Thoughts on Character Death

[Wombat]

There is tendency in rpgs to look upon death as a speed-bump -- "Oh, I can always get Raised".

Personally, I like having death, true, permanent, final death in my games, with little or no chance to be raised.

Otherwise it just feels like a video game.

A mark of heroism is knowing the odds are stacked against you, but going in anyway because it is important. If you die, you die -- you know this was a possibility, but hopefully you have done something important through this.

Coming back to life cheats the experience.

You live. After that you only thing you are guaranteed is that you will die. This happens to characters in my games and the people are good with it.

 

[takyris]

Attacking rather than holding back sounds like a legitimate choice to me. If you don't trust the Blackguard, there's no reason to believe that he WON'T kill the paladin anyway.

So basically, it's:

Possibility One: Paladin is already dead. No reason not to attack.

Possibility Two: Paladin is not dead, and Blackguard will kill paladin anyway. SHOULD attack to have best chance of stopping Blackguard from killing paladin.

Possibility Three: Paladin is not dead, and Blackguard will not kill paladin unless provoked. Should consider whether or not paladin will die anyway, regardless of Blackguard finishing him off. If paladin will die anyway, attack. If paladin would otherwise likely survive, and Blackguard can be trusted, then don't attack.

If I were the pally's player, I'd be unhappy at having died, but I wouldn't be angry at the half-orc's player. The player made what I consider to be a valid roleplaying choice for his character -- he didn't know if the paladin was alive or not, and he obviously believed that the party's long-time enemy could not be trusted.

Not to get all "Paladins should be played like XXXX" on the pally's player, but I'm not even sure that the paladin himself would be angry with the half-orc. "So, wait, I was at death's door, and someone was using me as a hostage, and you weren't even sure if I was alive, and didn't trust the person to hold to his agreement not to kill me anyway, so you took your chances and sought to pre-emptively avenge my death? Good. Fight well."

I haven't gotten any "blatant in-character disregard for another PC's life" from the message in question. The PC saw an unconscious and bleeding character and a blackguard he had no reason to trust. Sounds like an ugly situation with no real right answer, and only a few wrong ones -- and I don't think of what happened as a wrong one.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

There is tendency in rpgs to look upon death as a speed-bump -- "Oh, I can always get Raised".

Personally, I like having death, true, permanent, final death in my games, with little or no chance to be raised.

Otherwise it just feels like a video game.

A mark of heroism is knowing the odds are stacked against you, but going in anyway because it is important. If you die, you die -- you know this was a possibility, but hopefully you have done something important through this.

Coming back to life cheats the experience.

You live. After that you only thing you are guaranteed is that you will die. This happens to characters in my games and the people are good with it.

But in a magical, fantasy world, there is usually a chance to get raised.

What would irk me, would be if the players really took that attitude, so make it a point, that if they plan on being raised after they die, they have to have done something worthwhile while living in order to get raised. If they have a religion, they need to have paid tribute to their god often, or they need to have done something good for their god. Or done some non-religious good deed. But there should be something. And they lose levels/spells/something when they come back.

If the same player continuously does things that get him or her killed then a line needs to be drawn. Maybe make a rule that each character can only be raised once. Or roll for it.

Dead PC : Can I be raised?
DM : let me roll a D20 and see...hmmm....D20 says "2" so...no you can't.

That seems fair. Leaves it to chance.

I think there are many ways you can allow raising but have rules so that it does not get abused.

Of course, I wonder if someone who doesn't put much personality into their character would really care? I suppose they might care about their non role-playing attributes.

 

[Magic Slim]

IMO, the ranger's actions were justified. How could the ranger trust the blackguard? Why should he trust him? My reasoning would have been that the bad guy will kill the paladin anyways.

The ranger could have tried to charge the blackguard instead, though.

Slim

 

[Black Beard]

In the City of the Spider Queen game that I running in, just the opposite happened. Our Paladin (my character) scarificed himself so that the rest of the part could escape from a bad encounter.

Our cleric had just been killed and the group was getting pretty roughed up from group of drow which seemed to be reinforced every turn and their pet Colossal Fiendish Spider. Our archer was webbed and stuck to the floor right next to the spider. We knew that we need to get out of there or we would start losing characters fast. My paladin who was down to 14 hp but I just couldn't leave with out trying to save the fighter. Well the short end of it was that everyone escaped with the body of our cleric except my paladin who had freed the fighter and delayed the drow enough for everyone to get out. Even though I lost my character I had a ton of fun in that game.

 

[Bastoche]

I guess the reason why you ask is because you had assumed that following negociation, he could've been saved. As the DM, it's easy for you to see through this. The player had no idea of your intentions or his intentions.

Suppose you had decided that the paladin would've been killed anyway and on top of that, if they had chosen to negociate, it would've spelled their doom. Would you be on this board asking: "I had this ranger who tried to negociate with a blackguard resulting in the death of all the PCs (or PC x).

My point is, in the player's shows, there was no good answer. It's easy afterward to think this through but on the battlefield, what was the ranger thinking? "If I can whack the cleric quickly enough, Pally might have a chance? Let's do it!"

Anyway, I think what the ranger did was fine.

I hate all sorts of metagaming. It makes everything so unbelievable. I believe in acting according to character.

 

[Steverooo]

Even though I lost my character I had a ton of fun in that game.

Was it really necessary that he die, though?

Suppose characters were tougher and more durable... Instead of dieing at -10 HP, they died at -Max. HP, instead, but still went unconscious at zero... At lower levels, you could even say that you died at -10 or -Max. HP, whichever was lower (so as not to hurt the non-D10 classes).

Does it hurt the game?

You can still die, but you're far more likely not to have dead archers who fell outta their tree. A fall from a cliff can still kill you (and will almost certainly knock you out), but one slip is less likely to end character development.

Once a character is at zero HP, they are defenseless. They can be coup de graced in a single round. They can also be taken prisoner, dragged off to the Dungeon of Doom (TM), held for ransom, or sold into slavery (among other things).

Seems to me, if PCs weren't dead at -10 HP, the GM would have a lot more options, once they were unconscious.

Opinions?

 

[Umbran]

What do you think? Am I wrong to be a bit annoyed at my buddy who plays the ranger.

Maybe a little bit wrong to be mad at your buddy, yes. The paladin may be annoyed at the ranger, but you being mad at your buddy isn't called for. One needs to separate the artist from the art - events in game usually shouldn't be brought out of game.

Hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to say, "he should have done X" after the fact. But he didn't know what you now know. He had to make the call on the fly, quickly, and in-character.

 

[Black Beard]

Was it really necessary that he die, though?

Suppose characters were tougher and more durable... Instead of dieing at -10 HP, they died at -Max. HP, instead, but still went unconscious at zero... At lower levels, you could even say that you died at -10 or -Max. HP, whichever was lower (so as not to hurt the non-D10 classes).

Does it hurt the game?

You can still die, but you're far more likely not to have dead archers who fell outta their tree. A fall from a cliff can still kill you (and will almost certainly knock you out), but one slip is less likely to end character development.

Once a character is at zero HP, they are defenseless. They can be coup de graced in a single round. They can also be taken prisoner, dragged off to the Dungeon of Doom (TM), held for ransom, or sold into slavery (among other things).

Seems to me, if PCs weren't dead at -10 HP, the GM would have a lot more options, once they were unconscious.

Opinions?

Well, my paladin had about 100 hp's so taking him to a -100 before he died would make him pretty hard to kill. And Coup De Grace's are not automatic.
I have always liked the tension of having someone's character down and bleeding during a fight. "Can we heal them before they bleed to death" sort of thing. The fear of character death gives the whole game a edge. While I would like to see more characters taken prisioner and such....I don't think you should make character death too remote a possiblity.

 

[Bastoche]

Dying is cool. Especially an heroic death the likes of Black Beard's character