How do you feel about GMs sparing player characters from death due to bad rolls?
>character is riding on a train with group
>badly injured from a recent fight
>skill roll due to a sudden stop
>failed roll
>cross fingers for low damage rolls despite odds
>before damage rolls GM has a NPC that is traveling with the group hold on to character
>negates the failed roll
Is this bad practice or no?
If it's a casual game and group sure. I personally think it's no fun to stop playing so someone else can roll a new character or have them leave all together, but that doesn't mean you can't put the fear of death into them
I fudge death rolls on the first adventure or two. No one wants to roll up a new character after just starting one, but after that, you're fair game. Maybe maim them instead, if you don't want to kill them outright. Lose a finger to the wolf rather than your throat.
Depands on the group and game. If it is some Gygax-style dungeoncrawling then yes, death is to be expected and one some more storydriven campaigns it might give interesting possibilities for the storytelling and be less of a setback to the player. On the other hand, if the death would be mostly meaningless and a huge setback for everyone then yes, consider saving the character. Just don't do it too often.
IMO saving a character's life (though possibly giving it some kind of a penalty) is pretty ok as long as the players don't start abusing or relaying on it. If a player is acting reckless, taking risks or just being plain foolish then ofcourse he or she should suffer the concequences.
Depands on the kind of players you are dealing with and wether or not it would risk driving them away.
I agree with you user
Depends on the group and the style of game. People who claim there's only one way to do it are always wrong, no matter which 'side' they're on.
Personally as a GM I like to avoid character death, because I think it's quite lazy and uncreative as far as consequences for failure go. It can be appropriate in certain contexts, but most of the time there are much more interesting things you can do while leaving a PC alive. Of course, this is assuming you have players whose PC's care about things other than themselves and are invested in the story and the world. I'm lucky enough to have groups like this, but I know not everyone is.
It turns the game into a farce where you can't lose and as such any rolling is pointless. If you can't lose it isn't a game, you're just playing pretend.
I tend to GM W40K games and for the first, say, three to six games player death cannot happen. After that it's fair game.
>"People who claim there's only one way to do it are always wrong, but if you don't do it the way I like you're doing it wrong."
>sparing player characters from death due to bad rolls?
I'd rather bake that into the normal rules.
You get some bad rolls and hit 0hp, then another PC rushes to give you medical attention. You probably won't die, but I will roll on this here table, and you better hope I roll high.
A damaged eye here, a few fingers and teeth there, a twisted spine, and suddenly your mercy doesn't look so consequence-free. And we haven't even gotten to the table you roll on if you use a regeneration spell.
The game gets a little more interesting when you have some more midway points between OK and dead.