Do you care?

[Kemrain]

I can't play a character I'm not attached to, and I put a great deal of myself into my characters. When they die, I'm upset about it. Not angry, but very sad. I play in games where Ressurection is the exception, not the rule, so death is almost always permanant in my experience. I nearly cried when our entire party was taken down in 2 rounds by the BBEG and 3 lucky crits in a Star Wars game. If the game hadn't ended right there, I suspect I'd have sat the rest of the session out, getting over the shock and steeling myself to the loss. I'm a very extreme case, however.

Regardless of how poorly I take character death, it happens very rarely. Not because of pulled punches, but becuse I'm exceptionally cautious. Roleplaying is like playing Nethack... Sure, you can cheat death, but the game loses something if you do. It's not always an important thing that you lose, and most people (it seems) are ok having given it up, but I like to keep the reality and finality of death. Keeps me on my toes, and fear of dying keeps my characters alive.

Though I get upset over it, character death has never kept me from playing, and I'm this emotional in everything I do. I get over it, make a new character, and get attached to that one. I still fondly remember my fallen characters, but I've gotten over them all.

- Kemrain the very extreme case.

 

[diaglo]

I don't want to play a character I do not care about.

ditto. life is too short to play crappy RPGs...and PCs.

i care about my character a lot. but a game without the possibility of death bores the hell out of me.

i bring at least 12 backup characters to every session.

you have to with the new editions....they take too damn long to make.

 

[Snapdragyn]

I once had a charecter in a CoCd20 game that I had written a really detailed, and sordid, background for. I was really excited about playing him...he died in the first session...before I met the rest of the party.

I'm sorry, but this made me laugh. It's just sooooo sad, but kinda tragicomic!

I've only been gaming again for less than a year, & luckily haven't lost a char yet. My highest character is only level 4, so I don't really feel that I have a lot invested in him yet.

I did get a bit nervous when a black dragon attacked the ship my 1 barb/1 ftr was on (this while an orc pirate ship was attacking); I think the big dumb guy is growing on me. He still can't read (I'm RPing that he'll probably never learn that, although he pretends that he can), he thinks he's learning Draconic (he just parrots the guy who speaks it -- usually veeeery badly), & last session he made FORTY gold offering his um... services to a guy in a tavern, when he would've gone with the guy for free -- silly outlanders!

 

[Thanee]

I've only been playing Jez a little while. The things that made me attached to her weren't the length of time playing her, but the connections she had formed with the other PCs (some of my best roleplaying moments have been with this character) and the effort that had gone into deciding who she was.

Hey, the memories won't go with the character, if she dies... but I would actually focus more on not letting it happen, but on what happens if...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Unfortunately, the last PC I had die on me was killed when I wasn't even there; ...

Once I came a bit late to a session and it started like...
“Oh, your character is falling down a chasm with a lava stream below. What do you do?”

They knew that I was about to show up and so had my character running with them and they were crossing that bridge, where a Dex roll was needed. A friend said, that she would roll for me, since I wasn't quite there yet...

Very funny!

Good thing my char had Feather Falling and some other stuff prepared...

If not, I'd have repeated the Dex roll.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Cerubus Dark]

It's my fault Black Leaf died. I can't face life alone.

You owe me a new keyboard for work.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It depends a lot on the character, sometime the stats, background, nature of play, all come together to make a wonderful character that is both fun to play and one that we create an attachment with.

Mine was Adrin Doubletree, half-elf fighter. He was smart, quick, and stylish, duster over scale mail, long knife (short sword stats), and hand axe. Oh, how it hurt when he died. To this day I will not use disintegrate on a player.

 

[Johnnie Freedom!]

I'm always torn between trying a new concept and seeing my PC go up in levels. Lately, with the many, many character deaths I've suffered through, I'm starting to adopt a very frivolous attitude towards the many characters I've had to roll up. Can't say that this attitude is a positive one.


AR

Hee hee...this reminds me of the Knights of the Dinner Table episode where Stevil (Black Hands group) is so disillusioned at the murderous nature of Cattlepunk that he creates a new character named, I think, "Bob" (or "Bill" or something similar). No background story, no characterization, just "Bob" and the stats.

Heh heh. I love KODT.

 

[Haradim]

I've lost FAR more characters to dead games than I ever have to the axe or the sword.

Ditto. And frankly, unless I were to find a very different group, I would never invest much effort into a character.

Certainly not enough to care if they live or die.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I don't want to play a character I do not care about.

Ditto... I put allot of time and effort into my characters and between that and gaming with them I definitely get attached to them.