Satisfying Character Death

It’s a fact; characters end. The game comes to a close, the group goes out in a blaze of glory, or the character meets his fate alone. This is the way is should be, as any story must have an ending. If you read my posts on Character Craft, you’ll realize that part of building a good character is envisioning the most appropriate way for their story to conclude.

I recently experienced a perfect example of character death that left me feeling satisfied. The character was a half-ogre fighter in D&D by the name of Gregor. I designed him to be a bit of a departure from my normally brainy character types and, with an abyssmal Intelligence score, he proved to be a real challenge for me as a gamer. Besides being dim, however, Gregor was peaceful and compassionate, a reaction against his savage ogre heritage. He was a hero, and would have been equally suited for the role of paladin.

Gregor met his end trying to save one of his fellow adventurers. The party cleric (played by my wife) had catastrophically failed her Climb check and plummetted down a mine shaft, at the bottom of which stood Gregor. As a player, I realized that the damage from the fall would easily kill them both, but I also realized that Gregor was too stupid and kind-hearted to care. He leapt beneath the cleric in an attempt to cushion her fall. The damage dice fell and, as expected, both characters died despite the valiant act.

Normally I don’t like it when my characters die, but in this instance I felt that Gregor had lived up to his design. The DM proclaimed that he met with a hero’s welcome in the afterlife, having finally come to peace with his savage nature. I regret the fact that I’ll never be able to play him again, but I am gratified to know that he ended well.

Hi,

I was thinking about writing on this topic, and here you have it! I’ve started running an L5R game, and have had 2 different satisfying character deaths by players.

I’ve found that the following helps with providing a satisfying character death:

• Meaningful reason
  The character is dying carrying out or defending an ideal (my players it was love & duty).

• Player choice
  In both cases the players knew their heroes would probably die in the process. It wasn’t random (”You open the door and die”).

• No Fudging
  I never cheat to save, or kill characters. Players in my games know they live or die based upon their choices and luck, I don’t rob the power of their choices and consequences by cheating.

Have you had any other satsifying deaths in play in the past, and have they also followed the same rules? Or perhaps you’ve had different observations?

Chris

In all honesty, very few of my characters have ever died. Most were retired or used in campaigns that ground to a halt for one reason or another. I did, however, have an elven wizard who died twice as a result of lightning-based attacks. After being resurrected for the second time, I decided that he had a severe phobia of lightning. A little off-topic, but interesting nonetheless when your character’s death comes to define him/her.

I agree with your reasons. It’s much like in real life that death with a purpose isn’t so empty. I’ve seen random character death that just seemed to leave the bitter taste of ashes in the players’ mouths. There’s a sort of morbid realization when you’re rolling up a new character while the rest of the group is continuing forward.

In any event, good observations.