Running a long campaign: Part 2 - Character Mortality
The second part of my N-part series on running a long campaign touches on the subject of character mortality. Put bluntly: How many damn times can my character die before I stop caring about the next one?
It's a difficult question to answer of course and depends on every single group, player and game master. The trick is to get it just right, which you already knew before reading this, so I'll try to get a bit more specific.
First, lets talk about the positives coming from player characters dying during your campaign. There aren't many, of course, but there's one important one. That is that the players won't feel safe and secure that their characters will make it through whatever bind they get into. It makes them keep on their toes and think through any decisions they make. In other words, they get more invested in the story because there's the possibility they'll have to pay the ultimate price.
The main negative, apart from the obvious like you having to re-roll your character again (which can be really tedious depending on the system you are running), is that if it happens too frequently players lose the attachment to their character and it just becomes numbers on a piece of paper (or virtual character sheet in our case). It doesn't matter so much since my character will die soon again, kinda thing.
So, again, it's a balance.
In our Masks of Nyaralathotep game I think I have straggled that balance and on more than one occasion I've passed firmly into all I fucking do is die!-territory.
Having a beloved character die on you can be a traumatic experience. It's just a game, I know, but I also know I really hate losing a character I've spent hours and hours playing and getting to know.
So, my advice regarding this subject is: Be fair and give fair warning when they are entering dangerous territory. "Here be dragons" can be anything from a literal sign to a trail of corpses leading towards the cave to realizing that what they read in that ancient tome is all coming true.
I'm not proud to say it, but there's been at least one run-away boulder in my Masks game. In my defense that's how the campaign is built up. A small mistake and you can lose the entire party in a matter of seconds. It's absolutely brutal and it's well known and loved for it, so I guess it's kind of the nature of the game. But... I can also tell that it has put some pretty deep dents in the motivation of my players.
All but one has lost two player characters to death or insanity and the last player has lost one character as he got way too close to permanent insanity to be playable.
I think most players are okay with losing their characters to a danger that was sufficiently advertised, whereas they may be less okay with making one small mistake and having half die as a result of it.
Another thing you can do is to keep those characters alive through any number of means. If they are insane, they can send incoherent letters and telegrams (or make phone calls in a modern game) from their asylum. If they are dead, they can haunt the dreams of those still alive or they can even become permanent figments of one characters imagination. It's a way of honoring the fallen and making it feel like their deaths were not for nothing.
I would also say that if it's obvious that a character is trying to sacrifice himself to save his friends and colleagues, you should not let a single dice roll stand in the way. It's a good way to go down. Of course, if the rest of the group still decide to charge the same monster after their friends was just torn to pieces by the flick of a wrist it's kind of on them.
The last thing I want to mention is how you bring your new characters into the game. The more sense it makes, the quicker they will get into the game and feel like they are properly part of it again. I think it's even worth playing a short solo introduction with each player so that they can get into the head of their new character without the distraction of actually having to advance the main story.
It's a difficult question to answer of course and depends on every single group, player and game master. The trick is to get it just right, which you already knew before reading this, so I'll try to get a bit more specific.
First, lets talk about the positives coming from player characters dying during your campaign. There aren't many, of course, but there's one important one. That is that the players won't feel safe and secure that their characters will make it through whatever bind they get into. It makes them keep on their toes and think through any decisions they make. In other words, they get more invested in the story because there's the possibility they'll have to pay the ultimate price.
The main negative, apart from the obvious like you having to re-roll your character again (which can be really tedious depending on the system you are running), is that if it happens too frequently players lose the attachment to their character and it just becomes numbers on a piece of paper (or virtual character sheet in our case). It doesn't matter so much since my character will die soon again, kinda thing.
So, again, it's a balance.
In our Masks of Nyaralathotep game I think I have straggled that balance and on more than one occasion I've passed firmly into all I fucking do is die!-territory.
Having a beloved character die on you can be a traumatic experience. It's just a game, I know, but I also know I really hate losing a character I've spent hours and hours playing and getting to know.
So, my advice regarding this subject is: Be fair and give fair warning when they are entering dangerous territory. "Here be dragons" can be anything from a literal sign to a trail of corpses leading towards the cave to realizing that what they read in that ancient tome is all coming true.
I'm not proud to say it, but there's been at least one run-away boulder in my Masks game. In my defense that's how the campaign is built up. A small mistake and you can lose the entire party in a matter of seconds. It's absolutely brutal and it's well known and loved for it, so I guess it's kind of the nature of the game. But... I can also tell that it has put some pretty deep dents in the motivation of my players.
All but one has lost two player characters to death or insanity and the last player has lost one character as he got way too close to permanent insanity to be playable.
I think most players are okay with losing their characters to a danger that was sufficiently advertised, whereas they may be less okay with making one small mistake and having half die as a result of it.
Another thing you can do is to keep those characters alive through any number of means. If they are insane, they can send incoherent letters and telegrams (or make phone calls in a modern game) from their asylum. If they are dead, they can haunt the dreams of those still alive or they can even become permanent figments of one characters imagination. It's a way of honoring the fallen and making it feel like their deaths were not for nothing.
I would also say that if it's obvious that a character is trying to sacrifice himself to save his friends and colleagues, you should not let a single dice roll stand in the way. It's a good way to go down. Of course, if the rest of the group still decide to charge the same monster after their friends was just torn to pieces by the flick of a wrist it's kind of on them.
The last thing I want to mention is how you bring your new characters into the game. The more sense it makes, the quicker they will get into the game and feel like they are properly part of it again. I think it's even worth playing a short solo introduction with each player so that they can get into the head of their new character without the distraction of actually having to advance the main story.
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