On {{Roblox}}, I am known, we shall call me, Zuul. So, I had mastered the game and had killed everyone who opposed me. Many had created a team and attacked me all at once. As I dodged, they made a plan. I shot them all down with one explosive fireball to kill all of them. It worked...

A personal example - once while playing ''Vampire The Masquerade'', my group ran into some werewolves that were guarding someone we needed to rescue. We were actually about to get out with minimal damage thanks to one player coming up with a clever distraction. However, the party dumbass, naturally armed with a SawedOffShotgun with dragonsbreath rounds, decided that he needed to "help out". One unloading of flame damage ended up killing two party members and leaving two more so weak that the werewolves (who were no longer distracted and also more capable of resisting the fire) could kill two more easily.The gamemaster mercifully declared that session AllJustADream before we could kill the player responsible for it.

This troper was in that game. The same player also decided that it was a good idea to fire a shotgun into a pile of grenades in a ''HoL'' campaign and to give a character who just made a FaceHeelTurn a scroll of ''meteor swarm'' (nigh-epic destructive magic) against a party of mid-level characters while running a ''DungeonsAndDragons'' game. And in about two weeks, I'll be on the wrong end of a (at best) 52-on-8 battle (really 52-on-6-on-1-on-1, but we think the two neutrals are sympathetic to us... maybe) he's running.

This troper's old gaming group call the spell Fireball the "E-Z-Bake Oven" for the simple fact that it is often the most common cause of TPK.

I meet with friends twice a week for a 3.5 campaign. Recently (as in March 26, 2011 recently), I and five other players were introduced to what the DM called a "fractal gauntlet", where we went through a series of rooms that increased exponentially in size and difficulty. First room? A single gnoll in a 5-by-5 room. Second? Two gnolls in a 10-by-10. The third? ''Four Bugbears'' in a 20-by-20. By this point I, being a Rogue and having to open all the doors, was significantly battered by charging monsters. At this point, I had caught on to the DM's scheme, and suggested we bug out. The resident swashbuckler, a man by the name of Roberts, invoked "The Punchline is Machisimo" and declared ''"Rogue is Coward!"'' and demanded that I open the door anyway. Guess what was on the other side of the door? Eight. Fucking. Ogres. Over the span of 15 rounds of combat, five of our six-man party died, two of which fell to Massive Damage. The only reason that the last player got out alive was that the ogres found it slightly difficult to squeeze into a five-foot-wide corridor and were picked off by arrows.

This troper had an accidental one where his DM forgot that the CR for monsters in D&D 3.5 is based around a four-man party of average strength and should consume around 20% of the party's resources (i.e. a CR 4 monster should provide a reasonable challenge for a four-man party of ECL 4 characters and consume about 20% of their resources). He pitted 6 orcs (CR 1/2, therefore any one is a match for two ECL 1 characters) against a 6-man party of ECL 1 characters. Encounter CR? 3, more than ''double'' our party's ECL. Also one of them had an Adept level. We didn't make it out of that one (had this troper had his way, we would have snuck off, but everyone else at the table decided some bashing was in order).

To be fair, this is a perfectly winnable fight for a reasonably optimized party. Also, maybe your DM was just used to level 3+ characters, who can easily win fights with EL up to double their level, depending on the CR makeup of the enemy.

... your six man party lost to six orcs? What classes were you? That should've been a hard fight, not a wipe.

[=DnD=] 3ed. A dire rat, against a level 1 party of a rogue and a fighter. 'The rat bites you... Your head explodes?', followed shortly by 'The rat bites your head off.' in an extremely disbelieving tone. The DM had misread the sheet and rolled a D20 for damage. And rolled high.

The 3rd-level party was trekking through a forest. This troper rolled on the random encounter table and got a giant praying mantis, which got the drop on the party and tore the wizard's head off before being killed. The rest of the party decided to stop to bury the wizard. The problem? Nobody had brought grave-digging implements, so they decided to take the time to use their bare hands. This took long enough to trigger another random encounter in the form of a wandering owlbear. Several poor grapple checks later, the rest of the party was dead.

When trying to infiltrate an enemy held ruin, the party in my game failed to avoid detection. So the party ended up running away from a huge mob of soldiers and ended up all dying.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Time spent making three characters with just one book available: 1 hour. Time spent playing: 15 minutes. How? The GM started out with the adventure from the book, we stumbled upon a village where someone was about to be hanged by some peasants. The resident moron, playing a dwarf warrior, gets out a throwing axe and hurls it at the rope, hoping to cut the poor fellow off. He misses. The peasants, thirteen of them, turn towards us. The moron shouts, "I've always wanted to be an executioner! Let me!" The peasants proceed to kill us to death. My own character lasted longest, eventually losing the pursuing mob in the forest, but bled to death due to a critical hit suffered during the brief fight.

This troper was playing an old, Ultima-esque computer RPG titled "Exile: Escape From The Pit" and his beginning party was exploring a (mostly) beginning dungeon when they came upon an evil-looking altar on the second floor. The party approached the altar and got a foreboding feeling: To desecrate or not to desecrate? Well, I yelled "Fuck the establishment!" and kicked it over. The incredibly foreboding messages "Gilliam reached level 7!" and "You feel elated" popped up with the message to get rid of the latter window reading "Buuut...?" The two upper-level demons who spawned from the alter's destruction killed the party before they literally before they could turn around.

Pretty much any time in the Exile/Avernum series you have a chance to desecrate an altar or steal a shiny object lying on one, something nasty will happen to you. If you can beat the summoned guardians, you usually get something good out of it.

This troper's DM cannot and will try to get us a TPK. We win. Some famous quotes from players include:

Prince out for his throne: "Does a 48 hit?"

Gambling and shapeshifting sorcerer: "I win at Poker with a 50"

Halfling Ninja: "I roll a 1. total hide check 17."

DM: "You gt a 35 on your stealth check. If you choose to use Shadow Step, you will have 70. You can steal all of the guards equipment, steal the guards, have sex with the guards' wives, kill the guards, backstab the DM, and nobody would notice."

NPC reporter: "This was News A. Beesee, reporting outside of Townsvil, where four venturers have taken down an ECL 10encounter at only level 5, sustaining no damage."

Thunderdome MUD is by far the most brutal RPG on any platform, harder than NintendoHard. It's rife with opportunities for total party kill, sometimes with everything irrecoverable. There are attitude mobs that will come hunting YOU after you've reached a certain level or obtained certain rare high-end gear, and they tended to laugh about it in gossip so everyone can hear when an entire party got wiped out and looted at once. And to make things funner, they intelligently equipped the best gear they just seized, to make it even tougher for the now-naked party to get anything back.

This troper is the party idiot. Lesson learned - open the window, '''then''' throw the grenade.

This editor still remembers his first and so far, best TPK. When my players killed the demon I was using as my campaign's Big Bad, in a completely anticlimactic fashion that I was disappointed to end the session with, I decided to retaliate. The demon's spirit came back looking for revenge and possessed the party leader, who then killed off the rest of the party in a demon-dominated rage. Needless to say, I haven't heard from those players ever since...

I was once playing ''zOMG!'', and decided to suppress my CL and go through Deadman's Pass to get some of the area's loot. Well, I decided that it would be better with a crew, so I found one which was going to fight the OMGWTF. When we got there, we fought off the OMGs that the boss sent at us, and when the OMGWTF itself appeared, it immediately started attacking one girl, who ran to the next screen to get away from it. She told us over crew chat not to worry about her, but we did worry, as the crew window showed that she was low on both HP and stamina. We all ran to help her, with some of us healing and some of us attacking the giant hat-dragon. It finally defeated the girl who had run away, and started to pick off our healers one by one. In the end, I was left running madly around the screen, trying to recover my stamina without getting hit.

The problem: Getting through a service entrance at Seattle-Tacoma international airport in a game of {{Shadowrun}}. The intended solution: Slipping the gate guard 50 nuyen. What my players chose: Ramming their van through the gate, giving the guard a chance to call in an intruder alert, and ''then'' deciding to snipe him out the van's back window. Which led immediately to...

The problem: A high-speed car chase involving a van full of shadowrunners and airport security through and around a hangar complex. The intended solution: Either surrendering or running away. What my players chose: To try bluffing that they ''had a bomb'' and that security had better 'back off or else!'. Please remember that they were ''in a major international airport''. Which led to...

The problem: Airport security has responded to the bomb threat by calling for backup, specifically a counterterrorist special-ops paramilitary unit. The intended solution: At this point, throwing down their weapons and coming out with hands in the air is about the only hope of survival they have left. What my players chose: Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

This Troper had an...interesting example, in a D&D 3.5 campaign loosely based on the plot of Warcraft. the party Rogue and I (The parties Sorcerer) stumbled across "a glowing green pool". we decided that after nearly a week underground, we could use a bath. The other partymembers objected, so we pushed them in and soon followed. turns out it was pure unholy energy, and all of us died.

Not a TPK, because it's anti-genre to kill anyone in a Golden Age {{Champions}} game. But as the GM, I scored a Total Party Capture once. Our Idiots Heroes were trying to sneak up on a large group of agents, blew any chance of Stealth with their chosen method of getting through a locked door, and then sat around for 10 minutes of game time arguing about what to do next. At which point, I pretty much had to give all the agents Held Actions, meaning they'd get to go first despite normally acting at the end of the phase. The agents also all had the Teamwork skill, and enough of them made the rolls to get bonuses on those Held Actions. Nighty-night.

This troper once got into a few tough situations. We'd recently gotten a huge influx of gold, allowing everyone in the part magic weapons and full plate armor. At ''level 1''. Of course, the DM was always prepared for this, since we were almost immune to normal damage (No AC is gonna protect you from a natural 20). First thing tried? Sheer numbers, 40 orcs, all at once, shooting arrows at me, for about 3 turns. I got hit twice. (Good thing too, a third hit would have killed me). After that, nets to try and restrain us. I manged to dodge some, and rip other nets apart in midair. Next, Grappling and dog piling, this is where I lost. Fortunately, we were 'captured' and not killed.

After this of course, the DM got really creative. A bunch of kobolds tried locking me in a room and then closing the door after throwing in flaming oil pots in order to suffocate me. Luckily, my Constitution score was very high. After that, glue thrown on my face to blind me (Making all my armor useless) and to also try and suffocate me. Of course, I got lucky and manged to get all the glue off my face before the kobolds could do anything.

Either way, my character was damn lucky.

After dabbling with D&D and Mutants & Masterminds and various other systems, the group eventually had this troper run a homebrew game, much to their chagrin (alright that's rubbish- the chance was leapt at eagerly). In a science-fantasy setting awash with psionics and crazy technology, the party had just finished a mission in orbit and had docked at a dumpy star port when they came face to face with a ten-ton robotic not-so-secret agent working for an infamously divided and mysterious security service. They were very, very angry that the party hadn't clued them in to their mission. Rather than trying to talk their way out of the situation, or by talking just long enough to disable the thing (temporarily) with a barrage of EMP grenades, or even by waiting just long enough for the party's telekinetic to collapse a wall on it, the team's gunner decided to shoot it with their assault rifle. It reacted accordingly. Caught completely off guard, the rest of the team were shredded by fusion pulses- except for the team's massive cyborg swordswoman, who crit failed an agility check and ended up getting stepped on. Somehow the gunner who had initiated it all managed to dodge and decided to run for it- and then the robot picked up the closest thing to hand and crushed him with the improvised missile. Sigh.

That's the trimmed version. I think I need to mention that what's really really REALLY stupid about the whole thing is that this troper was packing a 44k credit ion cannon (I had to sell three cars to get that thing- one was mine, two I'd nicked from some drug baron who'd had his neck snapped by the team's resident ninja). Now, sure, it was a stupidly overpowered super-robot but I was playing a mechhunter with enough specialised encounter powers to disable a frigging starship for an hour. It was blatantly obvious that the big metal lug was bad news because the GM goddamn told us that constantly, as did half the goddamn NPC population. Plus, you should always be wary of something that's bigger than the whole party combined. In just two turns I could've prepped my cannon, the telekinetic could've put up a shield aura and a damage-increasing magnifier buff, and everyone else could've licked it with EM grenades while we let rip. I mean, I defend a guy's right to be undiplomatic, but if you're going to resort to violence, do it ''properly''!

I mean really. It was an armour-plated ''tank-with-feet''. Who the hell shoots a tank with an assault rifle? Oh, and what our illustrious GM failed to mention is that the "improvised missile" was none other than the cyborg that the robot had killed in the prior turn. Yes, the guy got crushed to death by the thrown corpse of his team-mate. Way to rub it the hell in dude.

Basically Phil, our GM is a dick. Yeah we said it!

This Troper's gaming party practically freaks if the GM mentions "Illithids," due to being his (the GM's) first TPK in a CurbStompBattle. Oddly enough, though, the one who survived longest was the ''tank.'' We were also playing using SavageWorlds, and all of us had run out of Bennies by the time of our deaths. First to fall was our "Wooden Paladin," who, instead of "Detect Evil," had an always on "Detect Unnatural." He felt the Illithids appear (invisibly) and cried out where they were before getting blasted by all three of them with a single attack, dropping him. Next to go was my magical archer who had absolutely ''no'' close range techniques, followed by the kid mage Negi Expy, Igan. Then, about six turns later, the tank was dropped.

This troper played a Star Wars RPG for a while during his one semester of college. A particular incident stands out: I played as a Noble, basically a talker who had no part. One of our....stupider members played a soldier, and during a scenario where we snuck into an Imperial base, were found...by Vader. The DM enjoyed messing with us. While I attempted to explain that we were mechanics, the genius decided to open fire. On Vader. The last thing I had my character do was shoot him in the head, repeatedly. His reasoning? "I wanna go to Hardee's." The DM actually threw him out of the room.

One campaign this troper was in ended in a near-TotalPartyKill due to a death throes spell the dragon had cast on himself, which took out over half the party.

This troper had this experience in Left4Dead. Three of four survivors walk out of a door way into the path of a tank. The tank then knocks down the straggler and beats him to death.

This troper had one in the Single Player finale of Left4Dead 2's Dark Carnival campaign. Up til then, in both games, I hadn't had much trouble with the single player mode til then...no deaths, for starters. It was on Easy mode and everything, but the Dark Carnival finale seemed particularly tough; lots of Special Infected, for starters. The whole team was practically limping by the time the helicopter arrived...and then two tanks spawned at the same time, pretty much slaughtering the rest of us before we could make it through the massive hordes of common infected. During the entire finale, I counted SIX GODDAMN TANKS. The AI Director must've had a bad day.

This troper's first TPK occured in a D&D 3rd edition game run by a GM who often changed rules without thinking them through. Our 7th-level characters were making their way through a swamp when we are ambushed by a huge swamp monster consisting mostly of teeth. For its surprise action, it bites our fighter, doing a decent amount of damage, and uses Improved Grab to get a hold of him in order to swallow him. We're not desperately worried at this point - it wouldn't be able to swallow him until its next turn (giving him the chance to break free and our cleric a chance to heal him), doing so would take up its attack, and it would be vulnerable to our rogue's sneak attack in between. Except that right after succeeding in getting a hold of the fighter, the GM declared that the monster swallowed him - no no additional turn needed, no additional grapple roll, no chance for him to break free beforehand, and no vulnerability to sneak attack. I ask the GM why, and his response is "I thought the swallowing rules were to cumbersome, so I changed them." No argument allowed. It swallows the fighter, dealing bite damage again. Seeing the situation, the rest of us decide "screw it" and try to flee... only we're moving at half speed and can't run because of the hip-deep water, which doesn't penalize the aquatic swamp monster. It proceeded to bite, grab, and swallow the cleric on its next action. Now that its stomach is full to capacity, it simply fights the rogue and my sorcerer normally - but with half our party down it makes short work of us. Total part wipe of our 7th level party in one surprise round and four normal rounds by a CL 5 monster. Last time I gamed with the guy running ''that'' game.

Unlike the above the one time as GM that I got a TPK was in no way my fault. The D&D party had acquired a map leading to a "Lost World" -style island full of dinosaurs and ruins good for weeks and weeks of play. Early on, the party meet a tribe of native halflings and learn that the largest of these ruins, where a great palace once stood, has become the lair of a dragon. He leaves the halflings alone because eating dinosaurs is more efficient. The party at this time is 5th level, and recognize that the dragon is out of their league. Instead of deciding to leave the island and come back once they're higher level, or attempt to explore the rest of the island and gain levels and treasure that way, they decide to make a beeline for the dragon's lair (actually avoiding other encounters along the way) in order to burglarize the lair while the dragon is out hunting. Naturally, their attempt to sneak into the lair is thwarted by the dragon casting a 1st-level ''alarm'' spell every time he goes out hunting. The dragon shows up while the party is in the midst of stuffing their bags with his treasure. Trying to save the idiot party's butts, I have the dragon start by talking to them - he's bored and wants conversation. The party tries to bluff him and fails, but I decide that the dragon is impressed by their chutzpah and decides to ''geas'' them to retrieve an artifict he's had his eye on. At this point the players decided that it wasn't a dragon at all, but a gnome illusionist, and attack him. Total time for the dragon to wipe out the entire party: 2 rounds.

In Zombie Panic a griefer got some people into a safe area, but not everyone, and barricaded the only way in for other players...then when the area was secure he set down a bomb and blew everyone inside up. This resulted in much lolz for him and much rage from the players, until the players he killed turned into zombies, and ganked him like crazy.

In a death match shooter mode in banjo kazooie (basically goldeneye with EGGS), one genius used the grenade launcher at point blank range while we were all crowded into a room, sucessfully killing 4 players... in a 4 player game. Nothing like hearing the death music from all sides.

In an earlier episode, we somehow ended up in a chain, with me behind one guy, i shoot him in the head, guy behind me shoots me in the head, previously mentioned lunatic, standing behind the other guy, shoots the guy in the head.... with a grenade launcher. That time we got to hear the death music one after the other....

This troper was responsible for one that did not just include the party but the entire world, as well as the moon, and atleast our solar system. in my first RP experience, a multiverse-hopping BESM campaign. My character, a thief capable of splitting himslef into 300 incorporeal ravens, convinced the GM to let myself and the monk pull off what we called the "ClusterFuck." he stuck a flame ofuda to my forehead, said "this won't hurt a bit" and I swarmed into the army of near immortal dragons troubling us. (15 damage+30)x 300 (ravens)x 4 (for crit) x 2 (we both crit'ed)=144000 (the earth had 30,000 hp according to our GM's calcualtions from earlier in the game.) no wonder he was against it fro mthe moment we came up with it.

A couple years ago, [SymAntares This Troper] was playing the Dofus MMORPG with a few friends I'd introduced to the game. We'd been at it for a few hours, everyone was lvl 10-13 for a level 60-party (total levels, no fancy math). I'd just found a quest to take out a level 28 NPC. Dofus uses a TBS approach to fighting, and good tactics can make up for a level difference of 10-15 in some cases. 30+ level advantage, several experienced tacticians/strategists, should be easy right? ...Tell that to our asses...