by Andrew Gronosky
This article is from Drintera® Magazine issue 7.
Death for player characters is a controversial subject in the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) community. There are two valid, competing schools of thought. The first is that a TTRPG is primarily a game that involves decisions with risks and consequences, and the death of a player character should be one of those consequences. The opposing school of thought is that a TTRPG is primarily a story, and the death of a major character derails the story if it happens without narrative logic behind their death.
Illustration by Aaron Lee, ©2016 Sine Nomine Publishing. Used with permission.
This is, of course, a matter of style and preferences. I feel the need to mention PC death because it's the reason resurrection magic exists in Drintera. The game master will have to decide how easily player characters will have access to resurrection magic—if at all.
The Death Talk
Most TTRPG rules dodge the question of when PCs should die. They say the game master can change or alter the rules however they want . . . then leave the game master adrift. Okay, fine, you can do whatever you want. But what should you want?
I strongly recommend you establish guidelines for your table about character death. Have the "Death Talk" between the GM and the players, then record your decision. Bickering and hurt feelings are predictable outcomes if you don't discuss the mechanics around player character death ahead of time. If your game system is bold enough to take a stance on PC death, you can, of course, play those rules as written, but you still need to discuss them to ensure everyone knows what to expect.
Options for PC Death in Your Campaign
I present a range of options here for how to handle character death. Note that your campaign may change from one approach to another over time. If you're playing a game like Dungeons & Dragons where PCs unlock resurrection magic by reaching a certain experience level, your campaign will transition into the "death is temporary" approach at that point.
The quickest path to consensus is for the game master to review the options and then narrow the field by ruling out any approaches they'd be unwilling to enforce. They can then present the remaining options to their players.
Death Can be Fun!
You can play a fantasy TTRPG as a survival challenge, also known as a deadly campaign, killer dungeon, or (according to one interpretation) "old school." Everyone knows their character can be killed by a single bad decision or by plain bad luck. When a player character dies, make a new one. In the first decade or more of Dungeons & Dragons, this was the assumed style of play.
The GM needs to tell the players to not get too attached to their first-level characters. Don’t invest time in a deep backstory. The dice give, the dice take away. This approach works best if you have a stable gaming group whose members know each other well. I wouldn’t recommend it for convention games or other open tables unless it’s extremely clear what the players are signing up for.
The game master is still expected to be fair, but they're not expected to guarantee that every challenge is surmountable—players are supposed to know when to run away. Expendable non-player characters, called "hirelings" in the old days, might accompany the player characters, and they can be demonstratively killed by the GM when they want to show the party that a situation is deadly. The game master can also provide opportunities for the heroes to meet allies during the adventure so replacement characters can be recruited easily.
You can play a deadly campaign serious or silly. The serious version is a tense endurance contest to see who can make it to the end of the adventure while amassing treasure and/or achieving narrative goals. The silly version has the GM create deadly situations as a form of artistic expression, and then players give awards for the most entertaining PC death. Everyone remembers the time Brenda's paladin fell down a pit trap into a gelatinous cube, or the time the whole party was turned into a sculpture garden because they really, really thought they could handle that medusa.
There are two pitfalls to a deadly campaign. First, some players might halfheartedly agree to it then resent it when the dice kill their character. Second, players might start intentionally manipulating each other into deadly situations. You need strong trust and an adventuresome (but not foolhardy!) attitude to make this genuinely fun.
Death is Temporary
It's become a trope in fantasy TTRPGs that protagonists can be brought back from the dead. Not all game systems allow for this—low fantasy systems in particular tend to make death permanent. Nevertheless, resurrection magic is part of the culture of fantasy TTRPGs, and we’ve included it as part of the lore of Drintera.
The game master will have to decide whether and how player characters can come back from the dead. If you're playing a system where player characters unlock resurrection spells at a certain level, the decision is made for you when the characters reach that level.
If you use resurrection as an option, there are two things you need to decide.
The first question players should ask is whether player characters should have access to resurrection earlier than the rules require (or, in games that don’t have resurrection rules, if they should have access at all). Resurrection can be made available through religious centers, NPCs, magic items, and even divine intervention. Some players probably expect when their character dies, the other PCs can just bring their body to the nearest temple and have it revived. You can make it that simple if you want to.
The second question is what to do when resurrection isn’t possible. Most resurrection magic requires an intact body. It’s possible in a fantasy game for a PC to die in a way where the body isn’t recoverable. They PC might get disintegrated or something. Then what? The GM and players must have a mutual understanding whether irrevocable death can happen or if the GM will use their authority to prevent it.
Death is Permanent
While stopping short of actively encouraging PC death, some GMs and players prefer to play character death according to the rules as written. If the dice say a character dies, they die. If the rules say nobody in the party can cast raise dead, the character stays dead—it’s time to make a new one.
At the time of this writing in 2023, my sense is this is considered a hardline approach. The main arguments in its favor are that the risk of PC death makes the game challenging and that it adds suspense that ultimately makes the game more fun.
Communicate early and often if you intend to make death permanent. Note that this option is about how to adjudicate character death when it comes up, not how deadly the encounters should be. That's a separate question.
Death is Negotiable
Another approach is that when a player character would die, the player can negotiate a less serious outcome with the game master. Maybe the character sustains a life-altering injury, such as loss of an eye or a limb. Maybe the player agrees that the character's prized magic item is destroyed. Maybe the player agrees their character falls into a coma and needs to be dramatically rushed to a temple or magic healing fountain.
The challenge is to apply this equally to all players. The negotiated outcome must be equally serious, or as close to it as is feasible, every time a character faces death.
Death is not an Option
In some gaming groups, it's the game master's job to prevent player characters from dying, and they're expected to overrule the dice to do so. For example, the GM might reduce the damage of a hit to a number that leaves the PC alive but incapacitated.
The most likely problem regarding this approach is that if it hasn't been discussed openly, some players might implicitly expect the GM to do overrule the dice to prevent a PC from dying, only to find that the GM is committed to the rules as written. Then one or more players get upset when a PC dies.
You may be able to create a house rule about PC death that prevents misunderstandings. For example, whenever a player character would die, they're instead knocked out for a half-hour of real time or until the party reaches a safe resting place. It's always helpful to have rules that your group wants to follow instead of rules that can spoil your fun.
Just Wing It
This is the only common approach I can't recommend. Many GMs and players think that because the rules say the GM has to exercise judgment, the GM should just overrule the dice at whim. It's easy to be consistent, and therefore fair, if the GM is intervening to prevent a previously defined outcome (death of a PC). It's an entirely different matter for the GM to habitually alter the dice results in secret to vaguely "make the story better." By making secret rulings on the spur of the moment, the GM is not creating a game table that’s fair to all the players.
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