D&D General PC Death: How do You Handle It?

TaranTheWanderer · Jul 24, 2019

I’ll kill characters if it makes sense. I use the rule that a melee attack can render a character unconscious instead of dead so, if it makes sense to take prisoners, I will. Things like ghouls will just eat your brains.

In the last module I’ve run, I tpk’d the group twice. The first time they got captured. The second time, I brought out a pair of scrapbooking scissors for them to use on their character sheets.

Flamestrike · Jul 24, 2019

Usually by raging, throwing my dice across the room, and tearing my character sheet up before leaving the session, hurling abuse at the DM as I do so.

Rya.Reisender · Jul 24, 2019

Aebir-Toril said:
So, my question is this, how do you handle PCs dying? Do you prevent PCs from dying?

Definitely not. My guideline is "Try to kill the PCs, but never put them into any situation where they can't prevent their death."

In other words if my players do too many mistakes, their PCs might die, if they play perfectly, their PCs don't die.

, do you have them come back as ghosts?

No, unless there's something in the rules / scenario that would make that reasonable and my player voices the wish to continue as ghost.

Or does something else happen when PCs are on the brink of death?

Nope, they definitely die, but death does not need to be the end. I'll continue based on my player's reaction to his PCs death. If he's like "Oh well, wanted to try another class anyway", then I start working out a new character with him and find a good background story that makes joining in at the current situation reasonable. If he's like "Oh no, I really loved that PC.", then I discuss ways for resurrection with him. For example his faction might pay for the raise dead spell, putting him in debt to his faction. Or there may be a quest line that leads to an NPC that does it for a favour. Or the PCs may capture an enemy who knows the spell and trade his life for a use a the spell on their friend. Or they find a scroll with the spell. Many possibilities.

jasper · Jul 24, 2019

dnd4vr said:
....

However, while this thread has people talking about characters dying, do they stay dead? ....

I would be more interest to learn how many tables have had character die and NOT come back somehow. I know a player can decide, "Eh, just let them go, I have a new concept I want to bring in." but otherwise how often, honestly, do character stay dead?

In my previous homebrew (other editions), it depended on the type of death. Beheaded needs true resurrection, blasted to dust by a beholder needs true ress, fail your resurrection survival roll not coming back. A wish would bring anyone back. And it depended on the player. Bob could have a back up pc, or just roll one up while we playing. I would say about 40% stay dead for various reasons.

Blue · Jul 24, 2019

Doug McCrae said:
I get player consent before killing PCs. If they don't want to die then they don't. This was in Mutants & Masterminds. There were two PC deaths over the course of a 17 session or so campaign.

Not sure how I would play it in D&D as D&D has more of a 'you can be randomly killed by an orc' ethos. Depends what style I was going for.

EDIT: In the last rpg I played in, Tales from the Loop, PC death is impossible by RAW. It played pretty much the same as any other rpg (except that Mark, the most powergame-y player, give his PC a deathwish).

You bring up a good point - I was talking from the D&D-type viewpoint, but other genres have other expectations. Paranoia we kill characters left and right, it's expected by the players. Superheroes death is usually a martyr play to save lots of people and almost never a result of a combat. Call of Cthulhu is not if, it's when - the game is sort of a battle to see how long before you are killed or descend into madness. MADNESS! Comical games like Toon (sheesh, haven't run/played that in years) don't even have mechanics for death. Worst in Toon is sitting out for the rest of the current scene.

Yeah, how I handle death varies a lot by genre, and thanks for expanding the conversation to include that.

Blue · Jul 24, 2019

13th Age (a great d20) had an interesting sidebar from [MENTION=74672]Jonathan Tweet[/MENTION]. Basically part of the social contract with his group is that he wouldn't kill PCs with unnamed foes. That doesn't mean that a PCs who had been killed wasn't out for the count, just not dead. Of course, the unnamed tribesman who "killed" a PC could then be taking them to their named Shaman to be sacrificed to the Volcano God, but that's just a fun scene for the PCs to stop the sacrifice and rescue them. So "death" still had a repercussion, but it wasn't the end of that character's story.

For context, 13th Age has nothing like Revivify and the higher level options are hard and have limits on how often total they will work - they are not the get-out-of-jail-for-some-diamonds of 5e.

Jonathan Tweet · Jul 27, 2019

Blue said:
part of the social contract with his group is that he wouldn't kill PCs with unnamed foes

I believe that I stole this practice from John Wick's Seven Seas. Well worth stealing, to my mind.

Jonathan Tweet · Jul 27, 2019

My 3E campaign, called Elysombra, is the best loved campaign among my game group, which has met somewhat irregularly for 20 years. In that campaign, one theme was that the world that "God" created had been damaged to the core by "the Devil". As such, pointless death was always possible, and I didn't not fudge dice rolls. That really got the players' attention. The first permanent deaths where when the 12th-level party tried to walk into the Church of Hell through the front door, and everyone learned how dangerous nagas are when they throw fireballs. One character succumbed to fireballs, and the wizard was killed by a warded window after she rashly entered the church while flying invisibly. The party had to retreat without the bodies of the two fallen characters, and the enemies captured their hearts so they could not be raised. (I stole that idea from Peter Adkison, who knows his way around high-level D&D.)

In Over the Edge, characters can die only when lethal danger is telegraphed to the players ahead of time. The players know when their characters are risking their lives. If they are not in mortal danger, they can fail (and often do) but don't get killed.

Here are my notes about Elysombra. I'm especially proud of the reproductive cycle of dragons.

http://www.jonathantweet.com/jotelysombrahub.html

Harzel · Jul 28, 2019

Jonathan Tweet said:
Here are my notes about Elysombra. I'm especially proud of the reproductive cycle of dragons.

http://www.jonathantweet.com/jotelysombrahub.html

If you don't mind a question - what is the meaning of the circles attached to Basilisk and Medusa that have a line to "human"? "Mates with" perhaps? (Eww.)

Harzel · Jul 28, 2019

Fanaelialae said:
In my friend's campaign, resurrection type magic is hard to come by as well. It is a post apocalyptic setting, and one important element is building up surviving settlements. There are these magical talking birds in his game worlds that are capable of casting raise dead in exchange for gold (which they prize in a draconic sort of way). While normally reclusive and hard to find, if a town is rendered sufficiently safe, one of these birds may settle there. As such, it's a very significant perk for engaging with the settlement fortification aspect of his game.

There's something about this that I find unaccountably charming.

My compliments to your friend.

D&D General PC Death: How do You Handle It?

TaranTheWanderer

Legend

Flamestrike

Legend

Rya.Reisender

Explorer

jasper

Rotten DM

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

Jonathan Tweet

Adventurer

Jonathan Tweet

Adventurer

Harzel

Adventurer

Harzel

Adventurer

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