Your character died. Big deal.

[Starbuck_II]

It was the utter helplessness that made them traumatic... not even a save chance to forego it. I can see a save-or-die situation being traumatic, but for me the last chance save alleviates it enough to make it acceptable. As mentioned earlier, I enjoy the challenge of trying to stay alive in a hostile world. Sometimes I sucede and sometimes I fail... and sometimes my own archer shot me in the back!

I agree. Remember when my character was tortured in game. Not "it happened", no every detail, poured on me hot oil, etc.

By my own side! And the Scout was in on it. In fact, he attacked me when I tried to get cast to get out of my binds.

I blew up: I couldn't trust these guys. None of them had my back? (they were what; 30 feet away the whole time I believe).

I survived but I Dimed door outta there (made Concentration check). Dm said I'd be too far to make it back to the party for rest of session: like I cared.


I was actually crying: I like to put myself in my characters shoes to better roleplay.
I was already packing my stuff and leaving.
One guy said can we just go back to the game (before this happened).

Apparently, the DM heard me wrong. He thought I insulted their commander: I still think he was just being a prick.

Only time I've ever cried for a characters death. But then again it was the helplessness and torture that was the problem I think.

 

[Dausuul]

We noticed this too and thought it kind of sucked (especially since 4e combats are lasting about twice the number of rounds as 3e combats) so we made the house rule that you keep rolling after you're stabilized. You can't get worse, but if you roll a 20 you get better.

Yoink!

 

[Angrydad]

It may not add to the story for you, but does for the other players. You get a whole new story to start. The other players need to decide if they are going to loot you, or try to bring you back to life. Some race may want to use you for food.

Do they need to discard your body to prevent attracting nearby carnivores?

Your corpse can often add more to the story that if you were to have swung your weapon a second faster and killed your foe.

So if you make a new character, then they others have to find his replacement for the party or just may decide to write you out of their story.

That corpse has loads of story potential. Literal meat-shield comes to mind for a good use, as does decoy.

So many things you could do with a fallen comrades corpse, I wish I had them more often.

LOL. We had a low level game once where the half-orc barbarian got skewered by a spear trap and the first thing out of another player's mouth was, "I've got dibs on his axe!" They then proceeded to use the half-orc's corpse as a shield and then jammed it in the gears powering the spear trap, thus disarming it. Dead bodies can be a lot of fun.

 

[Henry]

..They then proceeded to use the half-orc's corpse as a shield and then jammed it in the gears powering the spear trap, thus disarming it. Dead bodies can be a lot of fun.

In a recent Gameday game, one PC got petrified when fighting a basilisk ten minutes in. They had later considered using his body as an anchor point for a rope bridge, but opted against it.

Towards the end of the scenario, they freed from slaves from a slaver stronghold. They told the slaves, "..we've cleared the way out. Take this tunnel, turn left, go over the plank bridge with the rope across it, and keep heading south until you find the open secret door. If you see a statue of a fighter with a big axe and a dead lizard carcass, you've gone too far."

 

[Mallus]

As I've gotten older, I've come to prefer games that more-or-less take death of the table for PC's. So long as there are negative consequences for PC failure, make mine death-lite. I mean, the aforementioned "negative consequences" are as real a risk as PC death is (which is to say neither are).

I have a limited amount of time to game these days, not to mention a limited number of good character concepts left in my unbounless imagination. So my preference is to confront a campaign's challenges with the protagonist of my choice. It don't matter if he (or she) wins or loses, so long as they get to keep playing the game.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Not blackleaf! Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

 

[Delta]

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

However, you should inform them how your game is going to run, so they can make an informed choice about it.

 

[jensun]

As I've gotten older, I've come to prefer games that more-or-less take death of the table for PC's. So long as there are negative consequences for PC failure, make mine death-lite. I mean, the aforementioned "negative consequences" are as real a risk as PC death is (which is to say neither are).

I have a limited amount of time to game these days, not to mention a limited number of good character concepts left in my unbounless imagination. So my preference is to confront a campaign's challenges with the protagonist of my choice. It don't matter if he (or she) wins or loses, so long as they get to keep playing the game.

We mostly take death off the table during the game but then we are dirty hippy indie gamers. Death is mostly uninteresting and death "mid game" is generally anti climactic. We find the argument that without death there can be no tension unconvincing. It assumes death is the only likely or valid form of failure. Death is simply one option among many and often the least interesting.

They way we do it is like this:

1. You can die at any part of the game but it is consensual between GM and player. You want to make that heroic sacrifice to hold off the Balor as your group flees the Mines of Moria cool. We dont need any dice for that, it is simply narrated out.

2. If you are "killed" in a fight you are instead taken out. You cant get back into the action. You are too wounded or whatever. After the fight you will recover but you have the raise dead penalty. You recover with an injury or some form of trauma. I havent yet had a tpk, if we did it would inevitably change the game but we are not going to discard the game we have created so far because some dice say everyone should be dead. I link it very much to the "say yes" idea, or more accurately "yes but." You are captured, what happens next.

3. Some fights will be flagged as "Death On." Essentially these are campaign critical encounters where you can die, really truly die and not just some revolving door "raise dead is only 500gp" cheap ass meaningless death. These are the turning point sessions of the game and permanent character death is an option. At the moment the only ones I have in mind for this are the end of Tier encounters.

I entirely expect such a system to make the simulationis/gamist/old school/sandbox crowd scream bloody murder. Fortunately I dont have to play with anyone possessing such sensibilities...

 

[Delta]

Anyone know offhand if the Chainmail fantasy rules had ways to bring units back after they were destroyed?

They did not. There were no Clerics or rescusitation of any kind -- just Heroes and Wizards.

My own analysis is that the initial OD&D Cleric spell list has almost a 1:1 inspiration specifically from scenes of Biblical miracles. Healing, protection from evil spirits, creating food and drink, parting a body of water, turning sticks to snakes, insect plague, etc. Was there raising of dead? You betcha (John 11) -- so there it is in the OD&D Cleric list, too.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Keep in mind though how much it takes in some RPGs to build a character - it can take in some game systems a good 30 minutes or more to make a new PC. In some (Basic D&D, for example) it can take all of five minutes. That's a big difference in investment versus play time. Then you have situations where it takes forty-five minutes to an hour for a DM to reintroduce a PC into the game - have you watched a D&D game that you weren't playing in for an hour and realized how dry as dust that is? It is to me, at least. I can't even watch my own taped sessions after the fact.

Ah Henry, you have hit the nail on the head. Players need to know the lethality of the game ahead of time so that they can put the appropriate amount of time into character creation.

You put less time into a grim and gritty character because their life expectancy is so low. Surviving adventures at low level becomes the character back story (remember when we killed Raynard the Mad). The death of the 4th level fighter who was the mentor to the first level fighter in the party is a big deal. Surviving and becoming a hero is a big deal in a game like this. Because of the high lethality level, character background should be the adventures the character is undertaking, not a massive back story.

On the flip side, if you are running a high fantasy saga type game (think Lord of the Rings), you probably want the PCs to last a little longer, develop, and grow. Character death at that time becomes a key factor in the story line. The amount of time a player should spend developing background and adventure hooks for the DM is rewarded by the style of the game. The DM, Player, and other Players will expect to adventure with this character for a long time.

Let's look at Aragorn for a good example. Before hooking up with Frodo and the fellowship, he has a mountain's worth of back story; a broken sword, a king in exile, an elven lover, etc, etc. How cool is Aragorn's story if he is killed by wolves after leaving Rivendell with the fellowship? Aragorn's back story is huge and having him randomly killed by the equivalent of wandering monsters is very anti-climatic. A player who brings Aragorn to the grim and gritty game is going to be very disappointed as the time spent in building the character may be wasted before the first session ends. On the flip side, Aragorn is perfect for the Lord of the Rings. He has lots of interesting hooks for the DM to use and his story is a driving factor in the plot of the game.

So, PC death needs to be known by the Players before the game starts. Managing player expectation is a key role of the DM.

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Disclaimer - there is always middle ground between grim and gritty and high fantasy.