Character Suicide

[ewoods]

I was hoping to get some DM perspectives on an issue. Have you ever had a player who throws his character into unwinnable situations because "that's what his character would do?" I've got a player like that right now and it's driving me crazy. As an example, at the last game, the party barely managed to escape a combat between a group of dragons fighting each other. They weren't even participants in the combat, just bystanders. The risk was getting trampled or caught in the blast area of a breath weapon. So they escape to the safety of the forest and the paladin decides that he's going to go back to help defend the gold dragon (who is also a paladin) because "that's what his character would do."

Now I'm fully prepared to just squash his character and have him sit out until the party can find a resurrection, but there's got to be a more constructive way to deal with this, right? I mean, I flat-out told him that his character would most likely die if he went back, at the risk of making him feel railroaded, and he said he wanted to go back anyway. And this isn't the first time he's rushed into situations like this, nor is it the first time his character has died because of it. And maybe it's fun for him, but it's not fun for me. There's supposed to be an element of self-preservation, right? To which he responds, "My paladin is immune to fear, so he wouldn't be afraid to die."

[Mr Beer]

Maybe it's how he likes to play, is that a big problem for the game? Some campaigns it would be, others not so much. If it's messing things up, you're going to have to talk to him about it, I mean he's entitled to get his character killed but if you are building everyone into a plot and he's messing it up, it's a problem. Either he needs to build a less suicidal character or you need to invest a lot less time on him.

[BootStrapTommy]

Hahaha! I've never played a pali who lived to level 6. Because I play my palis like that guy.

I question the mentality of DM investing in characters or attempting to shield them from death. Actions have consequences. I'm always amazed how often causality is thrown out the window for people's "feeling".

That being said, give that man a level. If he makes the choice knowing he might die, he doing an amazing thing called roleplaying.

[ewoods]

Yeah, I guess I should have explained the root problem. See, nobody else in the party ever goes along with him. So basically the next game is going to start with the rest of the party hiding in the forest while I spend time going through the motions of the paladin's death. Meanwhile, the rest of the group is just sitting there waiting to get on with the adventure.

[LooseCannoneer]

The Immune to Fear argument is monumentally stupid. Being afraid to die is not a status effect, it is roleplaying.

There are four types of lethality in games:
1) Everyone lives, all the time.
2) Not doing dumb things will keep you alive.
3) Bad rolls can, on occasion, kill.
4) Bring a dozen spare characters.

I recommend you run your game at 2 or 3. This means that if the Paladin wants do be suicidal, kill him.

By the way, and I don't mean to turn this into a Paladin thread, but this is my second-least favorite Paladin roleplaying style, because it plays a constant game of chicken with the DM, and they won't turn away.

[Valameer]

I don't know what your plans were for that dragon fight, but I think it would be awesome if the gold dragon lost the fight because duty forced him to save the weaker paladin. Essentially, the paladin hampers the gold dragon's ability to fight because he is just a liability in the battle. But the gold dragon, being a paladin, must risk his life to save the paladin.

Have the gold dragon chidingly give the paladin words of wisdom along the lines of "you must choose your battles with more wisdom, oh foolish young one..." as he lays dying, if you can work it in.

[ewoods]

Haha! That's brilliant! I might just do that.

[BootStrapTommy]

By the way, and I don't mean to turn this into a Paladin thread, but this is my second-least favorite Paladin roleplaying style, because it plays a constant game of chicken with the DM, and they won't turn away.

Suidical bravery is roleplaying too. Mechanically back by fear immunity.

This is only a problem if the DM is a chicken. If you're not a pussyfooted DM, this is no issue. You kill the character, and the story goes down in infamy.

[Nalak]

Ask if he thinks his character would do any good in the situation. I mean take the dragon fight. Is he capable of intervening in the fight in any meaningful way at all beyond becoming a potential casualty that the paladin dragon would have to protect? In my games I also rule that the fear immunity doesn't mean they can't feel fear just that it doesn't affect them. Meaning you would be afraid to die, just that fear would not hinder you in your attempts to do what was probably going to kill you. Though that's just my houserule.

There isn't anything technically wrong with a player being willing for their character to die in a noble sacrifice or in a fight they can't win. The issue is there's a large difference between holding the line and trying to buy the rest of the party time to escape the orc hordes, and getting involved in a fight so far out of your league that you'll more than likely cause more damage for the person you're trying to help than actually helping them. You'll probably need to talk to the player and see what the character is like, as they might be operating under a misconception of how paladins work. Since a paladin's job is more to do good and defy evil. You're supposed to avoid dying if you can help it since being a corpse limits the amount of good you can do.

[LooseCannoneer]

Suidical bravery is roleplaying too. Mechanically back by fear immunity.

This is only a problem if the DM is a chicken. If you're not a pussyfooted DM, this is no issue. You kill the character, and the story goes down in infamy.

I know suicidal roleplaying is still roleplaying, I've just had players who came from DMs who don't kill PCs, so they go into stupid fights and whine incessantly when they die. Rather messy business OOC, so I recommend you think about whether the player would mnow you aren't a Bond villain simulator, where the PC is captured and placed in a slow deathtrap. Unless you have the players be too late. Then it gets fun.

[MrNobody]

Knowing the level of the paladin could be useful: a 5th level paladin interferring between two dragons is not the same as 15th level or more...
Anyway, if you don't won't him to be squashed right out you could treat him like what it is: a distraction. Maybe the evil dragon has a ready quickened summon monster of the appropriate level (or has a magic item that allows him to quicken it) to call something that deals with the paladin as the big fight goes on.
If you are playing 3.5 remember "animate breath" spell that change the breath spell of a dragon into a construct that fights for him.
If, like i imagine, the difference of power between the paladin and the dragon is so evident it could happen something like this: the paladin attack the dragon, that barely notices but its annoyed; in its round, the dragon quick summons some back-up to deal with the "flea" and then goes back to the big fight.
Result? the paladin can be happy and deal with the forces of evil on the battlefield without being wiped out with a breath. A Reflex save every round to avoid the casual damage of a swinging tail could be useful to set the mood of the battle.

In general, i've seen a lot of "suicide characters" (did a couple myself) and in general they are like this because they strongly want to have their character to do what they think it's right for him. Best thing to me is trying to satisfy themif it possible, sometime misleading them into a safer situation (like the above suggestion), sometimes railroading them away, sometimes having them die.
I usually use reason like this. The action is well motivated in character ? Yes, let it do it. No, but anyway interesting? mislead to a safer path. No, and its a waste of time? railroad it away. No, and its utterly stupid (i am a 1st level rogue and i want to steal the king's crown from its head during a meeting with him and all his high level knight just because i'm CM rogue)? the character dies.

[Donnadogsoth]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the game mechanics of suicide. I had a suicidal PC once, trapped in a garage with an evil truck trying to carbon monoxide poison him. He gave up and sprayed the fuel tank with his AK-47. I had the GURPS Vehicles book that told me how to roll to see whether diesel ignites, so the first shot failed, the subsequent burst didn't. End of character.

I made two mistakes there. First, diesel doesn't ignite like that; I can take the word of at least two people on that, one with mechanics expertise. Second the PC should have to make a roll, above his Motivation, to give up on life, and another roll, equal or less than his Will, to muster the courage to do the deed. If either roll fails, he doesn't have it in him.

In the paladin's case, well, the motivation is taken care of. He would roll his Motivation (or equivalent) to be motivated enough to be so reckless. Then comes the Will check, which in D&D is something like Wisdom? Both of these stats could be considered pure player choice, and that's cool if you want to run it that way, but in my game I would make him make a roll for courage.

[ewoods]

I thought this was going to be a thread about the game mechanics of suicide.

Sorry! It wasn't supposed to be click-bait!

[Sith_Happens]

I don't know what your plans were for that dragon fight, but I think it would be awesome if the gold dragon lost the fight because duty forced him to save the weaker paladin. Essentially, the paladin hampers the gold dragon's ability to fight because he is just a liability in the battle. But the gold dragon, being a paladin, must risk his life to save the paladin.

Have the gold dragon chidingly give the paladin words of wisdom along the lines of "you must choose your battles with more wisdom, oh foolish young one..." as he lays dying, if you can work it in.

Oh man, so much this. You need to beat into his head that these sorts of actions don't actually do anyone any good, and therefore the only reason "his character would do them" is if "his character" is stupid.

[Thrudd]

Play out the combat and let the dice fall where they may. He shouldn't be restricted in his character's actions or motives. If he dies, he dies. Maybe he'll do something smart or get lucky and survives and helps the good guy win. Who knows? If the rest of the party is unable or unwilling to recover his body due to fear of the dragons, massive damage, or getting eaten whole, well, that's the risk he took knowingly.

Why should you be concerned that the character dies, if the player isn't? Maybe his next character will be more pragmatic.

[Mr.Moron]

I'd make the Dragon vs Dragon fight as a background effect. The baddies have some kind of agent, or magical artifact or other secondary element set up to intervene on the battle on their behalf in some kind of sneaky way that wasn't apparent before this point. Something vulnerable enough in it's current state to be dealt with by a PC, but a credible enough to be a threat.

For example, this is one thing I might try (just an example):

Spoiler

Show

Turns out one of the evil dragons has some kind of magic artifact that enhances his magic and can be used to shoot super-death-lasers. He's charging it for the super deadly blast when the good dragon/paladin is able to separate it from him (knock it to the ground). However the process has started and beam-o-doom is still chargin', and the paladin-dragon is too occupied to deal with it directly but it'll still be bad news for him if it goes off.

Now that dragons are fully engaged and "off-screen" with their mid-air battle. Stray breath weapons and tail swipes can be glancing enough to be level appropriate checks, maybe slightly on the easy end. Rather than direct death sentences.

So the paladin arrives and the magic item automatically summons some minor demons to protect itself. If the paladin destroys the artifact he's contributed in a way that's satisfying to his player, without making the dragons seem like chumps, while keeping the challenge the level appropriate. If fails, he's failed in a fair challenge and not died to "dragons, fall you die".

I think if there is any way to do something like that within the tone of your game, it'll be more satisfying for everyone involved.

[ewoods]

Yeah, I never had any intention of railroading his character. I did give him fair warning, but if he wants to rush headlong into battle, I'm fully prepared to let him and see what happens. I think what bothers me the most is that whenever he does this, the rest of the party just has to sit there and wait. They never complain but I don't take it as a good sign when I'm spending game time on a single player while all the other players are on their phones or pull out their laptops to find something to do.

[Thrudd]

Yeah, I never had any intention of railroading his character. I did give him fair warning, but if he wants to rush headlong into battle, I'm fully prepared to let him and see what happens. I think what bothers me the most is that whenever he does this, the rest of the party just has to sit there and wait. They never complain but I don't take it as a good sign when I'm spending game time on a single player while all the other players are on their phones or pull out their laptops to find something to do.

Yeah that is annoying. Maybe after or before the game, you should suggest he alter his character's behavior a little to avoid splitting the party quite so often. Or talk with the whole group and see if they want to come up with characters that all have more similar priorities, so this doesn't come up as much. Or if they don't mind at all, then let it go, I guess. Just talk about your concerns with all of them.

[Nalak]

Yeah, I never had any intention of railroading his character. I did give him fair warning, but if he wants to rush headlong into battle, I'm fully prepared to let him and see what happens. I think what bothers me the most is that whenever he does this, the rest of the party just has to sit there and wait. They never complain but I don't take it as a good sign when I'm spending game time on a single player while all the other players are on their phones or pull out their laptops to find something to do.

You know something else you could do. You said the next session is going to start with him doing his thing and the rest of the party hiding in the woods right? Start with the party. Its gonna take a bit before the paladin is able to get into combat range with the dragons anyway and if the dragons are you know being dragons and flying then that's even more time before he can do anything. So start with the party. They're fleeing through the woods to get away from an evil dragon and a draconic paladin doing battle and they've lost a decent chunk of party muscle and healing because the paladin has a death wish. While they're in the woods the party are still in danger have them get into fights with dark cultists or something, you know scavenger evil doers, trying to get into opportune positions to harvest the loot of the dragon horde nearby and/or kill the winning dragon since it will be weaker. Hell have them fight random beasts that are basically trying to escape the area because there are two adult dragons fighting and every animal in a several mile radius has its instincts screaming to run. I'm not saying kill the party, but I'm saying start with them and their trials and their problems as they run. Then when you reach a part like "At last you reach the relative safety of the road." Switch back to the paladin who's greatest contribution to the fight will be getting ignored by the enemy how is several leagues above him or getting the person he wants to save killed.

[Frozen_Feet]

I admit, this thread's not what about I thought it was. I add my voice to the choir supporting Obi Wan Dragon dying to save the paladin.

Of course, if this was me running the game, I'd just let the character die fighting. Trying to save a fellow paladin is hardly the worst way to go in my games.

On a rather different note, this scenario brought into mind the story of one cleric in my past group. His character spilled the beans on a huge treasure to the wrong person in addition to being tethered to following their command. After an expedition that took a wrong turn, the character was mutilated, penniless and hugely in debt. In order to escape the situation and to prevent his friends from getting settled with the debt, he had himself rowed to a nearby island where they knew a young blue dragon lived. Since it was not home, he tidied up its nest, made a bed for it and even brought it roses.

Obviously, the dragon torched him when it got back, and no-one seriously thought there'd be a different outcome. But the event became really brilliant in retrospect when I realize the player accidentally and without prodding roleplayed spiralling into depression and insanity, in addition to creating the sole instance in any game I've been part of where a character has committed suicide to escape his debts.

[jaydubs]

DM says no because "that's not what's supposed to happen, you're ruining my story" is railroading.

DM says no because those actions will cause metagame issues like splitting the party, and making the other players wait, is perfectly acceptable behavior. It's in the same vein as talking things out with a PC when you might just attack that character if it were an NPC. The players and DM bend a little bit for the sake of everyone having a more enjoyable session.

I guess what I'm saying is, this is an out-of-character issue because it's causing an out-of-character problem (other players having to sit and wait). And as always, you're better off dealing with out-of-character problems, out-of-character. Just tell him that you don't want to make everyone else wait. He needs to either rationalize a reason why his character doesn't need to go off on his own. Or if he can't justify that in his head, any future characters have to built with a more flexible personality.

Basically, treat it exactly like someone who likes to play nutbags crazy chaotic neutral characters. You can either figure out a way to play it without causing problems, or you can't play that alignment anymore.

[Darth Ultron]

I was hoping to get some DM perspectives on an issue. Have you ever had a player who throws his character into unwinnable situations because "that's what his character would do?"

Sure, this sort of thing happens in general all the time. But if your DM, you just need to remember that you control everything in the game.

Say you don't want the character to go back to the dragon fight, you can just say ''both dragons fly up into the air, and out of sight, to continue the fight high in the clouds.'' or even ''with a roar, evil dragon kills good dragon, fight over..''

Or ''the dragon looks at you and sneezes....it has the effect of a web spell''

As DM, you can do anything to change the situation.

[endur]

Lots of characters will do stuff that is not realistic from time to time.

Example: My dwarf in full plate armor jumped down over 10 feet to fight some goblins. In real life, a 10' drop in full plate armor could be suicide to the person jumping. In a game, no problem.

Several ways to handle the character running back to join the dragon fight.

1. Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader on the Death Star: Character runs back in time to see the Gold Dragon die. Character witnesses Gold Dragon telling Darth Vader, you cannot win.

2. Character encounters evil dragon minions, and fights minions while main event goes on.

3. Character attacks evil main dragon, with or without consequences. i.e. evil main dragon can ignore minion paladin, or evil main dragon could focus fire minion paladin.

4. Dragons have already flown off in their duel, so the fight has moved elsewhere by the time the paladin gets back.

Many other possibilities.

NOW THE REAL PROBLEM IS NONE OF THE ABOVE. Your real issue is that the player wants to go on quests that the other players do not want to go on. You as GM do not want to have one player monopolize the spotlight while the rest sit and do nothing.

So if the Paladin is going on a side quest, whether it is this one, or finding his special mount, or doing any other personal side quest, I highly recommend resolving the side quest not during group time. i.e. Resolve it by phone, email, or sometime when the two of you are together and the rest of the group isn't waiting. That way the paladin can accomplish his goals, but you are not interfering with other people's goals.

And this goes for all characters that have side quests, not just paladins.

[Deophaun]

Coincidentally, the issue I've had with PC pig-headedness also involved a paladin and a dragon. The paladin in question was part of an order that slew evil dragons. So, if there was a dragon around, the paladin would rush head-first in to try to kill it, generally getting knocked into the negatives real quick while the rest of the party scrambled to keep him alive for some reason. It didn't help that the paladin had zero ranks in Knowledge (arcana), and roleplayed that has having absolutely no idea what any dragon could ever do or why they were so dangerous. At one point, the cleric healed him into the positives in the middle of battle and, just as he was about to rush in again, my paladin knocked him unconscious.

Of course, in that campaign, my paladin also did things that were not conducive to his own survival, but almost always in service to preventing the deaths of other party members. In another incident, involving a dragon construct of all things, where yes, the other paladin had been struck dead and we later had to burn a wish to bring him back, my paladin did everything he could to occupy the thing's attention while the others evacuated the cavern. Finally, with about a third of my health remaining, everyone had gotten to safety and my paladin could finally start to retreat...

...then they decided to come back in.

And that was the second wish we burned that day. That ring didn't have a long lifespan.

[Yukitsu]

I was hoping to get some DM perspectives on an issue. Have you ever had a player who throws his character into unwinnable situations because "that's what his character would do?"

I think from a DM perspective, I would have to ask why that situation is there in the first place. Is it there to add something to the setting, but which is somehow inconsequential to the story or characters? If it is, say it happened, but the characters didn't witness it. In this case, the encounter, assuming it's D&D isn't terribly engaging, it would simply be rolling reflex saves over and over. Encounters that are "unwinnable" are by their very nature not terribly interesting except potentially as a narrative device, but they're only a narrative device, they aren't people playing a game anymore. Consider shuffling it into story telling, but don't make it something the players can actively engage in, because yeah maybe a big dragon fight would be interesting, but actually fighting in one would be even more interesting.

Is it truly something that is unwinnable? I've thrown myself at dozens of things that my DM has stated outright I wouldn't be able to beat and came out ahead, and each time he says the warning to another player, he does in fact kill that character. In this case, the encounters are difficult and require lateral thinking, they are not in fact unwinnable. A game should have situations where the player could feasibly pull off something that either succeeds or contributes, but contriving it until they can't is simply railroading.

If it isn't actually designed to explicitly be unwinnable, let him run in there. Maybe you'll be surprised by something they think of or pull off, and if it does turn out that there's nothing they could do there then that's how things are.

Ultimately though, people who are on the player side of things want to interact with the most interesting parts of a campaign world. If someone is interested in throwing themselves into terrible danger, they will.

So personally as a DM, I'd put the error on myself here, I shouldn't be placing truly impossible situations into the game world, and I should be placing set pieces out of reach of the player's ability to interact with them if I don't want them touched. "You can't change it it already happened" is a fairly non-railroad way to communicate story elements such as a massive dragon war.

[Nalak]

I think from a DM perspective, I would have to ask why that situation is there in the first place. Is it there to add something to the setting, but which is somehow inconsequential to the story or characters? If it is, say it happened, but the characters didn't witness it. In this case, the encounter, assuming it's D&D isn't terribly engaging, it would simply be rolling reflex saves over and over. Encounters that are "unwinnable" are by their very nature not terribly interesting except potentially as a narrative device, but they're only a narrative device, they aren't people playing a game anymore. Consider shuffling it into story telling, but don't make it something the players can actively engage in, because yeah maybe a big dragon fight would be interesting, but actually fighting in one would be even more interesting.

Is it truly something that is unwinnable? I've thrown myself at dozens of things that my DM has stated outright I wouldn't be able to beat and came out ahead, and each time he says the warning to another player, he does in fact kill that character. In this case, the encounters are difficult and require lateral thinking, they are not in fact unwinnable. A game should have situations where the player could feasibly pull off something that either succeeds or contributes, but contriving it until they can't is simply railroading.

If it isn't actually designed to explicitly be unwinnable, let him run in there. Maybe you'll be surprised by something they think of or pull off, and if it does turn out that there's nothing they could do there then that's how things are.

Ultimately though, people who are on the player side of things want to interact with the most interesting parts of a campaign world. If someone is interested in throwing themselves into terrible danger, they will.

So personally as a DM, I'd put the error on myself here, I shouldn't be placing truly impossible situations into the game world, and I should be placing set pieces out of reach of the player's ability to interact with them if I don't want them touched. "You can't change it it already happened" is a fairly non-railroad way to communicate story elements such as a massive dragon war.

To be fair Yukitsu it doesn't seem like the problem is "This player keeps throwing himself at situations I say aren't winnable," and more "This guy will abandon the party to go off on his own thing, usually because he's decided to go after the fight that everyone decided they couldn't win. As a result I have to derail the session for a while to show what he's doing while everyone else has to sit on their hands because no one else was up for committing suicide."

Though if I can cast some cynicism on the situation. We're sure the guy is actually at least trying to rp and this isn't just him trying to hog spotlight by throwing his character at situations where he knows he'll be the only one present, right?

[Yukitsu]

To be fair Yukitsu it doesn't seem like the problem is "This player keeps throwing himself at situations I say aren't winnable," and more "This guy will abandon the party to go off on his own thing, usually because he's decided to go after the fight that everyone decided they couldn't win. As a result I have to derail the session for a while to show what he's doing while everyone else has to sit on their hands because no one else was up for committing suicide."

Though if I can cast some cynicism on the situation. We're sure the guy is actually at least trying to rp and this isn't just him trying to hog spotlight by throwing his character at situations where he knows he'll be the only one present, right?

While I can understand that that sort of player can be problematic, ultimately, you're trying, I would hope, as a DM to produce interesting scenes and scenarios. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to tell a story or express a world, but a pretty fundamental part of RP games is getting involved in there, and being in those situations, not just listening to the DM talking about them. Obviously there is some miscommunication about expectations going on at the table, but ultimately, you need to back up a little and ask yourself why those dragons were there in the first place, and why wouldn't the players want to be a part of that if you've made it interesting? A lot of these decisions can be traced to the DM planning out something with an expectation, but the players will almost never follow what you are expecting them to.

In other words, I'd step back a bit and instead of asking about the player's motivations, I'd go into my own first. I think good DMing is about asking what you can do to improve the campaign first, not what actions need to be taken away from players. If it turns out that you did actually have a well thought out reason for those dragons to be there, you have given the player plenty of in game reasons to not do what they are doing and you've not just put in an impossible battle because you thought it would impress your players, then you should move on to thinking about what the players could do differently.

If you really must do all that, as a player, I'd prefer if my DM simply and flatly said "OK, you do that and your character gets killed, roll up a new character." It saves time on an endeavor that he clearly has no intent of letting me succeed in, dice and rules stop being fundamentally necessary to the situation.

[goto124]

The DM had the dragons very difficult to fight in combat, but the PCs could've negotiated or used Diplomancy on them. The dragons were there not for combat, but for a social situation.

I was about to say 'what to do if the players insist on combat', but then I thought of 'have the dragons throw them out of the cave without killing them'. Not sure if it's the best way.

The whole 'no plot survives contact with the players' thing is one of the more frustrating parts of DMing.

Does a 'when the DM asks you 'are you sure' and you answer yes, rocks fall and everyone dies' policy work for situations such as this, or does it only lead to railroading?

[Tengu_temp]

There are games where a PC jumping into a suicidal situation would miraculously survive or even win, and there are games where the PC would die quickly. You need to make it clear to this player that yours is the second kind of game. After that, he has only himself to blame for his suicidal actions.

And immunity to fear doesn't kill your self-preservation instinct and common sense. It's called Aura of Courage, not Aura of Stupidity.

[Yukitsu]

There are games where a PC jumping into a suicidal situation would miraculously survive or even win, and there are games where the PC would die quickly. You need to make it clear to this player that yours is the second kind of game. After that, he has only himself to blame for his suicidal actions.

And immunity to fear doesn't kill your self-preservation instinct and common sense. It's called Aura of Courage, not Aura of Stupidity.

Depending on how it happens, the DM has no control over whether or not it's the former or latter type of game. I get into a tremendous number of situations as a player that the DM has claimed was suicidal, and I've gotten through pretty much all of those. Yeah sure, I'll run if I don't have the exact tools and prep time to successfully defeat an encounter such as that, but if I see an opening and take it and surprise the DM, it becomes the former type of game where the DM may have considered it to be the latter. The only time I would fail is if the DM outright told me that I couldn't for narrative purposes, and that would straight and simple be the worst and most egregious type of railroading.