Weak Deaths

[Zelda Themelin]

I don't like "weak deaths", stupid on the other hand, let the one who begs it get it.

When I do like "weak deaths" or dramatic, is when I don't like game, or my character and want out, from either of them. Character death is good way to "fade out".


I've witnessed many "bad dice" deaths. Very common when we played old warhammer rpg, and D&D basic. They kinda suck, but then again, it is also charm of those systems. For plot-heavy games characters dying gets annoying.

I play currenly in few different games. One has made all death impossible (ggghrrr), one is no fudge game, and one has rule you can only die in certain relevant plot points permanently. Other kinda loss occurs in other situations.

 

[Dausuul]

I try to plan ahead. If I'm designing a scenario that includes a 200-foot cliff, and expect the PCs to climb said cliff, and make the DC high enough that there is a risk of falling--I keep in mind that this is a potentially lethal situation. If I don't like the idea of a PC dying this way, I'll adjust the situation.

That said, sometimes there's a 200-foot cliff and no reason why the PCs need to climb it but they take it into their heads to do so anyway. In that case, if someone falls, I'm pretty lenient about attempts to stop the character from dying; in general, anybody who thinks up a way to save the falling PC gets one die roll to do so. With six characters in the party, that's up to six chances to avert death. One of them usually works out.

But it does happen once in a while that not everyone can think of a way to help, or the dice are just evil that day. When push comes to shove, I think it's important to be willing to say, "Sorry, your character is dead."

 

[The Shaman]

I'm playing a game. If the dice come up, "Go to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.00," then that's what happens.

 

[Celebrim]

The problem with protecting a player from 'weak deaths' is that it puts someone at the table in the position of deciding when the character should die.

If it's the DM that decides when its a good death, then the whole game just turned into DM fiat and you might as well dispense with all the dice rolling because its illusionism.

If it's the Player that gets to decide to die only when he wants to, then the game has turned into storytelling in rounds, which while fun, renders all that dice throwing you are doing still mere illusionism.

It's possible to have games that work this way, but the mechanics must necessarily deal in the real coin of the game - narrative control - and not in simulationism of any sort because you've rendered that pointless.

For myself, my 'comprimise' on this is to make bad luck on a single roll unlikely to kill a character. Essentially, characters get a stock of 'Destiny Points' which can be used in various ways to mitigate bad luck - they can turn a critical hit they recieve into a normal one, they can give them a reroll on a failed saving throw or attack, they can add a bonus die to any roll, as well as a variaty of other things. A character is rather unlikely to die suddenly unless they deplete their 'Destiny Points'.

Not being able to die however changes the game you are playing dramaticly and D&D loses alot if it isn't an ever present possibility. D&D was invented by war gamers, and they had foremost in their mind the idea that the game could and should be played 'skillfully'. They literally thought that you shouldn't be 'allowed' by the DM to 'level up' until you'd proven your skill and worthiness to do so. Leveling up was a reward. If you can't die, then there is IMO also no value to 'leveling up'. If you remove the 'dumb death' from the game, you are now playing the sort of game where level advancement is not a needed part of the game. If you remove the 'dumb death' but not the level advancement, what you are doing is pretending you are earning rewards for skillful play. And that to me, smacks of 'ego gaming' rather than a commitment to story and characterization.

 

[Troll Slayer]

Why is it that in RPGs you're either dead or alive? I rarely see a character "dying" unless it's some story arc that takes long enough for the party to find an antidote or some other plot item. I'm of the mind that if the dice say you're dead, then you're dead. How you go out is completely up to the GM and player though.

So a character gets kicked in the chest by a horse, he's suffering traumatic internal injuries and the party has no magic strong enough to prevent his death. We give him something for the pain and let him go out fighting. That way the dice get their death, and the player gets his last stand.

So a character gets trapped in a burning building, they drag him out with severe burns. In the night assassins come to finish the job. He struggles to his feat, grabs his weapons, and makes a final stand to give the party time to get away.

Just because the dice say a PC is going to die, doesn't mean that death has to come right this very minute. Personally I like when PC death is a very possible outcome, and I loathe fudging dice for any reason. I don't however see a problem with fudging the results of a death to make them more entertaining if that's possible.

Some players will still want cheap deaths, and some deaths don't leave a lot of room for a last stand, but I think we should be open to the idea that death isn't always instantaneous.

 

[Argyle King]

To add to my previous statement...


I'm not an a-hole; there have been times when I've tried to cut the PCs a break. It does not happen very often, but usually it happens when something I designed (when I played D&D*) with the intent of being easy turns out to be overly hard in practice. However, I don't like to fudge dice, so I usually try to prevent the issue ahead of time or giving the PCs an alternate option. Though, sometimes, the PCs seem to insist upon doing something no matter how obvious I make it that they shouldn't. Once we get to the actual rolling of the dice, I tend to let them fall.

I'll also say that -to some extent- it depends upon what system** I am playing. One of the reasons I like to let dice fall where they may is because I don't like to GM with the assumption that the PCs should be able to kill (hack & slash) through everything. I like the idea that PCs are a cut above the average joe, but I don't feel that means there won't be times when they run into something or someone who can match or better them. It is my opinion (and my experience) that this encourages PCs to give some thought to their decisions and consider options from the character's viewpoint rather than playing by the mantra of "well, we're PCs, so..." or "the GM wouldn't put it here if we couldn't kill it..." or "having my character swim in feces is no big deal; the GM won't let me die of disease***"

I highly agree with what has been said about a TPK not needing to be death. Not every monster is necessarily out to kill the PCs. More intelligent villains might have other plans for them; yet still, a more ego driven villain may wish to provide the cliche evil monologue about his plans before finishing them off. To take this a step further, I will even say that death need not be the end. In the most recent D&D campaign I've GMed, the PCs were dead and had to play through the Raven Queen's realm. Eventually, they earned their way back to the land of the living.


* With not intention of starting debates or arguments, it is my view that the current version of D&D has certain assumptions about what PCs should be doing, and many players (even if it's subconciously) are aware of this; playing accordingly. Likewise, I feel it -to some extent- implies that you should craft encounters which fall in line with those ideals. PCs are supposed to win and level up so they can do that again at the next level. This statement in no way means to imply that you cannot go against the grain; I've done so, but, generally speaking, this is how I see things.

** If I'm playing a game in which the system assumes that combat, social interaction, and other skills are all equally viable solutions to a problem, I don't worry so much about making sure every challenge is at the same physical level as the PCs. If the system is one which is more gritty, things such as disease and starvation don't necessarily fall into the category of 'weak deaths.' Such systems usually provide a way (whether through skills, items, or both) to avoid or recover from such things.

*** Yeah; this happened. I understand that different people find different things enjoyable. However... I dunno... you just had to be there I guess. It was just a little mentally draining having a character who insisted upon smearing feces upon himself at all times. Other players weren't happy either when -instead of helping fight the enemy during combat- the character tossed bags of feces at them (the PCs.) It got pretty out of hand; even after I attempted to sit down with the player away from the game and talk about it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I had a player kill his own PC by casting Seething Eyebane (costs Con damage to cast) when he didn't realize his hit points were low. We've been making fun of that one for years, but I just couldn't justify taking it back.

 

[luckless]

Characters should be hard to kill. Not impossible, but still hard.

Ways to make it harder to kill off a character can include things like incapacitating a character, and giving the rest of the party at least a few chances to save them and get them out.

A character should never be able to die from a single bad roll. A character should never be able to die from a lack of information on the player's part when it is right there in front of the character's face.

I was in a game awhile ago where a character, at nearly full health, botched on a check when the enemies opened an air lock. His character was 'knocked unconscious' and then got to do nothing for the rest of the encounter. My character went out to save him, rolled a few mid ranged rolls to find him, and in the end both characters died when the ship self destructed. We both had multiple force points and destiny points, and a ship flying in the area with a skilled pilot and crew,... Yet my character apparently couldn't spot a guy floating in the void.

I had my character "Keep searching til the last possible moment", and finally found the other character on a roll with time left on the count down. Yet we both died with no saves of any kind, and were described as inches away from safety.


Such GMing is a great way to merely annoy your players.


Examples of good GMing and player death:
One character is challenged to try drinking something. It is explained to him that if he isn't strong enough to take it, he will burst into flames, and come back a few days later as a mindless undead skeleton. (Like we were shown in the bottom of the bay before hand.) He was told it was a very hard fort save, and he took the drink.

Then he took another.

And another.

Surprise, he died. (This would have been an example of Bad GMing if not for all the very fair and clear warnings before hand.)



Knowingly entering a high level dragon's cave at low level,... Then poking the dragon to see if it would wake up. (The players being stupid enough to support the poking of said dragon being fair game for death, any who opposed it being given ample rolls to make it to safe passages or something.)



A character is knocked into a raging river by failing a Dex check, they then fail multiple swim checks, then fail a check to grab a branch. Finally another player in the party fails two checks to try and throw a rope at them. Character is then swept over the water fall.

You don't have to fudge the numbers, just don't let a character die to only one or two bad rolls.

 

[the Jester]

So a character gets kicked in the chest by a horse, he's suffering traumatic internal injuries and the party has no magic strong enough to prevent his death. We give him something for the pain and let him go out fighting. That way the dice get their death, and the player gets his last stand.

So a character gets trapped in a burning building, they drag him out with severe burns. In the night assassins come to finish the job. He struggles to his feat, grabs his weapons, and makes a final stand to give the party time to get away.

The problem with this is- if the pc survived that kick to the chest long enough to fight on, why won't the cleric's healing spells keep him alive?

Do you also give dead bad guys the chance to "fight on"?

You can handwave these issues, sure- but there is no in-game reason why a cleric can heal one dying pc and not another. The burning building guy? A few cure spells will fix up all that fire damage, right? Right???

Although I admire the intent here, my one experience with trying something like this immediately underlined the problems with it. I strongly suspect I'll never do it again.

 

[Sunseeker]

I've never really had this situation, though I've seen some stupid moves that ALMOST made a character have a weak death, such as the fighter in plate deciding that swimming with all his gear on was a good idea.

Otherwise, my gut feeling is to roll the dice. In the basest of ways, I avoid this because any time there's an event in which a "weak death" could happen, I tend to add some epic measure to it. Why are they climbing a wall? To get away from X thing chasing them. I'm not just going to have them scale a mountain for laughs.

I would probably be inclined to be favorable towards anyone over 10th level. Maybe give them an extra roll of some kind. Like, "you're falling, make a X check to see if you grab a ledge".

But if somebody is asking for it, ie: refuses help, using low scores, I will gladly let them die in as "weak" as way as can be imagined.