Need Some Ideas On Dealing With Death.

[firesnakearies]

Hmm... some very interesting ideas here.

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[justanobody]

there really isn't any permanent character death, where there's never a "okay, roll a new character" moment for anyone.

However, I do NOT want death to be trivial, meaningless, or something that the players will casually suffer in a fearless, blase manner. I want death to matter, I want it to sting, I want it to be scary, and I want the players to try to avoid it just as much as they do now.

Seems like a want your cake and eat it too moment.

I can say allow death to exist but slow people down, and let raise dead/etc be harder to deal with.

It already seems, from my playing, that death is not a easy thing to occur but that may be lucky dice rolls.

The only way to make death meaningless would be remove it. Character must die for there to be a real threat of death.

The easiest way to keep them alive just that little bit longer to prevent the main problem with death is to make TPKs far from happening and use the old DM standy of fudging dice when the players start always missing.

Not having read the whole thread I will just ask this if you are still looking for ideas:

What are the problems you see with....

...single character death?
...creating a new character?
...TPK?

Without an actually "permanent death", which is hard in D&D, how could eath be anything but trivial?

Working on a character for X levels and then it all ending sucks, but sometimes, thems the breaks.

The only real suggestion I would have is allow more frequent deaths, but have drawbacks to being brought back.

Something the player has to choose between the drawbacks that exist with the current character, or creating a new one to take his place.

The new character should get the old gear, but that would be up to the players.

There is also the standby of family members.

The cousin of Frederick the Fighter happens to be around and vows to take the place of his kin within the party to fulfill any obligations he had.

Its a big cop-out but only changes the character slightly and allows for the most play with the old character, with a few personality changes if wanted.

I am curious to know what your final decision on how to handle it is.

 

[firesnakearies]

I still haven't decided, but I can answer one thing...

I absolutely hate the "new character" thing in any kind of ongoing campaign. My campaigns are like a continuous story, and once the PCs enter the story, they ARE the protagonists, and the campaign is ABOUT those specific characters from then on.

I don't want the players making new characters, ever, in any given campaign.

So I basically have to set up a scenario which makes sense in-game and has a nicely justified story reason, wherein the characters will always be brought back when they die, even when there's no Raise Dead available for them.

But I don't want it to be without cost, so that the game turns into some kind of video game where the players just laugh at death and throw their lives away with abandon, because they know that they'll always come back.

At the same time, I don't want to impose some kind of horribly crippling penalties which will permanently gimp the characters such that they won't want to play them anymore.

I'm definitely going to use the idea about having narrative consequences, but also some sort of actual mechanical detriment which is unpleasant enough to make avoiding death important, but not so terrible that the players feel unduly punished or screwed over when their characters die.

As for frequency of death, I don't necessarily want to run an ultra-deadly game where the PCs are constantly being butchered, but I also want to feel very free to run the game "as it would be" without having to constantly pull punches and contrive reasons to bail the PCs out time and again, just so that they don't die.

I want the story and the challenges in it to be fair, and equivalent to the PCs' capabilities. But that fairness includes a very real chance of death if and when the PCs make poor choices, are overly reckless, ignore warnings, or simply play stupidly in dangerous situations.

But I never want that death to END the ongoing story, not even for a single one of the main characters. I just want it to sting them enough that they try hard to avoid it happening the next time.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I'm sticking with the simplest approach for the moment.

PC's in my game can, and will, die horrible deaths in combat if that's how the dice roll. However, I will try and make sure that any such deaths at least happen in a dramatic way, meaningful to the campaign, and will have repercussions.

For example, if a character death forced the party to retreat, I'd make sure that in the rematch one of the enemies was wearing a trophy of some sort.

When a player recently came to me asking about changing character, I asked him whether he wanted his current character to die or retire - and promised a spotlight moment either way. We're still talking about it, but hopefully either way it'll be a memorable moment.

 

[Phaezen]

What I am considering doing for my 4e campaign is as follows:

I will be implementing the Linger Wounds rules from the APG at the somewaht deadly level.

I will then be implementing the following rules change regarding death saves.

If you fail 3 death saves between rests (ie usualy one encounter) you are out of the encounter, usually unconscious until after the next rest. In addition you automatically move one step worse on the lingering wounds condition track.

Basically the ony way you can die is 1) massive damage (dropping to negative bloodied or below) or 2) due to hitting the dead state on the lingering wounds track or a disease track.

Phaezen

 

[justanobody]

I still haven't decided, but I can answer one thing...

I absolutely hate the "new character" thing in any kind of ongoing campaign. My campaigns are like a continuous story, and once the PCs enter the story, they ARE the protagonists, and the campaign is ABOUT those specific characters from then on.

I don't want the players making new characters, ever, in any given campaign.

Pardon me If I point out a possible DM error. What do the players want?

Do they also want to use the same character for the entire campaign?

If they do, then they are like any other D&D player, and it sucks losing a character, but sometimes that is just what happens.

So I basically have to set up a scenario which makes sense in-game and has a nicely justified story reason, wherein the characters will always be brought back when they die, even when there's no Raise Dead available for them.

But I don't want it to be without cost, so that the game turns into some kind of video game where the players just laugh at death and throw their lives away with abandon, because they know that they'll always come back.

At the same time, I don't want to impose some kind of horribly crippling penalties which will permanently gimp the characters such that they won't want to play them anymore.

I'm definitely going to use the idea about having narrative consequences, but also come sort of actual mechanical detriment which is unpleasant enough to make avoiding death important, but not so terrible that the players feel unduly punished or screwed over when their characters die.

As for frequency of death, I don't necessarily want to run an ultra-deadly game where the PCs are constantly being butchered, but I also want to feel very free to run the game "as it would be" without having to constantly pull punches and contrive reasons to bail the PCs out time and again, just so that they don't die.

I want the story and the challenges in it to be fair, and equivalent to the PCs' capabilities. But that fairness includes a very real chance of death if and when the PCs make poor choices, are overly reckless, ignore warnings, or simply play stupidly in dangerous situations.

But I never want that death to END the ongoing story, not even for a single one of the main characters. I just want it to sting them enough that they try hard to avoid it happening the next time.

I am thinking if you don't want the players to ever need a new character, but want death to seem important to the players, then you have a BIG problem, and not one the game can rally help with.

So how to let the players fear death and yet allow them to play the same characters from beginning to end being your, and hopefully their, goals....

Let them die. Offer places and ways for them to come back to life. There is little in the way of removing items that would help when they come back, unless the players are always stealing from each other, or you tithe returning to life.

The easiest DM intervention would be have them under guidance of a deity that wants them to succeed, but you risk railroading the players that way and even death to appear frivolous.

So the biggest problems is when they are away from somewhere that can offer returning to life, how do they come back, right?

This is what you need to work for your story?

How about an artifact?

The entire campaign is done in the name of a deity, and this artifact has the ability of returning one life from death per week.

This makes a TPK a real possibility and something the players need to avoid, but also means that a single character alive can return the rest of the party over time, and that each death has meaning because the delay caused by the artifact ability causes downtime in which the death has made a real impact on the story. The dead must be taken somewhere safe to come back to life or risk dying again prior to a good night's rest.

Once per week, does not allow for just respawning where you died, and must be worked into the story a bit more than poof you came back to life. The players can feel the loss of the character with the downtime across the entire party.

Best I can come up with without knowing a LOT more about your game, and that may still not fit into your world.

 

[Runestar]

Because rolling up a fresh toon who is at full power is probably better than dealing with Gimpy McChestwound over here.

I suspect this is a lot more true than it sounds...

 

[Lanefan]

I absolutely hate the "new character" thing in any kind of ongoing campaign. My campaigns are like a continuous story, and once the PCs enter the story, they ARE the protagonists, and the campaign is ABOUT those specific characters from then on.

OK, I think I can lob one bit of helpful info in here:

The campaigns are a continuous story. Check. The PCs (at least, those being played at any given time) are the protagonists. Check. But the campaign is NOT about the specific characters, but rather about the PARTY.

Individual characters come and go...as they should...but the party as an identifyable unit carries on doing whatever it does. The only thing that breaks this is a TPK, but those are exceedingly rare (read: nigh nonexistent) even in meat-grinder games like mine.

And when someone dies it's a party decision (usually) whether to bring them back or not...long-serving characters that have made some friends will be brought back far sooner than some annoying rookie.

I don't want the players making new characters, ever, in any given campaign.

Bang goes any thought of my playing in your game, I suppose. Any character under my control is a dead thing walking; it just hasn't realized it quite yet.

So I basically have to set up a scenario which makes sense in-game and has a nicely justified story reason, wherein the characters will always be brought back when they die, even when there's no Raise Dead available for them.

But I don't want it to be without cost, so that the game turns into some kind of video game where the players just laugh at death and throw their lives away with abandon, because they know that they'll always come back.

If they're like most, once your players realize their characters can't permanently die, they'll go gonzo on you. It'll take about 1-2 "deaths" each before this realization sinks in.

And, what if a player *wants* her character to die (or retire, whatever), because she's got bored of playing it and wants to move on to something new?

Lane-"dungeons without mortality are dungeons without life"-fan

 

[firesnakearies]

Yeah, I see that I didn't communicate well.

I didn't mean that I wouldn't allow the players to retire/abandon their character and bring in a different one, if that's what they wanted. And of course I'd work with them on the narrative manner in which their character left the story, so yeah, if the player really wanted his or her character to die permanently in battle, or whatever, I'd let that happen.

What I'm saying is that I never want to force a player to lose their character, especially not just because the dice happened to fall that way.

What I'm also saying is that I don't want to have to come up with some deus ex machina, contrived bail-out idea, on the fly, any time a character does die.

So I'm just trying to come up with a set system which can be in place from day one, before anyone dies. Something similar to, but better than, the kind of thing you might see in a computer game, where, due to some nifty in-game reality, the characters have a kind of automatic out if they aren't Raised for a certain amount of time, where they can essentially come back to life (or, forgive me for using this term, respawn), but having suffered some loss as a result.

I was thinking of using a sort of cursed artifact which the party had become bound to, couldn't get rid of, and which was a mixed blessing. Finding a way to destroy the thing could be one of the main goals of the campaign. But while they had it, it would always resurrect them a day or a week after they died, but at an increasing cost. One narrative, such as the idea that every time it raised one of them, it killed one or two innocent people somewhere in the nearby region. And one mechanical, like the idea that every time it raised one of them, each party member lost some XP, like an amount equivalent to one minor quest reward, or one balanced encounter for their level.

That way, no one character gets behind the others, and no permanent detriment is accrued, merely a slowing down of progression. Plus, there would be an even greater built-in motivation for the PCs to try to keep each other from dying. And the penalties could get worse each time, both in the number of innocents who are slain to fuel the PCs' rebirth, and the amount of XP loss. So, again, a big incentive to really try to keep deaths to a minimum.

Effectively, the artifact is the thing which empowers them to actually go out and be heroes, and fight the good fight, because it basically makes them immortal. But at the same time, it's this very evil thing which is enacting a terrible price whenever they fail. They'd know that eventually, if they died enough times, they'd be killing vast swaths of the populace by dying again, so presuming that they were basically good characters, the aversion to taking all of those innocent lives might make them even more careful with their own lives than they would be normally.

Plus, the XP dock means that they have to work even harder, and take more risks, in order to make up for their failures, but they aren't actually permanently weakened in their ability to fight on. I wouldn't make them lose any levels, but they could go into "XP debt" I suppose.

Being bound to this artifact would also serve as a means of keeping them together, and give them a common ground goal to work on, despite any differences between them. A bit railroady, potentially, but I'd try hard to give them as much freedom as I could, outside of the basic fact of the artifact's power itself, to do whatever they want.

Of course, I wouldn't just force this thing on them from the moment the game started. I'd put it in their path during the first session, and trick them into taking it upon themselves of their own free will. (I mean, the artifact would be tricking them, by offering them some actual benefit or boon which they would actually want at the time.)

There'd be roleplaying effects, too. The more they died, the more the artifact would get inside their heads, giving them vivid and horrific nightmares, whispering in their minds, causing people to fear them, essentially trying to wear away their humanity over time.

Of course, I'd have to put SOME limit on it. They'd have to come to find out, fairly soon, that this wouldn't be an endless situation, that eventually, if they died enough times, the artifact would simply permanently kill them, along with a lot of other people, and then disappear, to be found by some other group, like the artifacts in the DMG do.

I'd want them to really come to hate this cursed thing, and want to destroy it, so they wouldn't feel like, "Hey, the DM just gave us this cool item which resurrects us automatically! This is awesome!" I mean, if I was running a game for a bunch of powergamers, or people playing evil characters, then it wouldn't work. But my players will be really trying to roleplay heroes, or at least characters who are mostly trying to do the right thing.

I can see interesting ethical choices coming up with this, trying to balance the need to take risks in order to defeat evil, save lives, or protect the lands, with the need to keep themselves alive, if for no other reason than to prevent the artifact from killing the children at the farm down the road due to the PCs' hubris.

Of course, this idea as I've stated it just now still seems pretty weak. I want to refine this so that it's actually cool, and doesn't make the players think, "Ugh, this is lame." I kind of want it to have a sort of Moorcockian feel to it, like Elric's Stormbringer, or even like the One Ring in LOTR. This really sinister, ultimately deadly item, more of a curse than a blessing, a sort of ever-present enemy, yet something which can be used, cautiously and sparingly, to bolster them in their cause.

Is this an absolutely worthless idea, or can this be polished up into something decent? I need to come up with a really rich story behind it, of course, and then nail down the mechanical specifics. I think it has potential, though, to accomplish the things that I want without trivializing death or making the players feel like I'm just "giving" them something.

I'm worried that it might feel too heavy-handed or railroady, though, so I want to try to figure out how to counterbalance that. I mean, the PCs will be able to destroy the thing, but presumably that's going to be a campaign-long effort. So how do I burden them with this, without it being too restrictive or forced-feeling?

I'm thinking of something like a chalice (maybe golden and bejewelled, or maybe just a hollowed-out skull) perpetually filled with blood, and in the beginning, in order to do something good, they have to drink from this, or perhaps I can get just one character to pour some of it into the mouths of the others, or whatever . . . and this binds them to it. (Using either the greed of the morally-weakest party member, or the idealistic zeal of the most noble-hearted one, this should be easy to accomplish, while still making it look like it was their idea.)

When they die, if they're not Raised within 24 hours, the blood begins to overflow from the chalice, pouring out into a pool on the ground, and this pool then reforms itself into a new body, which comes back to life as the slain character. At the same moment, whoever is being killed to fuel the process suddenly shrivels away into a dried-up husk.

I can imagine, after several deaths, a scene where a few (or all) of the characters die, and as they come back to life, an entire village full of people drops dead. The characters come back to town after their latest adventure to find a town full of dessicated corpses, victims of the very power which restored the heroes' lives. (Not to mention the fact that the party ended up only gaining a pittance of XP from their victory, instead of achieving a new level as they would have if they hadn't died.)

Is that too vicious? Would most players hate a game like this?

I, personally, would really like it, as a player. But I like a lot of duality and dark anti-hero kind of stuff. I like stories where the line between the heroes and the monsters is extremely thin, but ultimately the inner moral fire of the protagonists makes the difference and allows them to succeed and achieve a greater good, despite leaving a trail of suffering in their wake.

And maybe they'll just kick butt and won't even die much, or at all. Then it wouldn't matter, anyway.

I dunno. Just a thought. Criticism or refinement advice would be great.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I see that I didn't communicate well.

I didn't mean that I wouldn't allow the players to retire/abandon their character and bring in a different one, if that's what they wanted. And of course I'd work with them on the narrative manner in which their character left the story, so yeah, if the player really wanted his or her character to die permanently in battle, or whatever, I'd let that happen.

OK, that's a start...

What I'm saying is that I never want to force a player to lose their character, especially not just because the dice happened to fall that way.

What I'm also saying is that I don't want to have to come up with some deus ex machina, contrived bail-out idea, on the fly, any time a character does die.

Then don't. Accept the fact that stuff happens; that sometimes even heroes die, and run with it.

[snip...]

That way, no one character gets behind the others,

This also is not realistic; some characters simply do more (and thus deserve more ExP) than others. Trying to keep them all the same level all the time might be just asking for a headache.

Effectively, the artifact is the thing which empowers them to actually go out and be heroes, and fight the good fight, because it basically makes them immortal. But at the same time, it's this very evil thing which is enacting a terrible price whenever they fail. They'd know that eventually, if they died enough times, they'd be killing vast swaths of the populace by dying again, so presuming that they were basically good characters, the aversion to taking all of those innocent lives might make them even more careful with their own lives than they would be normally.

Interesting idea. Not sure how well it'll fly in practice, and it really butchers the idea of being allowed to retire or permanently die...I'm not sure how practical it is to bind the party together this forcefully.

Being bound to this artifact would also serve as a means of keeping them together, and give them a common ground goal to work on, despite any differences between them. A bit railroady, potentially, but I'd try hard to give them as much freedom as I could, outside of the basic fact of the artifact's power itself, to do whatever they want.

Except leave. Nobody can ever leave the party as they're all bound to this artifact. What this does is railroad the *players* (as opposed to their characters) into playing a certain style (cautious and co-operative) and into keeping the same characters from start to end. It also takes away their choice as to whether to raise a character or not.

There'd be roleplaying effects, too. The more they died, the more the artifact would get inside their heads, giving them vivid and horrific nightmares, whispering in their minds, causing people to fear them, essentially trying to wear away their humanity over time.

Sounds like you're verging into Cthulu territory here...

I'd want them to really come to hate this cursed thing, and want to destroy it, so they wouldn't feel like, "Hey, the DM just gave us this cool item which resurrects us automatically! This is awesome!" I mean, if I was running a game for a bunch of powergamers, or people playing evil characters, then it wouldn't work. But my players will be really trying to roleplay heroes, or at least characters who are mostly trying to do the right thing.

I can see interesting ethical choices coming up with this, trying to balance the need to take risks in order to defeat evil, save lives, or protect the lands, with the need to keep themselves alive, if for no other reason than to prevent the artifact from killing the children at the farm down the road due to the PCs' hubris.

I can see this working for a few adventures, but after that it'd become more stress-inducing than fun. You might want to have an exit strategy handy for the artifact so you can get rid of it if the players seem fed up with it.

Is this an absolutely worthless idea, or can this be polished up into something decent? I need to come up with a really rich story behind it, of course, and then nail down the mechanical specifics. I think it has potential, though, to accomplish the things that I want without trivializing death or making the players feel like I'm just "giving" them something.

I'm worried that it might feel too heavy-handed or railroady, though, so I want to try to figure out how to counterbalance that. I mean, the PCs will be able to destroy the thing, but presumably that's going to be a campaign-long effort. So how do I burden them with this, without it being too restrictive or forced-feeling?

Instead of having it be a campaign-long thing, restrict it to at most a single story-arc. I've no idea how long you're expecting this campaign to go overall, or how many adventures it'll run, but you could set it up such that they find the artifact in, say, their third adventure; and if they do the right things they'll be rid of it maybe 2 or 3 adventures after that. That way, you've got several adventures where they can't die, so they can build their powers and wealth up, but there's still a way for them to get off the train later.

[snip blood-chalice idea...]

Is that too vicious? Would most players hate a game like this?

I, personally, would really like it, as a player. But I like a lot of duality and dark anti-hero kind of stuff. I like stories where the line between the heroes and the monsters is extremely thin, but ultimately the inner moral fire of the protagonists makes the difference and allows them to succeed and achieve a greater good, despite leaving a trail of suffering in their wake.

I'd find it stressful to play, myself...particularly if I was playing a goodly-type; and I pity any of your players who might have any streak of gonzo-ness to them.

Me, I still say as long as there's an identifyable party unit left to carry on with the story, let 'em die when they're gonna die, and let 'em make their own decisions as to whether to come back or not. Then again, I'm one of those DMs who gets bored if the party lineup stays too static for too long.

Lanefan