Keeping characters alive

[oldwolf]

First, as Skarg points out the players have to learn how to play. So, several sessions with players using a bunch of characters provided by the GM. Each player should get to try out a full range of character designs.

Second, the GM has to decide if they are running a combat focused game with a little roleplay tacked on or a roleplay focused game with combat only when unavoidable. With the former, player death will be unavoidably frequent. In the latter case characters may well survive for months or even years of play.

[David Bofinger]

Combat is most exciting if the player(s) are in danger of death. Role-playing tends to be least interesting when characters die frequently, making personalities expendable and relationships ephemeral. So characters must be always about to die but never quite do it. This is arguably the central dilemma of most kinds of role-playing.

[Skarg]

You're never really about to die if you never do it.

The risk of death has to be actual, or else you're just pretending you're facing that risk.


The risk is much much higher before you learn tactics. The way you learn tactics is by understanding what tends to make people die or not die. That's easier to learn when your own characters are dying sometimes. That's why arena combats and adventures where some PCs can and do die tend to be the fastest ways for players to learn.

[ChooChooDuck]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Combat is most exciting if the player(s) are in danger of death. Role-playing tends to be least interesting when characters die frequently, making personalities expendable and relationships ephemeral. So characters must be always about to die but never quite do it. This is arguably the central dilemma of most kinds of role-playing.

Yup, you don't want characters to be so expendable they merely become a means to an end, and you don't want combat to be a snooze-fest either.

[RobW]

When I was introducing TFT to people new to RPGs, I adapted a talent I saw in GURPS: 'Lucky'. I think it cost 2 IQ points. The talent allowed a player to make one-reroll of the dice per few hours of realtime play.

The idea was to let new players learn how combat works, learn what happens in an RPG, and start to feel some attachment to their character. Obviously it's entirely too powerful for experienced players.

[tomc]

One easy way to help avoid sudden character death is to count double or triple damage rolls against them as regular damage. Not many characters can survive, say, triple damage from a longbow for 24 hits, but if it's only 8, then the story can continue.

[hcobb]

If your Molly takes 30 points of damage in a single hit then just cast Regeneration on her and she'll be fit as a fiddle in a week.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

If your Molly takes 30 points of damage in a single hit then just cast Regeneration on her and she'll be fit as a fiddle in a week.

What about the whole death part?

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by tomc

One easy way to help avoid sudden character death is to count double or triple damage rolls against them as regular damage. Not many characters can survive, say, triple damage from a longbow for 24 hits, but if it's only 8, then the story can continue.

The story can continue after one or more or even all PCs die, too, and IME/IMO it's usually a better story (and much more importantly, a better game) if that's allowed to happen, and it's best if players and GM accept that that is supposed to be a possibility and something that leads to more interesting play than trying to force it not to happen.

[Anomylous]

Originally Posted by Skarg

The story can continue after one or more or even all PCs die, too, and IME/IMO it's usually a better story (and much more importantly, a better game) if that's allowed to happen, and it's best if players and GM accept that that is supposed to be a possibility and something that leads to more interesting play than trying to force it not to happen.

As a player, I really appreciate it when GM's actively plan for the eventuality of PC death by having NPC's ready to be taken over, if the situation doesn't allow for introducing a completely new character. That way, if my character dies at least I'm still in the game, and not watching from the sidelines while everyone else finishes the campaign, after being killed off by an arbitrary die roll that I'd TRIED to avoid making... no, I'm not salty about any event in particular...