My players found a cursed genie. Two of the players made three wishes amd lost their souls to said genie who turns out to be a soul collecting demon. Now the remainder of the party as well as a handful of other characters have to enter this genies/demons realm amd fight for the souls of their companions.
Or so I thought. You see one of my players is exceptionally greived with the fear of losing this character. So much so that if their character dies, they might not play anymore. So I offered the party a choice, they can fight the genie/demon, or the characters with the taken souls can devote themselves to this genie/demon, their souls go to him in death but they go back to their bodies and everything goes back to normal. But the player is not happy with either choice.
I think that a player that cannot accept that his or her character can die in a game of d&d has misunderstood...well everything?. Why roll dice if you cannot die anyway, why have combat... Even kids should know that when playing a game you risk loosing.
I think you need to pull this player aside and have a talk. From your text it sounds like another player is in the same situation but is fine about it? Perhaps have a talk with those 2 players. If the player continues to demand to be unkillable then I would "let him go". What does the other players think about the situation?
I understand the player's dread. When you invest in a character and imagine his or her arch to completion, it's tough to think that a single fight could end them before you do all the sweet stuff you wanted them to. However, much like in real life, it's the mortality that you race against to do those things that makes it worthwhile. Death, or at least the risk of it, is intrinsic to any D&D plot. It raises stakes and makes the choices one has to make all the more important.
Relay this to your player, and remind him that he still has options. He could try anything to get out of this. Seek divine help, find a real genie to undo it, look for loopholes in his own wish. Even if he dies, his party could resurrect him (which would potentially satiate the demon's taking of the soul after death, seeing as nothing was mentioned about coming back to life after that), or it could start a quest to venture into the Abyss on a rescue mission. This doesn't mean the end by a long shot, and he needs to be aware of that.
Most importantly, ask him about where he sees/saw his character going. Maybe that can give you some guidance on how to handle the future of his character, and at the very least will get him venting and knowing not you're not just being cruel.
I'm playing a character in Curse of Strahd right now that has plot armor, so thick that even if he dies the character will come back to life by DM Fiat alone. I get utterly livid when something happens where I feel like I was going to die. I took a hit that brought my character from max hp down to 8...and I'm level 5...I lost it, I was mad, I felt like my decisions didn't impact the results and I didn't think it was fair that I was that close to death. Now the funny part is not only do I have this plot armor, and know about it, I also have over 30 years of D&D experience, I started playing Basic D&D, straight out of the blue box. Those games were nothing if not meat grinders, you rolled a character, got to level 2, rolled a new character because something killed you, you'd do this 3-4 times in a single adventure because of the way the game worked.
You're in a difficult situation for a few reasons, and you're going to need to make a couple decisions which will impact you, your group, and your games. The first decision is whether you, as a DM are the type to give, accept, and deal with character death. Some DMs fear, or dislike, killing characters so much that they'll find every way under the sun to keep it from happening, other DMs will simply tell players to take a moment to breath and go roll up a new character. The second decision is how much you'll give your players to work with when it comes to bringing back the dead. In some games death is permanent, there's no bringing someone back short of the exact tools made for that purpose, in other games you can pull a video game mechanic and chase down your soul to bring back to your body. Talking with your player is going to be one of the biggest pieces to this struggle, I feel there may be a misunderstanding that was had.
The way you resolve this will also set a precedent to the rest of the game, as everyone will take note of this situation and adjust play accordingly. In one game I ran, it was for my local shop, I didn't want players getting offended by death so I made it really hard to die. This ended up backfiring on me as my players didn't take much of the game seriously when I started putting them in deadly situations. A different game I ran I did much the same, death was hard to come by, but I was working with brand new players, so I gave them a buffer. This second game, however, I explained that it was a temporary thing to allow them time to adjust to the game and it's mechanics. My Saturday group, they're well aware that if they decide to do something, they better be willing to suffer the consequences. I told them from the beginning: "I don't kill characters, players kill characters, and I'm more than happy to let you", and I live and breath my DMing style to fit that motto.
----
To your question directly:
I would make sure that I understand why the player is upset and address that, then I would find some way to use the death as part of the on going story. If the player is upset in the sense that they feel duped, like you pulled a fast one on them, explain to them the way you came to your decision and why. I have had to explain myself on many different occasions as my players don't always agree with how I handled a situation. If your player is upset about losing a cherished character talk to them about it, it may be simple grieving and after expressing it they'll feel better about moving on to a new character. Lastly you could take the information you've gotten while talking about the character death and make it a sub-plot. Let the players who had their souls taken do something while the rest of the party is attempting to return them to their bodies. There are any number of stories and hooks you could put together where, even dead, they can impact the world and still play their characters while dead.
Could you give us some more information on how this played out? Without further context, I'm not sure what to think. The idea of a cursed genie that turns out to be a soul-collecting demon smells a bit like a DM screw job.
Death is a part of D&D, it is what helps make it exciting and influences all facets of the game. Was the player unaware of this? Probably not. I would just sit down like others have said and explain the game to them, or if someone at the table is a closer friend or something have them do it.
Absolutely do not make someone unable to die, because then you have to make everyone unable to die, and then you aren't playing a game, you are all just telling a story around a campfire with foregone conclusions. There are no stakes.
Could also be time to implement the game as a facts of life lesson.
Lesson 1: 1 out of 1 people die. You may as well learn and accept that truth by watching a fictional character bite it that waiting for something even more personal to force the lesson on you.
Lesson 2: Sometimes bad things just happen, ditto'd on the learning from fiction before personal.
This really sounds like a disconnection in expectation and results. Either you and your players have/had differing approaches to the possibility of character death or loss, the story was structured in such a way that the players didn't have a chance to "dodge the bullet", or you gave them sufficient chances and they screwed them up.
Ultimately, the way to avoid upset players is for the DM ( as a game referee )
To be impartial
Explain how you approach the world, and the rules up front
Explain how you plan to handle the possibility of character death up front.
Unfold your world in a logical and consistent way.
A good "session 0" or equivalent will handle the middle two. And, it's never too late for something like it.
As a DM ( story creator )
Make sure the players are exposed to clues ( hints and foreshadowing ) - If you are unfolding your world logically, and thinking about the implications and side effects of things this will often take of itself: you start up the stream toward the foothills ... Ranger give me a perception roll ... 22? .... OK, as you travel you start to notice more and more bones and scraps of hide washed up in the reeds than you'd expect from just natural predator attrition of the wildlife .... sure, you can examine the bones, make a Nature or Medicine check .... 18? ... you quickly realize that most of these bones have been chewed, and what's more, most of the tooth marks are goblinoid ... mostly orcs, but there are a few with the large tooth marks of Ogres ...
Remember false endings, and "big reveals" are absolutely part of good storytelling, but use them cautiously - as jreggers points out - you don't want them to be perceived as a "DM screw jobs" : reversals of fortune which the party couldn't possibly have known about, which really mess up the party ( you know, losing your soul, or character, without having had any possibility of predicting the danger ).
If you do this, and the players ignore clues and implications - well, that's their doing.
If this was my group, and I had given them hints and clues, and faced unhappy players at the end of the session, I'd sit them down and say "OK, guys, you knew a,b, & c - you seemed to disregard a, and you specifically decided to ignore c ... so, while I sympathize, you kind of did it to yourselves. If you truly think I was being unfair and unreasonable, tell me why, and we'll see what we can do" ... and then I'd go write a story arc which allowed them to go on a grand adventure to rescue their captured comrades.
In the case you describe, I'd have had one subtle but automatic clue ( maybe the iconography of the carvings in the temple which they found the genie lamp contain infernal creatures - and I'd automatically draw that to the attention of the character with the highest Religion proficiency ), plus some more explicit clues behind moderate skill rolls, so the party finding them is not guaranteed - and one whopping clue behind something that the players would need to be clever to think to investigate and to roll well on to get.
Ifyou didn't do this - if you really did give them "a DM screw job" as a means of forcing the party down an adventure hook so they have "to enter this genies/demons realm amd fight for the souls of their companions." then: a) We've all probably done it as newer DMs, so don't beat yourself up about it, but b) you could be in the wrong here.
Ultimately, you need to sit down as a gaming group and talk it out and find a solution you're all willing to accept.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Sounds like this could be a player who engages in emotional manipulation to make his/her character immortal or immune to everything. That is not how D&D works IMO; the rules and ultimately the DM must decide what happens. A character that is immune to everything exists like a snowflake inside a bubble; it's not really a part of the campaign.
Beefburger95, you've had some great advice above; but I'll add my own thoughts and experiences.
I'd really like to know some of the backstory to this situation, which could reveal if there was anything you could have done to soften the blow. The fact that two of your players' characters lost their souls to a demon genie suggests there wasn't much warning. How did the third player avoid their fate? From the information you've provided, this sounds like the start of a plot hook, where the players might not have had much agency to avoid the situation. Your upset player may be particularly attached to this character - I don't know the backstory, or how long your campaign's been running, but leaving a loved character's fate in the hands of other players might be hard to swallow.
That said, D&D is not the game to play if you can only work with happy endings. On the roll of a dice, characters die. And that can be crushing - but that's what makes character attachment so powerful, and D&D so captivating. Years ago, I played with a group that, against all the odds, managed to keep our characters alive for an entire campaign. We adventured, quested, grew and forged an in-game fellowship that stretched for nearly 3 out-of-game years. Then, on a random follow up adventure in an ancient tomb, our wizard made a bad roll, and activated a trap that separated her from the party in a pocket dimension. Unprepared and practically out of spells, she was cut down. And just like that, she was gone. The DM was in tears; because he had to make the rolls that killed our friend's character. But that's why we play D&D - because we all share in a drama where our choices have actual consequences, and our fates aren't always our to decide when a fistful of dice are involved.
If you have a player that wants to tell their story with zero deviation, then they should write it - not play it. It's important to be polite, but you need to be firm. If the player can't handle things going wrong, then this is probably not the game for them. This is advice for you to consider for yourself too. If you can't get over the fact that characters can die, and decisions might upset players, then the dice are pointless. Infact, the DM would be pointless, and the players should just jointly narrate a perfect story. You're not there to beat them; you're there to provide the world, narrate the drama, and set up challenges that, when overcome, are genuinely worth celebrating. Because if there's not chance of failure, there's no joy in victory.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
My players found a cursed genie. Two of the players made three wishes amd lost their souls to said genie who turns out to be a soul collecting demon. Now the remainder of the party as well as a handful of other characters have to enter this genies/demons realm amd fight for the souls of their companions.
Or so I thought. You see one of my players is exceptionally greived with the fear of losing this character. So much so that if their character dies, they might not play anymore. So I offered the party a choice, they can fight the genie/demon, or the characters with the taken souls can devote themselves to this genie/demon, their souls go to him in death but they go back to their bodies and everything goes back to normal. But the player is not happy with either choice.
How would you experienced DMs handle this?
I think that a player that cannot accept that his or her character can die in a game of d&d has misunderstood...well everything?. Why roll dice if you cannot die anyway, why have combat... Even kids should know that when playing a game you risk loosing.
I think you need to pull this player aside and have a talk. From your text it sounds like another player is in the same situation but is fine about it? Perhaps have a talk with those 2 players. If the player continues to demand to be unkillable then I would "let him go". What does the other players think about the situation?
I understand the player's dread. When you invest in a character and imagine his or her arch to completion, it's tough to think that a single fight could end them before you do all the sweet stuff you wanted them to. However, much like in real life, it's the mortality that you race against to do those things that makes it worthwhile. Death, or at least the risk of it, is intrinsic to any D&D plot. It raises stakes and makes the choices one has to make all the more important.
Relay this to your player, and remind him that he still has options. He could try anything to get out of this. Seek divine help, find a real genie to undo it, look for loopholes in his own wish. Even if he dies, his party could resurrect him (which would potentially satiate the demon's taking of the soul after death, seeing as nothing was mentioned about coming back to life after that), or it could start a quest to venture into the Abyss on a rescue mission. This doesn't mean the end by a long shot, and he needs to be aware of that.
Most importantly, ask him about where he sees/saw his character going. Maybe that can give you some guidance on how to handle the future of his character, and at the very least will get him venting and knowing not you're not just being cruel.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
I'm playing a character in Curse of Strahd right now that has plot armor, so thick that even if he dies the character will come back to life by DM Fiat alone. I get utterly livid when something happens where I feel like I was going to die. I took a hit that brought my character from max hp down to 8...and I'm level 5...I lost it, I was mad, I felt like my decisions didn't impact the results and I didn't think it was fair that I was that close to death. Now the funny part is not only do I have this plot armor, and know about it, I also have over 30 years of D&D experience, I started playing Basic D&D, straight out of the blue box. Those games were nothing if not meat grinders, you rolled a character, got to level 2, rolled a new character because something killed you, you'd do this 3-4 times in a single adventure because of the way the game worked.
You're in a difficult situation for a few reasons, and you're going to need to make a couple decisions which will impact you, your group, and your games. The first decision is whether you, as a DM are the type to give, accept, and deal with character death. Some DMs fear, or dislike, killing characters so much that they'll find every way under the sun to keep it from happening, other DMs will simply tell players to take a moment to breath and go roll up a new character. The second decision is how much you'll give your players to work with when it comes to bringing back the dead. In some games death is permanent, there's no bringing someone back short of the exact tools made for that purpose, in other games you can pull a video game mechanic and chase down your soul to bring back to your body. Talking with your player is going to be one of the biggest pieces to this struggle, I feel there may be a misunderstanding that was had.
The way you resolve this will also set a precedent to the rest of the game, as everyone will take note of this situation and adjust play accordingly. In one game I ran, it was for my local shop, I didn't want players getting offended by death so I made it really hard to die. This ended up backfiring on me as my players didn't take much of the game seriously when I started putting them in deadly situations. A different game I ran I did much the same, death was hard to come by, but I was working with brand new players, so I gave them a buffer. This second game, however, I explained that it was a temporary thing to allow them time to adjust to the game and it's mechanics. My Saturday group, they're well aware that if they decide to do something, they better be willing to suffer the consequences. I told them from the beginning: "I don't kill characters, players kill characters, and I'm more than happy to let you", and I live and breath my DMing style to fit that motto.
----
To your question directly:
I would make sure that I understand why the player is upset and address that, then I would find some way to use the death as part of the on going story. If the player is upset in the sense that they feel duped, like you pulled a fast one on them, explain to them the way you came to your decision and why. I have had to explain myself on many different occasions as my players don't always agree with how I handled a situation. If your player is upset about losing a cherished character talk to them about it, it may be simple grieving and after expressing it they'll feel better about moving on to a new character. Lastly you could take the information you've gotten while talking about the character death and make it a sub-plot. Let the players who had their souls taken do something while the rest of the party is attempting to return them to their bodies. There are any number of stories and hooks you could put together where, even dead, they can impact the world and still play their characters while dead.
Could you give us some more information on how this played out? Without further context, I'm not sure what to think. The idea of a cursed genie that turns out to be a soul-collecting demon smells a bit like a DM screw job.
Death is a part of D&D, it is what helps make it exciting and influences all facets of the game. Was the player unaware of this? Probably not. I would just sit down like others have said and explain the game to them, or if someone at the table is a closer friend or something have them do it.
Absolutely do not make someone unable to die, because then you have to make everyone unable to die, and then you aren't playing a game, you are all just telling a story around a campfire with foregone conclusions. There are no stakes.
Could also be time to implement the game as a facts of life lesson.
Lesson 1: 1 out of 1 people die. You may as well learn and accept that truth by watching a fictional character bite it that waiting for something even more personal to force the lesson on you.
Lesson 2: Sometimes bad things just happen, ditto'd on the learning from fiction before personal.
Current Projects: The Mimic Book of Mimics :: SHARK WEEK
Completed Projects: The Trick-or-Treat Table
My Homebrews: Races :: Classes :: Spells :: Items :: Monsters
This really sounds like a disconnection in expectation and results. Either you and your players have/had differing approaches to the possibility of character death or loss, the story was structured in such a way that the players didn't have a chance to "dodge the bullet", or you gave them sufficient chances and they screwed them up.
Ultimately, the way to avoid upset players is for the DM ( as a game referee )
A good "session 0" or equivalent will handle the middle two. And, it's never too late for something like it.
As a DM ( story creator )
If you do this, and the players ignore clues and implications - well, that's their doing.
If this was my group, and I had given them hints and clues, and faced unhappy players at the end of the session, I'd sit them down and say "OK, guys, you knew a,b, & c - you seemed to disregard a, and you specifically decided to ignore c ... so, while I sympathize, you kind of did it to yourselves . If you truly think I was being unfair and unreasonable, tell me why, and we'll see what we can do" ... and then I'd go write a story arc which allowed them to go on a grand adventure to rescue their captured comrades.
In the case you describe, I'd have had one subtle but automatic clue ( maybe the iconography of the carvings in the temple which they found the genie lamp contain infernal creatures - and I'd automatically draw that to the attention of the character with the highest Religion proficiency ), plus some more explicit clues behind moderate skill rolls, so the party finding them is not guaranteed - and one whopping clue behind something that the players would need to be clever to think to investigate and to roll well on to get.
If you didn't do this - if you really did give them "a DM screw job" as a means of forcing the party down an adventure hook so they have "to enter this genies/demons realm amd fight for the souls of their companions." then: a) We've all probably done it as newer DMs, so don't beat yourself up about it, but b) you could be in the wrong here.
Ultimately, you need to sit down as a gaming group and talk it out and find a solution you're all willing to accept.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Sounds like this could be a player who engages in emotional manipulation to make his/her character immortal or immune to everything. That is not how D&D works IMO; the rules and ultimately the DM must decide what happens. A character that is immune to everything exists like a snowflake inside a bubble; it's not really a part of the campaign.
Beefburger95, you've had some great advice above; but I'll add my own thoughts and experiences.
I'd really like to know some of the backstory to this situation, which could reveal if there was anything you could have done to soften the blow. The fact that two of your players' characters lost their souls to a demon genie suggests there wasn't much warning. How did the third player avoid their fate? From the information you've provided, this sounds like the start of a plot hook, where the players might not have had much agency to avoid the situation. Your upset player may be particularly attached to this character - I don't know the backstory, or how long your campaign's been running, but leaving a loved character's fate in the hands of other players might be hard to swallow.
That said, D&D is not the game to play if you can only work with happy endings. On the roll of a dice, characters die. And that can be crushing - but that's what makes character attachment so powerful, and D&D so captivating. Years ago, I played with a group that, against all the odds, managed to keep our characters alive for an entire campaign. We adventured, quested, grew and forged an in-game fellowship that stretched for nearly 3 out-of-game years. Then, on a random follow up adventure in an ancient tomb, our wizard made a bad roll, and activated a trap that separated her from the party in a pocket dimension. Unprepared and practically out of spells, she was cut down. And just like that, she was gone. The DM was in tears; because he had to make the rolls that killed our friend's character. But that's why we play D&D - because we all share in a drama where our choices have actual consequences, and our fates aren't always our to decide when a fistful of dice are involved.
If you have a player that wants to tell their story with zero deviation, then they should write it - not play it. It's important to be polite, but you need to be firm. If the player can't handle things going wrong, then this is probably not the game for them. This is advice for you to consider for yourself too. If you can't get over the fact that characters can die, and decisions might upset players, then the dice are pointless. Infact, the DM would be pointless, and the players should just jointly narrate a perfect story. You're not there to beat them; you're there to provide the world, narrate the drama, and set up challenges that, when overcome, are genuinely worth celebrating. Because if there's not chance of failure, there's no joy in victory.