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

[Argyle King]

The vast majority of the time, I let the dice fall where they may. There are a few rare exceptions though.

An example of an exception would be when I'm teaching a new player to play a game, and they make a decision based upon a misunderstanding of the rules, a misunderstanding of how the game world works, or a misunderstanding of the in-game situation.

Another example might be when a game system produces results which seem nonsensical and/or ridiculous. This has not happened to me very often; it's a very very rare occurrence, but I have had it happen. I've had situations in which the game system said a PC should die as a result of an action, but I felt (and the majority of the table felt) that it didn't really make sense for the situation at hand to be able to. This typically leads to a house rule when it does happen.

I'll also add that as GM (which I view as a purely out-of-game entity) my motivation never involves trying to kill the players. However, if I'm putting myself in the mindset of a NPC, monster, and/or antagonist, they have their own goals and motivations, and they most certainly might have goals which involve killing a PC or PCs. I prefer to allow the game world and the pieces in it to progress in a manner which I feel is natural and organic. Sometimes, the opportunity for death is what grows out of it.

Secondly, if I don't feel comfortable with accepting what the outcome of a die roll might be, I don't ask for a roll. 99% of the time, once the dice hit the table, they fall where they may.

 

[Doug McCrae]

1) Death plus resurrection isn't really death.

2) The are many more ways for the players to lose than PC death – deaths of henchmen, allies, friends and family; deaths of those the PCs have pledged to protect; failing the mission; imprisonment; loss of items; destruction of property; humiliation, or loss of status.

3) I don't like fudging. If it's impossible or difficult for the PCs to die then imo that should be a rule, stated up front. However, I would note that some rpgers have a great dislike of dissociated mechanics, that is mechanics that do not represent anything in the game-world. For such players, these mechanics break immersion. A 'no death' rule would be a dissociated mechanic, whereas fudging isn't (I think), because it's hidden from the player.

4) The OP's game would probably benefit from having fewer fights. Only play out the fights where something is really at stake, where the party can lose, such as a PC's confrontation with his evil half-sibling. Encounters with orc patrols and the like can be removed from the game entirely or abstracted, merely mentioned in passing - “after fighting your way past many bands of savage humanoids, you finally reach the fortress of your evil half-brother” - in the same way that a month-long journey would usually be abstracted.

That goes as a general principle – only use complex resolution systems when something is genuinely at stake.

 

[nedjer]

Out and out, unrecoverable PC kills are few and far between - as there's so much fuel in what you can work in around a PC keeling over. Passing NPCs find the body first and hook the PC's slumped form up to a Lich's blood supply to prevent the PC bleeding to death . . . or the PC's remains get reincarnated just as the slavers start to sell her/ him off in a lucky-dip slave auction . . .

 

[frankthedm]

Dice must fall where they may. If the group wants players to survive where they should have otherwise died, they can bring in Fate Points.

 

[Loonook]

I personally believe in using television-style structures in an ongoing campaign. Injuries, dangers, etc. are definitely possible, and a lost eye, limb, or cursed wound is not at all uncommon, but outright deaths are kind of questionable...

Until we get to the finale for the arc. Then all bets are off. When you're battling the big evil in its realm as it throws heart-ripping spells, calling shadow minions, etc. etc. etc. then there's going to be a pretty good chance that death happens.

Now, if I'm playing with players who aren't touchy about character death? I have absolutely, positively no issues in that, and prefer it. Players get to generate a bunch of different characters to play over the campaign's span, that can be picked up in separate groups for 'split' situations. Families, Orders, Guilds, and other groups are ripe for the picking, and if nothing else a henchman may be able to step into the breach.

So yeah, I run my games with death and dismemberment as a possibility and no real raising... No complaints.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[GeorgeFields]

The risk of PC death is what makes the game exciting for me. Not every PC that is created is made out to be a hero. Some will fail; other will survive on go on to greater things.

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.

While I agree it's a pointless way to lose a character, there's no reason to make rolls to cross if there is no consequence of failure.

I ran an AD&D2e adventure years ago in which using a rope to cross a chasm was required to reach the final few encounters. The group crossed successfully and finished the adventure.
On the return trip, AFTER all was done, one of the PCs fell to his death while crossing the chasm. I don't recall the exact details, but he failed three ability checks in a row that resulted in the fall.
The player just laughed off and commented the he picked the worst time to roll three consecutive natural 20s.
After that, he grabbed his 3d6 and started on a new character.

 

[Gold Roger]

I'm generaly in the "let the dice be how they fall" and run a challenging game to boot. However, looking back after a longer pause from RPGs, I find I want to be a bit more cautious and am looking for ways to resolve PC's taken down different from death.

The reason is that I've lost to many cool campaigns and promising PC's to premature PC death.

One of the coolest campaigns I ever ran was a 3.5 planescape game that was elevated from one shot status by mutual agreement that it was to awesome not to continue.

That game had everything, tea parties, various crazy extraplanar frogmen, undead monks turning into sandstorms, a four side battle royal, a doomguard PC, who had his equipment destroyed by a rust dragon and replaced with an artifact level armor from the armory, a singing invisible othyough janitor. And then a rakshasa killed the group, we all shrugged our shoulders, said TPK happens and went for the next thing.

Now, how could I let that happen?


I'm still a fan of high challenge games and think PC's should be very much mortal. But I also agree with the notion that there are fates worse than death for PC's. But for an ongoing campaign, there's no fate worse than a PC death that doesn't add anything interesting.

 

[Drowbane]

Let the dice fall where they may!

I am cool with an otherwise heroic PC dying to a lucky strike by "Joe Orc #3124". Crit Happens. I think this is a major reason about why I dig George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series so much. Any of the characters can drop at any time, he is not shy about letting a "major character" die. That is how I DM - or try to.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If you're not going to abide by the results of the dice, there's no reason to roll them.

That said, I'll go around them every once in a while and do some kind of deus ex machina or the like, and I do use action points and I do put up with a lot of wrangling from the players.

The bottom line is that if characters never die, combat is pointless. More broadly, if things never go wrong, the whole game is pointless. But character death shouldn't happen often, and it should feel natural and justifiable, if not pleasant, when it does happen.

 

[Corathon]

I play in two Savage Worlds games. In one PCs can't die unless effectively coup-de-graced by a baddie after being dropped. In the other. death is all too possible (I'm on my third character). I enjoy the first game, but fighting 3 nosferatu with two characters after 4 characters only just barely prevailed against the same number of bloodsuckers was actually exciting. All three of us (the GM and the 2 players) thought that we were toast, but we prevailed. Just.

IOW, the 1st game would be better if character death were possible, IMO.