As the title implies, today we'll be jumping to the opposite end of character creation. How exactly should you handle death as a GM?
Well, to be honest, there's no good way. This isn't for fault of the players, however, but rather the GM him/herself. Here's why: The GM is a subtle creature, often having Joss Whedon Syndrome or Angry GM Syndrome.
AGMS and JWS affect countless PCs every session. During an attack of AGMS, you can expect irritability, an overabundance of useless NPCs, far too many traps, and ECLs four, five, or even ten levels higher than anticipated. For warning signs, see (1) Pining over a girl (2) Stress at work or in classes (3...
Seriously though and stepping back now... What I'd like to call JWS, though it applies to many other things, is a GM believing that to be taken seriously they must be willing and able to kill a character. In my personal experience, I've always really tried (though my players would likely disagree) to keep them alive. When they're at that all critical moment in a fight, I'll drop a nat 20 and tell them I critically failed, or admit when I actually did critically fail...
Even better was one fight between two monsters, which would've killed the party had both stayed alive, managed to fight to the death. The one that was left standing was more than enough to challenge the party, but guess what? He spoke common. A crazy bug demon from outer-freaking-space speaks common and one of my players had a charisma roll of over 25. So, what do you do? Improvise. That's a topic we're DEFINITELY coming back to.
In the mean time, death. To be honest, I don't think you have to kill a PC to be taken seriously because there are ways around it while making it SEEM like you can take shiny things from them, but if you feel you do then keep a couple of things in mind:
1. Never kill a character that the player is intensely attached to their character WITHOUT a way to resurrect them
1.a. Here's a clause: One of these things -> The party has to be willing too, if they're not, you may have to break game play for divine intervention (something I guarantee the players will hate, especially if you didn't do it for another player) or my favorite, a personal session.
--> I once had a player in the middle of a carnival tent of vampires enjoying a show at night. He wanted to super charge a sunlight spell by making a pact with a demon. The demon agreed and gave him {20 d10s} and all he had to get was 40. If he did, he succeeded... He didn't. The demon dragged him into hell and I told the player take 5, we'll do a special session, you're coming back. He enjoyed the rest of the night and had one HELL of a session... Okay, sorry, sorry, it wasn't that funny...
2. Never kill a disinterested player unless you 200% want them out of the game. There's always a way to bring them back in... Whether it's a secret mission given by a god or main villain, or a player specific quest, if you want this person to keep playing, remember that it's not the character that's causing problems, it's you as the GM who haven't given the player what his character needs.
3. Make the death epic. If you're going to kill someone, don't glaze over it. Remember, they've met {and hopefully not killed all} NPCs. People will remember them. NPCs aren't squirrels, they don't have a 5 second - SHINY!!!!
4. If you honestly feel that the particular character needed to die, don't start the player off at 1 or whatever starting level was {unless they still ARE starting level}. Here's the thing, to help someone cope with the death of their character {admittedly not as ridiculous as I'm making it sound}, give them something. A solid quest or purpose for a new character or a fancy little item that no one else has, maybe an exciting back story. The players are used to the current group dynamic, there's going to need to be a reason for this new interloper.
Keep rollin' 20s,
-DC
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