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View Full Version : Looking for advice on Death's relation to Party Balance, and the Ongoing Narrative



weezact7
2019-04-08, 04:37 PM
So, one thing I have grappled with in my games is death and what level of impact it should have. Specifically, how it affects the game balance and the narrative. I'll start with the game balance first:

According to 3e rules, when you die, you can be resurrected but lose a level. Ignoring the mechanical irritation of leveling down your character, I find that this tends to result in some members of the group being vastly weaker to others as this tends to snowball. Lower-level players are less equipped to handle current-level challenges and, thus, die more often, resulting in even more level loss. At a certain point, you end up with encounters that are either boringly simple for those how haven't died or overwhelmingly difficult for those who have. Furthermore, unless everyone dies equally, those who die never really completely catch up.

Secondly, when your characters are integral to the plot, they die, and, for whatever reason, they cannot be brought back to life...then what? I want to have the players' characters be a part of the larger world. Be the son of the king, or the last of a cursed lineage, or the high priest of a church, whatever. Things that you can't really just say "Oh...we were wrong. Here's another one!" without it feeling REALLY lame. So when a character dies or, even worse, a whole party wipes and nobody recovers their corpses, what do you do? Just stop the game? I find that to be like a "Choose your own adventure" book having an option that sets the book on fire if you pick it.

I want my players to feel a sense of suspense; that failure and death CAN carry consequences. At the same time, I want to avoid the party getting super unbalanced or the narrative grinding to a halt and/or having to make really shoehorned ass-pulls to keep going. I made this story and this world and I want them to see it through to the end which, hopefully, will be a rewarding payoff for us all. Obviously, the ideal situation is that if anyone dies, there will always be at least one other person there to ensure they are revived, but I'm planning for the worst case scenario.

So, basically, my question is: How can I incentivise players to avoid death without compromising the balance and narration of a game?

Man_Over_Game
2019-04-08, 04:49 PM
It's a bit of a tough question, since you're basically asking "How can I make Death important, but without it being THAT big of a deal?" Which is pretty contradictory, especially considering that Death should be THE worst consequence to a character's actions.

A few options you could do:


Magic items are built with literal souls. When you die, the life energy is drawn from your magic item and life is restored back into you. However, the magic item is now rendered mundane.
When you die, you don't go where the dead normally go and you come back, changed. Your class/race are changed to match a type of adventurer that came back. Maybe you make a pact with a higher being, or maybe you were made into some kind of unholy knight. Or maybe you lost your Cleric powers as part of the transition, but you are no longer the same.
Similarly to the last one, but you signed away a part of yourself for your life. You now have a Geas-type effect that can't be dispelled, and is only removed when you complete its associated quest.
Your soul is damaged as part of making your way back to the living. You suffer 2 Attribute damage to all of your attributes, and it can only be regained back by leveling up. You regain 1 to all of your attributes every time you level up.

DMThac0
2019-04-08, 04:59 PM
The first thing a DM needs to do when putting together a story is ask the hard questions: What does failure look like? If one or two of my players die, will that break the game? If they TPK what does the game look like now?

That will help you find contingencies to player death. In my homebrew if, by some unforeseen reason, my players TPK it's going to be an ugly day. My players are invested and they do not want their characters to die. However, if that happens I've already considered how I'd respond to it. For me it's simply advancing the timeline forward a number of years and adjusting the plot arcs to match. Whether the players choose to make the son of their former character or a completely new character, it won't change the story, but it will give me their characters' story arcs to integrate into the game.

If I understand correctly, you're using 3e, with that it is much harder on PC deaths than 5e. However it won't snowball so long as the DM is mindful of the disparity. 1-2 levels different generally isn't going to cause that big of an issue, but it's still up to the DM to scale combats to match the effectiveness of the party. Building an encounter for 4 level 6 players will be fine if you have 3 level 6 and one level 5, but you'll have to scale it down a little if it's 1 level 4 and 3 level 6. If the DM doesn't scale it down, then it's a good idea for them to give the handicapped player options to survive, and aid in, the fight.

As to giving them the incentive to play intelligently, tell them straight out, Session 0, that their characters can die. You aren't going to pull punches, and you're going to play it as accurately as you can. Then, follow through with it, but give them one freebie. One time where if they just have a bad day with the dice, or your dice are being especially cruel, that they can come back from death's door unhindered. This is a hidden rule, something they're not going to know about, but will allow them to feel the tension and realize that death is right there. You should also tie their characters into the story, make them part of the world, the more they feel like they impact the world, the more they'll try to keep their characters alive.

Particle_Man
2019-04-08, 05:08 PM
For balance, cheat. Have the monsters and traps inexplicably (and against all strategy and tactics, if necessary) target the higher level characters and leave the lower level ones alone. Then grant disproportionate xp to the lower level characters until they catch up.

For narration, cheat. Have it turn out that the so-called (now dead) "son of the true king" was actually a bastard, and the new character, that guy is *really* the son of the true king (but stolen away as a child and never knew it).

Thrudd
2019-04-08, 05:21 PM
A. Having a party with characters within a couple levels of each other should be tolerable to the system. They don't ever need to "catch up". Losing levels is the motivation for players to avoid getting their character killed when resurrection is accessible.

If a character has died a few times and is now out of reasonable range of the party, the player could be given the option of retiring the character (or refusing to let them be resurrected) and starting one that is within range, maybe 1 or 2 levels lower than the highest in the party.

B. If unanticipated character death is a possibility, don't design plots that will fall apart with the loss of any or all of the characters. Or, be prepared to abandon plot lines that are no longer viable due to character death- have multiple sources of adventure prepared that are character-agnostic. Have an idea ahead of time how different sorts of characters might be brought into an ongoing adventure.

jjordan
2019-04-08, 05:21 PM
I would say you incentivize avoiding death by starting with avoiding being wounded. Try using some of the alternative slow healing variant rules to make your players really think about whether or not violence is the correct solution to this encounter.

I like the advice others have posted about not designing/writing yourself into a corner where player deaths are concerned. If one or two players are point failures in your grand design then you need to have a backup plan. And death doesn't have to be the end (though people frequently don't like this). My general options for dealing with PC death are:

Create a new Character
Deliberate Resurrection
Party/Friends facilitate a return.
Conventional resurrection
Complications may ensue:

Memory loss
Skill losses
Traumatic Stress (at night, during stressful situations, etc...)
Physical disability (stat reduction, lingering wound)

Unconventional resurrection
Character put into a new body/vessel

Non-Biological

Mechanical (I list this as an option, but I never use it)
Non-biological golem
Object (E.G. Bob the Skull?)
Biological

Existing humanoid body
This can be a fun one. Where did the body come from? Was some still using it? Are they sharing the body? Can the other intelligence assist the PC? Is the other intelligence fighting for control of the body? Trying to kick the PC out?
Non-humanoid body
Dog, Cat, etc…
Still in there with them? That’s kind of mean. But funny.
Constructed body

Biological Golem
Modified Living Creature
Did someone take an existing creature and modify it? Give it digits capable of manipulating objects? A mouth capable of speech?
Spontaneous Resurrection
Outside agency facilitates a return.


Conventional warlock with a patron
A bargain has been agreed to by both sides, patron saves the life of the character in return for service, character is now a warlock and can only take new levels as a warlock.

Possessed warlock 1
A being or beings has taken up residence in the body of the character and are co-existing with the character (who is now a warlock and may only take levels as a warlock).
May be trying to take over the body as per demonic possession in the DMG
May be working with or assisting the character

Possessed warlock 2
An entirely different intelligence as replaced the character and is now inhabiting the character's body.

Ghost

A fun option but you have to work out the parameters. I tend to go with a semi-sorcerous interpretation where the PC is incorporeal, invisible, and inaudible. They can use their hit points as spell points in order to interact with the world and the party.
Revenant

I should note that these are not ways to 'cheat' death or detract from the importance of character death. These are options that can be used if they will enhance the game. If you've got a player who's so attached to their dead character that they might leave the game is a really weak example, but valid. I'm thinking more along the lines of adding a new wrinkle to the game. What does it do to the party dynamic if a dead character comes back as a ghost that only some members of the party can see? Why are they the only ones that can see him/her? What value does a ghost add to the story? To the party? Did we really resurrect Grothug? Is memory loss a normal symptom of resurrection or did we bring back something else? Yes, Bob, we know you're second in line to the throne of The Eternal Empire but you're in the body of a dog so it's kind of difficult to establish your bona fides so you can take command of the Imperial Army and lead it against the rising tide of evil in the West!

Quertus
2019-04-08, 05:34 PM
So, first off, D&D-style Resurrection - penalties for dieing - is antithetical to game balance. If anything, you should get a bonus for dieing, to put you in balance with the rest of the party.

So, ask yourself, do you care about game balance?

Next up is this notion of characters integral to the plot. "The Plot" is what happens with these characters right here. If we were following the story of The King of the North, the Sun of God, and a pointy-hat Wizard/Angel, and the party has a TPK? Well, unless they're getting resurrected, I guess we're following someone else's voyage now. The only time you get into trouble is if you've made some kind prophecy requiring them... so don't do that. Or, if you do, make sure to accept clever player solutions, like making magical items out of their corpses / animating them as zombies / whatever so that they can fulfill their silly Destiny.

So, to recap: when people die, it's a sign that they're too weak, so give them a free buff. Don't build assumptions that anyone is "required"; if you do, let their corpse (or other proxy) fulfill that requirement.

So, what problems do we still have?

Fear of death? Well, TPK, no recoverable bodies equals no resurrection certainly should make any intelligent player still care.

Campaign continuity? Nine there were who left from Rivendale, and this party has none of them? None of the original party members still around? Yeah, that's a problem. Maybe you can fake it by running the younger sibling / disciple / gardener of the original party. Maybe you tell the last original PC to die that he wakes up in a VR rig, with a "you have died, press any key continue" countdown. Maybe you run the party that goes to retrieve the bodies. Maybe you run the party hundreds of years in the future when someone finally resurrects their lazy bones. Or maybe you just ignore continuity, and restart hundreds of miles away, dealing with a completely different part of the campaign world.

Pippa the Pixie
2019-04-08, 07:46 PM
Well...

1.The resurrected problem is an easy fix: don't do the lost level thing.....or just have folks come back ''somehow" that is not by resurrection.

2.Well, really any character can die any time. But if you have a problem here...why not give the dead folks that come back something? Maybe a +5 on a skill as they know some ''dead secrets''. Maybe give the player a secret or two. Maybe give them a ghost dog.

3.The plot. Well......Let The Plot Die. Really this is one of the best things about RPGs: anything can happen. Don't take that way from the game: let anything happen.

Just about all fiction has plot armor..you know the main characters won't die...you know unless it's a very special death. There is no Lord of the Rings story that goes: Frodo takes a step out of the Shire..and a goblin arroow goes right through his head and he is dead and gone for ever. Or the Star Destroyer Avenger blasts the surface of Tattoine say 1000 km around the crashed pod....so Luke would pour a nice glass of blue milk...and then be obliterated by a turbo laser blast bombardment. And so on.

4.Really...the game CAN go on. No character.....no character is EVER so important that the game world will stop spinning without them. You can think of a way that is ''not lame"....or, you can also decide a way is ''not lame". And if your plot is so important that you ''can't" change it.....then nothing you do to keep the plot going is ''lame", right?

5.Of course...you might also want to avoid....ahem...''lame plots". I guess saying ''wow..your character is the very last forever and ever cursed blood high cleric prince forever and there can never ever ever be another ever" sounds cool. But you can also say ''your character is one of five children cursed to be the high cleric prince...if any of you live that long" (then see you have five chances/character to use).

weezact7
2019-04-08, 10:53 PM
These are all great ideas! Thank you all so much!

To clarify something related to how integral players are to the game world and "lame" ideas of replacing them perhaps I should give a specific example. The main villains of the game I want to run all have a very specific Achilles Heel. It's the trade-off they had to give for their great power. For the bulk of them, these are physical items, locations, etc. These are, of course, easy to swap from character to character. (For example, yes the nature god's chosen druid with the Staff of Smash-Bad-Guy-In-The-Face dying is a PROBLEM...but not a game-over for the god. There will be other druids or w/e. He can, and will have to, find another to wield the Staff of SBGitF.) However, I wanted to throw them a curve ball by having one weakness be more esoteric, specifically a bloodline. This villain (we'll call him Tom, because I haven't settled on a name for him yet) decided to render himself weak to his own bloodline. Then had them all killed, or so he thought. Now, my dilemma is that I want one of the characters to be distantly related to Tom, which makes them much less replaceable than the others. Yes I CAN say that another distant relative happened to show up, but it begs the question of why the **** weren't they doing anything before? Why are they now?

Maybe my fault is, as some have suggested, not in dealing with a nigh-irreplaceable character's death, but in having a nigh-irreplaceable character at all. Or maybe I'm just worried about something that my group won't even care about. If it means they get to keep playing, even if they have to re-roll a character, will anyone really care if it's a shoe-horned plot twist that his former character had a long-lost brother? You'd probably roll your eyes at that pretty hard if you read it in a book or watched a movie with it, but in a situation where that is what enables you to keep playing, maybe I'm over-analyzing it.

Nevertheless, it's good advice for going forward. I've always had a hard time balancing a player being integrated to the world but still replaceable. I have found that finding things to anchor a player's character in the world helps them to be invested in the game and enjoy role-playing more (even if they still prefer roll-playing). Unfortunately, it tends to end up on one extreme or the other: "Random mercenary who fights for gold and has no connection to anyone or anything" or "cosmic lynch pin of the world who has to fight his dad the OverGod" (I'm being slightly hyperbolic, but you get the idea).

weezact7
2019-04-08, 11:13 PM
I wanted to give some background and break that into its own post so it was less to digest at once. I apologize if that's bad forum etiquette. I don't really do forums.

I have found that the material component cost of resurrection to be a deterrent to dying, but the last long-running game I ran, my players died...a lot. A few of them were my fault. I threw something too tough at them on accident because I was unfamiliar with what parties were capable of at that level (none of my games had ever lasted that long, people always had to leave because of work or school or w/e and were never able to come back). However, a lot of their deaths were either because they deliberately screwed each other over, or because they did mind-bogglingly stupid things. Like our sorceress deciding she'd go punch a monster in armor despite having most of her spell slots left and two melee party members between her and the monster. Or our fighter deciding he'd eat the random demon skull the obviously demonic cultist told him was "demonic, but, like, totally safe" without even so much as a second thought despite everyone at the table telling him it was a terrible idea.

This resulted in the party having level disparities of 4+ on some occasions. (a problem made even worse by one player using a class that I didn't realize was so OP until well into the game, but that's another problem with a much simpler answer. At least he tried to help everyone else stay alive). Thus, anything that was even remotely challenging to Tik-Tik (the aforementioned character) was a death sentence to over half the rest of the party. Anything that was challenging to them, Tik-Tik would drop in one round. Thus, either Tik-Tik was forced to do nothing so the others could play, or they were forced to do nothing so he could and nobody was particularly happy about it (except our Sorceress because she just liked hanging out and never got upset at the game if things didn't work out). As such, I did eventually begin to "forget" how many levels behind everyone was, but I think that took the sense of danger out of it for most of them. They stopped making so many stupid plans, yes, but they also began to play very recklessly because none of them felt there would be any consequence besides some gold lost.

But I will give these ideas a shot. Hoping I can find something that strikes a good balance, both mechanically and narratively. I had one specific example in mind when writing this (as mentioned above), but I hope to make use of these ideas in other games as well, because I find death to always be a bit of a sticking point for me in terms of how much weight to give it. The solution I was going with was to make dying harder, but also place more restrictions on resurrection (which would affect lower-level characters even moreso), thereby reducing the chance of player death while also, hopefully, providing more of a reason for why returning people back to life wasn't a more commonplace thing in the world, but I'm not sure if that's the way to go.

Satinavian
2019-04-09, 01:39 AM
According to 3e rules, when you die, you can be resurrected but lose a level. Ignoring the mechanical irritation of leveling down your character, I find that this tends to result in some members of the group being vastly weaker to others as this tends to snowball. Lower-level players are less equipped to handle current-level challenges and, thus, die more often, resulting in even more level loss. At a certain point, you end up with encounters that are either boringly simple for those how haven't died or overwhelmingly difficult for those who have. Furthermore, unless everyone dies equally, those who die never really completely catch up.By RAW characters of lower level get more xp. That, coupled with rising levelling cost results in the penalty growing weaker over time. Personally i find the way xp gain is calculated way to complex, would use milestone levelling and replace the level loss just with a negative level for a certain number of sessions.

But if you are in a group with level differences, the group would adjust tactics and the lower level characters would not necessarily die more often. As long as the reason for dying are not something inherent to the personality and common behavior of the character, it should not happen to the same character again and again.


Secondly, when your characters are integral to the plot, they die, and, for whatever reason, they cannot be brought back to life...then what? I want to have the players' characters be a part of the larger world. Be the son of the king, or the last of a cursed lineage, or the high priest of a church, whatever. Things that you can't really just say "Oh...we were wrong. Here's another one!" without it feeling REALLY lame. So when a character dies or, even worse, a whole party wipes and nobody recovers their corpses, what do you do? Just stop the game? I find that to be like a "Choose your own adventure" book having an option that sets the book on fire if you pick it.
I am fine with those deaths. You should be able to fail a campaign. If the son of the king is gone, you can't restore him to the throne anymore. Maybe the other party members accept that and move on to another adventure, maybe, if they really don't like who sits on the throne now they start looking in side branches for some other possible heir to support or try to start some new dynasty.

If the whole party wipes and no one recover their bodies, you start a new group. You could even basically use the campaign as both the villains as the reasons to do stuff are still in place. But if the group wants to do something else, do something else.


I want my players to feel a sense of suspense; that failure and death CAN carry consequences. At the same time, I want to avoid the party getting super unbalanced or the narrative grinding to a halt and/or having to make really shoehorned ass-pulls to keep going. I made this story and this world and I want them to see it through to the end which, hopefully, will be a rewarding payoff for us all. For me : Keep the suspense and all the worldbuilding in its plausibility, but ditch the intended story if it doesn't work anymore. Real events don't happen in a way that always makes the best story or according to dramatic necessities. There is no reason D&D campains have to. You are not writing a book or producing a film.




To clarify something related to how integral players are to the game world and "lame" ideas of replacing them perhaps I should give a specific example. The main villains of the game I want to run all have a very specific Achilles Heel. It's the trade-off they had to give for their great power. For the bulk of them, these are physical items, locations, etc. These are, of course, easy to swap from character to character. (For example, yes the nature god's chosen druid with the Staff of Smash-Bad-Guy-In-The-Face dying is a PROBLEM...but not a game-over for the god. There will be other druids or w/e. He can, and will have to, find another to wield the Staff of SBGitF.) However, I wanted to throw them a curve ball by having one weakness be more esoteric, specifically a bloodline. This villain (we'll call him Tom, because I haven't settled on a name for him yet) decided to render himself weak to his own bloodline. Then had them all killed, or so he thought. Now, my dilemma is that I want one of the characters to be distantly related to Tom, which makes them much less replaceable than the others. Yes I CAN say that another distant relative happened to show up, but it begs the question of why the **** weren't they doing anything before? Why are they now?
If you are asking because that character has died ?

Well, the players have to deal with it. They could give up. They could try to find a way to use the weakness in another way (can't they make any of the killed relatives into soeme undead which wields the final blow ?). They could try to fight the villain without using the weakness (not being killable does not mean immunity to being imprisoned in some pocket dimension or whatever).

If the campaign has not yet started but you want a backstop just in case, but without taking the responsibility from Tom ? Give him a 5 year old cousin. It is not that difficult to introduce alternative that would theoretically work but are significantly worse and thus only considered as last resort.



Absurd party balance issues need to be fixed regardless and independend from the handling of death. But as you seem to be starting a new campaign, that might be not an issue this time.

Quertus
2019-04-09, 07:52 AM
"Weak to your bloodline" still gives the option to be killed by Tom's zombie, or by the blade crafted from Tom's bones. Or any of his other relatives - arm the whole party with conveniently-slain kin blades.

Or let the quest fail. Failure should be an acceptable option.

Or don't build railroad "can *only* be defeated by the McGuffin" encounters.

As to your original question, what if in the physics of this world, Resurrection slowly replaced/consumed your soul? Every time you were brought back, you grew more grounded in reality, stronger, but it wears your soul thin, until after X times, you can no longer be resurrected, because you have no soul left?

Of course, it may not help this particular group, but it's an idea I had last night, to both have game balance and make death scary.

DMThac0
2019-04-09, 11:18 AM
This villain (we'll call him Tom, because I haven't settled on a name for him yet) decided to render himself weak to his own bloodline. Then had them all killed, or so he thought. Now, my dilemma is that I want one of the characters to be distantly related to Tom, which makes them much less replaceable than the others. Yes I CAN say that another distant relative happened to show up, but it begs the question of why the **** weren't they doing anything before? Why are they now?


Alright this is a fairly easy situation to work around so long as you take one thing into account: don't tell the players who the descendant is until the last moment.

A simple prophetic statement like: "One of you who walks the path of heroes bears in you the blood that can change the fate of the world!" is more than enough information for them to have. They'll ask who it is, it's only natural, so you give them another line "To name the bloodline is to kill the bloodline, but the bloodline must continue in order to save the world from itself". Now, you've given the hook, you've implied that death would doom the world, you've made them all wonder who it is, and if the one character dies, you can use the new one without creating plot holes.

Particle_Man
2019-04-09, 12:04 PM
However, a lot of their deaths were either because they deliberately screwed each other over, or because they did mind-bogglingly stupid things. Like our sorceress deciding she'd go punch a monster in armor despite having most of her spell slots left and two melee party members between her and the monster. Or our fighter deciding he'd eat the random demon skull the obviously demonic cultist told him was "demonic, but, like, totally safe" without even so much as a second thought despite everyone at the table telling him it was a terrible idea.

Well with that kind of player group, have you considered running a game of Paranoia instead? Sounds like it would fit your players' playstyle a lot more and the idea of stupid, back-stabbing actions is baked into that game, as are "instant clones" where you play Mak-R-Space 2 after Mak-R-Space 1 dies, and you just use the same stats as before. Each player gets 6 clones, played one at a time.

Pelle
2019-04-09, 12:17 PM
What you want is kind of mutually exclusive.

What I've done in a similar situation is roll on a permanent injury table instead of having the players die automatically. Things like -1 dex/ac/skills, and even a small possibility of dying. It still sucks to roll for it, but it's not too influential for game balance and was enough of a deterent to keep players acting responsible ime. And you get characters with cool scars and injuries instead of halting the narrative.

Whyrocknodie
2019-04-09, 01:20 PM
Make the entire party share the level loss cost of resurrection. Someone dies, everyone drops a level - there's bad consequences, but the party is still balanced. Fluff this loss as the despair cost of seeing your strength tested and failing or something if needed.

Thrawn4
2019-04-09, 05:32 PM
What you want is kind of mutually exclusive.

What I've done in a similar situation is roll on a permanent injury table instead of having the players die automatically. Things like -1 dex/ac/skills, and even a small possibility of dying. It still sucks to roll for it, but it's not too influential for game balance and was enough of a deterent to keep players acting responsible ime. And you get characters with cool scars and injuries instead of halting the narrative.

That's the same approach I am taking right now. I like it a lot.
Of course, one can also try to punish the characters through consequences that derive from the story.

jjordan
2019-04-09, 05:39 PM
What you want is kind of mutually exclusive.

What I've done in a similar situation is roll on a permanent injury table instead of having the players die automatically. Things like -1 dex/ac/skills, and even a small possibility of dying. It still sucks to roll for it, but it's not too influential for game balance and was enough of a deterent to keep players acting responsible ime. And you get characters with cool scars and injuries instead of halting the narrative.I like that.

Pippa the Pixie
2019-04-09, 07:45 PM
Yes I CAN say that another distant relative happened to show up, but it begs the question of why the **** weren't they doing anything before? Why are they now.

How about:

1.They were locked up somewhere
2.Trapped in a time vortex
3.Turned to stone
4.Polymorphed
5.Had no memory/did not know