Pulling the Trigger

By

Winter_Heart

"Bang! Bang! You're dead!"

A dreaded phrase if there ever was one, wouldn't you say? It means the game is over for you, at least for a little while. And nobody likes that. It gets even worse in a role-playing game because you put time and effort in your character. On the playground when we were kids, we could play again quickly enough without any real loss. But with our more sophisticated hobby comes a complication: player character death.

So when should you, as a Storyteller, allow player character fatality? Let’s look at a couple of factors. First, not everybody hates it. I knew a Storyteller who took a devious pleasure in killing his players’ characters. And as a rule of thumb, Storytellers who calculate their success by the number of scrapped character sheet usually don't have a very long career, however. On the other hand, you don't have to allow character fatality. Yes, a lot of Storytellers don't kill characters. They put the fear of god into them and send them on their way, or go to absurd length to save their players’ characters. As one player once put it "Hey! It's Doctor-no-matter-what-you-did-he-can-patch-you-up-so-you-won't-die!"

So what to do? As always, you should try to aim for the middle ground, the shades of gray are usually much better then the shrouding black or the blinding white. Nothing is set in stone however, and many people can do a good job of scaring their players or making them believe their characters are going to die without actually ever killing any of them. But in general, death happens. That doesn't mean the story has to die as well.

Mind you, it is quite possible that you and your players like to have real kill fests or that your players like to be practically immortal. The first thing to do is to find your comfort level. Most people I know like it when there is a possibility of death but that it only happen rarely and not randomly. This essay will hopefully help Storytellers who are striving to make their game a bit livelier, by ironically enough, using death as a tool.

We'll agree that conflict is what creates a good game. In many cases, conflict results in combat and combat ends with somebody getting hurt or dying. One could go so far as to say combat is part of role-playing games in general. How many story involve somebody trying to get revenge for the murder of his father/mother/friend/little dog? Too many to count; perhaps you even played a character with such a motivation. Well, somebody had to die for it to start, after all.

If used correctly, player death can be a great story element. The players whose characters didn't die are going to be happy they survived. They are going to value their characters more and in a certain sense, they will be proud of themselves. Why shouldn't they be? If you follow “Winter_Heart's DO’s and DON'T’s” (see below), having a character stay alive when another dies is a reward for quick/good thinking and common sense. If you manage to give meaning to a character's demise, the player won't be angry (or not as angry) because the character didn't die for nothing. Death usually makes a story more dramatic, more personal and it is often used in literature. For example, in the popular Lord of the Ring saga, Boromir, a character among the initial party, falls to the seduction of the One Ring and his corruption creates a great deal of trouble, splitting up the party. However, Boromir realizes his wrongdoing and to absolve himself, he holds his ground against countless foes to buy the party time. He manages to do so, but at the cost of his life. In this case Boromir’s sacrifice made the whole story more dramatic as the noble warrior cleansed his soul with his sacrifice, showing that the need for redemption and a noble soul could overcome the power of the One Ring. It also lends gravity to the story: if Boromir can be killed, the others can as well.

Winter_Heart's 10 DO’s and DON'T’s:

1) DON'T plan for a character to die when you write your story. Don't script who is going to die and how beforehand. Let the story flow; don't put a bull’s-eye on someone's forehead.

2) DON'T kill somebody because he made an unlucky roll. Try to avoid those “Do or Die” roll that can kill a character with a simple toss of the die (like the infamous Saving Throw from AD&D).

3) DON'T let somebody die a worthless death. Dying because you tripped in the stairs and broke your neck isn't fun for anyone (unless you are planning to play Wraith: The Oblivion, in which case meaningless deaths can make for appropriately tortured characters). This goes hand in hand with the DON'T before it.

4) DON'T cheapen sacrifice. If a player character died by saving somebody else or for a noble cause, it's probably better if he stays dead. Don't turn your game into a comic book where everybody comes back from the death, let people rest in their grave with honor. Of course, this doesn't necessarily apply all the time. Some people can do resurrection scene/plot with finesse, but until you feel experienced enough, don't touch it.

5) DON'T make every grunt a killer. Despite everything else said in this essay, remember that the point isn’t to kill your character off as often as possible but to make death an effective plot device. And having your characters die from a mugging in a dark alley certainly doesn’t accomplish this. Players still like to have it easy from time to time, so those minor fights shouldn’t be too difficult.

6) DON'T force your player to fight something that can't be beaten. Those things exist, of course, but leave a way out or a way to avoid the fight. Make them understand what they are up against. If they still decide to fight...well, see below.

7) DO make people pay for their mistakes. If that lone adversary just ripped apart the group’s powerful mentor without taking a scratch, you shouldn’t save your impatient player who decided to attack in a hysterical fit of rage. He may survive, (especially if the other characters help) and you should give him a chance. If he’s just trying to bite off more then he can chew by his lonesome self, then by all mean, let the hammer of consequence fall on him.

8) DO find a meaning to each death. This requires quick thinking when character deaths happen spontaneously, as they often do. In the case of the earlier DO, the meaning could be "Don't bite off more than you can chew" or "You should act as a group, not a lone gun". It helps soothe players' (and often, Storytellers’) minds when they know there is a point to death (even if they have no such assurance in the real world). They usually aren’t that hard to find either, especially if the death was a sacrifice of some kind (like Boromir’s). And if nothing else, an enemy is going to be much more hated/feared if he killed one of the characters.

9) DO make enemies dangerous. Not all rivals want to kill the characters, of course, but those who do should be given a fair shot. This applies to the antagonist of a chronicle as well as to a foe concerned only with one character. This doesn't mean that said foe should kill the character(s), it only means that you should keep an open mind and realize that death is a possibility. After all, the good guy doesn’t always win. Often, a game turns out to be ridiculous because the awesomely powerful villain didn’t manage to do any damage on the characters because the Storyteller is afraid to hurt the players’ feelings by killing characters. If you’re fighting the Queen of the NetherWorld or another phenomenal power, don’t expect to leave with your whole party. Don’t cut your villain off at the knees! The main antagonist is often your occasion as a Storyteller to pull out the stops. And the meaner the rival is, the deadlier the last showdown is, the more players will remember it.

10) DO be merciful of players who put their characters at great risk or do seemingly foolish things in character. Don't kill somebody for playing in character! A Gurahl (were-bears from White Wolf’s Werewolf game, who are well known for being stubborn) who refuses to flee and stands his ground against a much more powerful foe isn't (necessarily) being stupid — he's playing a stubborn Gurahl. Give those players a chance, but not too much. Remember #7 above; stupidity, in or out of character, carries consequences. However, if a player takes an action that, while possibly fatal, is unquestionably what the character would do, don’t reward the player with a smirk and new character sheet…right away.

As you can see, it takes some time to accept, but following those simple rules really does help make your games more gritty and realistic. And more often than not, this makes your players care. Ultimately, it’s up to you, the Storyteller, to decide whether or not to pull the trigger.

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