Your character died. Big deal.

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wonder if there's a correspondance between attachment to PC (with consequent dismay at their death) and the amount of effort required to put one together. 3e is known for having relatively complex character creation, and it's the edition of D&D where I've seen the most distress over losing a PC.
-blarg

It certainly created a lot more work, and considering the amount of purely mechanical choices one made to create your "perfect" character, there is a good chance that you have some more investment in the PC. You really wanted to try out your Polearm Wielding Barbarian/Fighter and the cool feat combo you found out. But it seems silly to just roll up a replacement character "Bob II." with the same set of abilities.
The other source of PC investment usually comes from the story side. I'd like to think that this was true over all editions.

But players have certain... "defense mechanism" to protect themselves from such investments - like no longer caring about the verisimilitude of rolling up Bob II, or just not getting too involved with the character, and just seeing him as a play piece. I think that is a danger of all games where death is arbitrary and relatively common. Save or Die but also CoC Insanity can lead this route...

 

[Subumloc]

I suppose if you invest no thought or involvement in a character, it would not make much difference. It depends on the PC, for me. If he's someone I've had a flash of inspiration for and done seven pages of background story and all, yeah, it's going to disappoint me greatly if he dies, especially if he dies because of some stupid game-related rules quirk or 'gotcha' monster or trap. That's a lot of time and involvement I've put in that now I'll never see realized.

This.

As a DM, I try to plan and run campaigns around my characters, taking plot hooks from their backgrounds and connecting major events to them, one way or the other (BTW - I don't demand my players overly long backstories, but a couple of them write a lot anyways :-D).
To me, a character death means scrapping evenings of work and chunks of campaign plot - if it happens, it happens, but I'm not trying to push it at every corner.
I've also played in games with a higher character turnover, but they were a lot more "beer&pretzels" than the campaigns I run. Not to say that I didn't enjoy them, but sure there wasn't much character development going on YMMV of course.

 

[MerricB]

I wonder if there's a correspondance between attachment to PC (with consequent dismay at their death) and the amount of effort required to put one together. 3e is known for having relatively complex character creation, and it's the edition of D&D where I've seen the most distress over losing a PC.
-blarg

I think it's got a lot more to do with the player and the group's style. The character I was most attached to was a 1st edition character that I played for several years.

Cheers!

 

[cougent]

Indeed this is very player specific. I have had players who were emotionally attached to their just created 1st level PC's and others who shrugged off the death of their 14th level PC's as "oh well" and all possible reactions in between.

 

[blargney the second]

Yeah, I guess it really just comes down to individual players. Despite having story attachment to my characters, I've always got a new character concept bubbling around in the back of my mind that I want to try out. Learn from the mistake and move on. In contrast, my girlfriend absolutely dreads losing a PC. She's not particularly attached to the story or plot or anything - she just hates losing.
-blarg

 

[Psion]

Sorry, in no way did I intend to imply that these are the only two possibilities. They are two extremes used to illustrate that there are definitely differences in the ways a PC can die. There are, of course, many others in between.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and clarify. Communication > presumption.

 

[Psion]

Of course, that just pushes the question back to 1E.

My guess would be that resurrection magic was introduced in response to the high level of arbitrary death. Arbitrary death is inherent in the mechanics of the early editions, so it seems unlikely that resurrection magic came first.

Earlier editions carried no presumption that a character would start at any level other than first, and were rather unforgiving with regards to death. Recall that dying at -10 was not the original rule; times were, you died at 0 hp! You didn't need instant death effects to be courting death every adventure!

I think the central issue was that a 1st level character had trouble getting along in a troupe of high level characters, so at high levels, dying was a pain, whereas at low levels, a new 1st level character joining the party wasn't a big deal. So I think one of the central issues was a play dynamic thing.

 

[roguerouge]

Psion: If you want my opinion, I think you're misreading 5th Element. Fifth Element has not quoted you in this thread, nor has he labeled your position a false dichotomy. He's been replying mostly to justanobody and used the false dichotomy comment directly to Shilsen, not you.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

The further I got through this thread, the more I realised that Ron Edwards GNS theory is a good (and accurate) thing.

Whatever works for you guys is right.

But remember: you might not mind your character being arbitrarily slaughtered, because you’ve got another in your back pocket, your fellow player may be sitting on a character whose family and background (s)he has lovingly created. Some players enjoy investing a lot of time in their characters, to create a more real and rounded person. They don’t want to see that person die. Some folk call that role-playing. You may not! Perhaps killing critters and taking their stuff is what you enjoy, Fair enough!

You can’t control how your fellow gamers get their fun. And you shouldn’t try to impose your values on them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

-- nevermind, late to the game.