Worlds of Design: The Four Laws of Character Death

A problem that I have in GMing RPGs, and I imagine a lot of other people have, is reluctance to kill characters that players have become strongly attached to. I'll describe my evolution in how I have dealt with this.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The Law of Survivability
In its early days Dungeons & Dragons was intended to be played with a single character per person, with hirelings to beef the party up to a reasonable number. That number was closer to eight than to the four we saw in D&D third edition. Those numbers make a big difference, as "Lew's Law of Survivability" is intended to illustrate:

The survivability of a party varies with the square of the number of characters in it.

Note: this is about survivability of the entire party, but that should enhance individual survivability. The numbers are relative, that is, a party of 3 (3 squared = 9) is one quarter as survivable as a party of 6 (squared = 36).

The Law of Single Characters
And if a player has only one character, the GM is much less likely to allow that character to die, as I indicate in "Lew's Law of Single Characters”:

The more a player focuses on just one character, the harder it is for the GM to have that character die."

Hirelings earned half experience, and if the principal character got killed it was usually possible for the player to become one of the hirelings.

In those early days we didn't make up detailed backgrounds for characters. Sometimes they didn't even have names to begin with, as we let what happened in the first several adventures define the character and suggest a name. We were quite game oriented and not nearly so much story oriented.

I was the original GM in our group, but I wanted to play as well as GM, so I encouraged other players to learn to GM. This led in a large group to players using characters in the campaigns of several GMs at the same time. Hirelings per se were entirely dispensed with. Sometimes a player played two characters when there were not enough players to make a party of at least six and as many as eight. In some cases the players who regularly gamemastered got to play a second character while those who did not GM played just one—gamemaster privilege. There was always a “overall GM” who was in charge in case screwy things happened (which usually involved one GM giving too much "stuff" away).

Today we find many players who are much more interested in story than game, and who want to make a mark on the campaign with the story of their character. This frequently means that the player devises (usually with approval from the GM) an elaborate backstory for their character. I have never done this because it slows down the initial games, and I prefer to get people playing the game rather than worrying about the individual non-game details of their character, especially when there's a significant chance that the newbie characters will be killed with little hope of resurrection.

The Law of Character Generation
I've also seen that the more time a player puts into a character, the more incentive there is for the GM to keep that character alive. Hence "Lew's Law of Character Generation":

The longer players take to generate characters, the less likely those characters are to die.

The Law of Imposed Stories
A strong corollary to the GM telling the players a story is that hardly any character will ever be killed - unless in service of the story. Hence "Lew's Law of Imposed Stories”:

The more a GM treats their RPG campaign as storytelling session, the less likely it is that a character will die.

To go back to the original point, my solution is to get characters into a game as fast as possible—which also seems to be the strategy in D&D fifth edition—while allowing players more than one character when that's appropriate. When players have several characters gradually progressing there are two benefits: it takes much longer (in real time) for players to reach higher levels, and if a player's character dies that player has several others to play, and he/she is not devastated the way they would have been with just one character.

I know that with the experience we have among the readers there have been other solutions to this, and I hope you'll reveal how you’ve coped with the "problem" of character death.[/excerpt][/excerpt]

 

[Blue]

I think any discussion about death is incomplete until you talk about permanence of death and long term consequences of death. Because really, death can be meaningless in terms of gameplay if there are no consequences of it.

Think about a D&D 5e scenario: One character is knocked out and healed up after a fight. A different character is killed and revivified and healed after the fight.

As long as the 300gp of diamonds is not a meaningful cost, these are identical. So trying to call out "death" as important from a mechanical point of view. It can still be important from a character, RP, and story point of view, but from within the system there's no consequences. Didn't even have a player who sat out longer from the death than from getting knocked out - which is good, players bored is a game failing.

Would I have problems killing characters in the second situation, even if the other "laws" protected them? Personally, no. Again, not all parties have revivify, and the cost isn't trivial for many. And it does penalize the person who is likely working as a support character that if their particular character dies, they do have to sit out because two with revivify in the same party is rare.

 

[toucanbuzz]

There are the notable exceptions which I think prove the rule, like a DCC funnel. A funnel celebrates the death of the characters; but the ones that survive are appreciated all the more.

DCC totally changed my perspective on how we can approach character death.

I started playing DCC a few years ago as a change of pace from my usual DMing. For those who don't know, DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) starts you in control of four completely randomized 0-level losers, like dung farmers, with 4 Strength and 1 hit point. Whoever survives the "funnel" adventure becomes your 1st level character. It's an old-school meat-grinder, on purpose.

STORY TIME

For us, DCC wasn't serious, even if the adventure is. You can't get attached to your quartet of losers for long. You know in advance many are going to die. The story telling shifted to how absurd we could make it. Instead of "Garack Stormbringer," a deposed prince seeking to restore his kingdom, you're playing a nobody with 3d6 stats rolled down the list. So, we had fun. Got a guy with a pitchfork and 6 Strength? He's now "Dirt Diggler" the dirt farmer with good looks that smells like earth. We also had "Creepy Frank" with his creepy dog who spoke in a low creepy whisper and wore a creepy nipple ring. When attacked in his first battle by a lizard man, the player announced before the DM rolled his d20 that Creepy Frank pulled open his shirt and said "oh yeah..." in his creepy voice. One hit and maximum damage later, Creepy Frank was dead (no one mourned him, he creeped them out, and everyone wondered in the end who invited Creepy Frank on the quest anyways?)

And, I laughed so hard when this happened I nearly cried. Character death, and giving these oft short-lived characters a backstory on the fly, became part of the story-telling.

LESSON LEARNED

Because the storytelling expectation had shifted death to an expectation, it changed how we approached it and narrated it. However, could this translate to D&D, where you don't randomly inherit your character? Having moved to a new state last year, I ran some 1-shot adventures with premade characters and found a similar feel to DCC. You can be a bit more cavalier with the story when you aren't so invested in the character, and this can actually lead to an improvement to the game.

Why? Because you're open to opening up the story to include the death of a beloved character.

...while allowing players more than one character when that's appropriate. When players have several characters gradually progressing there are two benefits: it takes much longer (in real time) for players to reach higher levels, and if a player's character dies that player has several others to play, and he/she is not devastated the way they would have been with just one character.

I've tried this, and even so my experience is players have their favorites and want to play that one. Even in the DCC funnel, I was rooting for a particular 0-level loser (who had the best stats to make a decent 1st level character).

CONCLUSION (Touc's Law)

I give control of the death narrative, when possible, to the players, and DCC helped illustrate this. So, new players know when coming to my table: it's our story, so don't be afraid to let your character die if it makes for a better story.

No one wants a senseless death. Even in DCC, Creepy Frank's death was epic. Not one of those 0-level NPCs went out with a simple whimper. There was a story to be told for each.

So, it's not up to me. It's up to the personalities of the people who roll dice at my table. I'm lucky enough to have met people over the years who don't see the goal as keeping your character alive till the end but rather making his or her story count.

 

[Harzel]

the DM can always have a giant hand come out of a wall and kill a PC.

Personally, I've always favored large falling rocks.

 

[Shiroiken]

While I never played in the days of "filling out with henchmen" was common, it never really impacted the DMs willingness to dole out death and destruction. Because of this, we commonly had numerous characters that we played (1 per adventure though), because if we used only one, if (when) they died, we'd be starting over at level 1 again. I'm currently considered the Killer DM for our group, because I don't pull punches.

 

[Oofta]

Personally, I've always favored large falling rocks.

Bah. Anvil. Big, heavy, Acme iron anvil. Amateurs.

 

[wingsandsword]

The Law of Character Generation
I've also seen that the more time a player puts into a character, the more incentive there is for the GM to keep that character alive. Hence "Lew's Law of Character Generation":

Violating this rule can be dangerous to the health of the hobby.

My wife steadfastly refuses to play D&D or any other tabletop RPG.

She tried 3 times when she was in High School.

The first time, she spent several hours creating a character, writing an elaborate backstory, making sketches of the character, generating the character (and having to learn 3rd edition D&D to do so). . .

. . .and the character was killed about 30 minutes into the session, in a dungeon crawl where the DM had her roll a saving throw for a trap in the dungeon. . .she missed, and was instantly killed by the trap.

It was lousy DM'ing on numerous levels, but taking a new player who was still learning the game and had carefully created her first character, and killing the character less than an hour into her first session left her with a bad taste in her mouth.

(The two games after that weren't any better, but she still tells me about spending most of an afternoon making her 1st level Elf Druid in D&D. . .only to fail a saving throw and thus fall down a 100 foot pit trap in a dungeon. Seriously, who puts a hundred foot pit trap in a dungeon for 1st level characters?)

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I feel the more time a player puts into a character the more incentive for that player to keep their character alive. I, as the DM have absolutely only one job which is to create fair encounters/adventures and adjudicate them fairly. Bad dice rolls and player choices don't matter to me. If a player's character dies they have two choices, 1) try to bring them back to life or make a new character. In the event they choose the third option of pouting and throwing a fit they can quit the game. The way I see things is the higher level a character becomes the stakes get higher and they are taking on more deadly endeavors and therefore death is very likely. No participation trophies here. Death is part of the game and both DMs and Players should realize and plan for this inevitability. As a DM I'm not designing anything around any one character and the Players should accept that PC love is fleeting. Nothing puts a smile on my face quite like the reaction when the new party runs into undead forms of their old party.

In my current S&W Rappan Athuck game there are quite a few areas that are beefed up with undead PC serving their new masters. I'm my campaign notebook I see the group of 6 are up to 21 total PC so far. One TPK due to ghouls. But we aren't telling stories with the PC as much as we like playing D&D. Tons of fun stories come out of the game sessions though. Nobody has more than a sentence of background at the start.

I just try to keep it fair. But I mostly run site based adventures which aren't really based around some narrative tied to particular PC. I realize my style is looked at as a relic and I'm fine with that.

 

[Lanefan]

Allowing players* to run more than one PC side-along in the party helps. A lot! That way when one dies or gets otherwise long-term hosed there's still the other to play.

* - provided you don't have more than 4 or 5 players; after that it just gets unwieldy.

As a nice side effect, it also often cuts down on the number of henches-hirelings-adventuring NPCs the party needs to recruit to fill gaps in the lineup.

Further, it allows players more leeway to try different concepts. Of a player's two active PCs one might be a core keep-alive-at-all-costs type while the other is an experiment, no hard feelings if it doesn't work out and if it does, great! (for some reason as a player my own experiments often do quite well while my 'core' PCs drop like flies...)

Fast char-gen is a must. If a player, after learning how via doing it a few times, can't bang out a new PC in 15 minutes or less there's an underlying system problem.

I don't mind players getting attached to their characters but if it gets to the point of a hissy fit if (when!) it dies that's too much, even if the death was due to sheer bad luck - as many are.

Flip side - as @Flexor the Mighty! already hit - is I've learned the hard way to avoid tying plot to any specific PC as far as possible, as sure as shootin' that'll be the first PC to perma-die whenever an opportunity presents.

Also, at mid-level and above I don't really mind revival effects being generally available, if at significant cost both monetary and otherwise: Raise Dead costs between 5-7K g.p.; Resurrection about twice that; and characters returning from the dead are down a Con point and may well have other - beneficial or baneful - "death effects" on them as well.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Violating this rule can be dangerous to the health of the hobby.

My wife steadfastly refuses to play D&D or any other tabletop RPG....

Sad but dangerously true. I've come across stories like these over the years where one bad DM or gaming experience turned someone away, and it's all about what you were expecting from the game. Instead of a good story, she got a senseless character death.

 

[Jeff Carpenter]

In the 5e sandbox campaign I am running we are 74 sessions in. Fair number of deaths so far.

4 sessions ago the only PC to survive the whole ways through the first 70 sessions died. Not on any of the larger plots, but on a treasure hunt.

Just bad luck, low on hit points failed a DC 14 Dex save with low hitpoints and was disintegrated. 9th level character gone like that. But he took it in stride. Rolled his new character and the story continues.

Death follows no laws. it's pointless unfair and often random. Just like real life.