Character Death - what do you do?

[Dave Turner]

I've never been able to grasp the reasoning behind penalizing the player for his character's death by having the new PC be a level or more behind the party or the dead character. The player has presumably earned every XP granted the old character. Now, because of some random luck with dice, some of that invested time is going to be taken away?

Why does there need to be a penalty at all? D&D isn't a competitive game like football or hockey. In those games, a penalty is given because a player has broken the rules of the game. In D&D, the player hasn't broken the rules; he's just been unlucky. Why penalize the player?

 

[Lanefan]

I've never been able to grasp the reasoning behind penalizing the player for his character's death by having the new PC be a level or more behind the party or the dead character. The player has presumably earned every XP granted the old character. Now, because of some random luck with dice, some of that invested time is going to be taken away?

Depends on pre-set expectations. I treat all character rotation the same, whether it's by PC death, player choice, new player joining, or whatever. If you as a player decide you're going to retire character A and bring in newly-rolled-up character B, then B's going to be a level down from the party average. (corollary: A can still do things while retired; it's a part of the game world, and if the player decides later to bring A back into the game then the new character limits don't apply, as A is not a new character) People know this going in, and 11 years later (under current guidelines) so far, so good.

It's also a subtle nudge toward reviving the dead PC, and against character rotation; but not a very effective one, given that players in my game still rotate characters on a regular basis. Again, no problem...

Lanefan

 

[Mark CMG]

I've never been able to grasp the reasoning behind penalizing the player for his character's death by having the new PC be a level or more behind the party or the dead character. The player has presumably earned every XP granted the old character. Now, because of some random luck with dice, some of that invested time is going to be taken away?

Why does there need to be a penalty at all? D&D isn't a competitive game like football or hockey. In those games, a penalty is given because a player has broken the rules of the game. In D&D, the player hasn't broken the rules; he's just been unlucky. Why penalize the player?

It's seemingly meant to disuade players from being reckless with their characters and to raise the stakes of their sense of investment. IME it creates an additional level of caution that is counter to heroics. I prefer to downplay or remove the penalties for death, beyond the death itself and potential cost to raise them.

 

[diaglo]

Hey! diaglo listed the ability scores in a different order from that presented in The Holy Book (1974)!!!!!

that is the holy order.

with the introduction of Supplement I Greyhawk and the thief the stats got swapped in later books (PHB and Holmes 2edD&D)... con and dex.

 

[wjptcs]

Its not a matter of penalizing a player for his character dying, its a matter of how the game is being played. If you can just bring back in a character at 1 level lower, where is the adventure in that. Most players wont worry about the consequences and just do stupid stuff that gets them killed, along with others. They will just say " oh well, I can just bring him back". If the party is such a low level that they dont have access to a ressurection of some sort, than thats unfortunate. So draw up a new character, and start again. Thats what the game is about. With no risk of dying the game loses its thrill. If your players can not handle the concept of their characters possible dying (because its gonna happen) then maybe they should stick to a game that has a SAVE and RELOAD feature.

I know you dont want a player whose character has died to be out of the adventure for good, but thats what happens sometimes. Let them run a NPC for a while, or help with some monsters, but when you just start giving out characters that have no background or history with the group, it takes all the feeling out of the game.

I know most players today wont agree with me on this, but thats the way I grew up playing. I know how much it sucks when your character dies with no way back. I also know its not much fun playing a chacter who you have hastily drawn up out of the book, or subbed in just for the sake of gameplay. It may seem like your still part of the group, but you wont really be for quite some time.

I do play with several groups today that have little or no penalty for dying. Its fun to play and not worry about dying for good, but its just seems to take away from the game and eventually it get boring.

 

[Mallus]

For my current campaign (go CITY!), and for every campaign going forward, since I like how it works, there's no penalty for introducing a new character, for whatever reason. Same level as everyone else (did I mention I use a party XP total?), equivalent gear.

I've found you can't really encourage player investment beyond making the game world respond to the players actions...

 

[Mallus]

Most players wont worry about the consequences and just do stupid stuff that gets them killed, along with others. They will just say " oh well, I can just bring him back".

Most... no.... all of the players I game with do the opposite of this.

And fear of character failure is a more than adequate replacement for the fear of character death, vis a vis the whole 'thrill' thing.

 

[Psion]

Another thread got me thinking about this:

So a character has died in a game that's already underway, what do you do now?

Go through their pockets and look for loose change?



I do the "1 level below party average" thing, because it puts you on the same footing as if you had been raised.

 

[mmu1]

I handle it in this way:

A new player bringing in a new character: Start at the same level as the lowest-level PC in the party, with just enough XP to be that level. I don't like punishing people for joining the game at a later date, but I don't think there's any logical reason why they'd have a character with more XP than anyone who did play longer than they did. (which is what you end up with when people bring in new players at average party level, or some such) Wealth as per the DMG, with no more than 1/2 of it to be spent on any single item.

A replacament for an established PC (for whatever reason - death, boredom): Create a PC that has 1000 x (level of your old PC) fewer XP than your old character. That way, things stay fair, and how recently someone's character leveled doesn't affect the severity of the penalty. Wealth as per the DMG, with no more than 1/2 of it to be spent on any single item.

Though fundamentally, I'm actually opposed to penalizing players for character death by XP loss... Chiefly because the various classes do not, in my opinion, come even close to being exposed to an equal risk of death (unless the GM resorts to metagame solutions that might, if nothing else, nullify sound player tactics, and most likely feel contrived), but also because it's the player's XP, not the PCs. I just haven't been able to come up with a better solution that still makes PC death something to be feared, as opposed to just a brief inconvenience.

 

[wjptcs]

Posted by mmu1

A new player bringing in a new character: Start at the same level as the lowest-level PC in the party, with just enough XP to be that level. I don't like punishing people for joining the game at a later date, but I don't think there's any logical reason why they'd have a character with more XP than anyone who did play longer than they did. (which is what you end up with when people bring in new players at average party level, or some such) Wealth as per the DMG, with no more than 1/2 of it to be spent on any single item.

I agree with bringing a NEW player into the gaming group, and starting him out in this way.


If I am running a group and a player dies with no way back, than they will finish what they can without him and then start looking for a way to bring them back. I won't run an adventure that does not have a way for the party to bring back a dead character if that character is a critical part of the game.