Hey Veeky Forums, how do you deal with character death in your games? Specifically your character dying permanently...

Hey Veeky Forums, how do you deal with character death in your games? Specifically your character dying permanently, how does that impact you if at all?

It sucks, in all honesty. Especially when it's a character both I and the GM were invested in.

But it happens. I generally treat it like when a character in a TV show I like dies. You just gotta accept it and appreciate the time you had with them.

I quit my life.

Playing a campaign now where I thought this might happen, so I accounted for it.

It's fine so long they get a dramatic and badass end.

If one of my character dies, I don't want it to be purely because of bad luck.

After all, I am not playing Darkest Dungeon, where you can simply get new characters rapidly one after another.

Permadeath has to
>Make sense
>Be an opportunity for my character to be cool/badass
>Be memorable
>MAKE SENSE
>be the consequence of player actions, not of bad luck

If there are not 3 of the following reasons for character death, that probably means that there's more problems with the GM than just killing characters and I will probably leave the group.

It depends a lot. I've had character deaths that made me feel bummed out because I loved the character and would miss playing them, or that made me furious because I felt I had been dicked around by the GM. Some left me disappointed because it was a random, pointless death that didn't further the story, or because a character got shanked before I had a chance to do much. Other times I haven't cared, either because I wasn't invested in the character or the game. Sometimes I've been happy with it, because it made sense within the narrative or was an epic way for that character to go down. Other times I've been indifferent or even relieved, if a character was not working or a campaign sucked, and I was glad to have a chance to move on from one or both.

It really just depends on how much you care about the character, and whether the death is a satisfying end for them. My paladin who died holding off an army of Yuan-Ti, saving dozens of NPCs and allowing the party to escape with an artifact that was vital to defeat a lich? I was pretty at peace with that. My ranger who died because the game master who said a ceiling was ten feet high when enemies were hitting me, then fifty feet high when I went unconscious, killed me with falling damage, and had his DMPCs chop my body into spare parts to make golems? Was pretty fucking salty about that one.

Our group rarely does permanent player death. When we do, it's usually through the narrative or during an important battle. We usually don't kill off players during random battles with mooks or anything.

I don't know if that makes us casuals or not, but we've gone with the approach that works best for us as a group. We also don't really do EXP and instead go with a milestone-based approach.

I stopped caring after second character died on my at this campaign.

I've never actually had a PC of mine die. It's just not really a thing in the groups I play in.

And of course some oldfags and grognards will rant about easymode and there being no tension or danger if there's no threat of death, but that's just not true. My group are invested enough in aspects of the world that failing, and the consequences of that to things we care about in the world, is just as much reason to fight our hardest, and is even harder to deal with when we fail. Rerolling a character is easy. Acknowledging that you fucked up and lost something you care about forever, and roleplaying through that grieving, is something else entirely.

>it's the GM's fault
Players are entitled crybabies.

Literally everything that occurs in an RPG does so at the behest of the GM. In a very real sense, everything that occurs is their responsibility, either because they did it or because they allowed it to happen.

Make a new character. Acquire bigger bomb to make the suicide attacks become more effective

>ever having a character death under your belt that was under you control

I've never seen how people can be this utterly idiotic. Proper planning, preparation, and situational awareness when the first two cannot be done are always options. More importantly, so is simply not going along with the ideas of the idiots of the group. Simply saying "I'm not going with them" and going about a solution another way is almost always an option and if invisible walls stop you from this then at least you know whatever befalls you was the train of the DM and not an end of your own design.

...What?

Accept it and move on. Quite a few of my characters are matyrs so I've gotten somewhat used to it but even still it is a bit painful to see them go.

Are you the fucking A-Team or something? It's pretty rare to have everything always go as planned. I think that you're either lying, or have never had a DM actually give you a challenge.

>taking tasks that are above your ability
>not gathering as much info as possible beforehand
>not relying on a "healer" for any and all healing
>not thoroughly checking rooms, hallways, cavern openings with magical means as well as physical means
>not being a complete suicidal asshat and treating the session like a video game as opposed to playing a character who actually cares about their own mortality

Follow these few steps and even you may not suffer the humiliation of actually having a character die. Unless you're told that you 'wake up in a dark room/prison/other place and do not have your equipment'.

That sounds boring as fuck. I'm here to enjoy an entertaining story, not rigorously ensure nothing exciting ever happens.

Where's the fun if you don't take some risks?

DM consistently gives us dungeons or situations that are usually a level tier of play above our actual one and we usually complete them without a single casualty. We even imposed a "death is permanent" penalty to any game we play with bs reasons why it cannot be done or at least is very difficult to do, and always play on a harder healing "difficulty" with no hit die and magical healing is the only way to reliably heal ourselves outside waiting for weeks at a time or longer depending on the injuries we receive.

Not playing one-offs and having a higher difficulty setting does wonders for the video mentality most players have and has made every single one who does not reshape their attitude when the session starts into raging after their third death or so while the rest of us are almost all with our OG character after years of playing. Retreat when you have to, he who flees and runs away lives to fight another day. Unless it's completely urgent it can wait, whatever is in here has been here far longer than we have so if it takes a week or so to progress through the complex to avoid a cave-in or trap springing then so be it. Cave-in or other write-in happens to force a faster pace so we can't milk it? Detect spells/items beforehand for this kind of thing, you more than likely know what inhabits the cave and most things have weaknesses at higher levels so get that shit ready, etc.

You playing a 6 INT character? No? Then stop acting like it.

ALL PC MUST DIE!

The false dichotomy is kinda hilarious. Enjoying an engaging story that has ups and downs, surprises, conflict and actual drama is a perfectly valid way to RP that isn't just a 'video game mentality'.

Operators operating operationally to optimally solve a mechanical puzzle seems a really odd way to play an RPG. I mean, if you and your friends enjoy it so much, but why is an RPG the best vector for that kind of gameplay?

I've had so few characters die that I killed one myself off-screen.

>Where's the fun if you don't take some risks?

The risk is always present when you decide to go down the adventuring path. Just because you decide to be suicidal and completely throw the culmination of experiences your character has had in their life for "fun lol XD" because who cares it's just a game right, doesn't mean that other people play for that same reason.

While you're busy making your fifth character I'll be here far surpassing your own in levels, experiences, interactions with the world and those within it, and equipped to do it all again.

Are you really completely incapable of understanding playstyles different to your own?

I make another character that is a distant relative.
same role, slightly different personality and background story.

>The false dichotomy is kinda hilarious.
I don't think you know what that fallacy means.

>is a perfectly valid way to RP that isn't just a 'video game mentality'.
Who said that our group doesn't have "ups and downs, surprises, conflict and actual drama"? We just don't die because we don't act like for example who's apparently RPing their (enter class here) character as opposed to a being who might actually give a shit on their life expectancy and it's ability to stretch on as far as possible in this profession instead of throwing themselves down a hallway because of "Where's the fun if you don't take some risks?"

>but why is an RPG the best vector for that kind of gameplay?
Why is it not? Why would someone actively choose to injure themselves while delving into a dungeon for the "excitement" value of the semi-omnipotent being that they apparently knows is controlling them? Why would they not attempt to react like a mentally functional being instead of an idiot?

What is the problem with acting professional? Being good is fun, user.

The false dichotomy is present in that you're assuming that anyone not playing your way is being a lolrandumb suicidal idiot. It's a false premise that all your other comments are based on .

It's perfectly possible to have drama, conflict and danger be present and interesting parts of a game without characters bending over backwards to be incompetent. There's a pleasant middle ground of competence without solving every problem before it begins.

There's a difference when it comes to playstyles and then theres idiocy.

A player that chooses to play a rogue and gather information on the castle that the group was denied entry to may chose to get info for a few days (if possible) on the layout of the known/most common rooms, prepare with what they can foresee, and Mission Impossible their way inside for whatever the group needed.

What it seems you are vouching for is "I crash through the ceiling skylight in the atrium, perform multiple flips as I do so, and land with a flourish becoming one of my station!" You then fail the roll. "Oh well, least it wasn't boring XD"

Thats the shit that deserves to gets you killed. Thats the shit that we try to avoid, and if you want to do that then go ahead but my original post was about how player deaths are almost always of their own stupidity unless forced by the writing of the DM.

And this is why I call it a false dichotomy. Because you seem incapable of thinking in anything other than extremes and completely ignore the breadth between them.

>It's a false premise that all your other comments are based on.

Those are simply the ones I'm pointing out, but are obviously not the only ones. Poor preparation doesnt make you a lolsorandumb idiot, just shortsighted or may have even been out of your control based on context but there is almost always a way around or through the problem that doesn't lead to your death. Poor planning doesn't always reflect on your decision making either context always matters, but outside introductory sessions you will usually have more than enough time to plan your next moves as a group. And even if you dont get the above two that is why the final one was on the list to imply multiple ways through your own thinking to get out of a problem in your own way that, unless you seriously fucked up, can see you out of whatever predicament you found yourself in.

Was that enough to flesh out for you or does every post need an essay so you do not resort to strawmaning or fallacy claiming in the future?

What I'm saying is that there are games where the kind of planning you fetishes are not valuable, or are even actively antithetical to the goals of the game.

>you seem incapable of thinking in anything other than extremes

I mean, lets be honest here, the times when Veeky Forums is made up of a pretty big minority of That Guy/DM, things you hate, red flag, and other threads like that you know there is a pretty large gap of playstyle in most groups and the medium as a whole.

Generally, my backup has some sort of connection to the dead character, so that the death isn't just waved away.

A rogue of mine died trying to fight a midpoint boss and the party was pretty sad, taking a week or so off to deal with it. During that time, a ranger showed up asking if anybody had seen her dad, talking about his midlife crisis and how he just up and left.
Not the most creative thing, sure, but it gave a starting point for how to move forward with everyones characters

>not planning out an erp campaign, and the interactions within it, with necessary protection to promote proper family planning

Literally the worst kind of settings.

*fetishize

Fucking phonetyping

I try and keep in mind an interesting next character to play so I will never be too sad about losing a PC. I am always up for lethal games, especially horror though so maybe my experience is different to others. If I was in a long campaign and heavily invested in a character who then died randomly then that would of course suck but if I was heavily invested and died in an awesome way that fulfilled that character's story surely that is what we should all be looking out for?

I remember actually having a character survive a plot he really shouldn't have. He fucked up, because of his own hubris. He thought he had the power to solve everyone's problems but he really didn't and ended up hurting a lot of people. He should have died then, lost in total misery and defeat but instead he just lingered on (I think because the GM was hesitant to kill PCs) and the campaign eventually petered out.

Who wants to live forever? Get out there and die well my friends.

You are assuming your characters CAN actually figure out all the stuff to come up with a perfect plan.

Most games I've played, there has always been unpredictable shit the party couldn't realistically have seen coming to throw a wrench in whatever plan we may have had, and sometimes that leads to deaths.

Your DM is going easy on your if all your plans worked out well and you have been able to go on a long time without anyone getting made dead due to unpredictable stuff happening.

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