Player character mortality - Yay or Nay ?

[ishy]

That sort of double-think is actually a minimum requirement for me to play with someone. I've played with a guy who could not do it in the past, and I won't Play with him again.

I thought people were being hyperbolic when they said that you're such a huge asshole, you'd kick people out for minor disagreements.

[shadzar]

I've always wondered: when people say 'PCs should only involuntarily die if they're doing stupid things' what exactly do they mean by that?

"Doing stupid things" = not reading the GM's mind.

That line is a favorite among crap GMs who either fail to inform their players of their game's genre conventions or for whom every single challenge has to be a bottleneck with one and only one solution.

No, you are just a retard. You are so buttsore over past DMs you had that you cannot see that a player could be a fool. Has nothing to with the a DM being bad or good, but a player being a retard.

if you play ToEE today, then you voluntarily enter it. When it first came out, it was still a stupid thing to do then too.

The character that wants to try to swim in lava... this is a stupid thing. yup, they should die. it is common sense those thing you shouldnt attempt to do.

the sad part is the stupid players cant see them as stupid, because stupid is blind to stupid, so rather than admitting they ARE stupid, they just blame the DMs for being bad.

wold you honestly beg and plead a DM to NOT have the character die if you watched their player try to swim in lava?

voluntary tins would be entering a combat. the player choose to have combat rather than avoid it. maybe the lava is voluntary as well, but then i cant think of a single thing outside of a trap that would be involuntary? and the lava could have been illusioned to look like a river of water. but then you should have tested that shit before you jumped in.

The idea that games need loss or death in order to be games is also wrong.

you are just plain stupid.

you don't understand RPGs or that they are a simulated life of the character that goes on adventures. Minecraft is an electronic toy, not a game. many things labeled games just because people "play" them have been stupid for a long time. a game has a risk of failure. Minecraft is a computer toy. competitive games from sports, to Monopoly, etc have the risk of "you didn't win".

you and many others confuse "games" with "toys" because some industry labeled them that way. Games have a goal, toy are thing you just play with to play with.

the industry chose "games" because toys are seen as for children and they wanted to avoid such connotations to get the people with the money to afford them to buy them.

what you want is a toy. you dont want the jacks, to play a game with, you just want to bounce the rubber ball around.

"childrens imaginary games" are TOYS, imaginative toys, just like a IG Basalisk is only a toy, unless you field a commander and about a million IG along with it against an opposing army then you have WH40K, which is a game, that uses those TOYS in which to play it.

this namby-pamby psychobabble to make people feel like special snowflakes by calling things games that are not, because it would confuse them can go to hell or stay in psychobabble land with the psychotics.

death is one of the ONLY risks in an adventure RPG, because everything else can be replaced from the possessions to personal connections with NPCs etc to even the character. and being a game made so that you didnt have to stop playing after the one session, and could continue the next time you play, the character death is NOT final unless that is agreed upon, thus why there are ways for bring them back to life. this way people can choose what level of risk they want from the game. the goal rmains the same, the loss remains the same. YOU LOST THAT CHARACTER FOR A TIME. you took the risk, you have to take the good and the bad that comes with the risk taken with that character. even if it means you do not get to participate for an hour or two

it DOES belong in games bcause people want it their. stop being goyf and trying to force everyone to play without it because you don't want it, just find people to play with that want the same fucking kind of game you do and just play with them. everyone doesnt have to agree that the stupid shit you want to play is the ONETRUEWAY to play.

this "no child left behind" stupid shit where you get rewarded for participating need to stay in the workplace and nowhere else, because even there you can be rewarded more for more effort, but everyone has to get something for participating. it doesnt belong forced as the only method for EVERYONE to HAVE to play all games by. that is where human have the right to choose.

Typically, they hang around, eat snacks, and watch the rest of the play session...because they are still a part of the group, even if there guy is dead, and have some sort of emotional investment in the outcome of the adventure.

i think this new breed of gamer doesn't even think about this. they don't get to DO anything except sit and watch, so they don't think they ar a part of anything and fail to see their actions prior to death DID play a part in the outcome, be it good or TPK.

they are just a bunch of attention whores.

i wonder how they watch movies since they don't get to participate? same thing after your character dies, you are watching a movie until you have a chance to jump in again. it is a movie (unless recorded in this day and age) that nobody else in the world or in time will ever get to see. and it will help to pay attention so when a new character shows up you can jsut assume the "history" of the group they are joining because they dont have to verbally share everything that happened, only tell you which parts that happened that they choose to not tell the new character...like how his old one died cause the group sacrificed him and they all got loot and accolades that they are not willing to share with the new-born character right away or at all.

You still must be aware that it is a good game design goal to minimize the amount of time your game forces people to stop playing your game.

and yet people still buy Monopoly, basketballs, etc. anything with an elimination style tournament that prevents people from playing the game because they were eliminated from the "game" would then not sell, but MtG sales are solid and growing. here is the thing, people can still play against the other that got knocked out of a tournament.

also with the world of today, nobody is left out cause half the gamers are probably already playing on their phones and not paying attention to the RPG anyway, so it isnt like they have nothing to do while they wait.

you seem to want a childs plaything, rather than a game for mature adults. mature meaning not sexual content or such, but those who are not going around throwing temper tantrums because they dont get to participate every single moment that they want to.

have you tried Fisher Price? they might have just the types of things you are looking for, for your maturity level.

[Fuchs]

That sort of double-think is actually a minimum requirement for me to play with someone. I've played with a guy who could not do it in the past, and I won't Play with him again.

I thought people were being hyperbolic when they said that you're such a huge asshole, you'd kick people out for minor disagreements.

A huge difference in playstyle and a disability to separate player and character knowledge is not a "minor disagreement".

[shadzar]

That sort of double-think is actually a minimum requirement for me to play with someone. I've played with a guy who could not do it in the past, and I won't Play with him again.

I thought people were being hyperbolic when they said that you're such a huge asshole, you'd kick people out for minor disagreements.

A huge difference in playstyle and a disability to separate player and character knowledge is not a "minor disagreement".

acting like your character can die, when you as a player know it cannot is NOT metagaming such as you try to make it out as. it is ACTING.

RPGs are not all about acting, but playing. dont be stuck up and trying to force everyone to have the same levels of SoD as you do you Fuch.

it isnt a difference of playstyle at all, but a difference of SoD.

what you want is a storytelling tool, we all know that, so stop trying to force RPGs into you way of thinking because you USE them to be storyteling tools rather than adventure games.

seriously stop being a dumbfuch and jsut go have a temper tantrum in the corner because you didnt get the magical rapier you think your DM OWES you like the crybaby you are. and the corner does NOT have internet access, so i guess we wont be seeing you for a while with how long your temper tantrums last eh?

[deaddmwalking]

That sort of double-think is actually a minimum requirement for me to play with someone. I've played with a guy who could not do it in the past, and I won't Play with him again.

I thought people were being hyperbolic when they said that you're such a huge asshole, you'd kick people out for minor disagreements.

A huge difference in playstyle and a disability to separate player and character knowledge is not a "minor disagreement".

I think I have the ability to separate in-character knowledge and out-of-character knowledge, but I greatly prefer to keep them completely separate. It's harder to act against your character's interests if you know the consequences. If I KNOW that there is a treasure I overlooked, can I justify going back and looking?

If I don't KNOW, any action avoids the taint of meta-gaming.

If you want people to act like they might die, the easiest way to make that happen is to make death something that can happen. Otherwise it feels too artificial for me (outside of some specific genre-emulation with requisite plot-armor.

[OgreBattle]

So what's everyones BEST experience with character death then? In games they've run, witnessing others die, their PC's themselves dying.

What about it made it good and fun (climatic, meaningful, excuse to introduce a new character, etc.)?

[ubernoob]

What about it made it good and fun (climatic, meaningful, excuse to introduce a new character, etc.)?

Answering your own question are you?

[Kaelik]

My best experience with death was "Dude Who Died All The Time."

Basically it was a campaign that started at level 1. And at level 1, my guy was some Cleric bully who fought with a Spear a lot and didn't do that much casting of non buffs.

And he died at level 1 to a Friendly Fire Burning Hands and a Goblin Spear Crit. And then his nearly identical brother took over, because unlike most games I play now, I was not at all prepared for my character to die at level 1 with a new concept, so I played same as the old concept so that I could keep playing that night without having to actually come up with a new character. And then like, two weeks later, at level 4, he died a fucking gain, because what the fuck, basilisks be turning people to stone. So then I had his other brother take over, because why the fuck not. And he explained that if he died, under absolutely no fucking circumstances where they allowed to let his younger brother start adventuring with them, because he was the Last One (TM) and his parents would be devastated if all their kids died (because they weren't at all devastated from two deaths, and a possible third apparently).

So then, then we got to the level where the Druid could cast reincarnate, because fuck yeah, level 7. And this is the point where the DM, in his infinite wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to have a subplot where we go home to the town of the brothers, and when we get there it is under attack. But not just any attack, this attack, mind you, was a fucking Barghest Attack. I'm sure there were probably some fucking goblins too, but for reasons that I'm sure you have already figured out, I don't remember or give a fuck about the goblins, and I do remember the Barghests.

So during the ensuing super dramatic fight to find and protect his family, Brother the Second to Last dies pretty much right in front of the family, with still lots of fucking Barghests around. And the DM, being an idiot, made a bunch of comments about how he was totally being eaten in front of them for shock value. So at this point, the DM just tells me to play the last brother for the rest of this combat. So I ask him about stats and stuff, and he is another beater Cleric of coincidentally the same level with all 18s for stats, and that's a joke, because I apparently wasn't supposed to play him afterword, and the DM made his little "try not to die this time yeah, yuck yuck" jokes when he said it. So his brother dramatically picked up his brother's spear and swore vengeance and killed some Barghests.

So after the fight, the Druid says he is going to reincarnate me, so that I can continue on, to which I point out, "Nope, Barghests." and suddenly the DM who was really adamant about how graphic and horrible the eating was earlier looks a little sheepish, because apparently he forgot that.

So at this point, the Last One joins the team as my new DMM Persist Beater Cleric because hey those things are MAD, and he had all 18s and everybody felt really bad for me so no one had the heart to say no.

He died three more times before they reached the Bad Guy who had sent the Bargests. Got reincarnated. By level 14 he had died seven time and been reincarnated seven times. After that he never died again, and also never leveled again, because he was a level 13 Cleric Half Demon Half Dragon Troll. Because 100 on the reincarnate table, that is why.

He was in many ways the unluckiest character I ever played, regularly rolling them ones on life or death saves, getting crit a bunch, ect.

But yeah, it's not particularly a thing I ever want to repeat, but it counts as my best experience with PC death.

[deaddmwalking]

I have several character deaths that I'm satisfied with.

I had a character that I was playing in a fairly long-lasting Eberron campaign. I was going to be away from the game for several weeks due to a wedding, honeymoon and various other related distractions. Conveniently, my character died and his soul was trapped in a gem. He was intended as a sacrifice. When I came back, I played my cohort until we rescued the gem and revived my main character. The fact that it provided an interesting story arc and happened to coincide with my real-life distractions was nice - but more importantly, the issues surrounding recovering my PC allowed some interesting RP and character development opportunities for the other players.

I've had some characters that died in pretty unsatisfying ways. In a fairly low-magic, fairly low-level Viking style historical campaign, my character was briefly under a nefarious spiritual influence. It forced me to turn on my party (which I always play with gusto) but the berserker in the group stopped what he was doing and charged/critted me with a greataxe - killing me instantly. That was pretty dissatisfying. Usually I prefer to let dead characters stay dead, but this was pretty early in the campaign and the DM offered an interesting way to bring him back that I accepted.

In another campaign where the technology level included black-powder weapons I made a two-weapon fighting pistol duelist. This was before things like the Gunslinger in Pathfinder, and the character was alright at low-levels, but once multiple attacks became a thing, the black-powder weapons were very limiting. The character was a dead-end experiment. He died and I introduced a two-weapon fighting melee character that worked out much better mechanically and was more satisfying to play.

There have been a few others, I'd wager, throughout the years, but I probably don't remember them all. Personally, I like death as a possibility, but I like to give players the chance to 'cheat death' with some type of 'fate' mechanic. Then, if I choose not to cheat death, death actually can exist - with all the interesting story complications it can bring about.

I remember that when I was in elementary school, I had a good friend who became obsessed with Dragonlance. I didn't enjoy the campaign because he wanted it to be EXACTLY like the books - but he was totally in love with the way Sturm died in the novels - and taking that type of story event out of the toolbox would have been crushing.

[Dean]

My best experience with death was "Dude Who Died All The Time."

Which is noteworthy. As the best experience reported is a person who keeps losing but continues playing the same character immediately after standing back up.

The best experience with death reported is changing death to a KO condition.

Which makes sense. As that lets you skip most of the bullshit but still have the fun of "WTF! My constant losing has become hilarious"

[PhoneLobster]

I have several character deaths that I'm satisfied with.

Two of those are resurrection stories (ie ANTI PC mortality anecdotes) and one of those is a story of a failed character build being retired because it was crap.

Those are your examples of good/best/"satifying" experiences with your own PC deaths? Retiring a sucky character and then NOT being permanently dead twice?

Anecdote requests are silly, but if that's the actual going standard do we really have no one with positive personal PC mortality story time that ACTUALLY includes a character they liked dying in a random fight and STAYING FUCKING DEAD that they can call a good experience in some way?

I mean I'm of the opinion it's a bad idea in general to have that sort of thing happen randomly, I'm against the random PC mortality thing. But I'm not so absolutist that I can't imagine SOME rare edge cases I don't care for where it's a good thing.

But FUCK guys, SURELY the mortality defenders can produce ONE bullshit anecdotal story of ACTUAL positive fucking character death without having to WIMP THE FUCK OUT with revivals or COP THE FUCK OUT with "eh, that character was sucky and I wanted a replacement".

Because if THIS is the standard the hard core "I want my PC to die!" crowd are actually sotto voice "as long as if I like the PC I can have them get better soon!". And that's a giant fucking wimp out.

Give us some actually fucking "my personal favorite character stayed the fuck dead and I liked it" stories for me to dismiss as lies and crazy ass edge cases.

This is just lame.

[Kaelik]

The best experience with death reported is changing death to a KO condition.

I want to be clear, if the deaths were actually just KOs, that would have completely negated all possible fun and just been annoying. There would be no brothers at all, and the Second to Last Brother could never have been eaten by a Bargest, and the Last One could not have repeatedly died just like his brothers over and over, until by shear number of deaths he accidentally became death proof.

[infected slut princess]

Give us some actually fucking "my personal favorite character stayed the fuck dead and I liked it" stories for me to dismiss as lies and crazy ass edge cases.

This happened to me once and it was pretty sweet.

So we were in university playing 3.0 D&D on Friday night like a bunch of losers. My half-fiend warrior got killed in an epic battle near the end of the main quest. It was epic and awesome. He hacked up a lot of dudes before he died.

The party actually had a wish but but we needed to save it to disable some crazy curse or something later on. I took over an NPC that was two levels lower for the last two sessions of the adventure and I managed to not once cry like a bitch.

[deaddmwalking]

The thing is, the times my character(s) die(d) made the times they didn't more enjoyable. I'm not saying that has to be your experience and I agree that 'casual death' is a problem, but all my examples of character death (that I remember well) are 3.x. Now we play a fantasy heartbreaker where death is exceedingly rare... Not impossible, but extremely unlikely. In the last session a character DIDN'T die, but they came close. They had used all their 'cheat death' chits in a massive multi-session end of campaign (at least for a while - we may resurrect the campaign in a year or so) so ended up needing to make a fairly easy (but still possible to fail) save or the character would have died. That increased the dramatic tension considerably.

Death may not be particularly fun, but the real possibility it may happen makes the rest of the game more fun for me... Getting rid of it completely would destroy any sense of verisimilitude that the world has for me (at least with a standard fantasy style game like D&D). I think this preference is a sliding scale - I want a lot less death than 3.x RAW, but I definitely wouldn't want to get rid of it completely.

To me it's like critical hits. It's not fun when my character TAKES a crit, but I really like it when I score one against my opponent. I'm willing to accept somewhat less fun (because I can be hit with a critical) for a lot more fun (critical hits are fun and exciting and enhance my view of a consistent physics engine).

Sometimes you have to accept parts you're not as fond of to get the parts you really like. It's like that episode of Seinfeld with the 'Top of the Muffin'. Terrible things happen if you try to give people only the 'best parts'.

[Foxwarrior]

Does it get tedious sometimes, deaddmwalking, having to burn through all the enemy's 'cheat death' chits every battle?

[silva]

The best experience with death reported is changing death to a KO condition.

This.

This remembers me of Planescape Torment, a computer rpg to actually utilize this principle (youre effectively immortal in that game, and each time you die you just wake up again on the same place or at the next mortuary).

[shadzar]

So what's everyones BEST experience with character death then? In games they've run, witnessing others die, their PC's themselves dying.

What about it made it good and fun (climatic, meaningful, excuse to introduce a new character, etc.)?

When asked how he felt about failed to make a lightbulb @2000 times before getting it right, Edison replied he didn't fail; he found @2000 ways not to make a lightbulb.

others... got a bad player out of the game for good and reduced the alcohol and drug presence at the game. those are two.

someone trying to assign "good" or "fun" has a problem understanding the concept, just as someone who thinks character death is a "punishment" for the player. you are only trying to assign some keyword like 4th did called "bloodied" that in no way implies what the word itself means. so when you use that word in the ral world out of context, then it sounds worse than it is.

you must instead view the game as it is and accept "shit happens". you are in Dragonlance with a character that is pretty laid back and notice your kender has taken your favorite dagger, you dont have the character go against his own character and rampage like a drunken fool at the kender just because that is how MOST people ignorantly think it should be played out. you would continue to be laid back like a pothead laughing at the TV in a power outage.

as has been explained in the past, you ARE supposed to feel a connection with your character so that you want to play it and not change character every session. this does not mean that the game cannot go on because the time has come for this character to be no more. anyone who cannot accept that needs some serious help with post morderm depression. "It was good while it lasted." if your game includes ways to bring them back that have not been exhausted, then you have a choice. bring them back or try something different. odds are if the character died that you screwed up, so trying to use it further means it will continue to be screwed up unless you try to retcon it. there is also that chance of unlucky dice which means he went before his time. the choice is still yours. let him be dead a hero gone before his time, or bring him back to avenge himself or fulfill his destiny... whatever hogwash you want to use as an excuse for wanting him back, which could include you were just still having fun with that character.

everything you asked about is subjective and the many ways it can be answered will be duplicated over and over, so... there you have it.

what makes it fun for me though, is that i got to play it to begin with. tried a character in a new setting or location or whatever. so the game was what was fun.

[Blicero]

I had a player a couple of years ago who seemed to die roughly once a level. He almost never got rezzed, so he got to try a lot of different characters, which he liked doing. He managed to make about half of his deaths be memorable and resonant, which everyone enjoyed.

[Fuchs]

I think I have the ability to separate in-character knowledge and out-of-character knowledge, but I greatly prefer to keep them completely separate. It's harder to act against your character's interests if you know the consequences. If I KNOW that there is a treasure I overlooked, can I justify going back and looking?

If I don't KNOW, any action avoids the taint of meta-gaming.

If you want people to act like they might die, the easiest way to make that happen is to make death something that can happen. Otherwise it feels too artificial for me (outside of some specific genre-emulation with requisite plot-armor.

I have played in games where characters could die, and it wasn't fun. We were playing far too paranoid characters, always taking the safest option, always making plans longer than we'd actually play, always playing the most powerful, least vulnerable characters, and so on.

Not fun.

It's far more fun for me to have your rather impulsive swashbuckler walk into a trap he doesn't know even if you suspect or even know it's a trap because you know that's what he would do, and you know you won't lose the character, even though he might get captured. He'd still run from overwhelming odds, and he still wouldn't fight suicidally.

[K]

The problem with character perma-death is that the verisimilitude of the game is already ruined because the DM is trying to not kill me. He knows that I'd be crushed and have a shit evening and he's picking attacks that won't drop me except in black swan event.

Let's face it, the DM who wants you dead will kill you. This means that the only reason you don't die is because the DM decides to not focus his monster's attacks, won't cast a couple of save of dies on you, and won't put a death-trap you can't resist in the spot he knows you will go (yeh, I'll look in your book of dark magic. Bring on the saves!).

I mean, the game really will feel more real to me if I knew the DM wasn't worried about wrecking half of my night and forcing me to play Smash Bros. because of a character death.

[Josh_Kablack]

The best experience with death reported is changing death to a KO condition.

Which makes sense. As that lets you skip most of the bullshit but still have the fun of "WTF! My constant losing has become hilarious"

Man, I had forgotten about Deon's old Rolemaster character whose quest motivation became writing a catalog of 1001 different ways to get knocked out and insisting that it had to be based on firsthand knowledge. He got al the way up to #67 before that game wrapped up.

[shadzar]

The problem with character perma-death is that the verisimilitude of the game is already ruined because the DM is trying to not kill me.

what a pussy DM.

[deaddmwalking]

Does it get tedious sometimes, deaddmwalking, having to burn through all the enemy's 'cheat death' chits every battle?

Not really. They're used for other things, too. Mostly the ability to modify a roll and to trigger some abilities that might otherwise be considered 'dailies' (we don't have daily powers). Since these 'cheat death' chits don't keep you from being an unconscious puddle on the floor, there's nothing stopping us from killing someone we really want to (nor is there anything stopping them from killing us if we're unconscious).

It does mean that a 'TPK' is more likely to end up with the entire party unconscious and stable than typical 3.x. If we're going against a murder cult, that probably means we'll all die - but if we're going against slavers, we'll probably all end up in a slave caravan instead.

[tussock]

So what's everyones BEST experience with character death then? In games they've run, witnessing others die, their PC's themselves dying.

What about it made it good and fun (climatic, meaningful, excuse to introduce a new character, etc.)?

Running: the one honourable character in a party refusing to deal with (or allow the party to deal with) a Demon, and the Demon solving that problem. Ah, 20d6 reverse gravity. What? They summoned it.

Aside: the party Arch-mage shit-talking a bunch of drow captives, getting disintegrated for his trouble, and rolling a whole bunch of saves for all his accumulated magic items. Four pages of the things.

My own: rear-guard actions. The banality of being the one who runs red herring for the monsters that are far too tough for the whole party to face, inevitably facing them alone, and dying very quickly, with the rest of the party safely away. The glory of being the slow one. I've even achieved that without a party to save.



But really, no. It's not about the deaths, it's about the times I (and others) didn't die. Not just when the dice got lucky, but the way tactics and strategies change with going around things, earning allies (cannon fodder), always talking, picking winnable fights and leaving the BBEG for some other sucker. The value of good defences and movement capacity as well as an offence that destroys your chosen targets.

A lot of being a conniving, sneaky, bastard. Not playing even a little bit fair. Enriching yourself by exploiting absolutely everything and everyone to do everything for you, and killing all the problems that always causes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Personally, while I can't recall any times in which my character's death was the exciting climax or setback to a story (I never seemed to die when it was narratively convenient or interesting) the number of games where the threat of death helped set the mood or increase tension is incalculable.

So I think the question is a bit off-base. Just because people don't like getting KO'd or vomiting doesn't mean that they will enjoy padded sparring more than unprotected boxing.