Death-The Importance of Endings

[LordVreeg]

There's been some dying. No PCs in the current game. Death is, generally speaking, a boring consequence. It usually closes more things than it opens, hence being more suitable when the game is about to end anyway.

Every game is different.
But I disagree that death is a boring consequence, or that it closes more doors than it opens.  If done properly, a PC death can motivate the other PC's to behave differently, more than almost any other event.  Not saying I ever plan to knowck them off, but a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

'¦a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

This can be a big problem for the wrong kind of player: it assumes there is a way for that person to be smart.  Sometimes you are just going to get people who can't handle that level of cautious thinking.  They can either just take things by impulse and have a very hit or miss chance of succeeding at certain things, or they turtle because they don't know what to do when and figure they have to do everything all the time to even have a chance.  And I speak from being one of those people.

I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your vision of a game.  I'm just hoping you don't expect everyone to perform at your expected level.

[Haphazzard]

It's not always the players being stupid (not saying the majority of the time they aren't being stupid), but rather the roll of the die.  I just got back from playing a game where my lvl 11 cleric killed like 5 people with circle of death and charged up to use Harm on the main badguy when he misses me twice (AC 24 kicks ass) and then rolls two 20s in a row.  He did like 36 damage and I only had 24 left.  It's not that I necessarily was being stupid, it was just the roll of the dice.  The DM took mercy on me (since I had just rolled up my character 10 minutes before that) and left me stabilized at -9.  I used up my proverbial "luck point" I guess.

[Jharviss]

Intelligence really isn't the issue.  It goes beyond that.  The threat of death is on a purely emotional level.  I manipulate my players into believing that the threat of death is real and they're right on the edge of falling off the cliff.  When they believe they can die, everything in the game is heightened.  They worry about their characters.  They worry more about opponents.  They stop seeing every obstacle as just something to overcome in order to get to the next one.  The game becomes real.  I have players that squirm and shiver during sessions.  I have players that get up and pace during combat because they're getting anxious.  The threat of death causes this.  

But this does cause them to think.  They aren't always willing to rush head-first into a combat situation.  They're more willing at settling disputes through negotiations.  They're more willing to retreat when they're facing near-death situations.

It's emotional, and by removing the threat of death players perform at a less real level.  Death is real in our world, and the idea of real characters going through the things they go through in most campaigns without feeling like they're going to die is implausible.  When the threat of death is removed, the entire world and the campaign suddenly feels implausible.

I know you like a different type of campaign, SilvercatMoonpaw, but I prefer some level of realism.  The realistic and full nature of my campaigns leaves players with numerous options, characters who have faced and overcome challenges, and numerous people they call friends and foes.  The threat of death keeps them playing that type of campaign.  If they didn't think they could die, everything would be at a lower level.  Their intimacy with their character would be lessened, because they know that they're nearly invincible.  

I have a player who hated character death.  He hated it in books, movies, comics, and especially D&D.  He just wanted to wade into combat and butcher everything with his epic fantasy sword.  In my last campaign his character died (again, not by my doing - he was killed by another player who betrayed the group during the climax).  His death advanced the storyline, and, through his death, his character's role in the campaign was greatened to such an extent that his character gained closure and a greater sense of accomplishment.  And this was all through character death.

That person has recently told me that he now understands and supports the occasional character death, because the right death can advance the storyline and really put people in their place.  I don't believe in a futile death.  These people are heroes - their deaths should be just as heroic as their lives.  If a PC dies, there should be repercussions and widespread effects throughout the campaign.  Even if they just die from a well-placed goblin arrow, it should not be shrugged off.  

That's my belief and I'm sticking to it. ^_^

[LordVreeg]

'¦a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

This can be a big problem for the wrong kind of player: it assumes there is a way for that person to be smart.  Sometimes you are just going to get people who can't handle that level of cautious thinking.  They can either just take things by impulse and have a very hit or miss chance of succeeding at certain things, or they turtle because they don't know what to do when and figure they have to do everything all the time to even have a chance.  And I speak from being one of those people.

I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your vision of a game.  I'm just hoping you don't expect everyone to perform at your expected level.

It's all about the setting and the game.  This thread has already been a good one becasue PC death is something all GM's deal with to some level or another.  Different games and different personalities need different games.

I have a waiting list in my area to play in my games.  I run two groups once a month apiece and 2 online groups now, all in the same setting.  That setting is a quarter centruy old and is up to something like 146 PCs.  That's my particular viewpoint.

I have a lot of online friends who switch setttings, and change GM's, and try different things and want to see what differnt rules and circumstances will bring.  

Neither is better.  They are different.  My expectations only count in my game (and sometimes not even then, it seems.  I have this guy....).

On the other hand, low expectations alweays breed low results, high expectations sometimes bring people up to another level.  I don't doubt for a second you'd do fine in any setting you were thrown into.  I've read you enough.
 

[LordVreeg]

It's not always the players being stupid (not saying the majority of the time they aren't being stupid), but rather the roll of the die.  I just got back from playing a game where my lvl 11 cleric killed like 5 people with circle of death and charged up to use Harm on the main badguy when he misses me twice (AC 24 kicks ass) and then rolls two 20s in a row.  He did like 36 damage and I only had 24 left.  It's not that I necessarily was being stupid, it was just the roll of the dice.  The DM took mercy on me (since I had just rolled up my character 10 minutes before that) and left me stabilized at -9.  I used up my proverbial "luck point" I guess.

I would have killed you.  But that's me, and does not make that right or wrong.  You just made this character?  I am more likely to spare a PC that is somewhat older acting in character than anything.
Then agaion, my system is such that my highest HP PC is 44.  Death happens.

[LordVreeg]

and I love all of Jharviss' posts.  SO damned impassioned.  You just stick to it, who the hell would call you wrong?  
   

[Haphazzard]

I would have killed you.

because[/i] I was playing in character.  Normally I wouldn't run up to a guy w/ a cleric that has 24/99 HP, but he was a high ranking cleric in a corrupt church that I'm about to bring crashing to the ground and it's kinda personal for my character, so I figured I'd make it personal in combat.

[Thanuir]

But I disagree that death is a boring consequence, or that it closes more doors than it opens.  If done properly, a PC death can motivate the other PC's to behave differently, more than almost any other event.  Not saying I ever plan to knowck them off, but a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

Personally, if I want players to play their characters in a more cautios way, I ask them to do so and make the game work in a way that rewards cautios behaviour or punishes rash actions. If you want to change the way the players play the game, ask them and make it a useful way to play. Much more effective than intentionally and purposefully killing off a character to teach the players a lesson. Trying to teach a lesson usually doesn't end well.

[LordVreeg]

But I disagree that death is a boring consequence, or that it closes more doors than it opens.  If done properly, a PC death can motivate the other PC's to behave differently, more than almost any other event.  Not saying I ever plan to knowck them off, but a child that burns their hand in fire tends to avoid the flame: and PC's who experience death act a little smarter.

Personally, if I want players to play their characters in a more cautios way, I ask them to do so and make the game work in a way that rewards cautios behaviour or punishes rash actions. If you want to change the way the players play the game, ask them and make it a useful way to play. Much more effective than intentionally and purposefully killing off a character to teach the players a lesson. Trying to teach a lesson usually doesn't end well.

Different degrees.
I think you and I are saying similar things.  As I stated, ('Not saying I ever plan to knock them off' is even in the quote you pulled.), I don't ever try to kill a player, and so the comment about 'intentionally and purposefully killing off a character' is coming out of left field.  That was never part of the conversation, though I know it to be the case with some GM's, and it is their choice to make.  Any mention about killing off someone's character purely to make a point was at least not meant, nor do I think it ever existed in written format anywhere on this thread.
Also, I described threat as operant conditioning (burning hands teaches a lesson), to which you responded with rewarding some behaviors and dsicouraging others (more operant conditioning) as an alternative (?).  The difference might lie in other behaviors you are thinking or reinforcing, while I was speaking mainly of threat level, the topic of this thread.

I think that your rapport with your players in terms of talking to them about the game play style you think would work best must be a good one, and I actually enjoy the way you describe the reinforcement as 'making it a useful way to play.'  Your relationship with your players is a factor, and as I often see on other threads, this is a game and people play it to have a good time.  PLayers do play to have fun, and so PC death does have to be thought of in that light at the same time.

[LordVreeg]

I would have killed you.

because[/i] I was playing in character.  Normally I wouldn't run up to a guy w/ a cleric that has 24/99 HP, but he was a high ranking cleric in a corrupt church that I'm about to bring crashing to the ground and it's kinda personal for my character, so I figured I'd make it personal in combat.

I think you are touching on something every important with the whole threat-level/death consequence thing.  I have to be totally upfront and back off my earlier statement about letting you die, now that I understand the situation better.  I would not have killed you.  Nothing to do with sympathy either.

I have a lot more trouble killing off a PC who is putting themselves at risk while trying to roleplay their character.  I thnk that trying to make the character breathe and live is worth a lot, and the last thing I want to do is negatively reinforce that action.  I have killed off PC's gloriously before in said situation, by that is because they were going into hopeless odds, but the situation you describe with the dual 20's does not describe that.

[LordVreeg]

I'm only bumping this thread because LC has not graced us with his presence.

[AllWillFall2Me]

While we wait, I will chime in. I have been DMing for nigh on 7 years now, and I can tell you my first character death was within the last year.
I will admit, I am a fan of heroes being heroes, so I use very generous ability scores, etc. I also am notoriously bad at continuing stories. I love pretty much all character and story ideas, so I want to try them all, so we normally only do a month or so (2-4 sessions) on any one story before I find a new one. (I am aware of the flaw, and have been working very dedicatedly to fixing it. I now run adventures for as long as two-three months without stopping.)
To the point, I believe a character should only die when it is appropriate. I am not sparing of my characters in most cases, though they have been known to bite off more than they can chew and pull out by the skin of their teeth.  But after seeing the effect of my first death, and the second, (different group and campaign) I may be a little less lenient with some of my instituted house rules, as both times the deaths served as a way to advance the story in a new direction, and gave the players and characters a sense of the stakes. (The first death was a Charmed member of the party with issues Coup de graceing (gracing?) a Held Person, which led to his arrest by the paladin of the group, the second was the mage in a party on an island of zombies being overwhelmed by the tide of undead.)

[LordVreeg]

While we wait, I will chime in. I have been DMing for nigh on 7 years now, and I can tell you my first character death was within the last year.
I will admit, I am a fan of heroes being heroes, so I use very generous ability scores, etc. I also am notoriously bad at continuing stories. I love pretty much all character and story ideas, so I want to try them all, so we normally only do a month or so (2-4 sessions) on any one story before I find a new one. (I am aware of the flaw, and have been working very dedicatedly to fixing it. I now run adventures for as long as two-three months without stopping.)
To the point, I believe a character should only die when it is appropriate. I am not sparing of my characters in most cases, though they have been known to bite off more than they can chew and pull out by the skin of their teeth.  But after seeing the effect of my first death, and the second, (different group and campaign) I may be a little less lenient with some of my instituted house rules, as both times the deaths served as a way to advance the story in a new direction, and gave the players and characters a sense of the stakes. (The first death was a Charmed member of the party with issues Coup de graceing (gracing?) a Held Person, which led to his arrest by the paladin of the group, the second was the mage in a party on an island of zombies being overwhelmed by the tide of undead.)

Intetrsting post.  I had a similat sea-change in attitude when I found that not only did my players not leave, but in a few cases the death deepened the storyline.  I like the image of the mage going under the tide...
What did the players who lost characters do?  

[Lmns Crn]

I'm only bumping this thread because LC has not graced us with his presence.

Oh man!

I have been reading this thread, you know. Writing my thesis and fighting the flu have kept me busy lately, but I guess I better post a reply, now that I've been called out by name. :yumm:

I guess I have mixed opinions about this whole death business.

On the one hand, it does seem that in many systems, it's too hard to die. (HP is a big culprit, and it's one of several reasons I don't really care much for HP as a mechanic.) In D&D, in particular, an ever-increasing (with level) buffer of HP makes it too easy at high levels to shrug off things that should be deadly-- say, a maniac with a knife, or a fall off a cliff. Healing is prevalent enough to make non-fatal wounds trivial, too many types of wounds are assuredly non-fatal, and even if you do get offed, resurrection is (often) (relatively) easy to attain.

I feel like the inclusion of save-or-die type mechanics, especially fiendish traps, and other "cheap deaths" is a way of overcorrecting for the above, and I think they cheapen death just as much. I think death is a pretty terrible way to punish players for having bad luck, or for not being prescient. "I died because I chose the horribly-trapped door on the right instead of the identical-seeming door on the left" is not a very exciting story.

I guess I think that death should stay, but in a different sort of way. My ideal system would be one where players are very fragile when they start taking damage, but the clever and cautious have a good chance to avoid it-- so there's definite incentive to keep your flesh intact, without making every combat a death sentence. Most player deaths ought to occur because of obviously foolish choices (not the "left door or right door" type of dilemma, or other randomness or carelessness), because they played long odds and lost (as sometimes happens), or because of a dramatic choice.

Dramatic choice is an important one, here. It's the one that leads to all the best stories. My favorite of my own characters' deaths was one in which my knight had been captured by the villainous warlord-- the antithesis of all my character stood for. I was struck down for refusing to to join his evil army. But I knew the consequences of that answer, both as a character and as a player, so the death was a good one. It felt like a defiant triumph of willpower, of good over evil, rather than the curbstomping it really probably was. I think a death based on a choice is usually a better one than a death based on running out of HP. There will always be something mesmerizing in the self-sacrifice of a doomed "You get to safety, I'll hold them off!", or "Let the hostage go-- take me instead."

Characters who go this route probably ought to die-- and they ought to stay dead if they do. Reversing the death undermines the sacrifice.

Then again, I agree with Thanuir that death tends to close more doors than it opens. I think people tend to overlook many equally effective (but less drastic) ways of taking a character out of commission for a while. Depending on the setting and the situation, dishonor, a curse, imprisonment, a broken leg, a brainwashing, or any number of other consequences can just as easily complicate things for a character, can be the consequences of stupidity or a fight gone wrong, can
prompt you to roll a new character, or can be "played through" with potentially interesting results. And if you need to reverse them later, they all strike me as less overplayed than "I came back from the dead."