When PCs Die When the Player's Not There

[Vraille Darkfang]

Kid,

First the nice advice (much of which you've recieved here already).

You seem to indicate (in retrospect) that , yes, the guy got hosed. You see that now & have taken steps to see that it doesn't happen again. Live & Learn.

But, You won't retroactivily change things just for him. I'd reconsider. Just some advice learned form a decade of DM'ing.

Now the more general audience at large points.

Folks, this is a game. This is not life. Many seem to think its a crime to miss a session. While I've had a player not show up because he's too hung over to play, I've also had a father who had to go to his 6 year old's first play. I'v had a guy get called in to pull double shifts in both of his jobs, so he worked the previous 46 hours before the game.

I REFUSE to punish ANYONE for having more important things to do than a GAME (whether they REALLY have a good reason is sometimes debatable).

For Instance. I just missed my Wednesday game (of course I'm the DM, so it shanges things). I was only able to tell 1 player I wouldn't be able to make it (thankfully he offered to guest run a 1-shot). Why did I just skip out & not tell anybody?

My sister just had her baby. One month early. It was having Lung & Liver problems & was refusing to eat & they were having to force feed it with a feeding tube. I could have cared less about a silly game at that point, the was something of REAL importance that needed to be taken care of (namely supporting my sister, mother & brother-in-law). I had no problem with leaving the gaming table & high-tailing it to the other side of the state.

Now, a week later, the baby's lungs are fine (crying his head off), his liver is fine (no longer a sickly yellow hue) and he's eating every 3 hours. In fact, the were just allowed to take the baby home.

If, after that, I got back & had a DM say "Sorry dude, you weren't here so Bob played your wizard. You died defending the pass from a horde of orcs." I'm taking my stuff & leaving.

I have my priorities. Gaming's no where on that list. But, loyalty to my friends is. That's why I bust my butt every week to try to come up with an adventure. Not for the GAME'S sake, but for the FRIENDS I play the game WITH. Story arcs, metaplots, backstories are all fine, but friendship trumps all that. I won't stab a friend in the back over a plot point.

And family is even higher on that list.

Thus, if a player; a friend; can't make it to the game. No problem. I'll keep his character in the background is he's REALLY needed (like the only cleric in the party), but he need't worry about anything happening to the character since he promised to take his 8 year old daughter camping. Family's forever. Friends are forever (if you're lucky), Games, they'll come and go.

BTW, those examples I mentioned above? They happened. Had one player forced to work, another just finished a 46 hour shift, another took his daughter camping (thus depriving me of 2 characters), and another player got a date (his 1st in 3 years). I went from a party of 9 to a party of 4. If I had run my prepared adventure everyone present would have died. What did I do? Random encounter, leads off beaten trail. Keep the party on a sidequest.

Did it delay my plot-line? Yes. Could the Ubervilian have used the bonus time to finish his plans? Yes. Did it make sense for half the party to dissappear in the middle of a cavern complex? No. Did the Players who made it have fun? Yes. Did the missing players once worry about letting work, family, or life in general take precedence over gaming? No. Will all my players still try their damndest to make it to my next game? ABSOLUTELY.

And there is a reason they try so hard. I'll let you figure out why.

 

[Rasyr]

There was something vaguely similar in the 1e FF. It was an extraplanar being which fed upon bloodshed and attached itself to the strongest being it could find. It effectively acted as granting a +1 bonus, and it switched hosts to whatever had killed its last host. Pretty easy to remove - only took a dispel magic.

Making it a little sinister would be a logical step. It was in the Fiend Folio, after all.

I actually got the idea from an old Shadow World module, where the demon was in an amulet...

The adventure presumed that the characters would want to save their friend (in Ptolemy's case, I am not sure they would, thus the body jumping).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Folks, this is a game. This is not life. Many seem to think its a crime to miss a session. While I've had a player not show up because he's too hung over to play, I've also had a father who had to go to his 6 year old's first play. I'v had a guy get called in to pull double shifts in both of his jobs, so he worked the previous 46 hours before the game.

I REFUSE to punish ANYONE for having more important things to do than a GAME (whether they REALLY have a good reason is sometimes debatable).

As I think I mentioned my general tendency is to say that the character has gone back to town. Getting back is the character's problem. But my adventures generally have multiple elements taking place at the same time - having a character go back to town can allow the party (after the character's return) to find out what is going on while they are absent from the town. So it is not so much a punishment as a plot device. I generally key the encounters on the missing characters return trip to the fact that there is (usually) only one.

I create a timeline for what is going on in town, if the PCs aren't present then the NPCs follow the timeline, if the PCs are present then they can throw a wooden shoe into the gears (and the NPCs timeline will be changed appropriately - it is hard for Henchman #3 to rough up the vicar if H3 has come down with a chronic case of dead...

The Auld Grump

 

[Technik4]

Rolling Damage Dice in front of players - fair and dangerous, just how I like it.

Announcing the 50/50 chance to go for a particular PC - sounds more like a computer game than a tabletop roleplaying game. A DM should take responsibility for every NPC motive in the world, its a hard job but somebody's got to do it.

In a computer game if the dice (or random number generator) comes up -17, you die and restart. In D&D I like to think the DM has a lot more latitude when it comes to dice (for instance, unconsciousness and a lost limb). You can have fun playing a computer game (and resetting every time you die), but you can have more fun playing D&D with a creative DM (figuring out what your 1-armed archer is going to do until he can quest for the appropriate magical bandaid).

Technik

 

[Nellisir]

I'm also surprised at how many people have campaigns where they feel it's appropriate for 4th-level PCs to be spontaneously raised from the dead for no apparent reason. :/ In my campaign world, being raised & resurrected is rare.

But some of the things people are posting are making me think that they operate campaign worlds where random death never happens -- when in fact it is the very meat & bones of D&D...

My games are random until people stop having fun. Then it's my job, as the DM, to make it fun. The dice don't run the game -- I do.
Do characters die? Sure. I killed the most interesting PC two weeks ago. I was at least as bummed as the player. But the player was there, and he made the decisions that led to the character's death, and so it stays (he lost a second character in a second game the same week -- so now he's playing a heavy armor total defense tank. It's funny.)

You wouldn't be doing something *wrong* by overruling the dice, you'd be doing your job.

-- it gives me a better feeling of accomplishment when I live.
Campaigns where you know you're not going to die, or the DM is going to obviously pull your fate out of the fire, are boring campaigns. When I'm a player in a game, I *like* to know that it's possible for me to die if I'm unlucky or make a bad move. (I'm sure there's people who would disagree with this statement and prefer to roleplay in the "inevitable path towards greater and greater success and glory" style.)

The problem is, this player didn't do anything. He wasn't unlucky. He didn't make a bad move. And really, you're punishing him.

Similarly, I'd be suprised if you felt a sense of accomplishment just because you didn't show up to a game, and your character survived. It'd be unjustifed, at least, since you didn't do anything.

Sorry if it feels like we're all spanking you here, but good luck with the game.

Cheers
Nell.

PS - a group I DMed had a box. PCs without players were put in the box. Interesting visual, some nights.

 

[ptolemy18]

Nor does Ptolemy apparently want to allow the player to keep the character.

The possession by demon (or something else) that takes over his body while he is asleep is an excellent way to bring the character "back to life" and provide many hours of fun for both himself (thinking up the nasty things that the demon does while the character is napping).

Rasyr and AuldGrump, excuse me if I appeared to be posting here whining for sympathy ("Oh, woe is me! I'm a killer DM!").

I'm actually not totally opposed to undoing the character's death. But if I had to, I would rather retcon the whole situation and get the whole party together and say "You know what? He never died. He was just at -9. Your characters are unkillable when you don't show up to a session from now on. Please forget it ever happened."

I would rather NOT have some incredibly rare & bizarre thing happen in the campaign world, just so that PC can keep living his charmed life. ("Uhh... the troglodyte's magic greataxe teleported him to another dimension and caused a dead clone to appear in his place! It's a Greataxe +1 of Cloning!")

I'm trying to run a game where life is cheap and death is always lurking in the wings if people get unlucky (and like I said, this is the 4th death in 30 sessions. I'm not exactly a "killer DM".) I'm not trying to run a game where incredibly wacky stuff is always happening because the players are special heroes chosen by fate, etc. etc.

That's a difference in GMing style, I guess...

The possession-by-demon thing IS inventive.

Jason

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Rasyr and AuldGrump, excuse me if I appeared to be posting here whining for sympathy ("Oh, woe is me! I'm a killer DM!").

I'm actually not totally opposed to undoing the character's death. But if I had to, I would rather retcon the whole situation and get the whole party together and say "You know what? He never died. He was just at -9. Your characters are unkillable when you don't show up to a session from now on. Please forget it ever happened."

I would rather NOT have some incredibly rare & bizarre thing happen in the campaign world, just so that PC can keep living his charmed life. ("Uhh... the troglodyte's magic greataxe teleported him to another dimension and caused a dead clone to appear in his place! It's a Greataxe +1 of Cloning!")

I'm trying to run a game where life is cheap and death is always lurking in the wings if people get unlucky (and like I said, this is the 4th death in 30 sessions. I'm not exactly a "killer DM".) I'm not trying to run a game where incredibly wacky stuff is always happening because the players are special heroes chosen by fate, etc. etc.

That's a difference in GMing style, I guess...

The possession-by-demon thing IS inventive.

Jason

I have not suggested having something weird and wonderful happen. I have been saying that what you did was not fair.

You have stated that what you did for him you did to the whole party - no, you did not, unless everyone else was playing somebody else's character. That is something to bear in mind.

If it was my game I would not have let the 'friend' play the borrowed character the way he did. He did not know what he was doing. You did. Then after you noticed you did not try to tell him that what he was doing was slow suicide.

I would not have targeted the character with 'HELLA troglodytes!' while the character was being borrowed by said 'friend'. You did. (This is the first part where I get annoyed with you. This is where you should have noticed that the 'friend' was incompetent with this character.)

I would have decided before rolling to confirm the critical 'this is for subdual damage'. You did not. But you did know that he had only 10 hit points left. (This is the second major annoyance. This is also where a fudge would have been easy, especially since you did not even need to tell the other characters that it was subdual, just that the trog struck and the PC dropped. Dead, unconcious, they have no way of knowing till after the fight.) It also sounds like you grandstanded with the 'there is a 50% chance'. No, there was whatever chance you decided on.

You have stated that you knew that the 'friend' was playing the character wrong. By not doing something about it you screwed over the player. I think you know that or you would not have started this thread, and asked your question.. But then you tried to hide behind 'random chance' and 'no retcon'.

I will also say that if it was my character I would not have let someone else play it. I had a DM (back during Holmes Basic D&D) who used to insist that the party stayed together (not allowing their characters to leave, even if told the week before), and would basically just kill off the characters of players who missed a game. After the fourth time doing that he was ousted as DM. (I ended up replacing the person who replaced him. It was about the only gaming group that I have been in that tried to be a democracy. Elected DMs... it was a silly thing to try.) So you are catching a little left over steam from that DM.

As an aside - what was the CR of the encounter? What is the level of the PCs, it is sounding a wee bit high for the levels of the PCs from what you have described.

I would suggest the retcon and the -9 HP. Nothing complicated, just that.

I am sorry if this sounds like I am cranky, it is because I am and I need to get some sleep, but wanted to answer this before I go to bed, since I do not know when I can get around to it tomorrow. I tend to get didactic when I am tired.

The Auld Grump

 

[Rasyr]

I'm actually not totally opposed to undoing the character's death. But if I had to, I would rather retcon the whole situation and get the whole party together and say "You know what? He never died. He was just at -9. Your characters are unkillable when you don't show up to a session from now on. Please forget it ever happened."

Actually, I think that would be the worse way to go about it. As a GM you are supposed to be in control. When I am GMing, and if I make a mistake with something, I try to avoid retconning anything if possible. However, I do try to keep things fair. The whole point that The Auld Grump and I have been trying to make is that YOU are not being fair to the player question. You and the 'friend' made mistakes which cost the player his character, not the player himself. If it had been the player who made mistakes, then he dies, no problems, no questions asked.

However, you knew the character was not being played correctly, and that it was close to dying from the previous wounds given to the character. You also knew that even without the critical, the character would have been killed by the trog in one or two more blows, and you still did nothing to prevent that.

Please note that IF the owner of the character HAD been there, and run his character this way, and you had killed him, then I would not have had ANY problems with the situation. As it is, you are punishing the player (by killing his character) not because of something he did, but because of things you and this 'friend' did.

This is the type of situation where it is quite possible that the player does get angry, angry enough to be vindictive against the other characters. I have no idea if the player of the killed character is like that, but it is something to watch out for. New character joins the group and for some unknown reason dislikes the character of the 'friend' and then does his best to kill or get the character killed. It can cause a whole campaign to break down. I have seen this happen before.

I would rather NOT have some incredibly rare & bizarre thing happen in the campaign world, just so that PC can keep living his charmed life. ("Uhh... the troglodyte's magic greataxe teleported him to another dimension and caused a dead clone to appear in his place! It's a Greataxe +1 of Cloning!")

Who said anything about a dead clone? The character died. Sometime later he wakes up (at where ever the party left his body) fully healed, with NO idea why... Now, he has to catch up to the rest of the party, and convince them that he is really him, and not some doppleganger trying to trick them. Thiscan provide lots of entertainment without retconning a single thing. It gives them a mystery to solve, something that involves them directly, and not some mission for Lord X or Town Y. It will make the players feel like their characters are part of the world as the adventure associated with it revolves around them specifically.

I'm trying to run a game where life is cheap and death is always lurking in the wings if people get unlucky (and like I said, this is the 4th death in 30 sessions. I'm not exactly a "killer DM".) I'm not trying to run a game where incredibly wacky stuff is always happening because the players are special heroes chosen by fate, etc. etc.

As I mentioned before, I play HARP, which has instant death criticals, meaning that anybody can die at any time. This means that in any game that I run death is always lurking in the wings and a very real possibility. It, however, does not mean that I hide behind random dice rolls and allow character to get killed through sheer chance.

It is also important to point out that since you are playing in a campaign setting that has magic in it, then things CAN happen. It doesn't mean that they have to happen often, or everytime, just that they ARE possible.

You have already admitted that you made mistakes in the situation. I was offering advice on how to correct those mistakes without retconning anything and how to weave those corrections into the ongoing storyline for the characters.

The possession-by-demon thing IS inventive.

Thanks!


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[TheAuldGrump]

It also sounds like the 'greed for XP' that some people have attributed to the missing player was not the case, they were in combat when he left, and leaving would have left the party up an effluent tributary sans vehicular propulsion.

I prefer retconning to weirdness, but that is a personal taste issue. But the path that you chose was just not one I would want to have in a game that I either ran or played in. Admitting that a mistake has been made is better than ignoring it.

And yes, if you need to wrap, do so either before or after the combat. While it may seem like a tempting cliffhanger it often leads to problems. (Like yours, or simply forgetting who was where.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Thanee]

What would you have done in this situation?

Well, we generally do not have PCs of non-present players running around controlled by other players, you are just asking for situations like this otherwise.

Sometimes their PCs are around and stay in the back (under DMs control), but these PCs simply are never the focus of attention. They cannot die, but of course they likewise cannot do any heroic stunts, or anything else requiring them to jump into the spotlight. They can provide basic stuff, like some healing spells after combat from the cleric, if the player is absent, but that's about it. They are basically 'Mark-ed'.

There are usually no XP (or a flat reduced number, like half XP) for PCs, when their players are not present.

Bye
Thanee