NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="touc" data-source="post: 7990436" data-attributes="member: 19270">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 TIMEFor 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 LEARNEDBecause 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. 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.</blockquote>

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