Character Death in Dungeons and Dragons - DM Advice and Tips

come close pull up a chair and listen to our tales of woe today we're discussing character death in Dungeons & Dragons [Music] greetings and praise to the Fallen my name is Monte Martin and I am Kelley McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes on today's episode we're discussing one of the saddest parts of Dungeons & Dragons character death player characters and their Dungeon Master's invest a lot of time and energy in creating memorable characters to populate their campaigns however they live dangerous lives and they end in tragic ways perhaps you're a player who invested a lot of time and energy and maybe even made a custom mini or had some artwork created for your character or even wrote a beautiful backstory just to have them cut down in battle but death is the destiny of every adventurer none of us are gonna make it out of here alive and handling character death with poise and grace is the mark of both a mature player but at the same time it's one of the most difficult and challenging things for a Dungeon Master to address in play so we're gonna discuss some of the ways for you as a dungeon master to deal with this most challenging of situations so let's start by talking about the mortality of our characters and setting the right expectations yeah I think it's really important for a dungeon master to come out and tell players at the beginning of the campaign and remind them frequently the character death is a thing that happens in this game yeah it can be a brutal thing but if you start off by telling your players that hey this this is a distinct possibility and you should always have it in the back of your head that it could happen and sometimes you don't believe it until you see it but as long as you're aware of it it makes it more more real and more tangible Julius Caesar is said to have claimed the best death is an unexpected one and the same thing is true in Dungeons & Dragons oftentimes when character death occurs neither the players nor the dungeon master could even imagine that it was going to happen that night let alone to that character in those circumstances and that's what makes death so interesting and so compelling in role-playing games because in a lot of ways we don't expect to have to deal with it in our own real lives and role-playing games give us an opportunity to have this experience but then rush your hands of it and walk away without having to deal with the real-world consequences you don't need to have any house rules or safeguards against death you know exceptions yeah it should happen when it happens and you should let the dice and the game mechanics determine when and how it happens we're gonna discuss it happens in a couple different ways the first way is what I would call the downfall and this is when a player characters decisions have led them directly to their own untimely end some characters can be a little foolhardy or reckless and charged into combat maybe make some bad choices and put themselves in a bad situation and sometimes the players are just outplayed straight up by the villains or the circumstance they make foolish decisions or or don't think too hard about their choices before they make them this is tragic but there is no mercy when this happens to your character yeah don't don't pull your punches in these situations let the game play out the way a would play out because it also would encourage good decision-making and also it's good for a party to know when to stay and fight and when to run and if they don't make the right choice in the right moment it could lead to a character death now of course sometimes the dice call out for blood and the player character meets their heroic ends at the end of an orcs blade or in the jaws of the Dragon because they failed a saving throw or got hit with a lucky critical this is why we played this game with dice and when we undo these actions just in the interest of not hurting anyone's feelings or because we don't want to deal with this issue we make the game feel less tense it makes it feel like there's nothing truly at stake let the dice fall where they may and then we can pick up the pieces afterwards one thing you want to be careful of as a DM is death by design if you're going into a game planning a character death it probably won't play out the way you want it to and it's going to be very hard to convince that player that what you're doing is a good choice for them because it usually isn't yeah no this is not to say that you shouldn't have death trap dungeons with lethal traps or incredibly deadly situations in your game absolutely but if you're designing a scenario that hinges upon the death of one of the player characters to create drama in the story you might want to rethink that one because it's very very rarely successfully executed yeah death should be a natural thing in the game it should never be orchestrated or planned it should happen because of the dice or the situation at the same point as a DM don't pull your punches be ruthless but they should always have an opportunity to make their choices mm-hmm sometimes it is appropriate for player characters to be horribly mauled many players expect that when their characters are down they get to roll out the dice and see what happens when they make their death saving throws and I think by and large most of the time when the player character dies is because one of their allies hasn't taken the time to save them but once in a while a player character gets attacked by a savage predator that is all too willing to spend the rest of their attacks tearing that player character's body apart they might get disintegrated or they might run afoul of a group of Hobgoblin headhunters that like to take heads as trophies to intimidate their pose as the DM you do have a chance to give your players words of warning which is just giving them a little hint about situations that could come up and giving them one chance to see what situations might lead to a character death the most common thing when characters die is because the other player cares at the table have allowed one of their allies to bleed out before they've been able to make all their death saving throws this is a good thing to warn your player characters against and say help your allies out look out for each other after you've given them one warning show no mercy if a second time in the same game you have a character bleeding out and the Allies do not go to their aid there's nothing stopping you from having a Hobgoblin come up cut their head off and hold it up to intimidate the rest of the party which may have happened in our game indeed it does let's talk about what to actually do when a player character dies when it happens in your game it will probably be unexpected and everybody at the table will be shocked as a dungeon master the first thing that I like to do is describe the situation that has led to this event and then I turn to the player and say you've lost all your hit points you've failed that last day make death saving throw how did your character die this gives the player an opportunity to describe the situation in which they die giving them the spotlight for their last heroic moments now of course they might not be dying a heroic death it might be very miserable but that at least gives that player the opportunity to have that one little moment of agency if they want to let their character let out some final words or just describe how they see it in their mind once that players done that I take a moment to go around the table and ask each of the other players how their character reacts to it in the moment this kind of has the effect of this one last celebration for that character and then at that point I find it's appropriate for everyone at the table to glass praise the Fallen and give a big hand to the player who just lost their character it makes everything a lot easier in the moment emotionally speaking and really helps out for the closure yeah and going around the table and having all the players describe the scene not only makes it much more cinematic and it makes it a lasting moment that will be remembered forever but it also gives each person at the table who is probably equally shocked by the loss of their friend to really dive into that moment and drive home the what it what it meant to them and the emotion that they felt or that their character felt taking this little bit of extra time means that no matter what the circumstances of that player character's death are it's sure to be a very memorable moment that you'll talk about in your game for years and years to come in the immediate aftermath of this moment once the din of battle has settled down it's time to pick up those dice hand under the player and get them started on rolling a new character immediately um if you're if your character has died in the middle of a game session give them 15 minutes to make a new character and the moment the narrative allows for it get that player back in the game don't worry about making sense don't worry about fitting in their backstory or anything like that when these events happen you can go back and retcon everyone's going to understand it just get them back in the game so then they continue you can continue to participate afterwards then it's time to think about how can their new character integrate into the party you want to come up with a good backstory some of them it ties into the plot of the campaign and you can really have a whole table discussion about what everybody thinks is a good way to get this character up and running in the game as quickly as possible in a way that makes sense for the narrative yeah and what's really great about this is that players who have just lost their character actually find really quickly they get excited about making a new character whenever you start a new campaign and start thinking about your character you get excited and that actually happens really really quick once you start rolling up a brand new character even if you've just faced a character death it makes the pain of the death feel a lot less when you're rolling a new character and thinking about all the exciting options you have and as a DM you want to encourage that excitement and you want to encourage the other players at the table to be creative and be accepting of this new PC I want to be very very clear I believe that there is no need to punish a player in any way for the death of their character I don't think it's they need to lose a level create a new first level character or have any other penalties create a character at the same level and experience as the one that fell get them back in the game because the character death is going to be difficult enough and is punishment enough there's really nothing else that you need to do in that front yeah it feels pretty pretty awful when you lose your character that you've invested so much time in I feel like that that is definitely enough yeah and then you just can jump back in get excited about a new character start them at the same level and feel like part of the game again yeah at the same time I also like to encourage the players to have an in-game memorial or even a funeral or celebration for that character just to give everyone in the group that closure and often it's a really good idea to even ask the character to come up with one last drawing or story to close out that character saga in a memorable fashion even if it if they're in a time-sensitive mission as a DM it's good to give them that moment let them have that that funeral or memorial or a moment where all of the players get to gather around and say goodbye to their long-lost friend now of course sometimes the end is not the end the world of Dungeons & Dragons is filled with magic and there are many ways for a fallen character to be raised from the dead if this is an option in your campaign maybe one of the player characters is a cleric and has access to the raise dead spell or there are powerful non player characters that the players can turn to for help regardless of this I do like to put the player in the hands of a temporary PC at least to get the back in the action but if you want to allow resurrection magic to work in your game or if the players have access to it so be it that's the nice perk of having a high level character yeah and also with the world so full of magic it is a very standard scenario that there are people that can raise the dead sometimes you can even make a temporary request out of that and they have to get the body of their fallen friend to a place where they can be resurrected I actually think that's really important I'm not a fan of just player characters being able to go to a church and drop down a bag of gold and say bring our friend back to life if you will if they the players need to either have their own capability of casting the spells if they want to just bring someone back if they're going to go to an NPC they that NPC first of all um any character or NPC that I create in my game worlds that can raise the dead is always an important and influential person in the world and there should be legends about them even if they're just the high priest of the local church there's going to be whispered legends about how that priest was able to bring someone back from the dead maybe it's an arch druid who's capable of reincarnating people or maybe there's an angel or Oracle that lives on a mountaintop that the players can bargain with and this is a great opportunity for a cool quest and even revisiting some sort of curse as well maybe death kind of holds on to the player as they are resurrected and they have a curse or some other downside um I'm a really big fan of the revenant yeah and so if resurrection magic isn't an option I love the idea particularly if your player suffered like a tragic death at the hands of the campaign's villain maybe they appear the next day as an undead revenant and all you need to do is add en is say your character comes back they're now considered an undead creature they're immune to poison in disease it's a little perk but maybe now they have a downside like they have to eat flesh or drink blood or they have some sort of other curse to them there's all sorts of ways to bring characters back I'm thinking of remember when your character Kelly was turned to stone yes and was then reanimated as the stone statue and I gained a bunch of benefits but there was also a few downsides to it and I had to play at the the next half of the campaign as a stone version of myself that was reanimated but it was just an alternative to death technically my character did die but I was able to continue playing and this is also an important note for DMS to look for opportunities in the game to do something really interesting you don't want to glaze over death if death happens then it happens but if it happens in a really unique way that gives you an opportunity to do something really cool maybe play around with that yeah think of how death resurrection and the afterlife can really make your worlds deeper and richer and especially if you are interested in using resurrection magic it's a great moment to provide more storytelling about the world that your player characters inhabit because often times you need to answer that question well why aren't why isn't everyone getting raised from the dead well usually because that magic is rare it has great costs and has to be sought out by people that have different interests from your own sometimes they're friendly sometimes not so much so we hope that this video makes it a little bit easier to deal with character deaths at your table yeah and character death is always an unexpected and difficult moment just as it is in real life nevertheless it's a special one for role playing games and always a memorable occasion we would love to hear your stories of how you lost your characters and how your dungeon masters dealt with them there are always amazing stories and we'd love to hear about them in the comments below and if you're looking for a great campaign module with a whole lot of death you can check out our review of tomb of annihilation right over here and if you need a refresher on how to make a brand new character after your old one died check out our video series on that right over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode and thank you so much for watching we hope to see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 137,354

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, death, creation

Id: M4TMnvbpuXM

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018