PC's are getting complacent about in game deaths

[Matrota]

I run a 3.5e campaign in which there are eight player characters on a quest to obtain a mythical sword and defeat a lich that has been plaguing the kingdom for decades. In the process, many of them have died and had to reroll characters, with our kobold bard and nimblewright being the only remaining members of the original party. Due to this, a lot of them have gotten to try out more characters they've been ambitious to put in the game, but I think it's having a negative effect. In some cases, it seems almost as if they look forwards to killing off their character so they can try out a new one, and that makes for a very unbalanced and confusing storyline.

Due to some circumstances of rerolling and resurrection, I have a player character who was controlling two PC's at one time. Not wanting to be bothered with keeping track of both, they had one of them bet their soul in a game of olidammara's dice and lost. Right in front of the (mostly) drunk party and a bewildered critical NPC, our halfling bard Brook has just fallen limp in her seat, dead. The session ended there for the night, and I'm trying both to figure out how my NPC is going to react, and how to handle the campaign from here on out. If this trend continues, story wise, the party likely wouldn't even be able to function. The campaign might even end because no one will be left to be a part of the quest. How do I get my PC's to care more about the characters they create, or at least to take additional measures for their own safety? I'm doing my best as a DM to make the encounters balanced and fair, even having powerful NPC characters at the ready for a possible save. It's just at this point, with a character that just commited a very out of character act in effective suicide, I don't know exactly how I should handle it.

For reference, the party is mostly around 7th level right now, with two outliers being several levels higher.

[Duke of Urrel]

I have never encountered a problem quite like yours before!

You need to talk to your players about the need for everybody to have fun – including you. It's normal to expect that players of D&D will care about their characters and want them to live. Use a baseball analogy. It's normal to expect that a baseball player will at least try to hit the ball, throw the ball, catch the ball, and run. A baseball player who doesn't bother even trying to do these things really isn't fun to play baseball with. The same is true of a player of D&D who doesn't care whether a PC lives or dies.

[Doctor Despair]

It is always within your power to say that the population of adventurers is dwindling and they have to play with the cards they are dealt, so to speak, and make them use resurrection magic, debuffs and all. You can apply traits and such to the PCs if this kind of behavior has been as rampant as you think; I can't imagine the psychological effect it must have on the two remaining party members.

However, I think you might also want to evaluate yourself in this position. Have any of the players complained? If your job as a DM is to make sure the players are having fun and to tell a story, are you completing that task? If you like, you could always make the original characters more central to the plot to tie it together with the other interchangable party members; that might help keep the story cohesive. I'd have a discussion with your players to see if they'd like to take it more seriously, but be open to the possibility that this campaign might have to be taken more lightly, if you can.

[Xarteros]

Well, my very first thought would be to make NPC's react as if their adventuring party is cursed.

Heroes dying left, right and centre, one of them slumping in their very chair as their soul is torn away. I'd say most people would become increasingly hesitant to deal with them, since death seems to follow them wherever they go.

There might even be suspicion of some kind of evil at play, considering one of them straight-up lost their soul and died in the tavern. Not only should that be really psychologically intense to the others (your companion just literally lost their SOUL. That's messed up), but maybe an order of Paladins leads an inquisition into the matter and assigns a watcher to observe their actions and give them a bit of pressure (should they choose to try similar things)

My second thought would be to make certain items or NPC relations that are tied individually to the players. Maybe one of them gets invited into a specific guild that suits their role quite well, but the invitation is only for them, and if they die, their next character can't get back in without working hard for it.

Or, maybe they find some kind of artifact that binds their souls together (as either a curse or a boon). If one of them dies, each character feels part of their own soul being torn asunder, and they need to go on a quest to restore their ally to life, or take growing penalties (like the Dvati penalties in Dragon Compendium)

Edit: Alternatively, make each dead character become an enemy in the campaign. The more they reroll characters, the more undead copies they have to fight next time. Each time they kill their old selves, the necromancer responsible repairs the corpses and reanimates them. The necromancer could even be the owner of the player's lost soul, and might be whimsically teaching them a cruel lesson on the exploitation of life energy

[Matrota]

I can't imagine the psychological effect it must have on the two remaining party members.

Our Kobold Bard Zachary has certainly become much more somber. Poor little guy. Also, I'll make sure to ask them about it. I haven't really sought feedback for a while, and that's a good point to bring up.

[Matrota]

Well, my very first thought would be to make NPC's react as if their adventuring party is cursed.

Heroes dying left, right and centre, one of them slumping in their very chair as their soul is torn away. I'd say most people would become increasingly hesitant to deal with them, since death seems to follow them wherever they go.

There might even be suspicion of some kind of evil at play, considering one of them straight-up lost their soul and died in the tavern. Not only should that be really psychologically intense to the others (your companion just literally lost their SOUL. That's messed up), but maybe an order of Paladins leads an inquisition into the matter and assigns a watcher to observe their actions and give them a bit of pressure (should they choose to try similar things)

My second thought would be to make certain items or NPC relations that are tied individually to the players. Maybe one of them gets invited into a specific guild that suits their role quite well, but the invitation is only for them, and if they die, their next character can't get back in without working hard for it.

Or, maybe they find some kind of artifact that binds their souls together (as either a curse or a boon). If one of them dies, each character feels part of their own soul being torn asunder, and they need to go on a quest to restore their ally to life, or take growing penalties (like the Dvati penalties in Dragon Compendium)

Edit: Alternatively, make each dead character become an enemy in the campaign. The more they reroll characters, the more undead copies they have to fight next time. Each time they kill their old selves, the necromancer responsible repairs the corpses and reanimates them. The necromancer could even be the owner of the player's lost soul, and might be whimsically teaching them a cruel lesson on the exploitation of life energy

Wow, lots of good ideas here. Part of the storyline is to get the Kingdom's Captain of the Guard involved later on, and seeing as their friend just died in the heart of the capital, this might be a good chance to have him show up and investigate. The group has made a few enemies as well, so the rumors of a curse wouldn't be too far fetched...

For the NPC's, most of the major ones have been introduced and are working with the party at different varying times, so having them be exclusive isn't an option at this point. Admittedly, these NPC's don't really trust some of the new party members, so that might provide some incentive. My players have verbalized their worry over what would happen if Zachary were to die, seeing as he's the main link back to the NPC's.

As for a cursed artifact, that's probably something I'll think about, though not necessarily use right away. They're not in a part of the campaign where that would make a lot of sense yet, though I could employ it later maybe? Hopefully I wouldn't have to.

The death idea is actually something that I have used, as one of the original party members had recently been turned into an undead servant of the lich they have been hunting. Though since then that character has escaped and rejoined the party as an undead. Now that's caused some trust issues.

[icefractal]

This is the risk of games with a high PC death rate. You lose enough characters, you start valuing them less. Combined with the fact that frequent turn-over means characters have less connections to each-other or the world.

In-character boons like guild membership seem like a possible idea. It could even be magical - as a treasure, they find a pool/fountain that gives them a permanent buff from drinking it (probably with a limit to how many people can drink from it, if you don't want it to become the focus of the campaign). Stuff that doesn't persist after dying.

Combined with that, you need to make the death rate lower. Even if you're running things completely fair, the party's not going to change their attitude toward death while they're still being killed off periodically.

I don't recommend any kind of forced-resurrection / penalty for dying. As long as the conditions which caused this persist, such measures are just going to be seen (somewhat correctly) as the DM kicking them while they're down. And once those conditions change, it shouldn't be necessary.

[Zanos]

Were most of the deaths like this(extremely careless, bordering on intentional) or just a natural consequence of the game and combat? Adventurers are in a high risk profession, and running a high lethality game is certainly a valid playstyle, but I'm not gonna put a lot of effort into my characters backstory or where they fit in the overarching plot if they're going to be dead in two weeks. High lethality and deep roleplay story focused games are almost mutually exclusive, because death in high lethality games is often narratively arbitrary.

The other option is to trivialize death with resurrection. Level 7 is around where it starts becoming widely avaliable. Clerics get raise dead at 9, and I think reincarnate is available earlier.

[Ualaa]

Our last game had something of this effect going.

We were in Rappan Athuk, which essentially requires smart play.
With scouting, intelligence, the willingness to retreat, teamwork and redundant covering of roles, a party can really excel there and kick monster butt.
But lacking on any or several of those aspects, as we were... the adventure is punishing, and we basically wanted to run it as it was, to see if we could beat it without punches pulled.

One of the players basically decided there wasn't a penalty to dying, so he could be as reckless as he wanted, and worst case scenario he would waste 90 minutes of everyone else's time making a new guy at the gaming table...
He would do things like... scouting... the party is twenty rounds away, at best possible speed, there are 16 guys in the room and I'm by myself... I charge, from stealth and get to deal +1d6 sneak dice because the guy is flat-footed. Hopefully, I can take these 16 guys out with my level 2.

We had 76 deaths, over the course of 72 sessions.
That player had 27 of them, while another player had only 6.
And if we running with a rule that a character (or re-roll) costs you $100 to make, or some other equally ridiculous thing, that player with a party that wanted to live would have survived at least 3 of those 6 deaths.

So in our case, the death thing wasn't so much the case of the adventure being too hard -- don't get me wrong, it was a hard adventure, but of one player not giving a **** about his characters, another player looking at the adventure as an opportunity to kill off his guys after a few sessions to test out new mechanics on the next guy to decide which ones he would want to actually play in a 1st to 20th campaign.
Along with two guys who were pissed that the group wasn't making intelligent decisions and trying to preserve their guys... and another inexperienced player, who wasn't necessarily close to optimized in builds but was with the latter two in regards to wanting to win and survive.



I implemented two mechanics into the next/current campaign.

There is a survival bonus, where each full session a character survives (from start to finish) they get the bonus x1.
And a death penalty, where each time a character is re-rolled there is a death penalty x1.
Each of these affects the percentage of wealth by level, that the replacement comes in with.
These offset, and I've not told the group precisely what the bonuses/penalties are, as at least two of them will game the system for benefit.

The other change is to not do musical characters... so the previous three builds are locked, in terms of race and class.
So there isn't just a scratch off the old name, pencil in a new one, who gives a **** same thing...

So far, since there is a mechanical reward for living and a mechanical penalty on dying, the group has strived to survive.

The prologue for 'Rise of the Drow' I'd say is harder than the early levels of Rappan Athuk, in that the PCs are attempting to track down and catch a group that is fleeing... so they cannot simply use a days worth of resources in a single battle and then hole up in a room for 22 hours... not if they want to rescue the kidnapped victims anyway.
The adventure has assumed the group will do up to six EL +4 encounters in the same day... and the group has done up to three such encounters, before saying... screw it, if we're dead we cannot rescue anyone, so we're done for the day.
So despite a harder adventure, the deaths per session and per player are greatly reduced.



TLDR - If your deaths are a result of players not caring to play to survive/win/live I'd definitely go with a death penalty, and suggest a survival bonus, to encourage players to preserve their characters. But if the deaths are a result of a nasty/hard adventure, where they're already trying to keep their guys alive but just cannot... a penalty on deaths is just salt into wounds.

[danzibr]

One of the players basically decided there wasn't a penalty to dying, so he could be as reckless as he wanted, and worst case scenario he would waste 90 minutes of everyone else's time making a new guy at the gaming table...
He would do things like... scouting... the party is twenty rounds away, at best possible speed, there are 16 guys in the room and I'm by myself... I charge, from stealth and get to deal +1d6 sneak dice because the guy is flat-footed. Hopefully, I can take these 16 guys out with my level 2.

We had 76 deaths, over the course of 72 sessions.
That player had 27 of them, while another player had only 6.

That sounds dreadful.

I had a party that didn't care about deaths. Well, really, just one guy. Did stupid stuff. The other players weren't big fans, sort of worked itself out.

Also, if someone dies at the table, I wouldn't waste the time for them to make another character. I mean, how would you explain some other random adventurer showing up when you're halfway through a dungeon? ... You certainly could, but I'd make them wait.

[Jack_Simth]

Basically, the solution is to get them attached to their characters - as characters, not as sheets. Run a few adventures that are mostly RP and have very little mechanics - murder mysteries, court intrigue, diplomatic missions, that sort of thing. Do this for several sessions. Make sure to give each character in the group many opportunities to be the star for a while. If you do it right, they'll naturally become emotionally attached to their characters, and take fewer risks with them as a result when you return to 'normal' dungeon delving later.

[Kesnit]

I run a 3.5e campaign in which there are eight player characters on a quest to obtain a mythical sword and defeat a lich that has been plaguing the kingdom for decades. In the process, many of them have died and had to reroll characters, with our kobold bard and nimblewright being the only remaining members of the original party. Due to this, a lot of them have gotten to try out more characters they've been ambitious to put in the game, but I think it's having a negative effect. In some cases, it seems almost as if they look forwards to killing off their character so they can try out a new one, and that makes for a very unbalanced and confusing storyline.

It sounds like the players are enjoying the chance to experiment. As someone who admits to having new-class-itis, your game sounds like a great opportunity. Maybe instead of punishing the players for wanting to try new things, you can let them play. If they find a PC they really want to keep, they will make an effort to keep that PC.


For reference, the party is mostly around 7th level right now, with two outliers being several levels higher.

It sounds like you have a more serious problem than changing PCs.

[Matrota]

Were most of the deaths like this(extremely careless, bordering on intentional) or just a natural consequence of the game and combat? Adventurers are in a high risk profession, and running a high lethality game is certainly a valid playstyle, but I'm not gonna put a lot of effort into my characters backstory or where they fit in the overarching plot if they're going to be dead in two weeks. High lethality and deep roleplay story focused games are almost mutually exclusive, because death in high lethality games is often narratively arbitrary.

The other option is to trivialize death with resurrection. Level 7 is around where it starts becoming widely avaliable. Clerics get raise dead at 9, and I think reincarnate is available earlier.

Oslo the halfling rogue was tossed because someone spilled water all over the character sheet, and the player couldn't read the stats anymore. Bruno the warforged fighter died in normal combat, and when he came back as a scourge, the party ended up killing him due to his demonic nature. Guinevere the elf ranger died after sacrificing her life to gain power, becoming an undead servant of the current campaign boss figure. Todd the half-ogre hurler died in combat due to poor decision making and unfortunate rolls. And our halfling bard Brook, sister of the recently resurrected Oslo, just died after betting her soul in a gambling match. Right in front of him. So effectively 2/6 deaths were intentional, 2/6 were just unfortunate circumstances, and the last 2/6 were normal combat deaths.

I really do hope that resurrection does come into play soon, especially since there is a cleric in the party.

[asstout]

I curtail that from the beginning. I hand out X xp for them to build PC with and if they die it is the same xp they get as initial creation. Nobody wants to be level 6 in a party of 9's.

[johnbragg]

If part of the problem is wanting to try new build concepts, maybe throw them a MacGuffin that causes complete character rebuilds? Under certain conditions, Lars Ulrick the northern human barbarian reconstitutes as Lars Ulrick the pixie rogue?