TPK to START the Campaign

[Necrosnoop110]

Ok, was thinking about for the introductory portion of a new campaign to to go something like this:

(0) Have players create characters
(1) (prequel) Adventure
(2) TPK (or have the ending super difficult so the TPK is very very likely)
(3) Start the real campaign with new characters.
(4) Have what the prequel-characters impact the new characters somehow. Enemies? Ancestral item to new characters? etc.

Has anyone ever done anything with this type of set up? Suggestions? If one where to do this should you tell the PCs in advance or tell them after the TPK?

Cheers,
Necro   

[Nanshork]

I'd tell the PCs in advance.  I'd get really angry if I spent all the time to make a character and in the first dungeon everybody died and the DM told us that was on purpose "for story reasons".

I'd be willing to play a game like that, but your player's should get a heads up.