I tallied it up as a win for the villain. The kingdom the heroes served fell and the focus shifted to a neighboring kingdom that was next on the villain’s todo list. I was able to recycle some NPCs when the new kingdom discovered the threat and decided that prudent countermeasures included stiffening the resistance movement in the original kingdom.

Eventually, the new party went after the lieutenant that slaughteres the old party, but this time the encounter ended with sweet, sweet revenge.

As a DM, i’m not afraid to force a retreat. If the combat is designed to push the group to the limit, then thats an outcome that is possible from the first initiate roll. I’m usually pretty good at giving my players clues that combat is not going to get any better and that they better rethink their strategy. Generally this takes the form of monsters mocking them, or in how I describe the combat, making it sound very one-sided. They usually get the hint that they need to get the heck outta there before things get worse.

I’ve actually been play testing a scenario in my head, now that I’ve read several articles on this site about TPK, character death, and such.

I’ve got a game upcoming where the PCs will be interacting with a sage, getting information about a dungeon before they visit it. One of the better outcomes I had planned for the encounter would be if the players are able to convince the sage to go into a trance and “visit” the dungeon so she can describe it to them, even draw portions on a map. I’ve got a handout planned for if the party succeeds.

Then I started thinking about TPK and how I wanted to implement one somehow in this adventure. Then I got to thinking, what if the sage was able to transmit the PCs consciousness into another group of adventurers who had already visited the dungeon……and failed (although the players won’t know they have failed at the time of the transfer).

Once they get to this point in the encounter, I would have the sage cast a spell and make the players “gaze into the crystal ball….etc”. Then I would hand out player character sheets for an adventure party I had pre-genned just for this situation. These pre-genned characters would have some high end magic items that will eventually serve as part of the loot for the final battle. The players would essentially teleport to the dungeon entrance and get to slog it out as new characters. Then when they get to the final boss, they would TPK and revert back to their original characters having intimate knowledge of the dungeon. I would then hand them the map since they had already been there. Not only that, but they would know that the corpses of the other adventure team were there waiting for them with those magical items they had gotten a taste for. I’m still working on the details but I think something like this would be a viable way to introduce a TPK without completely derailing the story.

Remember, just because the party goes down doesn’t mean they have to die. Sometimes it serves the antagonists objectives to revive the characters. If the characters go down, it’s possible for them to wake up a few hours later in a jail cell… or a stew pot.

You can’t play this card all the time, but when appropriate, its a very effective way of upping the stakes without ruining the game.