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

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

If you aren't willing to kill them, don't put them in killer situations. That's easy. But who wants to play Kitchens & Kittens?

Shouldn't that be Kittens and Kommoners?

 

[thalmin]

I guess I should have made it Doghouses & Daisies.

 

[Psion]

I went with the "PC must suffer the consequences of their bad dice roll", but that's not precisely what I mean. PCs usually control the situation they are in. If they decide that a combat is important, they decided to take on the risk of death when they decided to attack, or whatever. I don't randomly pepper the country side with death-poisoned caltrops. The players drive most of their risks. What they are paying for is the decision to take the risk, not the dice roll.

 

[Wombat]

Death happens.

If there is no fear of death, there is no challenge to the game, no reason to do anything except stroke the egos. My players know that I do not frivilously kill them out of hand, but they know if they fail a roll, they will die. And that, my friends, makes the game interesting.

Some deaths are dramatic. Others are pathetic. That is the way the world works. And so it must in a game.

 

[Corinth]

If the dice says that you die, then you die. Grab the PHB and start making a new character.

 

[Commonblade]

Let the dice fall where they may.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in while! /shrug

No matter what happens, all combat dice rolls are in public view. If bad stuff happens, it happens.

 

[scourger]

I give chips for cool or clever roleplay that can be cashed in to reroll a d20 or for a 5% xp bonus at the end of each session. (Judge characters can take the Luck of Grud feat for the same basic rerolling effect.) So, I picked "other" because they have a chance to avoid a bad save, for instance. Otherwise, the PC suffers the consequence of the roll or reroll.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I want to know who these people are that are rolling for their players?! Now that's coddling!

Save or die means just that. Raise Dead is usually available (but not always) in my game. I don't really want any characters to die but there is always the risk. Fortunately for them I am usually the one with the crappy die rolls.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I shrug and have a solemn moment.

Mind you, I don't go flinging too many instant kills around, but sometimes they do bad and the monsters do well and then splat. But there is a lot you can do to turn it from an on/off to a nice slippery slope of pain, which gives plenty of opportunity to run. Also, I sometimes go "****, oh man. You're so dead if you don't make this!" This prompts more resources to be used on the situation.

And if you don't want to avoid usnig the effects, then the consiquences need to be accepted.

 

[Michael Morris]

If the character was well played and the death was particularly noble / heroic / etc. I'll give the next character a +1 to a stat of the player's choice for each level so long as racial mins and maxes aren't broken.

Losing a 6th level character doesn't sting as much if the next character is getting +6 ability points

Next campaign I'm going to tone this down so that they get ability points for each level lost and come back at one level behind the party's lowest level character. (which will usually mean a +2 to +3). I try not to allow character levels within a party to vary by more than 4 - it sucks to be 1st level when the party wizard is 9th.