Some background first: I’m new to DnD started in December. I’m DM for a in person game (Lost Mines of Phandelver), and for a Discord game (Dragon of Icespire Peak).

In the discoed game, we have had two TPKs, one in the session two weeks ago. All of us are relatively new, so I let the first one go, just framed it as a fever-dream/nightmare, and ran the combat again. Then the next session (our most recent one) we had another TPK.

I don’t want to let this one go because if there are no consequences, what is the point. The issue is that some of the players really don’t want to re-roll characters.

I’ve read some tips here and watched videos on YouTube, and got the idea to send the characters to hell. A consequence, but allowing the players to keep their characters.

I’m not quite ready for home brew, so I wanted to use the Descent into Avernus module.

My question is, how do I go about doing this? I want to skip the Baldurs gate portion, and drop them directly into Avernus and Elturel.

From what I read, the mortal plane section sets up why they are going there in the first place. Can I just have them discover this information as they go?

Also they are supposed to be lvl 5 at that point, and they were only lvl 3 when they died. Can I send them down there and have it be a Groundhog Day type deal? They eventually get killed because they are too low level, but wake up in hell again with the knowledge and experience they gained, and then repeat until level 5. Maybe this is how they would slowly discover more about their situation.

Anyway, any input or advice would be awesome!