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

[Janx]

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?

there are fates worse than death.


I think you might be arguing an extreme. The number of DMs who will NEVER kill a PC is probably in the minority.

The case you decry probablly almost never happens.

I suspect most DMs MAY kill a PC. Some more than others.

The answer is really "It Depends"

I've played in games where the PCs never really won. And while death was a possibility in the game, it wasn't death that defined defeat. It was the fact that the party wasn't ever successful.

So, my point to you is that while you might not be imagining a situation where not dying and sucesss being the different, I assert that there's enough variance in other people's game that the two are not directly tied together.

 

[Mallus]

Jeff Rients is a pretty big proponent of what me might call "fragile pcs."

My first response to this post was: this campaign sounds cool!

My second was: if even a low-level PC can get brought back from the dead --twice!-- how applicable is the word 'fragile'?

It seems to me, wherever you fall along the PC Death Spectrum, we can all agree that it's important to run games where the players feel a sense of accomplishment, and this is the crux of the issue: how is this sense of accomplishment created for each individual player?

I don't think anyone is arguing fro campaign free of the "thrill of victory/agony of defeat" -- they just define the "victory" and "defeat" conditions differently.

 

[delericho]

I mostly let the dice lie as they fall.

There is one key exception: occasionally, when designing an encounter I get things wrong, and the encounter turns out much tougher than I expected. Under those circumstances, I'll generally fudge a little to let the PCs run away.

(But if it's that they've done something stupid, or they've just been unlucky, or even if they've blundered into an encounter that was intentionally very tough, then they don't get that assistance. Only if I've made a mistake.)

 

[Crothian]

It is difficult to die in one of my games. Death would be too easy on the PCs I like to have other ways to punish the character for failure.

 

[Umbran]

I don't have a single answer for this question. I don't play just D&D - I play other games, too. For any particular game I play, I may play more than one campaign. And each campaign may have different goals, and call for a different treatment.

I've played D&D in "hardcore" mode. I've played it in "PC death won't happen unless the player wants to retire the character" mode. Both are fun, in their own way. I choose which I'm using to match my other goals and desired flavor for the particular campaign.

 

[Janx]

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.

that would fall on the opposite spectrum of what @Morrus; seems to prefer.

I would assume neither end of the spectrum as the standard.

As a GM, I don't run a very lethal game. I try to balance my encounters to what I think would be a variety of challenging fights. I don't put in blatant over-powering encounters because those strike me as a railroad to force the PCs to run away.

As such, if I've done my job right, I have little need to protect the PCs from death. If they get themselves killed in combat, it's probably because of something they did or didn't do (like run away when they started rolling bad or prepare better).

As a player, I don't want to play in a hyper-lethal test of my wits to out-prepare over the DM. That tends to lead to rolling up new PCs or tapping every square with a ten foot pole.

I also don't want to play in a game where everything I attempt is destined to succeed.

It's all about balance.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Not only do I let the dice fall where they may (and where the players can see them), I occassionally put the PCs in situations where a PC death is likely. I think it adds a ton of excitement to the game when the players know that a PC can (and likely will at some point) die.

Sure, there's the possibility of losing some story potential when a character dies, but there's an inifinite number of characters with their own stories out there, and the surviving PCs' reactions to the death of a comrade make for interesting stories too.

 

[El Mahdi]

Unless the PC's death is a cool, dramatic death that adds to the story or campaign - or unless the Player was really foolish - I'll fudge to keep the PC in the game.

I and those I play with find most of our fun in the playing, not in rolling up characters. And we play with emphasis on story/narrative over the "game" aspect. My players just want to be a part of creating a fun, interesting, and dramatic story...and character death, unless a dramatic addition to that story, is not fun for us.

 

[rogueattorney]

My first response to this post was: this campaign sounds cool!

My second was: if even a low-level PC can get brought back from the dead --twice!-- how applicable is the word 'fragile'?

It was a very cool campaign, indeed. I'm secretly hoping Jeff gets over his recent Traveler flirtation and back to D&D so Fred can delve again. But don't tell him that.

With regard to the resurrections, Fred was an exception. I believe he was the only one who came back twice, and it was mainly due to his great wealth and largess to the church that it was possible. Long story, but early in the campaign, Fred nicked a very valuable amulet from the dungeon without the rest of the party knowing. He cashed it in and was smart with the money.

I believe two others - Bishop Aethelred, a member of the clergy with a less than stringent belief system, and Lankii, a necromantic elf of dubious reputation - survived the entire campaign without dying once. I believe every other player in the campaign (and there were about 8 of us regularly rotating in) had a pc that "didn't make it" at one point or another.

The most tragic death, to Fred at least, was the loss of Goma the Ugly. Goma was a trouble maker. Probably more trouble than he was worth. When Goma tried to infiltrate a Cancer Cult, the rest of the party decided to ransack the cult's treasury while they were distracted with Goma's initiation. Goma freaked out midway through the initiation (trust me, you would have, too) and started yelling for help as he tried to cut his way free from the cultists. The rest of the party wanted to bug, but Fred insisted on saving Goma. We caught them by surprise and slew them to a man. (Or maybe "man" - I'm still not entirely sure they were human.)

Anyway, Fred had Goma on the hook for "a solid" and if Fred knew how to do anything, it was to use a debt to him to his advantage. Unfortunately, before Fred could ever cash in on Goma's gratitude, Goma was immolated by a dragon. Fred had a knack for not being in the same place at the same time as the dragon. A knack he did not share for vampires. Fred did, however, eventually take part in stealing the dragon's hoard. He didn't even insist on taking Goma's share.

 

[Tamlyn]

It depends.

When the characters were crossing the rope bridge to get into the Forge of Fury and the druid lost his balance, I gave him an extra reflex save to catch the rope. It seemed a pointless way to lose a character.

However, when the PC's were attacking an ancient temple trying to stop the mandatory evil ritual, and the evil cleric's ghost used his malevolence ability to infest the barbarian, who then proceeded to score a critical leap attack with his magic greatsword on the elven cleric hiding behind him? That one stood. And the player had great fun trying to collect information while in the afterlife.