The TPK *is* the Good Ending.

[atolnon]

I'm amused enough at the situation to post specifically about it, partially because I'm curious as to the opinion of others.
The Abyssal game wrapped up very similarly to what I suggested before. We'd spent a lot of time getting to where we were - arguing, fighting with each other, eventually recovering our names at the bottom of the Labyrinth last game. In this one, we were literally faced with a situation we can't win - as in, not even really given a chance. We can flee, and the southeast is DM-fiated into Oblivion by a Deathlord or we can fight, and be totally annihilated. Even the superweapon with a terrible cost, we discovered, would have done nothing but kill us.

We did the only reasonable thing, this being the last game and us wanting to be heros. We went to battle with the Gaping Maw of Horrors.

And we were destroyed without a fight. Actually, there's an implication that the Maw was shut. The epilogue indicates that the terror diminished in the southeast for a time and our stories were spread by a ghostly host before it became a footnote. So, yeah, that was the good guy ending. It wasn't a full TPK, because one PC left. Honestly, by the end, I was struggling for a reason to engage in this combat because even the ST is telling us that we'll be completely destroyed even while talking like this is the ethical thing to do.

It's the noble sacrifice meme. Our biggest success was off camera and left to Creation as a footnote while our souls were swallowed by Oblivion. I'm a little meh on that. I never even got to use my new Combo, never got to show off what I could really do in a fight. No other games to detail our success and failure in the southeast. That's my opinion. That I think mistakes were made and that the spirit of Exalted was a bit circumvented. Once again, something big happened, but it was without the players.

The RP scenes were good, though.

Comments

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Ugh, that sounds dire. I don't mind Kobiyashi Maru scenarios...but when the DM railroads you into one, that bites big-time. Vibes, dude. :(

[baronsamedi.livejournal.com]

Your comments remind me of the Night Sky Conclave game I ran. It was all Lunars and Sidereals, starting at the end of the contagion just before the Empress arrived. Anyway, the PCs met at for the first time (well the Lunars met the Sidereals at) the Shogunate Base at Kobiyashi Maru. There they had to make their stand against the Fae until the the Empress activated the weapons on the Blessed Isle...not that IC they knew they were doing anything but holding the line.

Was pretty good. Granted, 2/5 PCs died there, but new PCs were added at the second session.

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

It's not even a Kobiyashi Maru scenario, because in the KM scene, you're around for your own demise. It's more like the epilogue in the 80's movies where after we walk into the sunrise, it just shows our pictures and says "Son of A Silent Age was devoured by the Maw of Horrors. Frozen King of Pain was devoured by the Maw of Horrors.... the people of the southeast found their area free of the taint of Oblivion in time for the next game to start.... Blood From Heaven was last seen moving westward to the Golden Throne..."

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

D:

Bad Storyteller! NO STORYTELLER TREAT!

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

It was sooo close to being a good ending. Even annihilation is ok if we're there for it. Instead, you know how they say that if you don't see the bodies, it doesn't count? The ST later came back just to re-emphasize the fact that we were all destroyed and our essences devoured.

So, um, it could have used a lighter touch.