My latest Campaign.

[Spudzill]

I just ran a Fantasy game set on a lost continent where Atlantis, Thule,Mu, Leng and Hyperborea existed. My PC's were on a mission to protect the " Heart of the Continent" from falling into the clutches of an Evil Socerer from obtaining it and possibly dooming the whole continent to either death or subjugation under him. My Chars were: A Hyperborean Barbarian, A lost psychic orphaned waif, a truly perverted Wizard, a Muvian Assassin posing as an Atlantian Manservant, and a Bounty Hunter, also from Atlantis.
They met after the Orphan had a prophetic dream and was sent by a Wise Woman to the great city. Along the way she met the Hyperborean Barbarian who was guarding a caravan. Once there they met the Wizard and his NPC colleague who would set them on their way.
They made their way to the great Library of Thule, said to have the oldest knowledge in the world, and learned of the Ancient Device that maintained their continent, created by the great Serpent Men Sorcerers after batlle with the Ancient Bings which lived on the other continents. So they set out on their journey. In a city run by a Muvian Rogue Sorcerer they came across the Bounty hunter who decided to join them.
After many adventures, including setting off a revolt in the Muvian Socerers city, they came across the underground temple where the Heart was located. Afetr defeating a Shoggoth they sent two memeberes to scout on ahead, and , the Bounty Hunter picked up the powerstone powwering the ancient magical device and the Continent sank. Anyone else have campaign that end this way?

[magnafix]

Sort of.

I had a campaign in which 3 lowly tribesmen were wandering away from the village to explore the world, found an ancient crypt, triggered some Wild Magic with a critical fail, resulting in a hungry demon being summoned. They unwisely tried to fight it, and were all devoured.

Game Over.

[Johan Larson]

I have been a player in several TPKs. Generally, the GM has let us retry the encounter.

But that's an outside-the-game solution. At least some genres (supernatural horror, fantasy, ultratech) allow for in-game solutions, too. Sounds like a good topic for a Pyramid article, if it hasn't been done already.

[aesir23]

It's never happened to me either, but I've always wanted to revive the party in
Hell (or some other unpleasant afterlife) and let them go to work breaking out.

[The_Nightwatch]

We have a multi-GM campaign, and my brother ran a "mini-series" involving a mage who was being duped into summoning Cthulhu, or something close enough - whatever this elder thing was, no PC in our campaign would ever be able to do anything to/about it once it was here.

The stealthy characters went to check things out. The combat monsters, used to the kind of fight-heavy games I run, went bumbling around, walked right into the sanctum, angering the mage enough that he summoned it right then and there.

It would have been the end of the campaign, but we'd picked up a time-travel item awhile back, and my brother and I let the responsible PCs use it to go back in time and "rewrite history." The players with the combat-monster characters and insufficient attention span didn't play much longer.

(The group used the time-travel item a few more times here and there, only when there'd been some kind of catastrophe, until finally the PC carrying it got vaporized, and it was lost to who knows where in the multiverse...)

[Witchking]

Hmmm wasn't quite a TPK but probably should have been....

GURPS 1E...low fantasy.

Very start of campaign...group of strangers ported "somewhere" and instructed to save "the villiage" ie the one down the hill. So all 100 pt New PC's....

Two GURPS experienced players...yours truely playing an Illusionist/Summoning Mage...and the GM's wife playing a priestess of the Earth/Night/Theifly Goddess. The 3 noob players were more or less given basic Fighter Mach I to play.

While she and I were huddling talking over what we could do IC the fighters were "unattended"...just about when I was saying to the Priestess "Wow you can do MASS INVISIBILITY!!" I also noticed that the 3 fighters had gotten tired of us talking and had decided to do a frontal assault 3 infantry vs 20 calvary who were attacking/raiding the villlage. While surprise was on their side the results were not what their DnD minds were expecting...

Ah back in the day...

Actually your run can go on...

To quote Bill Cosby "How long can you tread water? Bwah Ha Ha HA!"