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PC Death And Your Campaign
By Kate Manchester | Published 1st week of November 2006, Updated May 23, 2021
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #381
A Brief Word From Johnn
Volume 2: 5 Room Dungeons Ready For DownloadThe second volume of 5 Room Dungeons contest entries is now ready for download.
Featured in this volume:
Warts and All by Paul Darcy
Temple of the Volcano God by DJ Mindermast
The Necromancer’s Cave by Morpha
Merchant’s Crypt by Aki Halme
The Temple Defiled by Tyler Turner
Download (PDF 1MB) – 5 RoomDungeons – Vol02
Roleplaying Tips Weekly Turns 7
T’was November 1999 when I sent the first issues of Roleplaying Tips Weekly to friends, family, and other victims. Thanks to Steve B. for the awesome HTML volunteering, and to Erin Smale for webmaster fu. Thanks also to Scott, Leslie, and 1d100 other generous folks who’ve helped with their time and expertise over the years.
And thanks to you, dear GMs, for playing RPGs and having more fun while doing it!
To best celebrate this birthday, I figure its time for this week’s issue, is it not? It’s about tips and strategies on recovering from PC death. Thanks for the article, Kate.
Get a game in this week.
Cheers,
Johnn Four
You’re running your campaign, and everything’s going great. At least it was, until one or more of the player characters die. So, what now? Do you continue the campaign, or bring it to an end? If you want to keep your campaign going despite this setback, here are a few suggestions:
Is There An Alternative Outcome?
Ask yourself if you want the PC to be truly dead. If not, here are a couple alternatives:There In Spirit
The character could be dead, but their spirit could have remained, either as an immaterial ghost or in possession of the nearest sentient creature (giving them the ability to speak). Restoring the character could become a new quest for the remaining PCs (or at least entertaining if the PC came back as a talking dog, bird, badger, etc.) While this option is more believable in a fantasy setting, it could still work in a modern or sci-fi setting.Penalty
The character survives, but incurs some sort of penalty. For example, in the Shadowrun system a player can elect to spend a stat point to bring the character back. You could enact a similar system, where the PC is returned to life, but loses levels, experience, abilities, or items.Change Of Fate
Alternatively, you could change the PC’s fate. Instead of letting the character die, you could slate the PC for a darker Fate of your choosing, and thus is allowed to cheat death this time.Avoid bringing the PCs back so often your players become complacent. If they know you’ll bring their PC back, they’ll be more likely to try more foolhardy actions. Though, that’s not always such a bad thing.
What’s The Campaign’s Power Level?
If the player must make a new PC, consider the current power level of your campaign. For more on this topic, take a look at RPT #129 | Old Campaign, New PCs: Creating New Characters For Existing Campaigns.The Lower Levels
In a low-powered campaign, it’s not a big deal to make a character starting back at square one. The other characters are either relatively low level or haven’t gained lots of items, contacts, abilities, etc. If the PC died as a result of bad luck or the campaign is close to approaching the middle levels, consider giving the new PC a little extra, perhaps an additional level, a few more build points, or a small, special item (for example, a +1 sword that belonged to their father or a very helpful contact.) That ‘advantage’ could also serve as the plot hook for the next installment of your campaign.The Middle Levels
In the middle levels, you have to balance the creation of a useful and viable PC without penalizing the surviving ones. How do you accomplish this? Many systems allow for rapid progression at lower levels by setting progressively higher requirements for any sort of advancement, whether it be in levels or abilities.If the other players don’t mind a campaign temporarily geared to help keep the lower level PC healthy (for example, going after orcs instead of hill giants) then a low-powered character might be the best option.
If that doesn’t work, let them start at or below the party’s average level. For systems that don’t have levels, you could:
- Allow the player to use some or all of the dead PC’s unspent xp
- Give the player extra build points
- Give them xp equal to the number of sessions they attended prior to their PC’s death
- Award an amount based on the average xp earned or spent by the rest of the players.
Thus, the more a player helps the campaign, the more points he or she will earn. If the amount gets excessive, you can change the ratio (but warn the players in advance) or set a limit on the amount that can be used per character.
The Upper Echelons
The death of a PC in a high-powered or long-running campaign presents a thorny problem for the GM. It might be a good idea to consult with your group, or have the rules agreed on in advance to avoid conflicts later.Most of the suggestions used for the middle levels can be used for the upper ones:
- A starting or low level character could serve as a henchperson for the party, always staying in the background and exposed to less risk than the rest of the party.
- The ‘average level’ ruling could be modified to something closer to two or three levels below the party.
- The special item could be translated to a protection spell that lasts until the character can catch up to the party’s current level.
On the subject of such opportunities, you could also run one or more adventures between games (over e-mail or phone if need be) that allow the new PC to gain xp without the party. These can serve the dual purpose as part of the new PC’s back story.
It Doesn’t Matter
Some GMs simply make you use a starter PC when your character dies, no matter how powerful the surviving characters are or what happened to the dead character. This is common in live-action or IRC (chat) gaming, where you often have lots of players at varied power levels.Tabletop, however, tends to have a more stable player base, and I feel GMs should make some allowance, lest you offend the aggrieved player. Good players are hard to find, especially if you’re running something more exotic than d20 or Dungeons & Dragons. But don’t feel that you have to sacrifice game balance just to make a player happy.
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