OTOH I think players love it when they get a letter from ma & pa:
"Hullo there son. Had a bunch of those Zhent assassins round again last week. We're still mopping up the blood stains. What've you been up to *this* time?"
"Worse than death"
- Thread starter kaomera
- Start date
OTOH I think players love it when they get a letter from ma & pa:
"Hullo there son. Had a bunch of those Zhent assassins round again last week. We're still mopping up the blood stains. What've you been up to *this* time?"
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
As with several things semi-unique to 4e, death is a fairly modest thing to overcome.
I've seen more characters lost to boredom and players wanting to test out new ideas over being killed but...
Being raised from the dead isn't that hard. It's not an epic ability. Characters would probably know this and expect it when possible if playing in a standard default game.
I'm not saying it's everyone's thing or that people who've played older editions or who prefer a magic light or more of a sword and sorcerery style game are going that route, but if you're going by the rules, especially in the Essentials edition where its not even a ritual... well, it's not necessarily easy as you still have to meet a level requirement but it ain't exactly hard.
I've seen more characters lost to boredom and players wanting to test out new ideas over being killed but...
Being raised from the dead isn't that hard. It's not an epic ability. Characters would probably know this and expect it when possible if playing in a standard default game.
I'm not saying it's everyone's thing or that people who've played older editions or who prefer a magic light or more of a sword and sorcerery style game are going that route, but if you're going by the rules, especially in the Essentials edition where its not even a ritual... well, it's not necessarily easy as you still have to meet a level requirement but it ain't exactly hard.
WalterKovacs
First Post
My first (well, technically second after a quick reroll after the first session) PC was an elven fighter/rogue who had a backstory of humans slaughtered his village, but was eventually tought sword techniques by a human mentor. So, he hated most people, save for this mentor that died. He eventually joined up with a human wizard and slowly felt he may have found another friend.
Then in the game he received an intelligent sword that was a coward (and a braggart), but also another xenophobic elf. One of the consequences was that, despite being a powerful weapon, it would often fly out of his hands at inopertune times. The PC also ended up unconcious quite a lot due to being the fighter and bad rolls. One such set of bad rolls involved the strong and dextrous elf failing a strength and reflex save to avoid falling off a rope over a chasm, but the mage saved his life with a timely web spell.
Anyway, fast forward a bit, and the elf is knocked unconcious in a fight with some zombies. He wakes up, and the wizard is missing an arm. Well, for the wizard, that is basically worse than death, or at least equivalent. This was 2e, and we were nowhere near a level where we could get his arm restored. So he retired to help out at a magic shop as the rest went off.
We eventualy got another human into the group, a ranger who shared many of the sensibilities of the elf, and he was beginning to once again accept he could become friends with a human. And then the person is imprisoned by a human town because of bad judgment and accidents escalating out of control. (He tried to get someones attention while they ran away from him on horseback. He fumbled and basicaly trampled the person. He tried to get the healer to heal the person, but she was nervous and ALSO fumbled on the heal check. When the towns people started surrounding us, he tried to hold them back at arrow point ... but another fumble and he accidentally fired on the crowd, hitting the victim's mother.)
Anyway, the trial pushed the elf's buttons as it was an authoritarian town, reminding him of why he didn't like humans, etc. An escape attempt eventually succeeded, and the ranger and elf bonded further. Later, the ranger charged headlong against a golem as the elf was hurt ... and ending up dying.
So, while this was pretty much entirely consequences of other player's actions, my PC was being psychologically wracked by a "curse" of failing to save his friends, while simultaneously being pushed mentally by his intelligent sword. Near the end of the campaign, the group hooked up with a human paladin. After suffering a critical hit, the elf was dying, with collapsed ribs. He was saved by the paladin, thanks to laying of hands ... and the paladin was IMMEDIATELY grabbed by a flying creature who flew off with him. So, the timeline between meeting someone, befriending them, and horrible things hapening to them was shrinking greatly.
If the PCs can develop friendships between themselves, it's possible that their deaths (or effective deaths) are more important to the other PCs. If the charcter is replaced, then the new PC likely has little knowledge of the previous PC, and wouldn't really be as effected by his death as the rest of the party.
I will say that taking something away from a player can be a great motivator. One person in our party had two "tragedies" befall him. The first was that he lost his deck of many things (he was more upset by losing it than the time he spent incarcerated when he pulled a bad card and the party had to quest to find him), and he also swapped genders because of a cursed item. Basically, he was VERY impulsive, and twice was punished for it (although, in the case of the deck, it wasn't returned to him, and later was destroyed in an explosion). Eventually, after a long period, the PC found a shop that would accept a number of his magical goods for one of two things. Either the deck, or another belt of gender reversal. It was probably the toughest decision the PC had to make.
In this case, the loss of deck (or swapped gender) didn't actually change the PCs effectiveness (in fact gave the party some extra options, like the ability to seduce males for information/distraction, since the party was mostly males before) but those things still mattered to the PC/player. So, the loss of a magic sword would probably be a bad thing, but there are other items the player may become attached to that aren't directly connected to effectiveness. (I know a few dwarven players to get excited when ale related items show up in the treasure chest ... my assassin just got the reinforcing belt that prevents him from being coup de grace'd which just seem so perfect for his level of paranoia). And changing the character's gender, race, etc can also mess with them a bit too. The important thing is to have the threat of the loss, but the ability to stop it and/or the loss, but the ability to get it back or reverse the change, etc. In both cases it gives them motivation to prevent or reverse what happened. In the case of permanent loss, there needs to be some sort of equivalent way of "making up for it". Like Spider-man can't bring back Uncle Ben, and Batman can't bring back his parents, but they can try to prevent it from happening to other people.
Then in the game he received an intelligent sword that was a coward (and a braggart), but also another xenophobic elf. One of the consequences was that, despite being a powerful weapon, it would often fly out of his hands at inopertune times. The PC also ended up unconcious quite a lot due to being the fighter and bad rolls. One such set of bad rolls involved the strong and dextrous elf failing a strength and reflex save to avoid falling off a rope over a chasm, but the mage saved his life with a timely web spell.
Anyway, fast forward a bit, and the elf is knocked unconcious in a fight with some zombies. He wakes up, and the wizard is missing an arm. Well, for the wizard, that is basically worse than death, or at least equivalent. This was 2e, and we were nowhere near a level where we could get his arm restored. So he retired to help out at a magic shop as the rest went off.
We eventualy got another human into the group, a ranger who shared many of the sensibilities of the elf, and he was beginning to once again accept he could become friends with a human. And then the person is imprisoned by a human town because of bad judgment and accidents escalating out of control. (He tried to get someones attention while they ran away from him on horseback. He fumbled and basicaly trampled the person. He tried to get the healer to heal the person, but she was nervous and ALSO fumbled on the heal check. When the towns people started surrounding us, he tried to hold them back at arrow point ... but another fumble and he accidentally fired on the crowd, hitting the victim's mother.)
Anyway, the trial pushed the elf's buttons as it was an authoritarian town, reminding him of why he didn't like humans, etc. An escape attempt eventually succeeded, and the ranger and elf bonded further. Later, the ranger charged headlong against a golem as the elf was hurt ... and ending up dying.
So, while this was pretty much entirely consequences of other player's actions, my PC was being psychologically wracked by a "curse" of failing to save his friends, while simultaneously being pushed mentally by his intelligent sword. Near the end of the campaign, the group hooked up with a human paladin. After suffering a critical hit, the elf was dying, with collapsed ribs. He was saved by the paladin, thanks to laying of hands ... and the paladin was IMMEDIATELY grabbed by a flying creature who flew off with him. So, the timeline between meeting someone, befriending them, and horrible things hapening to them was shrinking greatly.
If the PCs can develop friendships between themselves, it's possible that their deaths (or effective deaths) are more important to the other PCs. If the charcter is replaced, then the new PC likely has little knowledge of the previous PC, and wouldn't really be as effected by his death as the rest of the party.
I will say that taking something away from a player can be a great motivator. One person in our party had two "tragedies" befall him. The first was that he lost his deck of many things (he was more upset by losing it than the time he spent incarcerated when he pulled a bad card and the party had to quest to find him), and he also swapped genders because of a cursed item. Basically, he was VERY impulsive, and twice was punished for it (although, in the case of the deck, it wasn't returned to him, and later was destroyed in an explosion). Eventually, after a long period, the PC found a shop that would accept a number of his magical goods for one of two things. Either the deck, or another belt of gender reversal. It was probably the toughest decision the PC had to make.
In this case, the loss of deck (or swapped gender) didn't actually change the PCs effectiveness (in fact gave the party some extra options, like the ability to seduce males for information/distraction, since the party was mostly males before) but those things still mattered to the PC/player. So, the loss of a magic sword would probably be a bad thing, but there are other items the player may become attached to that aren't directly connected to effectiveness. (I know a few dwarven players to get excited when ale related items show up in the treasure chest ... my assassin just got the reinforcing belt that prevents him from being coup de grace'd which just seem so perfect for his level of paranoia). And changing the character's gender, race, etc can also mess with them a bit too. The important thing is to have the threat of the loss, but the ability to stop it and/or the loss, but the ability to get it back or reverse the change, etc. In both cases it gives them motivation to prevent or reverse what happened. In the case of permanent loss, there needs to be some sort of equivalent way of "making up for it". Like Spider-man can't bring back Uncle Ben, and Batman can't bring back his parents, but they can try to prevent it from happening to other people.
