Drammattex
First Post
I can't vote in the poll because I believe in all the choices to some degree.
But DougMcCrae is right about fiction; it's generally not a good choice to kill off your protagonist unless there's a strong story reason for it, because if they perish, then they do not learn from their experience.
I'm a merciless, blackhearted, cad of a DM. Living is worse than dying in my games, because death is an escape from all the drama and the plot twists and realizations and revelations characters must make about themselves and the characters they travel with. But conflict, drama, that's what story is all about. Death is saying NO to what's interesting about fiction. It's saying NO to future change.
There is no resurrection or raise dead in my games, because that's just silly. When you're playing for keeps all the time, the drama and the conflict are substantially higher.
Death lurks around every corner in my games (well, depending on the tone the campaign is taking; I'm preparing to run something more like a fairy tale than LOTR right now), but characters almost never die in my games.
The ones that die are the ones to whom I've hinted "This is very dangerous," "This is extremely dangerous," "This is insanely dangerous," and if they continue to push forward down those courses of action, well... the dice will fall as they may. You almost have to choose it. Or the dice have to demand it so badly over a period of time, that it would look silly if it didn't happen.
I agree with the OP in that the very worst thing is to feel as though you are invulnerable (unless that's your character's pov) and that the DM will pull all of his punches. That's no fun for anyone. I've been in plenty of games where I've been like "Oh, just kill me already," but this has always been because the game was agonizing and the DM was pulling his punches to keep me at the table to endure more of his torture (i.e. leading me by the nose through the plot like he's reading me his novel).
So I think the threat of death should always be there, but players who care and act intelligently should not be punished for striving to succeed. It really is a finessing thing on the part of the DM. You have to make sure that threat is always looming and that the world feels dangerous, but when the PCs are trying their hardest, you shouldn't discourage them with their bad luck by saying "Well that's reality for you."
All of this said, I recommend getting the character in trouble instead of getting him killed. And worse trouble and worse trouble and worse trouble. Conflict is drama, and it is interesting. Death is "the end" and there is no more after that... unless you're using raise dead & resurrection, in which case, death isn't really death so go ahead and kill whoever you want. They'll be back. "Magically." yech.
But DougMcCrae is right about fiction; it's generally not a good choice to kill off your protagonist unless there's a strong story reason for it, because if they perish, then they do not learn from their experience.
I'm a merciless, blackhearted, cad of a DM. Living is worse than dying in my games, because death is an escape from all the drama and the plot twists and realizations and revelations characters must make about themselves and the characters they travel with. But conflict, drama, that's what story is all about. Death is saying NO to what's interesting about fiction. It's saying NO to future change.
There is no resurrection or raise dead in my games, because that's just silly. When you're playing for keeps all the time, the drama and the conflict are substantially higher.
Death lurks around every corner in my games (well, depending on the tone the campaign is taking; I'm preparing to run something more like a fairy tale than LOTR right now), but characters almost never die in my games.
The ones that die are the ones to whom I've hinted "This is very dangerous," "This is extremely dangerous," "This is insanely dangerous," and if they continue to push forward down those courses of action, well... the dice will fall as they may. You almost have to choose it. Or the dice have to demand it so badly over a period of time, that it would look silly if it didn't happen.
I agree with the OP in that the very worst thing is to feel as though you are invulnerable (unless that's your character's pov) and that the DM will pull all of his punches. That's no fun for anyone. I've been in plenty of games where I've been like "Oh, just kill me already," but this has always been because the game was agonizing and the DM was pulling his punches to keep me at the table to endure more of his torture (i.e. leading me by the nose through the plot like he's reading me his novel).
So I think the threat of death should always be there, but players who care and act intelligently should not be punished for striving to succeed. It really is a finessing thing on the part of the DM. You have to make sure that threat is always looming and that the world feels dangerous, but when the PCs are trying their hardest, you shouldn't discourage them with their bad luck by saying "Well that's reality for you."
All of this said, I recommend getting the character in trouble instead of getting him killed. And worse trouble and worse trouble and worse trouble. Conflict is drama, and it is interesting. Death is "the end" and there is no more after that... unless you're using raise dead & resurrection, in which case, death isn't really death so go ahead and kill whoever you want. They'll be back. "Magically." yech.
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