3 Strategies For Coming Back From a TPK

Hanging over nearly every encounter in every RPG is the potential that none of the player characters survive this fight, this trap, or this riddle contest with a devil. Whether the characters make bad decisions, the dice are against them, or something goes horribly awry, there's a chance that everyone winds up dead. It might be a remote chance in some circumstances, but it's usually in the background, watching and waiting.

The problem with a total party kill is, of course, that it severs the story you were all trying to tell, and it leaves everyone in a difficult position. The players need to come up with motivation to make new characters who want to pick up where the others left off, and the Game Master has to figure out some way to accommodate that new party so the story can keep going.

That's a massive headache, so I thought that this week I'd expand on some of the thoughts I had forever and a day ago in Undoing Character Death, and talk about methods and ideas for moving on/fixing a TPK so your game can continue, and you can finish the story you were all collectively telling.

Would you look at that? Seems the game goes on...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Avoid Death Entirely

The first, and most obvious, solution to dealing with a TPK is to instead have a TPL... Total Party Loss. The PCs still came out on the losing end of the encounter, but for one reason or another they all survived to tell the tale. So the characters are still in the game, but now they're at a significant disadvantage, and they've got to try to overcome their current circumstances.

Look, I'm just saying, you ain't worth much if I bring you in dead.

As a for-instance, say the party was brought down by a bandit ambush. If the PCs are low enough level, the bandits might just take any of their valuable gear, and move on, leaving them where they fell. After all, the penalty for murder is a lot worse than the penalty for highway robbery, so they might just take what they want and move on. If the PCs were fighting a cult, perhaps the cult wants to sacrifice them, so they have to keep the PCs alive for now. If the enemy was from another faction, perhaps they want to trade the PCs to a more powerful villain, or they might even want to try to sell them into slavery.

Whatever the reason, the PCs are at least not killed, and they might actively be kept alive to serve a purpose.

This is not a perfect solution, of course. After all, animals like manticores, mindless foes like undead or automatons, and creatures who hate the PCs may not wish to allow them to live. But there are a lot of TPKs that can be fixed by simply moving to a TPL instead. Especially because the PCs then have to regroup, and come up with new plans like how they're going to escape captivity, how they're going to get their gear back, and so on. The PCs might also have temporary (or permanent) injuries such as a loss of a hand or eye, or negatives to certain attributes until they can receive proper healing. This can make it feel like the GM isn't just giving the players a get-out-of-dead-free card, maintaining that balance of challenge.

This is also where having friends can help the PCs out a lot, as I mentioned back in The Case For Using Recurring NPCs in Your Game.

"Outsider" Intervention

So, the PCs are well and truly dead. Now what? Well, if the task they've been set is truly important (or if they are pawns in a cosmic game, as often happens in our campaigns), it's possible that some variety of outsider might step in and offer them a chance to try again.

Now, this can be simple or complicated. For example, if your party is slain on holy ground, perhaps they are offered a chance to return to life by the spirit or god who claims that place. This might mark them in some way going forward, requiring them to follow certain vows, or to accomplish certain tasks (mechanically represented by a geas, perhaps). The PCs might be given a chance to flee the afterlife, returning to their bodies, but now there are bounty hunters from the afterworld on their trail to drag them back for judgment. A spirit, a god, or a devil might offer the PCs a chance at life for its own purposes, as well. So even if a devil offers them the bargain, it might be doing so because the PCs are going to inconvenience one of its rivals, potentially creating a power gap that this devil can step into when the PCs achieve their goals. So while it might seem like the devil's bargain is too good to be true, it has its own motives the PCs may not be aware of.

You could make it more complicated, as well, if you want.

You can choose to make this part as complicated as you and your players want, as well. You could even make escaping the underworld a whole arc of the campaign... or a new campaign in and of itself if you check out my earlier post The Black Ballad... A Campaign That Begins Once Your TPK Ends! This particular game went live on BackerKit today, so go check that out if this is something that interests you.

Adding a Template

This is usually something I advocate for when it comes to villain survival after the PCs killed them, but turnabout is fair play when you're the GM. If you want the party to come back, and to come back hard, consider adding a template to them, or altering their creature type... at least temporarily.

Raven 1, going dark.

While you could grab ideas out of I'm Back- 25 Reasons For a Villain's Survival, I'd suggest that any GM who wants to use this particular tactic put a little more effort into making this feel organic. Because whatever template your characters are given should make sense for where they are, who they are, what they're trying to accomplish, and how they died.

For example, ask what it would be like to bring characters back as sentient undead for an arc. Vengeful ghosts, haunted armor, shambling zombies, or wrathful, spellcasting skeletons might be a fun thing to do for a party that was slain in the Forest of Spirits. Having the party reanimated as various golems or cybernetic creatures could work if they were used as subjects by a mad alchemist. Vows that allow them to temporarily become celestial or infernal creatures could be fun as well! Just ask yourself if this is a template you want everyone to have for the rest of the campaign, or if there will be a quest to undo this state of being once the immediate goal is achieved.

For Pathfinder players, corruptions are a ideal for this. These sets of dark powers put a burden on the character, while also giving them some additional abilities, and they are an ideal way to explain why someone isn't dead. Additionally, corruptions can be removed with time and effort, making them an even better choice than a template for this strategy. For those who are interested in them, consider the following articles as a jumping off point:

- 5 Classes To Pair With The Shadowbound Corruption

- 5 Classes To Pair With The Promethean Corruption

Paying The Iron Price

It really isn't all that expensive.

While that's all for my suggestions on coming back from a TPK today, I did want to make folks aware of something new that dropped recently. The Price of Iron is a module I wrote over a year ago for High Level Games, and it's a DND 5E adventure. When the party is offered a sack of silver and a masterfully crafted cold iron weapon each for a single night's work guarding a warehouse, it seems too good to be true. Of course, when portals to other realities begin to open, and the servants of a dark fey begin trying to break out, they realize they have quite a challenge before them.

If you've been looking forward to more modules from me, consider picking this one up, and keeping an ear out because I should have another piece that's long overdue finally becoming available in the very near future!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

The Black Ballad... A Campaign That Begins Once Your TPK Ends!

Death is the end in most campaigns. Whether you were just starting off your adventuring life, or you stood before the wrath of a great threat and were struck down, if there is no one to call you back from the blackness then that is where your tale ends. But in The Black Ballad, it's where your adventure begins!

This is a project I've been keeping an eye on for a while, but I realized I haven't actually talked about it here on Improved Initiative. And since we're getting pretty close to its release on BackerKit, I figured this would be a good time to give it a shout out!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

What Is The Black Ballad?

The short version is that the Black Ballad is a campaign set in the massive city of Nox Valar in the Sunless Crossing... the world that one finds themselves in after they've died. Where you all go at that point is, at least in part, up to you!

According to the page on Storytellers Forge, there are 10 cinematic chapters to this campaign, and over 30 separate acts, along with multiple side quests. What's even more unique, though, is that unlike other campaigns this one comes with multiple endings and paths as a way to really drive home that the player's have agency to follow the paths they want. Speaking from personal experience, that's something I've never seen before in a campaign book!

This is in addition to presenting the game in a variety of formats for ease of reading, phenomenal work by award-winning artists and writers, and coming with an entire soundtrack to accompany it! Which makes sense when you consider it was inspired by the works of DiAmorte, who has done their part to help bring this project to life.

Speaking of, check out DiAmorte on YouTube to get a taste of their tunes!

Additionally, while The Black Ballad is intended to be compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, it's also setup in such a way that converting it to any d20 game (such as Pathfinder's 2nd Edition for all the folks who jumped ship during the OGL madness recently) is straightforward and simple. It's even been hinted by Rick Heinz, the writing director on the project, that there may be different editions available depending on what game folks prefer to play.

Now, if you checked out the links for the project, and you think the idea of a game that takes place after everyone has died and finds themselves in that nexus of the dead, make sure you check out The Black Ballad on BackerKit! It's launching on March 7, 2023, so depending on when you read this blog will depend on what you find.

So, here's hoping to see you there when the Ballad begins!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

The Saga of Majenko Part 9: The Assault on Castle Korvosa

We're finally creeping up on the climax of this sordid tale of bloodshed and betrayal! If you've enjoyed it so far, then please leave some comments, and share it with your friends. If you're just now joining us, don't worry, the previous eight installments of this telling of Curse of The Crimson Throne are linked below for your convenience.

Part One: Finding The Main Character of "Curse of The Crimson Throne"
Part Two: How Much Damage Could One Pseudodragon Do?
Part Three: Scourge of The Red Mantis
Part Four: Blood Pig Champion
Part Five: Brother to The Shoanti
Part Six: The Assault on Castle Scarwall
Part Seven: The Return to Korvosa
Part Eight: Re-Taking Korvosa
Part Nine: The Assault on Castle Korvosa
Part Ten: Down With The Queen

All caught up now? Fantastic! Now then, let me see, where were we...

Fake High

As any experienced gamer worth his or her salt can tell you, nothing changes the game more than the ability to fly. And since our aerial assault on Castle Scarwall had gone so smashingly in the last book, we decided to fall back on our old tricks and fly up to the top floor of Castle Korvosa.

After casting invisibility. We're reckless, not stupid.

The castle's attic is oddly abandoned, used for little more than storage. However, after some handy Perception checks, one of them made by the party's true leader and actual rogue, we find the ghost of a tiefling being kept in the attic. Apparently his body was hidden somewhere in the dungeons, and to grant him peace we need to find it. Seems legit, and something we should have plenty of time to handle in between swinging the hammer to bring down the city's powerful monarchy.

So, grisly task from an unquiet spirit collected and filed away, we make our way down a floor, and fight some devils. Once that errand is complete, we take another flight of stairs down, expecting to finally find that overdue helping of trouble we've been waiting for. Instead, we run into...

The Return of The Red Mantis!

Yep, one floor down, taking up a combination luxury penthouse suite and wicked dance club, were more of the insect-imitating assassins who had been dogging us for several books now. However, instead of just sending a few underlings, as they had in the past, this time they brought one of their captains with them.

Oooh, I'm shaking in my stinger... with excitement!

The is the first, real taste of combat our archanist has gotten, and it doesn't go well for him. Instead of letting Egil and Majenko do their thing (between the two of them, the red mantis underlings were little more than puppies, since they couldn't catch us flat-footed, nor could they sneak attack us), the arcanist decides to run into the mix, and start kicking open doors. This got him a kidney full of saw-toothed saber, though he managed to teleport himself out of harm's way with a cleverly used class feature. What he didn't do was heal himself. Instead, he chose to keep kicking in doors, which earned him a saber up the briscuit from the invisible captain.

So, the arcanist is out, and now the game has gotten serious. Sort of.

That's when Majenko decides to stop faffing about, and the rest of the standard red mantis members go down, either in death or in sleep. Egil steps up to try and face off with the Captain, and our cleric starts calling in assistance from the heavens above. The Captain summons creatures of her own, including some particularly nasty swarms. While she's fast, and hard to hit, a lucky shot here and there began to chip away at her. Before we can deal the deathblow, though, she manages to escape. Disappointed, and more than a little frustrated, we bundle up our dead companion, and Majenko scratches a message into the glass pane of the parlor wall.

You've already lost 11. Run now, and I won't chase you.

Infiltrate Low

After some begging, we manage to return our erstwhile arcanist to the Material Plane. And, knowing that our entrance from above must have been spotted, we decide to go in low for our second attack. You see, there's a secret passage Sabina told us about that will let us infiltrate right to the throne room if we're careful.

What could possibly go wrong?

True to her word, the passage is there. We slip in stealthily, and it appears the coast is clear. At least until the party gets blasted into next week! The arcanist is dead, Majenko has been turned to stone, Egil is insane, and the only one totally unaffected by what happened is the cleric. In the corner, where he had been lurking unseen to us, is the Bloat Mage. An evoker of terrible power, it's clear we won't be able to survive another round of his power unleashed.

Fortunately, the cleric has friends in high places. With a bit of inter-dimensional support, and a breath of life, she manages to get the arcanist back to life. Spells are flying, and soon the magus is back from the land of the mad. However, given that his familiar has been turned into a lawn decoration, he is far from pleased. Which is why he uses every trick he has to try to bring down the Bloat Mage. Continuing the pattern, though, the fat, floating bastard manages to escape. So we retreat again, noses bloodied, to repair our wounds and heal our allies.

No More Nice Party

It's around this time that the arcanist, whose chief job seems to be to get killed, decides to aid the revolution in other ways. He is replaced by a paladin, who is so by-the-book that his name has managed to evade mention in the annals of his own adventures. So, beefed-up and ready to stop pulling punches, we head back to the castle for another crack, though we are wondering why, at this point, there has been so little alarm raised. The castle has been penetrated twice by known heroes of the rebellion, and not so much as a whisper?

That should have been the first clue that shit wasn't right.

We find, much to our pleasure, that the Red Mantis haven't returned. However, we do find a strange statue that wants to eat us, along with a room full of Erinyes who try to turn us into unwilling pincushions. A little lower down, we find a full contingent of Gray Maidens in the throne room, along with what looks like the queen, getting ready for a throw down.

We quickly realize that what we're looking at is not as threatening as it at first appeared. The Gray Maidens, while highly trained and dangerous, don't have the resources to truly penetrate much of our defenses. And while the thing that looks like the queen is effective, its efforts are quickly nullified by a Silence spell. It turns into a puddle of slimy goo, and we deal with the guards, who refuse to stop fighting even though they've clearly lost this battle.

Of course, there are larger forces at work than we know. Such as the infernal creature lurking in the queen's bedroom, along with a rested and rejuvenated Bloat Mage, ready to give us everything he can.

The Power of Mind Control

Enchantment and compulsion are nasty things, particularly when most of the party succumbs to them. After the first two or three rounds, the paladin, the cleric, and Majenko all decided that it would be a better idea to report to their superiors about the presence of this awful thing than to actually fight it. While a dispell managed to keep Majenko on the scene, the brunt of our divine power just walked off the field. Fortunately, Balen was crazy even for a ranger, and charged right in to get some devil-slaying done.

It goes a lot better than expected, and soon the only threat left in the room is the evoker. He pulls the same trick he did before, and Majenko is turned to stone a second time. This wrings the last drop of what mercy Egil had left, and he pours all his remaining arcana, rogue tricks, and not-inconsiderable stock of wands into the mage's demise. It's a near thing, but when he can't escape the area of the silence effect, his head gets cut off by a dramatically-timed critical hit.

The Aftermath

With the cleric and paladin ashamed of their unwilling abandonment, we take the evoker's head back to our allies. While Majenko is still coughing out gravel from his second transformation back to flesh, we find out that the Bloat Mage had been enslaved to the devil. We also realize, thanks to some texts we located, that the queen is not in the castle, and hasn't been for some time. She's seeking a forgotten temple, where she'll be making a play for terrible power. And, while we need to stop that, we have one more errand to do first.

To find out how this game ended, tune in next time for the final installment, The Saga of Majenko: The Queen's Justice!

As always, thanks for joining me for Table Talk! If you have a gaming story of your own that you'd like to contribute, then contact me and I'll be happy to chat with you about it. If you'd like to help support me and my blog, then consider heading over to my Patreon page to become a patron today! Also, if you don't want to miss any of my updates, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter as well.

Are You Following Simon Peter Munoz? Because You Should Be

It feels strange to me, but after running this blog for a few years, a lucky break that let me contribute to Paizo's Blood of The Moon and Bastards of Golarion, as well as creating content for other 3rd party publishers, there are some folks out there who've begun to consider me an expert when it comes to gaming. Or, if not exactly an expert, who see me as an approachable professional that will give them the secret to working in the gaming industry.

I give everyone the same answer; hard work, the willingness to put yourself out there, and networking with everyone you know or follow who can help you get in on the latest projects.

No, seriously man, what's the secret?

Most people who ask walk away unsatisfied at the prospect of starting a blog and spending countless hours hammering out reams of text. A few people, though, realized there was nothing holding them back, and went for it. One of those people is Simon Peter Munoz, and if you're not following him yet, you really should be.

An Up-And-Comer With Great Ideas

If you've been to the Creative Repository Blog, then you've already seen some of Simon's work. If you haven't been there yet, you should take a moment to go check it out. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Take your time, I've got some stuff to take care of.

Finished your initial tour? Good! Then you know I'm not just talking out of my rear end, or trying to big-up one of my own connections by saying that Simon creates some really solid content. Not only that, but he puts it out at a break-neck pace that will keep you reading through the archives for weeks if you're serious about seeing everything he's put out. You should also check out the Feats of Legend series by TPK Games, since Simon worked on The Undead Feats and The Celestial Feats with yours truly. Quality offerings, there.

Given that it's been less than a year since Simon decided to go from long-term lover of RPGs to stepping up to help design them, he's made a colossal amount of progress. Simon intends to make 2016 even bigger than 2015, with more content, more projects, and even more perspectives on the games we all know, play, and love. To that end, he's recently started a Patreon page for the CRB. So if you're the generous sort of reader, and you want to show him how much you love his content, why not stop in to drop some bread in his jar?

As always, thanks for stopping in to check out this Monday's update. If you'd like to help support Improved Initiative, then visit my Patreon page to become a patron today! All it takes is $1 a month to help keep my content coming straight to you. Lastly, if you want to keep up-to-date on all my latest posts, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter as well.

Sometimes the DM Wins

And How!

Recent screen shot from my group's progress in Curse of the Crimson Throne. This is what happens when you step up to take on a lycanthrope without the proper preparation.
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