Currently, I am running a game for a party of 4. I have a player who has been through probably 4 or 5 characters so far, and his current one has a high chance of dying next session. Let's call this player Bob. As a reference, only one other PC has died so far, and they died at the same time as Bob. Both characters were given a chance to be revived as payment for saving the life of a powerful noble in the past, however, Bob did not take the offer.
Since his first character's death, Bob has continuously switched his character, trying to find another that resonated with him as much as his first character. I warned Bob that I noticed him becoming more disconnected from the rest of the group each time he switched his character. He settled on a character who is a Neutral Evil rogue, with plans for him to be enlightened and turn good. I told him he could play as long as he did not disrupt the group. He has expressed that if this character dies, he will probably stop playing. Bob is a close friend of everyone else in the group.
The party is in a dungeon deep under the city, facing trials by the gods to receive legendary artifacts left behind by the previous heroes of the realm. During the trial, Bob split off from the party and will probably die early on in the next session, as he is currently being attacked by a group of enemies meant for the entire party to face, and the party has no idea where he went or that he is even in danger.
I have a couple options I thought of. Which is the best to do? Vote in the poll! Here are my thoughts
Option A fits with the theme of our campaign. Everybody was warned in session 0 that the campaign is a bit tough, and I won't swoop in to save people in order to maintain a proper sense of consequences to actions
Option B punishes Bob for being reckless. His character is evil, and Bob wants him to have a reason to start turning good. Not letting him grasp the power he wants so badly because of his lack of teamwork and carelessness may push him towards being good, especially if the gods tell him that is the path. However, being miraculously saved may take away from the dangers of combat and being dumb
This is tough, as it seems as though losing player after player is ruining bobs fun. I would say dont make it a "miraculous save", as it is a carefully planned save that has lead up to it. Maybe the party, though they dont know where he is, can hear sounds of his struggle throughout the ringing halls, and the party has to race through the dungeon to save him.
Or have a talk with bob and discuss the issues- you dont want him to stop playing, but you also cant go easy on him either, and maybe a light bit of ret-conning if bob understands where you are coming from?
Good point! The chase through the dungeon to save him does sound fun. I will definitely try to throw that in with some audio ques to the rest of the party.
As for the discussion with him, I have already tried in the past, but I guess there is no harm having another. I'll have to try that too. Thanks for your help!
Another thing that might help, is defeat of a character doesnt have to mean death. Maybe these minions took bob prisoner and now are trying to lure you further into the dungeon into an obvious trap. Plenty of ways to have PCs lose an encounter that dont involve killing them.
Currently, I am running a game for a party of 4. I have a player who has been through probably 4 or 5 characters so far, and his current one has a high chance of dying next session. Let's call this player Bob. As a reference, only one other PC has died so far, and they died at the same time as Bob. Both characters were given a chance to be revived as payment for saving the life of a powerful noble in the past, however, Bob did not take the offer.
IMHO, 4 or 5 PCs is 3 or 4 too many to have addressed this. Also, is this exclusive to this player alone, or is this relatively common for the entire party? If this is exclusive to the player, you may need to set aside some time to sort out what's happening. It it's common to the party, then maybe this isn't suited to the player. Maybe just not their playstyle or type of game. Regardless, my primary vote is on sorting this out first.
The party is in a dungeon deep under the city, facing trials by the gods to receive legendary artifacts left behind by the previous heroes of the realm. During the trial, Bob split off from the party and will probably die early on in the next session, as he is currently being attacked by a group of enemies meant for the entire party to face, and the party has no idea where he went or that he is even in danger.
I have a couple options I thought of. Which is the best to do? Vote in the poll! Here are my thoughts
Option A fits with the theme of our campaign. Everybody was warned in session 0 that the campaign is a bit tough, and I won't swoop in to save people in order to maintain a proper sense of consequences to actions
Option B punishes Bob for being reckless. His character is evil, and Bob wants him to have a reason to start turning good. Not letting him grasp the power he wants so badly because of his lack of teamwork and carelessness may push him towards being good, especially if the gods tell him that is the path. However, being miraculously saved may take away from the dangers of combat and being dumb
Thanks everyone!
Option A is generally how I would respond to this, regardless of the player threatening to quit, with the caveat that the player absolutely acknowledges that they agreed to the type of game that you intended, and broadcast openly and transparently to the group. If they did not understand this, and the premise has somehow eluded them, consider Option F.
Option B - punishing the player - maybe could be a less-than-optimal choice of words...
Option F - Go with the sounds of battle idea. Give the party the nudge required to save one of their own. While the intrepid Bob is making death saves, ask them about what the PC's most desired goal is/was, their most memorable moment with the party (good or bad, their choice), the one thing that they wanted to acomplish and didn't. And let the party find the body with *hopefully* enough time to Revivify or Raise Dead. The idea is NOT for the DM to have saved them, but the party - y'know, the team that he doesn't want to be a part of- while still guiding the PC through the act of seeing how they are maybe missing the plot. Turn this into the catalyst for the PC's transition to being good, by their own choice. Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol style.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Another thing that might help, is defeat of a character doesnt have to mean death. Maybe these minions took bob prisoner and now are trying to lure you further into the dungeon into an obvious trap. Plenty of ways to have PCs lose an encounter that dont involve killing them.
That's a good idea! The enemies are pretty smart. I'm sure they could think of something like that
Option A is generally how I would respond to this, regardless of the player threatening to quit, with the caveat that the player absolutely acknowledges that they agreed to the type of game that you intended, and broadcast openly and transparently to the group. If they did not understand this, and the premise has somehow eluded them, consider Option F.
Option B - punishing the player - maybe could be a less-than-optimal choice of words...
Option F - Go with the sounds of battle idea. Give the party the nudge required to save one of their own. While the intrepid Bob is making death saves, ask them about what the PC's most desired goal is/was, their most memorable moment with the party (good or bad, their choice), the one thing that they wanted to acomplish and didn't. And let the party find the body with *hopefully* enough time to Revivify or Raise Dead. The idea is NOT for the DM to have saved them, but the party - y'know, the team that he doesn't want to be a part of- while still guiding the PC through the act of seeing how they are maybe missing the plot. Turn this into the catalyst for the PC's transition to being good, by their own choice. Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol style.
Thanks for the feedback! He is completely aware of the difficulty of the campaign. He is the only one to have many characters, but most of them have been him changing characters because he didn't like them. I'll definitely have to talk with him about what he is doing again. He wanted to play a character that was not super invested in the group beyond his own benefit. I'm unsure why he wants to play like that. He got impatient with the speed of the Trial they are in and wanted to split up to defeat enemies quicker.
I love your sounds of battle idea! I always let my PC's get one last little bit in, but didn't think about having them talk about their most desired goal.
Idk, if Bob has so much trouble connecting to characters and doesn't buy into the central conceit of the game (that it's a group activity centered around a party of adventurers), then maybe dnd just isn't really their game, and you should let nature take its course. I don't think it's your job to bend over backwards to accommodate a player who isn't really trying to play along, and if they like dnd and want to continue playing, they wouldn't say something like "if I die again in done." If dnd isn't their cup of tea, and it sounds like it's not, they don't need to make that everybody's problem.
Just my two cents, though ultimately if you think it'll cause problems in your friend group feel free to disregard.
I have a player like this in one of my campaigns- session 0 I warned them all the world is open to explore and you may come across areas beyond your normal means and that decisions may have grave consequences. 5 players all are having fun and actually working together to plan out how to approach situations and whether to check things out now or make note and come back later. The 6th player in the group is like your Bob player always splitting off and gets in situations that leads to death. The group was tired of his shenanigans and come next session we had an intervention to figure out what was going on. It came to be he felt after a few sessions he just didn’t like his characters and was looking to “go out “ in glory and make a new character. We came up with a plan to make him a “hired” merc player and we did a few sessions of side quests to give him a chance to make a Mercenary for that specific side quest and after it was completed we’d move to the next and he’d make a mother character. What this allowed was the party kept growing and learning to work together while giving “Bob” a chance to play around with different classes and races to find something he liked. Once he did the party “recruited” his character to stay with them for the main quest arc.
Hey there, I have a quick comment and a few questions for consideration.
First, perhaps this is just me, but when I read "player death" I think of that as a real-life death of a person in your gaming group. Character death, on the other hand, is something that can happen a lot.
What level is your party? Do they have access to spells like raise dead or resurrection? Would they be able to bring the scoundrel back to life? Would they want to?
What is the overall "alignment" and tone of your group? You said this character is neutral-evil, what are the others like? Do the other characters like the rogue? is there camraderie? what would they be willing to sacrifice for this character?
A character surrounded by enemies doesn't have to die -- as mentionend above, they could be on death saves, or knocked out, or taken hostage. In the latter case, since they are a rogue, maybe there is a way they can escape and bring information to the group -- or fail and die or be lost alone.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Currently, I am running a game for a party of 4. I have a player who has been through probably 4 or 5 characters so far, and his current one has a high chance of dying next session. Let's call this player Bob. As a reference, only one other PC has died so far, and they died at the same time as Bob. Both characters were given a chance to be revived as payment for saving the life of a powerful noble in the past, however, Bob did not take the offer.
Since his first character's death, Bob has continuously switched his character, trying to find another that resonated with him as much as his first character. I warned Bob that I noticed him becoming more disconnected from the rest of the group each time he switched his character. He settled on a character who is a Neutral Evil rogue, with plans for him to be enlightened and turn good. I told him he could play as long as he did not disrupt the group. He has expressed that if this character dies, he will probably stop playing. Bob is a close friend of everyone else in the group.
The party is in a dungeon deep under the city, facing trials by the gods to receive legendary artifacts left behind by the previous heroes of the realm. During the trial, Bob split off from the party and will probably die early on in the next session, as he is currently being attacked by a group of enemies meant for the entire party to face, and the party has no idea where he went or that he is even in danger.
I have a couple options I thought of. Which is the best to do? Vote in the poll! Here are my thoughts
Option A fits with the theme of our campaign. Everybody was warned in session 0 that the campaign is a bit tough, and I won't swoop in to save people in order to maintain a proper sense of consequences to actions
Option B punishes Bob for being reckless. His character is evil, and Bob wants him to have a reason to start turning good. Not letting him grasp the power he wants so badly because of his lack of teamwork and carelessness may push him towards being good, especially if the gods tell him that is the path. However, being miraculously saved may take away from the dangers of combat and being dumb
Thanks everyone!
It seems like the player WANTS his character to die.
The first thing I would do in this scenario is to have an honest talk with Bob, a heart of heart if you would. Ask Bob what he wants out of this situation. Is he discontent with his current character and wants to switch again? Clear your own expectations, If you would like him to stop deliberately trying to die, let him know, in no ambiguous or uncertain terms.
Tell bod that there are other ways to switch characters that don't involve getting them killed. He could just retire the character, at which point his rouge becomes an NPC under your control and you can still use him as a force in the narrative. My brother actually did this during one of our campaigns. His girlfriend didn't feel comfortable playing her character and wanted to start a new one. Rather than killing the character off, my brother gave her character a brief but effective conclusion and they became an NPC doing their own thing in the world, but still a friend to the rest of the party.
On the other hand, if Bod wants to continue playing his rogue character, tell him in no uncertain terms that this is a cooperative game and that challenges and monster encounters are meant to be tackled by the group as a whole and not any individual character. Let bob know that you will not tolerate this type of selfish "ill-go-my-own-way" behavior.
As for the encounter, there are a million and 1 ways for you to handle the situation. Maybe the enemies don't even bother attacking Bod's character as they consider him unworthy of their time. Maybe they knock him out and use him as bait for the other party members. Maybe the enemies are illusions and the challenge then turns into a puzzle that bob cant solve by himself, prompting him to return to the group. Essentially, you gotta be a bit heavy-handed here and clearly signal to bob that going solo won't work and that he needs the rest of the group.
Okay, so here's an idea which might have legs, but you'll need to play it carefully to avoid screwing over the others.
The character has decided to go it alone and leave the group behind to get stuff killed quicker. As this is a trial of the gods, perhaps have another god get involved here - a god/goddess of trickery or chaos.
A god intervenes and the character survives, and the god of chaos offers Bob an opportunity to gain a different artefact, because he has shown himself to be one for deceipt and going it alone. Now, the logical aspect of this is to give Bob one of the other players artefacts, thus chaos ensues, but that might set off tensions in the group and they might just kill Bob if he becomes a problem, so you need something else.
Perhaps the Artefact is one which belongs to one of the gods who set the trial, and who do not want to part with it. Perhaps the god of Chaos offers the Rogue a means by which to access the gods treasury, to remove the magical artefact for them, kind of like in Alladin (the animated one, not the rubbish one). Make the artefact a powerful tool which can inflict chaos n the world and such, but make the god be vague about it's power. Maybe it's a dagger which has the power to slay the gods, and by fetching it, Bob enables the god of chaos to slay the god of order, or the goddess of the dead perhaps, and tip the world into utter chaos - the dead don't stay dead, for example; their souls, with nowhere to go, return to their (or others) bodies and reanimate them, but they are rotting, so they seek to kill others to take their bodies, which only exacerbates the problem - depending on how dark you want to go.
At any rate, Bob gets their own trial from a differet God, and then screws up the world. Cue the perfect opportunity to try to set things right, save the world, and become a good guy.
Hello fellow DM's,
Currently, I am running a game for a party of 4. I have a player who has been through probably 4 or 5 characters so far, and his current one has a high chance of dying next session. Let's call this player Bob. As a reference, only one other PC has died so far, and they died at the same time as Bob. Both characters were given a chance to be revived as payment for saving the life of a powerful noble in the past, however, Bob did not take the offer.
Since his first character's death, Bob has continuously switched his character, trying to find another that resonated with him as much as his first character. I warned Bob that I noticed him becoming more disconnected from the rest of the group each time he switched his character. He settled on a character who is a Neutral Evil rogue, with plans for him to be enlightened and turn good. I told him he could play as long as he did not disrupt the group. He has expressed that if this character dies, he will probably stop playing. Bob is a close friend of everyone else in the group.
The party is in a dungeon deep under the city, facing trials by the gods to receive legendary artifacts left behind by the previous heroes of the realm. During the trial, Bob split off from the party and will probably die early on in the next session, as he is currently being attacked by a group of enemies meant for the entire party to face, and the party has no idea where he went or that he is even in danger.
I have a couple options I thought of. Which is the best to do? Vote in the poll! Here are my thoughts
Thanks everyone!
This is tough, as it seems as though losing player after player is ruining bobs fun. I would say dont make it a "miraculous save", as it is a carefully planned save that has lead up to it. Maybe the party, though they dont know where he is, can hear sounds of his struggle throughout the ringing halls, and the party has to race through the dungeon to save him.
Or have a talk with bob and discuss the issues- you dont want him to stop playing, but you also cant go easy on him either, and maybe a light bit of ret-conning if bob understands where you are coming from?
Good point! The chase through the dungeon to save him does sound fun. I will definitely try to throw that in with some audio ques to the rest of the party.
As for the discussion with him, I have already tried in the past, but I guess there is no harm having another. I'll have to try that too. Thanks for your help!
Another thing that might help, is defeat of a character doesnt have to mean death. Maybe these minions took bob prisoner and now are trying to lure you further into the dungeon into an obvious trap. Plenty of ways to have PCs lose an encounter that dont involve killing them.
IMHO, 4 or 5 PCs is 3 or 4 too many to have addressed this. Also, is this exclusive to this player alone, or is this relatively common for the entire party? If this is exclusive to the player, you may need to set aside some time to sort out what's happening. It it's common to the party, then maybe this isn't suited to the player. Maybe just not their playstyle or type of game. Regardless, my primary vote is on sorting this out first.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
That's a good idea! The enemies are pretty smart. I'm sure they could think of something like that
Thanks for the feedback! He is completely aware of the difficulty of the campaign. He is the only one to have many characters, but most of them have been him changing characters because he didn't like them. I'll definitely have to talk with him about what he is doing again. He wanted to play a character that was not super invested in the group beyond his own benefit. I'm unsure why he wants to play like that. He got impatient with the speed of the Trial they are in and wanted to split up to defeat enemies quicker.
I love your sounds of battle idea! I always let my PC's get one last little bit in, but didn't think about having them talk about their most desired goal.
Idk, if Bob has so much trouble connecting to characters and doesn't buy into the central conceit of the game (that it's a group activity centered around a party of adventurers), then maybe dnd just isn't really their game, and you should let nature take its course. I don't think it's your job to bend over backwards to accommodate a player who isn't really trying to play along, and if they like dnd and want to continue playing, they wouldn't say something like "if I die again in done." If dnd isn't their cup of tea, and it sounds like it's not, they don't need to make that everybody's problem.
Just my two cents, though ultimately if you think it'll cause problems in your friend group feel free to disregard.
Hello. I did not see where you mentioned if this is home brew or AL (I suspect home brew).
In AL the character really does not die it just cannot continue in the module it is playing....so that makes death a bit easier I suppose.
I have a player like this in one of my campaigns- session 0 I warned them all the world is open to explore and you may come across areas beyond your normal means and that decisions may have grave consequences. 5 players all are having fun and actually working together to plan out how to approach situations and whether to check things out now or make note and come back later. The 6th player in the group is like your Bob player always splitting off and gets in situations that leads to death. The group was tired of his shenanigans and come next session we had an intervention to figure out what was going on. It came to be he felt after a few sessions he just didn’t like his characters and was looking to “go out “ in glory and make a new character. We came up with a plan to make him a “hired” merc player and we did a few sessions of side quests to give him a chance to make a Mercenary for that specific side quest and after it was completed we’d move to the next and he’d make a mother character. What this allowed was the party kept growing and learning to work together while giving “Bob” a chance to play around with different classes and races to find something he liked. Once he did the party “recruited” his character to stay with them for the main quest arc.
Hey there, I have a quick comment and a few questions for consideration.
First, perhaps this is just me, but when I read "player death" I think of that as a real-life death of a person in your gaming group. Character death, on the other hand, is something that can happen a lot.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
If a player’s demise is imminent you should dial 911. Characters on the other hand are a different matter entirely.
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I think you should have the gods intervene, but have them prohibit him from being worthy of his artifact right now.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
It seems like the player WANTS his character to die.
The first thing I would do in this scenario is to have an honest talk with Bob, a heart of heart if you would. Ask Bob what he wants out of this situation. Is he discontent with his current character and wants to switch again? Clear your own expectations, If you would like him to stop deliberately trying to die, let him know, in no ambiguous or uncertain terms.
Tell bod that there are other ways to switch characters that don't involve getting them killed. He could just retire the character, at which point his rouge becomes an NPC under your control and you can still use him as a force in the narrative. My brother actually did this during one of our campaigns. His girlfriend didn't feel comfortable playing her character and wanted to start a new one. Rather than killing the character off, my brother gave her character a brief but effective conclusion and they became an NPC doing their own thing in the world, but still a friend to the rest of the party.
On the other hand, if Bod wants to continue playing his rogue character, tell him in no uncertain terms that this is a cooperative game and that challenges and monster encounters are meant to be tackled by the group as a whole and not any individual character. Let bob know that you will not tolerate this type of selfish "ill-go-my-own-way" behavior.
As for the encounter, there are a million and 1 ways for you to handle the situation. Maybe the enemies don't even bother attacking Bod's character as they consider him unworthy of their time. Maybe they knock him out and use him as bait for the other party members. Maybe the enemies are illusions and the challenge then turns into a puzzle that bob cant solve by himself, prompting him to return to the group. Essentially, you gotta be a bit heavy-handed here and clearly signal to bob that going solo won't work and that he needs the rest of the group.
Okay, so here's an idea which might have legs, but you'll need to play it carefully to avoid screwing over the others.
The character has decided to go it alone and leave the group behind to get stuff killed quicker. As this is a trial of the gods, perhaps have another god get involved here - a god/goddess of trickery or chaos.
A god intervenes and the character survives, and the god of chaos offers Bob an opportunity to gain a different artefact, because he has shown himself to be one for deceipt and going it alone. Now, the logical aspect of this is to give Bob one of the other players artefacts, thus chaos ensues, but that might set off tensions in the group and they might just kill Bob if he becomes a problem, so you need something else.
Perhaps the Artefact is one which belongs to one of the gods who set the trial, and who do not want to part with it. Perhaps the god of Chaos offers the Rogue a means by which to access the gods treasury, to remove the magical artefact for them, kind of like in Alladin (the animated one, not the rubbish one). Make the artefact a powerful tool which can inflict chaos n the world and such, but make the god be vague about it's power. Maybe it's a dagger which has the power to slay the gods, and by fetching it, Bob enables the god of chaos to slay the god of order, or the goddess of the dead perhaps, and tip the world into utter chaos - the dead don't stay dead, for example; their souls, with nowhere to go, return to their (or others) bodies and reanimate them, but they are rotting, so they seek to kill others to take their bodies, which only exacerbates the problem - depending on how dark you want to go.
At any rate, Bob gets their own trial from a differet God, and then screws up the world. Cue the perfect opportunity to try to set things right, save the world, and become a good guy.
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This might be helpful: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1340-how-to-handle-character-death-in-dungeons-dragons).
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