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Dalin · 10-11-2018, 06:07 PM

Depends on the game and the level of player investment in the story and their characters. In my decade long epic fantasy / Arabian Nights campaign, players had binders filled with character history. The players wanted the story to be about their characters attempting to change the world, so I honored that. They didn't die from bad die rolls, despite the fact that many aspects of my world were simulationist. Tension was always high, though, because the stakes in the story mattered a lot to the players. Beloved NPCs died regularly, characters gained unexpected disadvantages, and there were some irreversible plot complications due to poor decisions or strings of bad luck. This is probably my preferred style of play, but it took us years to get the whole thing perfectly tuned.

In my current much-lighter DF game, where many players are running characters from Delvers to Go, characters will die if the dice so dictate. It hasn't happened so far, though there have been some close shaves. Of course, if they save up some cash, they can be resurrected, so that transforms most deaths into another resource-management challenge.

10-11-2018, 06:07 PM	#11
Dalin Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Saint Paul, MN	Re: Killing PCs Depends on the game and the level of player investment in the story and their characters. In my decade long epic fantasy / Arabian Nights campaign, players had binders filled with character history. The players wanted the story to be about their characters attempting to change the world, so I honored that. They didn't die from bad die rolls, despite the fact that many aspects of my world were simulationist. Tension was always high, though, because the stakes in the story mattered a lot to the players. Beloved NPCs died regularly, characters gained unexpected disadvantages, and there were some irreversible plot complications due to poor decisions or strings of bad luck. This is probably my preferred style of play, but it took us years to get the whole thing perfectly tuned. In my current much-lighter DF game, where many players are running characters from Delvers to Go, characters will die if the dice so dictate. It hasn't happened so far, though there have been some close shaves. Of course, if they save up some cash, they can be resurrected, so that transforms most deaths into another resource-management challenge.