Villains Can Cheat Death (Without Taking Away Your Players' Victory)

I recently wrote a post over on my sister blog The Literary Mercenary titled Undercutting Death Can Undercut Your Story. And while I wrote this from the mindset of an author, there were quite a few references to RPGs and comic books about how introducing mechanics that render death mutable or reversible can have a major effect on your story's stakes, and with how seriously we take death as a consequence.

And this week I wanted to elaborate on this a bit for the Game Masters out there... because while it's true that what's available to the player characters is available to their enemies, if you're going to bring back a villain after they were killed then you need to do so in a way that doesn't feel cheap, or undermine your players' success, and which adds to the ongoing story.

Also, a shout out to Adrian Kennelly's supplement I'm Back! - 25 Reasons For A Villain's Survival for Game Masters who could use a bit of a kickstart on this topic.

It's a delicate balance... but you can manage it.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Should You Bring This Villain Back?

Its happens to all of us. Your players get lucky, and they sink a critical hit at a bad time. Or maybe you forgot about an ability on their sheet that stripped away your villain's exit strategy. Or for the first time in recorded history one of those one-hit-kill powers actually worked, and it dropped your big bad instantly. Well, you had plans for this villain in the narrative going forward, but the numbers made it clear that your players won this round, and your villain is dead.

First and foremost, ask yourself why they shouldn't stay that way. Aside from the fact that it would make your life easier as the GM, who in your ongoing campaign has a vested interest in that villain remaining on the mortal plane? And, perhaps even more importantly, what role are they supposed to actually serve in the ongoing narrative?

You had one job, Crassus... now go do it!

Take a moment, and ask who this villain is. Are they a hired mercenary who was just working for the real villain? Are they a servant of a cult, who might have access to relics or rituals that can bring back their servants? Or does this villain serve a dark god, or powerful necromancer, who might decide their minion has skills and abilities that would be too hard to replace at this stage of their plans? Did they make a deal with someone, or something that isn't going to let them out of it so easily?

All of that context matters. Because if your villain was just some guy who had a certain set of skills, but not a particularly rare one, then they shouldn't be resurrected unless the circumstances of their death were genuinely up in the air. If they fell off of a cliff and into a rushing river, then maybe they could survive, for instance. But if the PCs stabbed them to death, dismembered them, and burned their body, that villain is dead for sure. In that situation it's better to bring in a new villain who will take their place, and who might be looking for vengeance on those who killed that original bad guy. Maybe it's an old war buddy, an enraged father, a vengeful mother, an even more evil twin... someone who fills the role nicely, and who shows the party their actions have consequences, and what they do affects the story as it unfolds.

However, if this villain was truly difficult to replace either because of their unique power level, or you really wanted to build up more of the personal antagonism between them and the PCs, then consider using any of the absurd methods you have on-hand for resurrecting them. For example, could their parts and pieces be reassembled with dark technology, or terrible magic into some kind of angry cyborg a la Darth Vader, or an evil Robocop? Could they be truly resurrected by a patron, or a deity, who marks them in some way to remind them they have failed (perhaps removing a finger, like a Yakuza soldier, or marking them with terrible brands, taking an eye, etc.)? Or are they resurrected with a template added onto them, perhaps as a powerful undead, or some kind of horrible demon hybrid creature?

Or are they operating under a curse, like those who wield the Widowmaker, a terrible, corrupt weapon found in The Blade Itself for Hunter: The Vigil?

Give it a look if you haven't yet!

Now, the key here is that for this villain to come back it can't feel like you just hit the undo button behind the GM screen, and invalidated your players' victory because it was inconvenient to the narrative. This resurrection should clearly have come at some kind of cost to the villain, and it should be uncertain as to whether it will happen again. Even if you want to use resurrection or reincarnation as a kind of power for this particular enemy, the challenge will then become finding the thing that truly kills them for good so they stop coming back. But it should never feel like a victory (hard won or otherwise) is just being handwaved away because you couldn't be bothered to draw up a fresh villain, or to modify a story because you were operating under the assumption that this particular bad guy would be present and un-murdered for what comes next.

Remember that you can get creative with this! Just be sure that your resurrection feels well thought-out, appropriate to the story, and that the cost of it undercuts exactly how far the villain is willing to go to thwart the party... especially because their new lease on life may very well depend on them succeeding where previously they failed!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my additional audio dramas over on The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

How Does Your Character Want To Die?

The warrior dragged the whetstone along the length of his sword, first one edge, then the other. He moved slowly, methodically, dripping oil onto the steel at regular intervals as he maintained the weapon. Jasper looked over at him, and the halfling frowned as he watched this ritual the same way he had practically every night on this journey... every night there had been a fight, at least. Which had been most of them.

"You know, people in your profession rarely live to see their elder years," Jasper said.

"Good," the warrior replied, dragging the stone along the edge once more.

The halfling took his pipe out of his mouth, frowning. "You afraid of being old enough that your strength leaves you?"

"I won't have the luxury," the warrior said, laying the stone aside and tapping his chest. He coughed, then turned his head, and spit. "Lung rot."

Jasper suddenly realized he was still smoking, and tapped out his pipe. A sardonic smile quirked the corner of the warrior's mouth. The halfling frowned at him.

"You could live a lot of years with that sickness, if you cared for it," Jasper said.

"I could," the warrior replied. He lifted his sword, and looked along its length. Satisfied, he slid it back into its scabbard. "But I don't want to."

Some of us would rather die young than infirm and in bed.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

One of Life's Two Certainties

Everyone pays taxes, and everyone dies. While RPGs often hand wave that first one, the second is very much a part of most games. While danger is a part of every storyline, and there's no telling if your character will die at the hands of an insidious booby trap, in the jaws of a dragon, or on the receiving end of a dire spell, the question you should always ask is if they were given the choice, how does your character actually want to meet their end?

Death can come in many ways.

For example, does your character want to die in battle, believing that is a noble end for a warrior? Or do they want to die that way because their faith tells them warriors ascend to the highest of heavens? Do they believe they have committed some great wrong, and they will never stop fighting until they are slain in open combat? Or, as with our introductory story, do they know they have a limited time in this world already, so they throw themselves into danger in the hopes that something other than their degenerative disease or awful curse will kill them?

Alternatively, does your character wish to live a long life? Do they have too many places to go, and too many things they want to do, to cut their life short so soon? Do they fear death, and they're hoping to find ways to prolong their life during their adventuring career? Or do they simply wish to die in a way where they'll never know it happened, such as peacefully in their sleep?

Whatever your character's attitude toward death is, it matters because that will shape not just how they approach an adventure, but also how they respond to danger. It can also lead to serious moments of character growth.

For example, a character who is looking to die gloriously leaping into battle against overwhelming odds is completely expected. However, a character who fears death, or who has always done what they can to save their own skin taking that kind of action is a mark of someone facing a serious fear. Additionally, a character who was wanted to die in service to their god so they can be reunited with their loved ones in the afterlife allowing themselves to be raised from the dead to help their companions is a mark of great loyalty, and shows that they are growing beyond the singular desire to leave this world to enter the next.

If you're looking for more ways to get insight to your characters, consider grabbing some of the following supplements that I put together for just such occasions:

- 100 Questions To Ask About Your Characters: If you're looking for additional ways to get a slightly better grasp on who your character is, or to discover unexpected things about them, these 100 questions can give you some surprising insights!

- 100 Character Goals and Motivations: It's important to know what your character is hoping to achieve, and in some cases whether a particular death for themselves is actually on that list!

- 100 Dark Secrets: Whether it's a shameful past, a terrible disease, or even a curse, many characters have secrets they hide even from those closest to them... and it might be the very reason they put themselves in such danger.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

3 Strategies For Coming Back From a TPK

Hanging over nearly every encounter in every RPG is the potential that none of the player characters survive this fight, this trap, or this riddle contest with a devil. Whether the characters make bad decisions, the dice are against them, or something goes horribly awry, there's a chance that everyone winds up dead. It might be a remote chance in some circumstances, but it's usually in the background, watching and waiting.

The problem with a total party kill is, of course, that it severs the story you were all trying to tell, and it leaves everyone in a difficult position. The players need to come up with motivation to make new characters who want to pick up where the others left off, and the Game Master has to figure out some way to accommodate that new party so the story can keep going.

That's a massive headache, so I thought that this week I'd expand on some of the thoughts I had forever and a day ago in Undoing Character Death, and talk about methods and ideas for moving on/fixing a TPK so your game can continue, and you can finish the story you were all collectively telling.

Would you look at that? Seems the game goes on...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

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Avoid Death Entirely

The first, and most obvious, solution to dealing with a TPK is to instead have a TPL... Total Party Loss. The PCs still came out on the losing end of the encounter, but for one reason or another they all survived to tell the tale. So the characters are still in the game, but now they're at a significant disadvantage, and they've got to try to overcome their current circumstances.

Look, I'm just saying, you ain't worth much if I bring you in dead.

As a for-instance, say the party was brought down by a bandit ambush. If the PCs are low enough level, the bandits might just take any of their valuable gear, and move on, leaving them where they fell. After all, the penalty for murder is a lot worse than the penalty for highway robbery, so they might just take what they want and move on. If the PCs were fighting a cult, perhaps the cult wants to sacrifice them, so they have to keep the PCs alive for now. If the enemy was from another faction, perhaps they want to trade the PCs to a more powerful villain, or they might even want to try to sell them into slavery.

Whatever the reason, the PCs are at least not killed, and they might actively be kept alive to serve a purpose.

This is not a perfect solution, of course. After all, animals like manticores, mindless foes like undead or automatons, and creatures who hate the PCs may not wish to allow them to live. But there are a lot of TPKs that can be fixed by simply moving to a TPL instead. Especially because the PCs then have to regroup, and come up with new plans like how they're going to escape captivity, how they're going to get their gear back, and so on. The PCs might also have temporary (or permanent) injuries such as a loss of a hand or eye, or negatives to certain attributes until they can receive proper healing. This can make it feel like the GM isn't just giving the players a get-out-of-dead-free card, maintaining that balance of challenge.

This is also where having friends can help the PCs out a lot, as I mentioned back in The Case For Using Recurring NPCs in Your Game.

"Outsider" Intervention

So, the PCs are well and truly dead. Now what? Well, if the task they've been set is truly important (or if they are pawns in a cosmic game, as often happens in our campaigns), it's possible that some variety of outsider might step in and offer them a chance to try again.

Now, this can be simple or complicated. For example, if your party is slain on holy ground, perhaps they are offered a chance to return to life by the spirit or god who claims that place. This might mark them in some way going forward, requiring them to follow certain vows, or to accomplish certain tasks (mechanically represented by a geas, perhaps). The PCs might be given a chance to flee the afterlife, returning to their bodies, but now there are bounty hunters from the afterworld on their trail to drag them back for judgment. A spirit, a god, or a devil might offer the PCs a chance at life for its own purposes, as well. So even if a devil offers them the bargain, it might be doing so because the PCs are going to inconvenience one of its rivals, potentially creating a power gap that this devil can step into when the PCs achieve their goals. So while it might seem like the devil's bargain is too good to be true, it has its own motives the PCs may not be aware of.

You could make it more complicated, as well, if you want.

You can choose to make this part as complicated as you and your players want, as well. You could even make escaping the underworld a whole arc of the campaign... or a new campaign in and of itself if you check out my earlier post The Black Ballad... A Campaign That Begins Once Your TPK Ends! This particular game went live on BackerKit today, so go check that out if this is something that interests you.

Adding a Template

This is usually something I advocate for when it comes to villain survival after the PCs killed them, but turnabout is fair play when you're the GM. If you want the party to come back, and to come back hard, consider adding a template to them, or altering their creature type... at least temporarily.

Raven 1, going dark.

While you could grab ideas out of I'm Back- 25 Reasons For a Villain's Survival, I'd suggest that any GM who wants to use this particular tactic put a little more effort into making this feel organic. Because whatever template your characters are given should make sense for where they are, who they are, what they're trying to accomplish, and how they died.

For example, ask what it would be like to bring characters back as sentient undead for an arc. Vengeful ghosts, haunted armor, shambling zombies, or wrathful, spellcasting skeletons might be a fun thing to do for a party that was slain in the Forest of Spirits. Having the party reanimated as various golems or cybernetic creatures could work if they were used as subjects by a mad alchemist. Vows that allow them to temporarily become celestial or infernal creatures could be fun as well! Just ask yourself if this is a template you want everyone to have for the rest of the campaign, or if there will be a quest to undo this state of being once the immediate goal is achieved.

For Pathfinder players, corruptions are a ideal for this. These sets of dark powers put a burden on the character, while also giving them some additional abilities, and they are an ideal way to explain why someone isn't dead. Additionally, corruptions can be removed with time and effort, making them an even better choice than a template for this strategy. For those who are interested in them, consider the following articles as a jumping off point:

- 5 Classes To Pair With The Shadowbound Corruption

- 5 Classes To Pair With The Promethean Corruption

Paying The Iron Price

It really isn't all that expensive.

While that's all for my suggestions on coming back from a TPK today, I did want to make folks aware of something new that dropped recently. The Price of Iron is a module I wrote over a year ago for High Level Games, and it's a DND 5E adventure. When the party is offered a sack of silver and a masterfully crafted cold iron weapon each for a single night's work guarding a warehouse, it seems too good to be true. Of course, when portals to other realities begin to open, and the servants of a dark fey begin trying to break out, they realize they have quite a challenge before them.

If you've been looking forward to more modules from me, consider picking this one up, and keeping an ear out because I should have another piece that's long overdue finally becoming available in the very near future!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

What is a "Fair Death" in RPGs?

A few weeks back I talked about Death, And Its Role in RPGs. Folks seemed to really enjoy that entry, so I wanted to talk about something that didn't get mentioned at the time, but which is a topic that's been rolling around in my head for quite a while now... the idea of the "fair" death when it comes to our tabletop games.

Death, like a good GM, should be impartial.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

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Death, and The Roll of The Die

In the previous entry I talked about the role that death plays in a game, and how it needs to fit with the themes your game is about, and how it should be more than just a thoughtless "game over" screen. However, even if you know the role death plays in your game, the purpose it serves, and how it plays into your story, all of that is just figuring out where death is perching, so to speak.

When it pounces on a player, you need to be sure it does so in a way that feels fair.

Fortitude save? Why?

Death, like all consequences, needs to feel appropriate as a possibility for the actions taken by the players. As an example, entering combat usually has the lurking possibility of death. Some games may be more lethal than others (such as comparing Mörk Börg to Scion, for instance), but when the blades come out there's always a chance that death comes for the PCs rather than for their enemies. Death could also come from starvation, from exposure to the elements, or from traps sprung in a dungeon.

In all of these examples, the player should have agency in choosing the path that led them toward character death. If death is a result of their own decisions, then that is (at least partially) on them.

In addition to being a consequence for actions taken, death should be impartial. Or, put another way, the monsters want to kill the PCs, but the GM shouldn't. Death should be a result of strategy and dice rolls, rather than something that the GM purposefully tries to engineer for whatever reason. Whether it's stacking the deck by throwing monsters at the characters which are far too powerful to be defeated (or spawning new monsters on the field until the PCs finally die), or making sure the saving throws against lethal traps are impossible for the characters to make, this can feel like there was never a point in participating because the end was a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps most importantly, however, death should feel appropriate to the situation where it occurs. A random dragon passing overhead and strafing the party with its breath weapon while they're walking down a mountain path, being struck by lightning, or getting caught in the midst of a massive avalanche without any kind of build-up or context are just random deaths that serve no purpose, except to annoy and frustrate players.

Why You Should Care if Death Feels Fair

Full disclosure, I have never killed a PC as a GM. I'm one of those people who feels that the purpose of a game is to tell a story, and that killing off members of the main cast is going to create far more problems than it does solutions, so I try to make sure that death is held in reserve as a last resort.

Perhaps you take a different view of things. Maybe you feel that death is a natural consequence of playing an RPG, or that it should happen frequently in order to keep players on their toes. We could debate the merits and drawbacks of those beliefs, however, there is a practical reason why death needs to feel like it's fair.

Player engagement.

Buy-in is important, after all.

Generally speaking, when players make a character for a game it's because they want to tell that character's story. Death cuts that story short (unless we're in a Dark Souls RPG style game where death is expected to be fairly common), and even if it can be reversed it can cut down on player investment in the game. The less involved a player becomes, the shallower their participation becomes, and the worse the game gets overall.

This is where the fair death can make a big difference. Because if a character died in a situation that was fair (say they challenged an NPC warrior to a duel, and they were evenly matched, but they just didn't come out on top), then that's just the way the dice fell. It might be disheartening, but you pay your chips, you roll the dice, and sometimes luck isn't with you. That happens. But say that a character was forced into a 1-on-1 confrontation with a warrior double their level who had a bunch of other advantages... sure, the player still got to roll their dice, but doing the math probably feels like rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic; no matter what you do, you're still going down. That sends a message that either the person running the game is incompetent (because they don't understand how to build an effective, fair challenge), they're cruel (they put you through a whole scene just to kill you in a way that's probably humiliating and frustrating), or some combination thereof.

Sometimes PCs are going to die. Sometimes villains are going to die. Those deaths shouldn't be retconned or dodged when they happened as a result of open dice rolls, and the natural physics of the game. At the same time, though, these deaths should not be a result of unfair circumstances, GM fiat, or completely random happenstance. Otherwise players are going to be less and less invested in their characters, since they could just die at any moment leaving their story completely unfinished.

Recommended Reading

This week's installment has been a deeper dive on some of the topics I mentioned in 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master. So if you found this week's installment interesting, consider picking up that splat book along with its sister supplement 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better RPG Player as well!

And as a bit of fun, I recently did an audio for the introduction to the latter book. Because nothing is worse than when the Big Bad gets halfway through their monologue, and realizes the murderhobos have utterly stopped paying attention. Worse, they have no idea who this monster is, why they're here, and what this moment represents in the culmination of their story. We are all Faragor the Undying sometimes.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Death, and Its Role in RPGs

We've all had that moment of seeing the dice fall, looking up at the Game Master, and realizing it's over. That critical hit from the gnoll raider just drove a spike through your wizard's skull, and they're dead. All the plans you had, all the adventures you've managed, they're all for naught in the face of the grave. And even if the rest of the party piles onto that hyena-faced raider and smashes them to the ground, none of it will be enough to bring back Hedrick... he's gone.

Death is a part of the game, generally speaking, but we don't always stop and ask what role it should play. Which is why I thought I'd share some thoughts I had on death, dying, and questions surrounding it in our RPGs.

Let us hold up a mirror to the reaper, shall we?

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

How Common Should Death Be?

Death in RPGs is, generally speaking, supposed to represent the ultimate fail state. Whether it comes because the party was foolhardy or the villains were lucky, the dice giveth, and the dice taketh away. However, it's important to examine what getting that Game Over screen is going to do to your players, and to your game.

Do not worry... I can fix this.

The first question you need to ask about your game to put death into perspective is what sort of game is it? For example, a game like Mörk Börg is meant to have death lurking around every corner ready to come for you, because that's part of the doom metal feeling of the game. It's supposed to be bleak and dark, where no one is safe from even minor threats. On the other hand, death is even more prevalent in games like Paranoia or Dark Souls. However, in these games when you die you don't just roll up a new character. In the former, one of your preset number of clones is activated, and shipped out onto the field, and in the latter you are resurrected to try again.

Even in games where death is an ever-present constant, the purpose it serves is vastly different. And in games where death is permanent, it isn't always common. In some games death can be quite a rare occurrence, happening only when players truly screw up, or when the dice are really against them. So ask yourself what the purpose of death is in your game.

Is death meant to be final; something which the players must avoid at all costs lest they be forced to make a new character? Or is death merely an inconvenience, meant to be something you can overcome through determination, planning or resources? And is death meant to be common, or even expected, whether or not it's permanent? Is death to be used as a punishment, or as a neutral element?

These are all things you should know before making your pitch to someone to join your table.

Does Death Prevent Attachment?

As someone who likes RPGs, I try as many of them as I can when the opportunity presents itself. One of the factors that I find is the more certain death is, and the more often it's expected to happen, the less investment tends to come from the players in their characters. After all, if you know for certain that every roll of the die could lead to your character's death, then you tend not to make any big plans for that character. You avoid getting involved in their story, and you end up not getting very attached to them.

After all, if you get invested in seeing their story to the end, but they die three sessions in because of a random lightning strike, it can take a lot of energy to switch to a new character.

I know it's only been half an hour. You're dead, roll up a new character.

In this case, death in the game needs to be in-line with player expectations. If you're playing something like Dread, for example, then you know going in that you're probably just playing a one-shot game. Maybe 2-3 games at the most, because that's what the system is meant for. This allows players to come in with the right mentality and expectation, and to figure out the proper scope of experience to expect.

On the other hand, games like Starfinder and Pathfinder fully expect that you will keep the same character for the length of the campaign. While death is still a very real possibility in these games, there are lots of ways to avoid it, and there are even methods to reverse it should that be necessary at some point. The goal here is not just to complete the plot, but to expand and explore your own character's story. They're meant to survive, grow, and change so that by the time the campaign is over you've finished not just the Game Master's plot, but also told this particular PC's story. Then once the campaign is over you can close the cover, and move on to someone else.

When you have a game that's geared toward the actions and story of the player characters, players tend to get invested in the stories they're telling. They want to see their characters struggle, sure, but they also want to see them accomplish those goals, and finish the story off. If characters get killed off before they finish telling their story, that can lead to a serious lack of closure for the player. And if that happens often enough, pretty soon they're going to lose that attachment. It's also possible they just start making carbon copies of their last character (or as close as can be managed) and say it's their twin brother, their eldest son, etc. coming to finish what their dead family member started as some way to get a sense of continuity.

Consider Alternative Fail States

Death can serve many purposes in an RPG, but all too often Game Masters just default to death for everyone on the board; PCs and NPCs alike. However, there are alternative fail states to death that can be used, and they can allow the Game Master to lead by example.

Even if you're not just pulling from I'm Back! which acts as a list of back-pocket reasons your bad guys survived what should be very lethal circumstances.

- Capture: The character in question may be valuable in some way. They might be a noble who can be ransomed, a powerful champion of good that can be sacrificed in an upcoming ceremony, or even someone with a bounty on their heads. This can be used to explain why a lot of enemies may not wish to simply execute PCs, and vice versa if the PCs are the one taking the hostages.

- Flee: Enemies and players alike need to be given a chance to flee when things go poorly. They may still fail to get away, but a lot of players believe the choice is either death or victory. Chase decks are great for this, and I talk about them in If You're a DM, You Should Get Your Hands on a Chase Deck.

- Surrender: Whether done by the bad guys or the party, this is an option most of us simply don't consider. After all, the bad guys are just disposable mooks you threw down on the board, and the PCs are often too full of pride to consider this option. Making it clear that surrender can work, and that it's a lose state that's less permanent means some PCs may be willing to put up their hands if things go really poorly.

- Interruption: This can take many forms. Maybe it's a dragon wondering why a battle is taking place on its turf, or a herd of stampeding aurochs. An earthquake, flood, or volcanic eruption might also be appropriate, depending on the terrain. While this shouldn't be used without lead up, it can help add complications to battles that you want the villains and/or the heroes to survive as a kind of deus ex machina that makes fighting one another less important than surviving the new hazard.

I am not someone who advocates the removal of death from RPGs. Just like in any story, I believe that the possibility of death hanging over the narrative increases the stakes of said narrative. But if you add too much death, it can be like over-salting a meal; now the spice is the only thing you can taste. Alternatively, if you bend over backwards to avoid death, you end up with a game that can feel bland, and in desperate need of some spice.

Which one you need will depend on the length of the tale you're telling, what the rules governing your game are meant to support, and the kind of story your table wants to tell. Which is why it's important to stop and think about how you want death to play out in your game as part of your initial pitch to your players.

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