Killing PCs 2

But... all else isn't equal, because it sucks when a character actually does get killed. This is especially true in the beginning or middle of a session, since then someone has to find something to do while her friends play this exciting game. Plus, what if she needs a ride home?

I fudge to keep characters from dying in ordinary circumstances -- but don't tell my players, because that is on the DL. I try my best to create the illusion that "one wrong roll and you're cinders." That's my tack on having it both ways. It works ok for me. However...

If a player voluntarily puts himself in an especially high-risk/high-profit situation, he is taking his (character's) life in his hands, and I let the chips fall. Recently someone went there, and got bitten by a viper in a game of D&D. I handed him a d20 and said "If you don't make at least a 14 on this roll, Ashur (character) is dead." He made it, but I was already preparing to tell how he screamed and slobbered and clawed in the dust, until a haze of mist came over his open eyes.

RAN HARDIN: > Rules don't kill characters -- adventures do.

Technically speaking, rules don't "do" anything. I think what Ron was getting at was the pitfalls of playing a simulationist game by the book, which will usually include rules for the death of a PC. If the GM always allows game mechanics to overrule story considerations, then characters *will* die.

I like games with the "Death Dodger:" the rules state that a character who gets to a certain level of damage "will die in a short time unless he receives immediate medical attention." This circumvents the "I rolled a 20, you're dead" routine, and puts the onus on the players to get their characters' asses in gear and DO something. However, it's not impossible that the character, because of his own errors, finds himself in the middle of the desert with no food or water, wounded and handcuffed to a corpse. C'est la morte.

RAVEN: I kill characters.

I admit it: I used to avoid it. But then it started dominating the game. So, now, I kill characters.

"I'm sorry, that was just stupid. You're dead."

Why?

Because I'm a cruel and sadistic bastard (what? you haven't looked at my galleries yet?) (just kidding!).

Seriously, while I enjoy indulging my darker side and laughing uproariously while the ancient dragon gulps down the party like a breakfast of noodles for a hurried business man at a Chinese restaurant, my players might frown on that occuring nigh constantly.

And with that, and the time it takes to create a character in mind, I avoided killing characters for a long while, ending up constantly pulling the character's collective arses out of every major fire they managed to drop them in, all in the name of "story" and "plot" and "respect" (for the work that went into the character).

At the same time, I was involved a game where it was silently understood that "characters won't die unless it serves the story"...I quickly grew bored with it, despite the excellent DM and storyline. I KNEW my character wouldn't die, no matter what.

Case in point: We jumped off a cliff (stupidly)...yes, the *entire party. We all *survived, miraculously...via magic. That was when I stopped having as much fun, that's when the game turned tame for me.

I talked with the DM about this situation, reflected on the increasing boredom shown by my own players and I looked back at the games I'd had the MOST fun in.

My conclusion: death had taken too long a holiday.

Hence, I kill characters. I spare no die-rolls. I let the blood flow.

Combat and adventuring are *inherently dangerous* businesses...the smart or lucky survive. I don't care if the player spent ten years making the character; if they are afraid of dying, they shouldn't be crawling around in the Dungeons of Death of the Lich-Overlord of Kompenii.

Only one rule: I never kill them without giving them a chance to see it coming. No anvils drop from the sky and squash anyone. But if they ride into the bandit infested woods knowing the woods are bandit infested...well, they made their choice and if they happen to die kicking on the end of a spear-trap then that is it.

I make sure all players understand this and I now require back-up characters to be generated at the time of the initial characters to reinforce the point.

I lied, there's a second rule: I never put characters in more danger than they can handle. I do not necessarily mean they can *defeat the opposition in combat or politics, (nor do I make most encounters so difficult), but I never leave them without a way out. Some way, or two, they can get out of with their skills and wits...but whether they take it boils down to their choice. You don't rush the Orcish war-party in my game when you are outnumbered five to one, you use your smarts somehow, or you just flee. If you do rush them and engage, chances are high that you will die unless you are already of heroic stature or very lucky (in which case you start to earn that heroic stature).

Doesn't this make characters less important, knowing they'll die sometime?

I hope it makes keeping them alive more important! Putting brains and cowardice before brawn and idiocy.

C-O-N-S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E-S.

Providence might be keeping an eye on you, but she doesn't coddle when the anvil comes down: you dodge, you catch or you get squashed -- all on your own. There's nothing better than a character who survived or succeeded, not because the DM said so, but *in spite of* the odds.

There's no such thing as a story without real conflict and real danger.

That's what I've learned after fifteen years of playing.

RON EDWARDS: Yikes!

Raven wrote, > I kill characters. > I spare no die-rolls. > I let the blood flow.

> There's no such thing as a story without real conflict and real danger.

The mask comes off. Nice-guy Kromer's true self revealed. Now I know why I've never seen Raven and Dr. Doom at the same time ....

In theory, I agree. In practice, I definitely agree that "you won't die" will devalue the story -- IF there are rules and regs that WILL kill the characters, thus making it way obvious when the GM steps in to save'em. When it comes to Castle Falkenstein or Prince Valiant, though? When the players know the system CANNOT kill them via Fortune methods? (Jump in the propellor of the Nautilus, yes, you die; but the dice/cards don't do it.) That's when the issue gets re-defined.

Well, frankly, I dodge the whole issue in a cunning way: I run RPG stories in 5-10 session blocks, then switch systems and settings entirely. So if a PC ends up dead, it's only a matter of impact on THAT ONE story. I've started killing folks in that context, although typically only in the last run ("reel").

NELSON: Raven wrote: >if they are afraid of dying, they shouldn't be crawling around in the Dungeons of Death of the Lich-Overlord of Kompenii.

Hear, hear.

>I think even leaving it to the "last reel", so to speak, takes a little away.... Now, won't you be a good little antagonist and open yourself up for my killing blow?")

I agree there is some tension lost in the narrativist approach, as I indicated with the Churchill quote. But not all is lost, and I think you're selling the approach short. Knowing a hero isn't going to die, except possibly at the end, is the situation we are in with most books, movies, etc.; and it doesn't totally kill the excitement, does it? Consider the follwing passage from _Beowulf_ , where Beowulf fights Grendel:

There crashed from sill many a mead-bench where the grim foes fought. And wonder it was the hall itself in the strain of their struggle stood Danes of the North with fear and frenzy were filled, each one, who from the wall that wailing heard. A fell and freakish thing the keen-souled kinsman of Hygelac held in battle;and hateful alive was each to other.

This passage is exciting to me, even though it is no secret who is going to win. I certainly don't get the feeling of "be a good little bad-guy...". So I think a good narrative can create tension in spite of our knowing the outcome in advance, due to our willing suspension of disbelief (or, in this case, of belief).