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 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! [e-mail] or helloadventurerspodcast.com/voice