Tabletop games and Death...

[tippy2k2]

Your favorite Escapist user tippy2k2 has run into a bit of a philosophical pickle when it comes to his new favorite table top RPG ("The end of the World" if you were wondering) and I'm curious to see how my fellow GMs handle it...

What do you do with characters dying?

For those of you unfamiliar, EotW is a zombie RPG where you create yourself as your avatar and (hopefully) run the character the way you think you would actually react in the zombie apocalypse. It's not perfect since the players KNOW there's a zombie apocalypse coming and routinely act accordingly but it is a fun game. However, it is very easy to get killed in the zombie apocalypse and I just can't figure out how to deal with that.

How do you handle death in your RPG adventures? If the character dies ten minutes in, does his twin brother who happens to have the same exact name and stats shows up? Does that person just kind of sit there for the rest of the night watching everyone else have fun? Do you lay off of people who are about to die to keep them alive or is it luck of the dice?

How do you deal with death in your table top games?

 

[kris40k]

Well, I'm not too familiar with the particulars of the game you are running. Some games deal with bringing in new characters easier than others. For instance, in horror games like Call of Cthuhlu, death is common enough that bringing in a "new" character into a group between major acts isn't very difficult or out of place. I would assume in a zombie apoc game, you can have them roll up a new survivor and bring them into play fairly quickly. I will be interesting to see how many of the original group is still alive after several sessions or a campaign.

Edit:
As far as laying off them, I do tend to fudge the dice in the players favor unless they have ignored hints/warnings and are actively doing something stupid[footnote]My players have learned that if I repeat back to them what they just said they are doing followed by, "are you sure?" that they need to check themselves[/footnote] and fights against the big bads. I don't want to TPK during a random filler battle. But I do run darker games like Dark Heresy where players are ready to die.

 

[DoPo]

How do you deal with death in your table top games?

I've not actually had to deal with character death myself...but then I've only GMed like, one and a half times in total.

Were I to handle it, however, here are two [http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/58968/whats-the-best-way-to-kill-a-character-in-a-way-that-is-memorable-and-treated] questions [http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/22284/how-to-kill-a-character-without-making-their-player-too-angry] on StackExchange and I agree with the accepted answers. I'm of the school of thought that GMs aren't there to just fuck with the players - that accomplishes little. The GM is there to work with the players in order for everybody to tell a story together. If somebody dies the first time the venture out of the city and encounter goblins or something, that's not really fun. Most minor encounters can end up with a character unconscious but not really dead, assuming things go badly for a player. Characters would die or be taken out of the game after the player has agreed to it. It's a really dick move to suddenly go "Nope, your character joins the bad guy now, because I said so".

There could be some exceptions, however - if the stakes are high, perhaps characters can die for realz. I'd still make that perfectly clear to the players. And it should be at an appropriate time - go on a last ditch mission against the big bad and there is no turning back, or something of the sort.

Bottom line, if the death has no meaning...well, really, why let them die?

But there are other campaigns where death is always around the corner. And those are also viable, just slightly different way to handle them. This is the case with your situation

However, it is very easy to get killed in the zombie apocalypse and I just can't figure out how to deal with that.

Here [http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/59260/how-to-make-extremely-lethal-stories-in-fate] you can find some advice to that effect. How much you can or would use is up to you, but there are some interesting ideas there.

What I'd personally say is not far off from the accepted answer there (though the answer is really better than what I can ever suggest): if people are expected to die frequently, then supplying them with extra characters is probably a wise idea. In a zombie apocalypse, there would be lots of not only the undead, but survivors, too. If somebody falls, then probably the party can find a new survivor who joins their ranks. I suppose it may get repetitive after a while but...well, that is realistic - there are going to be tons of people around and they'd probably want to band together. If the players are "good", then they'll be saving people and people would be joining them to help others in return. If the players are "evil", they could be more of a group of bandits making the most out of the chaos around. They would need to keep their group at a certain number, however - a couple of bandits won't have much hope to do much by themselves, you need at least for an effective party. If one of them falls, they could either find a replacement[footnote]One possibility I can think of is freeing a convict, or a former prison buddy. Alternatively, they might find another bandit that some "goody two shoes" survivors have captured and are currently debating what to do with (insert the NPCs pondering morality "Oh, but we can't kill him - he's a human, like us"). Unfortunately for them, they might have stuff like food and supplies, which your players would want. And their prisoner might be all to eager to join his saviours. And exact revenge on his captors.[/foontote] or perhaps make themselves one[footnote]Were I there, I'd capture somebody and force them to participate in the group at gun point. Then they could be made to stay out of fear "Leave us, and the zombies would get you. Now help us loot that place".[/footnote]

Whatever you do, if you really need to give the players a reason to accept somebody in the group, you can always give the joinee some important information, like where can the group find supplies or a working car or something. Of course, it would take a group effort to get to those (so, it'd be a mission on its own) but it would be worth it.

 

[tippy2k2]

Here [http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/59260/how-to-make-extremely-lethal-stories-in-fate] you can find some advice to that effect. How much you can or would use is up to you, but there are some interesting ideas there.

Oooooh....I dig answer #1 there (make the story about the objective, not the characters). In fact, that combined with...

I would assume in a zombie apoc game, you can have them roll up a new survivor and bring them into play fairly quickly.

this could be really interesting if I just basically create them new NPCs that they are now stuck with. So everyone gets to start as themselves but they may become a crazy gun nut or a helpful but easily frightened nurse or a survivalist who has zero social skills if/when they get themselves killed. I just create a dozen or so NPCs and you get the luck of the draw...

Edit:
As far as laying off them, I do tend to fudge the dice in the players favor unless they have ignored hints/warnings and are actively doing something stupid and fights against the big bads. I don't want to TPK during a random filler battle. But I do run darker games like Dark Heresy where players are ready to die.

Generally that's what I did when I ran the D&D campaign but unfortunately (or fortunately?), the GM does not roll in this game. People live and die by their own rolls and how well or badly it went (for example, yesterday they pushed it well into the night in their vehicles so I had the driver do a mental check, which he failed. He fell asleep, crashed the car and everyone had to roll for their own damage with five people getting seriously hurt and one person walking away without a scratch).

 

[kris40k]

Yeah, having some pre-generated characters available may be a good idea if the game is a harsh setting like I would imagine a zombie apoc setting to be. I might even recommed each player make three characters, themself and two others as backups that they might be interested in playing "just in case." Having your own pregens that you hand out on a need basis might be good as well, depending on how well your players handle playing characters not of their own creation. Depending on the game type, lack of experience may become an issue in later sessions, but it may not matter depending how the game was designed. Some games, like CoC, deal with unexperenced characters fairly well, while some games like Paranoia[footnote]Paranoia is a comedic game that starts each player character with seven clone bodies as people die left and right in the game[/footnote], actually expect very high death tolls. Other games with extended campaigns, like say AD&D or Pathfinder, may require making backup characters that are of appropriate level and equipment. After a while though, those games typically have ways of bringing back the dead to counteract character loss that more low-power or realistic game settings don't have.

 

[Erttheking]

Most of the games I've GMed tend to avoid the characters dying, mainly because they're RPGs like Rogue Trader where you can burn fate points to stay alive.

When I DO die though, usually I create a new character with experience roughly on par with how far the group has come, the game usually finds a way to get it in, and usually the character dies when their health hits 0 and they run out of fate points, though I tend to let people do whatever they can to prevent it but I don't make it impossible.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Depends on the game, but both of these are potentially high casualty games:

In Cyberpunk 2020 I changed the luck mechanic to be used as needed by the player to affect any dice roll, meant that fewer players would go down to the random headshot of doom, stretching out death saves and fewer fumbles. I also played WHFRP so fate points were available as "lives". Also if they're new to it, play with kid gloves for a bit, pointing out when they are about to engage in some outright lunacy.

I prefer to have people that are invested in their character somewhat so in the event that someone does die (usually in CP2020 rather than WHFRP) I usually have the odd NPC character lying around that can be inserted quickly and get them to roll up a proper new starting character before the next session. Bringing in Bob Clone # 4 I feel gets people to stop worrying about dying.

EDIT: As for "rewinding" as suggested below: Nope, if you died, you died mofo, too fuckin bad.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

What about rewinds? Anyone else do them? It's a bit unfit to have somebodies character die permanatly.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I have killed players and I am willing to do it but I tell them up front that it's possible that they might die. I don't think I'm unfair about it. I'll always let them reroll a new character and I wouldn't force them to take a drop in power with their new character.

I do think there are some interesting ways to play with death mechanics in an RPG like in Eclipse Phase where you're probably not going to stay permanently dead because that's how things are in the setting. One of my favourite characters I played was in a superhero game, his only power is that he's immortal so no matter what he wouldn't stay dead, we had a lot of fun with that. Also GMs should keep in mind there are ways for players to fail other than just killing them.

I've noticed that RPG players never seem to surrender. Not that you can surrender to zombies. Still, have them out of ammo, badly injured and surrounded by 2 dozen SWAT officers in Shadowrun and they'll try to punch their way out. And I'm probably as guilty of this as anyone else.

 

[DoPo]

-snip-

By the way, I forgot to mention something I actually wanted to: it's 2nd edition New World of Darkness [footnote]yeah, "2nd", "new" - can you tell it's recent?[/footnote]. I don't know what the End of the World rules are, but 2nd edition nWoD has a nifty one called "Sanctity of Merits". In short, "merits" is pretty much a catch-all for anything a character has that's not an attribute or a skill or a supernatural power[footnote]more precisely, one that comes from being a supernatural like a vampire or something[/footnote] - they encompass stuff like knowing extra languages or martial arts, having resources like money or information, as well as various other things like access to special permits or privileges. In essence, anything that could be worth being statted on a character sheet is a type of merit.

The "Sanctity of merits" rule then states that points distributed in those are never lost. Sure, things like an extra language are not that easy to lose, but, for example, the character could have a merit to represent they are a police officer, and they could always be suspended, demoted or even thrown out, thus reducing (or even eliminating) their ranking. If that were to happen, the new rule kicks in and the player is free to redistribute the points they lost into other merits. If I come back to the police officer example, if the character is thrown out of the force, they could decide to get Allies or Contacts which represent people they know in the police. A character losing an Ally, could choose to get Resources, because somebody was killed but left them a fortune. And so on, and so forth - the players can redistribute these points to represent changing assets of various sorts, as long as it is justified in-game.

I think it's a really good rule and it could be adapted to various other systems. The idea is pretty simple - the character takes a loss on something but gains something out of it. I think it could even be adopted to character death. Perhaps in inverse relationship, though - if a character dies, they keep some assets (as long as it makes sense). So, if Barry dies, and he had a fortified house he was leading the group to, the player may create Jane who also happens to have a similar thing to offer. It may be that Jane was Barry's relative or something, and it's the same house she has and the justification may be that Barry went out to scrounge up food (and met the group) but since he didn't return, Jane went to look for him...and found the group.

Just throwing ideas.

 

[Tatsuki]

Your favorite Escapist user tippy2k2 has run into a bit of a philosophical pickle when it comes to his new favorite table top RPG ("The end of the World" if you were wondering) and I'm curious to see how my fellow GMs handle it...

What do you do with characters dying?

For those of you unfamiliar, EotW is a zombie RPG where you create yourself as your avatar and (hopefully) run the character the way you think you would actually react in the zombie apocalypse. It's not perfect since the players KNOW there's a zombie apocalypse coming and routinely act accordingly but it is a fun game. However, it is very easy to get killed in the zombie apocalypse and I just can't figure out how to deal with that.

How do you handle death in your RPG adventures? If the character dies ten minutes in, does his twin brother who happens to have the same exact name and stats shows up? Does that person just kind of sit there for the rest of the night watching everyone else have fun? Do you lay off of people who are about to die to keep them alive or is it luck of the dice?

How do you deal with death in your table top games?

I'm a long time GM of whatever game is the flavour of the month and put simply, a character will not die 10 minutes into a game of mine unless they do something horribly stupid. That being said I am sadistic and make up for it in other ways.

Basic points I like to go with, they are more slight guidelines in my own mind rather than set rules so no particular order.

1. Would dying right now kill the game for the player? If so they don't die but the story may lead to a situation soon where #2 is likely.

2. Would dying make the overall story better? If so, they die and depending on the situation the drama really adds to things (I see this is a minimum 4 sessions in)

3. Does it make sense to kill the player? A player who constantly throws themselves into the action in dangerous situations will probably die a lot sooner than the person who plays it safe and cowers at the back, so don't have the coward die to a one off stray bullet. That being said cowering should have other consequences.

4. Is there a better way? 99% of the time there is a better way to deal with the situation. Find it. Player botches a roll to walk across a narrow plank of wood spanning the gap between buildings 10 floors up? They fall clipping the beam with one arm trying to grab it and spin off landing on a balcony below. The party is now separated and it becomes a rescue mission.

5.Talk to your players, find what they want from the game and go with that. I know my group well and each is different, there is one player I could kill off at any point for plot reasons and he would be ok with that, actively helping make it more dramatic. I have others that would lose interest if their character dies and probably sit out the rest of the campaign. Find out (or ask) how they tick.

(currently playing Deadlands: Wasted West)

*Edit to correct some of my derp late night grammar, no doubt there is more linguistic murder up there*

 

[Ironman126]

I'm a long time GM of whatever game is the flavour of the month and put simply, a character will not die 10 minutes into a game of mine unless they do something horribly stupid. That being said I am sadistic and make up for it in other ways.

Basic points I like to go with, they are more slight guidelines in my own mind rather than set rules so no particular order.

1. Would dying right now kill the game for the player? If so they don't die but the story may lead to a situation soon where #2 is likely.

2. Would dying make the overall story better? If so, they die and depending on the situation the drama really adds to things (I see this is a minimum 4 sessions in)

3. Does it make sense to kill the player? A player who constantly throws themselves into the action in dangerous situations will probably die a lot sooner than the person who plays it safe and cowers at the back, so don't have the coward die to a one off stray bullet. That being said cowering should have other consequences.

4. Is there a better way? 99% of the time there is a better way to deal with the situation. Find it. Player botches a roll to walk across a narrow plank of wood spanning the gap between buildings 10 floors up? They fall clipping the beam with one arm trying to grab it and spin off landing on a balcony below. The party is now separated and it becomes a rescue mission.

5.Talk to your players, find what they want from the game and go with that. I know my group well and each is different, there is one player I could kill off at any point for plot reasons and he would be ok with that, actively helping make it more dramatic. I have others that would lose interest if their character dies and probably sit out the rest of the campaign. Find out (or ask) how they tick.

(currently playing Deadlands: Wasted West)

I like all of these points, but I'd like to add one more. I believe it's important to remember that the DM is as much a guide and ally as he or she is the god of death.

To that end, one of the best thing I've ever done as a DM was to add NPC characters to the party in whom I was invested. While it's fun to play the role of harbinger of misery and grief, I find that the best times are had when the party progresses through a challenge and everyone in the room is having a good time.

Death should not be something that you are throwing about lightly (mostly because character generation is a pain). Death, as Tatsuki points out, should make sense and add to the game. Furthermore, I would argue that death must also be an actual setback. If a character dies and a brand new one, with identical everything to the now-dead character shows up a the next town, what was the point of the death? A minor inconvenience? To that end, I've made it a personal policy as DM to require players build a totally new character; new stats, new class, new personality, alignment, etc.

Say the healer cleric dies. The party is out a healer, which is bad. Assuming everyone else survives whatever killed the cleric, have the player roll a new character. If the player has already agreed to be the healer, then restrict them from cleric.

If the thief dies and leaves party trapped in an ancient tomb, it's up to you, the DM, to guide your players out of an otherwise hopeless situation.

 

[Terminal Blue]

It depends on the game, and the players. Tatsuki's list is really comprehensive.

I started roleplaying and GMing online in a game which used the consent system, so generally I tend to be quite soft on players. Unless a player actually thinks their character dying would be cool, I will generally find some excuse to keep them in the game. I've seen some players online abuse the hell out of the consent system, generally by creating characters who are suicidal fearless and then pulling the RPGers Nuremburg excuse ("I was only following my character concept!") But when you have total control over a game as you do in pen and paper it's not hard to shut those concepts down before the game begins.

What I'm saying is that as long as everyone is willing to indulge the concept of mortal threat, the actual possibility of characters dying isn't generally necessary in my experience.

 

[Tatsuki]

It depends on the game, and the players. Tatsuki's list is really comprehensive.

I started roleplaying and GMing online in a game which used the consent system, so generally I tend to be quite soft on players. Unless a player actually thinks their character dying would be cool, I will generally find some excuse to keep them in the game. I've seen some players online abuse the hell out of the consent system, generally by creating characters who are suicidal fearless and then pulling the RPGers Nuremburg excuse ("I was only following my character concept!") But when you have total control over a game as you do in pen and paper it's not hard to shut those concepts down before the game begins.

What I'm saying is that as long as everyone is willing to indulge the concept of mortal threat, the actual possibility of characters dying isn't generally necessary in my experience.

Players like that really get to me which is why I will quite often butt in when they talk over their actions with things like "you realise that is suicidal right? I'm just checking for clarity". If they still go through with the action after that I do take it as consent, so if things go bad, they go really bad.

I really should have added in a few lines about players who game the system and the GM, I just don't have those players anymore.

so I will just add in one more little thing to go by... You are a player too, and it is your game after all so what do you feel is the right way for the story to go and is the player being conductive to the whole experience? If a player is being a piece of rectal headwear have a word with them about it, if the asshattery continues they are disrupting and abusing YOUR game and they forfeit a lot of rights when it comes to how courteous you need to be with their life. Don't actively punish them, but don't go out of your way to save them.

 

[RJ 17]

I go for a more cut-throat style. I'm not out specifically to kill players, but if they make stupid decisions and/or the dice don't particularly like them that session then it's "too bad".

Fastest I've ever had someone die was during the opening scene in which they were in a mystical curio shop trying to purchase a map to some hidden tomb. Despite the creepy old merchant insisting that the dwarf quit fiddling with that bottle, he sneakily opened it and had his spirit liberated from his body.