Character Death

Only if you expect character immortality or lack of consequence. I've played with people that didn't want to have their characters die and we've had workarounds. Usually being that if you're in a situation where you might die, you end up gaining a permanent injury or something instead. Also there was always an understanding that if you're doing something stupid, you will die regardless. There are ways to have characters fail without it resulting in death, though I know people who would sperg out just as bad at death as they would if they were ever captured or imprisoned.

Oh, not at all. If I die, it's whatever. I've just never imagined I could shrug and reroll and get back into a game in the same way as my first character. Rather than force it I'd just bow out, or maybe attach myself to an existing character. I played a ranger's animal companion once and had a splendid time.

Depends on the campaign and the group. If you go to a high or even medium lethality game with the expectation that you'll drop out if your character dies, I'd say that's rather bad manners. But if you were led to expect a low-lethality game and you dropping out doesn't cause any problems... eh, whatever.

If I feel sad or happy that my character died, then the GM has done something right.

In our last session (L5R) we had a TPK: here's what happened. The party is a band of ronins and just got nicely framed by a bastard Kasuga (who is also secretly a Kolat) and the yojimbo of the dead samurai charges. One of us wants to stay and hold him back while the other two escape. But we kinda don't want to run: me because I thought that we could talk this out and the other who was rather adamant that we should flee.

A fight erupts and the yojimbo mops the floor with us: we get demolished and it's a TPK. Since it was the second session our GM warns us that this is the first and last time that he does this. This is a scenario that went on in our heads as the samurai bellowed for our deaths.

So, instead of floundering like idiots and hesitating every step of the way, we all decide that we should run to live and fight another day and do just that. The samurai, known to be unlucky (yes, Unlucky is a Disadvantage that you have, among others) can't reach us before we get out and to safety.

I was saddened that we had all died but I understood the lession that the GM wanted us to take away from all this: don't be stupid and hesitate for so long, you stupid fucks. I paraphrased a little, because he is generally a good guy, but yeah.

Make sure that you speak to the players before the game though.

>this enemy is strong pls run away
Why do this at all anywhere that isn't super gritty settings? What purpose does this useless cliche serve?

Because you don't want the party nuking down the BBEG right from the start.

It looks like a crutch and a workaround. Don't present your BBEG early, don't put him in nukable distance from the party, balance your BBEG to not be nukable when you don't want him dead too early.
If you introduce BBEG early, plan accordingly, the party WILL try kill him there and then, because why else would you present a vulnerable villain to the party? Jesus Christ almighty.

>the party WILL try kill him there and then
Then they fully deserve the incoming TPK.

That's a fair point - I was putting up a good reason why. For my campaign, the BBEG won't even be evil until much later in the story, so that point is null and void.
Agreed. There should be some sort of punishment for absolute and utter retardation.

Why not tell the players outright to not attack him because he WILL kill them? Beating around the bush with "well, he MIGHT kill you, with a HIGH probability..." will only spur them on and get them into a "let's do it" mood. Doubly so if your system is at least somewhat combat-oriented, like D&D. If they go at the impossible enemy and die because they thought you were hinting at a possibility of success, it's just losing a game of "guess what DM is thinking (smugly)", and that game is pretty shitty every edition. They gathered to be heroes and shit, not run from something that only MIGHT kill them.

Or just do what our GM did and have the first TPK be a very clear mental image of the characters, before warning them not to be stupid and commit to do something instead of hesitating?

How do they know in-character that they can't beat him? Does he have an icon displaying his level floating above his head?

We all like to play long-form character-driven campaigns and get pretty invested in them, so, generally, someone only dies if it turns out to be the best narrative direction for them organically.

All of my GMs allow for character death, and as a Player I'd feel robbed of a "real" experience if my GM didn't. If there isn't death, what consequences are there to any of my actions? Why not just challenge the BBEG to a duel at level 1, who knows, I might get lucky with the crits and there's nothing that could go wrong.

Any PC who can't handle the death of their character is a weenie who needs to learn to disassociate from games from reality.

There are real people behind those characters and a real person pulling the strings. Using a simple solution that is a bit meta might save you unwanted friction at the real table, with real people. Yeah, it's theoretically just a game, and what happens in the game should stay there, but we know it's never that simple. Would you really rather stir real life shit up because you wanted a game to be more realistic?

That said, I'd like to introduce a point: is death even necessary?

Grimdark, tough settings, that side of the spectrum - sure, that's part and parcel. High-flying heroics, not so sure. Is there really no other way to attach meaningful negative consequences to your players' actions other than terminate their character permanently? It feels like a sweep-under-the-rug solution.
How do you take death out of a game without it becoming impunity general?

How climactic is this death?
Of course I'd scoffle at dying on a rake of some peasant, but perishing knee-deep in the dead as I hold the line against reinforcements while my friends fight the big evil bastard is fine by me.

I'm currently writing an all--revenant-party campaign. Basic enemies won't be able to kill the PCs.

...so some enemies will drag 'dead' PCs back to a den to share a meal with a family. Others will use cursed arrows or other magic weapons to inflict slow-healing wounds.

1) Chase scenes can be pretty fun
2) Finding non-combat solutions or getting an upper hand on a superior enemy through preparation and tactics is fun
3) If you can just kill any guy you don't like it's boring AF

Yes. Let the dice fall where they may. I am likewise perfectly okay with my own characters falling in combat.

>If so, do they sperg out and throw a fit if they die?

Nope. We're mature adults like that.

>2)
If your way of trying to encourage players to find non-combat solutions is to throw an unkillable enemy at them, you're doing it wrong.

No, my point is that dangerous opponent which can't be killed by PCs (not necessary "one super-tough guy/monster" - it can be something like an army, too) isn't something "unfair" or a killjoy.

>Dying sucks. People would rather run than die. Including enemies
Players don't though

I'm totally willing to kill my players, especially if its after I put on my DM voice and ask "Are you SURE you want to do that?"

But I'll fudge it or mulligan if its a bullshit death, like if they get oneshot by something ridiculous out of nowhere. I had a gnome wizard get ambushed and one-shot by a beholder's disintegration ray. I was fine with them going down, but I fudged the rule where they auto-failed all the death saves. Later on the players (an aasimar cleric, a wood elf monk and the aforementioned wizard) fought the beholder in a proper boss battle in his lair. The cleric killed the beholder's favorite gazer, so the beholder went ballistic and blasted the cleric repeatedly until there was nothing but a scorch mark left. That was a legit death.

Back when I regularly played dnd we averaged about 1.5 character deaths every 7 week campaign. Nobody's died in Shadowrun yet but the campaign hasn't run super long and we've had several near bleed outs and a double cross which seems pretty good for a system with bennies.

Do you like The Witcher?

Me and another char were sent to sabotage an enemy ship by placing a bomb in it. I got cornered by an npc way too high level for me to deal with alone, tried talk him down, failed, tried to run but got crit and went down. The bomb went off, my ally, who was hiding somewhere cause he was a caster who for plot reasons couldn't cast, fled and I sunk to a watery grave.

I rather liked that character and was pretty miffed at such a shitty death. Made another character to replace him, but truthfully I just made the most caustic char I could think of out of spite. Didn't really enjoy it and haven't really enjoyed a game since, and it's been years. I think that death broke something in me.

It was a pitchfork, and clearly the game just moved to an extraplanar campaign

It sucks when you die in a game. It's just a game, why can't I live? The DM already cheats at all his other rolls, just make the monster stop attacking me.

>Are you willing to kill your player's characters in combat?

If death is part of the game we are playing you bet i will!

I'm always very clear about it with my player before starting the game session: "if you do stupid shit you will die!"

A couple of them just died in the last session:
>pirate setting
>they're in port royal
>during night they try to steal a small sloop qithout insignias

So of course one of them got 8 inch of knife blade in the stomach, one was almost beated to death and another one was thrownd out of board unconscious

At least they learned the lesson

Where the dice fall, whrpg like. There is no game without losing, there is no risk without peril. PCs rarely die due to bad rolls, more due to bad decisions or failed heroics (this sets a sombre tragic tone to the game, when a PC running to save his friend (or at least what's left of him) gets shredded to fuck and then left behind by the other PCs).
Before, I ran a long west marches game with very cheap resurrections so the pcs died and came back about 20 times in 24 sessions.

Now, I use reroll any result once per session and 1in6 to die upon 0HP roll, so characters very rarely die but 0HP feels like tense shit.
Only one PC died in recent memory via 8mm round through neck, fired by an Uber Soldat, in a Wolfenstein game. The killed character then dropped a lit satchel charge that an another character had to quickly throw at the Soldat, instakilling the boss.

>Are you willing to kill your player's characters in combat

It adds tension so of course. But if the players are faced with some evil or peril they cant stand, its worth noting to make sure of this with either how they enter the scene, how NPC's describe this figure(s), etc etc.

>Players see a book
>this book is a demonic and needs blood
>Players trust booke (that is his name) since "its just a book"
>booke does some shady shit I wont get into now
>most of the party losers favor in universe
>2 members have made blood oaths to protect him
>necromancer jumps them in the middle a night on the way to see a countess
>get shit pushed in retreat
>necro knocks the wizard who was holding the book (one of the peeps who made a blood oath) unconscious
>perfect time to burn booke
>ask are you sure?
>the 3 that have not left come to burn the book since the necromancer and his ghosts and zombies are far away
>booke says are you sure you wanna do this, reminds them of the blood oath since the other member who did the oath was there
>say some cool one liner
>"very well"
>youtube.com/watch?v=UJnd0CfFHnA
>White rider appears telling them you fucked up
>half the party full expects to die but they are more then fine
>roll for initiative
>pale rider rolls the fucking lowest
>the fucking gnome burns the booke removing the reason why he was here

Since two members still broke a blood oath, I had the pale rider just, curse them and make them go on a quest to do the thing or else. the else being the two members die.

It didn't end in a death, but...
>Running Pathfinder game when it was the hot new thing
>Have players, everyone excited to play
>Run a few sessions, going great
>At one point they are in a dungeon
>They find a chalice on a pedestal. Dried blood is in the chalice. Surrounding it are corpses and skeletons, all looking as if they had died drinking from it.
>The corpses have blood around their mouths
>The chalice itself has an inscription in demonic stating that if you drink from the chalice you'll die, and that it is there to trick the curious
>Monk says he drinks it
>Wut
>Party arguing with him not to drink it
>He says it'll probably open the door to the next room
>They look, it's an open door way
>Monk wants to drink anyways
>Party starts literally fighting him not to
>Finally knock him unconscious and drag him away
>He mad
>When he wakes he tries to go back to it, he's super tempted
>They destroy the chalice before he can drink
>He's mad, but accepts
Afterwards he asked me what would have happened if he drank from it. "You'd die. Like it said."

Him: "what!?"

This is what happens when a player is too used to being bamboozled by "clever" puzzles

He was playing a monk in Pathfinder, is it any surprise he was looking for ways to get his character killed?

dunno, didn't read/play any
kinda busy reading about Prototype Edgelord of Melnibone

>Are you willing to kill your player's characters in combat?

Yeah, I've never done so but if that's how the dice fall I won't stop it from happening.

>If so, do they sperg out and throw a fit if they die?

Actually, they seem to like lethal games more than I do. When I brought up the possibility of running Eclipse Phase, they said they didn't want to play a game where they can't die and wanted to play WH40k roleplay instead.

I haven't played in years, always got stuck GMing. I like to kill mary sues, blatant media ripoffs, and characters I am compelled to bring into the game if the player is an ass. It's never rocks fall, its always a case of giving the offending twat enough rope to hang himself. Burned a lot of That Guys this way.

Most fun I had with it though was during a campaign that was a weird mix of horror and open warfare I amassed a huge PC body count without even trying, but my players loved it. Mortality was so high we broke down and started character pools representing the central characters, their servants and bodyguards to keep a rotation of fresh meat handy.