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<blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 1429299" data-attributes="member: 158">Here's the thing - in my games, death IS uncommon, but it still occurs. The players make bad choices, the PC's can die for it. As long as the player understands this fact beforehand, there really shouldn't be any harsh feelings. I wouldn't say death is frequent in my games, but in all cases it's happened, the PC's were resurrected (in exchange for money or favors), and the game continued. It's happened three times in the last 20 games (that's a period of six months) and two of them were in the same battle just recently.I find that allowing death to take place actually hones the ability of players to think on their feet; with my players, if death was not an issue, then play would get far more reckless. If they are good creative players, whether you'll kill them in bad choices is irrelevant - but one CAN go so far in this mindset as to be UNABLE to let a PC die - I've heard some horror stories about players who tested their DM just to see how far they could go before the DM let them die. It ended in a bunch of players intentionally ticking off the DM, setting a ship on fire, and staying on board the ship intentionally until they drowned! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Some DM's fix things such that the PC's have script immunity, and others don't. I'm of the opinion that no PC death for most players means that adventure holds no surprises. For a good example of a recent story series that uses character death to great effect, I point to both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel - the willingness to kill off main characters is one point that helps in keeping the viewers guessing and tuned in. Threat of death is one thing that can sometimes keep players &quot;tuned in&quot; as well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Henry, post: 1429299, member: 158"] Here's the thing - in my games, death IS uncommon, but it still occurs. The players make bad choices, the PC's can die for it. As long as the player understands this fact beforehand, there really shouldn't be any harsh feelings. I wouldn't say death is frequent in my games, but in all cases it's happened, the PC's were resurrected (in exchange for money or favors), and the game continued. It's happened three times in the last 20 games (that's a period of six months) and two of them were in the same battle just recently. I find that allowing death to take place actually hones the ability of players to think on their feet; with my players, if death was not an issue, then play would get far more reckless. If they are good creative players, whether you'll kill them in bad choices is irrelevant - but one CAN go so far in this mindset as to be UNABLE to let a PC die - I've heard some horror stories about players who tested their DM just to see how far they could go before the DM let them die. It ended in a bunch of players intentionally ticking off the DM, setting a ship on fire, and staying on board the ship intentionally until they drowned! :) Some DM's fix things such that the PC's have script immunity, and others don't. I'm of the opinion that no PC death for most players means that adventure holds no surprises. For a good example of a recent story series that uses character death to great effect, I point to both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel - the willingness to kill off main characters is one point that helps in keeping the viewers guessing and tuned in. Threat of death is one thing that can sometimes keep players "tuned in" as well. [/QUOTE]

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