Other PC death=Not fun

[Philotomy Jurament]

I wouldn't rip up character sheets.

I did that, once, when I was about twelve. I don't know why; I guess I was being an ass. I certainly wouldn't do it, these days. It was the first time I'd ever played with that particular guy, too. (Surprisingly, he ended up being one of my best friends.)

I could see running a game with no death...

There's the Ghostwalk approach. You die, but continue playing as a ghost.

 

[Ciaran]

I could see running a game with no death, if it were substituted with for instance a debilitating defect, or a "miraculously clinging to life" rule that meant they couldn't be healed in-combat, but take at least 24 hours to get to the negative 10 state, and healable.

No no no no! Either you have actual character death, or PCs suffer no adverse effects whatsoever, ever!!! It's one or the other! No middle ground!

Sheesh, some people don't understand that everything is black and white with no shades of gray...

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, that's what counts. Does the rest of your group see it the same way? If so, then there's no problem. Count yourself lucky if that's the case -- I would think that finding a group that agrees to "PC death not allowed" would be difficult.

Hehe, that IS the problem, my current group doesnt mind it. Another reason I felt bad about the PC death was that the player had lost a PC about 3 sessions ago.

 

[boshuda]

The trick is to keep on creating new characters

I recently lost two characters in the same session (to roughly the same character, no less, a raging barbarian both times!). This only about 3-4 sessions after a TPK. No worries, though, because I have so many character ideas that my pc's death just frees me to try out a new one. I guess this wouldn't work for those people who only play one type of character over and over again, but oh well, no one thing works for every person.

So perhaps the trick to not worrying about your character dying is to have a good idea of what your next character is going to be - that way when your character dies, while you're still upset, you're looking to the future

 

[riprock]

Or in cases like my group with only three people. When one char dies, that's 1/3rd the group. This one DM in my group has a tendency to kill chars. For some reason, it generally happens about 6pm during our 3-10pm gaming session. So of course it takes like 2-3 hours for the person who dies to make a new character [surprisingly, I've only died once and was rezzed, one of the few times we actually had enough money for it]. So by the time he finishes, there's only like an hour left. We tend to leave about then. I could never figure out why we didn't just leave at 6pm...

Happened too often.

This is one of those many logistical issues that can make it hard to enjoy gaming to the fullest.

Many times I've settled for a mediocre game that didn't risk upsetting anyone rather than risk player death, possibly triggering arguments and early ends of the gaming session.

It's a human issue more than a rule balance issue, IMHO, because it's much easier with groups I know well. Some gaming groups cooperate better than others.

Crit Happens. Let the dice fall where they may.

I can't imagine playing D&D without having to worry about the possibility of failure or dying. Also, Galeros (did I spell that right?), mention to your fellow players than having backup characters ready to go previous to any PC Deaths will (possibly) get them back into the action faster.

When I run, I call for 3 PCs for each Player...

It can be hard for some groups to get organized enough to do this. I've seen groups where players had to arrive very early so that there wasn't a bottleneck at the rulebook for character generation. One problem with too-frequent character replacement is that it can dilute player engagement and involvement. Parties start thinking, "Who cares how many of us die? We're not going to keep these characters for a long time." I think DarkSun built rules for this into the base system because it had a high fatality rate, but I haven't played it.

Also, with some settings, there might be just one character concept that appeals to a player while also fitting with the group. I've also seen a lot of compromise with players taking character concepts they didn't really love to avoid intra-group arguments at the gaming table.

If you really identify with your characters and you don't have many chances to game, character death can derail your story for weeks or longer.

One alternative is to play a cinematic campaign where the good guys have a different weighting of odds. That isn't always possible to do in practice.

 

[Matchstick]

That's another facet of this, it can depend on the player that loses the character. For example I would feel worse about someone new to RPG's losing his second character in 3 sessions than I would about a veteran player doing the same. I once played in a Rolemaster campaign where one of the players went through six different characters pretty early in the campaign. He just couldn't keep them alive. I remember feeling badly about it when he got to four. Someone who's lost a lot of characters without playing badly would make me feel worse than someone not in that situation. So I think it can depend on the player as well.

 

[Merkuri]

I don't think you'll hear anyone say that they like it when a PC dies unless they're really sadistic or not into the game. But really, it's the threat of death that makes the game fun.

I'm in Hussar's World's Largest Dungeon game. Lots of people die. One player went through four characters in five games. Not fun for the player, but that's the way the dice went (not to mention he made a lot of bad decisions... like when then entire group said, "We think that's trapped and we're gonna try to set the trap off from outside the room. If you insist on staying in the room, why don't you go and touch it?" and his character went and touched said item).

But the games where characters come close to death, but do not actually die, are priceless. Just a couple weeks ago we were fighting a big bad evil demon-thing with four characters, two melee and two ranged. The demon's minions have been dispatched and he's looking hurt, but so are we. We're down to our last few spells and HP. He has both melee characters grappled and has enough arms to continue pummeling them. "Throw down your weapons, or I kill these two!" he shouts, holding up our orc barbarian and our halfling paladin/monk. The barbarian manages to squeeze out of the grapple, but the halfling is stuck. My character (NG Favored Soul) yells to the halfling, asking what he wanted us to do. "Blow him up!" the halfling replies as he struggles vainly in the claw of the beast. I point to the demon and use my last spell slot above 2nd level to Flame Strike both him and the halfling. The demon fails the save and is burned to a crisp in the holy fire. The halfling makes the save by one point.

Now THAT was a good session.

 

[Hjorimir]

As a DM it isn't that I enjoy character death, but I do appreciate is that when players know that their characters are just one bad decision away from death they tend to treat the campaign setting and their opponents with the proper amount of respect. IMO, this leads to a richer role-playing environment and fosters teamwork and planning.

 

[Lanefan]

Crit Happens. Let the dice fall where they may.

I can't imagine playing D&D without having to worry about the possibility of failure or dying. Also, Galeros (did I spell that right?), mention to your fellow players than having backup characters ready to go previous to any PC Deaths will (possibly) get them back into the action faster.

When I run, I call for 3 PCs for each Player...

Drowbane has it about bang on.

I can understand...well, sort of...getting down for a moment if your own PC dies, particularly if said death was of the less-than-brilliant variety. But having someone else's PC dying ruin the session? That's a bit over the top, isn't it?

Question: how much laughter and levity is there in your sessions? I ask because if your game is the sort where it's all serious, all the time, then when something goes wrong it hits that much harder...

Lanefan

 

[IcyCool]

Sheesh, some people don't understand that everything is black and white with no shades of gray...

Clearly, you have been witness to the "DM does/doesn't kill PCs" threads.