Quote from: James McMurrayIn the aforementioned epic game one player arrived late (having brought food for everyone) just in time to be handed his dead PC's character sheet.

See: If a GM hands me my dead character sheet at the start of the game without a seriously... and I do mean SERIOUSLY... good reason, I walk and don't come back. I've had that happen to me, killed when I wasn't at the game, and I find it intolerable.  Then again, I try to play with a long view on characters, architecturally you know?

Killing my guy off when I'm not there is, to me, a sure sign that the GM/group doesn't want me around. Just sayin'...

Quote from: Elliot WilenYeah, this isn't a trial. About the "one player suffering because of the choices of another" though, you see where I'm going with the idea of reducing investment, right? (Esp. now that I've started the O death thread.)

I do understand, but since it's the character investment that's making this campaign so cool, I'll have to pass on the idea.

Quote from: SpikeSee: If a GM hands me my dead character sheet at the start of the game without a seriously... and I do mean SERIOUSLY... good reason, I walk and don't come back. I've had that happen to me, killed when I wasn't at the game, and I find it intolerable.  Then again, I try to play with a long view on characters, architecturally you know?

Killing my guy off when I'm not there is, to me, a sure sign that the GM/group doesn't want me around. Just sayin'...

When a player isn't there another player NPCs the character. Generally we work to keep them safe but useful. Since this was an epic D&D campaign, death was just a 5,000gp price tag and a one day vacation to Mount Celestia (or the alternate Heaven of your choice).

Quote from: James McMurrayWhen a player isn't there another player NPCs the character. Generally we work to keep them safe but useful. Since this was an epic D&D campaign, death was just a 5,000gp price tag and a one day vacation to Mount Celestia (or the alternate Heaven of your choice).

See, I guess that's not so bad as the time I was in a Shadowrun game. I came back having missed a session due to work and found out that the uber NPC assassin who was 'after the party' had made me his first victim, in the toilet of all places, while I was away.  then the story got murkier and the party may have gone paranoid and set up a trap in said bathroom, and my character was killed by it, yadda yadda.

No one rolled anything, no one made any input other than 'your dude is dead, go ahead and make another'.

I declined. Shit like that put me off gaming until after I had moved.

I suppose a D&D character death with frequent, easy, resurrections is less problematic. I'd probably play like it hadn't happened at all.

In the D&D game I'm in now there isn't any ressurection (well, we are only third level) and the GM 'ghosts' our PC's when we miss sessions. that is, we are there, and can do stuff, but nothing really happens to us.   In the RQ game I run, the PC isn't even 'around', no matter how jarring it might be, there one day, gone the next.  I guess we aren't immersionists.

I don't know if I'd say we're immersionists, but we do like our continuity.

James, understood. Given a preference against fudging, I'd probably go for some sort of hero point/fudge point add-on, or an explicit method of limiting the "stakes" of various actions. (E.g. giving players a bonus in a scene, or only allowing them a chance to permanently defeat a major enemy, provided they accept that death is on the table.) But that's just my feeling and if you can get good results by other means, I'd certainly like to hear how you accomplish it. Care to share your after the fact ideas you alluded to a few posts ago?

I could have aimed the combat so that the NPC that loathed that particular PC was the one to give the death blow.

I could have had the NPC about to give the death blow turn out to be someone else from their past with a reason to kill him.

I could have been doing is better tracking their health levels and had the enemy go for a crippling blow when he was severely wounded. this lets the enemy have their victory, creates future rivalries, and adds to the difficulties the PCs must overcome without finalizing anything.

What's funny is...I have yet to run Exalted without fudging. That's mostly because the system is entirely too crunchy for me and my players, but we didn't figure it out until we were playing (it looked less complicated on paper for some reason). I actively ignore rules and creatively interpret things. I'm actually looking at maybe converting the game to FATE 3.0.

Quote from: James J SkachWait, I thought I was Jim...

Dammit Jim, I'm a Jim, not a miracle worker...

[Bones] You mean I'm supposed to cure a plant? I'm a doctor, not a jungle, Jim![/Bones]

-clash