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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Adso" data-source="post: 4500781" data-attributes="member: 6706">It’s because I’m a fan of story consequences rather than rules consequences for this kind of failure. This past weekend my Season of Long Shadows campaign had three character deaths. Two PCs came back, and one player decided to make a new character. All three know there will be story consequences for the failure. Some of them have already been hinted at (Lysander shouldn’t of made that deal with Acererak while in the Shadowfell! Tsk, tsk). Some are still to come (how come the dragonborn loses a healing surge for a level each time that ring revives him?). They are all dreading it, but they also trust me enough where they know they will be entertained by it (even in final defeat, they will be entertained...). They know failure brings outside powers that plot and scheme. They know that a new character also brings in new motives (there are always motives both outward and ulterior in my games) which could fundamentally change the story assumptions. They know it changes the story, but it doesn’t "Nurf" anyone's game play. Then there is just the aggravation of dying. One of my players has made it her goal to finally survive one of my campaigns. Usually her character doesn’t die until the last adventure—but thus far she has always died. Just dying is punishment to her. It’s punishment to most people. I know I could just write a “2” on my character sheet and keep moving, but that’s not how I roll, and I know that not how most (if not all) of the people I game with roll. Characters are special. We fight to keep each one alive, and when they die, we raise them, or we move on to new ones that we craft with care and dedication. I find it funny that some have insinuated that I am in favor of turning my game into a video game. I absolutely don’t believe that creating an imbalance of player power level serves story, setting, or fun in a tabletop RPG. It’s in fact a terrible gamist device stuck tacked on where it doesn't belong…something you would see in a video game that doesn't have the benefit of a DM who can react to PCs action, success, and failure on the fly in interesting ways. But that's something I am going to talk about more in my next column.</blockquote>

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