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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9536942" data-attributes="member: 29398">I wasn't referring to a TPK.  I was referring to the idea of a party whose lineup fairly consistently turns over but not all at once.And yes, some characters in a party could well last long enouugh to become "stars".  This is in fact what I most often see: of a starting party of seven or so, three might die and get replaced in the first adventure, three in the second, and so on; and even still some of those original starting seven will survive and rise above the rest.  They become the core of the party - the "star players on the team", to continue the sports analogy - while the fringes keep turning over (analagous to draft picks where some work out well and others don't) and occasionally a star retires or dies or whatever.The Buccanneers experience you speak of, where the coach just wanted "yes-men", maps to a group of D&D players who either don't want to or don't know how to build a well-rounded party e.g. they keep sending all-Cleric parties into the field and wondering why things don't always go so well when they find themselves short of warriors or sneaks or mages.Some stats from my game follow, spoiler-blocked to save those of you who might be bored by such:[SPOILER]The party in my current campaign's first adventure (Keep on the Borderlands) went through characters like a DCC funnel, and yet some of them went on to become superstars.  The character's number (in sequence of introduction) is followed by the number of adventures it lasted where '0' means it didn't get out of this one and '2' or more represents the total number of adventures that character appeared in whether it surivved or not.  '1' would mean it survived this adventure then retired, but there aren't any of these here.The ones with bolded numbers were adventuring NPCs in the party, the rest were actual PCs.  Same four players all the way through.1. 2 - only original to survive the first adventure, died in the second one, revival went very wrong (rose as undead!)2. 0* - died here but was revived years later on a lark, then retired; so technically counts as a '1'3. 0 - died in the very first session4. 0 - almost made it through, then died at the end5. 06. 07. 08. 09. 0 - the first nine were the starting party, after this it's all replacements and recruits10. 011. 012. 0 - traitor killed intentionally by the party13. 014. 415. 15 - character is retired, player has left the game16. 017. 018. 019. 16 - character is retired, player has left the game20. 0 - killed intentionally by the party (very long story!)21. 0 - killed intentionally by the party for supporting #2022. 023. 024. 10 - character is retired but its player is still in the game25. 026. 10 - character is retired, player has left the game27. 19 - character is retired, player has left the game; 19 adventures is still tied-highest for this campaign28. 229. 3 - killed intentionally by party during its third adventure30. 6The benchmark for inclusion in our Hall of Heroes is 10 adventures, meaning this disaster of a party still ended up producing five future Hall of Famers.  The player of characters 15 and 26 might return someday once some health issues get sorted.The best part of all this?  I don't think any of us stopped laughing during that entire adventure, which took us something like 20 sessions to play.  And in the end, what else really matters?[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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