D&D General On PC Death

[not-so-newguy]

At my worst? Let out an expletive and flip the dice the bird. Then I get over it in less than 5 minutes and roll up a new character. Funny thing is that if I get this upset, then I usually really liked the PC/campaign. Conversely, if I am not invested in the PC/campaign, then not much of a response.

 

[billd91]

Assuming a character cannot be raised and is permanently dead, we put dead character sheets up on the Wall of the Dead. And then a new character is made. At one point, the Wall of the Dead had quite a few PCs on it - particularly after the dynamite incident in the Mountain of Black Winds in Kenya Colony (Call of Cthulhu - Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign).

 

[Gorg]

You missed: "Throw cursed dice across the room. Prolific profanities. Vow never to use those crap dice again. Then, go pick them up to roll up next/replacement character." I click that one.

Truth!!!

I do have a D20 which I'll never use for any important roll again, due to it's propensity for rolling very, very low. I don't believe I've ever made a successful attack roll using that die...

And, yes: EFF THIS!!! followed by that die being hurled across the room HAS happened.

My buddy had a black D20 that we called the Die of DOOM! whenever he DM'd- because it was constantly rolling 20s on attack rolls against us. That same die would regularly roll 1s 2s 3s and 4s if anyone else used it. Sadistic bast#$d thought that was quite funny...

 

[FireLance]

I restart from my last save point, of course. Seriously, it's like you guys are playing D&D like it's some kind of arcade game instead of a CRPG.

 

[Charlaquin]

One thing I see pretty commonly is players who do not want the chance of essentially random character death. They want it to MEAN something, either in the context of their personal character story, or the larger campaign story. And I get that because a lot of people view TTRPG play as a form of narrative. I don't actually view it that way very often, especially as a player, and I am more interested in seeing what emerges out of play. So unless I feel like something was abjectly unfair, when I lose a PC as a player I find it interesting and then I move on. As a GM, I try not to hinge the campaign on the PCs all surviving...

I used to feel this way about it. Pretty much from when I started playing up until I started DMing more seriously. I did carry that way of thinking over to the first few games I tried to run as a DM, but it was one of many things I found just weren’t working. Now of course I’m very much in the emergent story camp, but it took some unlearning to get there.

 

[Reynard]

I used to feel this way about it. Pretty much from when I started playing up until I started DMing more seriously. I did carry that way of thinking over to the first few games I tried to run as a DM, but it was o e of many things I found just weren’t working. Now of course I’m very much in the emergent story camp, but it took some unlearning to get there.

I wonder what percentage of players new to the game with 5E view story as an emergent rather than explicit aspect of play. With 5E being largely driven by campaign length adventures thus far wonder if it is notably different than with those who started with a more episodic standard. For that matter, I wonder how many players that came to the game 5E use adventures versus home brew, and whether they tend toward episodic or serial play.

I'd ask on reddit but I am afraid to create an account there for fear of meme and Russian bots...

 

[DEFCON 1]

Now that I'm playing my first actual campaign in a long time (having DM'd or just did occasional one-shots over the past many years)... I've actually notice something very interesting. My PC is a bard and the only character in the party with any healing, so I've felt like it's a great deal my responsibility to keep my compatriots from dying. Which is good... it keeps me invested in what's happening when we have to get into fights. And I sacrifice my own safety to help them, because they're doing the heavy lifting in the combats.

But as I think on this... I realize that when I was DMing, many of my players weren't this way... and had very much an "every PC for themselves" way of thinking, even if it was unspoken. So many times I'd see someone in the party drop to 0 HP and need to start making death saves while the fight was going on around them... and the other players oftentimes would do NOTHING to help that individual. Either they were too into doing their own fighting that they didn't want to use their action to stabilize a downed ally, or they were so afraid of their own PC getting hurt that they refused to wade into the combat where the downed PC was and possibly get hit with OAs or get surrounded themselves. Which now that I think back on it is kind of astounding. And just how afraid some players can be about their character dying. Better to keep their PC safe than to help a dying friend.

Which means that as far as the poll is concerned... as a player were my character to die... I don't think my first instinct would be to get mad at the DM... it'd be to get mad at my fellow players from not actually doing much of of anything to keep me alive. Now obviously if I was killed having gone off by myself to do something and I was taken by surprise by an enemy or a trap or something and no one had a chance to get to me in time, then that's fine... my action-- my responsibility. But if I was like a tank for the group-- wading into combat to take all the hits for everyone else-- and then my fellow players didn't even bother to help me if/when I went down from taking all those hits for them... that's not on the DM, that's be on them. And they're the ones for whom any wrath should be directed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Voted savage beatings.

Just like in writing, character death is always the least interesting option and not punishing it would set a bad prescient.

 

[Adamant]

Joke answer: We finally have a vote for writing "the second" after the character's name.

Real answer: While I wouldn't actually do what the poll says exactly, I do reuse character concepts and backstories I liked. If I lost a character in a long running campaign, I would probably take one of my favorite AL characters and quickly adapt the backstory to the campaign world. I might make a few mechanical changes if there are homebrew rules as well.

 

[Ath-kethin]

New character comes along, happens across old character's stuff/mission, immediately takes up both. Possibly still in the middle of the battle that killed the other PC.

Isn't that the way it always goes?