character death

[DickNervous]

In almost 3 years of running Traveller I have only killed off 2 characters. The first one was in my first campaign, after almost 2 years. A character that had his hand blown off by his own grenade AND was brain damaged while trying to use a wafer jack to hack into an ancient computer (so needed a hard wire) died in combat with 2 "deathclaws". I even gave the medic not one, not two, but THREE tries to save him. He had Medic-3 and +2 from INT. He couldn't roll above an 8 three times. Of course, after that he rolled a 12 to heal another player.

The 2nd one was a character that was only about 4 sessions old. He was in a turret on a ship launching 2 missiles. Rolled a 2 for one of them, crit fail. So I have him roll to see if the missile fires and is just a dud, or gets stuck in the launcher. Rolls a 2 again. Next is a roll to see if it goes off... rolls a 2 AGAIN. So he is sitting IN a missile launcher turret when a missile goes off.. I let him roll to see if he survives. I figure on 1 die, if he rolls a 1 or 2 he will survive, but with missing limbs and stuff like that from a severe aging crisis. So I tell him to ROLL LOW. He rolls a 6. Entire group just busts out laughing, including the player.

 

[Charles.Darney]

My namesake character, Charles Darney, was rolled up using Book 4, and the dice were with me that day. Fantastic stats (at mustering out time, BCC8AE), high skills, great benefits.

Became leader of a mercenary group. Had a platoon of well-trained troops, a 1,000 ton custom mercenary cruiser, the whole bit (we dabbled in Mayday, High Guard, and Striker in those days).

Encountered a Zhodani Vlezhdatl strike cruiser in orbit around Garda-Vilis at the start of the fifth frontier war. A few bad rolls, obviously saved up from character generation, and his ship was destroyed with all hands. The Zho's didn't even have to board

I haven't played enough Traveller since then to lose any other characters.

 

[MistWolf]

I have had few of my characters killed. The first was in an early version of Call of Cthullu. It was a stupid death determined by a GM who made us roll for every little thing we did. He made me roll to identify an empty case from a 38 Special. Because I let my friend talk me into rolling up a big dumb brick because "the party needed one", he didn't have much intelligence. Because the character had low intelligence, he was unable to read "38 SPCL" that would have been stamped on the bottom of the case.

So, when I wanted to throw a grenade, he had me make a series of rolls and arbitrarily determined it bounced back to land at my feet to explode and kill my character and the party. I refused to play with that person again.

Second time I lost a character, it was a PC I was running as an NPC in home brewed fantasy game system we call Legendary Realm. There is no resurrection or reincarnation. It was also one of the few times I actually killed a player character. The party was trying to stay a jump ahead of the Elven Army while working to save the world. The Elves arrived in the human village in an airship and the party was preparing to slip out the back way hampered by a character unconscious from illness. However, the Elves threatened to kill everyone (Elves and humans don't get along) and burn the village to the ground if the party didn't surrender. Also, the party needed something to delay the Elven Army to get away.

My original plan was that the three Orc NPCs would sacrifice themselves in an epic battle while the party made good their escape. The Orcs had sworn loyalty to the party and were well liked. However, during an argument between two of the Elven PCs, one was reminded of duty. She decided it was her duty to go meet the commanding officer of the Elven Army. My character (also Elven) warned her that if she did so, she would die. It wasn't a hint. it wasn't ambiguous. The player stated her character was going to go meet the Elven Commander and try to talk sense into him. My character sighed and said "Then, I'll go with you." The third Elf PC decided to go along. My character finally told his sweetheart how he felt about her (an Elf played by my wife), the PC Elf left her journal with the comatose PC (who was human) and the three went to delay the Elven Army.

The PC Elf met with the Elven Commander and did her best to explain what the party was doing was the best for the Elven people. The Commander was bound and determined to stop them as his orders dictated. There was a lot of political "high jingo" driving the Commanders actions. A huge scandal was in the offing, left over from the war between the Elves and the Dwarves. Finally, the Commander had enough and attacked. There was an EPIC battle. All three characters took damage beyond their life levels and kept fighting, cutting a path through the Elven troops. Finally, the NPC Elf fell. My character was close to being done, as was the PC Elf. My character pulled in as much magic as he could, then pulled in twice as much more. When the PC Elf saw what he was doing, she simply nodded in agreement. When he took his last blow, he could no longer control all the power of the magic he took in himself and there was a terrible explosion, killing a large number of the Elven troopers and blowing a large crater in the village common.

All three Elves died, the Orcs lived and the party escaped. The PC was the best character the player ever had. At the end of the session, the player was elated. "That was awesome!" she said.

Later, she confided to me that after the gaming session, she broke down and cried a good long time.

Anybody can kill a character. But it takes a talented GM to bring a character so close to the brink the player begs them to just "Kill my character and get it over with!" and return to the next gaming session for more. That's what our Traveller campaign was like. No characters ever died. But there was more than a few moments we wished they had.

 

[Leitz]

It really depends on the type of game you want to play. I prefer story based games that require investment in the character. In fiction it's also called "transference", the reader/player identifies with the character. The stronger the transference the author/DM impacts the emotions of the reader/player. Emotions are what story is about.

Because I game that way I seldom kill characters. Well, bad guys die right and left but player character and major NPCs seldom do. A while back Ben Webb (PC) led a raid to capture a pirate ship. In the final scene a small knot of Star Confederation Naval officers, including Ben's fiance, were placed over a pressure plate activated explosive.

Able Spacehand Robbie Soler, the team medic, used his body weight and a charge to push the naval officers off the explosive, taking the damage himself. Body shredded, guts on the floor, Robbie took out his medkit and started to bandage Lt Lillian Oalu, Ben's fiance. Instead of a dead NPC I have lots of story hooks and emotion tied to an event.

On the flip side I've played games where I told the DM what my character would do in a situation and that I understood the highly likely result. Sometimes characters die heroically. Seldom do I let the dice rule the story, they have no emotional investment or sense of drama.

Use the dice to liven up the game but don't let them tell the story. You are much better at that.