Experiences Killing Off Characters?

[Jannah]

There seems to be mixed views on this from what I've seen so let's discuss. How do you feel about killing off your characters? Not just NPC's, but characters that you have actually written and developed.

Personally I kind of enjoy killing off characters if the plot calls for it. Sometimes a major death can make the story that much more impactful and undoubtedly raise the stakes for the other characters involved. Yes, it's emotional, especially if said character is one you've grown attached to, but that's kind of the point. Sometimes death hurts and different people react to it differently. It can be fun to explore that. Plus I delve into a lot of dark themes already anyway. Death is simply one more.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I mean it depends, do you mean literally kill off or do you mean write out of the story?

Literal death of the characters would not make sense in most of my roleplays as there would be not external/internal reason for the character to die. In the few stories where death would be a possibility I don't think I'd care really. One, because I would know going into it that there is a high possibility that my character would die. Two because I don't have deep emotional connections to my characters. I make them as needed to perform a specific role in the plot and discard them when the roleplay is done. A few might go through a few different iterations is I like the concept but that's about it.

Not to mention that if I have to remove one character from the action I will likely just switch POV to another playable character and keep moving forward. I do that all the time when I have to write a character out of the roleplay for whatever reason. Maybe I'm bored playing them, maybe they don't fit the way the story is going forward, etc.

 

[Jannah]

I mean it depends, do you mean literally kill off or do you mean write out of the story?

Literal death of the characters would not make sense in most of my roleplays as there would be not external/internal reason for the character to die. In the few stories where death would be a possibility I don't think I'd care really. One, because I would know going into it that there is a high possibility that my character would die. Two because I don't have deep emotional connections to my characters. I make them as needed to perform a specific role in the plot and discard them when the roleplay is done. A few might go through a few different iterations is I like the concept but that's about it.

Not to mention that if I have to remove one character from the action I will likely just switch POV to another playable character and keep moving forward. I do that all the time when I have to write a character out of the roleplay for whatever reason. Maybe I'm bored playing them, maybe they don't fit the way the story is going forward, etc.

I mean literally kill off, as in they die during the story.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I mean literally kill off, as in they die during the story.

I figured as much. Than yeah I don't care. Chances are I'll have planned for their death in the story at some point so it won't be a surprise or anything. And I'll just switch to a new characters POV to continue on with the plot.

 

[Jannah]

I figured as much. Than yeah I don't care. Chances are I'll have planned for their death in the story at some point so it won't be a surprise or anything. And I'll just switch to a new characters POV to continue on with the plot.

I do a lot of Hunger Games RP myself and naturally it's to be expected characters will die during that. It's actually how I learned to love killing off characters to drive plot forward, haha.

 

[Idea]

When talking about whether I am willing to do something, it has to go through a few filters that have to do with my motivation: many of my choices are ultimately driven by my goal of never feeling like the time spent here was a waste, to make what I create have value such that I can look back to it without regretting. As such, killing off a character, at least in theory, is about set up and execution. I want to explore a character's potential as well as set them up as someone whose presence matters enough to be missed when they are gone. The impactful death, meaningful death, is ultimately what I would ask of a character death in order to want such a thing to happen. I want to realize the potential of that event, because otherwise, I'll just feel like I just wasted a character, and all the time and effort thrown into it.

This is why (well, factoring in my general non-competitiveness too) I am averse to those RPs were you can expect your character to die at any point: I could almost randomly loose all my hard work for little more reason than someone going "somebody has to die". With that said though, I've only actually had characters die maybe a couple of times. The problem with my stance on the matter is that I need to actually get the time to get the build up done before I can execute the killing plan... but my RPs, though some did last a good chunk of time at least by typical standards, either ended too fast or move too slowly for us to have gotten to that point in the story. At some point I'll hopefully get the chance to actually complete such major events though.

There is one death of a character of mine that's fresh on my mind, however. It was in a D&D session back when I was experimenting with it, my character was named Jake Spear. Without getting too in-depth, he was a bit of a deranged person who was currently impersonating the tyrant king of the city. Unexpectdly the GM decided to have my character's act having been caught by the officials, and a chase scene began. Finally the group managed to get on a ship and sail away, but my character was tied up now and we had a lawful good dragonborn paladin in the party. Long story short, my character was thrown and eaten by the dragon pet of our paladin before the adventure even really began.
It was a very fun experience, and one I'm sure I'll remember for quite some time, but it was also pretty frustrating admitedly. There was a character full of potential ended in such an anticlimatic manner. Were I not allowed to make a new character, I'm sure I wouldn't have taken it in my stride.

 

[Whisker]

There seems to be mixed views on this from what I've seen so let's discuss. How do you feel about killing off your characters? Not just NPC's, but characters that you have actually written and developed.

Personally I kind of enjoy killing off characters if the plot calls for it. Sometimes a major death can make the story that much more impactful and undoubtedly raise the stakes for the other characters involved. Yes, it's emotional, especially if said character is one you've grown attached to, but that's kind of the point. Sometimes death hurts and different people react to it differently. It can be fun to explore that. Plus I delve into a lot of dark themes already anyway. Death is simply one more.

Yes and no.

I don't enjoy killing off characters before they hit their peak so to speak. If I take the time to write and flesh out and plot a character's motivation, I want some return investment for the trouble first. Some kind of arc that is fulfilling and allows other characters to form and have emotional attachment to the character I am writing. I do not believe in using my characters as plot devices for the stories other people want to tell (and boy, do I have some stories about this particular subject). Yes, they're a part of some overarching story but they should have a story of their own to tell as well. Otherwise, what was the point of writing them?

If the former condition is met, I am generally content to kill them.

 

[Enum]

Killing characters, though difficult, can be a fantastic end to a lovely arc. It can also be used as a final piece of characterization.

What frustrates me is players who try to kill off characters that haven't had enough time to develop, then get frustrated when few people really seem that upset.

 

[Corrosion]

I have to admit I have a tendency to pull a Rogue One pretty often. Spend weeks or months building up likable characters with backstories and personalities, then kill them all at the last part. Done right it can have a major dramatic impact, done wrong and it'll have no purpose because players feel no connection and attachment to them.

 

[Jannah]

I have to admit I have a tendency to pull a Rogue One pretty often. Spend weeks or months building up likable characters with backstories and personalities, then kill them all at the last part. Done right it can have a major dramatic impact, done wrong and it'll have no purpose because players feel no connection and attachment to them.

Yea exactly. It needs to be done carefully. I enjoy doing it, but it's not something to be done on a whim.

 

[SCSaya06]

I kill off characters. For characters I do decide to kill off though, I tend to already hard-wire into their plot or story that they're going to die. No matter how they develop, they're going to die. Yeah, this makes it difficult when I start investing a lot and getting attached to the marked character but on the flip side, it does allow me to picture the aftermaths of their deaths better.

The closest analogy I can think of is when someone likened it to preparing a pig for slaughter. There has to be buildup and more importantly, reason. You "fatten" them up first so to speak. You don't just pick one randomly and start shooting.

I don't think character deaths alone make stories much more interesting. I don't consider it a selling point. My friends who are big Game of Thrones fans always tried to get me into it by telling me that it's cool because it kills off characters. Like, no. That's not going to make me suddenly go out there and buy them. They don't try to sell me its story or its characters. Only the fact that the story kills off people. Not a knock on GoT though. I'm sure it's a pretty well-written story.

So yeah. When I kill off a character, even one that is well-loved by myself personally, it's because I already intended them to die somewhere along the way. Otherwise, I tend to evaluate whether I can get away with not killing anybody at all and still end up with a somewhat decent story.

 

[Nobelia]

I toy with the idea often, but I'm still too much of a wuss to put those thoughts into action. That, and I doubt my ability to pull off writing a meaningful death without it seeming forced.