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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8233880" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I'd still be pretty leery of permanent death under those circumstances. Yes, there's the understanding that the absent player is trusting the judgment of the acting player. But I've had absences or family emergencies during games before. I'd be pretty mad if I went to go catch my escaped dog and said &quot;you can take my actions for me Carol, don't hold up the combat for this&quot; and then came back to &quot;alright, roll up a new character,&quot; which is very nearly what happened here.I might--MIGHT--see it if it were explicitly laid out that character deaths Just Happen, and it were known that combats can be randomly lethal, and part of the explicit &quot;if you want to get XP while absent&quot; arrangement were that perma-deaths happen with no special treatment. But even then, it's not hard to create a minor safety net without breaking the fiction.But I'm also the kind of person who hates killing characters outright unless I have a plan for how to leverage that death or restore the character to life (with suitable costs and consequences for having died, naturally). Death itself is a boring consequence. What death does to the character, their buddies and family/friends/allies, and how much it hurts their goals/hopes or helps their enemies/fears, THAT is interesting. How the others deal with it is also interesting. The death itself is just an inciting incident, and one likely to bore at least one participant (the dead PC's player) for at least a portion of time. I can do so much more than just bore them by making it more than just &quot;kay, you died, try again?&quot; A journey through the underworld. A solo vision. A powerful figure snatches away their soul just before death. An ally's secret power is revealed. Etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8233880, member: 6790260"] I'd still be pretty leery of permanent death under those circumstances. Yes, there's the understanding that the absent player is trusting the judgment of the acting player. But I've had absences or family emergencies during games before. I'd be pretty mad if I went to go catch my escaped dog and said "you can take my actions for me Carol, don't hold up the combat for this" and then came back to "alright, roll up a new character," which is very nearly what happened here. I might--MIGHT--see it if it were explicitly laid out that character deaths Just Happen, and it were known that combats can be randomly lethal, and part of the explicit "if you want to get XP while absent" arrangement were that perma-deaths happen with no special treatment. But even then, it's not hard to create a minor safety net without breaking the fiction. But I'm also the kind of person who hates killing characters outright unless I have a plan for how to leverage that death or restore the character to life (with suitable costs and consequences for having died, naturally). Death itself is a boring consequence. What death does to the character, their buddies and family/friends/allies, and how much it hurts their goals/hopes or helps their enemies/fears, THAT is interesting. How the others deal with it is also interesting. The death itself is just an inciting incident, and one likely to bore at least one participant (the dead PC's player) for at least a portion of time. I can do so much more than just bore them by making it more than just "kay, you died, try again?" A journey through the underworld. A solo vision. A powerful figure snatches away their soul just before death. An ally's secret power is revealed. Etc. [/QUOTE]

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