Sandbox / Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

Wick check.

The definition of the trope is that Game Master or other storyteller maliciously kills off the all the protagonists on purpose. However, more often this used for when rocks literally fall and kill people and/or Everyone Dies and/or Total Party Kill. Conversely, there's also Killer Game Master, which seems to be a little too similar to the intended definition.

Correct usage (1/50)

1. Fanfic.Aeon Natum Engel: Word of God states that he partially writes this fic as a imaginary RPG session, and considering what happens in the fic itself, it fits (Especially the Rocks Fall Everybody Dies style ending). An in-universe example.

Incorrect usage (18/50)

1. Fanfic.Worst Case Scenario Clcman: Happens in Chapter 23, with almost the entire Team dead, defected or captured, leaving only Rocket and an injured Aqualad. Turns out its All Just a Dream. See above. Seems to just be a poor end for the heroes.
2. Series.Planet Of Dinosaurs: The dramatic asteroid scene in the last episode is particularly well-remembered (if rather inaccurate). The human is observing the full-moon night sky under a mountain arch, searching for the meteor with his binoculars; then the bolid arrives like a burning ball of fire and strikes beyond the horizon. The sky becomes reddish and all dinosaurs and pterosaurs flee and scream in terror. Then Apocalypse Wow happens: gigantic tsunamis, huge fires, and rain of rocks, all within the same sinister reddish light. Note that this was one of the first documentaries to report the "Chixculub Crater" discovery, made around the same time of the production of the series and explained with detail in the same episode by Alberto aided by a geologist of the University of Berkeley, A. Montanari. Literal example.
3. Film.The Day Britain Stopped: Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The Galt family (barring the father), being stranded on the M25 motorway on their way to Heathrow Airport, decides at the last moment to walk the last one kilometre to Heathrow Airport. Those who chose to leave reach the airport an hour after the scheduled flight departure, only to find that the plane was delayed as well, so they ultimately make their flight. Cue Airplane crashes, everybody dies. Just Everyone Dies.
4. Anime.Osomatsu San: Broad Strokes: The series has an unusual approach to continuity, namely by both being heavily continuity centric and having Negative Continuity, sometimes in regards to the same skit. Generally speaking, anything relating to the Character Development is referenced later, while random elements like an ending where everyone suddenly dies is conveniently ignored. Just Everyone Dies.
5. FinalFantasyIX.Tropes A To H: Death from Above: The game might be the number one for most Death From Above scenes in one game. There's Odin who Zantetsukens an entire city into ash, The Invincible which nukes Alexandria and Alexander simultaneously not to mention having done the same to the Madain Sari in a flashback. Plus there's Kuja whose Ultima Spell is a horrifying combination of Planet Killer, Nuke 'em, and Rocks Fall Everybody Dies. Literal example.
6. MagicTheGathering.Color Tropes: White prefers to delay any threat, but when it decides to kill something, then it kills everything. Just Everyone Dies.
7. Series.The Apprentice: "You're all fired. All four are fired!" Not dead, certainly not from a malicious DM.
8. Recap.Tales Of The Abyss: Sync puts an end to it by suggesting a peaceful trade: instead of just collapsing the ruins, leading a case of Rocks Fall Everybody Dies which would prove lethal to heroes and villains alike, the God-Generals surrender Ion so that Everybody Lives. Just Everyone Dies.
9. VideoGame.City Shrouded In Shadow: Like the game's spiritual predecessors in the Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, many of the civilians the protagonists encounter don't make it out alive. Just Everyone Dies.
10. VideoGame.Far Cry New Dawn: Disney Death: Considering the previous game pretty much ended with Rocks Fall Everybody Dies for everyone except the Deputy and Joseph Seed, New Dawn reveals that a surprisingly large number of your Hope County allies ended up surviving the nuclear holocaust and the subsequent post-apocalypse. Just Everyone Dies.
11. VideoGame.Sol Forge: There are several cards that can damage or kill multiple creatures, if not all of them, at once, but among best examples are Ambriel's Edict (kills everyone except the highest-attack creature on each side) and level 4 Varna, Immortal King (kills everyone else but revives one of your creatures who gets killed along the way). Just Game-Breaker.
12. WebVideo.Desert Bus For Hope: In Desert Bus 4, the crew ran a Pathfinder game involving Lava Bears. At one stage, they activated a trap and lava fell from the ceiling. Almost total party kill. This suits this trope particularly well, because what is lava? Molten rocks. Just Total Party Kill.
13. YouShallNotPass.Tabletop Games: In BattleTech when the Clans invaded, on the planet of Twycross, a single mechwarrior defended a huge chasm from the entire army of invaders. Of course, it helped that the entire canyon was rigged with explosives so that when his mech was destroyed, the whole thing collapsed and buried everybody. Literal example.
14. Anime.Gun X Sword: Appears to be played straight with Michael and Fasalina in the last episode, but the radio drama released after the series ended has Michael and Fasalina subverting the trope though who knows if that's actually meant to be taken as canon. Just Everyone Dies.
15. Awesome.Pathfinder: This post comes from a Rise of the Runelords player who, in an act of desperation, tried to push a giant angel statue onto the Lamia Matriarch boss. While she was flying. And the attack had the chance of bringing down the belltower the players were in. And the attack has a -12 to hit. Not only does he actually hit her, he CRITICALS and kills the lamia matriarch in ONE BLOW. Just Total Party Kill.
16. ComicBook.Ultimatum: Could be the comic codifier. With the amount of ridiculous deaths, it starts to seem like someone at Marvel was using this as some sort of catharsis. Just Everyone Dies.
17. CruelAndUnusualDeath.Video Games: Neverwinter Nights 2 brings you its Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies ending, in which Bishop and Qara have their skulls literally smashed open by chunks of the falling ceiling. Literal example.
18. DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu.Tabletop Games: The boardgame Arkham Horror, a spin-off of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, involves the players trying to close interdimensional gates opening around the town of Arkham. If they fail, a Great Old One awakens and the players have to fight him. It's possible, but extremely difficult, to defeat the Great Old One (unless it's Azathoth, who automatically ends the game with a loss for the players if he awakens). Just Non-Standard Game Over.

Other usage (2/50)

1. AudioPlay.Dirty Potter: Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The ending of Dirty The Pooh, leading to a Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies, although Tigger, Christopher Robin, Ron and Jim Dale somehow survive. Jim Dale most likely survives because he is the one who is narrating, and is likely to be bending the logic in his favor. Death/survival is based on the narrator's interference.
2. CalvinAndHobbes.Tropes Q To Z: In one Sunday strip Calvin initiates a Derailed Fairy Tale in the story his father is reading, so Dad just has the tiger eat everybody to end the story. Calvin and Hobbes both love that ending, of course. Once again, the narrator is the boss of the story.

Unclear (4/50)

1. Manga.Yuru Yuri: The second season finale. Sort of. Not enough detail, but doesn't seem like example.
2. Webcomic.Servants Of The Imperium: Except for the heroes. The Dark Eldar, Cultists and the Treasure.... Not so much. Not enough detail.
3. ComicBook.Stormwatch: The transfer between issues 17 to 19 were... a bit sudden, to say the least.
4. DreamSMP.Tropes R To Z: Volume 1 officially ends with the server being quite literally nuked and everyone who hasn't got out while they could (like Wilbur and Aimsey) being hit with amnesia and/or dying. It's about as much of a Downer Ending as one can get, and due to YMMV-related reasons, the less said about how the Exile-related abuse plotline is wrapped up, the better. Note enough detail for outsider.

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