On Death in D&D

“That’s actually the first time I’ve lost a character in a long time.”

“Yeah, that was cool. I’m happy.”

Words from two players commenting on the end of the Dungeons & Dragons game I’ve been running using Fantasy Grounds online.

It was a weird situation: Every player character died. Heroically. Choosing to sacrifice their lives rather than submit their souls to eternal servitude.

I’ve rarely felt so nervous as Dungeon Master, or so unprepared, as I did in that moment. It was not planned, not expected.

But killing the player party was the right thing to do.

It was the ending the players deserved.

TPK?

Total Party Kill. Not my favourite concept.

That said, I’ve delivered a few TPKs in my time – usually by accident, and due to my ineptitude.

For example, there was our first ever game of 3rd edition D&D during which failing climbing rolls to descend into the dungeon led to one character after another falling and dying; the relentless application of the rules leading to the death of the game. My goodness, I can be a crappy Dungeon Master.

But last night was different.

There was a growing sense of inevitability towards the player character’s demise that was clearly foreshadowed by events. The opposition was too great but the players wanted to press on because, frankly, it seemed like they wanted to end in the right place. There was an elemental cult just down those spiral stairs, complete with the magical treasure they had been searching for over the last several months of gaming.

Although this wasn’t planned as a TPK, we all knew that this was nearly the end. I had already pitched my desire to start a new game with those guys, so it wasn’t a secret. And perhaps, looking back, it is knowing this which made the TPK possible.

Players Choosing Character Death

They chose this. The players did.

The players chose to face the might of cult veterans who were just at the edge of what they could handle, returning for the second time to do battle so that they could descend the stairwell into the lair of the cultists. Knowing that there were wererats hunting those cultists, and that it would freak the players out too, I had the wererats attack – initially indiscriminately.

The players chose to make a deal with the wererats: “Fight with us and we’ll agree to leave your territory.”

The players chose to withdraw and rest, allowing for the random encounter with the Gelatinous Cube to arrive on a wave of probability.

It was the fight with the Cube that alerted the wererats to the fact that our heroes had not yet departed, as they had agreed. The resulting post-Gelatinous negotiation saw the heroes bargain their hard-earned gold on unhindered access to that stairwell down to the cultist temple.

And so, at length, they arrived in the huge cavernous heart of the temple. And that is where they chose to fight. That is where, in the end, the players rejected the offer of physical life in service to the cult leader.

Instead, the players chose for their characters to die.

What I Learned…

I learned three big things from last night.

Firstly, I learned that players don’t experience character death very often. That realisation came as they each admitted to the unusual nature of the event. And, honestly, I felt that was something that should happen more often.

The emphasis in this game (as with most of my games lately) has been away from predetermined story lines and all about the old school surrender to the game’s outcomes as story. In other words, the play determines the story: each player’s choices interact with what the Dungeon Master sets up; the outcomes are the story, and there is no pre-imagined plot. Obstacles lie in the way of the heroes and it’s the player’s attempts to overcome them that makes the tale. This time, sacrificial death for an ideal was the outcome.

Secondly, I learned that I still love this way of playing Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a time for dungeoneering and larger-than-life heroism. I enjoy all the gonzo creatures and the structure of a game that fuses some pre-game planning with the random possibilities that come from wandering monsters. I had no idea what to expect when I sat down to play. I didn’t want to know before I sat down because otherwise there wouldn’t be any point in playing.

Finally, I learned to trust the player’s choices.

This is the big one.

As soon as they arrived in the elemental temple, they knew it was going to be bad. The players said so. After the first round of combat, they were resigned to dying.

When the first hero died – like, failed the death save on a roll of 1 and lost the last two death circles, meaning he actually dies – there was a silence.

In the round that followed, the other two reached character exhaustion: down to only a few hit points, no spells, no healing, no hope.

So the bad guys offered quarter.

And the Elven Cult Leader entered.

The player’s mage asked if she could raise their fallen companion and the Elven Cultist offered it in exchange for either “your life or your soul”.

They thought about it. They talked about it. They decided.

The fighter grabbed up his axes in a desperate last strike on the Cult Leader. The mage unleashed the last four Magic Missiles.

And they were struck down.

“I’m not giving you my soul.”

Game over.