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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alaxk Knight of Galt" data-source="post: 4506517" data-attributes="member: 4129">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.---Disclaimer - there is always middle ground between grim and gritty and high fantasy.</blockquote>

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