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View Full Version : When bad things happen to PCs- un/acceptable losses?



Kol Korran
2013-03-15, 04:01 AM
Hello again. my gaming partners and me are in out 30's, but most of our gaming is fairly easy and fun, not terribly serious or "trying to be realistic". However, do to some issues in a previous and current campaign, and planning for a future campaign a delicate subject has come to light- the different views players have about horrific things happening to their characters.

To clarify, I'm not talking about a short time handicap that could be easily removed with the right spell (Or a similar application). I'm talking about bad things happening that are not death- having a limb become unusable, psychologically traumatic experience, severe scarring and so on. something bad, that is not easily (at least in the foreseeable future) mitigated, that usually does not come with any meaningful sort of compensation. I'm also not talking about characters' death (with or without means to come back from the dead)- in these cases the character is no longer viable or just comes back all nice and dandy.

No. I'm talking about bad things happening to the character, and the character needing to deal with them. quite bad things.

some players seem to see this as a great incentive to roleplay- a way to develop their character from a crisis point. to them these opportunities may be highlights (and to some even crucial) moments in their character's growth. others however do not wish to deal with these kind of things in a game that is supposed to be an escapist experience to them, and will stop playing that character, or that game (that haven't happened yet). we have all dealt with some bad things in our lives, why experience them again?

but it's more complicated than that. sometime the same player (myself included) may consider some experiences as fine and challenging, and others as just a "no no". And also, some times different players in the same group might react quite differently to the same Bad Thing (Tm). sometime players might act well or badly to something happening to ANOTHER character, even if it's not them.

All of which makes a GM's job quite challenging in this respect. I know that the best solution is usually to talk to the players, but there may be a few problems:
- first, though you might talk about general boundries before game, in execution you may play things a bit differently then the player had intended, and thus still make the experience "not good enough"/ "too bad" still.
- Also, We've found out that though players may say they like/ don't like a certain element they may or may not do so in actual practice, often this is heavily influenced by the circumstances, the communication between players and DM (as we do not always communicate our expectations quite well unfortunately), and the description of the scene.
- lastly, sometime the GM wishes to keep some things more secret, as part of what makes a great "bad thing happens" scene is it's unexpectedness and to a certain extent- the shock value. (think for example Roy's death, though that is not exactly the same). so in order to keep things vague, the DM ask more vague questions about expectations, which may come back and bite them when the bad thing actually happen.

So any thoughts about this? any comments? one way would be to keep the game simple, with little to no bad things happenings, but that is the "safe route", and it robs the more roleplay focused roleplayers an opportunity to do what they love. it also robs the game from memorable turning points and and motivation. as one of my players one said "if THIS happened to my character, it would have made me hate X and act to defeat him SOOOOO much more!" On the other side putting these without thought to players sensibilities is a crappy moves, and a sure game ender.

your thoughts? :smallconfused:

(for those interested I've written 3 more detailed instances below. However they are really not needed in order to discuss this thread)

Making an example, but then diverted
This came up in My Eberron Campaign some years ago. the party was captured by slavers, one escaped killing their patrols, another also escaped, but not before making an utter fool of the chief. the 3 other characters were then brought to a major staging area before the entire tribe (as I thought would happen in character and response to the other characters' actions) where they were supposed to "be made an example"- special torture that will make them suffer great pain and so on... we ended the session before this was about to begin.

2 of the "doomed" players told me they are not sure they want to play their characters after such torture. one of them was especially anxious about it. the third player seemed kind of apathetic to the whole thing. So I consulted the forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173327&highlight=tomer), and came with a last minute change- the chief lieutenants offering they would be compelled to do some quest and so on, diverting the torment and so on...

so far this seems good, right? but recently I've talked with the players of the two PCs who've escaped, reminiscing about the campaign. and they both told me they were sort of disappointing at how this turned out, that it felt a bit like a cheap trick. one players even said that this was the lowpoint of the campaign, and since this was the start of the campaign, he was unsure of my abilities to DM an interesting and "actions have consequences" game, and considered whether to continue playing. So not that simple...

Where does anyone personal line is drawn?
This time I'm a player, and playing a woman gruff fighter. the party are persecuted and chased by a sort of a zealot police force (of a sort). The DM is quite challenging, and due to some stupid mistakes we come upon a really tough battle which we barely survived.

Later a fellow player and me talked with the DM about the battle, and learn that one option he fully considered was that we would be captured in that fight, and need to escape, but not before having bad things happen to the characters. upon asking I learned that the DM had things planned for each depending on our snesibilities. these ranged from special curses, (which i was fine with) having a hand removed, (which i was fine with) or in my character's case... rape. and this met with a heavy resistance in me. I felt that this may be too far for me (but having an arm removed isn't? :smalleek:) which turned me to think of what different people may set as their lines. I'm unsure of how I'd react to such a thing happening, truly... perhaps I'd have taken it as a challenge, perhaps I'd quite playing said character, I don't know. But I'd sure be upset, at least for some cosdierable time...

A questionable encounter design
In my (very little) spare time I'm trying to work on elements of future campaigns I wish to DM. in one such campaign, that is supposed to be more "realistic" (as can be in a fantasy setting) I wish to portray Gnolls as a highly savage shamanistic race, who value hunt, flesh, and pain greatly. They are supposed to be seen as truly barbarous (I do not mean the class) heathen savages of the frontier. In order to signify this I toyed with the idea of an encounter that delivers a "shock value" effect upon the characters.

the characters may be hunted by a superior force of gnolls, which tests them for their strength, cunning and general survivor skills. IF they are captured though, one of them might go through a gruesome ritual where some of his less "absolutely life sustaining" organs may be harvested, in a test of endurance, pain and spirit sort of. (saving the other characters from such a fate). I thought this will enable one character (from the players who may appreciate such things) go through this, while the others are exempt.

I asked about this in the forum a bit ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14685830#post14685830). got a few mixed results- some were enthusiastic to play this, some balked at this, but the general consensus from more mature players was to talk to the players... only- how exactly do you do so without ruining the surprise, or the shock value and intended feel of the gnolls for the campaign? or am I asking too much?

Also, I asked a few other gamers about such an Idea, and the answers were quite confusing. mainly because quite a few of them were less particular about the encounter as a whole, but more about the type of organs removed... which was unexpected, to say the least. finery of sensibilities? :smallconfused:

Rhynn
2013-03-15, 04:41 AM
This is obviously a matter of personal preferences, which means it's a matter of negotiation and agreement (and, really, probably one where the "I'm cool with that" crowd needs to give to the "I'm not cool with that" crowd).

Generally, though, I think RPGs are all about 1. choices and 2. consequences of those choices. You do something, you have to live with the results. You don't get to choose the results, though - you don't always foresee them.

That's what generally makes stories, in my mind, and since - to me - RPGs are about emergent stories, not about (scripted) plots, player choices and their consequences form the meat of the story.

You're absolutely right, though, that without a ridiculous general ban on any "bad stuff" (which is going to be too vague to be useful anyway!), the only option is to point-blank ask all players what they're unwilling to have happen to their characters and what they're unwilling to see happen to others' characters, and with a group bigger than 2, that's going to rule out a lot of things. And even if you did that, players wouldn't think of everything. No matter what you do, in practice there will be events that will push against or beyond some players' boundaries.

I generally think players may need to suck it up and play through it, but I'm a horrible mean grouch like that. "It's just a game" cuts both ways - if it's just a game, why would it make you upset? (But then, yes, some rare people are made upset by movies or books. I remember The Brothers Lionheart made my little brother bawl when he had to read it for school. Awww.)


All that said, I do have personal limits - but they're not really because of the effect I think they'd have on players.

There's no "on-screen" rape in my games, generally (although I do kind of want to run this one really gruesomely realistic HârnMaster scenario as-written), so PCs are never subjected to it (because that would, by necessity, be more or less "on-screen"). Certainly never in any level of detail.

Since one of my players had kids, I'd stay away from doing horrible things to children (not because I have any particular reason to think the player would care, but just because).

And I try to stay away from juvenile levels of gore and violence. (The last two together disqualified James Edward Raggi IV's Death Love Doom from use. :smallamused: )


I suppose the only real advice I can give is to ask your players "what would you be uncomfortable with?", rather than asking "would you be okay with X?" It's not going to be perfect, but it will help give you an idea of their comfort zone.

GnomeFighter
2013-03-15, 04:52 AM
Part of it depends on the system. Some people try and shoehorn this kind of thing in to 4E where there is no mecanic for it. They lump on penaltys which are not within the rules and this slowly brakes the game. On the other hand when I play Dark Herasy I expect most of the party to end up a mess of mental and physical scars, missing body parts (Replaced by augmentations that may be better or worse than the origonal).

As with everything in RPGs it depends on the group. Talk about expectations and except what people are not happy with. After all you don't know what is going on in other peoples lives and something that is gritty but fun for you might be a painfull reminder of reality for another.

ArcturusV
2013-03-15, 04:54 AM
Well... I'm fairly sadistic to my own characters at times. I've had a reputation in several groups as "The guy that dies". This is mostly because when it matters, I would always sacrifice my character for the sake of drama. I was never the guy who tried to fudge results, or ask the DM to give me a break or cut me a deal to avoid sealing my fate. Never burning Action Points/Fate Points/Widget Points or anything to avoid failure.

Interestingly enough, it would often shock groups when this first happened with them. An example would be a Naruto based RPG I was in. During an Exam with my character, someone rightly tricked me into taking hold of an object that was actually a bomb. I was clutching it in my hand when he detonated it. Now... I probably could have just went "Oh, it's 3d6 Fire Damage" or something and rolled with it. Instead, I had my hand completely obliterated by the explosion, leaving just a bloody stump at my wrist/forearm. Which shocked everyone involved in the fairly large group. Everyone was just surprised as hell that I did it, that I even said it happened. Even though I thought it was a perfectly logical, reasonable result of the action. You have an explosive closed in your fist, you lose that fist.

Well, due to life problems and schedule conflicts about 2 sessions after that I couldn't make the group for a while. Interesting thing was, when I came back about 6 months later, people still remembered me, and had been telling stories about how I lost my hand. Coming back with my character, with an artificial hand powered by my own chakra.... and being VERY, VERY bitter about the whole thing... made for one of the most memorable characters in a RPG that was, frankly, filled with Mary Sue types.

My point by way of that story is that shocking and disturbing your players isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might upset them in the short term. I had some people giving really weird looks as I described my stump and the excruciating pain and little bits of hand that were blown to hell around me, etc. I definitely creeped out players who had never even imagined a character would get seriously hurt in any permanent way, much less death (They were fond of just getting "knocked out" by things like Fireballs and shurikens).

But after some time... it became kind of a beloved, memorable story for them. Almost no one can remember what happened that who plot arc anymore... other than the fact that I lost my hand. Even people who were skeeved out by it at the time look back at it as a fond memory of some fun plot and character development now.

So... I wouldn't sweat it too terribly much. As long as it's not something that's REALLY distasteful. For example, see my 3.5 DnD DM who raped my female vashar ninja character 3 times in 2 sessions... And you don't go too overboard with it? Time turns the initial discomfort into a fondness.

So yeah. Just don't repeat these things constantly. And if you don't end up having people go, "Okay... I'm done..." the moment it happens? It's not really going to be a bad thing. And as long as it's not something continuous it probably won't get under most people's skin enough to really make them quit mid session.

Losing a hand? Fine. Describing a 12 hour long torture session? Might be too far. Losing an eye? Fine. Having constant chronic pain from a never healing wound that is resistant to magic/science? Probably not good.

Tengu_temp
2013-03-15, 05:26 AM
I think what's important is for everyone to know what kind of game they're getting into when it's starting - not specific examples in the vein of the DM asking the player directly "are you okay with getting your character's hand chopped off?", but him letting the players know how much lethality and/or permanent damage they might expect. And when in doubt, choose caution - for example, if you're not 100% sure everyone is okay with it, it's safer not to have rape in the game.


Making an example, but then diverted
This came up in My Eberron Campaign some years ago. the party was captured by slavers, one escaped killing their patrols, another also escaped, but not before making an utter fool of the chief. the 3 other characters were then brought to a major staging area before the entire tribe (as I thought would happen in character and response to the other characters' actions) where they were supposed to "be made an example"- special torture that will make them suffer great pain and so on... we ended the session before this was about to begin.

2 of the "doomed" players told me they are not sure they want to play their characters after such torture. one of them was especially anxious about it. the third player seemed kind of apathetic to the whole thing. So I consulted the forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173327&highlight=tomer), and came with a last minute change- the chief lieutenants offering they would be compelled to do some quest and so on, diverting the torment and so on...

so far this seems good, right? but recently I've talked with the players of the two PCs who've escaped, reminiscing about the campaign. and they both told me they were sort of disappointing at how this turned out, that it felt a bit like a cheap trick. one players even said that this was the lowpoint of the campaign, and since this was the start of the campaign, he was unsure of my abilities to DM an interesting and "actions have consequences" game, and considered whether to continue playing. So not that simple...


This is not your fault. The players first complained about not wanting their characters to be tortured, then complained when you saved from the torture. Not your fault they can't make up their mind.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-15, 05:38 AM
Rhynn's list of do-not's is pretty much the same as where mine is-- except my reasons are mostly selfish: even in-game rape just isn't OK and I know I wouldn't have the skill to do it tastefully anyway, I run the risk of getting nauseous or tearing up whenever I think about children getting hurt, and excessive blood and gore just seem unnecessary to me.

More on-topic: I freaking love when my characters get mangled. I'm one of those RP guys you mentioned. I had an ultra-pious Space Marine lose most of his face to badly-aimed psychic friendly fire. This led to the fun moment of my character loudly declaring heresy and marching through a firestorm toward his ally. In the same mission, he was permanently blinded by a critical hit. Everyone agreed that the idea of a blind-fighting Marine was the best thing ever, but there was an even better RP moment when the holy virgin we were escorting restored his sight via a 'gift from the Emperor' in the form of a lay-on-hands. I got to feel, to some degree, the amazing affirmation of faith that I knew my character would be filled with by such an event. Such a good feeling-- and also the reason that I tend to stay in-character for as much of my RPG sessions as possible.

In another system, a gunfight broke out nearby between my character's friend and some mooks while said character was passing by with a lady on his arm. I immediately said my character stepped between the lady and the gunmen. For my trouble I managed to get shot in the chest-- nearly flooring my character. But it felt right, because in my opinion there's no better moment in an RPG than when your character is hurt or hindered by his character traits and the character is completely OK with that. It affirms, to my mind, that the character is a real person and not driven by my metagaming. I was on some level proud of those wound penalties, because I knew my character would be proud of his new chest pains.

So yeah, I tend to resent the folks that can't take a bit of mutilation. There's a large number of players who seem to be of the opinion that they alone have agency over their character's story arc, and that's just not true in the kind of game I play/run. You do not choose your character's endpoint, you only choose their beginnings. Your character should be developed and changed over time by the events and people that are around them as they live. That seems like a sentiment that is downright denied by some of the folks on these forums. A while back I started a thread about intra-party romance (in character). Other than the why-would-you crowd, there were a decent number of folks who were worried that such a thing would violate the player's agency over their character. I say, you lost total agency over your character's life the moment you put him in a game with other people. If you already know how the story is going to go, you should have written a book. Me and my character don't exist to spectate you and yours. We're here to build a story together.

kardar233
2013-03-15, 05:42 AM
It really depends on how the game works.

Allow me to give a few examples:

A while back, I was playing a campaign set in the Iron Kingdoms of Warmachine and IKRPG fame. I was playing a Cygnaran lightning mage, and I was using terrain and inventive uses of lightning to defeat opponents that the DM had thought impossible. Eventually, we had a run-in with Calaban the Gravewalker, a very powerful gatorman shaman with an affinity for necromancy, who ripped out about half of my character's soul, greatly weakening her magical ability. I rolled with it, though, as even my limited powers could accomplish some interesting things (railgun is a viable use of lightning powers) and I decided that as a side-effect of losing half her soul, she would become very cold and amoral.

Much later in the campaign, the same character was working on a plan to defeat the giant evil dragon-god Toruk, having regained the half of her soul and decided that she needed to redeem herself for all the nasty things she did in the interim. Now, she never really gained very much personal power; sure, her lightning was effective but it didn't account for anything in the leagues she was fighting in. Her skill was in making plans and gathering allies, and it was the latter that she really thrived on, having gained the allegiance and friendship of a number of very powerful figures. Then, in the span of about an hour of in-game time, she lost four of her most powerful allies and became the personal enemy of one of the big nasties of the setting, Lich Lord Terminus. At this point, I had to retire the character, as her personal power was in no way enough to make it through the trials she had in front of her and she had lost most of her allies.

In a different campaign, I had a character who was captured by a powerful cleric of an evil god, who attempted to break her spirit and make her become one of his servants. Through a month-long bout of physical and psychological torture, he just about broke her; only the intervention of her adoptive sister managed to bring her out of her despair. It took her months to recover, plagued with nightmares and paranoia about the cleric coming back for her or her sister. As of now, the psychological scars have still not healed; she reacts violently to anything touching her neck or water anywhere near her face.

The first two happened in a campaign that I would call "advancement", the standard style of most RPGs, where the characters are faced with external issues and attempt to overcome them. The latter happened in a different, "development" style campaign which was primarily based on character interaction and the development of a solid character dynamic and relationship.

The first two are pretty easy to distinguish the differences between. The first, while a severe setback to my character, allowed her to keep trying the challenges ahead, though it forced her to be more clever and devious to accomplish her goals due to a relative lack of raw power. The second threw the character far out of the power bracket she was competing in, rendering her opponents far above her power and herself generally helpless.

The third, being a "development" campaign, was not set back at all by my character's sudden psychological issues. Since the campaign was predicated on the characters' interactions, the fact that my character was just a short ways away from a whimpering, quivering wreck wasn't an issue as it made the ensuing roleplay very interesting.

So, what is an acceptable loss varies greatly on what kind of game you're playing.

Frozen_Feet
2013-03-15, 05:48 AM
I generally hold there are no unacceptable losses for characters. It only takes five minutes to roll up a new one if old one becomes unfeasible to play, you know? I'm the kind of GM you should not play with if you can't stomach bad things happening to people. :smalltongue:

Seriously. Even in freeform games, where there is no outside pressure to, it always seems my characters are the ones who start off cripled or end up missing limbs. Just looking at the current Bleach RP we have running, I have one character who is severely alienated from mankind and lost his nose and all of his skin in his first fight, a second one weighed down by bad love life, infertility and suspicion from others, and a third one who is colloquially seen as a push-over and is missing a leg.

That said, there are a couple adversities I will rarely subject PCs to. Rape and torture, foremost. I just don't think that way, because ew. This has not stopped my players' characters from inflicting these sorts of attrocities on each other, or hapless NPCs, though. (Again, ew.) I generally look past my fingers when they do so - I don't ban such elements from my games. This has not caused problems in my tables - all my players have been generally allowing, even if visibly disgusted. People generally know it's time to stop when all their friends are going "see no evil, hear no evil" on them. :smalltongue:

What I do, however, is make damn sure every NPC reacts appropriately and proportionately to "mishaps" of my players. Once, when a player murdered a prostitute and animated her as a zombie, leaving her to kill off hapless people, I had the local witch (acquainted with the PCs) to deliver the zombie back to him. The player was visibly terrified. Then, for the continued support of the witch, he agreed to have a Geas placed upon him, one that I refer to as "Belkar's Curse". (Guess why.) Wasn't enough to make him mend his evil, evil ways.

Adversity has lead to some of the most hilarious roleplaying events. For example, when a player was poisoned by a dragon bite, they made a desperate dash to the imperial capital in search of the cure, only to find out they'd gone the very opposite direction they should have! As his "death" neared (actually transformation to a young dragon), the PC asked to be abandoned to a deserted island with minimal gear. As a last act of humanity, he tied a scarf on his arm, in hopes that if ever his comrades met a dragon with it, they'd recognize it as him.

Earlier in the very same game, a player's cleric had become seriously indebted to the army. Seeing no other way out, he committed suicide - by rowing a boat to a dragon's island, and facing off with the dragon, alone. He even brought it flowers. That was just adorable.

ArcturusV
2013-03-15, 05:49 AM
That, Jack of Spades, the total control some people demand over their character, is something I've always had trouble with myself. It would usually come into situation in a game where there is Alignments and Alignments matter (RIFTS, DnD, etc).

Because eventually there would come this point where I'd tell a player something like, "... look... look at these things you've done. You're not good any longer. You haven't been for a while. You're pretty deep in villainous territory actually."

And I'd get responses like, "No, I'm good! I say I'm good so I'm good so I'm going to ignore the entirely logical progression of my character towards villainy, assert goodness, and pretend that I don't have any of those impulses that have been pointed out, and effectively do a reset to Factory Hardwired Personality."

Which irks me. It really does. Particularly when perfectly good storylines are ruined by what is effectively player fiat like that. But that might just be me. And maybe you. But it's not like I'm asking them to act any differently than how they are. Quite the opposite. I'm saying to carry on with it. But generally pointing out that what they might think they are doing, and what they actually are doing, are two very, very different things.

I'm not talking about things like the Prisoner Dilemma that is set up as an inescapable trap where whatever you do the DM can say you were against your original alignment. I'm talking about things like when I see a pattern of say, the Enchanter in the group is making a habit of Mindjacking everyone who is even a mild inconvenience to them, then using their dominated/suggested/charmed status to just abuse the hell out of them and leave them dead or destitute. And I tell them after they've made a long term pattern of doing this for weeks or months in game, "Hey... you're pretty damned Evil right now..."

Frozen_Feet
2013-03-15, 05:56 AM
My opinion, and the opinion build into multiple games, is that once dice get rolling, player agency (including the GM) ends. At that point, the rules tell the direction of the story, no ifs, no buts. You might not like it, but hey, who's ever told you need to like losing in any game? Just try not to be a sore loser.

Rhynn
2013-03-15, 08:03 AM
Part of it depends on the system. Some people try and shoehorn this kind of thing in to 4E where there is no mecanic for it. They lump on penaltys which are not within the rules and this slowly brakes the game.

This doesn't seem to have much, if anything, to do with mechanics and penalties, though. It can (see below), but none of the OP suggests it greatly to me.


I generally hold there are no unacceptable losses for characters. It only takes five minutes to roll up a new one if old one becomes unfeasible to play, you know? I'm the kind of GM you should not play with if you can't stomach bad things happening to people. :smalltongue:

Agreed, in most cases. Unless we're playing an over-complex game (like high-level D& 3.X or GURPS), it's quick and easy to replace a character. But I do appreciate the mental aspect of it ("You ruined my character!"), even if I don't agree with it. I'm sure the outright death of a PC is often easier to deal with, in some ways, than having a character become "unplayable" (not that I agree there is such a thing) and having to "put them down" yourself.

IMO, especially in a continuing, open-world, "sandbox" campaign, there are few things more fitting than retiring a character due to injuries - with an option to bring them back some day, if they are needed. Instead of the innkeeper being some random "ex-adventurer" NPC, the innkeeper is actually an ex-PC whose adventures other players actualy know! :smallcool:

Your post actually reminds me of a tangentially related issue... I love it when you can see your players realize they've done something bad to someone. In the Artesia: AKW intro adventure, my players unhesitatingly mowed down with sword and arrow the young men trying to arrest them for "trafficking with witches", and then sank their damn corpses into the swamp. :smalleek: There was some guilt in the air... (Actually, I should have given them Guilt Bindings, no I think on it... opportunity missed!)

This actually makes me think: in some games, serious consequences are built into the system in a totally different way. In Artesia: AKW, you can get Bindings - things like Vanity, Guilt, Shame, Hate, Dread, Fear, etc. These stay with you. Most are very hard to remove, requiring possibly huge amounts of Arcana points (XP equivalent), and often actively penalizing your character's attributes, possibly reducing them below 0 (on a 1-10, 5 average, scale). Critical wounds cause Physical Bindings, reducing your physical attributes (permanently, when bad enough), and those can't be healed at all - you'll just have to increase the attribute the hard way, which is as or more expensive than reducing Mental Bindings. These Bindings can force PCs into actions the player might not have taken (although I've found my players perfectly willing to RP along to them): just by talking to someone (who has the right Gift), you may find that you now have a Hate of another person, forcing you to act against them. Or someone's mere voice can drive you into Fury or Madness (a hyena's laugh causes madness, for instance), which can have devastating effects on your character's life.

It's awesome.

The game's basis is both Medieval and Renaissance history, and classical myth (Greek, etc.) - and what's more classically mythic than a hero driven to murder his friends and family against his will? It's tragedy in the original sense of the word, and potentially completely epic.

So, yeah. Bad things happening to PCs is great, and players need to learn to go along with it. But GMs can't force them to. Tricky equation.

NichG
2013-03-18, 02:48 PM
I'd say the best thing to do is to get a feel for your player's reactions to lesser 'losses' and use that to decide whether or not to risk something bigger. Its going to be highly individual to each player, too. This is the advantage of playing with a fairly fixed group for a long period of time: you get to know what they enjoy, what they tolerate, and what just puts them off.

For example (this is a very light example compared to the other things discussed in this thread): I have a player who is always very worried about being the cause of something awful happening to the party as a whole or to the bigger picture. Not to the point to where if he messes up he'll quit the game, but to the point where I wouldn't run a 'well you screwed up the world but you couldn't've known' plotline with him because I know he wouldn't have fun with it at all. On the other hand I've got a player who loves those, and really gets into having to do something about some random thing that goes out of control.

In my current game I have a player who basically started the game with a character who had somehow had his arm blown off beyond the ability of magic to repair. He would have been very sad if another PC could have just gone 'Regeneration!' and his neat character-defining thing went away. On the other hand, I've got players who would be put off by having to retain such a disadvantage if inflicted. The thing is though that as long as there's some voluntary aspect to it, I can have that kind of thing in the game without putting off the players who don't want to deal with it.