What do you do when a PC dies because of a bad dice roll?

[Algolei]

It depends on the player.

If he's my whiney nephew, the roll stands.

If he's my friend Bubba, who is 6 foot 3 inches tall, 380 pounds, and perfectly willing to beat me to a pulp, I'll probably allow some sort of something-or-other to save me time in rolling up a new DM.

 

[mythusmage]

Aint we the soft-hearted ones?

(And here I go adding more salt to the wounds.)

You're not playing a hero in a story, you're playing some poor schmuck in a dicey situation. He might get to be a hero in a story, but he doesn't have to be around to enjoy the notoriety.

 

[Numion]

If I'm the DM a short victory dance wouldn't be out of the question

Well maybe not, but we are pretty gamist in our group, so let the dice (and characters) fall where they may.

 

[Li Shenron]

Cheating isn't nice for the DM as well. If one of the character dies because of bad luck, too bad but that's "life"... But I admit I don't like it myself when it happens, and in fact I don't like playing too high in level because of the abundance of save-or-die situations. Of course, at very low level, a single weapon's swing can be a save-or-die situation In fact, I enjoy most to run games at mid levels

 

[Humanophile]

I would love to play in a game where the characters (and players) prized and worked for some valued ideal to the point that it was the measure of success and failure, while combat was just one of the options they had in search of that goal. Were that the case, dice rolls for the high ideal would stand, while lethal blows just took the character out of play for a bit.

But no. The games I play in, the sole metric of success seems to be combat, treasure, and cool stunts. That being the case, getting pounded into the tar seems to be the major success/failure issue that the players care about. And there's no real thrill to victory without challenge and risk.

 

[yennico]

I totally agree with Nifft and erian_7.

 

[Zappo]

Die.

We have Raise Dead in the game for that.

 

[Baron Opal]

Depends on the situation. I sometimes have the character survive but maimed. Then they can commission those neat magical prosthetics from the scary magician in the tower over yonder.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I try not to set up situations where this is likely, but if it does then it does. I do use 'Karma Dice', which are similar to Action Points, and given in sparing amounts to boost the rolls of other players instead of yourself. I yoinked them from 7th Sea.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dark Dragon]

tihS happens. There are days when you have bad luck and there are days when you kill a deadly foe with a single attack (have seen that).

In the end, it is balanced.