Permanent Character Death in Campaigns

[Brian]

This post is mostly a cleverly designed lure to draw Dunefar out of hiding and make him post.

But, while we were discussing GMing and such, Dunefar mentioned that he had definate opinions on the place of permanent character death.  I'm curious to know what those are; myself, I think that it can be part of a good campaign, but it's not required.

I played in a several-years long campaign with a GM once who used standard second edition rules, even to the point of allowing ressurection (which we could, of course, almost never afford).  It was an interesting campaign, though, because often years would pass between events in the game, so instead of just going out and adventuring, the characters would get jobs for the kingdom they supported in their down time, have kids, and so on.

The more interesting aspect was that most often when a character died, one of his children would step forward to take his place.  In this context, permanent character death was interesting, because even though the character has been destroyed (and more often than not, characters ended up non-ressurectable anyway), some bit of their legacy remains.

I feel that non-reversable character death in a campaign without something like this can often be a bit harsh, but then, that usually depends on the scenario.  Some scenarios are naturally better suited towards the one method than the other, though, this fit well within the GMs plans to never let a character survive to higher than fourth level.  So there's that to consider, too.

Your thoughts?

[Dracos]

A very interesting topic.

I generally think this derives from the theme of a game.  Like any tool, it has benefits and it has problems.  In a comedic game, it rarely has any place.  Putting it in would just ruin the fun as sometimes people shouldn't have to worry about what they are going to do and is it going to cripple them.  An example of this would be the game I ran this past winter break.  I think everyone who participated would agree that the concept of 'death' wasn't around and the game was better for it.

On the other hand, it can add a lot to the right games.  Your current game for example has a lot that has been garnered from this.  In the very beginning of DATA you established plausible deadly threat.  Mysterious demons attacked some of us.  Others gained mystic prophecies of doom.  For my own 'character', I had friends running in from 'unknown organizations', followed by swat team members smashing in my door.  The feeling of 'threat', has been kept since then with little actual 'threat' being around.  Even now, I'm still putting a significant (all) points into combat.  Why?  Other stats like deduction would clearly be more useful short and long term and the amount of combat in the game has not been that much nor does it look like it is going to become one if I think about it logically, but at the same time there's the feeling that a battle to the death is always right around the corner.  I suspect questioning the others would indicate the same feeling of 'we're alive, we can die, we aren't coming back, we better be careful' has been solidly and well developed and generally has added a lot to the feeling of the game.

When do I think it's a bad idea?  When it is very easy for dice to end it for people and there isn't many setups for ressurrection or replacement of character it's bad.  If it's going to end up flinging a player from the game, it's probably bad (Generally people are there because they want to game, both with the GM and the group that is there.  Permanent death may add a great bit of drama but if it means Bob sits there and watches and isn't allowed to play anymore, it sucks).  When it sucks away the fun of the game, it's not something good to have (If everyone is required to spend vast amounts of time making characters, it shouldn't be something that is tossed away willy nilly).  If death is fairly regular in your games, having it be permanent will ruin the sensation of caring about characters.  It should be used rarely, and with a good deal of consideration.  It should also not be a stunning surprise that it can happen (It's important to give the impression in such a world that death does exist before it occurs to a player).

In other words, like any other tool to creating a great game, it's a facet that needs to be considered well before adding it into the mix.

Dracos

[Anastasia]

Hum. For the life of me, I can't recall that mentioned conversation. It rings a bell, so I know it exists, but plucked if I can remember it. So if I end up repeating myself...

Just grin and nod. ^_^

---

I myself see the concept of character death rather warily. Simply for it's harsh finality in many games to genuine regret and sadness it can cause, it deserves respect and caution. I've seen far too many cases where PC deaths have been handled poorly and it hurts the game to be anything but. Be it bizarre luck with dice, a kill crazy GM(Personal pet peeve there), PCs killing PCs or other less than happy cirumstances, a bad kill can sour the entire game.

By it's nature, a PC dying removes the player from the game in his current role, perhaps for good from the overall game. Dracos above me hit on a prime part of it - sure, a dramatic death does add something to the game, but what fun is it to sit around and watch from that point on? A very good GM can manage that, but...far too many GMs I've seen handle deaths in what I'd call a poor or tasteless manner.

To take an example a few of us here are familiar with, I remember playing the first Tomb game here on Soulriders, By it's nature, it was meant to kill some people - and that's fine. We knew that going in, it was accepted. But...the way it was ran quickly left me with the feeling of 'Oh, someone else died. Yay.' It was overdone and overly lethal, making the adventure tensionless. (Side note: To be honest, I regard Tomb as more of a learning exprerience than anything - it showed me some of the pitfalls of a message board based game, as well as the aforementioned. Nothing against Drac here, really.)

Or in another case in a old IRL game where a friend was GMing. My PC bit the dust due to a bad move and some borderline crap dicing in the first hour of the game. The GM shruged and told me to go watch TV. Okay, fine.

Except we were spending the next three days at his house way out in Bumfuck, Virginia.

After a bit, I asked if I could take over an NPC or make a new PC since I was going out of my mind bored. He got bitchy, said no, and that I could only watch. Having two days to kill under that - bad. It was worse, as another PC semi killed himself to get out of the game since I was so bored and he felt bad. In the end, it left a hanging string that hurt the game. If you are going to allow PCs to die in a longer game session, you should plan and allow players to rejoin as NPCs or with new characters. Otherwise, you've just ostrasized someone from the gaming group for as long as that game goes on.

Mind...I like to have the possibility of death in games I run. It keeps the PCs on their toes, even if it's a small possibility. Sometimes, though, you have to wonder if it's worth it.  The way I see it, the GM is in it to have fun as much as the PCs by creating and running a world for them to interact with. Having a PC you like die sucks on your end, too.