad whatever you want to
call him, turns into it just
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a goof character and just you know, they Hi Jenson's with that one.
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And there's a whole larger arc that
takes place in the Shadow Fell, which
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is kind of like in between Life
and Death, which is a very cool
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one Queen arc there, yeah,
yeah, exactly, she's in there.
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And then there's a whole nother arc
that is also in the Nine Hells.
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I believe it has been whilst I
listened to it. And then there's like
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this something we brought up a while
ago with like putting a clock on the
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table, where like not not a
physical plot, but like not having some
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sort of like yeah, yeah something
something to make to create urgency where the
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bat guy was like they were there
and they were dead in the nine hells
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yeah, d six that counts down
or something like that. Yeah, well
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the world. This one was like
creating husks of giant monsters to sem up
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to the material plane. Yeah,
and like whichever ones they didn't stop,
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they had to then go fight in
the plane. So they were able to
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get around the TMOP, but they
did have to fight the Tarasque. Yeah,
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Elicium, this was the name of
Oh oh okay, yeah, sorry.
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And this is also one of the
things where if you have kind of
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teased at some of the gods in
your game, are hinted at them,
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or you know, you want to
give the cleric kind of the opportunity to
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have actual divine intervention and some contact
with some of those divine beings without you
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know, really messing with your campaign, the ongoing campaign, you know,
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like to have the gods showing up
in the middle of your game and unbalancing
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thing or messing with it. Having
the characters go to the gods is an
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interesting way to do that. Sure, you know, and the gods can
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take an interest in what they've got
going on. And maybe you know,
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it was one of the gods that
actively said, yeah, I know,
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you guys are supposed to go to
your respective heavens, but I pulled some
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favors with those gods to pull you
in so that you can, you know,
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keep so you can keep my cleric
safe while he completes my mission.
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Sure you have a you have a
very confused paladin for a different god and
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a now very scared warlock whose patron
will not take time to us, or
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you know, or you've got a
paladin who's you know, the paladin's dity
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is there, you know, next
to the clerics deity, and they're both
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going, yeah, okay, you
guys are going to get get this done
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for us. So but there's a
lot of opportunities there. And and that
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is also a thing where you can
I have written down here now you owe
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the gods. That is a thing
that can become a part of an ongoing
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thing. I just like, what
kind of favors does a god call in?
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Yeah, I just like that as
a sentence. That's just that's just
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the cool the gods so and so
that's kind of the second. That's the
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second sort of bucket that I put
these kind of you know, the sort
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of the like like post TPK,
you know, campaign continuation under is that
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adventure in the Afterlife? Hello Adventurers, Thank you so much for listening.
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If you enjoy the show, the
absolute best thing you can do to support
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us is to subscribe so you'll be
notified when new episodes are released. You
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can also leave us a review five
stars. Of course, that will help
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us get seen by more D and
D players and more than anything else,
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just tell your friends of if you
like what we're doing here, that there's
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a good chance that your DM or
your players will enjoy it too. And
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you don't need to loop goal to
do any of that. We appreciate your
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listening. Now back to the show. The third kind of bucket of stuff
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that I put put things in,
And this may not work for everybody.
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You may decide that this is you
know, this is not your thing,
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but but it's a thing you can
do. And that is the it was
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all a dream, right because in
D and D of the Bob New Heart
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approach, the Bob Newhart approach,
the Bob Newhart approach, the Dallas approach.
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Sure, but you absolutely can create
a situation where and this is a
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thing that you can do that you
can kind of lay some groundwork for as
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a DM, if they're going into
an incredibly difficult combat, you can have
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a thing where you have them go
to a fortune teller and the fortune teller
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says, you know, the fortune
teller tells their fortune, and then the
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next session they go off and they
run this combat and it goes disastrous,
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slee and then so at the end
of that, you shake your head and
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you go and the fortune teller leans
back, eyes wide in terror, and
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says, you better try a different
approach than the one you're planning. And
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you know, and then you get
a do over, right, remember to
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run away or try something different or
you know, just hope the dice.
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But kind of like it's kind of
like that's about the Strange approach, Doctor
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Strange. But also notice thinking was, oh man, what's that movie Final
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Destination? Yeah, like the zooms
out and it's like the truck, you
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know, somebody cuts off the truck
and hits its brakes. Forever if you're
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of an age. Yeah, any
millennial or extra that's not your gen z.
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You're not maybe not get this that
will not pull over to the side
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of the road and wait if they
get behind one of those trucks, because
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I the first movie. We're just
gonna wait at this rest up for a
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little while, honey, and let
that Oh is that the second one?
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Oh? The first one was the
airplane. First one was the airplane.
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Ye, that was the second one. Okay, So yeah, so if
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if if the player characters were going
to go to their final destination, you
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can you can do you can borrow
borrow something from that and borrow something from
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Devin sawah. Yeah, and depending
on what depending on what kind of villain
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it was, perhaps it was all
powerful illusion magic, right, that that
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caused them to believe that they got
into this fight and got killed and everything,
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and you know, they kind of
come to as the illusion wears off.
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This is a little bit of a
kind of kind of kind of almost
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looking at the you know, like
like sort of putting it into left for
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dead territory. But by that time, you know, the bad guy has
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gotten away. They haven't gotten whatever
mcguffin it was that they were going to
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get but they're still able to continue
adventures. You know, the effects of
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that illusionary battle still you know,
come into play. But that's a thing
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if you don't want to impose levels
of exhaustion or have their gear be used
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up or something like that. That
is a way that you can do that.
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You know, it could be like
I said, it could be a
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prophecy that someone is telling. It
could be you know, like it could
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be a prophecy where somebody is you
know, seeing the future and then you
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wind that back. It could be
illusions that's used on them. The other
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thing that can be fun that you
can do that's kind of a variant of
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this is depending on the nature of
the fight. This could be like an
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orc or you know, a bandit
telling a bunch of their friends what happened
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in the fight at the end of
the you know, at the end of
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that terrible TPK you say, you
know, and the bandit stands up and
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everyone in the bar toasts them for
their you know, glorious defeat of the
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party. And next session we're going
to play what really happens like that,
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Yeah, and you know, not
his story that he made up to you
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know, and then at some point
you have that bandit like watching and then
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run away or something like that.
You know, in the next session.
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That's another thing that you can do
is is this is what somebody says happened,
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and boy, that was pretty bad
and their version of it clearly makes
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you guys look terrible. Now let's
do you know, and kind of you
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kind of give him a do over, and let's do that again and see
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how it. Make sure you point
out that he gets away or else that
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destroys the space. Continue. Absolutely, you got to do that. You
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know, you got to create that
situation that you know or he's just you
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know, watching from the sidelines and
scoots as soon as he sees you guys
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have arrived or something. But then
when you get to the town and you
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and you get to the tavern,
you hear him telling the story's big and
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that's when you stink behind them funny
story. Let's see how it really is,
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Yes, and then you kick his
ass exactly, And that's that's another
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fun way to do that. Kind
of people say beat him up, but
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there's lots of ways that you can
do that. And like I said,
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one of the things that I always
do when I start a new campaign.
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Is I'm really specific about telling the
players you can be defeated as characters.
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Your characters can lose a fight,
but I'm not going to tell you when
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the campaign ends or you have to
stop playing those characters. Sure, some
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players want, you know, if
their character goes down, they want to
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pick up and play a new character. That's totally fine, you can accommodate
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that. But there are other players
that want to keep playing their characters for
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as long as they have a story
for that character and taking the pressure off
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of them that the dice may decide
that they can't do that anymore. That
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can actually be a huge relief to
some people and really free them up to
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have a lot more fun with the
game. And is this something that we've
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talked about before, where like that's
a very When I say generational, I
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mean generations of gamers, not so
much like gen X versus money or versus
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gen Z or whatever. But as
we progress in additions of D and D,
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the idea of people getting more attached
to the character and the story between
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the story within that character is much
more of a thing than it was in
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first edition, where like you have
mentioned, and we've had we had Tony
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Bogan the game a games store owner
on one of the last episodes of Curmudgeons.
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Really they would show up to session
one with backup characters. Yeah,
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and so okay, here's the here's
the guy I'm gonna play, and then
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here's the three guys are gonna play
when they die. Yeah, And it's
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just how the game is played.
And now that this game is very story
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driven, and we can thank a
lot of like you know, D and
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D media, you know, your
critical roles in those types of things where
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the story is just way more part
of the game than it was. Yeah,
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And you're seeing a lot more attachment
to characters. So having having a
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contingency for when the character is defeated
but not dead is going to be a
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lot more important now than ever.
Has been the thing that I think of
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too, And I don't know if
we've mentioned it here in one of our
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previous episodes or that's something I've read
more about, but one of the things
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that I want to start introducing in
my game is going forward, is like
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a session zero questionnaire, ye,
like, and that's like a great question,
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like how attached to your character are
you? And like maybe a note
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on there, like if this changes, please let me know, imp because
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everybody, that's an explanation or something
that you're going to have a discussion about
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at that session zero of like,
hey, listen, like there's gonna be
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real consequences for choices that you make
in this campaign. So just so you
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know, I'm the type of DM
that you know I'm I'm going to kill
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your characters if if I'm going to
let the dice decide and you know,
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have that have that conversation, is
all I'm saying from a lot of a
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lot of DMS. One of the
things that Jason, that you and I
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have read about, you know,
for years as we've been doing this,
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is DMS talking about how difficult it
can be to get players to invest in,
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like invest in a backstory and creating
a backstory and doing that work to
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you know, craft a narrative for
their characters and like taking off the table.
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The idea that they may have to
do that again and again and again
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is a thing I think that could
be a powerful motivator to get the players
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to invest in and really believe in, you know, the importance of having
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that story and that it's that it's
going to matter, and it's that it's
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going to continue to matter for those
types of players. Yes, my regulars,
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I have the opposite problem where they
have one hundred characters with one hundred
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page backstories that they can't wait to
bring to the table and they want to
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just letting them off a cliff so
they can play the next like well fleshed
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out character Mary talking to you,
she'll text me because she'll text me at
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three o'clock in the morning with a
character idea and a shared iPhone note.
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Yeah, a lot about which we
know from previous episodes is your bedtime,
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So yes, don't do that.
And there are those players. But the
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other thing that this does is sets
expectations for everybody and make sure everybody is
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on the same page, because it
may be difficult if you've got like four
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or five players that are all interested
in an ongoing story and you've got somebody
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that wants to bring a new character
to the table every two weeks, that
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might not be the right table for
them, and having that discussion to make
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sure that you know one particular player's
preference is going to be disruptive to everybody
356
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:21.319
else you know, or or that
you can make sure that you find a
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way to integrate those approaches. That's
an important conversation to have, Yeah,
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and important to note that those are
two totally fine approaches. Oh yeah,
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if everyone's on the same page,
yep, yeah for sure. But that's
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kind of the general three buckets that
I put those into. If anybody else
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has any ideas or you know,
or you want to talk specifically about something
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you came up with on the fly
or that you have as kind of campaign
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standard for the table that you're running, we would absolutely love to hear about
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that. Now. You can do
that by emailing us at Hello Adventure with
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00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:53.240
Podcasts at gmail dot com, or
tell us your story yourself a Hello Adventure
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00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:57.319
with podcast dot com slash voice.
Yeah. Also, if you have any
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00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:04.599
updates on the as yet unmade Gladiator
Too Gladiator sequel, can we kick start
368
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.799
this? It's it got green light
and then COVID happened like they were about
369
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ready to go. I think everybody
signed on and Jim, I hear you
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00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:18.119
googling, and that's not what I
want. I want our listeners, our
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listener to call again and talk to
me about the Gladiator sequel. Ridley Scott's
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eighty six but still on his feet, so you know, could happen.
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All right, Well, I guess
on that note. Is that the note
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we're going to go out on.
I guess. So, so let you
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wrap this thing up, go kill
your players. It's okay, guys,
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Jim said, so, yes,
don't. I said what I said.
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That's that's a to unless you're LARPing. Why I've never played in one of
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Jason's games. Yes, like an
my players all the time down, although
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there are several seats open. That's
the kind of topic that I want to
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get into sooner than later. I
had a whole thing on players versus player
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characters and what that really means,
that that's gonna be. That's be a
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00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:03.079
cool one down the line. What
was the name of the guy that had
383
00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:07.079
the hotel in Chicago with the with
the murder hotel? Oh, the Devil
384
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:08.480
and the White City guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think of
385
00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:11.960
his name right now. It's really
Balrab. Well, you can think of
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00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.119
it now because the episode's over.
Thank you so much for listening to Hello
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00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.279
Adventurers, Weird your host us and
Portizo Jim Crocker and Joe McCall, producer,
388
00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:22.839
editor and engineer Jason Portiso musically by
Nick Spurri or art right by Chris
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00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:26.079
and Roderick. You can reach out
to us with any feedback or suggestions by
390
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:30.440
emailing Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot
com. Hello Adventurers gives a GTP audio
391
00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:41.079
production. Good Night Adventures, Sorry
Adventures,
1
00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:25.920
Heres the podcast for role players and
game masters to help the level look at
2
00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:30.039
your game. We are your dungeon
masters. I'm Jason Portiso, I'm Joe
3
00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:34.200
McCall, and I'm Jim Crocker,
and we're all dead. Yeah. Sorry,
4
00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:37.560
sorry, guys. It happens.
Not not not what we're expecting,
5
00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:41.119
but it happened. Sometimes doing it
off screen was kind of a it was
6
00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.960
kind of a bitch move. But
you know, what's what are we talking
7
00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.640
about today, Jim. What we
are talking about today is what we would
8
00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:52.600
colloquially refer to as a t p
K. That is a total party kill.
9
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This is when combat either goes wrong
or goes right, depending on what
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kind of d M you are,
and all of the player characters end up
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out of hit points at some point, you know, before the combat is
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over and the monsters win the bad
guys are victorious. I don't forget that
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the K could also stand for a
knockout, depending on what direction you need
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us to go. And that's one
of the things that we're going to talk
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about is and the first thing that
I want to get out of the way
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is that you may well run a
campaign where the dice fall where they may
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we're playered. Sorry, I was
about to say player death where character death.
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Where player character death is a thing
that just happens at the table,
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and without that, there's no stakes. And without that D and D is
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it really fun? And if all
of the characters die in a fight,
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well that's just how it is,
and we restart the campaign. I'm not
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talking to you using your Grognard,
I'm not talking to you. So that's
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cool, Like, go with God, enjoy your game, have a great
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table, you know, skip to
the next episode or you know, if
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you want to see how the other
half lives, but you know, stay
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tuned. But this is not I
under standards. If you can at least
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listen through, like to the ads
and like get us a couple of pennies,
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that'd be great. But what was
the what was the like original one
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of the original modules that was like
impossible, the impossible dungeon, Oh that
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they just remade. It's got Tom
of Horrors. Yeah, two of Annihilations
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of Horrors is the one you're talking
about. Two of Annihilation is the one
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that sounds like it should be that
one, but it's actually quite playable.
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Yeah, a lot of those early
modules were created specifically as competitive tournament modules
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where you'd play them through multiple rounds
on whichever you know, group of them
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actually survived to the end, like
literally one at D and D, which
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is like not a thing kind of
not only would play the game anymore so
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far we've come yes, yeah,
but this is this is for folks who
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don't want that situation where the monsters
win in a fight, either accidentally or
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because you you know, the players
want a really tough challenge and maybe somebody
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miscalculates and you know, and you
get a couple of krits with the Dragon
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Breath or something like that, and
everybody's wiped out. But you don't want
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to end the campaign. You want
to keep playing. Now. You can
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either have this be a thing that
everybody agrees upon at the beginning of the
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campaign. You have a discussion and
you say, look, it's going to
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be possible for you guys to be
defeated, and prepare for that. You
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know, I'm not going to put
the kid gloves on. But if you
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get beat, all that means is
you get beat. And that's like,
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you know, that's like Buffy getting
beat in the show or something like that.
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00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:36.759
You know, it's like Spider Man
getting beat. It's like Batman getting
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beat. We know that they can
be defeated, but the story will continue
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from there, and if you want
to do that in your D and D
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games. I like to divide these
into three kind of three basic approaches that
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you can take when you encounter a
TPK, when you encounter this situation where
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the party is defeated. And the
first one I'm going to call left for
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00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:05.879
dead. Right, that means everybody's
down to zero hit points and effectively,
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you know they're they're they're killed.
But rather than you know, have everybody
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get buried and make new characters and
restart the campaign, you treat it like
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a TV show where somebody loses a
fight and they all wake up in exactly
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00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.759
well they wake up, I mean, And you could do this any one
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of several ways. And there's kind
of a couple of variations of this left
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for dead theme. One is literally
left for dead. You know, the
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bandits that they're fighting are in a
hurry, right, and they've got to
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get to you know, you've ambushed, like there's some kind of ambush or
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something. You know, stab stab
stab. People get shot with arrows,
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fireballs go off and they're like,
okay, they're down, We're out of
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here. And then that is when, you know, as the DM,
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you say, okay, ranger,
you know you come to you've got one
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hit point. Everybody else looks like
they're in really rough shape, or the
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cleric or something like that. What
do you do and go from there?
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00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:09.720
You know, and this maybe this
is a thing where like the Wizard,
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you wake up with your familiar licking
your face or you know, you know,
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with a healing potion in one claw, pouring it, you know,
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00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:20.879
like like a drop of it on
your tongue so that you you know,
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just enough to revive you and now
you can kind of get everybody back on
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their feet, and that's adorable.
Or like exactly, somebody comes along,
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you know, the farmer that knew
that you were going into the woods to
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fight the goblins that were, you
know, playing his farm or something like
78
00:05:36.759 --> 00:05:40.560
that. Yeah, you know,
their kid followed you and they saw you
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get beat up and stuff, and
so that left for debt scenario, you're
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defeated, but you just kind of
agree that that's you know, whatever,
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the zero hit points and the failed
deat staves and all that kind of stuff
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means you're incapacitated, you certainly can't
get up and fight some more. And
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maybe you've got to go back to
town and get healed, and maybe you
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00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.600
put some levels of exhaustion on or
something like that in exchange for that.
85
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You know, the bad guys are
a lot further along in their play.
86
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Absolutely impose some kind of penalty that
makes sense, some kind of you know,
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narrative, you know, narrative cost
for losing the flight. You don't
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have hands anywhere, Well, that
can be a little I mean maybe until
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you get back to the town.
You got to get back to town and
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00:06:20.439 --> 00:06:27.199
grow your fingers back. What do
you mostly hands? You guys been watching
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00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:31.639
fallout, so so you can do
that. You can have them wake up
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imprisoned by the bad guy right who
you know took them all down and you
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know, now you're all in shackles
and stuff down in his dungeon or something
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like that, or you know,
kind of another variant of that left for
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Dead is you know, the bandits
knock you down and you wake up and
96
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you look around and you are in
you know, a cave that is the
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larder of the local hill giant,
right, you know, or a tribe
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00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:01.519
of ogres that came along and found
you land there and are like, oh,
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00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:03.560
we'll take these guys. We'll lay
them up for a little while to
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00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:09.120
tenderize them, and then tournament again, like Empire strikes back exactly, and
101
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that can you know, you're like
like you wake up and you're like,
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holy crap, what is going on
here? You get the opportunity to kind
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of do a little thing where you
know, maybe you're unarmed for a little
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while and you got to find your
gear and get it back, you know,
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00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:24.639
video game style, right, you
know, the middle of Half Life
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where they knock you down and then
all you've got is a crowbar after,
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00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:30.519
you know, throwing a gravity gun
around and stuff like this. Right,
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well we call that one the end. Now we have new problems. Yes,
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precedence absolutely a thing that you can
do, but that's the left for
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Dead where you know they're absolutely they're
defeated, but not killed, simply incapacitated,
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and then the story continues from there
after being incapacitated. For that one,
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00:07:46.360 --> 00:07:49.759
I like the idea of having them
wake up naturally with like one HP
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is kind of like that's a little
dis x MakingA for my taste. Sure,
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having them be knocked out for some
period of time and then like giving
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them the benefits of a short rest
with maybe with an exhaustion level. Yeah,
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00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.079
it feels it feels a little more
realistic. Yeah. The ways you
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00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:11.040
can do options, yeah, or
you do like the sorry you do the
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00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:13.720
man like the Princess Bride. Yep, it's like we're like, we're going
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to bring you back just so we
can torture you. Think of the captured
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00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:22.519
route. Yeah. Yeah, and
that's and that's another thing that you can
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do. We have a new problem, Yeah, you know where where you
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know something that the bad guy needs
or the bad guy like like you say,
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wants so so badly to lord it
over you, to you know,
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to kind of gloat in his victory. It literally has you resurrected so that
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he can gloat over you. And
of course that proves to be his fatal
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mistake because you know he's underestimated you. Right, that's totally another monologue figure
127
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it out, Yeah, for sure. So the second kind of general bucket
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of ways that you can continue after
a TPK, I'm going to call adventure
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in the afterlife. So this is
a thing you can do where everybody did
130
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get killed, but whoops. For
whatever reason, you know, you all
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wake up in limbo, and in
between you're in Valhalla something like that.
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You're in the you know, the
arena of the gods or something, and
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you have to fight your way or
bargain your way or trick your way out
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of the afterlife. And maybe this
is a thing where you start all the
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characters in their various afterlife, you
know, because they're you know, they
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worship different gods or something like that, or you know, the fact that
137
00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:41.120
the cleric has been using all that
clerical magic on everybody has bestowed a connection
138
00:09:41.240 --> 00:09:45.759
to the clerics god, and so
you know, for some reason, everybody
139
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:50.440
wakes up in the afterlife of the
cleric right or you know, was his.
140
00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:54.039
The clerics will to drag them their
souls along, you know, maybe
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you even have the cleric narrate as
you're being pulled up into into you know,
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into vale Halla. You see the
souls of your friends. How do
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00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:05.080
you bring them along with you?
Kind of thing like that, And and
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00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:09.879
you you run some adventures in the
afterlife. And this is fun because this
145
00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:13.639
can be kind of a cool sidetrack
to the game. It can get really
146
00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:16.000
weird. You can do like kind
of kind of crazy stuff. You know,
147
00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:20.240
you can level up in the afterlife
and so that when you you know,
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00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:22.919
figure out how to get out and
come back down, you know,
149
00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:24.519
you're leveled up. Stuff like this. There's all kinds of things you can
150
00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:28.000
do. You have to dragon balls
you through that like a lot. Well
151
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.840
not only that, but you have
to use a like an old phone booth
152
00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:37.879
to travel to the past to fix
things during this bogus adventure. Yeah,
153
00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:41.840
but this is like God a War
does some stuff like this right where you
154
00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:43.960
kind of you know, like you
go into the afterlife and you've got to
155
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:48.600
fight the you know, the whatever
ghosts and stuff like this. And this
156
00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:52.600
is also a really cool way to
do callbacks to characters that were in the
157
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campaign and like maybe bad guys to
be defeated before. Cool. Now who
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you've got to either fight again or
you come across and they say, man,
159
00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:07.320
when you guys killed me, I
really learned my lesson. I'm gonna
160
00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:11.879
help you out here and now get
me allies. Yeah that actually all of
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00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:16.200
these things before, including the bad
guy turned good guy spoilers for campaign one
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00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:22.759
on that pod. It's also it's
also at least partially the plot for Gladiator
163
00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.840
to the unmade yet unmade Gladiator too. No, Joe, there we go
164
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Maximus from Maximus is supposed to be
from from the field in the underworld sun
165
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Sign shining down. He has to
yeah, what do they call that Hades?
166
00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:39.159
No, no, it's called I
can't think of it. I'll think
167
00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:41.840
of it later, Okay, But
yeah, he has to like save his
168
00:11:41.960 --> 00:11:43.799
son, he has to come back, and yeah, look it up.
169
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It's pretty pretty interesting. In campaign
one, they go from now do they
170
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have a whole there's a whole arc
in the Night Hells that ends up with
171
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like one of the big bads,
one of one of the early big bads,
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a little bad whatever you want to
call him, turns into it just
173
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a goof character and just you know, they Hi Jenson's with that one.
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And there's a whole larger arc that
takes place in the Shadow Fell, which
175
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is kind of like in between Life
and Death, which is a very cool
176
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one Queen arc there, yeah,
yeah, exactly, she's in there.
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And then there's a whole nother arc
that is also in the Nine Hells.
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I believe it has been whilst I
listened to it. And then there's like
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this something we brought up a while
ago with like putting a clock on the
180
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table, where like not not a
physical plot, but like not having some
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sort of like yeah, yeah something
something to make to create urgency where the
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bat guy was like they were there
and they were dead in the nine hells
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yeah, d six that counts down
or something like that. Yeah, well
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the world. This one was like
creating husks of giant monsters to sem up
185
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to the material plane. Yeah,
and like whichever ones they didn't stop,
186
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they had to then go fight in
the plane. So they were able to
187
00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:50.360
get around the TMOP, but they
did have to fight the Tarasque. Yeah,
188
00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:54.799
Elicium, this was the name of
Oh oh okay, yeah, sorry.
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And this is also one of the
things where if you have kind of
190
00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.480
teased at some of the gods in
your game, are hinted at them,
191
00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:07.080
or you know, you want to
give the cleric kind of the opportunity to
192
00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:13.279
have actual divine intervention and some contact
with some of those divine beings without you
193
00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:18.320
know, really messing with your campaign, the ongoing campaign, you know,
194
00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:22.480
like to have the gods showing up
in the middle of your game and unbalancing
195
00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:26.360
thing or messing with it. Having
the characters go to the gods is an
196
00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:28.080
interesting way to do that. Sure, you know, and the gods can
197
00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:31.080
take an interest in what they've got
going on. And maybe you know,
198
00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:35.200
it was one of the gods that
actively said, yeah, I know,
199
00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:37.919
you guys are supposed to go to
your respective heavens, but I pulled some
200
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favors with those gods to pull you
in so that you can, you know,
201
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keep so you can keep my cleric
safe while he completes my mission.
202
00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:52.320
Sure you have a you have a
very confused paladin for a different god and
203
00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.720
a now very scared warlock whose patron
will not take time to us, or
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00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:01.559
you know, or you've got a
paladin who's you know, the paladin's dity
205
00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:03.559
is there, you know, next
to the clerics deity, and they're both
206
00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:05.799
going, yeah, okay, you
guys are going to get get this done
207
00:14:05.799 --> 00:14:09.200
for us. So but there's a
lot of opportunities there. And and that
208
00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:13.360
is also a thing where you can
I have written down here now you owe
209
00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:18.240
the gods. That is a thing
that can become a part of an ongoing
210
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thing. I just like, what
kind of favors does a god call in?
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Yeah, I just like that as
a sentence. That's just that's just
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the cool the gods so and so
that's kind of the second. That's the
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second sort of bucket that I put
these kind of you know, the sort
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of the like like post TPK,
you know, campaign continuation under is that
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adventure in the Afterlife? Hello Adventurers, Thank you so much for listening.
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If you enjoy the show, the
absolute best thing you can do to support
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us is to subscribe so you'll be
notified when new episodes are released. You
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can also leave us a review five
stars. Of course, that will help
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us get seen by more D and
D players and more than anything else,
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just tell your friends of if you
like what we're doing here, that there's
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a good chance that your DM or
your players will enjoy it too. And
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you don't need to loop goal to
do any of that. We appreciate your
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listening. Now back to the show. The third kind of bucket of stuff
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that I put put things in,
And this may not work for everybody.
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You may decide that this is you
know, this is not your thing,
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but but it's a thing you can
do. And that is the it was
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all a dream, right because in
D and D of the Bob New Heart
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approach, the Bob Newhart approach,
the Bob Newhart approach, the Dallas approach.
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Sure, but you absolutely can create
a situation where and this is a
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thing that you can do that you
can kind of lay some groundwork for as
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a DM, if they're going into
an incredibly difficult combat, you can have
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a thing where you have them go
to a fortune teller and the fortune teller
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says, you know, the fortune
teller tells their fortune, and then the
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next session they go off and they
run this combat and it goes disastrous,
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slee and then so at the end
of that, you shake your head and
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you go and the fortune teller leans
back, eyes wide in terror, and
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says, you better try a different
approach than the one you're planning. And
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you know, and then you get
a do over, right, remember to
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run away or try something different or
you know, just hope the dice.
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But kind of like it's kind of
like that's about the Strange approach, Doctor
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Strange. But also notice thinking was, oh man, what's that movie Final
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Destination? Yeah, like the zooms
out and it's like the truck, you
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know, somebody cuts off the truck
and hits its brakes. Forever if you're
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of an age. Yeah, any
millennial or extra that's not your gen z.
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You're not maybe not get this that
will not pull over to the side
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of the road and wait if they
get behind one of those trucks, because
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I the first movie. We're just
gonna wait at this rest up for a
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little while, honey, and let
that Oh is that the second one?
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Oh? The first one was the
airplane. First one was the airplane.
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Ye, that was the second one. Okay, So yeah, so if
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if if the player characters were going
to go to their final destination, you
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can you can do you can borrow
borrow something from that and borrow something from
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Devin sawah. Yeah, and depending
on what depending on what kind of villain
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it was, perhaps it was all
powerful illusion magic, right, that that
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caused them to believe that they got
into this fight and got killed and everything,
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and you know, they kind of
come to as the illusion wears off.
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This is a little bit of a
kind of kind of kind of almost
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looking at the you know, like
like sort of putting it into left for
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dead territory. But by that time, you know, the bad guy has
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gotten away. They haven't gotten whatever
mcguffin it was that they were going to
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get but they're still able to continue
adventures. You know, the effects of
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that illusionary battle still you know,
come into play. But that's a thing
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if you don't want to impose levels
of exhaustion or have their gear be used
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up or something like that. That
is a way that you can do that.
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You know, it could be like
I said, it could be a
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prophecy that someone is telling. It
could be you know, like it could
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be a prophecy where somebody is you
know, seeing the future and then you
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wind that back. It could be
illusions that's used on them. The other
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thing that can be fun that you
can do that's kind of a variant of
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this is depending on the nature of
the fight. This could be like an
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orc or you know, a bandit
telling a bunch of their friends what happened
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in the fight at the end of
the you know, at the end of
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that terrible TPK you say, you
know, and the bandit stands up and
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everyone in the bar toasts them for
their you know, glorious defeat of the
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party. And next session we're going
to play what really happens like that,
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Yeah, and you know, not
his story that he made up to you
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know, and then at some point
you have that bandit like watching and then
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run away or something like that.
You know, in the next session.
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That's another thing that you can do
is is this is what somebody says happened,
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and boy, that was pretty bad
and their version of it clearly makes
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you guys look terrible. Now let's
do you know, and kind of you
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kind of give him a do over, and let's do that again and see
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how it. Make sure you point
out that he gets away or else that
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destroys the space. Continue. Absolutely, you got to do that. You
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know, you got to create that
situation that you know or he's just you
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know, watching from the sidelines and
scoots as soon as he sees you guys
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have arrived or something. But then
when you get to the town and you
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and you get to the tavern,
you hear him telling the story's big and
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that's when you stink behind them funny
story. Let's see how it really is,
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Yes, and then you kick his
ass exactly, And that's that's another
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fun way to do that. Kind
of people say beat him up, but
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there's lots of ways that you can
do that. And like I said,
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one of the things that I always
do when I start a new campaign.
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Is I'm really specific about telling the
players you can be defeated as characters.
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Your characters can lose a fight,
but I'm not going to tell you when
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the campaign ends or you have to
stop playing those characters. Sure, some
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players want, you know, if
their character goes down, they want to
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pick up and play a new character. That's totally fine, you can accommodate
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that. But there are other players
that want to keep playing their characters for
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as long as they have a story
for that character and taking the pressure off
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of them that the dice may decide
that they can't do that anymore. That
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can actually be a huge relief to
some people and really free them up to
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have a lot more fun with the
game. And is this something that we've
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talked about before, where like that's
a very When I say generational, I
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mean generations of gamers, not so
much like gen X versus money or versus
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gen Z or whatever. But as
we progress in additions of D and D,
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the idea of people getting more attached
to the character and the story between
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the story within that character is much
more of a thing than it was in
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first edition, where like you have
mentioned, and we've had we had Tony
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Bogan the game a games store owner
on one of the last episodes of Curmudgeons.
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Really they would show up to session
one with backup characters. Yeah,
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and so okay, here's the here's
the guy I'm gonna play, and then
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here's the three guys are gonna play
when they die. Yeah, And it's
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just how the game is played.
And now that this game is very story
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driven, and we can thank a
lot of like you know, D and
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D media, you know, your
critical roles in those types of things where
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the story is just way more part
of the game than it was. Yeah,
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And you're seeing a lot more attachment
to characters. So having having a
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contingency for when the character is defeated
but not dead is going to be a
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lot more important now than ever.
Has been the thing that I think of
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too, And I don't know if
we've mentioned it here in one of our
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previous episodes or that's something I've read
more about, but one of the things
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that I want to start introducing in
my game is going forward, is like
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a session zero questionnaire, ye,
like, and that's like a great question,
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like how attached to your character are
you? And like maybe a note
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on there, like if this changes, please let me know, imp because
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everybody, that's an explanation or something
that you're going to have a discussion about
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at that session zero of like,
hey, listen, like there's gonna be
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real consequences for choices that you make
in this campaign. So just so you
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know, I'm the type of DM
that you know I'm I'm going to kill
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your characters if if I'm going to
let the dice decide and you know,
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have that have that conversation, is
all I'm saying from a lot of a
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lot of DMS. One of the
things that Jason, that you and I
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have read about, you know,
for years as we've been doing this,
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is DMS talking about how difficult it
can be to get players to invest in,
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like invest in a backstory and creating
a backstory and doing that work to
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you know, craft a narrative for
their characters and like taking off the table.
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The idea that they may have to
do that again and again and again
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is a thing I think that could
be a powerful motivator to get the players
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to invest in and really believe in, you know, the importance of having
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that story and that it's that it's
going to matter, and it's that it's
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going to continue to matter for those
types of players. Yes, my regulars,
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I have the opposite problem where they
have one hundred characters with one hundred
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page backstories that they can't wait to
bring to the table and they want to
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just letting them off a cliff so
they can play the next like well fleshed
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out character Mary talking to you,
she'll text me because she'll text me at
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three o'clock in the morning with a
character idea and a shared iPhone note.
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Yeah, a lot about which we
know from previous episodes is your bedtime,
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So yes, don't do that.
And there are those players. But the
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other thing that this does is sets
expectations for everybody and make sure everybody is
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on the same page, because it
may be difficult if you've got like four
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or five players that are all interested
in an ongoing story and you've got somebody
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that wants to bring a new character
to the table every two weeks, that
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might not be the right table for
them, and having that discussion to make
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sure that you know one particular player's
preference is going to be disruptive to everybody
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else you know, or or that
you can make sure that you find a
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way to integrate those approaches. That's
an important conversation to have, Yeah,
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and important to note that those are
two totally fine approaches. Oh yeah,
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if everyone's on the same page,
yep, yeah for sure. But that's
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kind of the general three buckets that
I put those into. If anybody else
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has any ideas or you know,
or you want to talk specifically about something
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you came up with on the fly
or that you have as kind of campaign
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standard for the table that you're running, we would absolutely love to hear about
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that. Now. You can do
that by emailing us at Hello Adventure with
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Podcasts at gmail dot com, or
tell us your story yourself a Hello Adventure
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00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:57.319
with podcast dot com slash voice.
Yeah. Also, if you have any
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updates on the as yet unmade Gladiator
Too Gladiator sequel, can we kick start
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00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.799
this? It's it got green light
and then COVID happened like they were about
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ready to go. I think everybody
signed on and Jim, I hear you
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googling, and that's not what I
want. I want our listeners, our
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listener to call again and talk to
me about the Gladiator sequel. Ridley Scott's
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eighty six but still on his feet, so you know, could happen.
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All right, Well, I guess
on that note. Is that the note
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we're going to go out on.
I guess. So, so let you
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wrap this thing up, go kill
your players. It's okay, guys,
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Jim said, so, yes,
don't. I said what I said.
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That's that's a to unless you're LARPing. Why I've never played in one of
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Jason's games. Yes, like an
my players all the time down, although
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there are several seats open. That's
the kind of topic that I want to
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get into sooner than later. I
had a whole thing on players versus player
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characters and what that really means,
that that's gonna be. That's be a
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cool one down the line. What
was the name of the guy that had
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the hotel in Chicago with the with
the murder hotel? Oh, the Devil
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and the White City guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think of
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his name right now. It's really
Balrab. Well, you can think of
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it now because the episode's over.
Thank you so much for listening to Hello
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00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.279
Adventurers, Weird your host us and
Portizo Jim Crocker and Joe McCall, producer,
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00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:22.839
editor and engineer Jason Portiso musically by
Nick Spurri or art right by Chris
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00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:26.079
and Roderick. You can reach out
to us with any feedback or suggestions by
390
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:30.440
emailing Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot
com. Hello Adventurers gives a GTP audio
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00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:41.079
production. Good Night Adventures, Sorry
Adventures,
