Death by Infelicitas - Is it acceptable?

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant.

If a player is good, and losing his character would cause him to lose interest in the game, that's when you should help him out. Especially if it's because of a bad die roll or unfortunate luck.

I wasn't trying to imply that you leave a character alive just to keep someone around, especially someone likely to use that leverage against you. I realize it didn't come across that way in my initial post. Sorry for the miscommunication.

Sorry, this just sounds like if someone had a player or players like that in the game that they are very immature. As I've stated in my previous post (and I know that this is only my opinion) there shouldn't be any kind of expectation in D&D/Pathfinder/other TTRPG's that their PC's are immortal and will never die.

If I had a player like that in my group who cried and left because their character died, I'd say good riddance and find a more mature person to join the group. I understand that people can get attached to their characters and become sad/upset when they die because of the time invested in them, but in these fantasy settings there are numerous ways to bring them back to life w/o having the GM "hand-wave" it for them to keep their interest in the game.

 

[S'mon]

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant.

If a player is good, and losing his character would cause him to lose interest in the game, that's when you should help him out. Especially if it's because of a bad die roll or unfortunate luck.

I wasn't trying to imply that you leave a character alive just to keep someone around, especially someone likely to use that leverage against you. I realize it didn't come across that way in my initial post. Sorry for the miscommunication.

I see - it's an interesting area - I've been on the receiving end, as the player who lost interest after my PC was killed by a random (albeit very big) orc. The GM realised too late it would have been better not to kill my PC; OTOH she had already killed everyone else's PC and rightly didn't want to play favourites, so she brought in a Fate Points system - but non-retroactive and too late. Better for that very character-centric Midnight campaign to have had the FPs in it right from the start. Second best I guess would have been behind the screen fudging to keep some of the coolest PCs alive, without us knowing about it. I feel that fudging is unfair on the players who don't benefit, though, and never do it myself.

 

[stevelabny]

I think "Death due to one bad die roll" is a fallacy.

I'm aware that some (mostly older edition) adventures have "And then the ceiling collapses on you make a save or die" where there are no clues that there might be a trap but in general...

You decided to adventure in a dangerous area that you expect to have enemies. You failed your spot/listen/search/awareness/sense motive/whatever check to understand the threat. And then something either rolled to hit you and rolled one-shot damage or you failed a saving throw.

If a medusa surprises you, you already failed checks before you failed your save. If a medusa doesn't surprise you, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

 

[Lanefan]

Bad luck is part of the game.

So is good luck. And you really can't have one without the other.

But the best part of this thread lay in noticing that the thread below it on the screen when I got here was the "2012 PC body count" list. Priceless!

Lanefan

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I had a character die after making only a single roll... for his entire adventuring career.

It was a first level wizard for whom I rolled poorly on Initiative, and who was subsequently killed by a charging orc.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've had a high level fighter die due to a roll of '1' on a save or die vs poison. I played that character for five or six years before he perished.

I am okay with death by poor dice rolls.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think "Death due to one bad die roll" is a fallacy.

It happens:

My personal Elpenors
I rolled a 2 for a 1/2Orc Ranger to avoid going over a cliff side. I had a Player's Option Cleric- dubbed "Superman" by another player who didn't like the way I built him compared to HIS cleric- get one shotted in his first combat.

<snip>

I had a MechWarrior PC die in his first combat- his mech was head-shotted upon landing in the drop zone.

The first time I encountered the Deck of Many Things, my PC drew the Void card.

Unless you count the damage rolls as a second roll, all of those attack-related deaths resulted from single rolls.

And the drawing of the Void was not part of a pattern- it was literally thë first encounter I had with he deck as a player.

 

[ComradeGnull]

I think "Death due to one bad die roll" is a fallacy.

I'm aware that some (mostly older edition) adventures have "And then the ceiling collapses on you make a save or die" where there are no clues that there might be a trap but in general...

You decided to adventure in a dangerous area that you expect to have enemies. You failed your spot/listen/search/awareness/sense motive/whatever check to understand the threat. And then something either rolled to hit you and rolled one-shot damage or you failed a saving throw.

If a medusa surprises you, you already failed checks before you failed your save. If a medusa doesn't surprise you, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Outside of combat, I tend to abide by a "two strikes" rule- you always have two opportunities to avoid a fatal effect. So you might get an opportunity to make a skill/attribute check + a save if that fails. Or you can use equipment or clever play to avoid a hazard entirely, and then either make a save or survive some damage if you don't get the hint. For most cases, this means that it isn't just a die roll that determines your fate- it's at least the player's choices plus a die roll, or a whole chain of events. I try to avoid stuff like "if you walk into the normal-looking room, you must save or die".

Combat, on the other hand, is open season. I played and GM'ed a lot of WFRP, so I have no problems with combat abruptly leaving a PC sans important limbs or organs, or dying to seemingly weak opponents.

 

[Janx]

I think these discussions always trip over a few assumptions.

Like whether the 1st level PCs had a chance to detect the medusa on the other side of the door before they opened it.

Or whether the encounters are generally level appropriate for the PCs


Personally, I design adventure material based on what the players said they want to do. So when the 5th level party says they want to "find the man who shot my pa(w)" then the bad guys they find will vary in challenge but be "beatable" by a 5th level party. Though the last guy may be very tough.

I feel that generally, if my encounters were 'beatable" and the party doesn't go off the reservation to kill a 20th level NPC for no good reason, then what happens happens. I probably won't get a TPK, or lose a PC. I've never had a TPK, for instance. But from there, we've lost a PC in a session occasionally. That seems about right to me.

I figure that I've already done all the safety padding during the design stage. Assuming I did my job right, what happens after that is player wits and chance.

So what happens when a PC dies? There's spells for that. Raise Dead, ressurection seems to cover that. Failing that, make a new PC at -2 levels always seemed to work. I never had so many deaths that a death spiral ever happened.

I plan my adventure material for 4-6 hours. So by the next session, the danger level has been calculated on the new party level composition.

 

[Aaron L]

I accept death by infelicity without reservation, and have been stung by it many times. Sometimes, your PC is just NOT the hero of the saga. Sometimes, your PC is Elpenor.

Most famously, I had a 2Ed Dwarf die from failing a series of rolls that- according to my mathematician buddies- equalled the odds of winning the Texas lottery.

But I've also had other brushes with the ass end of Fortune. I rolled a 2 for a 1/2Orc Ranger to avoid going over a cliff side. I had a Player's Option Cleric- dubbed "Superman" by another player who didn't like the way I built him compared to HIS cleric- get one shotted in his first combat.

I'm one of those rare people who had a PC die during character creation in Traveller.

I had a MechWarrior PC die in his first combat- his mech was head-shotted upon landing in the drop zone.

The first time I encountered the Deck of Many Things, my PC drew the Void card.

And in all of those situations, after a moment of "Rackafratz!"-ing, I either started to make a new PC, grabbed a backup PC I had already prepared, or ask the GM if I could help him run NPC for the rest of the evening.









HOLY CRAP! I just realized I'm a black guy with a bunch of red shirts in my wardrobe! I really AM just here to show the seriousness of the situation!

Man, that sounds like MY luck! I had a 10th Level Ranger in First Edition get killed fighting 20 orcs! I needed a 5 to hit them and I

 

[S'mon]

Personally, I design adventure material based on what the players said they want to do. So when the 5th level party says they want to "find the man who shot my pa(w)" then the bad guys they find will vary in challenge but be "beatable" by a 5th level party. Though the last guy may be very tough.

I used to be quite hostile to the 'Elder Scrolls IV' approach, but actually running 4e I've learnt that in that system it seems best to treat the game as a story and scale threat to characters, within reason, the way you say. In other games/D&D variants (AD&D, PF, LL) I don't really do that, or only minimally, in the 'there are newbie-survivable areas, and tougher areas' sense. Even in 4e I have established areas that are 'above the pay grade' of the PCs, but they have no great reason to go there and get killed, as you say - or if they do have reason, at least they can find out it's a deadly area and I'd often give them a chance: assaulting the Zhentarim fortress of Darkhold at 9th level would be unwise, but you migh be able to sneak in, or negotiate.