Is it O.K. for the DM to kill a character when the player isn't there?
- Thread starter Pendragon67
- Start date
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Pendragon67 said:Again, I ask...
Is it acceptable for the DM to kill a character in the game when the player (for that character) is not at the session? Under what conditions should this be acceptable? I know it's the DM's game and they can do what they want and they are the final arbiter, BUT! Is this fair?!?! It seems to take the joy out of it. This recently happened to me with my character. I'm not sure what to think. Is he taking advantage of his role as the DM? Any thoughts? Thank you.
When a player can't make it, their PC isn't there. Thus, they can't die. That's how I've run it. Admittedly it can run into snags, so it's not perfect.
Michael Silverbane
Adventurer
In my group, each player chooses a 'proxy player' to act on his behalf when he can't make it to a session. The proxy player, in theory, does his best not to get the other player's character killed.
I don't use XP, so there is no issue there, and I grant players Action Points (1 to 4 each session, depending on character level, and one any time they are about to try something cool, or whatever) as a reward. Action Points refresh each session.
So... Yes. A character who is without his (normal) player can get killed. No. Characters whose player is not in attendance do not recieve XP (or action dice) awards.
Later
silver
I don't use XP, so there is no issue there, and I grant players Action Points (1 to 4 each session, depending on character level, and one any time they are about to try something cool, or whatever) as a reward. Action Points refresh each session.
So... Yes. A character who is without his (normal) player can get killed. No. Characters whose player is not in attendance do not recieve XP (or action dice) awards.
Later
silver
Kmart Kommando
First Post
We've had characters get killed on ocasion, like my Barbarian, one-shotted by a mounted charging orc when I couldn't make it to the game. I had the highest hit point total in the party, so it would've killed any of us, I just wasn't there at the time.
Sucks, but then I just made a stronger character who just happened to be wandering by next session.
Sucks, but then I just made a stronger character who just happened to be wandering by next session.
In my games, I make it clear that if you are not present, you have two options:
1) You don't leave your character sheet. Nothing bad happens to him/her, but nothing good (ie, XP, etc) will either. Though the party usually shares all treasure regardless of participation, just because they tend to hoard it all till they get to town (coinage, at least...) and split it when they arrive.
2) You leave your character with someone to play. They play the character as well as they can, with input from the rest of the party. Your character could die, but they could live as well, and you'll get XP.
Strangely, I've not had anyone NOT leave their character for someone to play...
1) You don't leave your character sheet. Nothing bad happens to him/her, but nothing good (ie, XP, etc) will either. Though the party usually shares all treasure regardless of participation, just because they tend to hoard it all till they get to town (coinage, at least...) and split it when they arrive.
2) You leave your character with someone to play. They play the character as well as they can, with input from the rest of the party. Your character could die, but they could live as well, and you'll get XP.
Strangely, I've not had anyone NOT leave their character for someone to play...
lukelightning
First Post
Personally I veiw D&D as a fun game. Fun is the reward, and if you are absent your punishment is losing out on the fun.
I don't think I've ever encountered an absent PC death. Normally absent players' characters are quietly sidelined for the session. Sometimes it takes a bit of suspense of disbelief but I'd rather just pretend they are magically not there than complicate the game with a wildcard.
I'd be really pissed if my character died when I wasn't playing. If Orly the Mighty is gonna die, he's going down fighting. Ok, probably "running away" but you know what I mean.
I don't think I've ever encountered an absent PC death. Normally absent players' characters are quietly sidelined for the session. Sometimes it takes a bit of suspense of disbelief but I'd rather just pretend they are magically not there than complicate the game with a wildcard.
I'd be really pissed if my character died when I wasn't playing. If Orly the Mighty is gonna die, he's going down fighting. Ok, probably "running away" but you know what I mean.
Brother MacLaren
Explorer
The title of this thread is so misleading.
There was a great T-shirt I saw at Dragon*Con... something like this:
"DMs don't kill characters. Poison needles, ochre jellies, mind flayers, pits, dragons, beholders, gelatinous cubes, the Tarrasque, disease, werewolves, ghosts...[many more]... and other PCs kill characters."
There was a great T-shirt I saw at Dragon*Con... something like this:
"DMs don't kill characters. Poison needles, ochre jellies, mind flayers, pits, dragons, beholders, gelatinous cubes, the Tarrasque, disease, werewolves, ghosts...[many more]... and other PCs kill characters."
Roadkill101
Explorer
I killed a character whose player wasn't there my last session, and it doesn't really matter.
IMC, all players have a small pool of characters in the event of character death, I don't pull punches if the dice rolls go against the group. So when a character dies, theres a good chance I can work one of that players other characters into the game later in the session.
I run short (1 to 3 session), non-connected, episodic adventures. So for one adventure Player 1 may run character B, and the next adventure runs character E (while Player 2 may run character H for both adventures). A character who dies during an adventure is simply dead for just that adventure and may be used in a different adventure later on.
I run all characters whose player(s) do not show up for a session, as NPC's. Unless I have a player show up who doesn't have a character, in which case I'll let that player run the missing players character (to make things easier on me, and I've got a few teen-age players who aren't always around for every session).
Some of my sessions end as cliffhangers. In these instances I don't believe in hand-waving away a character absence due to a missing player. Even when my sessions end on a quiet note, most of my adventures don't lend themselves to allowing for a characters absence, so I try to run any character NPC's in supporting roles as much as possible. In either event the character still shares in the danger, so they reap full rewards.
In the case of the character who got killed my last session, it belonged to my step-son. My step-son is with his father during most weekends (the only time I game) during school months and every other weekend during non-school months. The particular adventure had been on hiatus since late summer and there's not much chance of my step-son being around for any of the remaining sessions, so in this case the character death mattered less than usual.
IMC, all players have a small pool of characters in the event of character death, I don't pull punches if the dice rolls go against the group. So when a character dies, theres a good chance I can work one of that players other characters into the game later in the session.
I run short (1 to 3 session), non-connected, episodic adventures. So for one adventure Player 1 may run character B, and the next adventure runs character E (while Player 2 may run character H for both adventures). A character who dies during an adventure is simply dead for just that adventure and may be used in a different adventure later on.
I run all characters whose player(s) do not show up for a session, as NPC's. Unless I have a player show up who doesn't have a character, in which case I'll let that player run the missing players character (to make things easier on me, and I've got a few teen-age players who aren't always around for every session).
Some of my sessions end as cliffhangers. In these instances I don't believe in hand-waving away a character absence due to a missing player. Even when my sessions end on a quiet note, most of my adventures don't lend themselves to allowing for a characters absence, so I try to run any character NPC's in supporting roles as much as possible. In either event the character still shares in the danger, so they reap full rewards.
In the case of the character who got killed my last session, it belonged to my step-son. My step-son is with his father during most weekends (the only time I game) during school months and every other weekend during non-school months. The particular adventure had been on hiatus since late summer and there's not much chance of my step-son being around for any of the remaining sessions, so in this case the character death mattered less than usual.
It's fair, provided that it's done... fairly.
1) If the PC can be removed from the story logically, I do so. (If it's a walking-around-town session, the PC can go off. If it's a dungeon, no.)
IF THAT FAILS...
2) Out of combat, the PC is run by me in a safety-first, coolness-last fashion. (Will not volunteer for dangerous stuff unless that's the PC's core function (like trap-disarming), will not participate hugely in social stuff if possible.)
3) In combat, the PC is played by the team as a whole. Everybody knows this. Because I, as DM, know the rules best, I often make choices for PCs that have unique skills other people don't recognize, but if it's at all risky, I run it by the group. ("Okay, none of you know how turning undead works. It could make this mummy run away, but it provokes an AoO, and I can't get the PC out of the way. Do you guys think that this is something Bob would have his PC do?")
4) I give a non-present player's PC a slight fudging edge in terms of survival, but if the dice clearly indicate death and there's no way to fudge it without a blatant rules violation or bad math, that's that. I'm more inclined to fudge in random fights, in which dying would be annoying and lame, than in big powerful fights where it's almost expected that somebody is gonna kick off.
5) I am only human. If the player misses the game because his girlfriend is in the hospital, I'm going to be a lot more inclined to reroll that saving through versus disintegration than if the player missed the game because he wanted to go out drinking that night and didn't bother to let any of us know until an hour after he was supposed to be there.
Not perfect, by any stretch, but that's roughly how I play it. I've had players come back to a dead PC and say, "Wow, damn. Wish I'd been there for that fight," and I've had players get extremely extremely angry because they felt unfairly targeted. In the latter case, the player was out drinking, and had missed the last month of sessions for various reasons ranging from "Was depressed" to "All my socks were wet". His character died by taking a full round of attacks from a green dragon, and he more or less saved the party by doing so. He was raised (I don't remember if it was Raise Dead or True Resurrection) at the party's expense, and he wasn't the first PC to die in the campaign. I could have had the dragon NOT target him, but if it's a choice between forcing someone who IS at the game to stop playing by killing THEIR character and taking a character whose player isn't there out of play, which one do YOU think I'm going to pick?
(I didn't go for the kill, but that was how the dice rolled. If he'd been dropped to -6 instead of -20, the dragon would have left him alone, and I'd have fudged the rules to say that he stabilized.)
But that's just me.
1) If the PC can be removed from the story logically, I do so. (If it's a walking-around-town session, the PC can go off. If it's a dungeon, no.)
IF THAT FAILS...
2) Out of combat, the PC is run by me in a safety-first, coolness-last fashion. (Will not volunteer for dangerous stuff unless that's the PC's core function (like trap-disarming), will not participate hugely in social stuff if possible.)
3) In combat, the PC is played by the team as a whole. Everybody knows this. Because I, as DM, know the rules best, I often make choices for PCs that have unique skills other people don't recognize, but if it's at all risky, I run it by the group. ("Okay, none of you know how turning undead works. It could make this mummy run away, but it provokes an AoO, and I can't get the PC out of the way. Do you guys think that this is something Bob would have his PC do?")
4) I give a non-present player's PC a slight fudging edge in terms of survival, but if the dice clearly indicate death and there's no way to fudge it without a blatant rules violation or bad math, that's that. I'm more inclined to fudge in random fights, in which dying would be annoying and lame, than in big powerful fights where it's almost expected that somebody is gonna kick off.
5) I am only human. If the player misses the game because his girlfriend is in the hospital, I'm going to be a lot more inclined to reroll that saving through versus disintegration than if the player missed the game because he wanted to go out drinking that night and didn't bother to let any of us know until an hour after he was supposed to be there.
Not perfect, by any stretch, but that's roughly how I play it. I've had players come back to a dead PC and say, "Wow, damn. Wish I'd been there for that fight," and I've had players get extremely extremely angry because they felt unfairly targeted. In the latter case, the player was out drinking, and had missed the last month of sessions for various reasons ranging from "Was depressed" to "All my socks were wet". His character died by taking a full round of attacks from a green dragon, and he more or less saved the party by doing so. He was raised (I don't remember if it was Raise Dead or True Resurrection) at the party's expense, and he wasn't the first PC to die in the campaign. I could have had the dragon NOT target him, but if it's a choice between forcing someone who IS at the game to stop playing by killing THEIR character and taking a character whose player isn't there out of play, which one do YOU think I'm going to pick?
(I didn't go for the kill, but that was how the dice rolled. If he'd been dropped to -6 instead of -20, the dragon would have left him alone, and I'd have fudged the rules to say that he stabilized.)
But that's just me.
Gulla
Adventurer
It's all a question of group dynamics and what you agree on before the game start. In the games I GM and the ones I play the PC can die even if the player is missing. In the game I play we play missing characters as a group effort, and they usually become rather more careful than normal. In this game all characters get the same XP (and not too much, slow advancement) whatever happens.
In the game i GM the players always have the choise. Either safe (and no XP) or active and getting full XP. The players always go for getting XP. And both the Paladin and the Cleric have met untimely ends while absent. The last time the cleric died even have become a small injoke.
So: It's ok for PCs of absent players to die if the group agrees to this before the situations come up. And personally I feel that a PC taking full risks should get a full share of any rewards handed out.
Håkon
In the game i GM the players always have the choise. Either safe (and no XP) or active and getting full XP. The players always go for getting XP. And both the Paladin and the Cleric have met untimely ends while absent. The last time the cleric died even have become a small injoke.
So: It's ok for PCs of absent players to die if the group agrees to this before the situations come up. And personally I feel that a PC taking full risks should get a full share of any rewards handed out.
Håkon
