If you play tabletop role-playing games for long enough, you'll
eventually have a character die. It could be that the rule system has
character death as a feature, the Dungeon Master is out for blood, or
your dice decided to hate you that day. Regardless, as players we
still have choices on how to deal with it. I've talked about this
topic on the Dungeon Master side so I thought I should be thorough
and look at the player side too.
Be Ready
This is really more advice for newer players, but it still stands. Be
prepared going into the game that your character could die. As a
player, you are there to experience a story through your character.
Even if you are there for the dungeon crawling, you will probably
come back with at least one story you like to tell people. Part of
that experience is having the world, or at least part of it, against
you. Risk is part of the game but also part of the fun. It makes
those close calls meaningful. However, when death does strike, you
have to accept it and get on with the game. Your Dungeon Master might
let you come back or be revived or something. Even if your character
doesn't come back, there is still a story to experience and you don't
want to make things less fun for your fellow players. Your death
could very well add something to the experience.
Investment
Part of what makes a character death painful is the investment. We
put time into coming up with our characters, their mannerisms, their
motivations, their actions and everything else we need over the
course of the game. However, if you know going into a game that death
will be extremely common, you might want to think twice about
investing a couple of hours coming up with a backstory. Many of the
games I played like that, the Dungeon Master specifically warned us a
head of time not to get too attached to our characters and not to
bother writing short stories about them. These kinds of expectations
often happen. How can you expect your players to spend hours making
their backstory if they won't last 30 minutes? If your Dungeon Master
makes it hard to die permanently though, don't be too surprised if
they also expect you to take more care in your character's
background. This might not be the case though, so you might need to
ask them point blank (though they might like it if you do, they might
not expect it). Instead, you might come up with a large part of it as
the game goes along or other things might be more important.
Think Ahead
Kind of like the earlier “Be Ready” section, a piece of advice
that I think is quite good is to think about your next character a
little bit. One of the issues that come up due to character death is
that the story can get muddled on the player's side of the screen. If
this bothers you, you can tie your next character to either your
previous character's history/death or even to another character's
(this can be quite fun, though you might want to ask the other player
for permission so you don't step on their toes). Since the new
characters are related, it ends up building on the story of the
previous character.
You don't want to do this every time, though. Sometimes, the campaign could
really use that one character death that brings home the costs of
what's going on or just some fresh blood. It also can seem way too
convenient if characters die very frequently and you use the same
technique every time. People only have so many cousins and brothers
who want revenge. Think of this idea more like a consideration or a
possibility and less like a general piece of advice.
Wanting a Change
Sometimes players plan out their character deaths. It's that classic
situation of a player who doesn't like their character anymore and
wants a new one. In that case, it's often great all around. There
gets to be a character death that makes things seem more dangerous
and the player gets a new character. Just like the earlier case, you
probably don't want to overuse this. There is the occasional person
who likes playing the redshirt and has fun with a character that
rarely lasts the whole session. If that's not what you or your
Dungeon Master wants though, remember it's not the only option. It
could also make player death feel too scripted and odd in a campaign
where player death isn't very common, and resurrection magic is a
trip to your local abbey away.
All That Starts
Some stories run longer than others. Some characters have stories
that are shorter than others. But if you have a story you remember
fondly or makes you want to go play D&D or whatever system you
like, you are doing it right. Sometimes character deaths are one of
them.
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