I think I'm done roleplaying.
>Play in D&D campaign meeting every week for a year and a half
>Party fights together
>Party grows together
>Dozens of great moments of character building and victories in battle
>Group gears up for the final battle against the final BBEG who's been looking over the campaign for the past eight months
>Party confronts the BBEG's right-hand man and a handful of high level underlings outside his room
>Total party wipe
>Table doesn't know what to do
>GM says "well, I guess that's the game. Let's meet up next week and figure out what we're playing next."
>Packs up and goes home
I'm fucking crushed. We didn't even get to fight the main bad guy. I played with this party for over eighteen months and we had a TPK literally right outside the final boss's chambers.
This happened maybe an hour ago. I'm still in the game store and I feel like I've had all my passion for the hobby sucked out of me.
I don't think I have any real reason to go back next week.
could I get some encouragement or something I'm really not sure what to do after this
I'm sorry anon, that is terrible, but i don't know if its worth giving up on role-playing entirely for. I mean you played this campaign for a year and half, didn't you enjoy it? did you not derive enjoyment from each session? for me personally it's true i want to see an epic conclusion, but the journey is worth a lot to me too. i love matching wits with the dm and trying to find my way out of his latest death trap, or trying to get myself out of a clusterfuck after a few bad rolls. I love banter with the rest of the party. I love developing my character and watching them change as we progress and the things that we run into change their views. I love sitting on the edge of my seat watching the dice tumble on a critical roll thinking, do i die tonight (no resurrection in the game i play)? I love role-playing for role-playing, and if you stuck it out for a year and a half, i bet you like it too. So yeah, it sucks, your hopes are crushed, but you can get through this. Just remember all the good times and how much you loved coming this far.
did everyone show up? DMs sometimes misjudge the party.
I've only ever watched one TPK, and I was a very new DM and also an inexperienced player and also that session was messed up for extraneous reasons.
It's frustrating, but you're actually there for the group, not the imaginary world. I'd go back -- actually, I'd press for some variant of 'load from save' maybe a different set of tactics would win -- or maybe the DM understands where he over-powerd you and can ratchet it back a notch.
Sometimes you lose. But, as the guy above me says, did you have fun? Most groups I've been in falter and fall apart after a dozen sessions, because people's real life gets in the way. You've had a rare opportunity to experience roleplay in a way few players ever can.
Do what you think is right, but if it were me, I'd go back.
>>46712022
>>46711806
My advice is
1) stop being a weenie
2a) talk to the other players and see if they feel the same
2b) ask the GM if he can do some retcon/asspull to allow the group to fight the BBEG and/or continue the campaign
3) don't play long-term campaigns
>>46711806
Teach you not to fuck up next time wont it?
>>46711806
Jesus, OP.
That... Wow.
I'm a DM winding up for my party's true final boss, and I prevented a TPK specifically to avert this situation.
I can't really offer you a lot of comfort, other than the fact that if the DM was capable enough to keep you hooked for 18 months, whatever he bakes up next will likely be good.
That sucks op. But at least it was the whole group. You guys can all make new characters, progress again and go for that bastard again. It's way worse when only one character dies due to a single bad roll against a mook.
>>46712149
>2b) ask the GM if he can do some retcon/asspull to allow the group to fight the BBEG and/or continue the campaign
Bitch move.
>18 months of gameplay abrubtly ended because of a single party wipe
Wtf? Why not respawn and try that level again tommorow?
>>46712149
>>46712158
Guys come on, don't be dicks. He had a lot invested in this emotionally. wouldn't you be crushed if something you had worked at for a year just crapped out like that? Your Those Guys aren't you? Next you'll tell us it doesn't matter if he has to re-roll a new character cause all they are is stat blocks anyway.
>>46712186
or just have the goddess of death or whatever give them a quest or two to complete so they can be given life again to do work in her name
>>46711806
Take a break. Read a book or watch a movie.
Then buckle up and get back into it.
Greatness is waiting.
>>46712240
No its obviously a kick in the balls, but there, is nothing like a kick in the balls to get you protecting your crown jewels.
>>46712254
If that was something that was known to happen I guess thats ok. If not bitch move.
Well, my party is well aware that failure is failure. I would at least have given them an epilogue of what went down since the bbeg won technically.
Was the TPK because of poor planning on behalf of the party, shit rolls or shit DMing?
>>46712240
If you play in a system that has rules for death then character death isn't a shocker. And I'd be down with it as long as my character went out with a bang.
>>46712254
This seems like a good idea to me,propose having a mini campaign in hell to get back to the land of the living. It would be fun, would just be a cop out, go to last save cause everybody died, and would still get you that shot at the bbeg.
>>46711806
Maybe your GM had enough of that particular campaign? It would explain why he didn't seem to care too much about the total party wipe and why he didn't offer your group a chance to continue.
>>46711806
That sucks. More so how you describe the DM handling it, like it was no big thing. Just 'eh, whatever, see you next week'. Lame.
What I would suggest is that you suggest that you play another campaign of D&D. This time, same campaign, but set about twenty years in the future. You are now the resistance to the BBEG. Maybe even distantly related to your actual characters. Maybe questing for their gear. Maybe the DM adds something along the lines of 'if they had known they had the XYZ on them and used it they would have won' sort of thing.
>>46712297
Maybe the dude will have thought one up next week?
Looks like your GM needs to read about "failing forward".
>>46711806
The easiest solution is to ditch the DM, get a new one, and resume your story just before it got ruined so it can end properly.
>>46712354
Maybe. Lack of an epilogue kinda makes it worse cuz like, at least tell is what went down afterward
>>46711806
>>46711806
Play a one-shot with new characters sent by powerful leaders to revive your legendary heroes.
Easy day.
>>46712306
>>46712294
I see it as a chance for the players to earn their place among the living again. Personally I would see the retcon as the bitch move.
>>46712393
sorry there was a typo, i meant to say that a hell campaign wouldn't as it would not, be a bitch move like just rewinding time a bit and saying "and that never happened /wave of the hand by the great god ji'em/"
>>46712378
Could he didn't expect you all to get murdered and hadn't one thought up.
>>46712393
If its something that happened in the setting or they had legends about then sure. Otherwise its sort of an asspull.
>>46712443
not the guy your responding too, different anon. well i mean yeah its a bit of an ass pull, but at times like these you kinda need a bit of an ass pull. and if you didn't just want it to be pussying out make the mini hell campaign hella hard, so there are no guarantees but its still possible.
Keep us updated on next week at least.
>>46712560
This. I wanna know what happens.
>>46712381 is the best suggestion so far. Pitch it to your DM and party.
>>46712441
plus it would give the players to see the expression of the bbeg when he thought they diedAnd one can say "I got better"
>>46711806
You can come back next week as the freedom fighters who want to destroy the evil regime that resulted from your old characters' horrible humiliating defeat.
>>46712302
>If you play in a system that has rules for death then character death isn't a shocker.
I hope you won't say this when one of your relatives leaves this world for the better one. Or when your pet does.
>>46712298
OP here. It was so recent that it's hard to look back at it reasonably, but I'm not sure if this was bad planning or bad rolls or whatever. Half the party got downed (but not killer) killing the BBEG's Death Knight lieutenant and the Cleric was going to revive most of us on the next turn, but he failed a save against a Beholder's disentegration and our Ranger was the only one left standing. It was pretty much over at that point.
>>46712322
I'm starting to think maybe he was just burned out, but I don't understand why he would choose now to do this. We had one more fight to go and then he would be done.
To everyone else, thanks for the suggestions. I don't want to call up the GM immediately after the campaign to complain but I do want to talk about what happened soon
>>46712585
I don't know about best suggestion, but yeah that could work. It has story elements so its not just a copout, and it is acceptable within the known parameters of the setting. Just describe how the big bad displays their corpses or something, and is now taking over everything, and the kings in exile all band together and send their very best champions to retrieve the corpses or something.
>>46712559
Eh. They were fighting a serious fucking dude. If there was just a redo button for when they loose where is the tension?
>>46712647
Your make believe rpg character isnt on nearly the same level as a relative or pet.
>>46712665
Good thinking, just wait it out a bit and let everyone cool down. calls immediately after will never go well. wait until mid week, so there its been a few days after, and so the dm would still have a few days after you call him to make whatever he decides is going to happen work before the next session.
What exactly happened in the fight? Just bad dice rolls? Unwieldy CR? Was there any room for creativity on your(the party's) part?
I'm just a bit suspicious because when something like this happens with my regular DM, it's usually completely out of the group's hands because we were "supposed to run away".
>>46712665
Honestly dude I wouldn't worry. If you've GM's worth his salt he will probably already be planning to help you guys out. Perhaps your ranger will have to make a contract with someone or something to get the party back, perhaps he's going to go whole reversal on you and you're now the BBEG's resurrected minions but I doubt he's just going to flat kill you.
That might be me as a optimist stating what I would do as a GM, because in a similar circumstance with one of my games I made the party have to pay some hefty prices and test their morality upon their return... but most people would agree killing you flat is the least interesting option.
>>46712684
Admittedly you bring up a point, and i personally do like the tension of "will i die tonight?". And i personally wouldn't mind this as much as the OP, but that doesn't mean i cant understand the why the OP is pretty unhappy with this. And since the point of Role playing is to enjoy yourselves, assuming most of the other players feel the same way OP does, than the only thing the gm can do is find a way to make it fun for them, without just copping out (cause that is no fun). If the gm just disregards his players experience playing the game entirely, then hes a bad gm, he needs to cater to his player base (within reason of course, i'm not saying he should just bend of backwards, but in my opinion gms should be willing to be a bit flexible.)
>>46712819
The way I see it its like playing a nuzlock. Half the fun is the tension and dread, if you are going to get rid of that why not just play regular pokemon?
That said if there is an actual in setting reason for them to come back that is a ok. Beating the shit out of the afterlife when you die is one of my favorite parts of that kind of story.
>>46712922
Fuck man i love nuzlock, only way to play pokemon.
>>46712922
There should be tension, but death should never be entirely out of the players' hands. It's the biggest issue with save or die shit like a beholder's disintegration ray. If you die in a ttrpg it should be your own fault.
>>46713098
>If you die in a ttrpg it should be your own fault.
Like picking a fight with a beholder?
>>46712972
You get so attached to shitmons that you normally heap derision on.
>>46713098
No one made them fight a beholder.
>>46713129
yes, yes you do. But i was never hardcore enough to talk shit about mons,and if its not a nuzlocke the game is just boring for me. pokemon was made for little kids anon, it was fine when i was a wee lad, but now the only reason i ever dusted it off was cause i heard about nuzlock and i was like you know what, i'll try that.
Fights happen m8, deaths happen m8. If the possibility of failure doesn't exist then there isn't really a challenge. Be it by the will of the dice gods or the actions of the players.
But if you are all invested that much I suggest you do what >>46712922 Says and have a God of War like escape from the afterlife. Assuming you are near the end of the campaign your characters should be forces to be reckoned with, enough of a force to be able to manifest itself in the afterlife in order to escape. Talk to your GM about it because it sounds sweet as hell to get killed, drag yourself out of hell and stomp the guy that killed you AND his boss.
>>46713203
I never liked a lot of the pokemon who are there to fill space. You know things like ratatta and the like.
Then I do a nuzlock and pat the ratatta turns out to be a non-stop crit machine that just didnt care.
>>46711806
You know, maybe you could have retreated when things started going sour.
>>46713125
>year and half campaign
>not besieging the BBEG's lair or luring him out
>not bringing a small army of hirelings, wizards, warbeasts, soldiers and workers
>not creating clones
>scrying the shit outta them
>not having an organization, deity or magic user that owes to a favor to come bail your dumb asses out
Your plans were shit. This how all marysue murderhobo campaigns end, in a few bad saves. If you blame the DM for this, you're a faggot, it's obvious he's been going easy on you if this is the first TPK.
>>46711806
That sounds like a DM problem. It's one of the major pitfalls of being a "dice as they lay" DM, especially if you're bad at improvising. I probably would have done one of three things
1: Fudged the dice to make it just draining, not a TPK (easier in certain editions than others.)
2: When the party was on the ropes, allowed some sort of skill/perception test to notice a pivotal weakness.
3: Had the BBEG ressurect you as death-knight minions, and extend the campaign to be about trying to find a way to secretly break free of the BBEG's magical control and rebel against him.
Running a narrative game that has players actually invested in and role-playing their characters takes a certain level of light fudge and improv that your DM clearly is still learning. He'll get better.
>>46713268
What's to stop those guys from doing the same thing?
TPK sucks.
>>46713368
>actually trying to blame the DM for having shitty players
>>46711806
>Months later, your characters wake up, dizzy, light headed, and depending on the system, a level lower. A young Cleric stands by relieved that his spells worked. He tells you if the horrors that have befallen the land after your failures, and if his parties journey to find your corpses., that were left undisposed of, since the bbeg had better things to do. New adventure, built on the failure. Why do people always act like clerics aren't a thing?
>>46713371
The GM
Play a sequel campaign where your characters have to face off against your former BBEG, having succeeded in his plans.
>>46713536
because nobody plays clerics?
Most campaigns I've been in, they're just DMNPCs for hand-waving.
>>46711806
Shit GM.
That's when the party should have their next adventure - fighting their way out of hell for round 2.
>>46713649
Why would they go to hell?
>>46713721
Obviously they're murderhobos, I doubt they have much piety with any good deities.
>>46713639
Dude, clerics are the fucking best.
>>46713276
i know right? i admit my rattata didn't do that awesome, but it may have been because i still didn't give him much of a chance, as soon as i had other slightly better filler Pokemon i moved him to box.
>>46711806
Take a break.
Don't make any decisions while in mourning.
Just like you don't call a chicka before rubbing one out.
>>46713403
My first experience with D&D a LONG time ago was when the DM had us create characters. It took an hour or more to get everything rolled out, discussing what to play to create the best party. Hit the general store so supplies could be purchased...
We finally start adventuring and our party of 6 came to a bend in the hall. My character died peeking around the corner, the rest died with a few more rolls. 5 minutes 'playing' and the whole party is dead. The end.
The only person having fun was the DM who then packed up and was out the door.
My first, and last experience.
This is why GMs should be allowed to fudge the rolls sometimes.
>>46714027
My first time i tried to emulate sir bearington, cept i wasn't a bear, and instead of bluff i ran with intimidate. Gave a group of kobolds heart attacks.
>>46714185
>i tried to emulate sir bearington
you are the kind of player that deserves a tpk
>>46711806
Any real DM starts the next session with the characters awakening in a sunlit field of grass, and the next part of the campaign is escaping Elysium to fight the baddie again.
>>46714201
yes i know. I really didn't want to play at the time, my buddy was all like "come on man, lets play some dnd", and i couldn't get out of it. I later went on to learn the joys of role-playing, but at the time i just kinda wanted to make him realize how stupid this was, and he'd made the mistake of telling me about sir bearington the other day cause he thought i would find it funny.
>>46712149
>ask the GM if he can do some retcon/asspull to allow the group to fight the BBEG and/or continue the campaign
Don't do that. The only thing worse than losing is knowing the GM cheated to let you win. If you really can't handle death and failure, find a different game master. There are plenty of care bear GMs out there.
>>46713514
>Actually blaming the audience for his bad performance.
Maybe you just suck as a DM. Your job is to keep people at the table entertained, and if you've failed to do that, you've failed as a DM. All other notions about "hardcore gaming" are moot, unless that's what entertains your table.
If you can't hack it as a DM, then go back to being a player.
>>46712647
>I hope you won't say this when one of your relatives leaves this world for the better one. Or when your pet does.
Not the same guy, but I actually have said almost that verbatim at the deaths of several relatives.
>>46713371
absolutely nothing. They have to grab the MacGuffin of total kill no respawn
>>46711806
Fast forward ten years.
The BBEG has recovered from the loss of his trusted lieutenant, and proceeded with his plans for world domination. The setting has taken another half-twist along the downward spiral.
A new band of heroes has emerged, committed to fighting the good fight against longer odds than ever before. They've heard rumors of how a brave group of champions bloodied the BBEG's nose pretty good.
They figure, if it can be done once, it can be done twice. It won't be easy. It won't come cheap. The BBEG will be waiting for them. He'll be wise to the kinds of tricks that worked against him last time.
But maybe, just maybe, they can still succeed where their predecessors failed. Long live the resistance!
To summarize the thread.
Do not:
>Ask for a retcon
This will be cheap and unsatisfying if you win.
>Blame the DM
If you fail to introspect, you will not improve.
Do:
>Talk to the other people about it in a non-gossiping way.
This will help everyone get on the same page.
>Improve.
Do it. Especially in being heroes who have followers and friends.
>Start a new campaign taking place in the aftermath
This will really hit home the consequences, this new campaign could be people going to get your bodies, you yourselves after ressurection, or new heroes even.
>>46714537
This.
>>46714677
>relegating beloved characters to motivation fodder
Terrible. Take a lap.
>>46711806
The answer is to play as other characters in the campaign. Surely you met NPCs who aren't radically incompetent, yeah?
Alternatively, the bad guy succeeds for a time. And then a new generation of heroes dare to defy him, and through their struggles they succeed.
As much as the Star Wars prequels sucked dick, it's a good example of how to do it--the bad guys won HARD, but it is an inevitability that someone will dethrone the space-lich--excuse me, "Sith lord".
>>46711806
TPKs happen. Kudos to the GM for being willing to pull the trigger. Some wouldn't.
I guarantee you either:
A - your gm already has next week planned and just wanted you assholes to squirm for a week once out of nearly two fucking years.
B - somebody pissed off the gm fucking bad outside of the game and this is his revenge
>>46714935
Why is it so unbelievable that the bad guys rolled well and made good decisions, or the good guys rolled poorly and made bad decisions, or some combination thereof, so they lost?
Is every player death a result of GM fiat, some master plan or revenge scheme?
Hey Mike, since you're going to call me out on 4chan of all places how about you just don't show up next Saturday
>>46715070
Sorry Jeff.
>>46714935
bad rolls do happen. point in case in the last game i played i have a dice pool of 11 dice for my stealth roll, only two succeed, i get caught. cue a ton of bullshiting trying not to get shanked. It wasn't the dm trying to fuck me over, it just happened.
>>46714495
This tbqh
>>46715070
>>46715087
this shit aint real right? i mean even if the gm did get on 4chan and see this thread, how would he know which player it was? If it tis real i dont think the gm freaking out is the appropriate reaction. OP never talked shit bout the dm, he just asked for people to help him find motivation to keep going, random anons talked shit about the dm.
>>46715164
>The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
>Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
>>46714996
After almost two years you would think at least one or two players have been killed off.
Having the entire group wiped after two years and your not even at the bbeg but his lieutenants feels more like a one or two character death.
The ranger lived though so I suspect there's more in the wings.
>>46715164
It's likely a ruse, but it's not impossible to recognize people in your groups from /tg/.
I caught one of my players talking about our campaign on here.He was a namefag too.
>>46711806
Good.
A last guy,BBEG, ect. Should be ridiculously hard to beat. Some one like that isnt going to hire his second in command to be that much weaker. The battle was likely winnable.
Or you could have ran away perhapes, prepped better, chosen a diffrent battle ground. Whittled them down separately. What ever not ever TPK is the gm's fault. Maybe you should have "gasp" surrendered!
If you have no fear of loosing and ots not a reality why play?
>>46711806
Did your crew have any allies or people that owed them?
Heck, maybe someone on the inside, any ongoing enemies you've been personally involved with who could afford a ressurection on the sly and be redeemed doing so? Talk to the GM about it basically man.
Push comes to shove? Play a group of heroes composed of people you've met over your adventures, inspired by your group they've taken up arms and plan to pick up the fallen torch.
Just because one tale ends, doesn't mean the world its set in has as well man.
>>46712665
Suggest >>46712670 to him.
It wouldn't be the first time a BBEG has displayed corpses to mock fallen heroes, playing the quietly brave who've been effected by your characters over the course of the game, daring to do the right thing and risk life and limb to retake the corpses so they can deliver them to a back-alley priest makes sense.
Your party is now fighting their way free of the Underworld. Upon rearrival to the surface, they find a world under the shackles of the BBEG. Backed by an army of the ghosts of his victims risen alongside them, they must battle the BBEG again, and this time there can be no second chances.
>>46715215
>>46715164
>>46715230
It's a reference to a thread from a while back where some player was complaining about his GM being a hipster and his GM came in with a really passive aggressive post about how he shouldn't bother showing up the next week.
>>46715417
ah, well then. i guess i missed that. thank you. i was gonna say i was kinda worrying for op, that would be an even shitier conclusion to all this.
>>46714537
Maybe you just suck as a role player. Your job is to keep people at the table entertained, and if you've failed to do that, you've failed as a role player. All other notions about "casual gaming" are moot, unless that's what entertains your table.
If you can't hack it as a role player, then go back to playing video games.
>>46714996
>>46715092
Bad roll happened on my end last week. Had to save against a Phantasmal Killer: Rolled a 2 on the fort, and a 3 on the Will Save. Died from a Horse Kick to the chest.
>>46715523
well that blows. Course on the other hand sometimes things go really well. due to circumstances i got sent in by the party to spring a trap once when we didn't have time to find another way (the path was blocked by a gazeebo, everyone knows gazeebos are bad news. the gm totally lampshaded it even. when we all saw the gazeebo we started freaking out and making perception rolls and stuff, the npc we had with us was like "why did you all just stop? its just a gazeebo.") , had three spider demons fall from the ceiling and try to maul me, and for the next three turns they whiffed all their rolls. listening to my gm try to explain what was happening was hilarious.
This thread is embarrassing. RPG'ers rightfully claim their position as the most lowly of tabletop gaming, congratulations.
>>46714996
The first time I played with my current group I put them up against a pack of wolves. The Barbarian charged in, nearly killed one and then proceeded to spend the rest of his turns surrounded by wolves, prone. I was unfortunately incredibly lucky with my rolls (averaging over 15) and everyone else was unlucky with the dice and failed to put down even a single wolf. We ended the session with the wizard running for dear life and being inevitably chased down and murdered. I think it might have put them off roleplaying a bit.
It was pretty shit, honestly. I don't get what DMs are supposed to get out of killing PCs. I just felt kind of empty when I realised that the work I put in for this game was going to go to waste.
>>46716213
>I just felt kind of empty when I realised that the work I put in for this game was going to go to waste.
Reskin, recycle, reuse.
>>46711806
Talk to the DM, have them capture you or something along those lines, go from there.
>not wanting to continue the story as characters a few years later after the legendary heroes fucked up and the BBEG won
This worked really well for our group, by far the best campaign we ever had. That being said, the TPK was during the final boss and the campaign had only lasted about 7 sessions, so there was far less invested.
Fucking live with it. Turns out the villains win this chapter of the world's history. Universe turns on and new heroes will emerge to fight evil as long as there is good in the world worth fighting for.
>>46716154
>RPG'ers rightfully claim their position as the most lowly of tabletop gaming
Think again, 40cuck.
>>46716384
>40k
>not MTG
MTG is without question the worst community.
>>46716384
>>46716399
RPGers are by far the worst community. Biggest bunch of drama inducing cry babies. At least the weird kid with questionable hygiene doesn't purposefully ruin what is supposed to be fun gaming.
>>46716488
as someone who plays 40k, used to play mtg, and is a role player, i can safely say they are all pretty equal. you get fat unhygienic guys playing 40k, the mtg players can be socially retarded, creepy, and annoying as all get out, and yes rpg players can be drama queens. This does not preclude players of any of these games having the negative trait typically ascribed to players of other games, or indeed all of the above.
>>46716213
Maybe this is just the dirty gamist in me, but I'll wax on for a minute about why I think it's important to be willing to let the dice decide when somebody dies sometimes.
Excitement is definitely one. Doing risky, dangerous things is more exciting than doing safe, predictable things. In order for something to be dangerous there needs to be, well, danger. Toothless challenges are less exciting than ones filled with sharp teeth. I know a lot of GMs on /tg/ say they can get by with the illusion of danger--fudging dice rolls while pretending that they're willing to kill a player, for instance--but I guess I'm just not on that level. Or it's a crock of shit. Who knows. The point is, if the players get wise that you don't want to kill them, that changes the tone of the game. I've been on both sides of this personally. And maybe that new, non-life-threatening tone is totally cool and your group likes it, but I think it lacks something important. I think that a big part of roleplaying experience is derring-do, doing the kind of stuff you'd never dream of doing in real life because in real life if you die you don't just roll up another character. In an RPG you can. A lot of people seem afraid of using that.
Another one is that it gives the GM a chance to be surprised. When I GM, I like to be surprised. I know a lot of GMs aren't like this--they have a story, and they want their players to experience it, and players dying totally gets in the way of that because they had this whole thing set up where their brother the arch-duke called in a favor or whatever, and that's fine, but that's not what I like. I like not knowing how an encounter is going to end. I like it when the players surprise me, and I don't mind it when the dice do either. It's fun. It's boring to me, knowing the players can't lose.
I hit the text limit with my next paragraph so I guess I'm done now. But the thrust of this is that players being in real danger is important, mortal danger included.
>>46716678
As someone who has lived on this planet for some time, I can say that pretty much every part of humanity is full of assholes.
>>46712443
Eh, I always have something planned if the party does. Villains do have the motives
>>46714736
>>46714677
Alternatively, it could be a low level quest to find the bodies, and a cleric capable of reviving the former heroes. The new characters, however end up becoming heroic in their own right, and fight off the villains number 2, to give the old heroes the opportunity for the killing blow, and to redeem their failure.
>>46713368
>I probably would have done one of three things
>>46715510
>Maybe you just suck as a role player.
Maybe I'm forever DM trying to offer advice to a younger generation so they don't listen to fake grognards whining about a lost time of "true hardcore tabletop" that they neither remember nor actually understand.
Reading comprehension buddy: learn it.
For the record, back in the "hardcore days" that you are alluding to, 9/10 tables nerfed/hand-waived/house-ruled everything to all hell to make it feel more like the D&D/Conan/LotR novels, and that was okay because DM's word was law, and we all read fantasy novels. This whiny player entitlement "RAW or I'm being cheated as a player because I spent years mastering muh system, so changing the system undermines me" is very much a creation of 3e and the torrent-PDF generation.
>>46712022
Risk of failure is what makes these games compelling to begin with. If you want a hugbox where you can't lose go play Gone Hipster or Sunset or something.
>>46711806
It's not the destination that matters it was the journey. When you look back on this adventure it won't be that your party died it will be all the awesome bits of character development and heroic moments. Just chill for a while and the need to play again will come.
>>46716272
Yeah I suppose I should've. I guess if I find my notes again I can reuse the campaign.
>>46716685
I get what you're saying, but that experience as most of the group's first tabletop outing has directly resulted in reduced engagement. I'm not skillful enough as a DM to wash that slate clean, partially because I'm still inexperienced and partially because I'm caught in the grasp of the old catch 22 where I either run the game (which doesn't match my personality, skillset or even desires) or don't play.
>>46711806
Your story of utter failure made me guffaw so loud my neighbor shushed me through the wall. Thank you.
Your GM is a class act.
>>46712353
>What I would suggest is that you suggest that you play another campaign of D&D. This time, same campaign, but set about twenty years in the future. You are now the resistance to the BBEG. Maybe even distantly related to your actual characters. Maybe questing for their gear. Maybe the DM adds something along the lines of 'if they had known they had the XYZ on them and used it they would have won' sort of thing.
I'm with this idea. This time, the semi-final fight before the BBEG will be no lieutenant but reanimated heroes from previous campaign.
>>46711806
I guess your patron god didn't like you.
>not going back in time to fulfill your destiny
>descending from Valhalla as an angry meteor and emerging naked from the explosion
>hurr it's the player's fault
It's a fucking pen-and-paper rpg, not a videogame. The DM can and should do whatever the fuck he wants to prevent a shitty unclimactic ending like this instead of punishing the players for RNG or not building their characters "optimally", because again, it's a game where you're supposed to PLAY as a ROLE, not make the most powerful character possible by any means so you can steamroll anything that's thrown at you
>>46711806
I can understand some of your pain. My first serious campaign lasted something like 8 months before it fell apart, though I didn't get the same closure you may have.
The thing is, you're all writing a story together, and if you don't like that story you can change it, or do something to pull it back from the brink. There's always a way to continue, and if your dm is comfortable with it you might ask if, short of retconning the deaths, there might be some devil you could contract or some obscure way to fight your way from the afterlife to flesh and blood again.
If not, don't feel bad. That crushing despair too is a part of the game and it's helped you better relate to the characters now facing the inevitable threat of whatever evil you failed to vanquish. Ask if you can roll a new campaign where play as the guards who killed your previous characters or something.
Tldr: Some campaigns end in tragedy, some end in comedy. [spoilers]Mfw the former[/spoilers]
>>46719469
The 'g' in rpg stands for game.
It's a game.
There has to be a chance of failure, otherwise you aren't playing a game. That's just a group of people circle jerking about how awesome their imaginary alter-egos are while one guy repeatedly assures them that they are correct.
>>46712373
>Yeah, I don't want you to run a your own campaign, I want you to start in the middle of somebody else's
>Why? Well, I got killed in that campaign, so I stopped playing with that DM.
>Now, just run it like he did, except let me win.
>>46719940
Fun fact: There are more forms of failure than death.
Fun fact: TPK is in fact the form of failure with the weakest consequences from the perspective of the game (since it just ends). Its consequences exist purely in the meta, aka: the part of the RPG that isn't a game.
>>46711806
>GM doesn't even use the "Charon challenges" for a chance to come back from a TPK
fucking casual
