To Kill or Not to Kill

[Malk]

issues

Ok wow, this thread took off more than i thought it would. But maybe I should have known. So just to say a few things, I think generaly its going in a much more congineal way than it could be going.

So yes my players do know how i run my game, furthermore i am one of the four DM's in that group, and we all ran games that were very much similar in that regaurde. Now I am not saying that death never happens in my game but...there is always a condition attached to it.

1: I know that they as a group have a means of bringing the person back to life.

2: The player wants to move on to another charectar concept.

3: They did something exceptionaly unwise such as attacking the dragon that they know is far enough above them to result in death,I dont push it that far.

So basicaly any final death scenario results from some sort of choice on the part of the player. We like it that way. I do not think that you have to fear death as the ultimate punishment in the game. There are so many more plot devices to use, devices that keep the charectar that they have invested so much in around. For example imprisonment. Level loss is looked on with so much horror that it works just fine by itself. I dont know, we just never liked the idea of giving up our char's. For us that isnt fun, its far far more fun to develop the char over the course of a long campaign. And yes the point of this thread for me was to maybe get some insight into the "good" aspects of the other side. Personaly i would be perfectly willing to play in a game where death was not uncommon, but i would have to prepare myself in advance, and i wouldnt feel anywhere as deep a connection to the char.

For what its worth I dont think P-kitty and Diaglo have nessacerily been ragging on the style as a whole, only bad experiances within the style. I can completly relate to that, there are genres and ideas that I naturaly tend to dislike because of bad roleplayers, and that is something that I continualy try to root out of myself.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's not that raise dead type magics are widely available and effective in D&D that I was referring to as nonsense (though as I explored, I think a lot of people overstate the case by focussing on level 9-20 where the PCs can actually cast teleport and raise dead, while ignoring level 1-8 where they can't); it's the idea that such things make players less careful than they are when Raise Dead, etc is limited.

I know that I am, if anything a more careful player in 3e than I was in 1e or 2e. Even in the 3e game where I managed to get a True Ressurection out of the DM to continue playing the (5th level) character (my only 3e death so far), the threat of death didn't seem diminished at all by the fact that my character had come back. The only time that the knowledge that Raise Dead is available would make a difference would be in going on a suicide mission. Otherwise, my goal is for my characters not to die and unless something they think worth sacrificing themselves for comes up, they'll try their best not to die whether there's Raise Dead or not.

Alright...
You cite one instance in a pre-written module where the PCs won't be able to reach a city in time to get the job done. But that's just one instance. There are numerous other instances when such isn't the case, and once teleport is available, the occurance of such instances drops dramatically.

 

[Henry]

I LIKE BIG RED LETTERS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS BEHIND THEM SO I'LL USE THEM WHEN I LIKE!!!

You can use them when you like but it doesn't make them any easier to read on a black background.

Let's end the thin-thick skin discussion please. Kahuna had a point to make, I answered it, and we moved on. As long as Malk isn't insulted, and can answer my questions with clarification of his post them I'm golden!

 

[Malk]

So let me say also that yes i can kill reckless players like henry's who attacked the umberhulk...but (and i hope this dosnt sound snobby) my players usualy play very in char and would never run and attack something that looked like it could kill them just for the bragging rites. If they did...they'd die

also...dont worry no one has really said anything to insult me...and really people even if you told me my style of play and myself were stupid...not gonna insult me unless i let it...mostly worried about getting the thread closed.

Henry i think you've been perfectly civil

 

[Henry]

Now I am not saying that death never happens in my game but...there is always a condition attached to it.

1: I know that they as a group have a means of bringing the person back to life.

2: The player wants to move on to another charectar concept.

3: They did something exceptionaly unwise such as attacking the dragon that they know is far enough above them to result in death,I dont push it that far.

Remarkably, you sound EXACTLY in the style I play my game.

In all three case in the past six months, only one was not player-induced. He just took an unlucky critical. In the most recent two, the party took on a small tribe (about 12 strong) of Frost and Stone Giants, head on, in broad daylight. It was a situation where they knew where the lair was, they knew what kind of forces were there after recon, but went straight in anyway, planning to be huge heroes and saving a small town. It went... poorly. And discretion was the better part of valor, in the end. Fortunately, the town had a couple of raise dead scrolls in its treasury, and the group had a somewhat lucky cleric.

Oh, one more thing - as a player, I like my characters, but never get so attached that I can't afford to lose them. I always have one backup character prepped and ready, because personally I am not a big fan of resurrections. If the PC is going to paradise for following his beliefs, why the heck would he want to come back???

 

[Calico_Jack73]

You can use them when you like but it doesn't make them any easier to read on a black background.

Let's end the thin-thick skin discussion please. Kahuna had a point to make, I answered it, and we moved on. As long as Malk isn't insulted, and can answer my questions with clarification of his post them I'm golden!

Cool beans! Normally I make them big if I am going to make them red so that they are easier to read. Maybe I'll do yellow next time.

 

[Philip]

Maybe it's just that I can't understand getting that attached to a character. When it all comes down to it, it's just a piece of paper, and can even be recreated and run in another game if you really want to.

The fact that there even is a discussion about character deaths proves they are not. The characters we get attached to transcend that piece of paper, transcend editions and revisions. They get played at the table, in CRPG's, at LARP's, you can even find their images and/or names on these very message boards, where people use them as aliases. If you cannot get attached to a character, I would say you are missing a part of what can make RPG's fun.

Besides, when it comes down to it, your friends and family are just a bunch of carbohydrates as well, no?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Mine can act QUITE reckless on occasion, such as two 2nd level characters taking on an Umber Hulk (described as 10 feet tall, enormous bulk, wicked mandibles and razor sharp claws ripping through rock) for the bragging rights. They left the party (in the middle of currently pursuing another goal!) to do this, and ended up as the Umber Hulk's meal. So players can be quite reckless, and I play a game style where that recklessness can have consequences. Your mileage may vary.

*snicker* now for that, I would kill a pc as well, but more to the point, thats the kind of thing I try to discourage through out of game conversation as well. Back to making a character you cn play without making the rest of us crazy... no loners, no obstructionists, no obstructing the main storyline by going off on your own. I try to screen and discourage those from the begining, rather than having to hold them in line with death.

From what malk said, and my own expereince, it doesn't sound like some of us who say we don't kill characters have that different a play style from some who say they do - we just express it in different ways. Others, who brag of deaths every third session or want a constant "skin of the teeth, buried half your buddies" feel do have a significantly different play style, and the DMs who won't let your character die because he's too busy stripping, enslaving and forcing them into a module just muddy the waters further. (I probably shouldn't have called that a red herring earlier, as that implies a intentional deception, and I suppose there are players that have DMs like that as their only exposure to a low death game).

oh yeah-

Oh, one more thing - as a player, I like my characters, but never get so attached that I can't afford to lose them. I always have one backup character prepped and ready, because personally I am not a big fan of resurrections. If the PC is going to paradise for following his beliefs, why the heck would he want to come back???

for my characters I'd say the same reason I want to bring them back - their story is not yet finished.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Hjorimir]

I have no qualms about killing off a character and my players are acutely aware of the fact. IMC, I removed all of the raise dead and reincarnation line spells. That isn’t to say it is impossible to come back from the dead. But I would expect that any character that dies is going to be replaced.

I allow players to replace their characters starting one level lower than the lowest surviving member (with a minimum of one level lost). I don't every want death to be an attractive event for a player (yes, I'm in the 'without loss you don't appreciate gain' school of thought).

As a player, I don’t fret over the loss of a character. There are so many good characters to run and so little time in which to run them. While a loss may bring a moment of sadness (I do get attached after all), I look forward to the opportunity to run something fresh and, possibly, innovative.

 

[Philip]

this is something that keeps coming up, and I have to ask... How stupid are your players?

ok, maybe stupid is the wrong word, but I cant think of one more complimentary for this sort of thing. If I am going to the trouble of running a game, I expect my players to take it seriously. I expect them to roleplay their characters, I expect them to build characters who can be roleplayed without driving everyone else buggy, and I expect them to participate in the story in a constructive fashion. snip....

Although I agree with you 100% (ok, maybe 99%), I cannot connect your argument with what I've said. Foremost, I expect everyone to have fun, which means that with different groups of people you run different games, or even run different flavored sessions with the same group. I haven't met any player who didn't care about their characters enough to the point of taunting death. If they did, which is hard for me to imagine, then I would probably ask them to play in another campaign.