Viewpoint Character death

[still watching fma]

The one where I can still contribute to the writing.

Yuck, well if thats your perrogative.

 

[Damafaud]

I WIN

dances

 

[Pith]

I WIN

dances

YOU DO WIN, CROWN FOR YOU

 

[Damafaud]

YOU DO WIN, CROWN FOR YOU

 

[Delinquent]

Because having a character reach the end of their character arch is much more satisfying than said character dying to a random goblin.

 

[SCSaya06]

I mean, I don't really think the WHY is rocket science. People get attached to characters. Death might be narratively satisfying and appropriate, you might get a really cool moment out of it and all, but I think people grow genuine attachments to the characters themselves.

To expand on the WHY aspect, I suppose this is also a good time to ask WHY OP is so fixated on the notion of character death being the only way to show conflict or make a compelling action narrative.

Life, precious as it is, is ultimately not the only stake that matters in a story and arguably, the real world. Dignity is equally as important. Stories that play on the latter can be just as or even more engaging than stories where characters just die.

For example, there was a medieval RP I was about to join years ago as a knight character. During casual chat, GM let slide that the threat he had prepared for my character was not the possibility of death but rather, the loss of territory, position and influence. That made me consider my actions more carefully than if he just threatened to kill her outright. If he kills my character, I can always come back with someone else, possibly someone as good as the last one. On the other hand, if that incident came to pass, I would be stuck playing the same character but with reduced capabilities. I can actively work to avoid that or let it happen and find alternative means to regain my powers or continue without them. Both are equally much more engaging rather than just 'resetting'. And yes, this is an RP where only one character is allowed for one player.

And again, there's also the logistics and timeline of it all, as I already said previously. As a player, having a character die would mean another round of writing and for those who do it, coding, a new sheet. As a GM, it translates to time spent waiting and finding a way to weave replacement characters in the existing narrative. Players may also just opt to drop out entirely. This is fine in moderation but I do want to avoid just outright losing all my players, especially with the high rates of turnover and ghosting that happens on web RPs.

OP brings up competent GMs. For an RP with high-stakes action and conflict, I would expect that competent GM to also implement a decent resolution system that is capable of taking into account all factors involved. This to me, is impartiality and neutrality. I can't even count how many forum RPs I've been in where the GM always dangles the threat of them just randomly killing their players' characters without even setting a proper system in place.

I'm not averse to character death so long as there's a good system in place to facilitate it. But I'm not holding it against someone who can competently write their way out of that scenario either.

 

[Pith]

To expand on the WHY aspect, I suppose this is also a good time to ask WHY OP is so fixated on the notion of character death being the only way to show conflict or make a compelling action narrative. (ETC)

Yes to all of this.

I think a good thing for people to keep in mind about a competent GM also is that balancing players & plot is not an even 50/50 split, it depends very much on the game and the players, at least in a tabletop setting, tho I suppose it's similar in a very organized prose-style RPG. My GM is currently working on a slice-of-life one-shot--NO ONE is going to be dying in that and, barring doing something incredibly stupid, and all of us who are going to be involved are really looking forward to it, even though the stakes are going to be completely different than a regular game. And that works for us, because we like that sort of thing. It's not what we want to do all the time, but it makes for a nice break, you know?

Weaving new characters in constantly is also incredibly annoying, especially in a plot-driven game. Sometimes there's a reason to drop a character in after another dies, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll come in with all the trust and team-playing as the lost member. Deaths happen, but they can also upset party dynamic. I don't really Critical Role, but when they had a major character death there was a funeral for the entire next episode for the party to process that shit before everyone moved on, and I think that's a really important thing to allow for as well.

 

[Lorsh]

kill 'em all

characters must DIE so that the FEELING OF DANGER is not lost on the RP

characters must be SLAUGHTERED so that the LIVING feel drama and that it might happen to them

i attempt to remove plot armor as much as possible, so you'll DIE when you make a wrong choice!!

try to fight a horde of zombies solo? you DIE!!

try to fistfight armed soldiers when outnumbered? you DIE!!!

try to do a heroic sacrifice? there's no miracle survival, you DIE!!!

 

[Epiphany]

Boy, so much to reply to. So here are my thoughts in no particular order.

1. Some players hate character death because they don't want the story to end. This happens all the time in works of fiction (Sherlock Holmes and Conan the Barbarian both had dozens and dozens of books and eventual deaths that their authors walked back because of reader outrage). And that's not even the reader's own creation! There's something to be said for "And he rode off into the sunset" and there are a great many people who don't want definitive ends to their characters so they're free to imagine what their character got up to after the game ended, if it did.

2. In a lot of older games decided by dice, the emphasis historically was more on roll than role. For players who play RPGs as games to be solved or tried again vs. as stories that are about people, you're always going to find a gulf of incomprehension (in both directions). A lot of newer (i.e. made in the last decade or so) tabletop game systems have a lot more player-character-survival-wiggleroom baked into the ruleset and that's largely because the average roleplayer isn't a wargamer simulationist from the 1970s but usually someone trying to play a character who is a person first and a collection of stats second.

3. YRoCMV = Your Rule of Cool May Vary. The death a DM has in mind is likely different than the death the player might have in mind for their character...and that's without the potential for arbitrary death via bad dice rolls. This is why communication is so key between players and the DM, to avoid unpleasant surprises. For the DM's sake, not just the player. As unsatisfying as a dead-before-her-time character might be the for the player, I'm of the belief that the average DM really does want to tell an awesome story and having a bummed out player is a bug, not a feature. Avoid the pain by talking it out ahead of time.

4. Inserting new characters into existing stories works about as well as inserting new characters into existing TV shows does. I.e. at best you keep treading water but at worst the show sinks. The character won't have the history, even if the player does. It won't feel the same, for the other players too. And frankly it runs a real risk of making the overarching story of the game a bit incoherent, because good games and good stories do tend to embrace character arcs over a span of time and changing the cast up usually changes tone with it. Once Upon a Time switched things up in its last season and tanked. Grey's Anatomy's core cast is virtually gone and while it remains a popular show, it's because it picked up new viewers even as it shed old ones. Etc. etc.

5. Threatening the life of a player character can certainly create a sense of danger and tension but it's the riskiest and arguably least interesting way to really challenge a character. You want to make the Paladin sweat? Put an innocent man's life at stake. Hell, have a bad guy kill some innocents up front as an introduction before they face off with him holding another hostage...someone the party now knows he's willing to kill. You want to make a Rogue or Assassin sweat? Put their name or reputation on the line. Have failure lead to them being manhunted or having to flee their home territory. The DM has a real advantage here if they know their players well; chances are good you know what someone's character's going to value because it'll be something the player usually values. Put that in danger and you've got instant high stakes without needless, pointless, game-disrupting PC death on the table.

 

[Myot]

kill 'em all

characters must DIE so that the FEELING OF DANGER is not lost on the RP

characters must be SLAUGHTERED so that the LIVING feel drama and that it might happen to them

i attempt to remove plot armor as much as possible, so you'll DIE when you make a wrong choice!!

try to fight a horde of zombies solo? you DIE!!

try to fistfight armed soldiers when outnumbered? you DIE!!!

try to do a heroic sacrifice? there's no miracle survival, you DIE!!!

Have 10 year old charge an undead giant. I found that Lyanna Mormont scene rather suicidal considering she had a choice in the matter. The giant was ignoring her and she could still move.

 

[FoolsErin]

I was actually once in a roleplay where ”random” death could occur. The roleplay’s plot was split into chapters, and every chapter they’d kill off multiple characters and we’d all have to vote on which people were the traitors. This sounds like it would end rather quickly, but this was a huge group, some people had multiple characters, and there was also an afterlife situation that was GMed so people weren’t entirely out of the game. It was suspenseful seeing who died every chapter, and I amongst other people got to write a really awesome scene where my character got absolutely pissed when the traitors were revealed, especially angry because the traitors were close friends of her. ( Nightwisher i am still mad i didn’t see that coming dude what the hell)

But, some of the effectiveness was lost on this plot because the people who died were mainly inactive characters or people who dropped out. I think there was like three people at most who were active in the afterlife because there simply wasn’t much of anyone active who was killed. It sounded intense until the large group size sucked a great deal of the fear out of the deaths. The real stress came from the accusations where the characters risked arrest if they were voted on, only temporarily if they weren’t the traitor, but it was still awful being chucked under the bus in front of everyone.

So basically the point I’m trying to make with this is that suspense and fear can come from death, but it can also be much more effectively hammered in by other things.

also hey Crow and thatguyinthestore remember this


Edit: To bring up another example that I think also effectively drives this point home, there was another roleplay I was in with pretty much the same people that came before the murder-heavy one. It was a lot more light-hearted, but at one point there was a point where we all fought a big bad boss and were miserably about to be defeated before being rescued. Completely independent of the GM, two characters went into comas and one died. Now the dead character eventually was resurrected thanks to another character’s “medical” skills, but overall I’d say that neither the dead character nor the two comatose ones provided more drama than the other. People used the dead character as a source of sadness and anger that sparked character interaction, and the two comatose characters caused a lot of worry and tension if the two were going to live or not. Death may have a weird curiosity to it because of the abundance of plot armor, but isn’t necessarily the more narratively interesting or in any way better than a non-death option. Well I mean, this isn’t the case all the time. Sometimes your super mage almost dying in a magical explosion is a lot less interesting than him actually kicking the bucket. The point I’m trying to make here is that there’s a time and place for everything, and death isn’t always the best thing to threaten to raise the stakes and all that.

hey CocoaMarshmallow and Haz. you’re relevant to this story

Edit 2: I want to point out that the murder-happy roleplay eventually petered out and was declared dead. This was mainly because of OOC drama and overall disinterest rather than any specific reason related to the murderness of it, just wanted to point that out.

 

[Crow]

In a roleplaying context, yeah, there is a right to be mad at character death. That's why there are warning labels.

In roleplaying, most of the time if it's your character, and when you kick the bucket, you're out with no more funny fun times. It helps if you can have multiples and all.

Roleplaying certainly is different from writing a solo-act, and that's where this feeling stems from.

 

[thatguyinthestore]

as a GM I’ve found that character death is often best left at the door unless the rp itself is built around it. especially in rps that have an afterlife system in place, it often just puts more stress and workload on the GM for something that isn’t entirely built around it. plus, I’ve found that character death oftentimes puts unnecessary stress on the players that otherwise wouldn’t be needed, lol

 

[Haz.]

Completely independent of the GM, two characters went into comas and one died.

Makoto was K.O.'ed in a collaboration post between me and Thatguy, so I did it first and I did it with actual GM coordination.

 

[FoolsErin]

Makoto was K.O.'ed in a collaboration post between me and Thatguy, so I did it first and I did it with actual GM coordination.

...Well shit. I wasn’t aware of that.

Edit: Actually no, I think I was but I completely forgot. Whoops.

 

[CocoaMarshmallow]

It was a lot more light-hearted, but at one point there was a point where we all fought a big bad boss and were miserably about to be defeated before being rescued. Completely independent of the GM, two characters went into comas and one died.

Little confession: at that point, I was struggling to do something really big for the story, so I decided to go "all-out" and have a big consequence for it (because I love abusing my character). I think a big factor of it was being jealous that the other character died. Petty reason, I know. I was going through a very weird mental state at the time and just wanted to be noticed. It means a lot to be remembered for it, so thank you!

 

[FoolsErin]

Little confession: at that point, I was struggling to do something really big for the story, so I decided to go "all-out" and have a big consequence for it (because I love abusing my character). I think a big factor of it was being jealous that the other character died. Petty reason, I know. I was going through a very weird mental state at the time and just wanted to be noticed. It means a lot to be remembered for it, so thank you!

No dude, thank you! I wouldn’t have gotten tied second in the little musical performance competition without your help.

guess we’re even now lmao

 

[Nightwisher]

FoolsErin Lmao, there were like three or four people DMing me about how they knew I wasn't the traitor. It was beautiful.

 

[BackSet]

Because I'm a sentinmental idiot who get's attached to characters easily.

Also because I generally don't play in genres where someone dying is a serious threat unless it's plot important. You know, Justice League Unlimited type stuff or some non-specific magical girl stuff.

If my character is going to die it is going to be a planned out at least somewhat (even if it's planned put a day ahead of time.

As for Tabletop RPGs. Well, I've never gotten far enough in one to actually die because I can't stay in a single group for too long but even so I always have a meat shield to hide behind.

 

[Crayons]

As for Tabletop RPGs. Well, I've never gotten far enough in one to actually die because I can't stay in a single group for too long but even so I always have a meat shield to hide behind.

In DnD 1st edition characters died in the first session all the time. You were one bad dice roll away from death at all times and super squishy. When I played it, I made a group of clerics in the hope one would survive long enough to engage in a storyline. The one that made it to level 4 after the others all pegged it was the one with the worst stats. XD

I feel like surviving in tabletop games is a bit too easy in the new editions.

 

[BackSet]

In DnD 1st edition characters died in the first session all the time. You were one bad dice roll away from death at all times and super squishy. When I played it, I made a group of clerics in the hope one would survive long enough to engage in a storyline. The one that made it to level 4 after the others all pegged it was the one with the worst stats. XD

I feel like surviving in tabletop games is a bit too easy in the new editions.

Start GMing then. Use your power to make life hell.

 

[Crayons]

Start GMing then. Use your power to make life hell.

Ha ha ha no. It's the way the system is set up. And no, I'm not going to GM and create a home brew system where everyone gets 1/3 their usually allocated hit points. XD

I just feel like as a player there is literally nothing at stake in DnD fights in 5e. I like to feel somewhat challenged at least.

 

[Epiphany]

There are probably some newer game engines that cater to the tastes of those who like high risk, high turnover game playing.

For better or worse, the trend in the past twenty years away from that and more towards baked-in survivability tells me that the majority of people who game today don't enjoy arbitrary death.

Thankfully, even with systems like 5e, there are plenty of ways to make a player character wish they'd died.

 

[Crayons]

There are probably some newer game engines that cater to the tastes of those who like high risk, high turnover game playing.

For better or worse, the trend in the past twenty years away from that and more towards baked-in survivability tells me that the majority of people who game today don't enjoy arbitrary death.

Thankfully, even with systems like 5e, there are plenty of ways to make a player character wish they'd died.

I mean TBH I think that's a good move. It's better if people are invested in stories and character development than just murder hoboing their way around a dungeon.

We always end up having very fighting-centric stories because one of our players loves the fights but doesn't like actually role playing.

 

[Idea]

Well, pretty much all I would have to offer has already being said, so I’ll stick to just giving my general opinion and adding the little bit left.

Why do people hate killing their characters? Attachment, not wanting to waste their work/effort and time, and the risk of becoming non-participants or alienated within their group if their character dies. That said, people in general seem to agree that at the right time and place they would be fine with their characters dying.

This general position is one I stand by as well.

That said, I also don’t like character death in RPs as much for the same reason that I often recommend not just killing your character’s parents off: wasted potential. There’s so much more that one can do with a character, and so much of it can hit home so much harder if just well-crafted personally to the character and their development. Plus the stakes can feel much higher because they actually feel more real - it’s at least to me much harder to feel real stakes when you have the general awareness that failure means the end of a character, such as death or “the end of the world”. But when a character can be seriously hurt and go on, if the stakes are about the price or the obstacle that leaves a scar without killing then they feel a lot more, I guess, “plausible”.

And beyond just other things one can do to hurt a character, what one can do to them and the characters around them while they are alive is exponentially more than if you kill them off. And often times, I would argue, much more interesting.