Death

[Starshadow]

I am revising the character page to indicate the recently slain. I realize that the levels are inaccurate, so please, if you haven't done so in the past 24 hours already, send me the levels of both the living and the dead characters you have run.

A comment was made to me about the difficulty of the challenges you have faced recently and the amount of death doled out to characters. My opinion differs. It has been over two years since our first permanent death (Leandra), and over a year since our last permanent death (Taer), with those two being the only permanent deaths. Other characters have died, but have all been brought back to life.

It is part of the nature of the D&D game for characters to suffer loss of life, level, attributes, possesion, magic and sometimes even alignment and gender or race. For every type of poison, curse, spell, death or transmutation, there exists ways to correct the situation, and the quest to fix these misfortunes is often part of the adventure.

In other game systems, death is more or less a permanent state of being. Those games tend to be in more "real" paradigms. But even in our modern times, we bring people back from the dead daily. CPR, adrenalin and various technology can get a heart restarted and restore life, and people awaken from comatose states after all hope is lost.

Death is part of the cycle of life, and in a fantasy role playing game, it is the ever present threat of death, looming like a spectre over the party, that keeps the action exciting. If there were never a threat of failure, death or other hideous consequences, there would be no challenge and the game would quickly bore you. Look at these two sentences:

"Gee, we managed to kill that Great Wyrm and only half of us got down to 1 hp left, who wants the vorpal sword?"

"The wyrm is dead and so is Kenny, but with this vorpal sword I shall avenge him against the dragon priest who is responsible for this crime!"

If the first sentence would appeal to you on a weekly basis and the latter one has no sense of drama to you, you may be in the wrong game. I am pretty sure that somewhere on the website I mention that death is always a possibilty (though things have changed, so that may no longer be there). I believe that each of you has also been told this individually when you started up here.

When I first began this post, I had in mind to ask you all if you wanted me to tone down the danger of the game, cheat to avoid character death, and in other ways present safety nets to eradicate character death. As I began typing, I thought to simply announce that if your characters getting killed is so distressing to you that it causes you emotional turmoil, then perhaps you need to find another form of entertainment to occupy your Friday nights. (One of ourerly players did quit for this reason)

But I am not actually saying either of those things. I am merely throwing this subject out to you all as food for thought or something to discuss (this IS a discussion board).

Usually I hate to see characters perish. I also hate to see characters completely annihilate an adversary in two rounds, creating an anticlimactic result. Friday night's game was exciting and close. The change of a SINGLE die roll would have resulted in victory and NO character death. Yet somehow having an entire party lost was still exciting, as it made it less personal. No one had to be the poor soul who lost his or her character while the rest of the party gained fame and fortune. I thought it was a good game, and sometimes you need an Alamo to make those weekly victories sweeter.

These are my thoughts. I welcome yours.

[Lyssandra]

I agree with the DM on this. We get attached to characters, yes. I am no exception, but D&D is about risk. I am enjoying the enhanced danger levels and am looking forward to testing Gwylln in the Abyss...bring on those Baalors and Pit Fiends, I say. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Remember that as our characters advance in levels, increasingly dangerous enemies are required or we'll never advance beyond a certain point XP wise, and the Devonshire team is getting close to Epic levels. Given as things are going, we should earn a fair amount of XP while battling our way back to our home realm with more levels under our collective belts.

A recent encounter in Devonshire against twenty or more gnolls resulted in virtually NO XP for anyone after a two hour combat; only the leader was of a high enough level to qualify for XP. Eventually we'll be able to take on a nest of vampires (not spawn which we already have met one.), or ancient elder dragons and still get only slight amounts of XP for the fight even though we'll all be near dead, level drained or whatnot.

My two coppers, for what it's worth. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[rahnewhitebriar]

Hey, I'm with the DM on this...I'm ALL for potentially-fatal gaming. Don't mistake frustration and a sense of loss for disapproval! I was getting attached to Avera, and I feel guilty as hell for letting her use Vilarneseh like a magician's assistant in a sword-box...but hey, that's the card we drew, or in this case, the dice we rolled.

I think the only hesitance I have in really accepting the outcome is the fact that Marren wasn't there, and if he had been, that would likely have turned the tide. The notion that the three charmed characters would have managed to kill Marren, too, is unlikely, as there would have been many more protection-from-evil type stuff going on by the time we got to the curtain to begin with. Considering that his presence would likely have made a complete difference, how can we then say that his character was killed in the process? I can't recall a time when an absent player in this game had a character massacred out from under him/her.

I don't know, I'm just rambling. Really, I've got no problem with saying goodbye to Avera...but perhaps Marren should fall under some other category of result?

[Dramavictim]

A comment was made to me about the difficulty of the challenges you have faced recently and the amount of death doled out to characters. My opinion differs. It has been over two years since our first permanent death (Leandra), and over a year since our last permanent death (Taer), with those two being the only permanent deaths. Other characters have died, but have all been brought back to life.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I DO think that monster was too tough for us, mind you, all the worst rolls certaintly didn't help. The dice were definitely against us, but Erynes (or however you spell it) back in the second Edition could only have one charmed thrall at a time. Clearly, 3.0/3.5 has removed that restiction, the monster has grown incredibly more powerful as a result. However, that's just my opinion, and HAD We won, I am sure we'd be cheering about the victory as hard fought, the treasures and exp as well earned.

It is part of the nature of the D&D game for characters to suffer loss of life, level, attributes, possesion, magic and sometimes even alignment and gender or race. For every type of poison, curse, spell, death or transmutation, there exists ways to correct the situation, and the quest to fix these misfortunes is often part of the adventure.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">True that. However, you can't expect either the players or the characters to be happy of that, even if they accept it. Also, there are some conditions that might make a character unpalatble or unplayble to a Player not just due to OOC reasons either, but because they might feel the character would no longer be their character, or the character in question would not emotionally withstand the experience even after it is undone.

I am not saying you're saying otherwise, but just throwing this out as food for thought.

When I first began this post, I had in mind to ask you all if you wanted me to tone down the danger of the game, cheat to avoid character death, and in other ways present safety nets to eradicate character death. As I began typing, I thought to simply announce that if your characters getting killed is so distressing to you that it causes you emotional turmoil, then perhaps you need to find another form of entertainment to occupy your Friday nights. (One of ourerly players did quit for this reason)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sorry to hear one quit [img]frown.gif[/img]
That said, another way to look at it is that if the situation no longer becomes fun period, then why play? Ultimately, FUN is the ultimate goal. If a player stops having fun in 90% of the gaming sessions for ANY reason, then he or she shouldn't feel bad, nor be made to feel bad for deciding this isn't for them. It is not a flaw in the player (or, for that matter the DM) so much as it is a difference in priorities between the DM and player.

Speaking for myself, I was depressed about that game's results. I consider it an off night in many ways (Dice rolls chief among that). I was actually enjoying the Adventurer stories more than the Heroes. I liked Ogdell, obviously [img]wink.gif[/img]

However, I try to adopt the doritto philosphy "crunch all you want, we'll make more". Well, not THAT callous, but I try to look on the bright side that this creates new chances to make other characters I'll have fun with.

But I am not actually saying either of those things. I am merely throwing this subject out to you all as food for thought or something to discuss (this IS a discussion board).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No problem, that's why I'm bringing up my own thoughts on this, sort of my own perspective as a player.

Usually I hate to see characters perish. I also hate to see characters completely annihilate an adversary in two rounds, creating an anticlimactic result.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Naturally, I think the former is worse than the latter [img]wink.gif[/img]

Friday night's game was exciting and close. The change of a SINGLE die roll would have resulted in victory and NO character death. Yet somehow having an entire party lost was still exciting, as it made it less personal.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Speaking just for myself, It was close, not that exciting. There is little joy or fun for me when player character must turn against player character, especially involuntarily..

It also didn't help that I had a gut feeling from the start we were in over our heads and when Og noticed the glassy looks in the warriors eyes I saw the writing on the wall....mind you, the writing was in pencil not ink (It MIGHT be avoided) but I knew the odds had shifted drastically.

No one had to be the poor soul who lost his or her character while the rest of the party gained fame and fortune.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Again, speaking for myself, but I would rather have MY Character die alone, than have the entire party wiped out. One sacrafice can be ennobled. One lost member giving his or her life to help achieve victory for the group is a classic bit in fantasy, and much easier to swallow than being that nameless party that's mentioned as "You're not the first, others have tried and NONE of them returned."
The PCs are as seen as heroes, and usually in the works we read, the heroes are the ones who make it back, albeit with scars or lost companions.

Obviously you can not and should not rig it that this is so everytime, but I did want to say that I have to disagree that losing everyone is somehow better than just losing one or two parties despite any apparent inequity.

I thought it was a good game, and sometimes you need an Alamo to make those weekly victories sweeter.

These are my thoughts. I welcome yours.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think everyone handled it very well. However, good being a relative term, I really can't say it was good. If nothing else, EVERYTHING going wrong means that, in character at least, it was a nightmare. Out of character, well, it was not fun for me, but if others had fun, I am glad.

I really can not compare this to the alamo. That romanticized bit of history was about a group fighting together against overwhelming odds. Even in defeat, something inspiring came out of it, and the opposing forces were dealt grevious and lasting harm.

That's not the case here. The party ended up killing itself off, actually joined (in part) and strengthened evil. People want to remember the Alamo, I think, respectfully, I don't want to remember this game night.

This is again, just my view, and that night was DEFINITELY an exception to a other wise very fun Adventurers' run which I enjoyed very much and thank you for.

It is my hope that I will enjoy the next run of Adventurers just as much [img]smile.gif[/img]

EDIT: Let me stress, btw, that the points above are more academic than anything, and not intended as complaints. I surely hope they are not taken as such.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 14, 2004 06:31 PM: Message edited by: Dramavictim ]</font>

[rahnewhitebriar]

Ohhhh...this is going to make me sound awful, I think but...

I had a BLAST during Friday's game.

Yeah, it was agonizing and everything...and I'm sure I would have felt much worse if I was one of the characters getting beaten to a bloody pulp...but I really had a great time in the midst of all that hideous agony.

I might just be weird, though.

[Dramavictim]

Originally posted by rahnewhitebriar:
Ohhhh...this is going to make me sound awful, I think but...

I had a BLAST during Friday's game.

Yeah, it was agonizing and everything...and I'm sure I would have felt much worse if I was one of the characters getting beaten to a bloody pulp...but I really had a great time in the midst of all that hideous agony.

I might just be weird, though.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, that's cool. Like I said, if others had fun, I'm glad. I think in this case my own pessimestic nature ("Oh crud, we're #$#$ed") had me pretty certain how it would go down, and that nixed any excitement for me, but that's MY failing as much as anything [img]smile.gif[/img]

[otherlleft]

Am I disappointed that I lost Vilarneseh? Damned straight, I am! We put a lot of love and time into our characters, and I had plans for that one mapped out for thirty levels. He was going places . . . if he lived. *sigh*

Gauging difficulty is probably very difficult. I know there was a fight with a hydra that took the characters maybe four rounds to exterminate once they realized they attacked three times a round. One more character, or Raven making her save that she missed by one, or Avera MISSING a couple of times would have saved us all. I agree, this one was close, and that's frustrating. But without the risk of loss, where's the fun?

As far as Marren is concerned, I reviewed the prior thread about absentee characters, and the only consensus we reached was to not use other players to run characters. The DM said he would continue doing what he had been doing, which I take it to mean that characters would not be there in any meaningful way but would arrive again once the player was available. I couldn't find any reference to a DM ruling that if the entire party was exterminated that any such character would be similarly destroyed, although I expected to find it . . . I'm sure this has been discussed, maybe on the email list. I understand the reasons for making that kind of decision, although if I were in that position, I would feel more upset to find my character dead than was by watching it happen. It would make me feel impotent if a valued character died merely because other concerns prevented me from playing. That is all I have to say on that topic.

I will not, in any way, attempt to write a longer post than Dramavictim, who clearly gets paid by the word. [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Dramavictim]

Yeah, there goes the chance to hear "Ogdell the Arch Magi!" [img]wink.gif[/img] But the best laid plans of elves and men as they say... no worries. Looking forward to my new concepts.

Originally posted by EinkilIsAlive:
I will not, in any way, attempt to write a longer post than Dramavictim, who clearly gets paid by the word. [img]wink.gif[/img] [/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">"How much for Dramavictim NOT to post?"
Groucho Voice "You couldn't afford it" [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Lyssandra]

I had fun too, Friday, despite Caela dying. To her credit she DID bloody all the survivors before being taken down.

I'm personally not all that sure Marren would've made a difference. Yes, IF he connected with the devil with his sword, (she had quite a high AC, Caela missed with a 19 to hit on the one shot she had) she would've been hurt if he used the Smite Evil ability, but in the long run it was the party's hesitation to strike first that gave her the advantage. Marren would have been surrounded by the charmed fighters and slaughtered just like the rest of us who made the rolls.