Character Death Rules

[XecutionerRex]

I was surfing the web and skimming through some roleplays on other sites out of curiosity, and I noticed that at least two people who applied for a post apocalyptic roleplay set up a rule at the end of their CS saying that their characters were prohibited to die.

Of course, to me, that seemed like some BS because the possibility of losing a character (And possibly having to drop out the roleplay if you aren't allowed to make more) makes it feel very real to me. The pressure to keep them alive and getting them out of sticky situations makes the experience more grand, in my opinion.

On top of that, this was in fact, as stated earlier, a post apocalyptic roleplay. Who the hell signs up for one and requests a no death exception for their character? In 1x1 it is more understandable as when one person dies the roleplay is over, but even then, I like to keep it real. If our characters get into enough beef that death is a totally realistic outcome, I might just kill off your character and end the game. Of course I would be hesitant to do so, especially if I liked what we had going on, and I'd be disappointed that it had to end, but I wouldn't call myself an asshole or regret the decision too much.

So my question to the community is this: How do you feel about character death rules? Do you enjoy the pressure of keeping your character in the game or do you see the deaths as a kill off of hard work and creativity? Do you believe that characters should be able to kill eachother or should it be restricted NPC/environmental related causes? I'd appreciate your feed back.

Thank you.

[Tydosius]

Some see death as a part of role-playing, inherent to the experience.
Others see death as an offensive gesture from the guilty role-player.
Some may see their characters as vessels of personality and depth to be explored.
Others may see their characters as pieces of themselves, expressed through role-playing.

Just my two cents.

[Maiden]

When I'm acting as a GM, the only time I kill off a character is if the player abandons them. If you stop posting and don't log on for a month, yeah, I'm gonna kill your character. It'll be fun for me and the rest of the thread. Heck, I might let the other players have a crack at it.

That being said, I do find it ridiculous for a player to put an immortality clause in a CS. No matter what the setting. If your character is a human, your character can die. That's one of the rules of being human, it doesn't matter that this is a roleplay. I signed up for a roleplay once (it never launched) in which the rules of the roleplay clearly stated that character death was a good possibility, and you'd likely have to write more than one. It never got off the ground, but I signed up at least. If it isn't explicitly stated in the rules, however, I think most players just assume that the GM is not going to kill their character. And they really wouldn't expect you to kill them without warning.

XecutionerRex said If our characters get into enough beef that death is a totally realistic outcome, I might just kill off your character and end the game.

That's right out. I'd never do that to my players. That's not fun for any of them, even if it might be fun for you.

So, in answer to your question: yes, I do like games where my characters are in danger of dying. However, I think most roleplayers assume their character is not going to be killed off randomly by the GM unless it's explicitly stated otherwise in the OOC somewhere. When you talk about being 'realistic' in a roleplay, stop and ask yourself how many times you've written a human character having to take a bathroom break. I don't think I've ever done it. Showers and baths, sure, shaving for men, brushing teeth... but I can't say I've ever once written a character needing to take a wee. So the perspective for 'realistic' might be a tad skewed. Just sayin'. ;)

[VATROU]

Well. We had quite the disturbance over in another site. One guy who RPed a Faction killed off a character of his, for his story. Another RPer, who had a different Faction opposed this idea, even planning out ways to revive said character. And wanted to incorporate said character in his story. Now this was a Community driven RP, where we lacked a GM. But decided as a group, I'm not sure what the final outcome of the matter is, I don't think it's quite over yet. I can only hope so. But needless to say it's been frustrating for all of us. And as such, if a player decides to kill off a character of his, he should have every right to do so unopposed so long as it's reasonable. You can't shoot a character into space, if it's a medieval fantasy and whatnot.

[Rina]

I see death as an important part in roleplays if done right. In the roleplay that I GM no character, NPC or even my own, is immune from death. However, this doesn't mean I have characters die at every turn as I've seen GMs do who would kill off characters on a random whim.

If a certain character (not the RPer) acting stupid for some reason or is endangering themselves, there is a chance that they are going to hurt themselves or if it comes to it, die. Sometimes death occurs for other reasons such as furthering the plot or creating something that the characters have to work through. However if a character dies, I always make sure that the RPer can either make another character to fit into the story or if they are up to it, take the position of one of the NPCs if suddenly having a new character in the story wouldn't make sense. Unless the roleplay clearly states in the beginning that once you die, you cannot come back due to plot (such as a hunger games esque game or something similar)or other reasons, permanently killing off characters isn't always the best move for the health of the roleplay.

[XecutionerRex]

Maiden said
That's right out. I'd never do that to my players. That's not fun for any of them, even if it might be fun for you.

I suppose my circumstance is different than yours in the fact that any 1x1 roleplay I were to do would be with some of my closer friends, so even if I did kill of their character, we'd be bound to roleplay again some time. And having known each other for a while, we probably would not care so much.

If I were to do a 1x1 here with a stranger, it'd be a completely different story, mainly for the sake of the fact that I'd like to make a good impression, not be known across RPG as the Dickhead of 1x1.

[The Slenderman]

-- If they don't want characters to die, I believe that is God Modding, But at that point a few of my Characters are very hard to kill but that doesn't mean they can be killed as they can die with effort with the participating Roleplayer. But Nonetheless these Users that you speak of should be stripped of membership if they continue to god Mod. --

XecutionerRex said
I was surfing the web and skimming through some roleplays on other sites out of curiosity, and I noticed that at least two people who applied for a roleplay set up a rule at the end of their CS saying that their characters were prohibited to die.Of course, to me, that seemed like some BS because the possibility of losing a character (And possibly having to drop out the roleplay if you aren't allowed to make more) makes it feel very real to me. The pressure to keep them alive and getting them out of sticky situations makes the experience more grand, in my opinion.On top of that, this was in fact, as stated earlier, a post apocalyptic roleplay. Who the hell signs up for one and requests a no death exception for their character? In 1x1 it is more understandable as when one person dies the roleplay is over, but even then, I like to keep it real. If our characters get into enough beef that death is a totally realistic outcome, I might just kill off your character and end the game. Of course I would be hesitant to do so, especially if I liked what we had going on, and I'd be disappointed that it had to end, but I wouldn't call myself an asshole or regret the decision too much.So my question to the community is this: How do you feel about character death rules? Do you enjoy the pressure of keeping your character in the game or do you see the deaths as a kill off of hard work and creativity? Do you believe that characters should be able to kill eachother or should it be restricted NPC/environmental related causes? I'd appreciate your feed back.Thank you.

[psychopathickids]

I really love seeing different perspectives on the concept of true character death between role play sites. The first site I was big into was primarily combat based role play, but no one could die. That got silly fast. The second was far more politically driven, sure we were all at war, but it wasn't as if we could do much about it ourselves, two or three of the admins at a time would play Gods and throw NPC armies at one another while the normal characters just tried to keep their little slice of the pie out of things, form alliances with one another for mutual protection, or get involved with one of the dominant sides if they were feeling bold. Even though there was little actual combat within the context of the role players ourselves (the world was at war, but most PCs weren't involved as soldiers on either side) people's characters died constantly. Wrong place at the wrong time? The city of Eastmarch was devoured by the Destroyer, along with everyone in it. Wrong side? The N'havi Fhart'i declare martial law over Stros M'kai, and all non believers are burned at the stake. Brutal, constant death, for no more reason than being the wrong religion at the wrong time, or in a city which happens to be demolished overnight by unstoppable demon armies. But it made things incredibly tense, very urgent. Any day you might not wake up, err, your character might not wake up, anyway. Was actually quite fun, gave a certain weight to your every decision, your every chosen path. Myself, I think it's better to decide for yourself as a GM. Tell your players what to expect from the get go, this is a combat oriented role play, or this is supposed to be a light comedy/romance with hints of action, not Kill Bill. If players don't like it, they won't sign up, and no one's going to be complaining about not being able to kill someone or, conversely, everyone constantly killing everyone.

[Ellri]

As a GM, we'd never approve a character with a "cannot be killed"-clause in the CS. Player characters should be hard to kill, but they should be possible to kill. It's not a nice move to kill someone early on, but in some RPs, it is fitting.

[Innue]

I have yet to come across a reasonable setting where death isn't a possibility.

I've always been upfront with my philosophy on death, on any thread. I come from a place where character death was taken very seriously. If your character died, you were not to use that character again without getting ostracized by the community. While I don't take things to that extreme, it did give me a health respect for the concept. Coupled with my background as a combat roleplayer, I see death as a necessary inclusion in most, if not all, roleplays.

This has also lead me to some of my greatest frustrations on RPG - GMs that have no respect for the concept of death. Characters only die in <x> situations. Especially in an environment with any form of combat between players, I find this ridiculous. It made death seem incredibly disingenuous - the sudden, emotional turmoil you'd expect to come with it was not there. The combat, with no threat of anything other than a good thrashing, even if I sword cleaved through my neck, seemed fake.

At this point I have opted to stick to running my own threads for now, as it seems hard for me to find a GM with similar enough views that I feel I can participate in a thread..

[jennifer lost the war]

That's funny. I've GMed a lot and I've never encountered a RPer that felt the need to make his or her character immune to death. I don't think I'd even bother letting somebody like that in my RP. However, to be fair, as a GM I've never considered writing the line "and then [insert player's character here] died." I've never considered it to be my responsibility to do something like that. I simply trust that the RPers will take what I throw at them seriously and don't cheese their way out of everything. Hence the rule of no God-moding.

[Kidd]

Death is always on the table for my characters, and--so far--it's only happened once. However, another player used their character to bring mine back from the dead? I wasn't totally okay with it, and I even had other characters in the RP, but I went along with it. Looking back, I wish I hadn't--it kinda ruined the immersion for me.

So personally, I try to avoid players and RPs that restrict death. Even "ask to make sure it's okay to kill someone's character" is a little too much for me. If your character is in a position in which he should die, he should die. Plain and simple. And it's not fair to the other players who might have to play OOC to avoid killing your character when you don't want him to die. I'm not saying a bloodthirsty character should necessarily be allowed in every game or anything, but if you poke a bear with a stick...

[Brovo]

I always make players sign a signature at the bottom of every CS with their own username. In doing so they agree to allow their characters to be killed by me in any way I see fit at any time which I decide. In exchange it's generally agreed (though not formally) that if I do kill them, it's for good reason, not random chance.

That is, level risk and reward. If someone attempts to dash for a better position they might get hit but that doesn't gaurantee a kill, being wounded can still result in some pretty awesome character development.

As for quartering off death entirely... That completely eliminates an entire level of storytelling. Why? Because someone is apparently unaware that if their character "dies" they can literally remake the exact same character in a different role play. It's not like I hold the copywrite to your character or something, so just like how in comic books people keep getting remade and reincarnated a hundred times, there's absolutely no reason you can't hit the redo button on a character who died. Who knows, maybe there was some critical flaw in the design. For instance: Being so brazen and brave, that they walked straight into the kill zone of a machine gun nest and got shredded to bits. Well, now you know in their next iteration to tone down the brazenness a little, make them use cover more, work with allies to approach the nest from multiple angles or to get them to provide covering fire while you move for that next piece of cover so you can chuck a grenade inside.

The only "valid" reason for not allowing the death of a character (aside of course from godmoding by other players or other such unreasonable situations) is emotional attachments. That one cannot deal with the idea that their character can, well, you know... Die. And not just die, mind you, but probably fail at whatever overarching goal or task they had. That's not easy for some people to deal with, I find it's more common the younger a person is and the more privileged a person's youth was--that is, how exposed they were to the concept of death and its permanence.

tl;dr: Death is to storytelling what meat is to diets. You can live without it, but you miss out on a hell of a lot of good tastes and easy to access meaningful things.

[Kidd]

Brovo said
The only "valid" reason for not allowing the death of a character (aside of course from godmoding by other players or other such unreasonable situations) is emotional attachments. That one cannot deal with the idea that their character can, well, you know... Die. And not just die, mind you, but probably fail at whatever overarching goal or task they had. That's not easy for some people to deal with, I find it's more common the younger a person is and the more privileged a person's youth was--that is, how exposed they were to the concept of death and its permanence.

Oh, wow. This is some good insight.

[Brovo]

Kidd said
Oh, wow. This is some good insight.

The human condition is an interesting thing and a very useful every day tool... Especially for game masters!

One more note: A lot of people also, to some extent, hero worship and/or author port part of themselves into their character. So it's doubly painful for them when the character dies: Their hero died, or a piece of themselves. Usually pretty miserable, too.

So I don't get angry... It's an understandable reason to dislike death, just not a valid one.

[Ellri]

Death of one's character is generally sad, but a good death for a character is far better than survival due to inane means.

[Joegreenbeen]

I'm curious. Do you think it would be okay to kill someone's character because you think that, for whatever reason, they may be doing something to kill or hurt the rp. That's probably better, in my opinion, than saying that you can't participate in my RP, because you do 'x' wrong. But then, it eliminates the possibility of you then asking them to pick up the slack, or whatever, and then they act reasonable. What do you guys think?

[Alphakoka]

If they're a known repeat offender and you were kind enough to let them in in the first place, why not?

[Kidd]

Joegreenbeen said
I'm curious. Do you think it would be okay to kill someone's character because you think that, for whatever reason, they may be doing something to kill or hurt the rp. That's probably better, in my opinion, than saying that you can't participate in my RP, because you do 'x' wrong. But then, it eliminates the possibility of you then asking them to pick up the slack, or whatever, and then they act reasonable. What do you guys think?

That's an easy way out and not one I really agree with. I understand that confrontation can be uncomfortable with people you're role playing with, but if you have a problem--especially as a GM--you need to voice it and figure out where the rest of the players stand on it. Telling someone that they're doing something wrong gives them a chance to fix it and grow as a role player. Everyone deserves that chance.

However, not everyone takes it. If this person prefers to argue and act immaturely, then the GM has every right to kill the character and/or kick the player out of the RP.

OOC conflict might make people uncomfortable, but it's sometimes necessary. And everyone involved can benefit from it in the long run.

[Nariata]

For me i put a little bit of myself in a character yet i will allow my characters to die if the situation calls for it.

Life is a journey, death the destination.