D&D has Raise Dead. 3e / 4e / 5e all made Raise Dead cheap.

PC death isn't a big deal. But player death might be pretty serious!

Its odd that I never hear this issue regarding Traveller or RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu which all have deadly combat systems. Certainly not common discussion among Warhammer players either. And unlike D&D, none of those games have Raise Dead spells at the ready.

Quote from: Lunamancer;866760The heroic/dramatic death is over-rated.

I was a big fan of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. And, spoiler, towards the end of the 2nd season, one of the main characters, Derek, is killed at a fairly random moment, quickly, without any kind of dramatic spotlight. Just a single, quick gunshot to the head and he goes down, and the action just continues right on. He doesn't even get to put up a good fight. It all happens too fast.

I remember the first time I saw that and the incredible impact it had. The heroic/dramatic death is so over-done, it's telegraphed and it's really a missed opportunity at having a lasting impact. And maybe it's not just the cliched nature. Maybe it's also because the nature of a "dramatically appropriate" death brings with it a certain sense of closure. In Derek's death, the audience is robbed of that closure. It's unsettling. The emotion lingers.

It would be a shame to close that off as a possibility. It would be ironic to do it in the name of being more dramatic.

That's appropriate for The Terminator, which is essentially horror-genre. Would also work well in Call of Cthulu (horror), or military-sim like Twilight: 2000 (where you want random senseless PC death rare but possible). It would also be appropriate for traditional dungeon-crawl D&D (0e-1e), but might not work well in an 'heroic fantasy' game like 4e D&D - I have TPK'd the party running 4e D&D, but the 4e combat system is designed to produce memorable heroic deaths, not random bullet to the head.

Quote from: S'mon;866790That's appropriate for The Terminator, which is essentially horror-genre. Would also work well in Call of Cthulu (horror), or military-sim like Twilight: 2000 (where you want random senseless PC death rare but possible). It would also be appropriate for traditional dungeon-crawl D&D (0e-1e), but might not work well in an 'heroic fantasy' game like 4e D&D - I have TPK'd the party running 4e D&D, but the 4e combat system is designed to produce memorable heroic deaths, not random bullet to the head.

I've never raised that example without someone giving some excuse why they should ignore it. I don't see the genre as horror. Maybe the original Terminator was horror. T2 clearly turned the franchise into action genre. In the TV series, half way through season 1, it takes the decided turn from running to going on the offensive. That would make it heroic sci fi. The four main characters of the series don't die. They come close, but always manage to survive.

When they ambush and destroy Chromartie, the evil Terminator is given a dramatic death. Sarah Connor's exfiancee is given a dramatic death scene. He goes out fighting. John Connor's girlfriend has a dramatic death scene. She goes out fighting. Derek's girlfriend has a dramatic death scene. Derek kills her for betraying John Conner.

The story led to those key dramatic moments. Derek's death had more impact than all of that. It's not because it was appropriate for genre. It's because it defies what's thought of as appropriate. And it works.

Quote from: Spinachcat;866761D&D has Raise Dead. 3e / 4e / 5e all made Raise Dead cheap.

PC death isn't a big deal. But player death might be pretty serious!

Its odd that I never hear this issue regarding Traveller or RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu which all have deadly combat systems. Certainly not common discussion among Warhammer players either. And unlike D&D, none of those games have Raise Dead spells at the ready.

As noted in many threads. Raise Dead may not necessarily be availible to the PCs.

As for other games. Ive heard some grumbling from more recent Call of Cthulhu players. (Which does have raise dead. Its just not usually a pretty thing. ooog!)

And you didnt get much bitching about D&D either till later.

I think one factor is that those older games stated up front that the setting was lethal and that you were probably going to lose a few before one survived long enough to actually take off. Over time D&D lost that emphasis. Same happened with Albedo which I worked on before the latest screw-up version. Now the PCs are hospitalized more often and you just pull out the backup character while the other is convalessing. Rather than having a nice military funeral because a damn rabbit chucked a fragment grenade in your APC.

Quote from: Ellsminus;866695Recently had a discussion with a couple of friends of mine about player death in Pen and Paper RPGs.

My stance is the GM shouldn't be out to kill the players but player death should be possible, along with losing gear and getting captured ect.

One of my friends think that player death should only happen at the very end and mostly not even then.

I would be willing to only kill players in epic moments, but zero chance of death ever seems lame. Even worse is zero chance to ever lose your gear or get fucked over in some way. I feel like the players should be able to die. It shapes the role playing and makes the world seem more immersive.

Man! That is fucking hardcore.

I doubt that I would be brave enough to ever participate in a game where there was a significant chance to be killed, epic moment or not.

Characters OTOH, are a different matter. Kill as many of those as you want.

Quote from: Lunamancer;866794Derek's death had more impact than all of that. It's not because it was appropriate for genre. It's because it defies what's thought of as appropriate. And it works.

Would it work with a main character? I don't know - I liked Tasha Yar's bathetic death in ST:TNG, but I believe I'm a minority.

So you guys think that there should ALWAYS be an out for the PCs even if you're OK with killing them?

What if they just bungled it and entered a no win situation? Should those not exist?

Quote from: Phillip;866699Where is the game?

Exactly.

QuoteIf you're playing Pride & Prejudice, then staying alive is probably not often a relevant concern. Marriage and money and social status are the usual stakes.

If player 2 above were playing P&P, I think he'd want to never lose any social status or admirers, either. They can publish a romance RPG for him called "Love Conquers All: The Story Of How I Lived Happily Ever After, Because Me".

QuoteIf you're playing Dungeons & Dragons, then surviving the dangers posed by traps and monsters is the main challenge the game is about. Of course a buzz-saw blade the size of a millstone might kill you, or a fire-breathing giant turtle, or a wizard throwing lightning bolts.

No! What fun is losing? Specialas The Blue Half-Elf must not ever have any setbacks on his path to glory! What if he got a scar or something? Of tore his special magic clothes - he'd have to re-draw the portrait on his character sheet, or go shopping or something. Tell me a story of how I save the world with Specialas' specialness!

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866836So you guys think that there should ALWAYS be an out for the PCs even if you're OK with killing them?

In a fantasy game, I prefer that there always be a chance for survival. Better play yields higher chances.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866836What if they just bungled it and entered a no win situation? Should those not exist?

If the PCs find their way to place of certain doom it should be because of their own choices. Situations set up to be no win by the DM serve no purpose. It is a game, and game rigged to be unwinnable just as pointless as one in which victory is inevitable.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;866728- Are the PCs SPECIAL? Do you lose something UNIQUE when the die?

"Every body's special. Every body's fine. Your body's special and so is mine."
- Mr. Rogers

On the other hand, if your body gets successfully targeted by the two-handed battle axe being swung by that ogre you chose to move within reach of (determined by dice and his skill and circumstances on the map), and the active defense you choose is followed by a roll showing your PC failing to avoid getting hit, there will be a damage roll, a calculation made based on armor on the body part hit, and ensuing determinations of whether your body is still in one piece, standing, stunned, unconscious, knocked off the cliff you were standing next to, etc.

In playing TFT and GURPS, my assumption is that most or all of the players I played much with were on the same page that the combat (and often, the between-combat roleplaying) was a game where what happens is about the situation, decisions and rules involving chances and cosequences, with risks including death, destruction and dismemberment, and it's the players' responsibility to do things to mitigate the risks they face by being careful and clever and tactical and knowing when to run and hide and where not to stand, etc.

When I read "where is the game?" I immediately think it's right there in the cause & effect of choices, and only interesting in as much as there are various outcomes dependent upon choices with elements of luck and the unknown, UNLESS someone thinks the PCs shouldn't have setbacks, in which case most of that game is rendered more or less meaningless or made a lie for the sake of sparing someone's feelings - someone who could probably benefit from a healthy dose of loss and despair, so as to shake up their too-comfortable dissociations.

I've had my PC's die, and had PC's in my games die, but not very often at all, not because of coddling, but because the danger is real, and so players quickly learn to fear and avoid doing the things that are likely to get them killed, even though in the games I play, a super-experienced hero can still die from one lucky enough hit from an unskilled fool.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;866844In a fantasy game, I prefer that there always be a chance for survival. Better play yields higher chances.



If the PCs find their way to place of certain doom it should be because of their own choices. Situations set up to be no win by the DM serve no purpose. It is a game, and game rigged to be unwinnable just as pointless as one in which victory is inevitable.

Well yeah, always their own choices. But I mean suppose they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight. (Now, normally, there could be any number of ways clever players could still weasel out of doom here, but just roll with me.) Let's say at this point there's nothing they can do to beat the army, nor can they escape since the army will hound them down. They're dead meat now.

Quote from: Ellsminus;866695Edit: I'd love to hear how people feel and have felt when their own characters have died. Especially in situations where the campaign continued and you made a new character.

I've usually felt more or less sad, except in cases where it was expected or I wasn't enjoying the game much. But then that character's story is over, and another one can begin. Everyone dies at some point.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866851Well yeah, always their own choices. But I mean suppose they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight. (Now, normally, there could be any number of ways clever players could still weasel out of doom here, but just roll with me.) Let's say at this point there's nothing they can do to beat the army, nor can they escape since the army will hound them down. They're dead meat now.

You have answered your own question. Here it is in case you missed it:

But I mean suppose they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight.

There we are, a decision that results in hideous death made entirely by the players.

The orcs were not a no win situation. The players' decision to start a fight turned it into one. I am completely fine with letting the PCs lie in a bed of their own making.

Quote from: Ellsminus;866695Edit: I'd love to hear how people feel and have felt when their own characters have died. Especially in situations where the campaign continued and you made a new character.

Depends on how much I care about the character. For me there is a pretty strong correlation between how much I care about the character and how much I’ve played the character.

So a character I didn’t play long dying is unlikely to upset me at all. (If the character creation process is long and tedious, I may be annoyed at having to go through that process a second time. Playing Skippy, the identical twin of Character #1, starts to look more attractive in that case.

On the other hand, for a character who I’ve grown very attached to, I’m likely to be upset at first and sad for a while. That is what I would expect to occur for anyone who loses a character they were very attached to. That's a reason for death to be uncommon, not for it to be nonexistent.
 

Quote from: Phillip;866717Superheroes are one of the popular subjects for pen and paper RPGs. Physical combat is a central endeavor, but death for the heroes is hardly ever a consequence of losing the fight. Losing is itself a possibility, and the consequences of not foiling the evildoers' plans are usually pretty impressive.

Superman not only is not usually in any great danger of serious injury, but whether he can do X is rarely the interesting question; the interesting question is usually whether he ought to X, Y or Z when he must choose just one.

Maybe your friends want something like that, only in different trappings than the usual tights-and-cape genre. They can be swinging swords, but as demigods like Achilles and Herakles and that ilk. The appearance of a potentially deadly threat is rare, but can thereby be so much more dramatic because it can be a really high risk of immediate demise. If 'deadly' encounters are a dozen a session, then they can't actually be very deadly if you're going to have much long term character development.

This is one of the better phrased examples of what ~ the PCs never (or almost never) die ~ might look like and why someone might want to play in that style that I have ever seen. Very well said.

Quote from: Omega;866825As for other games. Ive heard some grumbling from more recent Call of Cthulhu players. (Which does have raise dead. Its just not usually a pretty thing. ooog!)

I think you are referring to Resurrection not Raise Dead. And getting those Essential Saltes just right is tricky and failure is, as you say, not very pretty. It’s also one reason one of the PCs in CoC started removing thumbs from dead Cultists. He thought it would prevent their Resurrection. He embodied Nietzsche’s quote, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”

Quote from: S'mon;866832Would it work with a main character? I don't know - I liked Tasha Yar's bathetic death in ST:TNG, but I believe I'm a minority.

Tasha Yar dead was far better than Tasha Yar alive. Except for Yesterday's Enterprise Tasha Yar, she was cool.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866851Well yeah, always their own choices. But I mean suppose they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight. (Now, normally, there could be any number of ways clever players could still weasel out of doom here, but just roll with me.) Let's say at this point there's nothing they can do to beat the army, nor can they escape since the army will hound them down. They're dead meat now.

The key words here are "they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight."

They decided to fight a force that was (presumably) way too powerful for them to defeat. There should always be a chance for the PCs to die if they intentionally do something suicidal. The possibility of death in that situation is my rock-bottom, minimum threshold of death in a game for that game to be taken at all seriously by me and for the game to be at all enjoyable for me. If the PCs can’t even die when they do something intentionally suicidal than in effect we are playing TOON! And that’s not what I want to play.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866851Well yeah, always their own choices. But I mean suppose they run into an army of 300 orcs and decide to start a fight. (Now, normally, there could be any number of ways clever players could still weasel out of doom here, but just roll with me.) Let's say at this point there's nothing they can do to beat the army, nor can they escape since the army will hound them down. They're dead meat now.

Wipe them out.  All of them.

Without mercy, without remorse, without hesitation.  The day stupidity is not punished is the day the game dies.