Hey tg, I let one of my players (it's his first game and I started them all level one. Nether I not them realized somebody could just die in one hit.) get killed in the first session and I'm worried he's basically quit.
My idea is to have a passing Noble resurrect him and then have he party go into debt to him. Whenever they try to pay him off I'm going to have the noble find reasons to increase the debt further and further. I think I'll keep this up until around level five.
How did they all die?
No. He's lost nothing. Just have him roll a new dude.
He said only one died. Probably a wizard from some arbitrary enemy getting a lucky crit, if I had to guess.
He spent a lot of time on the character and I immediately regretted killing anyone in the first session.
This sounds punitive and unnecessarily stupid to me. There are lots of ways you could resolve this situation AND creative new narrative threads that don't involve shackling your players to a douchey NPC in some form of indentured servitude.
What if the passing noble resurrects the wizard in exchange for having our heroes take a macguffin somewhere after he gives them a stern lecture about the dangers of adventuring?
The mistake here was on him, for spending a lot of time on his character.
In most systems, your first few levels *are* your backstory.
You shouldn't grow attached to them 'til mid levels.
If it matters that much to him, just retcon shit.
His old character is some shumck, his new characetr is the one with a backstory.
Or just retcon his old character into being alive. But,
>I'm going to have the noble find reasons to increase the debt further and further.
this is really contrived and obnoxious.
The takeaway here is don't start at level 1 is you don't want people keeling over in one hit.
It's a holdover from the high attrition OD&D, where character just start as desperate hobos.
You are getting more negative feedback than deserved for the douchey noble.
Couldn be cool if you do it right. Don't make him bossy and an asshole. Maybe more guilt trippy.
Don't make them feel railroaded, since you seem to be the one to have fucked up.
If the party resists or tell him to fuck off bring him back as a bad guy later.
Have a necromancer raise him later and have the party free him from their control.
Give him undead traits and then he can pursue true resurrection or somethng.
YOu have two options:
Fix the system, so that characters don't die easily at low levels.
or
fix the system so that you make players aware of how high mortality is, and tell them not to write detailed personalities before play starts.
forgot to add: In the first case, bossy noble is fine. You're playing video-game fantasy, where people relevant to the story tend to be nearly permanent.
If you're ok with the system killing characters, just tell the player that this is what happens, and have him roll up a new character.
What ever you do don't listen to people on this board who defend the purity of ivory tower game design. They should all be banished to the deepest circles of autism hell.
you're the guy who killed his friends lvl 1 wizard with an orc spear hitting a nat20 before he could do anything about it
Protip: Roll dice behind your screen.
You shouldn't pull all your punches, but if you're *only* rolling really well (or really poorly) then don't hesitate to fudge the numbers.
DM fiat, nugger. Learn to use it judiciously. Fudge the roll or construct a narrative or use handwavium. Contrary to /v/ or /tv/, the purpose of entertainment is to HAVE FUN. Ask yourself, "will this be fun to the players?". If the answer is no, then don't do it.
...
No
Honestly, when I run campaigns, my players are immune to death until at least third level. They might not be immediately aware, but they are.
Usually I'll just have the player in question knocked unconscious, or if the party is really getting wrecked, have them all get captured with the opportunity to escape later.
That's an FtM from Hell's Rebels, a Paizo AP set in a city described as San Francisco where the party organizes their rebellion at a Starbucks.
He'll still feel like he's getting punished for doing nothing. Players should know what kind of game they're getting into if you're, but I can't really say which one of you is at fault. Generally I would say if he's new it's yours. Either way the noble thing seems like something nobody would ever be happy with. I would just tell him he can make a new character with the same sheet since he barely used it if you want it to be a lethal game, and just get your point across
>don't start at level 1 is you don't want people keeling over in one hit.
Also that. I would avoid level one DnD as much as possible, but if you really want to I'd just give them an advance on their max HP for the next level or two. If you want it to be lethal then I guess it's fine as is, but since it only takes a few weak monsters for characters to level out of 1 hit die I don't really see the problem in just starting them with more
You should have told him that this can happen. Ask him if he wants to be resurrected or make a new character. Don't do the debt thing, or if you do, make it easy for the PCs to kill him or scare him off.
Making a giant backstory for a level one character in a murderhobo game is just begging for it.
Role-playing is about making stories, not about 5 nerds sitting up in their separate rooms writing their heart outs and then showing up at gaming sessions to have an audience for their misguided writing aspirations.
That said, let the player make a new character or take the role of a cool npc if there's one around to turn into a character.
If you backpedal on a player dying, especially if they could have avoided the fight, you're only creating another spoiled shit player who knows you'll always coddle him and save him from his own stupidity.