One player has problems with character deaths....

[S'mon]

*Verisimillitude: The Midnight setting is dark, it's grim, it's gritty. Death is everywhere, and worse still, death is not the end - the dead can rise as undead horrors to plague the living. Removing the possibility of death removes a major setting element.

Removing the possibility of death OOC does not remove death IC. It just makes the game more Dramatist and less Simulationist. I think Midnight as a hardcore Simulationist game setting sucks, anyway, and the D&D rules are a poor choice for simulationist play.

There's also the Gamist argument, that removing PC death reduces the challenge for the players. I think there is some truth in this - in D&D the primary default challenge is Not Dying - but this can be replaced by other challenges, like saving the NPCs and defeating the bad guys. Even retaining hope in a hopeless world can be a Gamist challenge in Midnight.

Fundamentally though I think the Midnight setting is best used for a primarily Dramatist game, with emphasis on character & story, the gripping narrative that arbitrary PC death ultimately makes impossible.

 

[kigmatzomat]

*Verisimillitude: The Midnight setting is dark, it's grim, it's gritty. Death is everywhere, and worse still, death is not the end - the dead can rise as undead horrors to plague the living. Removing the possibility of death removes a major setting element.

I'm not familiar with Midnight but it seems to me that death potentially does not result in the character being out of the game. Look at the undead available and see if any are playable in a group. *IF* the guy dies (and it's not certain) you can always let him RP as an undead.

There's a few bloodlust/uncontrollable rage-type things already written for d20, just slap 'em on a weak undead template, dock him a few HD, and set him loose. He'll have to deal with stuff like dark priests able to control him, healing by eating living flesh, creeping the other characters out, etc, etc.

Turns it into a RP situation.

 

[Pielorinho]

I think you're doing the right thing by thinking about this issue and talking about it; however, I think you'd do best to put it before your group.

I had a very similar situation: one player was a great roleplayer who built tremendously cool characters, often with entire and fascinating societies attached to them. Her one weakness was that she was a terrible tactician, and her characters tended to die because of that. And she told me she hated it.

So I went to the group, and talked with everyone about the situation (in more diplomatic terms, of course). We all decided together that different players could choose their level of lethality in the game: some players wanted open-dice-rolls, whereas others wanted me to cheat in their favor to prevent deaths except when the deaths would further the story.

Everyone had fun; it worked out great.

Daniel

 

[JesterPoet]

I think you're doing the right thing by thinking about this issue and talking about it; however, I think you'd do best to put it before your group.

I had a very similar situation: one player was a great roleplayer who built tremendously cool characters, often with entire and fascinating societies attached to them. Her one weakness was that she was a terrible tactician, and her characters tended to die because of that. And she told me she hated it.

So I went to the group, and talked with everyone about the situation (in more diplomatic terms, of course). We all decided together that different players could choose their level of lethality in the game: some players wanted open-dice-rolls, whereas others wanted me to cheat in their favor to prevent deaths except when the deaths would further the story.

Everyone had fun; it worked out great.

Daniel

That's more or less what I've already done, except that I've talked to the other players individually. None of them care, so long as everyone is having fun. I'm really just here looking for ideas.

 

[Pielorinho]

Sounds to me like you've got it under control, then! That said, I do find that action dice add a lot of fun to our games, and tend to get used the most creatively by the players who like death the least .

Daniel

 

[a_kirby_ball]

tough times

You are in a really tough spot with your initial trouble. I don't know what I would do with midnight, though with DND I always approached it by not approaching it.

You know he doesn't want to die, let him know that it "may" happen. Then he will think about his actions, and you can keep him alive. I think that is the best way to go on your end. He does something heoric, and you fudge the dice because he helps your story line for him to succeed and live, and keeps the other players happy because he was probley saving them. As long as his anti-death attitude is alright RP wise, then don't worry about it.

Obviously if he goes running 30mph off a cliff and thinks he is going to survive the 93933939 foot drop because he doesn't like dieing, you have a reality check of a new char sheet for him.


I have had this one trouble once before, where I was worried I was never killing off my PCs and as such they were getting to big for their britches in my adventure. So what I did was plot with another player to have their character "Die" in the RP. All the other 'characters' thought he was dead because his body was in front of him...all the 'players' thought he was dead because I was handing him a new character sheet and he was cursing up a storm about how he shouldn't have done what he did.

It made them realize their mortality in the game and for the next few adventures *even after he came back* they played with a new sense of prudence.

So try something out =) be creative. I hope I helped a bit hehe

 

[JesterPoet]

Thanks for the input! And welcome to ENWorld!

 

[direcow]

SIDE NOTE - Last night, on the way to poker, one of my players reminded me that we did experience a character death. His character died the first night. For those of you who have run CoS... he opened something he shouldn't have. And didn't check it for traps first. And was the party's rogue.

I don't feel too guilty.

Alas poor Barnaby, life was just too grim for him to continue on. That and his -4 Con after failing a few very important fort saves.

 

[jasper]

We're aiming more for story than hack & slash or dungeon crawl. I can see where he's coming from. …
Well since you are posting I know you have access to a keyboard and word processor. Have every one get around the keyboard and type up the story and submit it to a publisher. Otherwise you are playing a game where death is on the line.
…but the satisfaction that character development brings, and the enjoyment of seeing the story unfold through his character's eyes…. An low and behold Bucky the Wonder Paladin slipped on the banana peel and the orcs clubbed him to death. The end of story for Bucky. So the role player gets his story he just do not gets to the end of story line.
It does sound like this guy is hinting around an exception for his pc.

 

[ST]

Great, JesterPoet, I'm glad that we were able to offer some useful suggestions.

I think one important thing we've noticed in this thread is that assumptions are dangerous. A fair amount of posters feel that death should always be possible, and would never think to play otherwise. And a fair amount of others feel that they'd never let a character die in an accidental or meaningless fashion. Of course everyone's right, in that it's a matter of taste and it depends on the game.

My personal opinion is that I am more of a Dramatist, and that I think the game can be plausible without being "realistic". That leads me away from arbitrary character death. But someone with different priorities is going to want to play differently. I think you did a good job of finding a compromise for your group.