Your character died, now what?

[justanobody]

So for whatever reason you are in the game and your character has ceased to be a part of the world.

There is an option for coming back to life with the correct tribute/spell/ritual but this option was not taken. (yet)

What happens to that character and his possessions? Did you leave a will? Does the new character get to loot the old ones corpse?

Do you wait around for a raise dead or reincarnation?

What do you do when your character dies?

 

[Henry]

I usually give my players an option: Either the old character's belongings get sent to his next of kin, buried with him, etc. in which case the new PC comes in with an appropriate amount of wealth, or the old PC gets looted, and the new PC comes in with the bare minimum of equipment. Peer pressure is the determiner for whether someone comes in with nothing or not.

Totally gamist, I suppose, but it keeps the group wealth about the same and makes a point not to screw over your fellow players by being greedy and taking advantage of the DM.

Some might say it's unfair, but by the same token there's nothing to stop players from "mining" new PCs to get a few extra thousand GPs worth of equipment because someone got tired of their old character.

 

[justanobody]

How about when/if you are the player?

 

[Henry]

How about when/if you are the player?

If I feel like the character has some life left in him, I don't contradict the players when they try to find a means to raise him to life.

If I feel like he's played out, or he's just not doing the group any favors, then I'll tell the DM that I'm interested in bringing in a new PC, and he tells the group that the Raise Dead failed -- or we let them know before they go wasting 5000 gp or more on a Raise Dead. Then we find a point to drop the new PC in, and that's that.

Most of the time I've had a dead PC, I've let him come back if there's a means. If I'm just tired of a PC, I'll retire him and let him slink off with his adventuring wealth to a life of luxury and a new sap, errr, adventurer, wants to join the group.

 

[Fifth Element]

After the whinging, I generally put some thought into whether I want to continue with that character or if I'd rather try something new. We get very metagamey with the resurrections. If the dead character's player doesn't want to continue with that character, we discuss it openly. There's no point in getting a resurrection if the player wants to try a new character.

I generally have 5 or 6 character ideas floating around in my head at any given time, so depending on how long I've been playing the current character and how well I'm enjoying it, I'll often start prepping a new character.

 

[Rechan]

As soon as he's officially D E D dead, I start work on a new character. I always have at least 3-4 ideas floating around in my head, vying for "Do me, do me!" so that's not the problem. Hell, I may all ready have the backup character with me, in a folder.

Raising is not something I am interested in, ever.

I've actually never been in a situation where I've had a character with loot worth keeping die. (Interestingly, no one has ever died in any game I've ran, so I'm not sure how I'd handle that, either).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Generally death doesn't really happen in our games. More common to see a PC become a NPC (player wishes to develop a new character so plotline changes to suit the PC becoming a NPC).

If death was to happen, well since resurrection doesn't really happen much if at all in our games, it would be the creation of a new character.

Probably as a DM would take time-off to develop a new plotline to bring in this new character (this is somewhat easy to do, since combat/chances of death usually only come during plot-oriented moments). As for items, etc. it all depends on circumstance if he was thrown into lava won't have any items, for instance. If the body was left behind when on the run perhaps items on the body could be used by those chasing them, etc, etc.

Usually though, death simply doesn't happen and players use their PCs the whole campaign through.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

So for whatever reason you are in the game and your character has ceased to be a part of the world.

Well, according to that old time gaming aficionado Jack Chick, you hang yourself in your bed room.

How about this as a point to ponder: players whose characters die are required to leave the group.

 

[Fifth Element]

Blackleaf! NOOOO!

 

[justanobody]

How about this as a point to ponder: players whose characters die are required to leave the group.

That has been the intent of some character deaths in the past. Only took 3 characters for the person to get the idea.....

I think if it was a staple you might end up with a very small group sooner or later.