RangerWickett
Legend
This thread has a fair amount of lead-up, but it basically boils down to a question of how you handle the deaths of PCs in your game, both in regards to plot and roleplaying. If you care to, read on for my specific concerns.
Last night I killed off the first PC ever. Sure, there have been times before when players have left and their characters died soon thereafter, or occasionally a player sacrificed his character against a big baddie because he wanted to go down in a blaze of glory, and his character's personality demanded he fight to the end.
But last night was the first time I've ever killed off a PC in mid-plot. Basically, next session he was going to be able to finally confront the man who has been the target of his anger for the entire campaign. The NPC was responsible for murdering his family, and the party had found the lair of the bad guys. They knew that, in a few hours, the NPC in question would be arriving, and most of them were content to wait.
And Ted (you may recall him from my rant last week; I assure you, I've calmed down since then, and this PC death was not out of bitterness) was just planning to have his character scout out the location, so the rest of the party would be safe. But when he found the entrance to the villains' headquarters, nestled in a forested canyon, and saw the guards just standing idly there, his desire to take his revenge overcame his common sense. Hoping to start his revenge a little early, he wanted to take out some of the main baddie's henchmen first. He rushed in, expecting to meet little resistance.
The whole thing has actually been a trap the entire time, with the baddie knowing the PCs would come to him, so the guards were ready, and more were hiding in wait. He takes out the main guard first, but then realizes he's outnumbered. However, by this point he's in a barbarian rage and a frenzied berserker frenzy. I told Ted that if he wanted to flee, I wouldn't force him to roll to break out of the frenzy, but he just grinned and said that he'd only do that if the dice would let him. They didn't, and within a matter of a few rounds, he was cut down. Ted was content, though, because his character had finally learned the consequences for his rashness.
Last week, after our game, I was upset because his character had been killing with impunity, and I thought that Ted was just being a bit munchkin, not caring about the storyline. But I discovered that the whole time he wanted to have a tragic ending for the character, and kept pushing me to prove that his raging and revenge would not let him always win. In fact, because of last week, I had decided that anyone from the side of the bad guys would focus all their attention on him in any fight, since they knew he could not be negotiated with. Which is why he was killed this time, rather than simply knocked unconscious and taken captive or something.
Now, I've already pretty much decided how to handle this without having the plot thread dangle loose, but my main question involves not the plot, but the characters. How do you suggest I encourage players to react appropriately to the death of their comrade? How should the NPCs react? How do you handle deaths of PCs in your game?
Oh, and I don't have easy ressurections. The only ways to bring a person back from the dead are to either sacrifice something of your own out of love, or to use dark magic to bind the soul to the body and reanimate the corpse as something like a half-undead. The second way is one way that I'm considering having Ted's character come back. The villain, in true villain fashion, is willing to gloat over his captive, assuming the guy is little threat.
But it will be at least one session before the rest of the PCs might come across Ted's character again to find this out, so what do I do in the meanwhile? How do I handle the death?
Last night I killed off the first PC ever. Sure, there have been times before when players have left and their characters died soon thereafter, or occasionally a player sacrificed his character against a big baddie because he wanted to go down in a blaze of glory, and his character's personality demanded he fight to the end.
But last night was the first time I've ever killed off a PC in mid-plot. Basically, next session he was going to be able to finally confront the man who has been the target of his anger for the entire campaign. The NPC was responsible for murdering his family, and the party had found the lair of the bad guys. They knew that, in a few hours, the NPC in question would be arriving, and most of them were content to wait.
And Ted (you may recall him from my rant last week; I assure you, I've calmed down since then, and this PC death was not out of bitterness) was just planning to have his character scout out the location, so the rest of the party would be safe. But when he found the entrance to the villains' headquarters, nestled in a forested canyon, and saw the guards just standing idly there, his desire to take his revenge overcame his common sense. Hoping to start his revenge a little early, he wanted to take out some of the main baddie's henchmen first. He rushed in, expecting to meet little resistance.
The whole thing has actually been a trap the entire time, with the baddie knowing the PCs would come to him, so the guards were ready, and more were hiding in wait. He takes out the main guard first, but then realizes he's outnumbered. However, by this point he's in a barbarian rage and a frenzied berserker frenzy. I told Ted that if he wanted to flee, I wouldn't force him to roll to break out of the frenzy, but he just grinned and said that he'd only do that if the dice would let him. They didn't, and within a matter of a few rounds, he was cut down. Ted was content, though, because his character had finally learned the consequences for his rashness.
Last week, after our game, I was upset because his character had been killing with impunity, and I thought that Ted was just being a bit munchkin, not caring about the storyline. But I discovered that the whole time he wanted to have a tragic ending for the character, and kept pushing me to prove that his raging and revenge would not let him always win. In fact, because of last week, I had decided that anyone from the side of the bad guys would focus all their attention on him in any fight, since they knew he could not be negotiated with. Which is why he was killed this time, rather than simply knocked unconscious and taken captive or something.
Now, I've already pretty much decided how to handle this without having the plot thread dangle loose, but my main question involves not the plot, but the characters. How do you suggest I encourage players to react appropriately to the death of their comrade? How should the NPCs react? How do you handle deaths of PCs in your game?
Oh, and I don't have easy ressurections. The only ways to bring a person back from the dead are to either sacrifice something of your own out of love, or to use dark magic to bind the soul to the body and reanimate the corpse as something like a half-undead. The second way is one way that I'm considering having Ted's character come back. The villain, in true villain fashion, is willing to gloat over his captive, assuming the guy is little threat.
But it will be at least one session before the rest of the PCs might come across Ted's character again to find this out, so what do I do in the meanwhile? How do I handle the death?
good luck!
