True, character death can lead to the derailment of an entire session, but that is usually the fault of the player whose character has fallen. Being certain your players understand that you will not grant them unlimited lives can avoid this situation, and having a cast of backup characters floating around the game world can bring a fallen player back into the game very quickly. In a previous game, the backup characters were basically a crew of cohorts.

If you’re having trouble dealing with the thought of your current character dying, try looking at it from a different perspective: your old character isn’t ending, your next character is starting. You have been given the opportunity to try something new, to shake up the status quo of your party and perhaps offer a whole new perspective on the campaign. Relish it.

Sure, I under DMs in the past just going out and killing players for the sheer fun, won’t be the first or the last time. Cruel but hay its life.

Most of the real world people playing are just happy to pry said players away from their consoles or WOW long enough to sit at the round table for a few sessions.

I find as long as to make your players aware this is how “we play” then it should be fine and dandy.

Let’s look at the points made:

a) “Infrequent.” Well, yes, death should be infrequent. If PCs are dropping like flies there’s something inherently wrong with the game. A game of guaranteed success or failure isn’t a game worth playing.

b) “Penalizes players.” Not really. One of the biggest problems in RPGs is that often actions are not countered with consequences. Sure, you occasionally have a run of bad luck with the dice and your warlock is consumed by dragon fire. However, the question to ask is, how did that warlock get into that position in the first place? Was he ready to be there? Did he rush into that situation without thinking it through… or was the GM being cruel? Neither of these situations are acceptable. If a player is temporarily out of the game he can always pick up the part of an NPC or assist the GM until his new PC can be brought in at a thematically appropriate story point.

c) “Can emotionally impact players.” Uh… it’s just a game? But seriously, I typically have multiple character concepts rattling around in the back of my head. If my PC dies, I have another waiting on the bench to pull up and insert at the appropriate time. I think most other gamers are of the same mindset.

d)”Often avoided by GMs”. Not me, man. Not me. I do not pull my punches and my players get angry when I do. I get angry emails when I run out of time and have to close up an encounter before it’s properly resolved.

e)”Generally just an inconvenience.” With a little forethought and prep-work it really isn’t. Again, have ideas for multiple characters if you’re a player and if you’re a GM, put some forethought into good spots in an adventure where new PCs can be introduced.

f)”Why should it ever happen without the affected player’s consent?” This is a shared experience amongst players and GMs, yes? If I as a GM spend three hours setting up an encounter and my players blast through it in two minutes (frustrating for any GM) I still have to consent to my players’ success. Do the players not have to consent to their own in-game failures? How is that fair or satisfying for anyone?

What happens next depends a lot on your game system, and probably requires some meta-gaming. Here is what I do in 4e. The player rolls “death” saves as normal. If for whatever reason the player is able to regain fatigue (hit points) and get themselves back on their feet the physical hit that incapacitated them is viewed as a glancing blow.

If however the player fails these saving throws, or is reduced by whatever means to his or her negative fatigued (bloodied) value, the player now has an injury. Using a table I roll to see the severity (mild, moderate, severe, death) and location (head, torso, right arm etc…) of the hit they suffered. The table favors mild injuries. Based on what they were hit by (a fireball versus a sword), where they were hit, and severity of the injury I apply penalties for a given period of time in game. These can last a few days in game to permanency, assuming the hit didn’t kill them. 4e has status effects, so I use those in addition to non-mechanical description of injuries. I try to systematically apply the number of penalties, and how long they last for the severity of the injury.

Examples:
“The minotaur’s charge attack that incapacitated you caused you to roll out your ankle and sprain. You are slowed for 5 days and after that your speed is reduced by 2 for two weeks.”

“The necromancer’s psionic attack that incapacitated you has left you dazed and confused. You are weakened for two weeks and you can’t cast rituals or do other actions that require focus for a month. Your maximum number of surges is reduced by 3, you recover one per month. Even years from now you might have a moment of inattention, or a nightmare of this event.”

“The knight’s mace that incapacitated you shattered your face: your jaw is fractured, your right eye is destroyed and you have a moderate concussion. You cannot be moved for one day, you are incapacitated for 2 weeks. You are dazed for a month. You cannot speak for 3 months. You have a -2 attack penalty for 3 months, and -1 for 3 months after that, as you learn to live with one eye. The number of surges you have is reduced by 6, you recover one each month. You are permanently blind in your right eye, your face will never look normal again, and you will be plagued with migraines for the rest of your life, assuming you survive the next few days [heal check!].”

“The dragon’s fire breath that… well, let’s just say it won’t be an open casket funeral.”

Players have to believe their characters can die, period. Whether they ever do is up to the GM, I suppose, and circumstances in the game, but if they don’t think there’s even a possibility, players take extreme liberties. I’ve never seen an exception to that.

@LordVreeg – I’d love to try a self-consciously old-school campaign like yours — I don’t know that I’ve ever played a game like that for long.

I believe in PC death. And by my experience, it matters.

First off, in terms of the story, players kill monsters all the time. If death only works in one direction, it trivializes death and the game. Yes, I just said a game where monsters die and players don’t is more trivial than one where the efects of combat are internally congruent.

Secondly, the tenor of the game you want to have needs to match the risks. A light-hearted, comicbook-esque game does not need death. Anything remotely gritty needs death.

And fudging? I’m pretty Old School for that. I play with adults, risks have rewards or consequences. I will bend a roll or so every 5-6 sessions, but the law of risk and achievement is important. My players feel like they have achieved something if their PCs survive a few years (my 2 current campaigns are 16 and 8 years old). If their is no risk of death, their is little real campaign-level achievement.

Honestly, even “broken arm” in a world without healing magic takes the character out for a long while– how effectively could you fight with an improperly set arm? When the opponent can just bump your arm to cause terrible agony and you’re forced to fight offhand anyway? That’s not death, but it’s a loss condition equivalent to removing the PC for weeks– which is all resurrection boils down to, much of the time. [Also, the player can roleplay working around their inability to contribute. If you want to make it trivial, you can always break out healing magic, just like resurrection magic.]

In a recent series of D&D 4e games, my Fighter was killed on two occasions. The GM made it too easy, in my opinion, to obtain a resurrection ritual. This seemed to cheapen my character’s death because there was no real chance that he wasn’t going to return to the series. Why kill the PC if they are just going to return to the game the next day?

I would feel much better about losing a PC and having that death mean something than to keep reviving the same PC by reducing death down to a minor inconvenience. Would Boromir’s death in LotR have been as meaningful if he would have been resurrected in time for The Two Towers? I think not.

I’m not opposed to character resurrection in all cases, but it feels more authentic at the more epic levels of a campaign. And how many resurrections should a character have before the Gods become displeased with a Cleric delaying fate’s bounty?

Sometimes, a PC needs to go out a hero. A new PC can be created. It isn’t the end of the world to lose a PC. Sometimes it feels like the younger generation of gamers has lost that aspect of gaming. If I know my PC will never truly risk death, then the game just loses a lot of appeal for me.

A few sessions though, I let them get a little more banged up and their enjoyment seemed to go up. I still feel that killing off players would be a detriment to the enjoyment of the story, but I find I fudge far less these days when it comes to combat.

I still would rule towards keeping players alive in most situations, however. Instead of the player being shot and dying outright, they fall unconcious and are knocked out of the fight. The rest of the team can still win the day and come rescue him. Very similar to systems in games like Dragon Age where party members can be knocked out and then be revived after the fight.

In order to ensure there are penalties for failure still (since I tend to keep death off the table except in extreme situations) I prefer to make the consequences impact other parts of the game world the players are attached to as mentioned in the James Bond article above. ie: The players are trying to save a girl one of the players grew up with, due to poor planning coupled with poor rolls they were unable to save her and the terrorists exploded the bomb destroying the facility she was in and killing her. The players are banged up but survive, and must now deal with the guilt of not saving her, the possible fallout from mutual friends and family, possible legal trouble which may get linked to them from her death, etc… and they don’t get paid / recieve the phat lewt for successfully rescuing her.

“Your thief who wants to steal the princess’s panties as a joke failed that stealth check? Okay, the guards come in with swords and attack.”

There would be several rounds of combat here.

“And the guards stab you one last time and kill you. Now let’s get back to the rest of the party who has been patiently waiting to begin the quest…”

I would not have the NPCs just kill the PC through fiat. There would be combat according to the game’s rules.

But if your character is taking stupid risks for the purpose of amusing you the player, and not for the purpose of making the game fun for the group, I as the GM am going to be more inclined to have the bad guys kill that character instead of capturing the PC. Main cast members get captured and are rarely killed, supporting cast members get killed.

I’ve never had a player complain about it. It just seems to be a natural process. “Your thief who wants to steal the princess’s panties as a joke failed that stealth check? Okay, the guards come in with swords and attack. And the guards stab you one last time and kill you. Now let’s get back to the rest of the party who has been patiently waiting to begin the quest…”

I can see someone saying “But that’s unfair. You are punishing a certain style of play with tougher consequences in the story.” And I would agree with everything but the unfair part. I am punishing a certain style of play through the story, and when your style of play is to go against the story such a conflict should take place. Your PC might roll well and escape the guards (or kill them, or fool them, etc.). The rules haven’t changed, but the NPCs actions are going to be much more harsh.

On the other hand, if your thief is trying to steal the princess’s journal in order to learn what she knows about the BBEG’s plans your PC is more likely to be captured.

None of these things may have been part of the plot that I had in mind for the game, but one is just a self-indulgent subplot for a player while the other is an attempt by the player to interact with the story. I as the GM serve the group, and as such I will use opportunities to remove a troublemaker PC from the game in a fair manner.

It works for me, but YMMV.