I'm on of those blasphemous, coddle/cuddly GMs who started with AD&D 2e so I prefer to let my players decide when they die.  Killing Players Characters is easy, as Bren found out (so did I in my early years) and frankly, it's not so much my players that whine when they lose a character, it's that I personally lose a vital piece in my campaign.

See, I have threads and adventures wrapped around ALL my players, and when I lose one, I lose all those fun adventures that I can throw at my group to see how they deal with it.

In fantasy games, where Resurrection exists, I allow PC deaths and give them access to resurrection.

Where that isn't an option, I give the players as much opportunity to avoid death as I can, without making it impossible. In the end, if they can be at death's door for a while and then get healed, that is better for me than killing the PC.

PCs are like Doritos. Crunch all you want, we'll make more.

Just like in real life, if you're done you're done.  Personally, I honestly have no desire at all to play a game in which I get to decide if my character's death at a given time is "dramatically significant" enough to occur or whatever story game term you want to apply.  Life is a crap shoot.  You try and improve your odds as much as possible within the "rules" (whether we're talking real life or a game) but sometimes you just die an ignominious death.  Anything else really destroys verisimilitude for me...

Quote from: Bren;831353I started gaming way back in 1974 and death was pretty common in some DM's dungeons...and not too common in other DM's dungeons. Which shows that the fatality level is not a simple matter of the game rules.

Over time, I became less accepting of PC death. Part of that was causing a lot of PC death. I had a reputation as a bit of a killer DM back in the day (too much rules mastery and tactical sense on my part versus that of my players combined with a let the dice fall ethic, and effectively no resurrection or reincarnate in my campaigns saw a fair number of dead PCs and no one reaching higher than level 6). Then I saw plenty of near dead, maimed, and dead PCs when GMing Runequest 2 and 3. Then a number of dead and insane PCs running Call of Cthulhu.

I realized that killing PCs is way too easy for me as the GM. It's actually more of a challenge for me to create situations for the players that are unlikely to kill the PCs while still being challenging for the PCs.

In addition after playing campaigns that ran for years or decades the character connections become more important and character death becomes both more meaningful and at the same time more of a loss for all the players due to the number of connections that get severed with a PC or NPC death. So death as a likely outcome became less attractive.

Games like WEG's Star Wars D6 or Honor+Intrigue where the PCs have bennies that can prevent character death are much more appealing to me now. There is typically a cost to preventing PC death and there is still a risk (though a much lower risk) that prevention fails and actual character death results.

Summary: I like there to be an actual risk that a PC can die, the risk adds spice to the game and it aligns with my preference for games that are more grounded in reality and less gonzo, but I like the risk to be low and I like it if there is some in game or metagame mechanic (like Fortune points) that allow players a chance to prevent their character's death.

And though the question was asked about PCs, I feel pretty much the same way about NPCs. Though a lot more of them seem to end up dead somehow. One nice thing about H+I is that the major villains also have Fortune Points which they can use to escape death. This has saved more than a few villains. Though not all of them.

This is interesting to me because my experience was shaped in the opposite direction. In my case I started in 86 and began GMing with 2E when it came out. At the time there was a general sentiment of protecting the PCs in many of the source books and advice columns (at least that was the advice that I took to heart). Both as a player and as a GM this lost its appeal to me over time (it just felt like we were not letting the "game" side come to the fore enough). We were always heavy role-players but I felt like protecting the PCs was part of this package of thought that was leading every session down the road I had planned as a GM (anything that might interfere with what I had prepped, including PC death, was something I worked against). Something about this just left me unsatisfied as a GM. It was around this time I remember reading the 1E DMG and going back to some of my older books. I realized that what was missing (for me) was the sense of surprise and allowing the dice and choice to take the game in directions I hadn't expected. My style became more freeform, and letting rolls stand became helpful to me as well. I just found it was better to let PCs die when the dice said they did. I wasn't going to try to kill them though. My aim was to be as fair as I could to the PCs, just not shield them from bad dice rolls and death.

All that said, I understand every player and group is different so I usually ask for expectations in this respect at the start of a campaign. If I have a group of players who just can't stand PCs dying (or dying without good reason) I'm fine compromising. But I definitely have more fun when that is on the table (and while PC death is often seen as a wrench in the campaign, I've come to see it as an opportunity for a new developments).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;831408I realized that what was missing (for me) was the sense of surprise and allowing the dice and choice to take the game in directions I hadn't expected.

It does seem like there was a change in expectation and play style. I'm not sure what the cause was. I may have been the linear published adventure. I've never used a published D&D Adventure. So I don't have an expectation that the PCs need to all make it to the end of some long story arc. The published Call of Cthulhu  adventures I run don't expect that the PCs will all make it to the end. And the conventions of CoC make it easy to introduce new PCs mid adventure. Local guides, doctors, and police officers may all be drawn into the PC group providing new PCs and CoC as a genre supports the notion that a new PC may be a correspondent of an existing PC who decides to show up to investigate the mysterious death of their friend and correspondent.

I use a lot of randomization in Honor+Intrigue which, when combined with the frequent crazy PC plans, leads to a lot of surprises and changes in where the game goes. Frequently I use the Mythic Game Master Emulator for deciding things where I don't know the answer or where more than one possibility can occur. That can lead to surprising results like the defeated Villain who escaped from prison and decided he didn't want get revenge on the PCs. He wants to avoid them like the plague. I think that has the potential for an interesting scene if and when the PCs eventually cross that villain's path. The villain saying something like "You lot. Again. Damn it, I moved here to avoid you and rebuild my fortune. How the devil did you find me?"

I run games like episodes of a TV show.  The stars (PCs) may face threats, but we all know they aren't in any danger of death unless the actor's contract is up (the player wants the character to die).

I'm not into RPGs for the contest of player versus GM.  I'm in RPGs for the story of the character.  It's difficult to tell new stories about a character when they're dead.  (Although there have been some occasions where that hasn't stopped things.)  Since I prefer single player games, a character kill typically means the end of a campaign.  So, other drawbacks for being defeated are immensely preferable and more interesting.

If I want the challenge of leveling up a character with the omnipresent spectre of permanent elimination, I'll play something like Wizardry or a board game featuring player elimination mechanics.  I feel those kinds of games better deliver on that kind of competition and challenge structure than RPGs can possibly aspire to.  

The problem is the term "game."  In full honesty, I don't see RPGs as "games" with the connotation of competition or proof by merit.  I see them as pastimes.

Quote from: Gabriel2;831422I run games like episodes of a TV show.  The stars (PCs) may face threats, but we all know they aren't in any danger of death unless the actor's contract is up (the player wants the character to die).

That's fine.  As a player though, I hate going into it knowing that my character is "the star of the show."  For me, if every character is the star of the show, then no character is special.  At the end of the run, I will remember the story of the character that made it the farthest...

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;831424That's fine.  As a player though, I hate going into it knowing that my character is "the star of the show."  For me, if every character is the star of the show, then no character is special.  At the end of the run, I will remember the story of the character that made it the farthest...

If I recruited players, I'd be pretty up front about it.  

I'm reminded of that old webcomic, The GM of the Rings.  It ended up with the fate of the entire world hinging on the roll of one die.  The player of Legolas was absolutely ecstatic about that.  The concept of life or death, the fate of his entire involvement in the game, hinging on that one die roll was fantastic to him.  I'm definitely not the type of player represented by the character of Legolas in that strip (in multiple ways, but that particular instance in particular).

Quote from: Gabriel2;831428If I recruited players, I'd be pretty up front about it.  

I'm reminded of that old webcomic, The GM of the Rings.  It ended up with the fate of the entire world hinging on the roll of one die...

I'd love that.    Hopefully, I'd have managed through play to give myself better than a 50/50 chance of success.  

I wouldn't consider running or playing in a game in which the probability of PC death was engineered (other than by the intrinsic dangerousness of the environment). To me, that sort of game feels like playing chess where only one side can take the other's pieces.

I'd say more like playing chess with a house rule under which my opponent isn't allowed to capture my Queen.  For me, the challenge (and the fun) of playing a rpg is in trying to survive the many dangers of the world I'm exploring.  If character death is basically off the table then I don't feel like there's a reason to play.  It feels like I've "won" the game before we even start playing...

I generally play Rpgs where PC death naturally occurs as the result of die rolls, poor decision, and circumstance. I run Call of Cthulhu more than any other Rpg, so my players don't have any expectations that their investigators will survive or remain mentally stable - sometimes from session to session - and I don't ask permission to have random chance or circumstances affect them. (That seems the antithesis of any horror campaign).

I have played a few Rpgs that incorporate Fate/Hero/Force points, which certainly alter the survivability rate of the game. I don't mind that approach, because there's less of a feeling of 'player-may-I'. Players make the choice on whether they want to have a chance of fate intervening, using a limited resource.

To me, an RPG session or even campaign is not a game of chess.  My analogy would be that it's like cooperatively using blocks to build something.

From most responses, what many here want out of an RPG is a "role playing GAME."  What I'm after in an RPG is a "role PLAYing game."  Play, not competition.  My interaction with the rules is not a way to enable competition, but is just like those sections in the opening of most RPGs say about the rules being there to prevent "I hit you!  No you didn't!" etc.  They provide a structure and common language for things to be described.

Another big difference from what I see here a lot is that I largely only care about the world as a set for the characters to inhabit.  I'm concerned first and foremost with characters.  I do care about "the world" to the extent that it has to have a feeling of verisimilitude and genre appropriateness, but I'm not interested in running the world as the only recurring and important character.

I'm fine with the PC grinder in appropriate games.  I'm also fine with less deadly games.

Even in less deadly games, though, I prefer to handle that through having fewer "one hit kills", and giving players the chance to escape and lick their wounds, rather than "you can only die when you want to."  If you push your luck hard enough, you may die, but you'll know you're pushing your luck that hard.