How often do your player´s characters die?

[Capt.Hunter]

My character in a Warhammer Fantasy campaign finally sacrificed himself to defeat our arch-nemesis by breaking an artifact and causing a massive magical explosion that took us both out. The bad guy had already come back from the dead a couple of times, and each time we faced him we nearly all got killed so I figured I'd do the campaign world a favour.

My Shadowrun character got wasted by another PC who decided to fire a grenade at a bad guy while I was only a few feet away trying to negotiate with him. The grenade explosion took my character down and I was alive but dying. The player's defence was that he thought my character could absorb the damage (I was a Mage for cryin' out loud!). I could have let him off that if he'd come in and stabilized me. But no, he says "Ah, what the hell!" and fires another freakin' grenade!! Needless to say I didn't survive - but then neither did Alex Murphy - and my character is comin' back the same way (We got the Cybertechnology rules for Cyberzombies). Let's see his damn vaunted high-kick work against someone wearing hardened armour that's immune to small-arms fire...

------------------
"Spatial anomalies, energy beings, telepathic echoes. You know, sometimes I really miss the Dominion War. At least then all we had to worry about was where the next polaron beam was coming from...": Capt.Hunter, USS Tempest

[Ishan Chaye]

ok, thanks to all of you for your replies. i also believe, as some of you have written, that, if a charakter dies, it should be either a dramtic or cineastic scene. now, in my next adventures, if the players encounter the borg(or any other threats) again, i´m not goin´to have such scruple any more, although i still think it is not necessary to kill chars.
cu

[Calcoran]

Well, I guess it is time for me to share my darkest secret as a GM ...
I confess, that I, as a GM, have never, ever, killed a PC (and I GM quite often as the other players seem to prefer having me GM ... I wonder if that means that I am a good GM or just that they are very lazy).

[breaks out in great sobs]

Right ... err ... that's true, I've been GMing for about err... counts on fingers ... 5 or 7 years, and I have never caused the death of a PC. For one thing, as someone said before, I have only 5 players, and usually cannot gather more than 3 at a time. I spent a lot of time creating background (playing it, I mean, which is a lot different from the one you can get when you create a PC) for each of them, making them feel how the whole campaign really goes somewhere ... so it'd really harm the campaign if one died in a way I hadn't planned. Moreover, I always try to create a story, more than a scenario. Rather than say "all right, let us see how they will react to this" or "right, if they want to survive, they'll have to react that way or that way ... or they will die", I prefer to try to find the reaction that'd best serve the story, and I drop clues so that they can act accordingly. And my players got really good at noticing this kind of clues. Mind you, these can be very obvious clues ("Anyway, we're at peace with the Rom ... did you just say the warbird was armed with polaron beams? Errr ... how far are we from the limit of the badlands already?"). Besides, when I needed them to barely succeed, I always managed to get them all badly wounded without actually killing them ... dunnow if it's me or them that are skilled ...
All right, maybe I'm just a big softy ...

Funny thing is, my players are just as afraid of dying (well, their PCs I mean) as any other I have seen, even with GM that had a tendency to kill at least a PC per scession. Maybe because they have no idea what could happen if they try to fuck with my story : It's not because it never happened yet that it cannot happen . Maybe also because they really like their PCs, much more than with the GM whith whom you just knew you were lucky if it survived more than 2 scesions.

------------------
Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

[jahn]

I've run 33 episodes and none of the characters have died. Not that it would be a big problem with my group since we usually play campaigns where on average every player will lose a character.

What I've done is kept to these rules:

1. Don't emphasize combat. Most of the prepub adventures are more problem solving and diplomacy than combat, so I average about one fight an episode, whether it's a brief skirmish or a climatic battle. I count starship combat too, though with starships it's even harder to kill characters.

2. Everybody uses stun, Klingons, Romulans, Federation, and with those puny disruptors it takes a couple of stun hits to take down a character (I play it that stun has to knock someone to unconscious to stun them). Bad guys only shoot to kill if it's specific to the plot or if the characters do it first -- I've only had 3 or 4 fights where the bad guys were trying the kill the characters.

3. Numbers, not quality. Instead of making it bad guys == number of players and about the same skill, up the number of bad guys and lower their skill. Don't give them Courage. If characters mow them down to quickly up their skill or have them take more cover. I find that even if the characters significantly outmatch the opposition, the players will still be somewhat apprehensive because a lucky hit can still kill your character.

4. Cheat. Occassionally I foul it up and a character is going to die. In which case I change the numbers on the fly. This requires you (a) not roll in front of the players, (b) know the characters capabilities, (c) keep at least an estimate of wound levels and know the expected damage of weapons, (d) be able to do it smoothly so they don't suspect.

Every Game Master has their own style and you have to take the players into account. If in doubt, you can always ask the players if they mind their characters dying, though take those answers with a grain of salt. Most of all you can't get too hung up if you make a mistake. Learn from them and be a better GM.

[reimero]

Wow...this is all so...so... new. I'm so used to high body counts (although when I GM they're slightly lower) but still... in one of our D&D campaigns I'm on my 3rd character in 4 weeks, and in another campaign with a different DM, we had one guy lose 2 characters within an hour of each other. Go figure.

[Thanatos]

From a GMing point of view in Trek I've nearly killed on character, but that's about it. He picked a fight with a couple of Dominion Fast Attack Ships to help some Maquis Raiders. Well, the first Dom attack hit the bridge. I know I should've fudged the rolls but earlier one of my players mentioned that I wouldn't kill them.

I did require rolls to get off the bridge (kind of a feat of Matrix-like manuevering on their parts). Everybody made it except the Capt. who would have had he not dove in to rescue an unconcious Helm officer who had suffered from an Exploding Panel of Doom (TM). For the heroic act I let him slide with having most of his back and a small part of his spine shredded (which has since been mostly repaired, but being a Romulan ship the doc didn't bother to tell him quite how ). Oh, and of course he did save the officer and looked good to his men (until a later stupid comment...).

Outside of Trek I have killed more than my fair share of SR characters. One died of disease, one died of a massive lightning bolt cast by a powerful mage NPC who also died (he took the bolt trying to help friends and was in a situation where he could've avoided the fight so I let him die) and of course the one guy that decided to pick a fight with my wonderous Zerg crossover

On to my losses:
-ADnD Half-Elven Figher Mage (lost to hobgoblins hiding in trees and firing arrows in a sneak attack on the poor bastards house)
-ADnD Elven Bard (dm ignored that it wasn't allowed under rules, because he felt it was stupid; lost to numerous things, I've played the character at 3 seperate occaisions)

In addition I nearly lost a Gangrel Vampire in Vampire to Fek, of the Dark Trinity from the Werewolf book. He was about to forcibly remove my mind but didn't . Also, later lost the same character to Nyaralathotep (spelling) until I was able to strike a deal with him (at the same encounter I nearly died to Tsagotha while trying to protect Bast, Anubis because I almost fergot to step out of the path of his entropic blast, and the Wyld because it was about to be reborn about two feet from my character - all in all a fun game ).

My stance on killing characters is not to let the dice do it unless the characters put themselves in an unnescessary situation where rolls are life and death, or the players have been pissing me off and I feel like letting rolls be absolute to allow me to remain mostly objective

Sacrifice is kind of special too. Mostly I let them die, but sometimes the sacrifice doesn't kill them, mostly I let dice decide that one too (give them a change, albeit a small one). Or at least warn them "You will die if you do this, you know" and thus far nobody has been willing to sacrifice themselves for each other.

From a player stand point I don't mind a character dying as long as it isn't at the hands of another player who just pretty much says "I kill him.". This ties into the Vampire game I mentioned above as Tsagotha was a PC (late joining player with no real openings got an npc - one that I still don't agree with) and said the exact words quoted above. That jes ain't right, there's no balance there.

Synopsis: Barring stupidity, players shouldn't die too often, only if its in a way where they can agree it was a way that made sense for that character to go. Once stupidity is a factor, well, they brought it on themselves and hopefully will be able to laugh about it later.

--Arawn

[Tarbas]

Hi,
I have to say that it depents on the situation in the game and how long you already played. My players played their characters for almost 2 years now and if I kill one of them they will never forgive me. In the last episode I "killed" their beloved ship. One of my players was so touched that she almost cried. If her character would die it would be worse.
On the other hand is it important to let your players now that they can die, if they find out that they are immortal they will play that way.
I agree that a pc should only die in a special moment e.g. a heroic sacrafice. Death is never funny, and it should not be funny or easy to let a character die. In this two years of playing only two main NPC died because of a Borg attack.


------------------
www.StarTrek-AlphaSquad.de -
"United they stand"

[Capt. Scott Taylor]

If the Player is looking to be the cannon-fodder for the game, I have no problem passing judgment on him. Play stupid, die stupid!

And the one charcter that I have killed off knew it was coming. Steal a shuttle and assualt most of the senior staff, you're askin' for it. That player accepted it and immediately ask to begin drawing up a new character. (This is a player that lives for Hack and Slash AD&D and Star Wars Darkside campaigns.)

Overall, if the charcter might die in an adventure, I ask the player if it could be a big deal or if they want to work it in to the storyline. Tahankfully, I've got a tight-knit group of Mature roleplayers that can accept "When Bad things go Worse."

------------------
=========================
Captain Scott Taylor
U.S.S. Guardian
NCC-1738-B
"No, no! I'm chaos. He's Mayhem!"
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/startrekgamersstation

[Ineti]

I've only had one PC die in over 75 episodes (gaming sessions) and that death was one that I approached the player with beforehand and said, "I have an episode coming up that would be *perfect* for a great death scene for your character." He bit and it turned out great. I brought his PC back to life two episodes later (for a very good, non-deus-ex-machina reason) so that helped his decision a bit.

Basically, I run my campaigns like Paramount runs the TV shows. The core cast members DON'T die, except in very rare cases. Every episode I write/wrote had action, drama, suspense, etc. plus the ever-present possibility of great harm coming to one or more of the PCs. I guess I've been blessed with mature players who know the difference between hack-and-slash and role-playing.

Not that I'm knocking hack-and-slash, mind you.

[Antonsb214]

My players' characters rarely get killed, but they do tend to get really big boo-boos. A street samauri (Shadowrun) held off a security team while the rest of us were hacking a corp comp. It cost him an arm and a leg . Their last Star Trek game had them going EVA to board a dilithium freighter captured by Romulans. Two of them took a level 6 disruptor blast, but they rescued the hostages and stunned all of the Romulans, it was a boobytrap on the bridge that boo-booed another. Just a week in sickbay and commendations for bravery.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Well it doesn't happen often, but when characters die in our campaign it is always as a result of their actions. Be they heroic or downright foolish.

One of our more 'off the wall' players was trapped in a damaged escape pod with a more covnentional player. All systems had been damaged by the explosion that had destroyed their ship, and they were drifting and lost with a limited amount of life support left. The off the wall guy's character had spent some time as a 'guest' of the Dominion during t he war, and was a tad (ahem) disturbed. Anyway, he freaked out and decided the ends justified the means, adn he had to live. He chose to kill his companion, thus extending his own chances of living to be rescued. The conventional player thought it would be a good idea to use his rather weak psionic skills to try and calm him. Note that both were already injured.

Unfortunately for both, he failed, and was incapacitated by the other player. Well crazy guy decides a good way to get rid of him so to open the airlock and blow him out into space. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't keep a hold and they were both blown out.

It was actually pretty funny. But they were so dead.

[Admiral Wolf]

As far as my Star Trek games go...I cut them a lot of slack if they screw up, most of my guys have been playing with me for a long time and know how things work, and where I'm heading with a story arc.

However, death in the game has to be a possibility to keep things in check....every now and then (if one of them has not died in a long time) I'll arrange for a favorite NPC to get killed off (heroicaly of course) just to remind them....it could happen to you.

Now in my 2300AD and Twilight 2000 games.....I make them have more then one character rolled up....cause it's down and dirty fighting....and death can and does come quick.

* I should point out that in ST:RPG there are ways around being dead LOL.....one time one of the group died blowing up his ship to keep the Romulans from getting it (was a brand new ship) and the PC all got together and decided to violate UFP rules on time travel hehe.

Well they did go back in time (a few days) and save there buddy...but of course StarFleet has ways of finding out about people mucking with the time stream.....they all got hauled into a court martial...was a fun game (for me mwahahaha)

[Michael Barratt]

In Trek, I've yet to have a character death, tho I've had some major NPC deaths that blew the characters away (I'm not shy about the deaths of NPCs that they care about, so long as they are plot-driven).

There's one "Death" that the rest of the group thinks has happened, but didn't. I can't give away details, however, since I think some lurk here. :P

If I killed a PC though, it would be plot, not dice.

The Doc

[Imagus]

In Trek, never.

In other games, it very much depends on the campaign style. Plenty of PC's died when I ran D&D and Paranoia (surprise, surprise), but otherwise, mileage varies.

I like to run cinematic-style - characters die when relevant to the plot, and usually ok'd by the player (I reserve the right to kill off a PC unannounced for plot purposes though), or in unusual circumstances, as a result of extreme idiocy (but never bad luck). I have no reservations about putting near-dead PC's through hell (literally) before their return to active status though!

Back to Trek, I always think of it as the show. Crew death simply does not happen unless it's a major plot point (end of arc episode/turning point for example) or the player wants it (actor leaves for another show).

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

I have had one die in three sessions of trek. It was because another PC got a two on a roll and crashed the shuttle into another PC. Sure I could have beamed him out but it was just too funny.