Most people will argue that getting a TPK is never fun. In all my experience with tabletop roleplaying games, ive only had it happen once. Here is that story.
This happened about a year ago (2021) when my mom and dad invited my brother and I to a gaming convention. The convention was mostly people sitting around and playing board games like Ticket to Ride or Betrayal. However what sparked my interest was the RPG section where you could play RPGs of all sorts, especially D&D.
At the time I was no noob to D&D. My group had finished a 3.5 campaign a year or two earlier and I had dabbled in a couple 5e campaigns that unfortunately never went anywhere. I was aching for something to scratch that D&D itch so this convention was perfect. So my brother and a mutual friend decided we would make our rounds in the RPG area.
When we got there, our group immediately ran over to the sign up sheets and signed up for the next session. The next session happen to be 30 min. from then. Being we were on a time crunch for our first session of the convention, we opted to pick up pregenerated lvl. 1 characters instead of make our own. What we ended up with was me (a dwarf cleric of light), my brother (kobold fighter) , and our friend (gnome wizard). Dont get too atttached to these guys.
Excited to play we met with our DM at our assigned table when it was time. Another guy had joined our party who opted for a human wizard I think. Our party now assembled we began our adventure.
I dont remember any of the specifics about the session as it seemed pretty generic lvl. one stuff. Meet in a tavern, be asked to go on a quest, and proceed to said quest. At some point we were sent to clear a manor I think of monsters.
Thus began our first encounter and the start of our misfortunes. Our wizard had started first in initiative. To everyone’s surprised, the human wizard said he was running up to the enemy and hitting it. Not even as a spell, just hitting it. Reminder all characters are lvl. one.
It was no surprise when the wizard did minimal damage and proceeded to get one hit KOed on the enemies turn. The guy sheepishly turned to us and said, “Sorry, I’m used to playing fighter. I havent played a wizard in a decade or so.”
Bit bizarre that he would be that oblivious to the squishy nature of wizards but its fine. As the cleric I was able to help him get back up and foghting again.
Unfortunately our dice was not kind to us. Most rolls ended up low, and we barely survived the first encounter. Our DM couldnt fudge rolls since he had no DM screen, so we could see to our dismay that he was rolling extremely well. Oh well, thats just luck. surely next time we’ll do better.
We moved up to the next level and ran into our next encounter. Again to our amazement, the dice gods were against us as we rolled nat 1s and low rolls. i think overall the highest i rolled was a five.
Still we managed to scrape by in this encounter by the skin of our teeth. I had unfortunately exhausted most of my spell slots keeping the party alive and we had yet to run into the final boss of the session. Our DM was apologizing for the rotten luck and assured us that this was supposed to be a basic encounter. Regardless we pressed forward to try to finish the session.
At this point chance of survival seemed low for all party members but we had hoped at least some of us would make it as we reach the final boss. With initiative rolled I ended up last in line. Unfortunately, the enemies went first and they decided (with the DM rolling randomly) that I was their target. With a nat 1 on a dex save I was taken out before I could do a single hit.
The party, without a healer, tried their best to fight back but it was no use. I had manage to fail all but one of my death saving throws while my party was downed one by one. At this point our DM was scrambling to find ways to save us while we saw the inevitable.
Instead of bitterness and anger though,we were laughing at our rotten luck. We saw that a TPK was in store and started to chant TPK. Im sure the tables surrounding us were confused by our chanting.
With my final failed saving throw, my character was dead. The rest of the party followed as we cheered. Our DM was stunned atbthe turn of events.
He told us as he concluded the session. “Ive never had a TPK happen. Ever. You guys our my first TPK”
We eagerly told him this was our first too and had no qualms with him as a DM. After that session, we continued to play other sessions with new characters and DMs.
By the end of con, everyone had heard of our group. The group that TPKed. This year we went back to the con and found that the same DMs were there and still knew us as the TPK group. This year I brought back my Cleric with the haunted one background as a fun nod to the ill fated session. My mom plans to make our group T-shirts that we can wear to the next one.
Sometimes the dice are not on your side. Instead of cursing your luck or demanding another shot, you should roll with it and havr fun. Its a game after all. And you should have fun while playing it.
[zombify_post]
0 Comments