Letting Player Characters Go
As you will soon get more details about we sort of killed a PC this week. In this contemplation we explore the mixed feelings you may (and we definitely) have about killing PCs. You'll notice two things that we advocate here on the site, which are sometimes at odds with each other are the following:
1. Be your PCs biggest fans.
2. Make sure failure is a real option.
Those are easy statements to make, but being both can be really difficult. We are currently running a D&D campaign in it's third year. PCs are level 15. Everyone has really come to enjoy the cast of PCs and NPCs. In our game last Sunday two of the characters were going through major transformations. They had lost their patrons (one a Warlock and one a modified Barbarian with a patron). We had major life altering events happening to them. The Barbarian was going through three challenges set forth by a minor god, however he gave into the temptation for power quickly and followed a dark voice. He was taken by the Void, our single consciousness being bent on the annihilation of everything. Good news, he was literally taken by them and added into their army so redemption may be in his future. Bad news, he was taken, no roll, no save, just by his choices.
While it certainly makes our story much more interesting we have to say it was a real bummer at the table. We were kind of in shock that it turned out that way. Granted this is one of the things that makes tabletop RPGs so interesting, upsets can happen at anytime. I know some people would use the "fail forward" advice. But that didn't make sense here. He simply failed. It's always hard to see your favorite characters slip away.
This is what brings us to our central dilemma. If we failed forward, then the PCs failure meant nothing and by proxy their respect. But if we are their biggest fan we want to look for ways to succeed! This is the real crux of the problem. We can't have both in this situation. So we took our own advice and let the failure mean something. Our beloved Barbarian is now part of the evil void.
We did stop the game at this point, make sure we were all okay with the way the story was progressing. Give the player some options about how this may play out. Checked in to make sure they felt like everything was fair and they were okay with how it may go. They were, but we don't think any of us were super happy about it. Interesting story yes, but still watching a character you have come to love go to the darkside. Not pleasant.
It's always interesting when something like this occurs. It does make us stop and think about if the encounter made sense? Were there enough signals for all of the choices? Should we have made anything clearer? Even when we found that everyone felt it made sense this is how it should go down, it still hurt. We are seriously our PCs biggest fans, want to see them do awesome things, but sometimes its the way things go down.
And before anyone goes, well I just kill PCs left and right. It's all good that is the way of things stop whining, our guess is if that is your mentality you don't have many PCs that last over two years. Granted when we play a game like Call of Cthulu, Dungeon Crawl Classic, or a one shot we murder indiscriminately as well. It's part of the fun of that type of game. But when you have watched the character grow, change, and do two years worth of interesting things it gets much harder to be so carefree about it (at least for us).
Well on a lighter note the player is getting to take control of a beloved purple pirate NPC in our game and is exciting about playing him. Our Barbarian will most definitely meet the adventurers again later on. Hopefully they will find a way to save him, if not we suppose that is part of the danger of making failure an option.
Have you ever felt bad about the death of a PC? Has a long running character died at your table? Do you have the same dilemma as us or do you just roll a new character and say whatever?
