Character Death from DM perspective

[Ace32]

Ok, in the game I DM in, we've had 2 characters (3 if you count the mage dying twice) die in the last month, mainly due to their own stupidity & poor planning (party cleric killed one of them). Anyways, as I head into games, I keep seeing stupid actions made by parties, solely based on the fact that they can always get their character res'd at some later point in the game. How do I get them to see the world as .. threatening? I'd just go and put some house rules on the number of times you can be res'd, but that justs seems cheap.. anybody have any ideas on this?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Making Death Fearful

There are a few ways to accomplish this:

1 -- Character Background. Never underestimate the power of a good story. If the players feel their PC's are important, have a history, and that the fate of the world may be resting on *this* guy's shoulders, they may not be apt to throw away their life. Similarly, the closer they are connected to the world, the less likely they are to throw away their lives.

2 -- The Effect of Death: Death is a big event, not just in the lives of the dying, but in the lives of those closest to them. NPC's can start viewing the PC party with apprehension -- how many people who have known them have died? How have they been killed? The ability of NPC reactions to sway PC opinion can be good. If they're not the Good Guys anymore, many will feel pretty bad...unless they want to run an evil campaign, and then, making them fear death is just not that feasable. Have a funeral, show the PC's family and friends weeping over the fate, seeking someone to blame...if the players don't feel like they've caused a great sadness with their careless death, this can help that.

3 -- No resurrection for you!: Perhaps the spirit is happy in the afterlife. Perhaps the gods will not release the soul. Perhaps they should be turned into Undead, bent on vengeance against their former friends. This is perhaps the cheapest method, but it's also the easiest. Simply say "Oh, you don't come back. The gods refuse to give your soul back, and, you know what, you're pretty friggin' happy in this idyllic paradise where no clerics try to kill you."

I'm wondering how a party battle so large as to induce death was cause in the first place? In-party dissonance is not a good thing...a bit of conflict, fine, but this?

 

[Ace32]

Well, the party I DM has a pretty dumb cleric, player-wise. He never bothers to check to see if anybody is in the way of any of his area spells or attacks, and is a large pyro (the player), so he finds it fun to use all his "large exploding boom spells" .. much to the dismay of our group.. and never heals anybody until after the battle is over - if they 'remind him'.

I think the idea of 'a happy afterlife' is the only feasible one for our campaign.. based on the way it runs (PCs are good, but not really on the side of the law where they are). I really don't wanna punish the players that keep dying though (our mage is one of the best roleplayers we have, and is just the victim of circumstance).

 

[Darkness]

Ok, in the game I DM in, we've had 2 characters (3 if you count the mage dying twice) die in the last month, mainly due to their own stupidity & poor planning (party cleric killed one of them). Anyways, as I head into games, I keep seeing stupid actions made by parties, solely based on the fact that they can always get their character res'd at some later point in the game. How do I get them to see the world as .. threatening? I'd just go and put some house rules on the number of times you can be res'd, but that justs seems cheap.. anybody have any ideas on this?

Some ideas, all society-based; mix and match at your leisure.

1. Reduce the number of high-level clerics available.

2. Have clerics stop resurrecting people for money

3. Have clerics stop resurrecting people of faiths other than their own.

4. Have clerics charge more money for resurrection (because of increased demand, you see ).

7. Raise the price of diamonds, since they get rarer and rarer because of people burning them for resurrection spells.

7. Stop assuming that the clerics have 500 gp diamonds readily available. Rather, make it a quest to get one - even if that means persuading a noble to part with one of his diamons.

8. Stop assuming that diamonds that are worth exactly 500 gp are available whenever they are needed; rather, force the clerics to use what is available - which could mean a 650 gp diamond, a 1,000 gp diamond, or whatever.


Many of these ideas assume that the PCs are not the only people doing this (i.e., getting themselves resurrected constantly) - 'coz if they can do it, others can and will, too. And if everyone (as in "every mid- to high-level adventurer") does it, diamonds will get rarer and rarer, and clerics - since they are thinking like businessmen anyway, given that they sell (or rent, more like) the holy powers granted to them by their deity - will start raising the price because of increased demand.

 

[Crothian]

Maim the characters instead of killing them.

 

[Ace32]

Hmm.. these are all nice ideas. I think for my purposes, I'll go with the idea of clerics not raising those that aren't of their faith... which could get ugly tho (futuristic game has numerous planets, and some of our PC's worship very unknown deities, or don't worship any at all). Oh well. Maybe it'll force the cleric to be more serious when he has to start paying to ressurrect the people that die on his watch.

 

[Bass Puppet]

Death

I have expressed the result of death to my players as such. If you die and then are resurrected (+10) you will lose 1 point of permanent constitution (scroll, wish, magic item). If you were resurrected by a cleric, your alighnment changes to match the god's alignment, worshipped by that cleric. You may only restore the lost point of constitution by a wish spell.

I also have a scar chart that they must roll if they are killed by a phyiscal attack. Some chances on that chart has -1 to Charisma. So, Initially, they could lose a point in both Charisma and Constitution.

Making resurrection available is also something you should control. Pricing can be a quick way of fixing it, yet it is not that creative. Try putting the players in danger that are far away from a clerics reach.

Most importantly, as Kamikaze Midget mentioned, is that as a DM you are responisible for creating the feeling that the players have a good foundation to their characters so they are more carefull in their decision making.

 

[Ammianus]

I'm pretty much with Darkness on this one; there are lots of ways to make getting res'd as big a bother as possible. Other possibilities for accomplishing this can include:

1. Have the res'd character owe a debt of service (like, say, for several years) to the temple that raised him/her.

2. Who says clerics need to ask for payment in MONEY? Magic items, lands, all kinds of political favours, etc. etc.

3. I actually saw this one in a game once. The DM ruled that the wrong soul came back into the body (same name, different guy). It worked quite well, particularly since the player involved was an excellent role-player. Anyway, the whole thing turned into a major hassle for the party, as we had to a) convince the new "tenant" to return to his previous state of deadness, which he was understandably reluctant to do, and the b) go through the whole resurrection thing again, hoping that this time it worked.

Anyway, I guess the general idea is to make the party dread the consequences of having to get one of their friends raised. Eventually, they'll figure out that the best way to avoid it is not to do stupid, potentially fatal things.

 

[Ace32]

Hmm.. I'll have to try some of this. Bass Puppet, can you email me an example of your scar chart (zeboo.geo@yahoo.com), it sounds like the kind of 'motivation' my players would need. Thanks.

 

[Quickbeam]

3. I actually saw this one in a game once. The DM ruled that the wrong soul came back into the body (same name, different guy). It worked quite well, particularly since the player involved was an excellent role-player. Anyway, the whole thing turned into a major hassle for the party, as we had to a) convince the new "tenant" to return to his previous state of deadness, which he was understandably reluctant to do, and the b) go through the whole resurrection thing again, hoping that this time it worked.

Anyway, I guess the general idea is to make the party dread the consequences of having to get one of their friends raised. Eventually, they'll figure out that the best way to avoid it is not to do stupid, potentially fatal things.

That's very shrewd and massively entertaining !! Rest assured that this idea will be used by me at some point in the future...

As for other suggestions Ace32:
-- You could institute large chances for system shock/resurrection failure making returns from the grave increasingly more difficult.
-- You could rule that each soul is only capable of being resurrected a finite number of times. In our group, there was a time when each player rolled a 1d4 when a new character was created, and that result functioned as the maximum number of times the PC could be brought back.
-- The most common method for discouraging rampant raising of the dead (as noted by darkness and Ammianus) is to make the process more arduous and costly. Not every cleric is going to be willing to resurrect any old body placed before them, regardless of the fee being offered.

Just because it is possible for characters to gain second and third bites at the proverbial apple, doesn't mean that death should have no penalty. Only one player in our group treats the concept of PC death, level loss, and resurrection as a minor nuisance...an inconvenience in the game flow. He's a power gamer who spends tons of effort on his characters, but ultimately expects life restoring spells to be tossed about like candy from a Pez dispenser. We aren't going to change his attitudes despite the fact the campaign world around his characters does not support his misguided beliefs. *shrug* Not every player will fear or respect PC death, just do your best to maintain a sane and enjoyable gaming universe.