Session to Death Ratio

[Reynard]

Just curious because it came up in another thread: about how often, in sessions, does your group experience a PC death? It doesn't matter if it is permanent or not, or what edition we're talking about.

Also, as an aside, is this more, less or just right compared to what your optimum would be?

 

[Reynard]

I voted every 5-10 sessions. We play1/2 weeks, so that's a death every few months.

I would actually like to see a little more PC turnover, but my players know better than to go poking their heads in round holes in dungeon walls, looking for loot.

 

[Umbran]

I never thought to count.

When I'm running Paranoia, it's multiple deaths per session. Multiple deaths per character per session - nobody gets out unscathed.

Some other games, I'll go an entire campaign without a death. I don't know where it works out on average.

 

[D'karr]

When I first misread the thread title I thought you were starting up a podcast.

Death Radio...

LOL

 

[Crothian]

It is very rare IMC. I perfer to have out types of failure then Death.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

As a player in the Glantri campaign (1981 Red Box), my PC dies slightly less often than once per session: sometimes other PCs die too, and occasionally no one dies.

 

[Gilladian]

I said every 15-20 sessions, which is sometimes true, but sometimes not. This campaign, it has been true. We've played at least 25 sessions, and only once has a PC gone down and "died" but been brought back at the last moment.

However, we play only 3 hours per session, so that may be a slightly distorted ratio compared to people who play all day.

I might prefer slightly more death, but not a LOT more, and not if it is permanent and requires bringing in new characters.

 

[francisca]

tends to be clumpy. I'll have 2-3 deaths in one session, sometimes back to back, then go 5-10 with none.

TPKs occur about every other year.

 

[Alzrius]

The group I'm playing in now has had four sessions (things keep interfering, or we'd have had more) and during that time we've had one PC death.

There was one instance of another PC falling into the negative hit points, but they were saved before it was too late.

 

[Bluenose]

It depends on the game. If you're playing Paranoia without regular multiple PC deaths something strange is going on. At another extreme, I've run a Traveller campaign every fortnight for two years without a single character death. I remember playing Borderlands for Runequest, and one player lost a character in every adventure (seven PCs in about twenty sessions) while some of the other players kept their character from the start to the end of the campaign. I'd have to check my campaign records to be sure how many PCs I've killed of GMing, but I'd suspect it's about one PC per five sessions or slightly less.