Quote from: Ellsminus;866731I'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.

Usually a mix of 'oops!' and 'yay!'... it means I'm playing the game (not being a wallflower) and now I get to make something new to play... new potential to explore... new character to flesh out (until it dies as well).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;866865Wipe them out.  All of them.

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

Quote from: Bren;866863They 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: Exploderwizard;866860You 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.

Well, there's also the alternative of coming up with some way to have the players live, like getting captured, or blackmailed, or left for dead or whatever. Would that just be "going easy" on them or would it just be good RP?

Quote from: Bren;866863Tasha Yar dead was far better than Tasha Yar alive. Except for Yesterday's Enterprise Tasha Yar, she was cool.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of STTNG, but I am a huge fan of Yesterday's Enterprise. Which had two good examples of random character death.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866907Well, there's also the alternative of coming up with some way to have the players live, like getting captured, or blackmailed, or left for dead or whatever. Would that just be "going easy" on them or would it just be good RP?

Well the whole coming up with a way to have the players live should come from the players.

Maybe they can convince the orcs that they are worth more in ransom?

The point is, it not the DMs job to preserve the miserable lives of PCs who make stupid decisions.

The deaths will continue until play improves. This is the truth. If the players know that they will survive somehow no matter what stupid shit they attempt, then the stupid shit will never cease.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866907Well, there's also the alternative of coming up with some way to have the players live, like getting captured, or blackmailed, or left for dead or whatever. Would that just be "going easy" on them or would it just be good RP?

I think this falls into category of "only you can answer that question."  Do orcs in your world take prisoners? If so, are they more likely to take prisoners from raids on commoners and more likely to terminate, with extreme prejudice, a group of adventures who walk up to them and call them out?

I probably just gave away how my orcs typically would react.

Really enjoying reading everyone's thoughts and experiences. As for my friends we have reach a type of middle ground. Basically if a player is defeated the GM will either say 'You lost your gear and are injured, but were rescued by blah blah blah'(or any similar 'you don't die scenario'), if death seems warranted then we will have a discussion about it. The Gm might say 'It seems pretty reasonable that you die here, you really pushed your luck' the player say 'Okay, I'm dead' or 'I want this character to live and I think I can use this event to gives some great rp on my near death experience'.

It's not perfect and it's not what I myself would have picked had it all been up to me, but I hope it's a nice middle of the road.

I think my biggest concern now is that when these characters finish a camp, generally if they are alive they become NPCs to meet and interact with in the world. But It seems they don't want them to die either.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866907Well, there's also the alternative of coming up with some way to have the players live, like getting captured, or blackmailed, or left for dead or whatever. Would that just be "going easy" on them or would it just be good RP?

Fuck that shit.  Stupid decisions mean losing.  The PLAYERS made the stupid decisions, the PLAYERS have to lose.

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?

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

No. There should allways be an initial solution to a situation. Otherwise what the hell is the point of playing if the DM is just going to arbitrarily kill you? And no. "But but but? I rolled it on the wandering monster table!" is not an excuse.

If you the player botch it then that is your screw-up and the DM should not bail you.

IE: We bump into the aformentioned 100 orcs. There should be SOME way out of this.
Detection before encounter. Flat out avoid them.
Running like hell. Or a fighting retreat if things go instantly badly. Look for places to bottleneck and stall pursuit.
Bluffing and negotiation is another. They might not be hostile. They might not be very bright.
Assuming the PCs didnt pick a fight then they might be KOed, taken prisoner or have their gear taken.
The location might gives some clues or help. Narrow corridor and a lightning bolt or flaming oil. TACTICS!
and so on.

If instead we just charge in or provoke combat willy-nilly then sorry. Roll new character when the dust settles.

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.

If they didnt try to negotiate. Didnt try to avoid it alltogether. And just charged in. Then too bad! Die and be forgotten.

In a situation like the above I'd do my damndest to talk my way out before resorting to battle.

Quote from: Ellsminus;866957It's not perfect and it's not what I myself would have picked had it all been up to me, but I hope it's a nice middle of the road.

I can't see that solution working for you and them, but who knows?

If PC death is out (which is really weird), then figure out how to make defeat meaningful and worth avoiding. Does your game have levels? Then have them lose a level upon "escaping death".

If PCs survive death, leave them with permanent injuries. Of course, players usually crap more about injuries than about death.

There's a fun old RPG called Paranoia. Worth a look. You start play with 6 clones because the setting is so hysterically dangerous. Perhaps you should consider some kind of Luck mechanic where PCs can dodge death X times before the Grim Reaper claims them.

BTW, back in high school, the unofficial club rule was that you could get a free instant Resurrection in D&D games if you bought a pizza for the group.

We had guys bringing chow for everyone as pre-payment "to the gods", but even with that there were plenty of deaths.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;866907Well, there's also the alternative of coming up with some way to have the players live, like getting captured, or blackmailed, or left for dead or whatever. Would that just be "going easy" on them or would it just be good RP?

If the players picked the fight rather than trying to negotiate then NO. They should not get off easy for their own stupid. Unless getting captured effectively ends their adventure.

I know there are some TSR modules that use overwhelming force to capture the PCs. But surrender or capture was an option from the start rather than an award for stupid play.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;866914Well the whole coming up with a way to have the players live should come from the players.

Maybe they can convince the orcs that they are worth more in ransom?

The point is, it not the DMs job to preserve the miserable lives of PCs who make stupid decisions.

Yeah - as the Wise Noisms teaches us, You Are Responsible For Your Own Orgasm - http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/you-are-responsible-for-your-own-orgasm.html

I think a good GM in a non-horror (or PARANOIA) game should lean on the side of giving player plans a chance to work, using Attribute checks etc as appropriate. This encourages players to be active and engaged, and makes for a better game. But they still have to come up with the plans; it's not good GMing to bend reality to keep foolish PCs alive. There's a lot of bad 'servant GMing' advice out there in places like Gnome Stew, ID DM, Newbie DM etc  where the GMs assume the entire load for the group having fun, while the players are expected to treat it like an amusement ride tailored to their whim. Don't do that; expect players to Step On Up, reward them when they do, and everyone should have fun.

Quote from: Omega;866980No. There should allways be an initial solution to a situation. Otherwise what the hell is the point of playing if the DM is just going to arbitrarily kill you? And no. "But but but? I rolled it on the wandering monster table!" is not an excuse.

That depends.  We indeed used to play it that way.  But if you're wandering around in the wilderness, that very fact acknowledges that you might run into 100 orcs, or a wandering Balrog, or a group of spectres.

The wilderness was far more dangerous than the dungeon.  Be prepared for it.

Quote from: Ellsminus;866957... As for my friends we have reach a type of middle ground. Basically if a player is defeated the GM will either say 'You lost your gear and are injured, but were rescued by blah blah blah'(or any similar 'you don't die scenario'), if death seems warranted then we will have a discussion about it. The Gm might say 'It seems pretty reasonable that you die here, you really pushed your luck' the player say 'Okay, I'm dead' or 'I want this character to live and I think I can use this event to gives some great rp on my near death experience'.
...

Your friends probably don't know the implications of what they asked for.

It seems to me, from my decades of gaming experience and wisdom (tongue in cheek, but still) that that middle ground, how shall I put this? It sucks shit, hard, in a way that might be too subtle for many players to realize. I sat that because I think it deserves severe emphasis.

By saying there are rules like that which eliminate ways to die, and so on, you've fundamentally changed the game WAY FAR AWAY from what it says its about. Without that shit, you may be playing some sort of game that is actually about the gameworld situation in question. With that shit, you are playing in a world where some omnipotent forces and rules will keep the friggin' special PC's alive no matter what, unless their players decide they don't mind. It also encourages "ooh look how dramatic it is if I kamikaze my character and then say I want to have a dramatic learning experience and get all this dramatic attention and stuff and BTW I get to be unkillable through all this regardless of the situation" which is NOT a game about a gameworld situation. It's a simulation of horrible ego indulgence and/or infantile super-hero comic narratives, that doesn't admit that's what it is, and may not even realize it, because of the conceit that there is still a game going on. At best, it's a game where some unkillable demi-gods are pretending to be mortal, and what's at stake is how dramatic their lives are, how much fun they have, which is cooler or better than the other PC demi-gods, and how much damage and looting or acts of good they can bless the world of puny mortals with, while they pretend to be mortals. Which, IMO, sucks shit. If you want to play that, I'd suggest playing a game about unkillable demi-gods, or just unkillables, and explicitly put it into rules that exist and make sense in the game world. Play Highlander. Or invent something to make your PCs revenants or some other thing with the same effect. Unless you figure out that you're actually interested in the world situation you're creating - what if stupid Hollywood life/death rules really existed in a world - what would happen? I guess there have been so many films and computer games with cosmically unkillable & savescumming heroes that somehow people really like that but my reaction is WTF is the point and "that's not a game please stop pretending it is" and "argh no stop".

It's like reading a long book or watching a long film with a nail-biting plot and then having the main character wake up and "it was all just a dream". Well, the dream, where things actually mattered, that some of us may have been interested in, was interesting, and you just declared in didn't really exist and had no effect. Kind of like fighting for my life in a game and then someone dies and gets told they get to survive because they can't really die unless they want to, invalidating the whole conflict and challenge and risks and danger etc.

It's also insanely unfair to any player who might show up and actually want to play as if there were real danger in your game and so avoid what would seem to be foolish risks. Even for the players you have, it also prevents them from ever developing into players who engage the world like there is a real danger of death, because they know there isn't. If one of them tries, they too may notice eventually that there's no point with a cosmic safety net, especially if they take prudent measures while their comrade goes and risks "death" and claims the rewards for his "courage".

Want to play cards? I'd like a rule that I can never lose more than 1 cent, but can bet as much as I like. Guess what? I'm all in.