Character Death

What's everyone's feelings on character death?

Okay with it and always ready with a replacement character or vehemently against, seeing it as waste of time and work invested into your creation? Somewhere in-between? Would only allow it by choice (yours) or are you okay with dying because of dice?

As an ST/GM, do you have these conversations with your players? Would someone rejecting the idea of death completely put you off a player (since they'd be coated in plot armor)? Ever had any disagreements about a PC biting the dust?

Any grand tales of heroic sacrifice or falling drunkenly in a tavern on your own sword?

Dying should be meaningful, but a chain of bad decisions is meaningful enough for me ;-)

Ambivalent. For a long time I was a fan of high lethality of combats, and in a way I still appreciate it as a concept. But on the other hand I shifted towards thinking that the lethal outcome by itself is more often than not detrimental for the overall quality of the campaign, because it cuts short various plots that are centred around that PC (e.g. all personal storylines, and many small-group ones). And personal storylines are often the most 'hooking' ones for the players, more so than the generic war against the dark lord or the like in which they are smaller cogs.

On a related note, I have grown less patient when it comes to fake lethality. This usually means cases where enemies are hyped as being equals of the PCs or even tougher, but then again and again PCs turn out to come out on top when all things are allegedly equal (or worse, when the PCs are portrayed as underdogs in each encounter), and once one looks at statistics, the hype turns out to be false yet the narrative keeps portraying the opposition as tougher. How exactly the hype turns out to be unfounded varies by system and GM.

So now I mostly prefer campaigns where death is rarely presented as a likely outcome, but when it is, the threat is genuine and then the PCs and players ramp up the precautions to ensure survival.

On another note, when risk of death is both genuine and high (and to a lesser degree when other unacceptable risks are high), that heavily incentivises players to ramp up the precautions, often at the cost of reducing fun. E.g. spending character creation/advancement resources on survival traits instead of narratively enjoyable traits, hoarding metacurrencies just in case there is a big fight near the end of a session, &c.

I think the most important thing is for the presence or even meaning of death to be discussed at the beginning of a game, or established by the GM. For example, most of my games include Character Death as a trigger warning; it is very much present and likely, and sometimes your death is just plain bad luck. But at the same time, I wouldn't expect it to be present in a Tales of the Loop game. Other systems and stories that lie in between warrant a discussion.

Option 4:

There can be no story without players.

What does this even mean? They didn't ask about player death, specifically character death.

To clarify:

Player Character death. It has a place but only as an end to a story arc. There can be no story without them.

8/9 members of the Fellowship survived.

I think there are systems that have character death baked into them, like a ttrpg roguelite kind of thing. You begin with multiple created characters because you will likely lose one. You know what you're getting into with those.

I'm more interested in ones where death has some meaning.
That sounds.. metagamey. And depressing.

So, you would be choosing "Not my preciaus" in the poll on the top, I guess?

Tangential question, but what makes a death meaningful in games? Drama? Could it be something as simple as revealing a deadly trap?

I don't think the death of a character should just happen in passing and be dealt with casually.

Instead, you can create a scene around it or incorporate the death into an existing situation in such a way that you can participate in it.

Never really understood the "You gotta have death for the game to mean anything!"-crowd.

Particularly given the modern practice of, when you die, you re-roll a new character at the same level.

Like... death doesn't mean anything there. That's not a negative consequence.

EXCEPT the end of a/that character's story. Right?

While the power gamers and builders just get an excuse to try out a new thing, the story-players lose their attachment.

So death only really means something to the folks who care about their story.

Like, that's not the dynamic I want to create at a table.

Punishing the ppl who care about their story isn't a good outcome imo

Plus I've had too many experiences where the "Ready to die"-crowd launches into a rules lawyering argument upon their death, or yes, moves on and creates a new character, but then also loses interest in the game, or stops playing it seriously.

It's a game by game, table by table thing. Ya gotta talk about it before it happens.

I do believe that Plato said something involving Sith and Absolutes. ;)

My character's death will never be canon unless it was planned by me at the end of that character's story for dramatic purposes. That being said, if the character dies in a random fight, then either I made poor decisions, or the game was poorly balanced. Either way, the game will be without that character, and that character will be without a game. I also don't make new characters for games that already went "off canon" like that.

At the same time, I prefer games where characters can actually die if they make bad decisions or don't pay attention. In games I GM, deaths won't happen because of a bad die roll alone. However, if the player allows their character to be checkmated after a series of poor decisions, then the character will die and I will hope that everyone at the table — GM included — will learn something from it.

Unlike real life where death is a tragedy — character's death in a game is more of a signal that the character and the game don't fit each other too well, and therefore the most constructive approach I see here is to accept it and move on to another game. Those who survived can always say that she was too good for that world and died young to be free from it. Sometimes I will remind myself of that too when nostalgia calls me back.

Out of the three poll options provided, I'd have to pick "Cold and Indifferent", although it's not completely accurate. "Stoic and Pragmatic" would be more precise.

Just not a fan of comedy. And thats what common death is.

I don’t make sad-face for dead characters (anymore), it’s all good. If I’m heavily invested, and/or if I’ve spent time making a deep background, then I might be a bit miffed. But I try and avoid those levels of investment these days.

Honestly some of the most emotional moments in games I've played have come from character deaths. Both on the PC and NPC side. Heck, we've done whole funeral moments for characters we really liked. The possibility of death makes those close moments where you survive that much sweeter. I'm sure you can make a fun game without character death, but I certainly know what I'm signing up for in most games. My characters will try to survive, but there is always a chance I'll need to roll up something else. That can be a fun thing in itself. Perhaps the first character didn't work out as well, and now you have a better feel for the themes of the game you are in. I can understand the fear of losing a long standing and loved character, but those emotions are some of the best parts of the game for me. It's when I'm taking the game the most serious.

Metagamey is an interesting choice of a descriptor for this, because those processes are already metagamey (character creation is nearly always metagamey, intentionally skewed towards the pitched campaign premise; metacurrencies are inherently metagamey; advancement is often divorced from in-setting training times and efforts and ruled by meta decisions.)

Essentially what happens is that players use those mechanisms to optimise for the kind of campaign that happens, but this is often less fun than a more 'permissive' (in terms of 'viable' builds) kind of campaign.

I think that very much depend on the game and the players. If it is a more crunch heavy, tactical game than making a solid build, thus metagaming by tailoring your build to the scenario, setting or campaign specifics, is part of the fun for everyone involved, I'd imagine. In more rules-lite, story-oriented games doing that same meticulous prep makes no sense. Games where the line is blurred can go either way. We've recently discussed these types of differences with @emsquared and @MaJunior when we were creating characters for Mage the Ascension game. It seems that a lot of people choose to increase their starting Arete so their characters could actually be useful and effective, to be able to affect the world with their magical skills, while I'd personally almost always go for 1 Arete, simply because there is much more story juice in advancement and seekings.
The problem here seems to be the group composition. Both munchkins and theater kids play for different reasons and look for different things out of the game, so it is not surprising that when they mix, such situations arise.
I'd actually play up the tragedy aspect. That's what can give a more random seeming death sense and purpose. For example:
The character accidentally steps into a trap and is "mechanically" killed, i.e lost all their health. The scene should be build around that - the trapped character bleeding and in pain, clinging desperately to their life, as their comrades try to save them, rushing for the dungeon's exit. Unfortunately the trapped expires before they reach the surface, leaving the survivors to mourn their passing and reinforcing the core themes of the game - that it is a bleak and inherently dangerous world, where one misstep can spell your doom.
This, essentially.

I’m working on my recruitment post for a Draw Steel introductory adventure, and this thread has helped me reflect on my stance.

I fall into the "death has to be on the table for the game to mean something" camp as @emsquared aptly worded, when it comes to tactical games. Not all of my RPG campaigns lean toward narrative or slice-of-life roleplay.

Here’s how I approach character death for tactical, heroic, and cinematic games:

If they die, they die. The table can construct a narrative around that to give their death significance and flair. This requires investment from the table though, so it can easily turn into a sour experience if people don't show adequate respect to a death scene. However, games that churn through characters quickly leans away from the dramatization of death. This is totally fine too.

It's all about what game is being played and the appropriate expectations of the table. I've seen some here make the point that character death is unnecessary or solely a detriment. I would disagree with both points. Character death is needed in games where the stakes require it. If it is removed as a story component, then a high stakes narrative no longer has any bite to it. In games that have characters fight for their lives, this often defeats the purpose of fighting completely. Additionally, character death can feel uniquely meaningful and dramatic, providing moments that can not be replicated without it.

TTRPGs are often used as a story-telling medium. Not all stories have characters that die, but I prefer ones that do.

I tend to have a point (around tier 2/level 5) where there are no more rebuys. So, if a character dies, then that player's time in that game is over. The player can leave the game or spectate. So I'm not a "Ready to die and reroll".

Should death have meaning? I don't know! That's a deep question! Perhaps it means the Sword Coast is pretty savage, and players should try rolling higher in the future? Beyond that, players are welcome to find their own meaning.

Although I have played with someone who really hated the idea of their character's death. I pinky swore that I would never let that player's characters die, because no game is worth me enforcing my murderous preferences at the expense of someone else's fun.

Why tho? Never seen this perspective before. It feels incongruous with the notion of disallowing a character's death for the sake of their fun. What's less fun than not being able to play any more? Not judging; genuinely curious.

The invulnerable character belonged to a player whose company I enjoyed, so that was a very special case (I'm mostly joking here).

At tier 2, I feel the players have enough experience and tools to mostly avoid character death if they're very careful. I do it to raise the stakes, which some people find more enjoyable.

Adam is a staunch believer that if you die in D&D, you die in real life! It's not how he enforced it in game that worries me...

Haha that's wild. I think that would just stress me out.

Alas, the player of the invulnerable characters is no longer with us 😢. I only wish I commanded the power of IRL life and death.

I completely understand people not wanting to play for months only to read "Oops - that's a crit. Bad luck. Better luck next game. Don't let the door hit you on the way out". But enough people are signing up for these games for me to believe that there's a demand for them. There again, some players will sign up for anything without reading the warnings, so 🤷.

I think it's an interesting concept for a medium where scheduling isn't the biggest hurdle. Having a pool of players that are already on board with asynchronous play is huge, and so it's easier to cycle through players than live play. If I didn't run niche games, I'd be considering it myself!

It probably also helps that Adam pays me to hype up his games. They're the bomb!

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In a recent game of mine, death was very much on the table and didn't have a lot of meaning attached to it. I had one character killed by giant beetles, and so the player took over an abandoned character. Almost immediately got killed by giant ticks. Laughs were had, traumas were formed (jokingly).

Oh I'm sure there's folks out there with interest in that sort of thing. I guess my problem is I get more attached to the other people at the table than my characters. I don't wanna have to say goodbye. :(

But yeah, it definitely makes sense for PbP to be the route to take such an idea.

He means that literally. So many explosions.

Of course it should be role-played. It's a role-playing game. But on a player level it is still merely a one-sided termination of contract, and it shouldn't be a tragedy for the player or the table as a real death in real life would be. It should be a learning experience on why it happened, though, with a consolation that a game you died in was never a game for you, either because of a skill mismatch or poor balance of the system. Randomly dying on a trap is exactly that, no matter how much role-play you pour into it after the fact.

Also, as a player I would find rushing a doomed and mechanically expired character out of a dungeon extremely tedious. He's dead, Jim.

That feels like a really niche take, or at least one I don't resonate with at all. Character death meaning the game was poorly balanced or just not for you? That's stepping away from half a century of TTRPG history and intentionality.

Not saying it's wrong, just not an objective truth.

For me, I guess it depends on the premise of the game. Are you random people who are hired on to go down into an ultra-dangerous dungeon? Then yeah, I assume death is going to happen at some point for someone, and I just try to avoid it being me.

On the other hand, with a lot of games now making character bonds or backstories an integral part of setting and worldbuilding, if that character doesn't live through the game, then there's a lot of paperwork involved. If I'm in a pbta game and I have 3 bonds with this character and he's dead now, my character is different too. And any new character is suddenly going to have bonds with me potentially, which is also weird, so if it's going to happen, it had better make sense and be important. If I'm in a 13th Age game and the world has clockwork dragons (for instance) because I said so and I'm really the only one who even cared that they popped up every once in a while, kinda sucks to suddenly not have that character be there to appreciate them, because the GMs wasting his time on everyone else til he writes up a replacement for them.

On the third hand, even od&d had Raise Dead, and it was there specifically so that players wouldn't lose investment, so even back then, there was some awareness that just maybe player death wasn't always welcome and there should be some recourse.

I fully support death as a consequence not and a predetermined fact. If a character steps off a cliff, shoves their head in a dragons mouth, or walks up to a tank and taunts them then yeah they have to suffer the consequences. That said I also try to reinforce that the characters are the 'heros' of the story and can get away with a bit more. But just a bit. if there are no consequences then what is the point of the conflict and is there really a challenge. Some games are not risk/combat focused so death should be very rare but any game/system that has combat and other high risk situations needs to have DM willing to hand out the earned results good and bad along with players that understand this.

Agree to disagree then. I'm also pretty sure that the niche my take is from is called logic.

There is a concept that doesn't resonate with me either. That concept is "Gamble on your life and die because the monster rolled nat20 and it's an intended part of the game." Even in d20 systems players usually get some means to avoid fatal damage regardless of the rolls: invisibility, stone skin, mirror image, and so forth. Because of that, a player of sufficient skill with sufficient resources will survive if the challenge is adequate. But if that is not the case then either the skill is insufficient or the challenge wasn't designed properly.

There are games that by design are poorly veiled gambling, and some people are okay with gambling their characters away. Maybe it's the thrill of high stakes, maybe they don't take their own story seriously, or maybe they were never invested in their character beyond writing their numbers and are eager for more numbers to try out. I don't really know which, because I was never one of those people. But death of a character will always mean one less character in the game and one less game for the character. You can't have a game without players. And characters are useless without games. Therefore, random death simply isn't constructive, only the possibility of it is.

You need death to exist so that you have a reason to make better decisions, but if you make good decisions, then death shouldn't happen to you just because of a bad roll. That roll shouldn't even be made if you play properly and the system respects your agency. Obviously, you can role-play the outcome of bad decisions after the fact. But that doesn't change that the situation which allowed a character death to actually happen — instead of merely being a possibility — that situation is a result of bad decisions, made either by the player, the GM, or the system developer. If dying regardless of choices is somehow the intended gameplay, then sorry but it informs me that I want nothing to do with a game that treats its characters that way and that I should instead apply my writing to a game that actually prioritizes story arcs over 1-19 or die rolls.

It is entirely possible to incorporate mechanics that prevent random deaths and still allow a lot to depend on a die roll. In fact, many systems have that sort of mechanics. Godbound's Miracles or Fate's Fate Points to name a few. A bad roll can also force a choice: "You can eat the soul of that innocent NPC and survive or die from a mortal wound that was just inflicted upon you." There are ways to extract a lot of narrative from the possibility of death alone and keep the character in the game, enriched with difficult choices and able to complete their story. So why should they randomly die? Because a die told them to? Or because it allegedly has been done that way for over half a century? Do we even have witnesses that can confirm they've always done it that way and prove that they represent the majority of role-players and not a weird roll-playing niche?

No, it's not just my opinion, man. It's logic. But sure, continue being obnoxious and share those belittling comments nobody ever asked for. That is informative too. Although you probably won't like what it informs others about.

Well, that escalated quickly. How about we all take a breather, eh?

Maybe focus on another relevant but lighter question - what are some spectacularly bad or spectacularly good deaths you've seen or experienced yourself in games?

I do like a nice "rocks fell". It's a timeless classic - elegantly simple.

Gladly.

What was very instructive for me – a chase through the mountains

We were fleeing from ogres and had to reach a destination in time. When we reached a small bridge, I left my character (paladin) there to allow the others to escape.

The GM decided that my character would die and only allowed the group two rounds because all the ogres had a large stone to throw.

This was the 1980s - extremely unsatisfactory for me, but very educational for my own GMing...

I also like "A fire engulfs the western door then spreads on each of its turns"

Had a rogue fall into a shallow basin of water and drown because of a series of nat 1s. People that tried to save him (we rolled a bit too much) also failed with a nat 1. Miss Fortune wanted the rogue dead, and I'm not gonna argue it after that.

Another rogue died by skeleton firing squad. We were being loud and he threw open a door with no caution. The pincushion corpse fell back as a fair warning to the rest that such things were a bad idea.

These were both table games from back when I started playing TTRPGs. If I lost a character I just cracked open the rulebook and started working on another. Sometimes if things are close I'll start brainstorming early. It definitely happens less often nowadays.

One that lives on in my brain is a monk from my old live game who thought that simply speaking to animals was enough to gain their favor. So one night while he was on watch, several dire wolves—who had been skulking around their camps for a few mights—was lured closer by the monk and some dried rations. He stood outside of the campfire light and spoke with the giant, hungry beasts, and was never heard from again. Aside from a failed initiative roll, no rolls were needed.

And the player loved it! Because the fun he had with that experience meant he was at the right table!

I once had players walk into a classic Shadowrun-style double-cross, and when the big bad said that he's not going to pay, that he's in fact not even their employer, and he's going to take the item now, the players casually responded with "well, in that case we are leaving with the item" and began to slowly roll the item back into the truck because they thought the big bad was standing there at the meeting place alone while saying all that. There were of course cloaked snipers all around and even a stealth mecha, while the characters were loose ends. That game was a one-shot, though, and all players were explicitly warned from the start that survival is unlikely but they are welcome to try. The educational moment was that despite the extreme challenge level all characters managed to survive until the very end and only died when they relaxed, thinking it was the epilogue.

In the old days, I was a little loath to kill PCs because most often, it wasn't their fault. If you played by the book, then they could suffer from sucky stats, and step-and-die traps aren't really fair. Nowadays, since I use point-buy, traps are more fairly balanced, and I try to ensure that encounters are balanced; it's usually on them if they die. If they are stupid enough to ignore all warning signs that an ancient red dragon lives in the area and insist on going dragon-hunting, then let the dice fall where they may! Likewise, an unlucky roll is just the way the dice roll. If an NPC peasant gets a lucky hit and caps a PC, them's the breaks.

One reason that I enjoy Savage Worlds so much is the randomness of the die mechanics. The Wild Die gives even an unskilled character a 50% chance of success, and with the exploding dice, you never know how a battle is going to play out and in whose favor! I have seen a Novice character take down a giant with a lucky roll, and I have witnessed a Legendary character die from a single shot from a .22 pistol!

If there is no risk, if you know that you will succeed no matter the odds, what's the point of playing? Maybe I'm jaded by Call of Cthulhu, where you knew it was just a matter of time before you died or went insane. If you played well and were lucky, you might accomplish a small victory or two first, but sooner or later, your character was doomed. That was just the nature of the game.

Like the man said, "Don't take life too seriously. No one gets out alive."

When I was a teenager in the early 1990s, my English teacher taught me and my friends how to play Traveller. We were playing out an assault on an armed encampment, and my character had this hefty, man-portable fusion gun. We saw they had a nuclear generator at the centre of the camp powering all their gear, so we decided to shoot it to take out the bad guys in one shot. The plan worked too well. We nuked the camp, but we were down wind of the fallout, and we got irradiated. We failed our rolls, couldn't get back to our ship in time to treat the radiation poisoning, and died.

Later that day in the IRL locker room before PE class, one of my fellow players was telling the story that we had shot a generator and caused a huge explosion. Now, growing up in rural Canada, that is a plausible form of entertainment, so the rumour got started that I was quite the marksman and liked to blow stuff up! As a painfully nerdy kid, I rather liked this new, edgy reputation over my usual boring one and did nothing to dissuade this rumour!

But in RPGs, the way the scenario played out fascinated me. It was so fun that the world, through the referee, reacted to our crazy plan. We could affect the world any way we chose, but the consequences of our actions mattered, and the stakes were real. I was hooked.

I guess if it were 1/8 members survived it would have been an horror story instead of epic fantasy 🤔

… and that is sort of the line between accepting or not character death for me. Epic heros are expected to mostly survive (modern fantasy games) dungeon looting mercenaries (old school fantasy) are expected to randomly drop dead, horror games? Like WntKnt said, pray you can live to tell the tale. Social gossip character interacting games in high school? Why would there be any risk of death? (Well, I guess they should look twice before crossing the road🤷)

That, and how long the campaign is. Death is easier to take in one-shots or in a decade long campaign when you are tired of the character than the in 6-12 months games where you are still fully invested in the character arc.

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I didn’t really get to die (in this particular instance) but sometimes playing stupid is fun.

I mean, what’s the point or having a sphere of annihilation in a dark hole if no one is going to put their hand in there? If you don’t want to use it, don’t put it there. Of course, if the GM was going to punish me too hard for exploring the setting I would have not done it. But these stupid moves just add to the sense of danger and sometimes make for great moments.

… that’s how one famous legend of the one-arm dwarf was born in the forests of chult 😆

Ah punishment. I am not a masochist.

Death can be meaningful. It doesn't have to be comical. But when it is shelled out like lint at a laundry mat it is just comedy.

A horror is not about death and dying, that is grindhouse comedy. Horror is about teaching why you should fear. Grindhouse is a legitimate form of entertainment. But its just not for me. I prefer things that are more serious.

Death isn't a lesson to the corpse.

Preach, brother! Great story, Len. I've been busy this weekend or would have chimed in on this thread. Obviously, it depends on what game you're playing, what fiction you're modeling, and the agreement everyone has at the start of the game. Tales From the Loop? If you're playing RAW, death is simply off the table -- but all sorts of other terrible things can happen! OSR? Better have the undertaker get warmed up. Playing Fate or one of a variety of superhero games? Death is often only on the line in dramatic, comic-book-appropriate moments.

I quite like suddenly and unexpected PC deaths in OSR-powered horror / modern games. KCC does too, I think!

I have a lot of ideas for characters floating around in my head, so the more the merrier, so if one drops, I have another to replace, so I don't feel terribly bad about death of a character. Sometimes I find it interesting to assume death is the inevitable likelihood; if not by retirement and old age, then by lethality. So, I play with that mentality and assume a short life for the character and wonder where their end will be and how their dynamic story will come to a close.

In roleplaying, that's what I try to make happen as a player and as a GM - make the best out of the play make meaning for however long the character(s) live, so there isn't a sense of meaninglessness if the character dies. I am not one to spare characters from die rolls just for plots sake...the dice make fate and fate make plot in a sense partway on their own. If you disallow the random ups and downs of dice fortune, that blows away some of good story telling.

It's like if they didn't kill Sturm in Dragonlance, just for the sake of some glorious knighthood story, which they could have gone with, instead, sometimes characters have sudden death syndrome and there's nothing really you can do, but eat the dice, trap, situation and roll up a new one, but at least the memories are there. It's up in part to the player to make things memorable, and to the GM to give a player opportunities at the least. If this happens, then the dice fall where they may and that's just part of the game, better luck next time. That's part of the fun of good dice rolls when you get them, and sometimes it's more fun when a disadvantaged character gets a string of good luck, and does amazing things; not to speak of point-buy where if you have a chosen character, then there isn't much to complain about, the game is the game...the GM shouldn't have to be bullied and pressured to bail your precious character out. I'm largely against coddling that sort of thing.