Weak Deaths

[Doctor DM]

Myself and a few other DMs I've played with have a sort of unwritten rule against "weak" or "stupid" PC deaths. Basically if you have a great character doing all these great things, fighting tons of villains and just being generally heroic and awesome, you don't let them die because of something trivial.

For example, falling to their death during a pretty standard climb, or drowning in a fairly casual situation. I'll find a way to make them survive.

Personally, I think it's dumb for a high level character that has been played forever and has a ton of history and stuff, should die because they roll poorly on a couple skill checks. Know what I mean?

So does anyone else do this? Have you ever witnessed a weak death?

 

[Argyle King]

I think a lot of people play that way. For me, I generally prefer to let the dice fall where they may; especially if the 'stupid death' was something I feel the player asked for... let's just say there's one player in my group who tends to make what I feel are questionable choices even when I have tried to cut him a break.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've had my share of weak deaths- mostly hilarious. Because of that, I never fudge to save PCs from those kinds of fates.

On the rare occasions I do fudge rolls, it is for the good of the campaign in general.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I prefer for PC deaths to be heroic. And I will fudge a bit if dice are going badly against them in some random fight. But if the PC(s) are being monumentally stupid OR if it's a big climatic fight against a major foe then I don't interfere.

Of course that second "but" doesn't fall under the category of "weak deaths."

What I will sometimes do to avoid weak deaths is to penalise them in some other way: capture, take magic items, separate them from the party and let them flounder around in the dark. That sort of thing.

In fact what I am doing at the moment with a PC who should have died ignominiously in an alley is have him rescued by the well meaning daughter of a local noble. The noble needs a champion to help fight his evil rival who has just gotten some extra muscle. The other muscle is of course the other PCs. Oh the fun I shall have.

 

[Jhaelen]

Dunno. One of my favorite Runequest characters died because he was kicked by a horse. It made for a good story and is well-remembered _because_ it wasn't a heroic death.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

I agree on part of the 'no stupid deaths', as for most people that invest so much time, energy & emotion in their PC's, the loss of it should at least have a memory of 'it sucked, but it was also sorta cool'.

That said, I do think that failure or bad luck should mean something, there should still be a kind of thrill and uncertainty.

But instead of PC's dying or TPK, there could be alternatives.. like say, if a character would 'drown', instead of the char being dead, they need to spend time looking for them.. falling of a cliff means that they need to find a healer and heal up the broken bones.. meaning the BBEG has also has more time to put his plans forward or something.
TPK in combat could mean being captured instead.

I feel that failure should be something the players are invested to avoid, but should lead to it's own interesting plot lines and sessions instead of just frustration.

 

[Nagol]

Part of the joy of D&D for me is letting the dice fall where they may. I've had a lot of 'weak deaths' as a player and certainly inflicted many as a DM.

If I want a game protected from 'weak deaths', I pick a game system where they are extremely rare or disallowed altogether.

 

[steeldragons]

I'm sort of a combination, I guess. Comfortably straddling the fence, as it were. I agree with Doctor DM and Johnny3D3D and DrunkonDuty.

I do want my PCs to, if they die, die for a reason/have a heroic scene that lives on in game infamy.

Dying for a missed check of this or that does seem rather pointless (not counting, say, checking locks for explodey/poisony/death by horror traps. hehehe. ).

So I will/do, as DrunkonDuty suggests, "make it work" somehow. This is, of course, contingent on it being a character that the player obviously likes and generally plays well and puts time into/has put time into. "Bad luck" is expected and included for anyone on occasion, but I'm not going to have you die from a "slip"...especially mid-to-high level characters that the players have had for a while/long time. You ARE gonna take damage on the fall...probably lots. Maybe lose or break an item or two on the way down or the landing. But I'll try not to/won't necessarily kill you.

That said, I am also of the camp that Johnny3D3D points out, if the characters are being/doing something STUPID, on purpose, that they have the means and/or clues to avoid, then I might be less forgiving...especially characters with a reasonable intelligence.

I am, also, of the camp that doesn't fudge rolls for the players. Specifically, I don't fudge combat rolls (hits, saves, 99% of the time damage also though I do recall "adjusting" damage amounts in climactic battles to keep players in the game/big scene for as long as possible. But we're not talking about "the climactic/big scene" here).

If the characters (players) are too stubborn or too stupid to say "RUN AWAY" when a combat is not going their way (overwhelming odds, bad decisions/tactics, just plain lousy dice luck, whatever), then yeah, sorry, it's gonna be a TPK by that single giant centipede at the first chamber.

So....what was the question? Ah! Yes, heroic deaths good, "weak deaths" avoided if possible.

Have fun and happy dying.
--Steel Dragons

 

[steenan]

I don't like "weak deaths". I also strongly dislike any kind of fudging and I want the risk to be present. I've found a few ways of satisfying all these criteria - I generally play games that fall into one of the following types:

1. Games where combat is rare and when it happens it's really serious. Unknown Armies are the best example here (with the combat chapter that begins by describing how to avoid a fight), but most "modern occult" games (CoC, WoD etc.) fit too.

2. Games that explicitly don't have "dice inflicted" death or have some kind of a death flag that's controlled by players. Wolsung (a great polish steam-fantasy game) works this way; I also run Exalted with this kind of system.

3. Games where death is much less probable that incapacitation and most opponents are intelligent. It is possible to randomly die in such a game, but it's very rare, and defeats generally result in capture, lost equipment, delays and similar complications. That's the best approach for fantasy games focused on exploration.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Myself and a few other DMs I've played with have a sort of unwritten rule against "weak" or "stupid" PC deaths. Basically if you have a great character doing all these great things, fighting tons of villains and just being generally heroic and awesome, you don't let them die because of something trivial.

For example, falling to their death during a pretty standard climb, or drowning in a fairly casual situation. I'll find a way to make them survive.

Personally, I think it's dumb for a high level character that has been played forever and has a ton of history and stuff, should die because they roll poorly on a couple skill checks. Know what I mean?

So does anyone else do this? Have you ever witnessed a weak death?

For me, I don't fudge - but do play 4e. Characters go down hard. A trip and fall won't break their necks.