So it’s been a while. I would like to say I’ve been deep in a secluded underground vault, surrounded by nothing but my beloved Pez dispensers, exposing myself to as much media as I could to transmutate into Recycle Bin posts for you all. But there was this issue with my brother, a suit of armor, and something called equivalent exchange…yeah…that was tough…
Anyways, that’s all behind me now, and what better way to seemingly come back from the blogging dead then talking about death, at least the family-friendly version that occurs to our characters time and time again.
There’s been pages and pages written on the issue of character death, preventing it, causing it, how to handle it once it happens, pros and cons allowing the rituals and spells to reverse, and rules and items to cheat it at every step. It’s one of those things that is just going to happen. Maybe not to you, maybe to the whole party, but it’s always a possibility when you sit down at a table.
Even though I’m a relative newbie to the gaming ranks, I almost know what is going to happen once the 3rd death save is failed. Either a) a divine or creepy arcane person will return the person(s) to life or b) $LOCAL_DEITY_OF_DEATH is going to want a favor in exchange for a second chance at life, which gets the party on a side quest for a bit, and then we’re back on the main quest.
An anime series called Angel Beats gives us a different setup to use in the event of a TPK, or even as the background for a one-shot adventure or introductory first session. The set up is the first 2 minutes of the series, which you can watch here. If you can’t, here’s the set up: a young man wakes up, instantly sees a girl aiming a large rifle at another person called Angel. The sniper says that the young man is dead, that he is here in the afterlife, and if you don’t join up and fight God he’ll be erased forever.
Damn. If you’re familiar with the engagement plot curve mentioned on Extra Credits a few weeks ago, you’ll agree that this is a ‘nice exciting start’.
The rest of the episode goes on to explain the background of the world. Any normal injury that would cause death, bullet trauma, blunt force trauma, impalement, 100 hit ultra combo, doesn’t last. You still feel the pain, so there is incentive to avoid it, but if you get vivisected by laser beams, you’ll wake up a few hours later good to go. It’s not like you can die. However, this purgatory is a large Japanese high school, if you conform you’ll be erased and just disappear. Angel and by proxy God him/her/itself is the enemy, and all the other people, teachers, students, staff, either not part of the Battlefront or Angel are NPCs. Yes, in canon they’re called NPCs, they exist to fill the world out and to interact with and nothing more. Add a fight against Angel set against one of the series’ great J-Pop songs at the end of the episode, and you know have the details for a unique scenario.
Here’s a 4e TPK example. The party comes-to from the TPK, alive, functioning, recharged as if after an extended rest. They are in a quaint village, just as a group of people are about to ambush a lone figure. The exposition conversation occurs as above, “you’re dead, you can’t die here, fight or be utterly destroyed, oh crap he/she/it has heard us, everyone runs away.”
A head on fight with the figure would have a low probability of success, but there is no penalty any more for death. Dying just results in an extended rest and loss of a few hours. If you’re looking to keep some sort of penalty, decrement the max number of healing surges by one, if a PC gets to 0 they are erased.
If the PCs are the let’s fight type, they can just rush the figure time after time, learning his/her/its powers, and adjust accordingly. (Of course, the figure could learn and adjust as well…)
If the PCs are more oriented in role playing, they could learn the land, interact with the villagers to learn what’s worked and what has not. Maybe the figure needs to beat defeated 4 nights in a row, dying via fire, water, earth, and wind damage in a certain order, or at a location that the figure never ventures into. As the PCs move around the village, they’ll also need to avoid the figure, else a small skirmish fight breaks out right then and there. But the how and why and when of the climatic fight should be when the PCs are ready, and at their own choosing.
This same set up could be used for a one-shot. The PCs all wake up from the dead, and have a common goal even if they don’t know each other that well. Or if you’re like me and dread trying to frame a new group, having them all dead and fight their way out of a purgatory back to the real world is a quick and easy way to start forming a nakama.
Angel Beats is currently, as of publish, on Netflix streaming, and can be found on YouTube or…other places…online. The first episode is a great leaping point for an afterlife setting, if you’re in the market for some good ideas give it a watch to see what gears start turning. The other 12 episodes take that template and make it their very own. While I recommend the entire series for its quality animation, amazing sound track and a plot that survives one or two stumbles here and there, if you’re just looking for some good ideas the first episode alone is a match watch.
So, what creative ‘post-death’ scenarios have your characters been in?
Hmm, I’m trying to wrap my head around a TPK and having the party needing to fight there way out of a pugatory-like state to return to their lives. I think that is an excellent tool for a DM to have at the ready if they would prefer to keep players with the same characters.
For instance, my players are Paragon and have used the same characters since Level 1. I don’t think any one of them would want to start over with a new character. As a DM, I don’t see much incentive to kill off their characters unless they do something really foolish (it’s happened a few times, trust me!). But the players don’t need to know that, so I certainly push them in different combat situations.
If the worst does happen for them and there is a TPK, then I can have something like the scenario you describe in the background as a Plan B. It doesn’t have to “end” the characters’ game. And it could lead to some fun RP moments.
Perhaps they have to complete Quest X to gain an item that weakens the foe that killed them in the first place . . . interesting.
Thanks again!
Totally agree.
I tend to be nice to my players, never having killed one yet in 2 or more years of playing, and I think part of why I held back was I didn’t know what to do if I had killed the party. Having a scenario like this chambered I think will allow me to not hold back when the players start to get low on hp. I won’t use it as an excuse to TPK, mind you, but I’m now ready for the post-TPK world if and when it happens.