We’re back around to this already?

It seems like we were just talking about character death in TTRPGs the other day. Did we just not stop talking about it? Was it April? May? Anyway…

It’s a hard fact of roleplaying games that characters sometimes don’t quite make it. Then again, some of our favorite characters in books, TV shows and movies don’t survive, either. Let’s not get into people passing on in real life because that’s super depressing and no one wants to go there.

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

Our old friend Random Number Generation is also a prime suspect.

In many Old School and even some new school games where “death is always on the table,” if the GM’s dice are hot and they Players’ dice are, well, sadly lacking; characters are going to die. As long as rolls are witnessed on both sides, it’s legit. If the GM rolls incredibly well behind the screen, ask to see the rolls. Better yet, if you’re a GM, sometimes rolling out in the open builds player trust because they will know you’re not pulling punches, playing favorites, or deliberately going after that stupid Bard character who keeps… (*nothing personal. The GM never kills a character intentionally.)

All joking aside, sometimes the dice just fall the way they do. Games such as Dragonbane where the action economy is tight, Hit Points are low, and monsters hit automatically; I’m thankful for Death Rolls. This is in contrast to games such as Dungeons & Dragons 5E where characters are basically the medieval fantasy Justice Avengers and Death Saves are completely superfluous. Some games benefit from Death Rolls and lucky dice. Other games don’t even need Death Saves, and the dice can be a curse.

The goal of Death Rolls in Dragonbane is to get 3 Successes before 3 failures at 1 roll per turn. You can also rally or fight on despite being at 0 HP. There are a few other nuances, but the ability to be persuaded to get back up and fight on is pretty cool. Yay! The Bard is useful once more.

Sometimes you don’t even get a chance to ham it up a little because no one saw it coming.

It sucks, but it happens. Sometimes the character whiffs a major roll and falls to their gruesome horrible death on the rocks below or wandered blindly into combat with the wrong manticore. Sometimes an unthinking rogue strays a little too far when the party isn’t looking and finds one of my crusher/dicer/mangler/grinder traps. Oops.

Obviously most players would prefer to at least get some last words in before the character passes into oblivion for that campaign. Maybe some sort of resurrection magic brings the character back somewhere down the road after the rest of the party quested their butts off to get that spell cast. Or maybe the player hangs onto the character for another campaign. Or maybe some really warped Necromancer gets a hold of the former PC and does what they do… (Cringe.)

It’s Dungeons & Dragons not Dungeons & Do-Overs.

I have heard an idea lately that I’m not personally too keen on, but some groups might benefit from it. It’s derived from video games. The idea is when characters die or possibly the party wipes, the session restarts with the group alive before the fight that killed them as if it were a Save point in a video game. Basically everyone is alive, full health, spells not spent, etc. I don’t like it because it’s very player facing. (Which is okay, but) It’s not like the GM can suddenly decide, “I want my dragon to survive. Do-over!”

Maybe in certain games I could let it slide. Anime themed games might have it as the nightmare sequence. High magic games might have it as a favor from one of the gods, to be done over and over until the group gets it right. It’s impossible to think of one or more scenarios where it could be done, but things might get a little timey-wimey doing that.

The other thing that is constantly at risk with any kind of GM intervention, Deus Ex Machina, or otherworldly interference is it kinda cheats the player of the experience. Some (not all) players don’t mind when a character dies because of some bad dice rolls or an error in player judgment.

It’s along the same lines of fudging dice to prevent character deaths. (Another old TTRPG Silly Argument.) We could also discuss the ins and outs of plot armor all day as well. GM favoritism could also come up.

“You’re a Bad Dungeon Master because you had the players make backup characters.”

Hogwash. Starting Dragonbane characters have 3-18 Hit Points. When monsters are dropping 2d6-2d10 damage per round and hit automatically, characters are going to friggin die. It happens.

Mid-high level Dungeons & Dragons might make it pretty tough to kill characters, but other games don’t have perfectly “balanced” encounters. Character death might be a simple matter of writing an old character out and introducing a new one. Maybe someone got tired of playing a Cleric and wanted to introduce their Ranger. No harm no foul. A lot of us have a binder full of D&D characters

For games where death is on the table regularly (looking at you, Shadowdark,) having a secondary and maybe a tertiary character around is a good plan. Getting that character into the game after the first one dies is another story. That might take some figuring, but we’ll get there. We know it’s a possibility.

I watched a video on YouTube a while back where this guy was all super serious about each and every single character death and how the player shouldn’t have a backup character. They actually kick the player from the rest of the session if not the game entirely when their character dies. And we should mourn every dead (completely fictional) character because we pour all this time, energy, and emotion into every character.

Here’s an alternative theory:

I’m not a bad Game Master and neither are you for asking players to bring backup characters. If we’re playing Dragonbane, Shadowdark, Call of Cthulhu, or Dungeon Crawl Classics where combat gets messy, it’s just a smart idea to plan for backup. My games are live in my house most of the time. If I have players from outside my house, chances are they had to drive to get here. We’re not on some Internet call where I’m going to boot people.

I want to plead for empathy for the player in my example above. If you made a bad decision or biffed a crucial die roll at the wrong time- is it really fair to boot you out of the session or out of the group? What kind of a-hole does that to their players? That’s just rude. If I was an online player and the GM or DM did that to me? Oh, I’d be mad. Here, my character just died and now I have three hours where I would have been playing to find a new group and make a new character. Screw all that other jazz.

I always say do what makes you (the GM) and the group happy.

Does getting booted off the Internet call because your character died sound happy or fun? I certainly don’t think so. Some people do get a little distressed and discouraged when a character dies accidentally or dramatically. We, as human beings who play these characters, do get emotionally or intellectually invested in them, even if it’s just to a minor degree. This is truer of long running characters, so I get maybe why hyper-obsessed D&DTuber guy was freaking out.

If your group established Day 1, Session Zero, that no backup characters were to ever be brought to the session and if you die we’re kicking you out of the session and possibly the group, does that sound like something most of us would even agree with? Sounds a lot nuts to me. We ain’t doing that here, especially if the game has a fairly involved character creation process. But, to each their own, I guess. If that’s how the group operates and it’s known, then yeah… go for it.

Most of my groups would mourn the loss of the deceased party member long enough to bury them (assuming that’s even possible.) Then, oh look. Neat. We met this Druid on the way back from the memorial service and they want to join with us on this epic quest we’re on. Maybe Bob the Fighter’s brother Ed wants to pick up his sword and continue the fight against evil. We will not waste time getting the player back into the game.

I always tell people to hang onto their character sheets if the unthinkable does happen to them. It’s not like you can never play that character again. You can always port the character over into a new game or one-shot. The character is just gone from whatever game they died in. I’ve carried characters across systems, editions, and even genres. It’s just the character I like to play. It’s a personality archetype and a backstory that I know very well. As long as the GM is cool, we’re cool.

Gaming is supposed to be fun.

No, character death is usually not “fun.” Unless we’re playing something slapstick like Toon or Paranoia, chances are a character death is kind of a big deal. Yeah, it can suck. But then we pick up the torch and sally forth. There are villains to oppose and dragons to slay. Life goes on in the world.

I don’t play TTRPGs, watch movies, read books, or watch YouTube content that is going to bum me out. I fight depression every freakin day. I don’t need more crap to wear me down. If we’re not having at least a little fun, what are we doing?

Sorry, but that whole thing about “We’re not here to have fun, we’re here to play D&D.” is absolutely ridiculous. That attitude would not last five minutes around me. We’re here to have fun, I don’t care if we have to cancel D&D and play tidily winks. This whole notion that TTRPGs are supposed to be some kind of super serious dramatical thing where nobody cracks jokes or has fun is an absolute fallacy.

Not to mention if you’re not in the game to have fun or at least come away with some sense of enjoyment, why are you even in the hobby at all? I don’t know of anyone who willingly spends 3-6 hours on a hobby they hate or maybe doesn’t bring any sort of real catharsis with it in some form. If that is the case, and someone is roleplaying as a super serious, non-therapeutic, thing they hate- maybe it’s time to seek out a mental health professional or just try meditation. WE should be having fun.

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.