Is it okay if player characters never die?

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PolarBlues said:
I think I can accept an throw away fight scene in a super hero game where even D-rate villains still have a unique set of powers, motivations and personality. And even then you can complicate things with civillians in harms way and collateral damage.

And now I want to play a superhero game. It's been too long.
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Get to it! Superhero games rock.
 
PolarBlues said:
I am not expert on things OSR or D&D in general, but my understanding is that the random "10 orcs" style encounter goes hand in hand with strictly itemised XP/loot and fits in a risk vs reward model, which has since been taken up by computer games. The orc encounter may not forward the player character's goal of lifting the sinister curse from the kingdom (or whatever) but it's a chance to get XP and treasure which forwards the player's goal of improving his character.

The moment a GM decides to drop the itemised XP and treasure guidelines for something more flexible or practical, the risk/reward model no longer holds. There may other reasons to have random encounters in a particular adventure, but I would not just use them as filler content or just out of habit.
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Yeah but imo random encounters as bags of xp and gold is not a great reason to have them and is super boring.

I'm not opposed to random encounters at all, I get how they can function around resource management, just give us a decent hook or flavour to the encounter so they don't bore the players and the GM.

Sure, the GM can do the work to make it more interesting but these are GM tools after all, give me the tools to not bore myself and my players.
 
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Voros said:
Yeah but imo random encounters as bags of xp and gold is not a great reason to have them and is super boring.

I'm not opposed to random encounters at all, I get how they can function around resource management, just give us a decent hook or flavour to the encounter so they don't bore rhe players and the GM.

Sure, the GM can do the work to make it more interesting but these are GM tools after all, give me the tools to not bore myself and my players.
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Not my style of gaming either, just noting how all the bits fit together as a coherent whole.
 
Rated Aargh said:
Threats don't feel real if a player has no fear for their character.
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A character deeply invested in the setting can feel fear for much more than their own skin.

Rated Aargh said:
However, some players don't react well to character death, and having that risk lifted might make the game more fun for them.
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If the premise of the game is the trials and tribulations of immortality, okay.

If the premise of the game is exploring dangerous places and outwitting deadly foes, well, if you're looking for sympathy, it's found between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.
 
The difference between a comic book and a role-playing game is that in a role-playing game, the Joker might kill Batman.

As far as characters who are literally immortal, I've actually dabbled with that concept a few times. It's actually kind of fun when one character is immortal and the others aren't. They aren't necessarily OP relative to the other characters, but the stakes are different. They worry more about being captured or exiled. But I'm more at peace, I think, than most GMs, about each PC having one thing they can just absolutely do better than pretty much everyone else. I ran a lot of super-hero games when I was a teenager, and I learned to be adaptable, when you have one character that can fly, one that can walk through walls, one that reads minds, etc.
 
I guess it depends on the game and what the group wants.
Personally I'm a bit of a softie when I GM (believe it or not). It's very rare I'd allow a character to die. Of course, some see this as a failing for a GM but that's just the way I've always been.
Personal GM style aside I think it's fine if characters don't die. Also, if you're playing a pulp game like Flash Gordon your characters can't really die. They get captured or miraculously escape at the cliffhanger moment only to return for the next episode. But I like to apply a similar aspect to my games. That is the character gets knocked unconscious or taken as a hostage. It just leads to more cool adventures and stories, imho.
That said, if the players feel they have nothing to lose then they might see the game as pointless. Something to chat about at session zero asking about lethality.

PS - I certainly put the players through the wringer. I stop short of killing them off. I want the win to be worth it. :smile:
 
Rob Necronomicon said:
I guess it depends on the game and what the group wants.
Personally I'm a bit of a softie when I GM (believe it or not). It's very rare I'd allow a character to die. Of course, some see this as a failing for a GM but that's just the way I've always been.
Personal GM style aside I think it's fine if characters don't die. Also, if you're playing a pulp game like Flash Gordon your characters can't really die. They get captured or miraculously escape at the cliffhanger moment only to return for the next episode. But I like to apply a similar aspect to my games. That is the character gets knocked unconscious or taken as a hostage. It just leads to more cool adventures and stories, imho.
That said, if the players feel they have nothing to lose then they might see the game as pointless. Something to chat about at session zero asking about lethality.

PS - I certainly put the players through the wringer. I stop short of killing them off. I want the win to be worth it. :smile:
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I think if the group is in agreement on defeat instead of death then that is the right thing for that group. :thumbsup:

What I am against and would say is an unethical practice is fudging the dice to allow player characters to live without the previous consent from the group. If a GM is just making up results regardless of the roll but letting the players think the roll is being followed thus having PCs live or die at their whim (without the players previously approving such a practice) that is straight up lying to the players. Why would you lie to your friends and if they aren’t your friends why play with them?
 
AsenRG said:
Casca is a good example, since he's eternal...but the rest of the cast aren't. And that's what makes it interesting.
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This is exactly what I was going to say. IMO, death is one of the least interesting penalties in a game, for the same reason as Yes or No being the least interesting outcomes to questions. They end the line of questioning, where other answers and penalities continue the line, but with different framing.
 
sharps54 said:
I think if the group is in agreement on defeat instead of death then that is the right thing for that group. :thumbsup:

What I am against and would say is an unethical practice is fudging the dice to allow player characters to live without the previous consent from the group. If a GM is just making up results regardless of the roll but letting the players think the roll is being followed thus having PCs live or die at their whim (without the players previously approving such a practice) that is straight up lying to the players. Why would you lie to your friends and if they aren’t your friends why play with them?
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I think that's a fair point, man.
When I ran WFRP 2e (The Enemy Within Campaign) we all discussed character death and the consensus from the players was - it's okay, if it is a meaningful death.

Rather than fudging dice I always made sure they had just enough fate points. So if one got a killing blow they could spend it (as per the rules). But i didn't let them have a miraculous recovery. They would be badly injured and it would be a hard recovery. So I like some level of realism.
 
A lot of players seem to think Death is just another form of Failure in a game. It's not. It's the end of that particular game for you. If you make a new game piece and put it back on the table, it's still not the same as the old one. That one is not going to 'learn' or level anymore. It's finished, it's done. And that's not a failure.

So in answer to the question posed by the OP: I say yes, it's fine. Sure some stories and games have it so you shouldn't like Superheroes, but there's nothing wrong with turning a TPK into another adventure, instead of a complete restart.

Your Mileage Will Vary.
 
Not wanting PCs to die was a big thing for me a few years ago when I started up a modern-day supernatural investigations/horror game, always with one male player (male PC) and one female player (female PC), and we had such a good "Mulder and Scully" thing going that I just wanted each adventure to be a separate episode that the PCs would return to each week.

They could fail at missions (no or limited XP collected), but I often found myself fudging to allow them to live. A couple more years in, and with several more players and PCs coming and going, and I find myself much more accepting of PC death than I used to.

I think a lot of it just depends on how attached everyone is, players and GM, to specific characters.
 
sharps54 said:
I agree with the last paragraph, characters get captured all the time in the source material. That said I’m not a fan of fudging dice to make that happen but if that works at your table and the players know you are fudging it’s all good.
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One of the reasons it's easier to get KO'd in a combat in my GUYZE (Generic, Universal Year Zero Engine) system than to get killed.

Death is always on the table though I'd prefer if it was decided by players rather than solely dice. Players should have the information that death is on the table...and closer than they may realise.

Here's a few examples:

Playing 5E, we had a near TPK and then a TPK in a pre-3rd level game. The TPK was retconned because it was incredibly unsatisfying to just be overwhelmed by enemies that early with no way of escaping. In fact, even when we were clever and found ways out, the DM would push new challenges at us. There was no reward for being clever, it was just all on how well you rolled. It's mean tot be heroic, it felt like a slog.

Playing CoC, two PCs had a disagreement which resulted in one PC drawing his gun and threatening the other. In the midst of evil 'dungeon' in Peru, he shoots the other PC in the leg (taking his HP down by half). Death was on the table. In fact it's expected in CoC and one of the reasons I don't play CoC much. It's not meant to be heroic and heck, isn't that true.

Playing Scion, we are in a hopeless situation but I know the SG is really into the rule of cool. So even though we are totally outmatched, a bit of narrative foreplay and we have an out. It suits the genre. It suits the flow. Death was probably on the table but it's meant to be heroic.

Playing Excession, one of the PCs sees a NPC fall off a building and decides to try to save him. He does the superhero thing and leaps off the building to grab him - thinking cinematically that he will find a way to survive this on the way down. Death is on the table for both of them but it's the sort of game where we lean into stuff. He took moment to prep (grabbed a firehose Die-hard style before leaping out). Even if he fails his roll, it shouldn't just be the two of them plummeting to their death. That wouldn't be in-genre and it would be a shame because he did take a precaution that was totally in-genre. It's meant to be heroic.
 
Rated Aargh said:
Remember 1979? That year saw the publication of Barry Sadler's book Casca: The Eternal Mercenary. Sadler was (and probably still is) best known for singing "The Ballad of the Green Berets," but for me, he's the creator of Casca Longinus, the Roman legionnaire who stabbed Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross and was condemned by Him to live until the Second Coming.

The series spans sixty books and two thousand years of military history. During that period, Casca met almost every famous figure from every war, including a stint in Hitler's bunker.

Nothing can kill Casca (he wouldn't be eternal otherwise), so he's the perfect vehicle for discussing character death or lack thereof, especially when I consider a recent topic concerning permanent consequences in gaming. Casca is still interesting, and the action remains compelling even though he can't die.

Could the same thing apply to role-playing? If you run a campaign with unkillable PCs, would it hinder the fun you could have? Is the threat of death essential to keeping the stakes at an engaging level?

I can see both sides of this coin. Threats don't feel real if a player has no fear for their character. However, some players don't react well to character death, and having that risk lifted might make the game more fun for them.

Do we have any consensus on this issue?
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WW2 game? No.
TOON? Yes.

jg
 
Seems like it depends on the genre you're trying to emulate, although I tend to cringe at the idea of genre-emulation. But it can be argued that my stance is itself a kind of genre. The let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may genre.

It's theoretically possible that your game doesn't even have violence! Maybe you're playing the tabletop version of Stardew Valley. Nuttin' wrong with that.

Personally, I'm always a fan of emergent story. That means in a game where violence (sorry, "action") is integral, I'm in favor of keeping death on the table. You're not? That's fine, although I think in most cases that tends to blunt the serious nature of combat. Which can make sense in certain genres, like classic superheroes and the like.

If death is used in a more reserved fashion, I prefer if that's an explicit understanding of the game, and even mechanically baked-in. That way, it doesn't feel like arbitrary GM intervention when you survive a dino stampede or whatnot. I'm not a big fan of Blades in the Dark, but I respect its design as an honest and effective route to what it's trying to accomplish (i.e. no-prep steampunk Ocean's Eleven).
 
Yeah, I think that the overall concept of Death as it relates to PCs and how it's handled really affects the story and the pacing. If it's a real thing, then players can become risk averse. Good for a dungeon, but bad in some other cases. You really need to be on the same page for what the game is about in order to stage the risks and consequences in a way that's good for the game.
 
chuckdee said:
This is exactly what I was going to say. IMO, death is one of the least interesting penalties in a game, for the same reason as Yes or No being the least interesting outcomes to questions. They end the line of questioning, where other answers and penalities continue the line, but with different framing.
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In solo game, a PC dying is the end of the line, but in group game, one the party members dying should have a strong effect on the rest of the party. It's equivalent of an episode of a TV show where one of the main cast dies.

It doesn't even have to be a case of the rest of the party being struck by grief or thirsting for vengeance. I had a recent session where a new PC to the party died in the initial encounter of session. That PC was a foreigner to the rest of the party, and they barely knew her or her culture. It led to interesting roleplaying about how to deal with her party. What was an appopriate ceremony? Was it okay to bury her in the local cemetery. It was some interesting roleplaying.

And even if it is a solo game or if it was a TPK, there are plenty of stories that end with the hero(es) dying. I'm prepping for a wuxia game right now, and that's a movie genre where you can never be sure the main character will be alive when the credits roll.

Yeti Spaghetti said:
Not wanting PCs to die was a big thing for me a few years ago when I started up a modern-day supernatural investigations/horror game, always with one male player (male PC) and one female player (female PC), and we had such a good "Mulder and Scully" thing going that I just wanted each adventure to be a separate episode that the PCs would return to each week.

They could fail at missions (no or limited XP collected), but I often found myself fudging to allow them to live. A couple more years in, and with several more players and PCs coming and going, and I find myself much more accepting of PC death than I used to.

I think a lot of it just depends on how attached everyone is, players and GM, to specific characters.
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I think it's fine to have a Mulder and Scully set-up where the PCs are immune to death. In an X-Files scenario, there is still the question of whether the players can solve the mystery, and whether they can help keep the innocent guest stars alive. Nobody is watching to see if Mulder and Scully live or die.

I just think its better to handle that by being upfront about it rather than relying on GM fudging. I'd treat it like WFRP with infinite Fate Points. If you lose a combat, you get taken prisioner, left for dead, etc.
 
Edgewise said:
Seems like it depends on the genre you're trying to emulate, although I tend to cringe at the idea of genre-emulation. But it can be argued that my stance is itself a kind of genre. The let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may genre.

It's theoretically possible that your game doesn't even have violence! Maybe you're playing the tabletop version of Stardew Valley. Nuttin' wrong with that.

Personally, I'm always a fan of emergent story. That means in a game where violence (sorry, "action") is integral, I'm in favor of keeping death on the table. You're not? That's fine, although I think in most cases that tends to blunt the serious nature of combat. Which can make sense in certain genres, like classic superheroes and the like.

If death is used in a more reserved fashion, I prefer if that's an explicit understanding of the game, and even mechanically baked-in. That way, it doesn't feel like arbitrary GM intervention when you survive a dino stampede or whatnot. I'm not a big fan of Blades in the Dark, but I respect its design as an honest and effective route to what it's trying to accomplish (i.e. no-prep steampunk Ocean's Eleven).
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I love genre emulation, that is why Top Secret 1E and James Bind 007 are so good! Same with TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes, there are subtle, and some not so subtle, things built on the rules to help reinforce the genre those games are emulating and it allows the characters to act more naturally for the kinds of fiction you are emulating. Even D&D is genre emulation although I would argue it is emulating a genre it created and later editions doubled down on trying to be more D&D which wasn’t always a good thing.
 
Death on the table is definitely a tricky one.

Ultimately, for the style of play I prefer, death definitely has to be on the table, and GM fudging to keep PCs alive should be off the table with the possible exception of a retcon if the GM really fucks something up, and then of course only with 100% buy in from the table.

I have played games where death pretty much only happens if the player decides to allow it and those games have worked out OK, but I'm not sure I prefer that style anymore. Dogs in the Vinyard and Burning Wheel both pretty much put death into the player's hand. DitV it's purely a player choice, and Burning Wheel, so long as the player doesn't spend their last Persona Point (usually PCs start with one), a PC can't die.

In the mid-2000s, influenced by reading the Forge and being exposed to DitV and Burning Wheel, and various ideas about PC death, and considering that my Arcana Evolved campaign basically allowed players to replace a dead PC with an exact clone (point buy for everything, replacement PCs started at the same level as the lost PC), I experimented with optional PC death. Ultimately it cheapened the game. Cheating out of death DOES affect the intangible role play of the character. Even Bob2 would be a different character even if mechanically identical. Bob2 didn't have the same experiences as Bob1.

Back in the early 80s, I did a lot of fudging and deus ex machina to save PCs. When I look back on that time, I think that wasn't such a good idea.

Now if I started running RPGs for my kids (currently ages 8 and 10), I might approach things differently.

There is room for genres where death is not on the table, or only on the table as a player choice, but my interest in those genres is pretty low if any.
 
ffilz said:
Death on the table is definitely a tricky one.

Ultimately, for the style of play I prefer, death definitely has to be on the table, and GM fudging to keep PCs alive should be off the table with the possible exception of a retcon if the GM really fucks something up, and then of course only with 100% buy in from the table.

I have played games where death pretty much only happens if the player decides to allow it and those games have worked out OK, but I'm not sure I prefer that style anymore. Dogs in the Vinyard and Burning Wheel both pretty much put death into the player's hand. DitV it's purely a player choice, and Burning Wheel, so long as the player doesn't spend their last Persona Point (usually PCs start with one), a PC can't die.

In the mid-2000s, influenced by reading the Forge and being exposed to DitV and Burning Wheel, and various ideas about PC death, and considering that my Arcana Evolved campaign basically allowed players to replace a dead PC with an exact clone (point buy for everything, replacement PCs started at the same level as the lost PC), I experimented with optional PC death. Ultimately it cheapened the game. Cheating out of death DOES affect the intangible role play of the character. Even Bob2 would be a different character even if mechanically identical. Bob2 didn't have the same experiences as Bob1.

Back in the early 80s, I did a lot of fudging and deus ex machina to save PCs. When I look back on that time, I think that wasn't such a good idea.

Now if I started running RPGs for my kids (currently ages 8 and 10), I might approach things differently.

There is room for genres where death is not on the table, or only on the table as a player choice, but my interest in those genres is pretty low if any.
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For kids if you didn’t want death to be an issue, and I’m not so sure it would, I would definitely go the route of defeated instead of killed as opposed to fudging dice to keep them alive.
 
Of course it's ok. Do whatever brings about fun.
Rated Aargh said:
Could the same thing apply to role-playing?
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Sure, anything that can be imagined can be applied to role-playing.
If you run a campaign with unkillable PCs, would it hinder the fun you could have?
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Possibly. If there are no stakes whatsoever, I imagine you'd end up with a comfy game where you explore the world and help resolve conflict without any risk of danger to you. Could get boring after a while. Then again, you could be Hercules, wandering the countryside helping people. The more you help you get some sort of reward (mechanical and/or narrative) and if you fail you get some sort of negative. It may not be "death" but at least this would provide some sort of stakes or reason to do.
Is the threat of death essential to keeping the stakes at an engaging level?
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I think it's certainly easy, but not essential.
Do we have any consensus on this issue?
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I think the consensus would most likely be: stakes of some kind (death or otherwise) are needed. Else it's not really a game, but more just an activity.
 
sharps54 said:
For kids if you didn’t want death to be an issue, and I’m not so sure it would, I would definitely go the route of defeated instead of killed as opposed to fudging dice to keep them alive.
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Yea, maybe. Honestly, it's a bridge I'll cross when the trail leads in that direction.

The answer probably actually is along the lines of the kids not being ready for the games I currently run until they're ready for character death.

If they show an interest earlier, and my wife and I agree that them playing RPGs is a good idea, I'll use something where there isn't the possibility and see how they even handle the whole concept and even handle the game handing them character failure. I could easily run "Another Fine Mess" (a FUDGE scenario) or The Princes' Kingdom (based on Dogs in the Vinyard, but very simplified) or even Faery's Tale (which has "for kids" suggestions).

If that goes well, we can discuss the possibility of character death, and playing RuneQuest, Cold Iron, or D&D.
 
sharps54 said:
I love genre emulation, that is why Top Secret 1E and James Bind 007 are so good! Same with TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes, there are subtle, and some not so subtle, things built on the rules to help reinforce the genre those games are emulating and it allows the characters to act more naturally for the kinds of fiction you are emulating. Even D&D is genre emulation although I would argue it is emulating a genre it created and later editions doubled down on trying to be more D&D which wasn’t always a good thing.
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Is this a pun on his tactic of getting captured to learn the mastermind's plan?
 
I find kids vary widely when it comes to character death. Some are going to be devastated by it and but some will be view RPG as a chance to be daredevils and laugh it off. I do agree that's if you are taking it off the table, it's better to be up front about it. As adults often let kids win, they are often the most savvy players when it comes fudge detection and can be insulted by it.
 
Baulderstone said:
I find kids vary widely when it comes to character death. Some are going to be devastated by it and but some will be view RPG as a chance to be daredevils and laugh it off. I do agree that's if you are taking it off the table, it's better to be up front about it. As adults often let kids win, they are often the most savvy players when it comes fudge detection and can be insulted by it.
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I agree. My girls are on the sensitive side but that doesn't mean they would actually have problems with PC death. But I don't know. So my thought is introduce RPGs to them with games that don't really offer a place for character death to see how they do with the idea in general. They might ask about death. Or they might observe that death could be a consequence but one they don't want to deal with. But by playing a game that doesn't really have it on the table, I'm not fudging the game.
 
I’m usually trying to emulate R.E. Howard: there’s no way that Conan is going to die, although he is regularly defeated and humiliated (that’s just a prelude to, “I’m going to kill them all,” including by crucifixion). In fact I’m just fiddling with my There Will Be Blood rules to make players a little less risk averse.
 
I think it largely depends on the game and the genre/vibe. There’s no one way. Something like Tales From the Loop not allowing for PC death makes sense to me. It fits the genre, and so they designed the game accordingly.

Other games need to have the possibility on the table. I’m currently running Mothership, which is sci-fi/horror… taking death off the table really shifts the stakes in a way that doesn’t fit the tone.

I’ve become a big fan of games that involve the player in the decision. I’m also currently running Stonetop, a PbtA game about the champions of a quasi-bronze age village. When a character is at Death’s Door (0 hit points OR the result of a problematic wound or similar) the Lady of Crows appears. They then roll 2d6. On a 10+, they awaken with a small amount of HP restored. On a 7-9, they do not die, but they remain unconscious and injured and will need assistance.

On a 6-, though, the player must choose:

On a 6-, your time has come. Choose 1:

• Step willingly through the Black Gates

• Refuse to go; gain the Revenant or Ghost insert (your choice)

• Call on one of the Things Below by name and beseech it to intercede; gain the Thrall insert

On a 6-, the character doesn’t have to die. It’s up to the player. But the alternatives are pretty severe. The character as they’ve been up to this point is no more.

I dig this kind of approach.
 
I ran a campaign once (it didn't last long, sad to say) in which the PCs were elderly emeriti ensconced in the best chairs in the Faculty Club at Walpurgis U. Each adventure would start with an NPC rushing into the Club with some hair raising story¹. The players would take turns "topping" that story with reminiscences of their careers², and when nobody wanted to go any further we would play out the character's tall story. The convention³ of the campaign was that if a PC were killed then the story had become implausible and the audience stopped listening.


¹ This was supposed to be a prompt to improv., but in practice I found that I had to circulate the NPCs' stories a week before the game to give the players time to think some things up.

² Each character had four character sheets. One as an undergraduate before WWI (for use with exploration and lost-world stories, Burroughs, Haggard, and Doyle material), one as a graduate student and teaching assistant in the 1920s (for weird tales — Lovecraft material &c.), one as an associate professor in the 1930s (for cliffhangers adventure), and one as a full professor (for 1950s B-movie sci-fi). The frame story was set in the late Seventies.

³ I established that convention at the beginning of the campaign, but we never actually had to use it.
 
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