How often does it happen in your game that a player will knowingly and voluntarily put his character in a position where the character seems guaranteed to die in order to save someone else or the party?

In my games, at least, its sufficiently rare that it continues to impress when it happens. Players like their characters to be heroic, and most will quite readily take the RISK of death in order to be heroic, but very few seem willing to face CERTAIN death to be heroic. The cost of losing the character seeming to outweigh the benefit of coming out a hero.  And on many of the occasions I have seen it happen, it was when the character already had "Nothing left to lose".

RPGPundit

Last time I tried it, my dickhead DM forbade it, saying that no one would willingly let themselves be killed, ever.  

He is not my DM anymore.

It was slightly comical, to tell the truth.  A game of 3E, my barbarian had fallen off a wall and was about to plummet to his death, when the party halfling managed to catch him.  My guy decided to let go rather than risk taking the halfling with him.

Wasn't there already a thread on this idea?

About 15 years ago I had a player who usually volunteered for that sort of thing. He thought it made good story sense most of them and he was never too 'precious' about his characters.


- Ed C.

Quote from: RPGPundit;308814How often does it happen in your game that a player will knowingly and voluntarily put his character in a position where the character seems guaranteed to die in order to save someone else or the party?

In my games, at least, its sufficiently rare that it continues to impress when it happens. Players like their characters to be heroic, and most will quite readily take the RISK of death in order to be heroic, but very few seem willing to face CERTAIN death to be heroic. The cost of losing the character seeming to outweigh the benefit of coming out a hero.  And on many of the occasions I have seen it happen, it was when the character already had "Nothing left to lose".

I know this sounds mercenary, but what's in for the player?

Certain death is much more than a good story to share with other gamers. Heroic sacrifice means a player is deliberately killing a character he knows and loves, and usually replacing it with a brand new character they have little or no attachment to.

If sacrifice becomes punishment, it should be no surprise that a lot of people would choose to stick with what they have rather than starting from zero all over again.

Rarely happens.  Say a handful of times in my 20 years of gaming.  Always memorable when it does happen.  I think it's great, or certainly can be great, roleplay drama.

Edit:  Oh and forbidding it is stupid, non-dramatic, non-roleplay.  Also if the person making the sacrifice has "nothing left to lose" then it's meaningless, non-dramatic, non-roleplay.  It might be a plot point.  We've done the sacrifice method when someone wanted to change characters.  If it's done well, and the other players thinks it's "for real" then it's pretty dramatic.  If not, not.  

Funny story:  I was quitting the sci-fi game we were running.  I couldn't reliably make it so felt it was better to take a hiatus rather than be an irregular player.  I privately told the GM this and said I wanted to go out with a bang.  His call how.  So, our ship's computer gets hacked by an ex-crewmate/evil genius (another story there) and programs it to kill us.  We battle a host of diabolical traps, etc until finally a portable bomb on the ship activates.  It can only be moved by connecting it to a worn vac suit.  The only possible solution seems to be for someone to attack it to their suit and go out the air lock to save the rest.  I'm just about to do this when another player beats me to it.  I order him to give me the bomb (I'm the ex-rock star captain...).  He refuses.  He goes out into the airlock, I follow.  Finally he thinks to open the outer lock, hang on, float the bomb out and close the outer lock.  It blows up, we're injured but live.  Ship saved.  

So even self-sacrifices don't always work out the way you planned.  Good thing to.  I really liked that character.

I'll willingly sacrafice my characters if the situation is one where the entire group is going to be killed unless one of us delays the foe(s) long enough for the rest of the party to escape.

This is even more probable if the group is trying to accomplish a heroic quest of some kind. I guess I don't mind being a "Boromir" from time to time.

I have two players who are really into this. We're approaching the end of our current campaign, and one player is practically begging me to kill his character off.

During the last game, because of some story considerations, he threw himself into the line of fire and took a heavy bullet meant for an armored combat-heavy character -- his character is unarmored and not that hardy, and because I generally don't fudge rolls, he nearly bought it then and there.

My other player is pretty gung-ho, too, and probably won't make it to the end of the campaign either. During one-shots, he's usually chomping at the bit to either die heroically or otherwise take the big action that takes him out of the game in a dramatic way.

I'm usually the opposite: in combat my characters will do what's safest for them, whereas most people seem to selflessly act as part of a team. My current character specialises in summoning small animals to act as shields.

Quote from: JongWK;308846I know this sounds mercenary, but what's in for the player?

A memorable, stirring end to the character's story. Your point about "starting from zero" is valid, but only if you expect to keep playing the same game indefinitely (which, to be fair, a significant minority of people do). And even then I know that from  time to time one wants to try a new character.

What is a bit annoying is when you try to make a heroic sacrifice but the GM pulls his punches so that you survive. Very unsatisfying.

Quote from: JongWK;308846I know this sounds mercenary, but what's in for the player?

Certain death is much more than a good story to share with other gamers. Heroic sacrifice means a player is deliberately killing a character he knows and loves, and usually replacing it with a brand new character they have little or no attachment to.

If sacrifice becomes punishment, it should be no surprise that a lot of people would choose to stick with what they have rather than starting from zero all over again.

Oh I agree. I'm not really judging players here. I think its natural. I was just curious as to other GMs' experiences and whether it was a common sort of event, or pretty much an exceptional thing to happen all-around.

RPGPundit

I can't help thinking that many players who sacrifice their character are sending the "bored of this game" message. So when players get extremely hot headed in a game I often wonder if it's a polite/passive aggressive way to say they want to play something else.

It happens, but rarely. I've also never seen it with a player who was tired of/leaving the game. The last time it happened was in my long-running StarCluster IRC game. Two players were near an airlock when it blew - won't explain as it's too long, but there was a reason it blew and it wasn't me as GM, but another player character - and were being sucked out the lock. The doors were locked (override) open as the ship had been docked with another ship. Both the PCs grew up on a station, so they had experience in zero-G. I said they each had two chances to either grab something and/or shut the doors. Both still had an auto-success (optional rule) unused. PC Dean used the autosuccess to grab hold of something, then rolled and failed to shut the doors. PC Satch used his autosuccess to close the doors, then rolled and failed to grab hold. In other words, he put his buddies first, then took his chances with himself. It blew everyone away.

Satch was actually saved - he kept his head, blew the air out of his lungs, and used his revolver as a reaction jet to stop spinning and keep near the ship. They used a gravitic grapple to  pull him in just in time. He was in horrible shape, but barely alive. He was smart and very lucky. 9 times out of 10 he could have done everything right and they still would not have been in time.

-clash

Just like with all good things (except for spice and tobacco), it is nice in it's proper measure. When a guy is striving all the time for "a glorious death", then it is anything but glorious when it finally happens. Hey, Jong, remember "El Fantástico"? There was this guy who was always trying to pull these incredible stunts, more often than not totally impossible, so he used to "go out with a bang" sometimes two or three times a session. Now THAT wasn't glorious, or epic, it was annoying.

Quote from: SunBoy;308990Just like with all good things (except for spice and tobacco), it is nice in it's proper measure. When a guy is striving all the time for "a glorious death", then it is anything but glorious when it finally happens. Hey, Jong, remember "El Fantástico"? There was this guy who was always trying to pull these incredible stunts, more often than not totally impossible, so he used to "go out with a bang" sometimes two or three times a session. Now THAT wasn't glorious, or epic, it was annoying.

That would be. I've never seen that myself, but I would find that intensely irritating. OTOH, when something happens out of the blue, like the above, it can be transcendantly cool.

-clash

As I said in another thread, I like the idea of heroic sacrifice because when done at the dramatically appropriate moment then that can really make a campaign memorable.

Now, it can also be annoying as shit if done for the wrong reasons:

 During a d20 Star Wars game, the PCs had a genade thrown at them. One Player declared that his character was going to throw himself on top of the grenade in order to protect the rest of the party. I thought, "Wow! That is really fucking noble and I'll give the Player's next character something special since he is doing this."

The Player then then declared, " Yeah! I have more hit points than the grenade can do as damage, so I'll survive it!"

The Player then got pissed off when I told him that his action would get his character killed if he threw himself on the grenade.

So self-sacrifice isn't heroic if it doesn't have a consequence for the Player.