Body Counts?

[MerricB]

I've run over 200 sessions of 3E/3.5E in the past three and a bit years, and I've had over 50 PC deaths. About half of them were able to be raised. There have been two TPKs.

I do fudge things to allow PCs to survive if the game would benefit from it. Especially when I'm in the middle of a big module and a TPK would wreck my chances of finishing the game. Once we approach the end, though, all bets are off.

It's a balance between keeping the interest in the game because of the threat of death, and the threat of losing players because their PCs never surprise!

Cheers!

 

[Stormborn]

that's cool. and thanks for the explanation.

i seem to approach it just the opposite: if there is too much threat of death, i can't take the game seriously as a role-playing game and i probably won't enjoy it as much. as soon as that happens, it becomes nothing more than a board wargame to me and my character becomes nothing more than a set of stats.

it seems i can only really get into the roleplaying side if i know my character is relatively "safe." i know some may see that as a weakness, but it's simply my style of gaming.

I think d4 has expressed the feelings of my group nicely. It is difficult to "roleplay" if it is not realtively safe to do so. We have played wargames and minigames on occasion, and obviously death is a factor. But when someone has taken alot of time and effort to become invested in the character of the character the real possibility of death takes something away from it. That's as a DM. As a player I think I could enjoy a few sessions of a heavy combat game where my PC could die at any moment, but not as a campaign. For me, it would get old.

Having said that: I recently started running a swashbuckling campaign that is a little bit Skull n Bones and a little bit Freeport and a lot of homebrew. I have introduced the idea of "lives" to the Players, taken from SnB. I rolled a 1d4 for each of them. They all know that they can die, and that they can come back ("It missed me by that much!"), but they don't know how many times that can happen. In a world with no ressurection spells, that becomes important. Haven't used it yet, but we will see what Saturday brings.

To quote d4 again: "the great thing about our hobby is the endless diversity!" There are so many products and people and styles out there that if a group doesn't work,after trying to come to a mutually acceptable style of play, you can always find something else.

 

[Whitey]

High six to Grazzt there - Whitey's got a TPK shirt too.

I'd also agree that players should have that mortal fear for their characters. But more than seeing PCs eat it and maybe get raised or true res'd later, the party and the players should feel an empathy for slain or injured comrades. That's a way they can dig into the RP element as well - shed a tear for the bleeding rogue, not over the lowered HPs.

Depending on how the characters interact, they could go off looking for a friendly cleric, a scroll with suitable spells, or good ol' swordpoint vengeance. These are all RP elements, brought about by that mortal jeopardy.

Heroes overcome obstacles - by wits, brawn, or just by doing the right thing when it simply has to be done. They do this not necessarily because there's such danger, but because there's heroism to do - danger or no. In facing this, it defines how great a bunch of heroes the party is.

 

[the Jester]

I have to agree with those who like lethal games; that's my preference too. I typically run a very high-fatality game (though I keep missing the tpk mark... heh). In fact, last game four of the six characters in the party died! Then again, at epic levels death is just a speed bump.

A couple of people said that low-level deaths are rare for them. I find that interesting; my experience is that with a 1st-level character's likely AC and hp, death is one bad Climb check away. I think low-level pcs are at their most fragile.

I definitely relate to d4's position too- you don't need lots of tension to have a fun rpg. I simply find that I enjoy my gaming more with lots of death and blood, both as a pc and- especially- as a dm.

 

[Bodah]

There is probably only a handful of players that I've personally killed in game over the years (put them up against impossible odds, had an enemy target them specifically, execution.. etc)

That said.. my players have a habit of getting themselves killed by taking insane risks, or just doing insane things. I thought this would change as they became more experienced. However I guess some players always retain that new risk taking attitude. 3 players in my current group die quite often.. in the course of this two year long campaign we've been playing those 3 have died 4-5 times each. The other half of the party is still on their original characters. Nearly all of those deaths have been from those 3 players executing poorly thought out plans, taking crazy risks, or getting involved in generally bad stuff. Maybe 1-2 of those have been from bad rolls etc. Its interesting to watch the complete opposites we have in the group though. The cautious roleplayers who retain their characters all of the campaign... and the crazy risk takers who seem to be rolling up a new character every other session.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I guess the reason my group likes having the threat of death hanging over our characters heads is just the sense of challange. If we already know we're going to win and survive, why bother rolling the dice? For the "randomness" of combat to mean anything, you have to have a chance of failure.

This atmosphere has led to a rather paranoid group of players. They avoid combats whenever they can, are ready to run away if things turn sour, and take the city guards very seriously. They focus on information gathering and only enter combat if they are reasonably certain the odds are in their favor. I think this kind of behavior adds to the level of immersiveness of the game - they're role playing what real people with those abilities and personalities would actually do in those circumstances. How can we role play a characer whose thought processes don't make sense? How can our characters make sense if their situation/environment don't make sense? How do our characters fit into the world in any sort of plausible way?

The constant threat of death has caused us to really get into role-playing our character's concerns and motivations. Combat is something entered into reluctantly, when all other avenues (generally role-playing, diplomacy, stealth, outright avoidance) have failed. We'll spend sessions without a fight, even avoiding ones the DM tossed in because he was worried we were getting bored, all for legitimate, in-character reasons.

So, anyway, for my group at least, death-fear isn't something bred out of boardgame/wargame mentality, but is something that adds exciting layers to role-playing and character-NPC interaction.

 

[Belbarrus]

I run a "role-playing" campaign, where roleplaying is encouraged and rewarded and a "roll-playing" campaign, where the players are free to just play how they want and just go nuts. I am using the S&S module, Rappan Athuk and warned the players ahead of time that some sections could get really nasty and it is possible that a fallen PC can be non-recoverable, so players are supposed to bring a backup character to every game

But this is known ahead of time, so when a PC does fall, there are no grumblings as players dont really get attached to their characters. So far, they have covered about 7 of the 21 or so levels of the dungeon (approximately 15 sessions). These are the stats so far:

Player A: Fighter died in the first combat, about 1 hour into the game. Second character is a Monk, who as survived so far.
Player B: Cleric died the first session, came back as a Fighter. Lasted a few sessions, then died, came back as a Druid. Petrified, restored, but created a Barbarian to play.
Player C: Fighter died in the first session, came back as a Paladin, lasted a few sessions and died in the same fight as Player B's Fighter. Came back as evil, undead animated Cleric. Still alive.
Player D: Rogue. Survived most of what killed the first three PCs. Died twiced and raised. Eventually was possessed and killed, body was considered non-recoverable. Came back with a Cleric. Still alive.
Player E: Started with a "battle cleric". Died trying to retrieve the body of Player D's Rogue. Body considered non-recoverable. Came back with a Barbarian. Died an hour later. Body non-recoverable. Came back with a Barbarian/Rogue. Still alive.
Player F: Dwarven Wizard. No deaths. Runs/Dim doors/teleports/goes invisible at the slightest sign of trouble

In my "roleplaying" games, characters only die by extreme situations, bad rolls or stupidity. I do my best to make sure they are challenged but not overwhelmed.

B

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

there has to be the risk of dieing or i'm gonna f with the campaign to force the issue.

i hate DMs who won't kill characters.

I feel the same way, but one of the DM's I play with seems to feel that PC's shouldn't suffer a irrevocable death because they're usually involved in a complex plot and killing the character and brigning in a new one kind of screws up the flow of things...

AR

 

[Crazy Monkey]

I have had a total of 4 player deaths in 5 sessions in my current campaign. The sessions were, long, about 12 hours each.

2 Characters died at the end of the Sunless Citadel. (Session 2)
1 Character died by falling in the forge of fury. (Session 3)
1 Character died to a trap in the forge of fury. (Session 5)

3 of the deaths are all of the same players. He just been having horrible luck, rolling 1's, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think this death toll is pretty high, I've never played in a game where so many died so quickly.

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Game I play in = reasonable body count. After one year of play, I'm on second character (first died one month in, current one still going strong); two players are on third character; the party b**** is on his fifth character.

But he keeps playing monks, then going after fighters instead of enemy spellcasters. *sigh*

So less than one death per month.

I've played in games with low body count. It can be fun, if the roleplaying aspects are interesting enough, but it's fun in a sort of non-adrenalized way. Without adrenaline, though, players and GM have to be better at deeper narrative, characterization, etc., to carry the day.

But for me, when I rattle my prize 1d20 and break into a cold sweat... good game.