Author Topic: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?  (Read 7947 times)

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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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How often to do player characters die in your campaign?

When it does happen, how do you handle it as a GM?
For example I know one GM that pre-rolls a second pc well ahead of time and plays it as an NPC that can get XP until it is needed should the PC die.

Depends on your campaign right? How deadly it is. You need a balance between too deadly/die at any moment and  a campaign where none dies ever.

I guess the death of a pc could serve as a motivator and story hook for rest if the party in a plot driven campaign right?
I think in my current campaign id almost want to pre-warn the player its likely they will die if they are on a particularly dangerous adventure.
If your campaign allows resurrection then the threat of death is a lot less. Th resurrection should come at a price though and imo be rare.
Im interested to her how other GM deals with PC death in their campaigns.

Offline Hurin

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Our campaigns usually last about 7 or 8 levels, starting at level 1. We play every couple weeks or so, and our campaigns last about 6 months to a year. We have on average about 2 or 3 character deaths per campaign. Almost all those characters stay dead: we usually don't have a high level Cleric around to resurrect them. I also think a healthy fear of death is what imparts tension to our game and gives players a sense of accomplishment (and joy!) when they win the big battles.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Highly unusual.  Firstly, we run campaigns far longer than most from what I can tell.  8 months would be short, and that was with playing a couple times per month.  We've run campaigns for years.

That said, if you die you're going to be brought in at a similar level as the party (we'd average the exp between everyone).  Given that, because we play for fun and starting from scratch would be very un-fun, there really isn't a reason to not kill characters as they are already going to suffer time loss for being out of the fight/game for a while.  Unless they actually want to play a different profession they'd just end up looking the same.

This is why we use Fate Points instead of the GM 'fudging' things. Not to mention the Fate Points can be used by the GM for important NPC's (friendly or not).
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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Highly unusual.  Firstly, we run campaigns far longer than most from what I can tell.  8 months would be short, and that was with playing a couple times per month.  We've run campaigns for years.

That said, if you die you're going to be brought in at a similar level as the party (we'd average the exp between everyone).  Given that, because we play for fun and starting from scratch would be very un-fun, there really isn't a reason to not kill characters as they are already going to suffer time loss for being out of the fight/game for a while.  Unless they actually want to play a different profession they'd just end up looking the same.

This is why we use Fate Points instead of the GM 'fudging' things. Not to mention the Fate Points can be used by the GM for important NPC's (friendly or not).

cool.how do fate points work in ur campaign? Do they get to ignore a deadly crit or reroll it?
how many do they start with? is it like a luck ability can they get more once they are used up?

Offline Cory Magel

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It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion.  We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently.  Overall it's as simple as...

Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's.  Usually it's used against killing criticals.  This can be slightly subjective at times.  For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off.  Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death).  The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result.  Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll.  So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you.  You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.

Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.

The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike).  This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed.  But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point.  So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it.  This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.
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Game design priority: Fun > Balance > Realism (greater than > less than).
(Channeling Companion, RMQ 1 & 2, and various Guild Companion articles author).

"The only thing I know about adults is that they are obsolete children." - Dr Seuss

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion.  We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently.  Overall it's as simple as...

Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's.  Usually it's used against killing criticals.  This can be slightly subjective at times.  For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off.  Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death).  The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result.  Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll.  So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you.  You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.

Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.

The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike).  This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed.  But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point.  So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it.  This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.

cool.

Offline Majyk

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Ditto on Fate points forcing a reroll of a crit from a foe.

Every level we refresh the pool.
To calc, the PC gets to roll a die closest to that level count, if even.  If odd, we add +1 to the roll.  So Level 6 is a six-sided die roll to see how many are recovered.
Previous points are lost so they do tend to get used to add a flourish to attack/crit/MM results.

We use them closesly as per D&D Eberron with edits, too.
We also allow them to be used to add a D10 to the result of any roll - needs to be declared before knowing a Pass/Fail result re:MM Table that I use for almost every skill Static or otherwise, along with how many are to be used(down to 0).

===MM Table % results are rolled under/over to achieve 100% success or part of it in an extended round maneuver(Lock Picking); so roll on MM table with mods, generate original % result, then roll a second time to get under/over to be successful = 20% means roll under 20 or over 80 | 70% means roll under 70 or over 30 - player chooses for flavour.
Some Players never wanna roll low, haha. 

For extended round results, any MM chart original % that is less than 100% can add to the time it takes someone to achieve a full end result. 
So instead of complete Pass/Fail after the second roll to confirm, the difference of the original % from 100% is what is still needed to complete the action - usually used in picking a lock/disabling a trap, etc.  It adds to the tension escaping and getting through an obstacle with foes on your tail===

If spent(and only if spent) and RR still fails, I take an extra Fate if player desired, to negate the effect of the result and reroll but the next effect is locked in.

For deaths that do occur still from this locked in result, no matter what intervention happens, I tell the PC we can deplete his/her pool of theirs down to 1 - the minimum per session that gets replenished to 1 upon next game, so there is always the chance of help.
However, once Fate points are at 0, the PC is "naked" and whatever befalls them thereafter is a done deal - they can only cheat so many times, haha.

EDIT:
To answer your question, haha, we have players with dead PCs roll up a new character with midlvl-point XP at one level less than lowest party PC possesses.

Offline Ecthelion

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How often to do player characters die in your campaign?
The last more than ten years we had no character deaths that I would remember. We are using the Fate Point rules from RMFRP Channeling Companion to avert unlucky critical rolls and our GMs (everyone has to be the GM once in a while) all try to create encounters that the players can handle and/or try to give more or less subtle hints when the players should not challenge a given enemy.
Before that time we had two GMs that were not so benevolent and where, after always starting out at level 1, the PCs would often die between level 7 and 15, when I got the impression they got bored with the characters.

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When it does happen, how do you handle it as a GM?
During the time when it sometimes happened that a PC would die we used to have some of our old characters, e.g. where the rest of the group was killed and we decided to start a new one, with us. If one of theses characters would fit into the current group the GM would try to integrate the character into the running adventure on the next occasion. If no such character was available we would create a new one and integrate that new character. But that was not often the case. And in many cases it was not necessary to think about integrating a new character into the current session because either the whole group was killed or sometimes the PC death occurred towards the end of the session and we decided to start with a new group in the next session.

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Depends on your campaign right? How deadly it is. You need a balance between too deadly/die at any moment and  a campaign where none dies ever.
IMO the death of a PC always needs to be possible to keep the tension up during battles. And - even though we did not have a character death in years - we often have criticals rolled against our characters. And every such critical incurs the risk of a fatal result, which means the loss of a Fate Point, and, if no more Fate Points are left, the death of the character. But IMO it is not necessary to actually kill the characters from time to time to keep the tension up. Just recently we had the case that our group would have died because the GM had sent out too many opponents against us. All characters were already injured, one already unconscious, and soon all would have died, one after the other. But he rather decided to have one NPC save us with a powerful spell than kill the group, because he decided it was not the characters' fault but rather bad encounter balancing on his side. Good decision IMO.

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I guess the death of a pc could serve as a motivator and story hook for rest if the party in a plot driven campaign right?
But, depending on the circumstances of the character death, it might also demotivate the player whose character died. We still sometimes tell the tales of former GMs having unjustly killed this or that PC years ago and where we were quite upset...

Quote
If your campaign allows resurrection then the threat of death is a lot less. Th resurrection should come at a price though and imo be rare.
We allow resurrection within the bounds of the RM rules and without further restrictions. But IMHO it does not reduce the threat of death too much. It is IMO too restricted in its usefulness to do so. You need to have a high-level Cleric available shortly after the PC death or live with stat deterioration (which may make it unattractive to continue with a so stat-"crippled" character) or be able to preserve the dead character's body quickly and then carry him to the next Cleric that can cast Livegiving. Therefore Livegiving very, very rarely was the reason for a character escaping death.

Offline Peter R

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I kill characters if the dice/critical kills the characters but I also make life giving available.

Our campaigns last for years, the current one has been going something like 5 years, the one before that was 7 years. We rarely ever get above 20th level. In the current game no one has died yet. The characters are currently working for a church so life giving would be available to them and the PC cleric is not far off being able to cast life keeping soon.
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Offline intothatdarkness

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In my non-fantasy stuff death is not unusual. In fantasy it's less common, mostly because I do have life-giving stuff available. I use Fate Points (my own versions) in my non-fantasy stuff for sure. Each character starts with a pool known only to me (once it's expended it's gone forever) and a second pool based on their level (1 point per level). Like Hurin, I found that having death ever-present (if not automatic or common) heightens the tension and has made my players much more tactical in their thinking.

If a character is killed, the player brings in a new one generated to the party's average level. That makes it easier to scale encounters and also keeps things fairly even in the party.

My campaigns vary from a few months to a few years depending on the players.
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Offline dagorhir

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My campaigns are deadly by design, but not impossible to survive. Also, my games tend to be open world so players can end up facing something their characters can't beat.

They have to figure out when they are over their head and run away to survive, if they don't the characters die.

Adventuring is a dangerous life and the players quickly learn (after loosing a few characters) to have an healthy fear and run away more.

They learn to have better strategies and also working as a group to resolve any encounter.

But characters still die, nobody is immune to death.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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My campaigns are deadly by design, but not impossible to survive. Also, my games tend to be open world so players can end up facing something their characters can't beat.

They have to figure out when they are over their head and run away to survive, if they don't the characters die.

Adventuring is a dangerous life and the players quickly learn (after loosing a few characters) to have an healthy fear and run away more.

They learn to have better strategies and also working as a group to resolve any encounter.

But characters still die, nobody is immune to death.

You raise an interesting point. Players can prolong longevity by making smart decisions #self_preservation

Offline intothatdarkness

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That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
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Offline Cory Magel

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That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
This is why I won't allow Fate Points to be used to modify things like attack rolls.  They are to save you from bad luck, not allow you to win a fight you had no business being in in the first place.
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Offline Mordrig

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2017, 01:39:06 PM »
It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion.  We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently.  Overall it's as simple as...

Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's.  Usually it's used against killing criticals.  This can be slightly subjective at times.  For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off.  Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death).  The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result.  Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll.  So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you.  You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.

Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.

The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike).  This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed.  But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point.  So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it.  This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.

My campaign uses "Luck" as an extra stat, you can modify a roll by your stat bonus to change a result, but this burns down your luck Stat by the bonus amount.  As you increase in levels your stat can go up just like any other stat.

That said, I kill players all the time.  If you do something really dumb like attack a Dragon at level 6 then you die.  You want to attack that Orc settlement?  Go ahead, but if they get the upper hand you are going to die more than likely, they are not dumb animals.  Yet as a GM I have to ensure I do not put the players in situations where they will face a dragon at level 6. 

If you die, you get 1/2 your XP to create a new character.  Do your development and bring in the character.  The players appreciate it, they know there is a risk, and that I will kill them, if it is called for.  The 1/2 xp character lessens the blow of losing someone you have built up from a noob.  The campaign runs as long as it runs.

Offline Witchking20k

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #15 on: August 03, 2017, 06:33:20 AM »
I generally only kill a PC in a "climax" session.  Outside of that- bad luck on a chance encounter might result in a permanent injury (a -5 penalty etc.). 
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Offline Mordrig

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #16 on: August 03, 2017, 10:59:06 AM »
I generally only kill a PC in a "climax" session.  Outside of that- bad luck on a chance encounter might result in a permanent injury (a -5 penalty etc.).

Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large.  To die in a side track is terrible.  Of course mine is an open world and to know what is a side track is difficult to say the least, but it does keep the players on their toes.

Offline Hurin

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2017, 01:17:13 PM »
Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large.  To die in a side track is terrible. 

I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2017, 03:23:59 PM »
I often try to explain it this way:  Let's say you're watching a TV show or movie, forget what the actual plot it, but one of the main characters is killed off in a completely random and meaningless way out of sheer bad luck... like tripping and falling down the stairs.  Most people would think that is pretty damn stupid.

Now, it's unusual a character is going to die in a way that silly, however consider they are even more invested in their character than they would be characters in a movie.  Players are playing the character in a story, for them to effectively 'fall down the stairs' and die just isn't fun.  And why else do we play other than to have fun?
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Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: Killed player characters, does it happen often? how do you deal with it?
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2017, 08:48:27 PM »
That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
This is why I won't allow Fate Points to be used to modify things like attack rolls.  They are to save you from bad luck, not allow you to win a fight you had no business being in in the first place.

I also hand out far fewer Luck points than most people from what I've seen. Given a finite, non-replaceable amount players tend to be far more cautious in using them. When your luck's gone, it's gone. And at that point the line from Hamburger Hill comes into play: "In the A Shau valley when your time is up, your time is up."
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