Just checking... how many times have your players died?

[godawful]

I find that GMing style has a lot to do with killing PCs.

hmmm, looks like i'm a character-killing s.o.b. heh, well i wanted to get away from fudging to keep people from dying, and i try to run smart (or mean) monsters as they should be played. i dunno, it used to seem like almost a personal attack on someone if you were a dm and a character died back when i was running AD&D. i really wanted to get that out of the way and make sure there were some deaths (by not fudging) so that everyone had a very clear and unmistakeable concept that death is very possible, probable even. but now that they have payed their dues so to speak, i do fudge now and then.

 

[Ethernaut]

It is almst impossible to kill characters in Buffy, so no PC deaths in Slaying Solomon. I had 3 heroic deaths in my long-running GURPS game before that (and no resurrection option). I'm not counting the time I killed an entire party just to introduce a Riverworld adventure.

 

[Slobber Monster]

Six deaths.

I have eight players, with the highest level character just reaching eight. Three players have lost two characters each to death. Another player abondoned a character for role-playing reasons. That character is still alive as an NPC, but will probably die the next time the PC's meet him. In all there are only three original characters left from the goup's start.

 

[IcyCool]

In my most recent D&D campaign, 1 (10th level Paladin 3/Bonus feats 2/Evasion and good reflex save 3/Headache for the GM 2).

In the Birthright campaign I ran in a while back, 1 (2nd level Paladin (the player had to move, so we killed off the character)).

I think I had one pc death in a Shadowrun game I ran several years ago.

 

[Thanee]

Our current party has started at 2nd level and is now at 14th/15th level.

The new mystic theurge hasn't died yet.
The barbarian before him has died about half a dozen times or more. At some point the player had enough of playing a living punching bag.
The new dwarf fighter/rogue hasn't died yet, I think, or maybe once. He was close quite a few times, tho.
The cleric before him had died once.
The mystic theurge before the cleric had died once as well, having forgotten to dismiss the Shield Other spell (on purpose, I'm quite sure).
The halfling paladin has died twice or maybe thrice, each time it was a natural 1 on a 2+ save.
The aasimar cleric before him had died once.
The bard has died twice or thrice or so.
The centaur ranger hasn't died yet, of course, she's not around a lot.
The hobgoblin fighter before her had died once, falling down from a bridge into a stream of lava is not healthy.
My sorceress has died once, swallowed whole at 6th level or so.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

It is almst impossible to kill characters in Buffy, so no PC deaths in Slaying Solomon. I had 3 heroic deaths in my long-running GURPS game before that (and no resurrection option). I'm not counting the time I killed an entire party just to introduce a Riverworld adventure.

Well, how many times would character have died if not for the spending Hero points?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Let's see ... two deaths last session, and a total of 12 deaths in 48 sessions for this campaign.

'Course, we have two house rules that make death less likely: (1) death at -Con, and (2) Hero Points (one point per level that can be used to guarantee success on a roll, or stabilize a dying character, etc). The hero points in particular have turned 3-4 deaths into mere near-death experiences. So the campaign is probably at least 30-50% more lethal in standard D&D terms.

Edit: That's PC deaths, of course. To answer the original question: one player death (Angelsboi, RIP).

 

[luke_twigger]

My group is actually clever/sad* enough to keep track of PC deaths in Excel. We call it our Death Chart.

We use regular PHB rules only, except you die at -Con not -10.

So for example, our most homicidal DM has taken us through 3 campaigns set in Kalamar.

Kalamar1, 28 deaths in 40 sessions
Kalamar2, 24 deaths in 38 sessions
Kalamar3, 10 deaths in 21 sessions

In comparison our most kind DM has taken us through 2 campaigns set in his homebrew.

Albion1, 5 deaths in 32 sessions
Albion2, 7 deaths in 31 sessions

That's with 5 players per session.

* delete as appropriate

 

[jdrakeh]

Players? Just once, but I was cleared of all wrongdoing.

 

[Rystil Arden]

In my main face-to-face campaign, the PCs have gone from level 1 to level 19-20 (depending on PC).

There must have been been around 50 character deaths, and I also use the -Con variant.

Most of the deaths involve players getting cocky. In particular, there's this one dragon that keeps killing PCs. The wizard researched it and decided to solo it to get himself from cash. He failed and was killed in an antimagic field. After coming back, he went right back to fight the dragon again because he wanted his gear back and was killed by the dragon's Spell Turning of his own insane attack spell. The dragon then used Soul Bind to avoid the annoyance of the wizard coming back again.

Then after beating a CR 40+ dragon together with the party, the Frenzied Berserker heard about this same red dragon and its legendary double-sized hoard, so he went in there by himself for some reason and got killed too. He wanted his gear back too, so....