Character Death before Introduction

[snailgosh]

Hey folk. I was wondering, how'd you deal with your character dying before you even got to play it?
If some circumstances led to her demise, even before she was introduced to the party.

Would you stick to your concept and have her enter the storyline another way, like a reskin of sorts?
Would you appeal to your GM to retcon the premature death?
Would you take the fact as canon and create someone different entirely?

If anyone's interested, here's the situation that led to this question.

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

How'd you deal with the situation?

[EccentricCircle]

Maybe she's the hostage who managed to escape from the bad guys, during the confusion then? That way you can run into her before reaching the other hostages and maybe get more information before the final confrontation?

A PC should have agency, once they are playing the game, they are a protagonist, and few protagonists sit around waiting to be rescued. Were I GMing i'd cut between her escape, and the party's progress, and have the two meet at some point prior to the showdown with the bad guys.

See what your GM thinks, but it seems odd to throw out a character because of circumstances outside of their control, when you could just give them control of the circumstances by letting them get on with playing the game.

[khadgar567]

Depends on setting if pathfinder then intruduce her as agent send by another venture captain.

[Yllin]

Until players witnessed something in the game world, it doesn't exist. Even something they did see can be retconned. So there is no objective reason to say that the character "is dead".

The GM is free to not allow any character into the game based on any reasons. So the GM can they that "the character is dead and cannot participate in your adventures" if they feel like it.

The GM among other things should consider group's enjoyment when making a decision though. If the player character doesn't join the group, then it's no different than any NPC for other players. Which means that the only ones who are directly concerned are the player in question and the GM. My call would be to say that the PC was never among the hostages if the party fails, unless the player wants the character to be dead.

[snailgosh]

A PC should have agency, once they are playing the game, they are a protagonist, and few protagonists sit around waiting to be rescued. Were I GMing i'd cut between her escape, and the party's progress, and have the two meet at some point prior to the showdown with the bad guys.

See what your GM thinks, but it seems odd to throw out a character because of circumstances outside of their control, when you could just give them control of the circumstances by letting them get on with playing the game.

That's the thing. She didn't have any agency yet. I think mainly because my GM wanted it to be a surprising reveal. None of the other players know any of this.
I agree though. Having a joining player be a NPC-until-interacted-with doesn't seem to be the best course of action.

Depends on setting if pathfinder then intruduce her as agent send by another venture captain.

I'm not sure I understand. Then again, we don't play Pathfinder. :)

In all honesty I'm less interested in a "solution" to the situation at hand, but more in your opinion how'd you deal with a situation like that yourselves!

[Cazero]

Some game systems have rules to kill characters during creation, and those systems are terrible. But outside of those circumstances, a character can't die before being introduced because the character doesn't exist yet.
Note that "introduction" doesn't always involve the party meeting the character. If you play in an official established setting, all official characters of that setting can be considered introduced. Being referenced by name may also work.

Wich brings us to the second point. Unless your party were given the names of the hostages, the hostages identity are in a quantic state. The hostage group can include or not include your girlfriend's character. And since this is a game and not an empirical observation of the nature of the universe, who the hostage actualy are when you find them should be whatever serve best the needs of the game. If the hostages are safe and sound, putting the new PC here is a convenient narrative tool for inserting her in the game. But if the hostages died offscreen, making your girlfriend character one of the corpses is a "rock fall, you die, no save" move.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Usually a character about to die would get a chance to do something about it. It wouldn't be cool to drag an established character around helplessly for a few sessions just to coup de grace them, and this isn't that different. I'd say she should get a chance to solo a (short) escape scenario. If she succeeds the chances of the group go up as well.

[Glorthindel]

I once lost a character during creation in Hackmaster - the class handbooks had extensive character background tables that could earn you extra skills, weapon proficiencies, money, and spells, but could also likely leave you with flaws, permanent scars or psychosis, or NPC vendettas.

One Paladin I rolled up had to roll on the "going to war" charts, where due to a string of bad rolls, ended up getting killed due to a freak Trebuchet friendly-fire incident. He received a posthumous medal of valor however...

(Disclaimer - Hackmaster is a very tongue-in-cheek D&D parody, so having things like this happen definitely fits the games mood and feel, and we all thought it hilarious. Other characters I've played in that system included a Mage who gained a facial scar due to a gambling addiction at university, A Fighter who would only use Spears due to being wounded with one while at military school, and a Ranger with a fear of crossbows after having been pinned down by snipers during a jungle war. I love this game.)

[Anonymouswizard]

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

How'd you deal with the situation?

Just so I can get a rough idea of how much effort goes into rolling up a character, what system is this.

As the GM of likely talk to the player to work out an 'alternative' backstory, grieving sister of the hostage native, or just declare that by our luck she's the last hostage left alive. No sense to waste a charger that hasn't been used.

As the player is rub out the name, write in a new one, and maybe fiddle with some​ traits. No use wasting the sheet, and I wrote in pencil anyway.

Some game system have rules to kill character during creation, and those system are terrible. But outside of those circumstances, a character can't die before being introduced because the character doesn't exist yet.
Note that "introduction" doesn't always involve the party meeting the character. If you play in an official established setting, all official characters of that setting can be considered introduced. Being referenced by name may also work.

Now to be fair, most systems are changing character creation death to end of character creation instead (Traveler's definitely done this). On the one hand it's easier to make those 90 year olds who went through the careers and have enough of a pension to afford anti aging drugs each month, on the other hand I'm unlikely to make any other kind of character in Traveler.

Wich brings us to the second point. Unless your party were given the names of the hostages, the hostages identity are in a quantic state. The hostage group can include or not include your girlfriend's character. And since this is a game and not an empirical observation of the nature of the universe, who the hostage actualy are when you find them should be whatever serve best the needs of the game. If the hostages are safe and sound, putting the new PC here is a convenient narrative tool for inserting her in the game. But if the hostages died offscreen, making your girlfriend character one of the corspes is a "rock fall, you die, no save" move.

This, totally this. No need to force the creation of a new charger of a little bit of Schrödinger's hostage can be used.

[Wraith]

There's a system called deadEarth, whose big selling point is that at character creation you're supposed to make 3 characters and then use the one which survives or is, at least, the least maimed*. I asked about it on this forum once before - turns out that creatively creating dead characters is probably the most fun part of the game....

* No, there are no rules that tell you what to do if all 3 die. Presumably you sit and watch everyone else play?

It was also possible to die back in AD&D, if you rolled a spectacularly (un?)successful Psion. Whether or not a character was Psionic, as well as how powerful they were, was all randomly generated and a "Critical Failure" on the generation table would effectively blow your own head off. The Spoony One talked about it in one of his last videos, it sounds like a lot of fun (from a mildly sadistic point of view )

[Anonymouswizard]

There's a system called deadEarth, whose big selling point is that at character creation you're supposed to make 3 characters and then use the one which survives or is, at least, the least maimed*. I asked about it on this forum once before - turns out that creatively creating dead characters is probably the most fun part of the game....

* No, there are no rules that tell you what to do if all 3 die. Presumably you sit and watch everyone else play?

You can have a running speed measured in negative miles per hour. Negative miles per hour. How does that physically work? Especially and it seems you can have a speed of <-10mph. I mean, I know you get less than no actions in combat, but you become so slow the best way to move forwards is to backdash (so you essentially become a Castlevania protagonist).

I mean the characters who need exotic matter to even stand up are funny, but not as hilarious as people moonwalking around the deadEarth at full running speed.

[Wraith]

Presumably, having a negative amount of actions in combat is interpreted as giving your opponent additional ones; you're moving so awkwardly that they get to make "attacks of opportunity" as you freely create openings or stand still and vulnerable, stuff like that.

If you have a negative movement speed, probably the same things happen - your enemies get buffs to account for how slowly you are moving. It would essentially mean that your character perceives the situation as reverse-Bullet Time, where everyone else is whizzing around them and speaking in high pitch as though a VCR were being played at 2x speed. The lower your modifier, the faster they go!

[snailgosh]

Wich brings us to the second point. Unless your party were given the names of the hostages, the hostages identity are in a quantic state. The hostage group can include or not include your girlfriend's character. And since this is a game and not an empirical observation of the nature of the universe, who the hostage actualy are when you find them should be whatever serve best the needs of the game. If the hostages are safe and sound, putting the new PC here is a convenient narrative tool for inserting her in the game. But if the hostages died offscreen, making your girlfriend character one of the corpses is a "rock fall, you die, no save" move.

As the GM of likely talk to the player to work out an 'alternative' backstory, grieving sister of the hostage native, or just declare that by our luck she's the last hostage left alive. No sense to waste a charger that hasn't been used.

As the player is rub out the name, write in a new one, and maybe fiddle with some​ traits. No use wasting the sheet, and I wrote in pencil anyway.

Yeah, I count myself most definitely as part of the Schrödinger crowd, at least as far as the actual build is concerned.
I was just wondering wether some people might have a hard time playing the same personality they had intended for the prematurely deceased.

Just so I can get a rough idea of how much effort goes into rolling up a character, what system is this.

We're playing DnD 3.5 at lvl 3.

[Psyren]

Depends on how much effort I put into it before the death. If I had spent a lot of time on Roy Greenhilt and he splattered before I even met anyone in the party, you can bet your ass that Rob Redblade or Barry Bluepommel would be making an appearance right outside the dungeon, or that I'd be begging for a contrived rez of some kind. If I spent a lot of time on that concept, it's because that's the concept I wanted to play, dammit.

If on the other hand it was just thrown-together or a small experiment whose efficacy I wasn't even assured of, I'd play it for comedy and reroll normally.

[Rabidmuskrat]

Let me answer your question with a question. Suppose you could not play for a week and you come back to the game to discover your character had been killed in absentia - note, not killed because your party had done something stupid with the character while you were away, they had left him at camp, the DM had just decided your camp got thrashed by a dragon and your character was an unfortunate casualty. Think that would be fair?

You can avoid that situation very easily here, though. Just say she wasn't there. I dont really get what the point of "rerolling" a character is. She can just make the exact same character again (unless this is one of those systems with the long, complex character creation processes that could result in your character dying or something similar?).

[Anonymouswizard]

Presumably, having a negative amount of actions in combat is interpreted as giving your opponent additional ones; you're moving so awkwardly that they get to make "attacks of opportunity" as you freely create openings or stand still and vulnerable, stuff like that.

If you have a negative movement speed, probably the same things happen - your enemies get buffs to account for how slowly you are moving. It would essentially mean that your character perceives the situation as reverse-Bullet Time, where everyone else is whizzing around them and speaking in high pitch as though a VCR were being played at 2x speed. The lower your modifier, the faster they go!

Yes, bit this is all less fun. Plus I now want to make a M&M character who can move at light speed, but only when moving backwards.

(To go with the speedster who has two choices: normal human running speed or moving exactly at c. His speed is linked to a damage power with many, many levels of shapeable area, but otherwise his only offensive options are a normal punch.)

Yeah, I count myself most definitely as part of the Schrödinger crowd, at least as far as the actual build is concerned.
I was just wondering wether some people might have a hard time playing the same personality they had intended for the prematurely deceased.

Personality? As far as I'm concerned a character only gets a personality when introduced (which is why Doctor Magnesiumleaf, the only person thrown out of the Steampunk Inventors' Union for being too practical, currently has trouble making friends). If they're not introduced it introduced as a corpse planned personality traits are free to be used on the next charger, even a full personality transplant.

(Simpler: I ain't got no problem with it)

We're playing DnD 3.5 at lvl 3.

So what, half an hour for the main part than 2-3 hours picking magic items? If just suggest keeping the entire character tbh.

[sktarq]

Oh hey look, when the party informs the family of the hostages that they failed they find one of them has a far more competent and adventuresome sister who is now motivated by revenge. What are the chances?

For extra fun she can have a million very different stories about what her sister was like and how she have loved or hated various NPC's, PC, etc.

[RazorChain]

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

How'd you deal with the situation?

I would smack the GM on the head and call him an idiot because that character is alive until HE kills it. Sounds like you are dealing with a simulationist that doesn't want to budge.


If he doesn't stop being an idiot there is no need to roll up another character even if the hostages die. Then that character just wasn't there and can be introduced at later date.

Now I wasn't going to be insulting to your idiot GM but what I would have done is that the bad guys have one prisoner in the NEXT room just so she could join the group immediately instead of being sidelined. The "Oh no...you can't join because we're in a middle of a dungeon" excuse doesn't hold water any more, it's been used to death. If the GM wants a PC to join then he creates a situation for the PC to appear.

[Slipperychicken]

I'd just retcon her character to join the group some other way.

Maybe make the "new" character a relative or friend of one of the hostages, who insists on joining the party to rescue that person.

[RazorChain]

You can have a running speed measured in negative miles per hour. Negative miles per hour. How does that physically work? Especially and it seems you can have a speed of <-10mph. I mean, I know you get less than no actions in combat, but you become so slow the best way to move forwards is to backdash (so you essentially become a Castlevania protagonist).

I mean the characters who need exotic matter to even stand up are funny, but not as hilarious as people moonwalking around the deadEarth at full running speed.

Negative speed means that you timetravel to the past.....slowly. Your character started at death and is experiencing his life backwards.

[Velaryon]

Hey folk. I was wondering, how'd you deal with your character dying before you even got to play it?
If some circumstances led to her demise, even before she was introduced to the party.

Would you stick to your concept and have her enter the storyline another way, like a reskin of sorts?
Would you appeal to your GM to retcon the premature death?
Would you take the fact as canon and create someone different entirely?

If anyone's interested, here's the situation that led to this question.

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

How'd you deal with the situation?

If I'm the DM, this doesn't happen. The most that would happen is that it would turn out the hostage who was going to be her character is no longer her. Then I figure out a new way to immediately introduce the character (I like the idea that she now becomes a family member out to avenge the slain hostage).

If I'm the player whose character is killed off before I'm even playing: I will ask the DM to do the above. If the DM insists that no, I have to build a completely different character because they killed off my character before I was even in the group, then I know this is someone I do not want to game with and will leave. I don't believe in screwing over players like that. Bad luck is one thing - if I get critted to death in my very first battle that sucks, but it's the dice. But that isn't what's happening here - this is the DM deciding that my character is dead before I even get to play them.

[Lord Raziere]

Depends, am I playing a ghost or an undead? because that is kind of needed for the backstory.

If I'm not then I'm automatically out, because I came to play my character, not for them to get killed before they even get going.

[Kiero]

That was a thoroughly stupid call by the GM. Why try to insert the character into the game in that way, then arbitrarily decide to kill them off-screen like that?

This is a definite red flag for a game that's probably best avoided.

[Nifft]

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

How'd you deal with the situation?

If I were the DM, then something like this would have happened:
- Due to the PCs' actions, whatever it was that guarded the hostages was weakened (i.e. lost key guards), or got spooked. Either way, they decided to move the hostages.
- Agent Girlfriend got free of her bonds using magic, or skill, or her mighty thews, or the luck of fools, or divine shenanigans, or whatever.
- During the hostage moving event, Agent Girlfriend instigates an uprising amongst the hostages.
- When the PCs enter the dungeon again, she is walking towards them, wearing only chains and rags and the skulls of her former captors. Behind her, flames and explosions and weeping kobolds.

"Do I have you to thank for the distraction?"

[Zale]

When the PCs enter the dungeon again, she is walking towards them, wearing only chains and rags and the skulls of her former captors. Behind her, flames and explosions and weeping kobolds.

"Do I have you to thank for the distraction?"

The perfect girlfriend.

[Lazymancer]

Hey folk. I was wondering, how'd you deal with your character dying before you even got to play it?

I'll still play my undead Lich/Ghost/Vampire, if it's D&D/WoD - or roll new character, if it's Traveller. That's ~2 minutes of time lost.

If anyone's interested, here's the situation that led to this question.

The characters in the group I play in are trying to rescue some hostages. My girlfriend wanted to join the group belatedly. As we were making good progress and were currently in the middle of a dungeon, our GM decided to have her character be one of the people we are tasked to rescue to make for a plausible introduction to the group. Now apparently we're taking too long and the chances we can find the hostages still alive are slim at best.
I was sort of spoiled, but my GM basically told my girlfriend to roll up a new character.

Okay. That's either dumb or passive-aggressive. Especially, the bit about making new character. Are you sure your GM is actually interested in role-playing (at least, with you/your girlfriend)?

How'd you deal with the situation?

I'm not sure you have some exceptional situation that happened only once and will never repeat itself. I'm guessing your GM exhibits systematic behaviour in the same vein all the time. If that's the case, there is no cure.
a) don't play with storytellers.
b) if you can't help having some in your group, don't let them GM.


Players play. That's like the actual Rule #0, and GM's job is to make it happen. That's the only reason for GM to exist. If player doesn't play, it's GMs job to arrange PC - in any way. No excuses. It doesn't matter how improbable or badly-played it is. At worst this simply means GM is not particularly good at his job. But if GM is not letting players play, he is not even trying to do his job. At all. Boot him out.

Consider this session:
1) PC gets killed, player switches to playing his henchman, said henchman getting promotion from 0-level to 1st-level.
2) PC gets killed, players switches to playing NPC who murdered him (and joined party).

Zero time spent non-playing.

Some game systems have rules to kill characters during creation, and those systems are terrible.

No. Said game systems (Traveller) don't have overcomplicated chargen and it doesn't happen often either way.

In fact, even D&D 3.5 can kill character during chargen, if you try (Venerable Elf with 8 or lower pre-racial Con).

[Anonymouswizard]

I'll still play my undead Lich/Ghost/Vampire, if it's D&D/WoD - or roll new character, if it's Traveller. That's ~2 minutes of time lost.


Okay. That's either dumb or passive-aggressive. Especially, the bit about making new character. Are you sure your GM is actually interested in role-playing (at least, with you/your girlfriend)?


I'm not sure you have some exceptional situation that happened only once and will never repeat itself. I'm guessing your GM exhibits systematic behaviour in the same vein all the time. If that's the case, there is no cure.
a) don't play with storytellers.
b) if you can't help having some in your group, don't let them GM.


Players play. That's like the actual Rule #0, and GM's job is to make it happen. That's the only reason for GM to exist. If player doesn't play, it's GMs job to arrange PC - in any way. No excuses. It doesn't matter how improbable or badly-played it is. At worst this simply means GM is not particularly good at his job. But if GM is not letting players play, he is not even trying to do his job. At all. Boot him out.

Consider this session:
1) PC gets killed, player switches to playing his henchman, said henchman getting promotion from 0-level to 1st-level.
2) PC gets killed, players switches to playing NPC who murdered him (and joined party).

Zero time spent non-playing.

There's nothing wing with a player sitting out for like 5-10 minutes as I move then towards a good entry point for a new character, but also explicitly let players with new players say 'and my character's there' at the beginning of every scene. I might say 'yes', and I might say 'yes, but...', but I'm unlikely to refuse. (Oh, in also a storyteller, I believe in rule 0 being 'what the GM says guess', but rule -1 is 'where the players feet go the player goes', i.e. if we can't compromise I won't feel bad if you walk).

No. Said game systems (Traveller) don't have overcomplicated chargen and it doesn't happen often either way.

In fact, even D&D 3.5 can kill character during chargen, if you try (Venerable Elf with 8 or lower pre-racial Con).

I've seen more GMs than not told that she modifiers only apply if earned through play.

Also Traveller character creation is now more complex but a survival tool will never kill you, only aging can do that (and you'll likely be useless as a PC well before then). I've managed to get to mid fifties Britt I decided to stop risking it, but I tend towards intellectual characters.

[Karl Aegis]

We can rebuild him...
We have the technology...

I can think of a few characters in fiction that died before the start of the story. Most notably is Inspector Gadget. Sometimes it adds a new dimension or a few quirks to the character. Most of the time your character ends up being in law-enforcement, witness protection or are a villain, but it's not like a good character can't be done.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

We can rebuild him...
We have the technology...

Part man, part warforged, all town guard.

Warforgedguard.

The future of your character.

[Jay R]

The character doesn't join the game before the player.