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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8688351" data-attributes="member: 50987">My gaming group is kind of a mixed bag...some of the players don't mind rolling up new characters, others hate it with a burning passion.  So I have a bit of a work-around....When a character dies, I pull the player aside for a quick private chat (easy to do in Roll20 with the "whisper" feature).  I'll say something like "Okay, so your character just failed his third death save throw, so your character has died.  But it doesn't have to be the end--it's up to you to decide if that's the end of their story. If you want to keep playing your character, I'll find a way to bring them back.  Or if you want to roll up a new character, I will figure out how to work them into the story.  But I need an answer right now, before I narrate your character's fate.  Which do you choose?"Then I exit "whisper" mode, and go back to the story.  The other players don't know what was decided.  The character dies, and the player gets to narrate any last words, etc.  If the player says "I want to keep playing this same character," I will work something into the story to bring them back...I've used divine intervention (a dead warlock's patron decided he wasn't getting out of his pact that easily, and returned him to life...at a cost), I've used plot devices (the fighter's magic sword had a secret, hidden power: it restored the fallen fighter to life, and then shattered), heck I've even used a random encounter (a traveling cleric happened upon the character's funeral and cast raise dead on the fallen character).  Death doesn't have to be the end.Unless the player wants it to be the end...which is usually the case.  (Not always, but I'd say 2/3rds of the time.)  When that happens, we finish the scene, then I call a break.  We all witness the new character's rolls, and then that player spends the rest of the gaming session filling out his character sheet and writing a backstory while we finish up the adventure.  Then we correspond over email about the new character, and I figure out how to work the New Guy into the story.</blockquote>

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