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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DNH" data-source="post: 5559451" data-attributes="member: 63615">I used to play with someone whose mantra was "It's the bad dice rolls that'll kill ya!" And it's true. Whether it means the players' rolls are too bad to deal with their foes quickly and efficiently, or the DM's rolls for the foes are "bad for the players" (ie good), it's almost always going to be down to the dice whether a character lives or dies. I take the point (aurance) that, ultimately, the DM has the final say on the application of those dice but the rolls matter nevertheless.Me, I am probably too quick to fudge things and avoid character death. Don't know why. I guess it could be because I play a lot too (as a player, I mean) and I tend to invest a lot into my character and grow attached to him or her and I know what character death feels like after all that. I notice that, over time, my players develop their characters in a similar way, both as individuals and as a group. And we have fun with that. And so I generally don't want to break that with character death.Is that wrong? Probably, and I will take another look at my DMing style on this issue once my campaign resumes in a few weeks.I will say this though - I am loath to kill off a character out of pure bad luck (ie bad dice rolls). I mean, it's one thing to be able to say "he was in the wrong place at the wrong time" but if death comes about because the dice fall badly, then I don't feel that is fair. OTOH, a character acting through gross stupidity and recklessness doesn't deserve to be protected.Here's another thing: Time was, back in the day, that my group role-played every little thing, from visiting the store, to travelling through the wilderness, to renting rooms at the inn for the night, and yes, getting characters raised/resurrected. That was a long time ago now, when all of us had more free time for gaming and we played a lot and often. These days, we play once a week for a few hours and that time is more precious. As a result, most of those RP aspects have fallen by the wayside and become more like DM fiat: "Okay, cross off 4gp apiece for rooms and supplies; ten days later you arrive back in Specularum." Same goes for raising characters, I feel, so it is very much an exercise in seeing how much gold you have and where the nearest temple is (if you can't do it yourself).Also, in my young campaign (currently 5th level), I have seen two characters retired - not killed. This amounts to the same thing - the same jar to continuity - but occurs for completely different reasons, even among the players who elect to do this. One of the characters felt, in an rp sense, that they were better off elsewhere fulfilling a particular role; the other character's player simply wanted to try something else. One final thing before I close this essay - someone mentioned above that the journey is more important than the destination and that is very much the case for my games. However, I am not entirely sure how that affects the approach to character death. If the story is paramount, then it doesn't really matter what characters see it through (unless they are closely invested in the story); the players will remain the same. Or else, maybe the story only really *is* a story because of those characters.</blockquote>

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