Should I let my character be instantly killed?

[LH Almeida]

If by the rules he should be dead, you could have him instead be at death's door, and then introduce a brief side adventure for the other players to heal him via some strange herb, mystical potion, or one time spell that is locked within some nearby ruins. Or some such...

I actually like your idea. This is amazing. If I don't knock his XP, I'll do it.

 

[GMMichael]

it's just the beginning of the final part of the adventure. He suffered 56,points, having only 39. I didn't want him to be killed right now

Who ever said that exploring an island with T-rexes would be safe? Jeff Goldblum? Anyway, you're the GM. If you want to keep your PCs alive, then they don't -encounter- the monster. They just hear/see one in the distance.

If you don't let the character die, then you're telling the players that their actions don't matter because you won't let them fail.

Interesting point here. A game has failure conditions. Simple entertainment does not. The GM creates excitement by creating risky situations. Lose the risk, lose the excitement.

I like Wicht's idea. Keep the risk - make the character suffer. But don't punish the player. Give him something else to do while his primary character is Mostly Dead.

 

[Razjah]

I like Wicht's idea. Keep the risk - make the character suffer. But don't punish the player. Give him something else to do while his primary character is Mostly Dead.

I'm not familiar with the system being used but if the PC is out of commission while the rest of the party go on a side quest to save him, you can let the player run some monsters or maybe the BBEG in a confrontation. If the game allows rewards like bennies, fate points, or something else, you can reward the player for running the enemies well.

 

[LH Almeida]

I liked his idea and used it.

This specific island is a part of the Goddess of Life's Realm. Animals are big because of this. Everybody recovers HP twice as fast and healing spells have their power doubled. Because of that, I said that his body is unable to die, but his soul departed it. As it's a PbF, I can run two settings at the same time.



Thus, the party was supposed already to get some water from the deepest fountain in the island, to save a girl from a curse and bring her back to life.



Now, the party has to get two vials of that water, one for the girl, one for the rogue. But it can be fruitless if only they succeed.



Because at the same time, the rogue is lost in one of the other gods' realm, and he has to find his way out.



If they can get the water and he can find his way out, then he'll be back to life. If only one of these things happens, then he's dead forever, and will have to create another character, one level lower than his old one was.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

If characters can't die, you are no longer playing a game, you are collaborating in story telling - which is fine if that's your goal. Otherwise, if it was my character, and you backpedaled on his death, I'd stop playing.

 

[LH Almeida]

If characters can't die, you are no longer playing a game, you are collaborating in story telling - which is fine if that's your goal. Otherwise, if it was my character, and you backpedaled on his death, I'd stop playing.

They can die. It's just that, in this case, I have a good excuse not to kill him and, at the same time, he and the group both have to find their way through everything to bring him back to life.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I'm mostly with JRRNeiklot, unless it's something like Toon, where you "die" then come back a few minutes later. That said, there are times when I allow a slight amount of wiggle room. In a game that never finished, at least so far as I know, my character and another were in a situation where we should have died by the dice, outnumbered. During the last session I was in, the other player and I agreed to give the rest of a party a chance to rescue us and if they don't our characters die.

On another note, I was interested in the 3E supplement Ghostwalk, and I never bought it.