Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 starprowler Apr 14, 2011 16:50:22	One of the things I hear the most from people that only played D&D/Dark Sun once is that their character died in the first or second encounter so they never got into it. This made me sad. So as DM I try to think of my PC's as TV show characters and most shows have the characters go on for several seasons, they only die if its a major part of the show (for the most part) if a player wants to retire a character we work on a great Death of That PC adventure. -If just one character dies, I might have them aproached by a merchant who has a potion with a dark price that can restore him, or in exchange for a horrible favor. -Does ressurection spells defile the land so great people know that it was that PC's that done it, how will he make amends. -If the party wipes, dark suns perfect for the "You wake up in a cage being transported to some   place where you will train and fight as Gladiators (think Spartacus) -Waking up about to be eaten by some monsters -By the players dying the quest failed and now there are horrible consequences, the land isnt like they remember with new people in power and even entire villiages destroyed. -And for comical effect, waking up robbed of goods nakid in the hot dessert sands -a simple XP penalty works as well if the characters are acting like nothing can stop them. death should have a price. anyone have any other ideas?
#2 mgbeach Apr 14, 2011 17:29:33	If character death isn't a real possibility, in my opinion you really lose a lot of what makes the game epic.  If the players know that whatever they do, they'll end up being ok, there's no such thing as risk anymore.  They'll always take the path with the highest potential reward, always charge into battle, etc.  If it's what works for you and your players, and you have fun with it, that's cool. But I think it really neuters the game.
#3 siromega Apr 14, 2011 19:53:38	Like mgbeach said. Dark Sun is basically de-fanged without character death. What you might want to do is give them access to the Raise Dead ritual, but give it the chance to go awry (like they come back as zombies and have to be slayn again, therefore creating a permanent character death). The Open Grave supplement book has a lot of things you could do with that. I told my players that if they die any time before 6 level (they're at 3 right now) they can consider their characters perma-dead pretty much. Sorcerer-Kings have access to plenty of old spells and rituals so its possible that if any of your players characters are awesome enough (or are/were extremely loyal/valuable to any SK as a Templar) they could ask the SK for a rez. You could have a short adventure were the Oba or Tectukticklay performs a rez ritual (to perpetuate the god-king thing could be one of their motivations) and the party (the deceased player(s) could use temp characters, giving them a chance to try something new) has to make sure nothing goes awry. Hope this helps (I like to use parentheses!).
#4 starprowler Apr 14, 2011 22:37:44	Like mgbeach said. Dark Sun is basically de-fanged without character death. What you might want to do is give them access to the Raise Dead ritual, but give it the chance to go awry (like they come back as zombies and have to be slayn again, therefore creating a permanent character death). The Open Grave supplement book has a lot of things you could do with that. I told my players that if they die any time before 6 level (they're at 3 right now) they can consider their characters perma-dead pretty much. Sorcerer-Kings have access to plenty of old spells and rituals so its possible that if any of your players characters are awesome enough (or are/were extremely loyal/valuable to any SK as a Templar) they could ask the SK for a rez. You could have a short adventure were the Oba or Tectukticklay performs a rez ritual (to perpetuate the god-king thing could be one of their motivations) and the party (the deceased player(s) could use temp characters, giving them a chance to try something new) has to make sure nothing goes awry. Hope this helps (I like to use parentheses!). These all sound like great options. After careful thought I can see why you would let characters die. It would be cool to play the son of a dead PC or a brother out for revenge.
#5 drewus Apr 15, 2011 0:58:06	My group has had numerous occasions where we have come close to death. Luckily no one has actually died yet though, but just walking that fine line is enough to make the game exciting. The closest we have come is with 3 of us playing (our 4th player was away that night) and two of us dropped below 0hp. Both of us failed 2 of our saving throws when our 3rd player (changeling thief) did some amazing acrobatics to leap off a stone pillar, over a wagon and down to our ardent, brought him back to conciousness who then healed my character and got him back on his feet. The ardent was next up on the initiave roster, so if our thief hadn't succeeded his skill checks during the whole acrobatic procedure, it would have possibly been complete failure. I'm loving how tough Dark Sun is turning out to be. It makes more some pretty memorable encounters, and some feared monsters.
#6 angelus_obscura Apr 15, 2011 11:28:15	In almost every encounter my group has had since the beginning, we've all nearly died once or twice, and had two character deaths. (eladrin ardent and dray warlord died in a skirmish with an invading Nibense army) The closest to a near TPK was when we fought something similar to a fael (insatiable undead fatty) in a brief foray into the Gray. We were also missing 2/5 (our battlemind and rogue), and only had the kreen stone fist monk between us (ardent and psion) and the fat basterd. There was no ground and distance was an illusion, literally. The fael kept spitting sticky necrotic mucous on us and even swallowed whole our monk. The ardent's healing ran out real fast and I had to use far hand to constantly feed my allies potions. Even entering/exiting the Gray took a toll on our health! My psion ended up taking the entire watch while her allies replenished their surges. erdana">
#7 lenin97 Apr 15, 2011 15:42:31	My group has had numerous occasions where we have come close to death. Luckily no one has actually died yet though, but just walking that fine line is enough to make the game exciting. The closest we have come is with 3 of us playing (our 4th player was away that night) and two of us dropped below 0hp. Both of us failed 2 of our saving throws when our 3rd player (changeling thief) did some amazing acrobatics to leap off a stone pillar, over a wagon and down to our ardent, brought him back to conciousness who then healed my character and got him back on his feet. The ardent was next up on the initiave roster, so if our thief hadn't succeeded his skill checks during the whole acrobatic procedure, it would have possibly been complete failure. I'm loving how tough Dark Sun is turning out to be. It makes more some pretty memorable encounters, and some feared monsters. In my group, my characters always die.  Whether it's bad saves on trapped doorknobs, a grand heroic stand against an overwhelming force in order to have the rest of the group escape, or eating poisoned rotted flesh because an illusion is an illusion... My chatacters die but Dark Sun is where I'm totally going to turn it around. The rest of the party is down?  Run away! The party is outmatched or outnumbered? Turn on them! I am going to survive Athas... even if the rest of the group has to die in order for me to do it.
#8 jrwoodchuck Apr 16, 2011 7:55:59	I've had many near deaths but noone has died yet.  I like to create large story arc's that are deeply tied to my player's character history.  If one was to die every session or even every other session this would destroy any semblence of a storyline. Right now my players avg a +3 level encounter but they are a very efficient group that is able to do this without many magical items and just their wits to aid them.  I totally agree that Dark Sun needs to be violent and the chance of death a very real possibility.  ...but if your players are dieing too often then you are creating too high encounters for your group (even if your doing it by the book). With that said if your players enjoy dieing that much then there really is no problem.  However this kind of thing wouldn't fly in my group as they want to develop their characters storyline and roleplaying elements over the long term.  Those are simply the goals that my group want to acheive.
#9 drewus Apr 17, 2011 20:09:49	I've had many near deaths but noone has died yet.  I like to create large story arc's that are deeply tied to my player's character history.  If one was to die every session or even every other session this would destroy any semblence of a storyline. Right now my players avg a +3 level encounter but they are a very efficient group that is able to do this without many magical items and just their wits to aid them.  I totally agree that Dark Sun needs to be violent and the chance of death a very real possibility.  ...but if your players are dieing too often then you are creating too high encounters for your group (even if your doing it by the book). With that said if your players enjoy dieing that much then there really is no problem.  However this kind of thing wouldn't fly in my group as they want to develop their characters storyline and roleplaying elements over the long term.  Those are simply the goals that my group want to acheive.  Yeah, agreed. Dying all the time just isn't fun, and is probably a good indication that you need to balance out your encounters a bit depending on # of players and their abilities. I think if you can send a player to the verge of death each session, then you're doing something right. Killing them off and completely cutting the possibility for players to progress their characters isn't a good thing.
#10 obryn Apr 17, 2011 22:40:33	I wanted to make sure we had at least some room for character-centric plots, so I gave my players a handful of Death Tokens to start.  (They earned them by building their characters different from their characters in our previous 4e games, from being human in the humanocentric setting, or from taking a race or theme nobody else took.) I hear what everyone's saying about the hazards of removing death as a punishment, but without divine magic, I wanted to give the PCs at least a little bit of protection against death.  I hate it when a character's been, say, digging into their past and finding long-lost family members, and we have a session or three hooked on them, and they suddenly die.   The key is to present dangers that aren't death, but which are just as undesirable - bad things happening to NPCs they care about, losing gear, etc. -O
#11 Kye_Tyrad Apr 18, 2011 10:54:53	I don't try and purposely work to get a character death.  However, if the player works himself into a tough position, i.e. jumping into the middle of a thri-kreen hunting pack and expects to live through it, he is thoroughly mistaken!  If the PC's are working hard on the adventures and having a good time, I will pull some punches to keep them alive longer.  It really depends on the flow of the game for me.  I won't think twice about dropping characters during each of our gaming sessions, usually that is enough of a scare for them to think through their actions before they continue and to make it difficult enough for it to be exciting. I still have each of my players create a character tree, similar to what we used in 2nd edition.  So if they do have a character die, I will weave in the new character so they are not left out for that session.  Usually their characters have something tying them together so the plot of one character is easier to transfer to the next character...i.e. brothers or whatever.
#12 Alphastream Apr 18, 2011 14:27:00	I agree that too much PC death is a bad thing. It limits the story potential and how players can look forward to growing their PC. I wrote a bit about it here. I really like to make things feel harder but not result in continual death. By changing up typical encounter design to have more "unfair bits" and by using monsters with MM3+ damage levels you can make it feel really brutal without actually taking out PCs constantly.
#13 angelus_obscura Apr 18, 2011 20:27:51	I think some character deaths are necessary, especially if it serves to move the plot forward and make emotional impacts upon the other characters. I'm not saying the DM or PC should cause deaths on purpose, but if the die rolls and circumstances offer no other way out, then it should be allowed to happen. No deus ex machina stuff to pull the character out of trouble; it cheapens the experience.
#14 drewus Apr 19, 2011 2:32:58	I think some character deaths are necessary, especially if it serves to move the plot forward and make emotional impacts upon the other characters. I'm not saying the DM or PC should cause deaths on purpose, but if the die rolls and circumstances offer no other way out, then it should be allowed to happen. No deus ex machina stuff to pull the character out of trouble; it cheapens the experience. Oh, totally agree, players should still have the ability to die. But killing multiple characters off every single session is just ridiculous. The DM should be able to read the encounter and weigh up how the players are going well before it even gets to the point where someone is about to die and the DM may have to fumble die rolls in order to secretly rescue them. The fact that multiple characters are being killed off each game is a pretty good indication that the DM isn't doing a good job of managing and balancing the encounters.