To Kill or Not to Kill (PCs): That is the Question...

[gambler1650]

So, I've gotten into a discussion regarding PC deaths in RPGs with a friend who is the normal GM of my group. I won't say where I come down on the issue (and it's far more nuanced than this simple poll will allow for) right away, but hoping to spark some discussion. So, where do you fall on the issue? And why?

 

[haakon1]

Lemon Curry

My answer doesn't fit.

Mostly let the dice fall where they may, but any plot to somehow prevent the death should be given a chance.

For example, when a PC was falling off a cliff, another PC had the bright idea of hitting with a chain and pulling him back in. I let him do it with a normal to hit roll, and it worked to save the PC.

Whether the PC got into trouble through bad luck or "stupidity" is irrelevant to me. I don't try to judge that.

 

[rogueattorney]

Jeff Rients is a pretty big proponent of what me might call "fragile pcs." Jeff also happens to be my dungeon master. I posted the following as a comment in one of his recent blog posts:

"As a player in Jeff's game, whose Dwarf, Fred, died (melted on a magic throne, fell down two consecutive pit traps) and was resurrected twice, while also surviving two fireballs from the same space wizard (on different occasions), a critical hit from a vampire, several poisonings, and all sorts of other threats to his general well-being, I love the edge of your seat gaming that having a more fragile pc brings.

If you know you're going to survive, what's the point? Who cares if Fred fell the giant, Joe Mama, with a single sling stone if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred used his bare hands to rip apart the space wizard's armor so that one of his party members could pierce his heart with a magic sword if we were just going to win anyway? Who cares if Fred and his friends infiltrated the vampires' lair and engaged in a mass revenge slaying of the entire coven if there was no way we were going to lose? Who cares if we came up with the perfect plan to teleport the dragon away from his hoard if we were going to succeed regardless of whatever actions we took? Who cares if Fred used his Ring of Climbing to barely escape sure death at the hands of two iron golems if there was no way he was going to die in the first place?

I got Fred up to 7th level (and then down to 5th level because of the m-f'in vampire - but he got his in the end! - and then back up to 6th level) while a number of his party didn't make it. Fred got resurrected a couple times because he was generous to the church and made good friends. His henchmen pulled him out of the fire a number of times because he was loyal to them and treated them well, both monetarily and otherwise. He was a calculating gambler, who never took unnecessary risks and became wealthy, powerful, and respected, despite starting life with 5 hit points and no ability score over 11.

I got to see Fred go from a low level coward to an action hero with an outrageous mustache and his own catch phrase. "I'm the guy who's going to kill you." No one ever heard that phrase and lived!!! Admittedly it wasn't very clever, but then Fred only had a 7 Int. Words weren't really his thing.

I don't know how people who play D&D with the safety net under them enjoy it. Either they're able to act like it's not there or they derive their enjoyment of the game from a completely different place than I do. And, hey, that's perfectly o.k. Play however you want.

 

[Chalice]

I just don't know why "your" D&D is right and "my" D&D is wrong, and why "my" D&D has effectively been eliminated from the official product for the last decade plus."

What?

I understood the rest well enough, and in fact agree, but what exactly do you mean there?

 

[rogueattorney]

What?

I understood the rest well enough, and in fact agree, but what exactly do you mean there?

You're right. That made sense in the context of where I originally wrote it, but not here. I'll snip it.

 

[Chalice]

I was curious, because it sounded like you might have been saying that 3rd edition onwards has supplied some kind of safety net by default.

I run 3rd edition, and by no means is there anything of that kind, unless you add it somehow (fudging rolls, perhaps?)

But then, it could be I took it completely out of context (not knowing what that is to begin with, it would seem ).

 

[gambler1650]

So, with a few votes and replies in already, a bit of my philosophy and recent experiences gaming:

First of all, I gamed primarily AD&D 1st edition and did a bit of Rolemaster DMing back as an undergraduate. I honestly wasn't paying much attention to whether things were fudged to keep us alive or not but I certainly remember some character deaths occurring. For the most part, we had patrons who would then resurrect the character per the usual rules of XP/level losses... I admit to never playing in a TRUE old school game where if a character died, you just rolled up a new one and the DM tried to find a way to get him into the game as quickly as possible, but I'm pretty sure the games I was in started that way (by the time I joined, they were high level characters). I remember die rolls being in the open (for damage and to hit) by the DM, deadly puzzle traps, and so on.

And I enjoyed that a lot.

I've also enjoyed the games I've played in recently quite a bit too. And there hasn't been one PC death in the past 3 or so years (we play maybe a dozen times a year on average).

The general playstyle of the group is built around enough resources for players to survive most battles, so technically the GM rarely has to fudge - but from my point of view it's the same as a safety net built around modifying die rolls and damage.. Basically we get man points (a couple, maybe three) at first level which let us ignore any die roll we want, and then a man point at each level or for our characters doing exciting/brave stuff. We also get lots of healing potions... And there's fudging of die rolls when needed, though not incredibly so due to the built in buffer...

The main point of our current group's games is usually to explore a deep story of some sort, of which our characters are an integral part - and therefore it would make it hard if one of them were killed, to easily slot another character in. One of the problems we have is that we rarely get deep enough into the actual story to really start seeing the cool bits - due to a normal degeneration of everyone's ability/willingness to play regularly after the first spasm of excitement at a new game...

So, obviously my group is one of those that finds interest in other aspects of roleplaying games than rogueattorney does, but I personally have noticed that the style of our games takes away from my interest in the combats themselves for precisely the kinds of reasons stated above. I've suggested to my GM that the combats do tend to be exciting when there's something important to fight for (and he doesn't usually just toss in a battle just to have a battle), for instance trying to protect hostages/prisoners who might have valuable information or meaning to the characters, fighting against a time limit (town's burning, an important PC is trapped in a house, but someone's attacking the characters). At least in those cases, the PCs still have something important to lose even if they themselves are pretty much guaranteed not to die.

I will point him to this thread sometime soon, as he has expressed disbelief that any significant fraction of roleplayers actually enjoy games in which their characters can (and do) die.

 

[Janx]

I see one logical fallacy right there. Who said anything about winning?

if a DM doesn't let PCs die, that doesn't mean the PCs are winning. Personally, if I chose NOT to kill your PC, I'd have some setback kick in instead. So, you're knocked out and dumped in the Dungeon of Disastrous Doom or some such.

I don't assume not playing in a lethal game means the PCs will be successful.

 

[The Red King]

I do not let the PC's live if they do something stupid.... The rogue attacking the dragon alone, or trying to swim in lava.


But if they are doing something heroic? Something larger than live I might fudge it a little to allow them to squeak by. But not all the time. And it has to be pretty well thought out. And I don't let them know they got any fudging in.

Its not good if they know you saved them.

 

[rogueattorney]

I see one logical fallacy right there. Who said anything about winning?

if a DM doesn't let PCs die, that doesn't mean the PCs are winning. Personally, if I chose NOT to kill your PC, I'd have some setback kick in instead. So, you're knocked out and dumped in the Dungeon of Disastrous Doom or some such.

I don't assume not playing in a lethal game means the PCs will be successful.

But what difference does it make if my character's been dumped into the Dungeon of Disastrous Doom if he is neither going to suffer disaster nor doom?