[D&D 4e] Character Death and TPKs
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
At this late date, it may be surprising to learn that particularly savage character death mechanics and quickie resurrections entered the design scene of early D&D through the tournaments. In these tournaments, there would be as many as a hundred tables, each with a prepared DM, each with exactly the same scenario and even the same verbal descriptions provided so the players' comparative experience would be identical.
In these circumstances, the only thing that mattered was amassing XPs, not to level up, but to win the tournament. That's why GPs = XPs, by the way. Character death was only a feature of play; no one really expected every PC to survive a table.
Another feature of play which could be seen at the tournaments but was also very common in ordinary ("home?") play was to have several player-characters at once, per player. I'm not talking about having characters on call, to step in, but rather, you really played them all at once during an adventure.When one died, you started a first-level character to replace him, adding the new one to your "stable," and over time, you'd end up with a bunch of characters of varying levels, continuing to lose one every once in a while. (To buffer your own characters, you'd also surround the party with hirelings, too.)
All of this became less common by the early 1980s, but the legacy of savage character death remained, including the low mechanical attention paid to beginning-character effectiveness. I know very well from experience that 1st level character survival in D&D of that time was purely a matter of DM mercy. It was flatly dysfunctional for early play, because the player's ability to participate and the character's being dead were incompatible.
What I'm saying for purposes of this thread is, there's no point in trying to make that degree of character make sense, as if it had ever made sense outside of the context of tourney/multi-character play anyway. It didn't make sense out of that context then, and it doesn't now. Nate, I'm agreeing with you, but I also think you're re-inventing the wheel. Referencing the various computer games is really going back to the D&D tourneys that they're based on in the first place.
And finally, a moderator point: Nate, you have not started an actual play topic. You've brought up an interesting issue, but unless you can ground that issue in an account of actual play which you yourself experienced, and describe that to us, I'll have to declare the thread closed.
Best, Ron
Natespank:
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And finally, a moderator point: Nate, you have not started an actual play topic. You've brought up an interesting issue, but unless you can ground that issue in an account of actual play which you yourself experienced, and describe that to us, I'll have to declare the thread closed.
Yeah, sorry about that, I prepared the campaign last night and played it today. I had planned to update these threads with play examples this afternoon, I've been extremely rushed lately.
I'm aiming for a sandboxy style game so I let the players freely navigate my world map; they encountered the dragon isle (level 13 solo), and the Hydra isle (level 12 solo), then fled to the slaver isle where they fought some drakes. They're getting beaten up a lot but they're liking it since it's tough and they have to think things out :)
The example of play came earlier than I expected: the former naval captain charged into a group of drakes and they tore him to shreds. First character death on the first session: since he was only level 1 and likes making characters I let him takeover the hireling they'd picked up in town instead of reviving him. The usefulness of the quick replacement and revival system is that the players got licked bad at the start of an island- but they've already sworn to return at higher level to clear them out, it's high on their to-do list, which is exactly what I wanted. As they level up and hit level 3 I can start reviving them since they'll be attached to their characters, and getting whupped all the time- getting killed all the time- will fuel their desire to "beat the game."
Callan S.:
Nate,
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I shouldn't have said death per se, but in my Rifts campaign we succeeded at everything we ever did because failure generally implied a TPK which nobody wanted- so the DM helped us along. There needs to be a failure mechanic is what I mean is most crucial- a way for the PCs to get whooped in combat here and there and it not be game over.
Yeah, I've mulled over that exact same point a few times. I actually had a conversation with my friend about it once, and really he just wanted to fudge it each time, citing how wouldn't it suck if so and so died. And I said hey, why not just openly and explicitly say that we will always get our ass knocked to the curb on failure, perhaps knocked under rubble and forgotten, perhaps knocked down a storm drain and washed away, perhaps fall onto the back of a passing truck - some exit routine each time (your teleport is cool as well, just saying my way here). Make it cost us in armour repairs and medical bills and shit, but were out of there. I was saying this to him, as one of his main players when he GM's, yet he was still clinging to this fudging routine, as if he was really preserving the idea we could all genuinely die, when I was sitting next to him pointing at the fudge! I dunno what was up with that? Maybe he thought he had the other players still under the illusion of real death, even if I wasn't?
I suppose the thing that got me was trying to add that sting. With your group you describe it as a benefit over real time thing, don't you? I might try thinking in those terms - I normally thought in some sort of win/lose model.
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Using the tattoo idea can include real death too if the tattoo is chopped off the PC before death by a savvy NPC- if you can't recover the body, can't revive him, so still allows for death occasionally- just at important times and not in stupid encoutners with a swarm of drakes that nobody expected to be so strong :)
Good point and an interesting angle - though I think a medalion would fit that better. Indeed I like the idea of a rule that even if a badguy knows to try and tear it away, even if the suceed, the medalion isn't gripped by anyone and skitters across the room to a random square (a bit like the movies where the gun skitters way, way across the floor (to quoate futurama!)). Then you fight your way over to it, terrorfied of death, hehe...
Ron,
I'm not sure I understand your point about reinventing the wheel? When were not provided wheels, aren't we kind of stuck inventing them?
RichD:
I tended to go with the price of being revived being another adventure myself. After all, the services of a group of adventurers is far more valuable than mere gold. There was always a holy shrine being threatened, or a relic to retrieve, or a rival sect to harass. So the price of a revived life is to risk it for the one that returned it to you. This works really well with a total party kill because there is nothing more disturbing than waking up in an unfamiliar temple and realizing that some someone went to trouble of collecting your bodies and bringing you back from the dead for reasons unknown. Thinking in terms of fates worse than death can take you to some fun places.
On the tattoo/medallion front, I had a very high level group in a 2nd ed campaign and their cleric could handle bringing the odd party member back from death but there was still the risk of the cleric being the one that died first. So they went on a special quest to craft a Ring of Spell Storing that could hold a Resurrection spell. Now only one member of the party has to survive. That party member brings the cleric back and the cleric revives the rest. So its a TPK or nothing. It made for some very interesting situations where one or two PCs are desperately trying to hang on knowing that the fate of the whole group rested on them.
Natespank:
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Good point and an interesting angle - though I think a medalion would fit that better. Indeed I like the idea of a rule that even if a badguy knows to try and tear it away, even if the suceed, the medalion isn't gripped by anyone and skitters across the room to a random square (a bit like the movies where the gun skitters way, way across the floor (to quoate futurama!)). Then you fight your way over to it, terrorfied of death, hehe...
My first attempt at this sort of mechanic used a medallion like that but I worried they'd lose it in various ways. However, scrambling for a medallion like you described would make some awesome scenes. I'll consider an aspect like that.
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On the tattoo/medallion front, I had a very high level group in a 2nd ed campaign and their cleric could handle bringing the odd party member back from death but there was still the risk of the cleric being the one that died first. So they went on a special quest to craft a Ring of Spell Storing that could hold a Resurrection spell. Now only one member of the party has to survive. That party member brings the cleric back and the cleric revives the rest. So its a TPK or nothing. It made for some very interesting situations where one or two PCs are desperately trying to hang on knowing that the fate of the whole group rested on them.
In 4e you can buy scrolls of raise dead for whatever cost (1000?) that anyone can use to perform a raise dead ritual. The odd character death won't bother the game if they can use these- the medallion/tattoo idea is best for when a TPK occurs. When the whole group hits the ground dead, THEN they teleport. I just have to provide some scrolls before they can afford to buy them themselves.
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