Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 33 - Dealing with Character Death

Episode Date: August 9, 2020

The idiot host of this podcast keeps saying that character death is a powerful and dramatic moment.  If that's true, how do we as DMs deal with the death of a character around the table?  In this episode we talk about the dos and don'ts of character death and how to handle the moment properly.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Taking 20, Episode 33, Dealing with Character Death. This week's sponsor are co-workers. They're generally okay, except for that one. Yeah, you know the one. Screw that moron. A listener from Alabama sent an email about this topic, but didn't want their name revealed. So, listener, thank you so much. I greatly appreciate the topic. This is a topic that definitely needs to be covered. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about character death.

Please note, character death, not player death. Player death is a whole different animal. I am not qualified to talk about stuff like that. I'm just going to focus on characters. The fictional people represented by statistics on a sheet of paper, their death. In multiple episodes, I've said that character death is an important story beat. It makes for good role-playing. It makes for a good memorable night of gaming. You've heard me say this over and over again if you've listened to other episodes. That may be true, but how do you handle it as a DM? The first decision you have to make as a DM is,

is character death even a thing in my campaign? By the way, there is nothing wrong with a no decision here. A lot of adventuring happens in a high-tech or high-fantasy world. Who's to say that the character's patrons haven't taken care to make sure their investment is protected? Maybe every single settlement of 100 people or more has at least one cleric that can bring someone back from the dead. So character death may not even be a thing in your campaign. Maybe you even say that when a character would otherwise be dead, he's unconscious instead.

They're treated as out of action for a period of time. They're in the hospital, or their soul is being cared for in the great beyond. The character is simply unavailable for adventuring for a period of time. They're in the hospital or their soul is being cared for in the great beyond. The character is simply unavailable for adventuring for a period of time. And when she returns, maybe she's weakened for just a little bit, like a week. Spellcasters maybe can't cast their highest level spells during that time, or fighters take a minus two on attack rolls. Rogues have maybe minus four on their stealth and sneak skills. They're just not quite the same coming back, but they don't die. A very fun campaign can be had by all, assuming that characters never die. But what if you decide that characters can die? If so, then death must be a real and present threat within the campaign. First of all, make sure you know the rules.

In 5e, for example, if a character takes double their max hit points in a single strike, they're dead. Or if they fall to zero hit points and fail three death saving throws, they're dead. In Pathfinder, when your character's hit point total drops to negative numbers greater than your constitution score, they're dead. Or when their constitution score itself drops to zero. In Pathfinder 2nd edition, it's when you reach the dying four condition. Or, in all three of those gaming systems, certain spells can kill instantly. I believe there's nothing wrong with killing characters off in a campaign, at all. If the player chooses a path for their character that could lead to his or her death, or if the player makes an unwise choice for their character. My very first PC I

ever played, 1984 D&D Redbox. I was a first-level character new to this idea of Dungeons & Dragons, and my DM started us in a tavern. Dear God, is that cliche overdone. But that's a topic for another time. An NPC got a little mouthy with me, and I thought he was just a nobody, so I challenged him to a fight out in the alleyway. Come to find out, he was a mid-level fighter. My first PC I ever played never saw his first sunset. He was gutted in an alley and left for dead. I looked up at my first DM, who was a high

schooler, and he was a good three years older than I was at the time, and I said, why? Why would you do that to my character? And he said, well, you're the idiot who challenged someone you didn't know to a duel. Right. Lesson learned. R.I.P. Calipress, my very first character. We laughed, I rolled up a cleric, which was what the party needed anyway. Now, if there is a character death, and your campaign has any role playing in it whatsoever, and by that I mean R-O-L-E playing, then a character's death should be an important story beat and treated with respect, always.

Even when the death is unexpected, even when the character hasn't quote-unquote fulfilled his destiny, even when her story seems unfinished, if it wasn't an important moment in your story that you'd planned, it just became one. Random encounter number six, it just became a very important moment of your story. Players generally get attached to their characters, and no one can blame them. They created this fictional person from their own imagination.

Hopefully they created a backstory, even if it's not one that they shared with everyone. Oh, Tina was going to open an orphanage when her adventuring days were through. She was in an orphan herself, and she wanted a better experience than she had. Characters sometimes die saving the party, rescuing the child, sacrificing themselves for a greater good.

In a campaign long ago, a party I was DMing for underestimated a dragon fight. I was a younger DM, and I didn't know the things then that I know now, and I wasn't good at adjusting things on the fly. I made a number of mistakes in that fight. I let the dragon get the upper hand of the entire party way too quickly. It had just swooped up the cleric and dropped him from hundreds of feet up, turning the cleric into this jelly-filled pancake after the fall damage. Rather than run, the party decided to fight it out. Fast forward a few rounds. Cleric's dead,

ranger's dead, paladin and sorcerer finally decide to make a break for it. As they started to run, the dragon was faster than they were, and it became quickly apparent that they would eventually be caught. At a choke point in the dungeon, the paladin saw a group of dwarves opening the door for them to hide. This was a group of dwarves that they had run across previously, had traded with, and generally had a good relationship with.

They held open the door and beckoned them to come inside. At the table, the paladin said to the sorcerer he would hold the door as long as he could. It was suicide. He knew it. Everyone at the table knew it, but he knew he'd never make it to the door in time in heavy armor. So time slowed down. The sorcerer made it to the

door and beckoned for his friend to run. But Paladin's gonna Paladin. He was not going to run from that fight. He raised his shield and held the door as long as he could. The paladin sacrificed himself, frozen to death, under a white dragon breath, so the sorcerer could escape. His death was noble, sacrificial, in character, and powerful. Even as a young DM, I knew to end the session right there. And we raised a glass to his character, congratulated him for a great character, and then started talking to him about what he wanted to play next. So sometimes a character's death is noble. But sometimes it's ignominious.

It's undignified. It's ordinary. A character dies to a group of random bandits, or spaceship gravity failure, or shipping container drops on them. The dice simply aren't with the player that night. Their character is knocked through death's door because of it. It's no less important of a story beat. The hero lies stricken with mummy rot.

The party, unable to transport or teleport out of the pyramid, race against time to bring him back to civilization. transport or teleport out of the pyramid race against time to bring him back to civilization. They arrive just in time, only to have the character roll a natural one on the recovery save and pass away. The player sighs, folds the character sheet in half, stuffs it in a notebook. So what do you do as a DM? How do you handle this situation? Well, let's talk about the don'ts before we talk about the do's. First and foremost, do not be flippant or careless with these moments. This is a player's character who has died, and chances are that player is attached to that character. So give it the weight and gravity it deserves.

Don't punish the player because his character died. Old D&D had rules for when a character replacement was named. So a player has a character die, and they're going to bring in a replacement character. In old D&D, they would say, oh, make sure that replacement character is one level lower than the character was who died. All you're doing is punishing the player

for perhaps maybe the dice not being with them or them making a careless decision. So don't punish that player. And while we're at it, don't taunt a player over a character death, even if he made the dumbest decision on the planet. Oh, well, there's a giant black orb of negative energy staring me in the face, I stick my finger in it. So don't taunt a player over a character's death. Don't abandon that character's backstory, by the way, especially if you were tying it to the campaign. Keep it in, maybe just change the interactions.

Instead of that player being able to rescue her lost sister, now the party does, and they get to tell the lost sister, now the party does. And they get to tell the lost sister about the character's death. All she wanted was to find you and we joined her in her quest. She died fighting off a monster that was trying to kill us all. In many ways, she was assisted to all of us. And now, if you're willing, so are you. Now let's talk about things that you do. Slow things down when it happens. Give the character a meaningful death, even if it was to random die rolls or random orc number four.

Give that character her last words. Let the player tell the other characters a secret. Make a connection. Say that character's goodbyes. I guarantee if you handle it properly, your players will remember that moment. Whether the character sacrificed herself to close a portal and stop the great old ones from consuming the universe, or she rolled a natural one on a climb check and plunged 400 feet into the cold ocean while wearing plate mail. If appropriate, allow your players, their characters, and maybe

even the NPCs time to grieve. Have a roleplay moment where final words are said. Maybe even a funeral when the time is right. In the example of the paladin I talked about earlier who sacrificed himself, at the beginning of the next session, I flashed forward to an event the party otherwise would never have known about. The paladin's sacrifice allowed a group of dwarves time to barricade their own door and escape. The dwarves in this world have history singers who celebrate major events of the clan. The party, and specifically the paladin's sacrifice, was sung as the calendar flipped over to the next dwarven year. I described the history being sung, what his sacrifice meant, and how his honor and sacrifice led to the resurgence and worshippers of that character's deity amongst that Dwarven

clan. In honor of Browen, who gave everything for the Ironbeard clan and defended a land that wasn't his against threats that weren't his to save a people who will forever honor his name. to save a people who will forever honor his name. After about five seconds of silence, one of the players said, Holy shit! Everyone laughed and the moment was ruined. But give players and characters and even NPCs the ability to grieve that character's death. Immediately after it happens, take a break. Even if you're mid-combat, even if it's round seven, take a break.

Number one, it allows everyone to step away from the table. It reminds them that while it's sad that a character died, it's still just a role-playing game. So when a character dies, don't be flippant. Give it the weight that it deserves. Give characters their last words, whether a character sacrificed herself nobly or died randomly. Have a roleplay moment where final words are said. Have a funeral. Finally, take a break, even if you're in mid-combat.

Bringing characters back from the dead. Suppose it's allowed in your campaign. I mean, resurrection is fairly common in most gaming systems. Spell is cast. If the soul is willing, it comes back to the original body or a new one, depending on the spell that's used. By the way, the phrase, if the soul is willing, covers instances where players want to play new characters. There is nothing wrong with running resurrection.

In your campaign, rules as written. There's no concerns. There's no drama, there's no roleplay. The spell is cast, players pay their money, and voila, the paladin is back. The only thing you as a DM have to decide is how readily available is the magic or technology to bring someone back from the dead. Is there a Resurrect you on every street corner and people can pay for it with change in their couch? Or is it exceedingly rare and expensive? Or is it somewhere in between? What if you want to change things and you don't want resurrection to be rules as written? What options are there? To know your options, you as the GM need to understand what happens to

characters' souls in your game system and in your world after they die. On Galarian in the default Pathfinder world, the soul travels to the Boneyard where Phrasma judges the soul and sends it to its final resting place. In D&D 5th edition Forgotten Realms, the soul goes to the Fugue Plane where the character's patron deity carries it to the final plane of existence. Except for militant atheists, by the way. In Pathfinder, they're fed to Grotus, the moon god that hangs over the boneyard. And militant atheists in 5th edition are dropped into the well of the faithless, never to be seen again. So you ask yourself if resurrection works, and by the way, no is a fine answer. You may have decided earlier that yes,

death is going to be a real thing, and now you want to make it a little more hardcore and say death is final. There's no coming back from the great beyond. Once the soul departs, it's gone and gone for good. But suppose resurrection does work, and you want it to work differently than rules as written. You can turn it into a role-playing moment. Allow the character's friends to beseech the lost soul to return from the never-never. Critical Role did it this way, by the way. Based on their role-play choices, a role was made whether the soul returned, which was perfect for that show. It gave the chance for these amazing actors to role-play grief and the loss of someone dear.

There is nothing wrong with stealing that wholesale. You can make resurrection sacrifice-based. Characters must sacrifice magic items of X amount of power to bring the PC back. Or if you want to go a little darker, characters must sacrifice other living creatures to bring the PC back. A soul for a soul. This, by the way, can easily become an evil act and dramatically affect their alignment over time. We need to bring Tiana back. How far back was that orphanage we passed on the road? Instead of magic items or people, you can make it money-based. Resurrection is possible, but only a select few know how to do it. It's expensive and hard to find those people. If all else fails,

there's divine intervention. The player's soul departs, but they get the opportunity to make a deal with a god, a devil, or the thing from beyond the stars. Even if resurrection's allowed and characters can come back from their eternal rest, a PC's death should still be a major moment in the campaign. Give the players and characters time to react and mourn and work the new character back in if possible. If they're not going to bring the character back, give them leave to grieve and then move on. Thank you for listening to Taking 20 episode 33, Dealing with Character Death. Please give us a like, a follow, a subscription, whatever, wherever you happen to find this particular podcast. I would greatly appreciate it. Once again, I want to thank this

week's sponsors, co-workers. They tend to cause about twice the amount of drama that they help fix. This has been Taking 20, episode 33, Dealing with Character Death. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.