Editorial: The Problem of Player Death
I want to get something out on the table here: although 1st edition AD&D is my game of choice by a large margin, I’m far too young to have rolled dice with some of you back in the late ‘70s when D&D was really getting rolling. While I lament my disconnection from the incense, paisley, and sideburn adorned Player Characters of the olden days, nothing makes me happier than the simple sensibilities of old-school gaming.
I cut my teeth on 3rd edition, when characters represented a much higher investment in time regarding player creation and leveling. Also apparent was the less deadly nature of the game at that point: no save vs. death spells, higher hit points, and what seem to me (though not verified via sourcebook) easier monsters/encounters in general. The unforgiving nature of old-school gaming seemed stark to me initially, though I’ve warmed to the idea of an unrepentant game world simulating real life as accurately as possible, while still accounting for human-eating shambling piles of garbage and the walking dead.
Still, I’ll share with you one of the frustrations I experience as a DM with a demanding job, an upcoming wedding, and a resulting once-a-month D&D evening on the books: the problem of player death.
Its all well and good to draw a line in the sand as an old-school DM, where the dice fall as they may and player characters bite the dust liberally and often. This romping style of play is amusing for a time, but with only 12 play sessions a year there becomes a rift between casually killing off characters for the sake of the rules and allowing your players to come back to your table once a month with a genuine attachment to their PCs. Sure, one can argue that danger breeds smarter PCs, but frequently dying PCs (level 1 Magic-users taking a stiff breeze to the face, for example) breeds a climate of detachment and frustration that’s not as palatable as I’d like.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m dead set against fudging the characters through adventure upon adventure with no real risk of danger. On the contrary, I explore this topic because of my desire for danger to be present in my games, but a need for danger to be more significant and interesting than “your 1st level fighter takes an arrow to the knee, and dies. Here is your new character sheet” after 4 sessions (re: 4 months of real-life) of character development.
So what can be done? I’ve brainstormed six different outcomes that can be employed in case of player death, in the hopes that you reserve the massacre of your party for a situation in which they truly deserve it. Click through to see…
Hex Crawl 