Player Character Deaths

[General Pain]

I thought a discussion on this could be in order....I'm kind determing the value of a well-played and designed character with a good story behind it and the value of ,well, a dead character...

Some GMs out there (you know who you are) snuff their players on a whim and others can't stand the thought of players dying...

your thoughts...

[Targan]

I have no problem with PCs dying but I find that in my current campaign the PCs of certain players have a much higher death rate than others. The player of Major Po is still on his first character. My brother is onto his second character. The player of Po's XO Lt Cdr Jones is on his third character. The player of Lt Cdr Black is onto his... fifth character Maybe sixth I can't remember for sure but his characters seem to die regularly. I think it has a lot to do with player style. The player of Major Po is a highly intelligent, crafty bugger. Hence Po's longevity I think.

[cavtroop]

I thought a discussion on this could be in order....I'm kind determing the value of a well-played and designed character with a good story behind it and the value of ,well, a dead character...

Some GMs out there (you know who you are) snuff their players on a whim and others can't stand the thought of players dying...

your thoughts...

When I GM (which is hardly ever nowadays), I play it by ear. If the PC/player does something stupid, overlooks something very obvious, or plain makes a horrid decision, I'll have no qualms killing them.

Generally if its something out of the PC's control I'll generally let it slide, though I will usually take the worst possible result not resulting in death. Sometimes though I'll let it slide completely, if the player is playing especially well/in character, or the PC is really well fleshed out with a strong background, etc and dies on the first mission.

[Mohoender]

No problem killing PCs but that is not a rule.

If a player, even facing almost certain death, comes up with a great idea and acts in a tremendous way I would not have him killed unless there are no other way.

In regular situation, death is always close.

If a player get painful (in some way; choose which one ), He'll be quickly killed and he 'll find out that someone can be killed by a stone dropping from the sky in the middle of a flat desert. Actually, he'll have a good chance to face a platoon of T-90 supported by heavy artillery while having only a single empty pistol.

To give you an idea, I end up with dead character even when I GM starwars.

[Targan]

To give you an idea, I end up with dead character even when I GM starwars.

But in Star Wars even death doesn't end the roleplaying opportunities. You just turn up as a glowing blue dude from time to time (such as Ewok victory celebrations and the like).

[kato13]

You just turn up as a glowing blue dude from time to time (such as Ewok victory celebrations and the like).

Ah a fate worse than death, gotcha.

[Caradhras]

With my present campaign there have been no deaths yet, finished the Polish stuff from Kalitz to B Madonna/Going Home including a fair bit of my own thrown in and they have done Lone Star Red Star and presently on Gateway to the Spanish Main. Ok, there have been a few times a char has been in hospital equivilent for extended stays including a few close shaves, one char having a severely disfigured face where half his jaw was shot off

I have followed the rules to the letter and as such eventually one of them is going to get unlucky - it will pose a problem for me though as they have buil considerable experience and a replacement char is going to be weak in comparison (I hate giving a player a boosted new char to fit). Not sure how I will deal with it tbh.

In all RPGs I have played the element of death/risk has to be ever present....or it will be boring.

I remember once running a Rolemaster campaign in Middle-Earth where the PCs were sacking a village, this imba PC was slaying all and sundry in his mithril armour and magical sword when a peasant with a lump of wood crushes his skull...dead. It took like 3 or 4 consecutive rolls of 96-00 on % dice but - hey , sh*t happens

[Targan]

My players know full well that Gunmaster is a deadly system and a single stray bullet can end things very quickly for their characters. Most of them now play their characters with extreme sneakiness and efficiency. It makes me proud to see it because only one of them other than myself has any RL military experience - and he is the one who has had five of his characters die. He tends to play with a very gung ho style though and I have to admit all but one of his character deaths were heroic and spectacular.

[Rainbow Six]

Whilst I haven't played for years, when I did death was part of the game. Whilst I didn't purposely go out of my way to kill characters, if it happened it happened. The other characters grieved then moved on. And the dead character's player would generally enjoy the challenge of creating a new character, incoroprating that character into the group, etc.

I did once have a player who wanted his character killed off as he felt that his character had grown stale and had no room for further development.

Also, I found that if players knew that potentially their character could die, it discouraged them from trying really dumb stunts.

[Fusilier]

I'm somewhere in the middle regarding PC death.

I don't like players thinking they can't die in my games - since they eventually start taking ridiculously unrealistic brave/insane actions in combat. And it usually saps the challenge out of everything... kind of like once you start using cheat codes on video games.

On the other hand, when it comes to my online game, with only a post every 2 days it takes forever to get much done. Before you get past a couple days of game time, I'm thinking the players have become quite attached to their characters. I fear allowing them to be killed would discourage them from playing.

Therefore, I usually give everyone one chance where instead of taking a devastating wound, they slip by. Once that freebie is used up, I try to be as honest as possible but its hard.

[Adm.Lee]

It's been a while since I ran T2k/M2k, but I used to be a "let the dice fall"-style GM. That led to me offing two PCs for guys in the first fight of their first session. One guy even took a head-shot from the first shot of the NPCs. Funny, they never came back to play again.

In more recent games, not T2k, I've fudged dice to save PCs when it wasn't their fault for dying, especially when it's new players and the player has invested effort in the character's personality. More experienced players who've been hogging the spotlight AND leaving the party stranded while charging the enemy alone, not so much.

[General Pain]

But in Star Wars even death doesn't end the roleplaying opportunities. You just turn up as a glowing blue dude from time to time (such as Ewok victory celebrations and the like).

horrible.....

[weswood]

It's been years since I GM'd a game of any type, but I try to keep PCs alive unless they take stupid risks. Or if the player themself is anoying.

My very first character in my very first RPG got killed 5 minutes into the game. I thought, I spent 30 minutes rolling dice for this crap

[Cdnwolf]

In the new TW 2013 system then have some called survival points based on age, etc. You get an allotment of them and can use them to modify an attack roll, less the severity of a hit on your self or even give a bonus to a skill attempt roll.

The world of Twilight: 2013 is a harsh and unforgiving one.
Most of the planet's population died in the events of the last three
years. Those who remain had some natural advantage, be it skill,
preparation, or blind luck. Survival points (SPs) represent this
latter quality, giving players a last-ditch mechanism with which to
mitigate the impact of unfavorable die rolls.

(Above quote - copyright of 93 Games Studio)

[Mohoender]

But in Star Wars even death doesn't end the roleplaying opportunities. You just turn up as a glowing blue dude from time to time (such as Ewok victory celebrations and the like).

For that, you must be a powerful Jedi and those are long gone memory. Anyway, in my last campaign, my PCs failed and the Empire won over the Rebels.