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Redhood101
2018-09-11, 08:07 PM
So I have a PC who feels like her character doesn’t fit in with the rest of the characters and wants to make a new one. We both decided that the best way to get rid of her old character is to kill her. Our plan is to have the big bad show up and attack the players. He will be way too tough and they will have to run away. She will stay behind and sacrifice herself so they can escape. We have a plan but what I wonder is, should I tell the other PC’s? If not should I tell them after or just never say. Has anyone done his before that can give me some tips to keep everyone else from getting killed trying to save her.

terodil
2018-09-11, 08:21 PM
A few ideas:

1. Physical separation: Make the BBEG pull up a secret wall / cast something that just happens to separate the party from your 'victim'. Does he have a dragon minion? Every BBEG needs a dragon minion. Make the dragon minion 'strategically' lay down rivers of flame.

2. Time pressure: Have an ostensibly overwhelming force of minions swarm the area, and go after the rest of the party. Or make sure said dragon minion did not get any breakfast that morning.

3. Alternative: Pull a Bastila (https://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bastila_Shan#Malak.27s_final_apprentice) with her, have the BBEG specifically abduct her and turn her into his willing minion (plus points if he also turns her into a dragon, because... need I say it? dragon minion) that the party will meet again shortly before the climactic end.

4. No, I would not inform the players OOCly.

Darth Ultron
2018-09-11, 08:46 PM
In general, you should not even bother.

Player Bob does not want to use character Zim. Ok, so player Bob makes character Ado and the game goes on. You don't really need a big ''in game" reason why: it can just happen.

If you really do want to put on a scripted railroaded show, then you might as well tell the players: Ok, the next game will be this scripted railroaded plot all focused on this one player character and you other players will just be along for the ride.

It is always fun to keep it secret though. Then the other players will just play what they think is a normal game...while you and the deathwish player act out your own secret little mini game.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-09-11, 09:04 PM
Be aware that this is the sort of thing that can mess up fairly easily because you're two/however many people involved in it, if you don't tell them. That's not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, if you're comfortable with things potentially being derailed, which I think is the most fun way to play. If you're absolutely set on everything going off according to plan, though, then you should probably just tell them so they can play along and make it work. Personally, I would go with the flow and try to kill her with the rules. If that fails then it fails, and then maybe the backup plan is she's just so traumatized by the experience she leaves the party. I think if you put in an earnest (fair) effort to kill her though then you probably can.

For the love of god, don't use a plan that relies on the rest of the PCs running away, though. You have no control whatsoever over when PCs will decide to bravely stand and fight to the death.

Psikerlord
2018-09-11, 09:51 PM
I would just let the player swap in a new PC.

I think it's bad form to have a battle where the outcome is fixed, but not tell the other players. They may waste significant resources in an attempt to save the doomed PC, which they wouldnt have wasted if they knew there was no chance of saving them (eg a scroll, magic potion, etc). It's a bit like a forced capture scenario, the PCs might go to very severe lengths not to get caught/save the PC.

If you separate the PCs out, where they are just watching what happens... hmm that would also be super frustrating, if they arent in on the secret and want to intervene. If they are in on the secret, well, really, why bother playing it out if we all know how it's going to end.

TurboGhast
2018-09-11, 10:08 PM
It's entirely possible to add in the new PC, then demote the old PC to NPC. This would make writing out the old PC easier no matter what method you're using to do so, since the PC halo is no longer shining on the old character. Contriving the party and the old PC splitting up seems like the easiest way to go about killing the old PC using this method.

ATHATH
2018-09-12, 01:36 AM
Step 1: Split the PC with a deathwish from the rest of the party (or have the PC split HIMSELF away from the rest of the party)..
Step 2: Brutally murder said PC with a deathwish while in the OOC presence of the rest of the party.
Step 3: Introduce the new PC after the old one dies.

You SHOULD tell the rest of the party that one of your players wanted to switch characters by killing off the old one. I'd personally recommend announcing (that) "Tonight, someone dies!" at the beginning of the session. Be sure to say in your initial announcement that one of the players wants to switch characters and wants you to kill off the old one- but specifically say that you're not gonna say who it is before it happens. If your group is pretty large, you could secretly ask one of your players before the session to pretend like they're the one with the deathwish to throw everyone off- with this method, you could split THAT PC away from the party, then have the BBEG insta-kill the deathwish PC as his opening move in a DM-fiated ambush or something to give your players a (minor) shock.

Reversefigure4
2018-09-12, 02:31 AM
For the love of god, don't use a plan that relies on the rest of the PCs running away, though. You have no control whatsoever over when PCs will decide to bravely stand and fight to the death.

Yep. PCs generally don't like to run away. Particularly, they don't like to run away and abandon a party member to their death. If you don't want to tell the players in advance what scene is happening and why, you need to be prepared when they all decide to make a brave last stand, or kosh the selflish sacrificing PC over the head and drag her off, or make use of that one scroll of Teleport you forgot they had, or...

Blacky the Blackball
2018-09-12, 03:53 AM
We both decided that the best way to get rid of her old character is to kill her. Our plan is to have the big bad show up and attack the players. He will be way too tough and they will have to run away. She will stay behind and sacrifice herself so they can escape.

That's such a terribly over-used cliche that even Nale would balk at using it.

I agree with the other posters that there's no need to contrive this sort of thing. Just let the player switch to a new character without any fuss.

Capt Spanner
2018-09-12, 05:58 AM
I remember being in a similar situation.

Several of my friends from the theatre decided to form a D&D group. The DM was a very talented writer and actor, with a gift for characterisation and storytelling, so I was well on board. I think I was the only person in the group with any real table-top RPG experience, although there was another couple in the group who had played occasionally.

I was last to create a character, and the party was somewhat dysfunctional: two blaster sorcerers, a fighter, a barbarian, and me. I was fairly aware that we were lacking divine magic, skill points, and stealth. So I built a bard, intended to be a support character and party face. The bard meshed awfully with the party. In our first session the party was accosted by some bandits on the road. After subduing them, and tying them up my bard wanted to release them, on condition that they leave us alone and warn others to do the same. The rest of the party wanted to kill the bandits.

This was the characterisation: a capable fighter, but would rather avoid pointless deaths.

It wasn't helped by how the rules-inexperienced DM was letting us get away with a lot. Initiating a fight would almost always get a surprise round (even when we'd just failed to bluff our way past some bouncers: BARB: "I hit them with my axe"; DM: "They don't see it coming..." ME: :smallconfused: - this habit would get very annoying when the next DM (one of the sorcerers took over after the DM ran short of time) of the game would abuse it on us - I quit the game after setting up a trap, and announcing my intention to hit the first thing through the door: a creature got in, sprung the trap, decided to attack me and got a surprise round against me because "you weren't expecting it to go for you." The fight was balanced assuming this thing would ambush us.)

In general the party turned out to be into the dungeon crawl, and the bard was severely out of place. Underpowered in an all out brawl, party unappreciative of the buffs they were getting, and eschewing any sort of stealth/skills approach in favour of "I hit it with my axe".

So I told the DM I'd rather play a rogue. I was fond of the bard, though the rest of the party weren't, and wanted him to go down in style though, and asked him to kill the bard. I wasn't too fussed how. A heroic sacrifice would be cool and all, but if he just wanted to do a "raise the stakes" killing, pick the bard. I started fighting more suicidally, but the DM's storytelling skills were not matched by his mechanical skills, and he'd err on an underpowered enemy that we could overwhelm. He did target me with a finger of death at some point, but then I passed the saving throw and survived the damage.

In the end I had the bard quit after an investigation into corrupt estate agents quickly ended with us straight up murdering them. Allowing the bard to become an NPC was a mistake though. By this point the new DM (much more mechanically astute, but no storytelling ability) played a chance encounter with an old friend. The bard was made to be callous, and mean by the DM, despite largely being characterised by not being a murderhobo.

Aneurin
2018-09-12, 08:22 AM
Tell the others that the PC is being retired - or that the player no longer wants to play them - and that a scene is being set up to take care of that. You don't have to give them the details of it, or spoil the surprise.

It's up to you whether you narrate or play out the death, but personally I'd always let the PC at least have a shot at going out in a blaze of glory. Just make sure the other players know that that's what's happening and try and do something counterproductive like save them or bring them back from the dead if that's an option in your setting/system.



Just do absolutely make sure that the other characters know there's an effectively solo swansong scene coming up the the character as they depart, to avoid hard feelings and confusion. And they know that you're willing to do the same for their characters should they retire.

Delta
2018-09-12, 08:35 AM
I think it really depends on your players and characters. If you have a relaxed group of players that don't try to derail plots and aren't confrontational, I'd keep it as a surprise.

It becomes a problem if either a) you have characters for which said scenario would be a problem, like the noble paladin who follows of codex of "leave no man behind!" might want to rather sacrifice himself than allow another character to do it or b) you expect your players to try and derail the scene when they notice they're being railroaded, will try everything they can to fight back and so on. In those cases, I'd give them some kind of warning in advance.

Personally, I'd just run with it but then I'm confident my players would understand what's going on when someone says "Run! I'll cover you, just go!" and would go with it, not every group is like that.

Kaptin Keen
2018-09-12, 09:02 AM
My experience: Trusting the PC's will see reason and run away never works. Ever.

Thanatos 51-50
2018-09-12, 09:12 AM
Definitely mention that you're planning on cycling out the PC for a new character. Neither you nor the player need to give a reason why, nor do you need to give them a run-down of what you've planned.
Having them die in an intentionally unbalanced combat is a bad idea, because you have these little guys called "player characters" who are going to get in the way and also take damage and maybe even die where you were looking for a single blaze of glory for a retiring PC. You don't want to pull out a potentially campaign-ending TPK when you were just intending to nuke a single Player Character.
If it absolutely has to be an epic battle, don't make it one connected directly to the campaign, but rather to the PC's personal story.
Are they looking for their long-lost twin? Out to kill the man who murdered their wife? Make that encounter happen, and make it hard-fought fight.

If the PC dies here, that's it. That's the end of the story. The party can decide whther or not to take up their fallen friend's sword after this.

If the party wins, well... now your PC has no driving force. It could be easy for them to wander away from the party, listless, seeking a different purpose.

Delta
2018-09-12, 09:16 AM
My experience: Trusting the PC's will see reason and run away never works. Ever.

It can work if you make the situation clear enough. The problem is that often, those situations look like challenges players think they can overcome from their perspective.

MoiMagnus
2018-09-12, 10:31 AM
You don't need to tell them.
However, once the moment of the death is approaching, it has to be clear that:
1) This is a "cut-scene", so no player can prevent it to happen (it can be very frustrating to try to prevent a death of a PC, and see the DM finding arbitrary reasons for your ideas not working)
2) The player who's character is dying is actually controlling the situation (and that's not the DM arbitrarily choosing to kill a PC)

As said by other, you don't really need to justify it if you don't want to (and if you PCs don't care). In films, characters disappear in the sequels without reasons, and sometimes the character remain but with another actor. And even if you justify it, it does not need to happen "on screen" (i.e during a session).

Similarly, even if you justified the change of character with its death, you don't need to find a reason why the PC don't resurrect him/her, unless your PCs actually want one.

farothel
2018-09-12, 10:36 AM
One way to keep it secret yet don't rely on PCs run away. Use what they did in the Enemy Within campaign from Warhammer First Edition


I'll put it in spoiler tags as I know there's a PbP going on where they run through enemy within.

The PCs had to investigate an old temple of some sort. At one point they walk through a room with plants (I think it was plants, it has been a while). They breath in the spores and essentially become undead, although they don't notice. After some adventures they meet two chaos gods who run the place. There they are given a choice: give an oath to stay silent on the two chaos gods (enforced by divine power) and be brought back to life or die.

If you do this, make sure the deathwish PC goes last. That way he/she can annouce she wants to die instead of living with the secret without influencing the other PCs decision.

Make sure you have a plan if another also wants to die.

Delta
2018-09-12, 11:07 AM
To give more precise input of my own, I had such a scene where one character sacrificed himself.

The party was in a kind of "dreamscape" in the mind of a high level cleric who was fighting against a powerful follower of the evil nemesis of his god trying to get inside his mind and corrupt him. They finally manage to save the cleric after some shenanigans but by then, the demon servant had managed to invade the dream with a quite literally endless army of shadow creatures flooding the whole thing, while they were trying to get to the exit, a quite literal "stairway to heaven" (fitting because he was a cleric of the sun god of the setting)

They soon realized that no matter how fast they went, the shadow creatures were catching up, and they'd need more time to get to the exit, so one of them stayed behind to cover them. It worked well since the stair was narrow enough for it to be plausible that a single fighter could hold it for a while (and it wouldn't make sense for others to stay behind either), yet the mass of enemies was literally endless and the dreamscape was disintegrating around them, it was simply obvious there would be no way to win this fight.

Now of course this was a very specific set of circumstances you can't easily reproduce, but that was the best setup for such a sacrifice I could draw up, it made sense and no one could argue with it. (the PC actually did survive the encounter but was subtly corrupted by the evil deity, but the player didn't know that when he decided to sacrifice his character so it doesn't really matter)

Mastikator
2018-09-12, 02:26 PM
I agree with Psikerlord, let the player swap in their new character, you take over their old one and they sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the party.

Kaptin Keen
2018-09-12, 11:06 PM
It can work if you make the situation clear enough. The problem is that often, those situations look like challenges players think they can overcome from their perspective.

Yes, true - but then there's little point in playing it out. Then you might as well just storytell the event, and move on. And even if you explain it, sometimes a player will flatout state that 'my character choses to stand with her friend - even if that means she dies too!'

Loyalty. Such a bloody drag =)

farothel
2018-09-13, 02:45 AM
Yes, true - but then there's little point in playing it out. Then you might as well just storytell the event, and move on. And even if you explain it, sometimes a player will flatout state that 'my character choses to stand with her friend - even if that means she dies too!'

Loyalty. Such a bloody drag =)

That is then that player's choice I think. If you explain the what and the why and they make that decision, so be it. If you're going to make one new character, you can just as well make two.

Redhood101
2018-09-13, 03:33 PM
The death ties in her story. She is a paladin who would do Anything to make sure the right thing is done. While everyone else in the party as selfish jerks. It’s creates a weird dynamic and she wants to make a new character to fit the dynamic better. She has a connection to the main villain that has become her personal story in the campaign. I’m thinking that I’ll start the encounter (which is supposed Winnable to a point that I plan to make very clear through plot) then when she is supposed to die if she can’t get them to leave I’ll let them know as DM was the plan was.

Maelynn
2018-09-13, 04:29 PM
let the player swap in their new character, you take over their old one and they sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the party.

This sounds like a good way to let the old character have their heroic ending without the rest of the party feeling the need to intervene. By then the player has brought their new one into play, so the party will have realised the player switched and the old character is no longer vitally important.

Knaight
2018-09-13, 06:25 PM
This sounds like a good way to let the old character have their heroic ending without the rest of the party feeling the need to intervene. By then the player has brought their new one into play, so the party will have realised the player switched and the old character is no longer vitally important.

Just telling them you're planning on cycling the character accomplishes this just as well, without creating the appearance that any PC that gets NPCed is going to get killed of immediately.

House Greyjoy
2018-09-14, 12:47 PM
Instead of killing the character, turn it into a roleplaying exercise. If she wants to leave, have her do it in character. Why is she leaving? Why can't they convince her to stay? Is she going to burn this bridge? Is she breaking any hearts? Might she one day return as an NPC threat when the players least expect it?

Maelynn
2018-09-14, 03:18 PM
Just telling them you're planning on cycling the character accomplishes this just as well, without creating the appearance that any PC that gets NPCed is going to get killed of immediately.

It might accomplish it, but at the cost of narrative and surprise. And from what I gathered so far, it seems both the DM and (some of) the players enjoy a good story.

If the player switching out takes a moment afterwards to tell the other players that they requested the DM to give their old pc a heroic death, then the rest won't have to suddenly fear for the fate of their own retired characters. In fact, they might realise that there's room for them to give input on events revolving their characters.

Jay R
2018-09-14, 06:53 PM
You really shouldn't have to arrange a special circumstance. In an actually challenging world, PC death isn't hard for the player to arrange. Staying alive requires good play. Just have a challenging situation. Then the player can decide that the PC doesn't do what it takes to stay alive.

Of course, in a world in which PCs are invincible, you would have to make an exception. In that case, your biggest problem will be keeping the rest of the party from trying to save their friend -- because they will assume that that's the point of the scenario.