Lets say the campaign you're playing in is drawing to a close, and for the sake of this question your characters must venture through a portal and destroy a magic item that is holding the portal open and allowing an army of demons to stampede into the material plane. This act would save the world from certain destruction. The catch is once you destroy the artifact you won't have a way out, and you will have an epic last stand against hordes of demons who want to rip you to pieces.
This is just an idea I have for my campaign, but not necessarily something I plan on using, it popped into my head just last night and I'm still thinking about how my players would feel.
The whole "no way out" thing is an uncertainty of course because I don't know what kind of items/powers the players may accumulate along the course of the campaign, but as of now the party consists of a fighter, a rogue, a paladin, and a ranger. If they did in fact acquire something that would let them escape, that's awesome I wouldn't mind that at all, but I don't plan on giving them any hints about this final act of bravery until the time is near, so that it is a dramatic decision for them. Perhaps one person could destroy the item while the others escape, or the portal would start to shrink when it's destroyed rather than just wink out all at once and the players would have to race back to it so that they could escape in time?
Would you do it? Would this be a satisfying end to a campaign? Or is character death (yet victory) as an ending not a good idea? Personally I'd do it. I think it's a pretty bad ass way to go out and it's not like I'd use that character again after the campaign was finished. He'd go down in the history of that world and in our memories as a hero, and that's what all gamers want their characters to be, right?
It could make for an interesting end. The more story you build up around the characters will mean more impact to see them gone. This is good though! Expect some anger though, especially if your players get attached to their characters. It's only natural. Almost any caster can get spells to travel to different planes. If you even hint at other dimensions in your campaigns expect them to have one or two abilities to do this.
This really depends on the players. Personally, I'd love it. I like the idea of going down fighting, especially if I am playing a Paladin. What's more Paladin like than looking death in the face and going through with the right thing anyway?
However, other players may prefer not to die. Maybe they don't like ending where the good guys die as much as I do, or maybe they just want to keep their characters.
How restricted is this campaign? Assuming its non-restricted on spells/gear etc., its relatively trivial at high level to arrange for a contingency (not the spell), even after the fact.
True Resurection doesn't require a body, and can allow anyone who dies over in Hell or wherever to be resurected by a friendly back where they would prefer to live out their lives. Especially if one guy stays behind, its a definate option for his buddies to bring him back.
A wish or Miracle can recover a body for use with lower tier resurection spells as well.
Depends on the players. One thing to consider is that you're not writing a novel, you're creating a framework that the players are playing in. So unlike fiction in which something is an inevitable consequence of actions (at least as the author has put it), it's you putting the PCs in that situation by design.
So think about it carefully; few players like railroading.
How restricted is this campaign? Assuming its non-restricted on spells/gear etc., its relatively trivial at high level to arrange for a contingency (not the spell), even after the fact.
True Resurection doesn't require a body, and can allow anyone who dies over in Hell or wherever to be resurected by a friendly back where they would prefer to live out their lives. Especially if one guy stays behind, its a definate option for his buddies to bring him back.
A wish or Miracle can recover a body for use with lower tier resurection spells as well.
I try not to limit them as much as possible, so if they seek out something to allow them to traverse the planes, I won't tell them no, but at the same time I try to keep magic that powerful kind of difficult to get their hands on so they'll definitely have to fight for it. However I don't plan on giving them any clues to coerce them into seeking such things. As far as some one staying behind and being resurrected later by his pals, I wouldn't mind that. In fact it might even be better if one of them thinks he has lost his character, and then they have an "OH YEAH!" moment where they realize they can bring him back.
This really depends on the players. Personally, I'd love it. I like the idea of going down fighting, especially if I am playing a Paladin. What's more Paladin like than looking death in the face and going through with the right thing anyway?
However, other players may prefer not to die. Maybe they don't like ending where the good guys die as much as I do, or maybe they just want to keep their characters.
I think the paladin will really dig it! But it's hard to tell with the other players. I think maybe they'll be mad at fist, but then realize the true awesomeness of the situation!
These replies pretty much apply to Buri's comment as well but I'd like to add that they're new to the game and don't really have a grasp on all of their options yet, and I don't see them multiclassing into casters. I'm not sure if a high level Paladin has any planar travel, but I'll look into it. *edit* Nope, no spells for that kind of stuff on the Paladin's list.
While we're at it... what exactly keeps all the demons and devils from just stopping in whenever they want anyways?
Depends on the players. One thing to consider is that you're not writing a novel, you're creating a framework that the players are playing in. So unlike fiction in which something is an inevitable consequence of actions (at least as the author has put it), it's you putting the PCs in that situation by design.
So think about it carefully; few players like railroading.
I think giving them a chance to prevent the demons from even acquiring the artifact negates them feeling railroaded, so I'll try and make sure that happens if I use this idea at all. At the same time I don't want them to know the purpose of the artifact too soon because I don't want them to expect the ending. The campaign is still young so we shall see what happens, but I'll try to keep it as open ended as possible. Perhaps this could be the "bad" ending. It's more important to me that they are satisfied with the game than I am, because as long as they're having fun, I'm having fun :)
In one AD&D game that I played in many years ago, my PC was a lawful good cleric who had been artificially created to defeat the evil Lords of the Outer Dark. These beings brought eternal darkness to a part of the world, and the area of darkness was spreading. After years of adventure we finally penetrated their stronghold and discovered that the whole place could be destroyed by holding down a self-destruct lever, but that the lever could only be held down by a sentient being, who would ineluctably be vaporized when the place blew up.
Almost every good-aligned PC in the party volunteered to hold down the lever, but my PC was the party leader for that adventure and the others were (mostly) lawful, so he ordered the other PCs to withdraw and held the lever down, sacrificing himself to destroy the Lords. My favorite character death ever.
The sacrifice thing can work if your players are running the sort of characters that will go for it. The situation described above fit my character perfectly. The DM had also foreshadowed this in a couple of subtle ways, so if was not a complete surprise.
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I like it. Cool concept. Make the player feel like his sacrifice was worthwhile.
For example: As the tale is told and grows in the retelling soon stories of Jezrad the Sacrificed spread across the inner sea. Tales of your heroism are spread across the inner sea. People name their child Jezrad or Jezria for the girls. In large cities famous sculptors create great works of art commemorating your sacrifice.
It could be something smaller than my example. I have had players sacrifice characters before. I will always reference that sacrifice a few times later in the campaign.
Somebody needs to "survive" and "escape" - otherwise how do epic ballads gets written to the heroes and their heroic sacrifice? ;)
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This sounds awfully familiar. ^_^
I actually had a scenario like this happen at the beginning of my World's Largest Dungeon campaign. The party was only about Level 3 and a sorcerer was using a portal to gate in Fiendish animals, darkmantles and owlbears. One of the players wasn't having fun with his new character so he and I gave the PC a way out by saying somebody would have to enter the portal in order for it to close. The player was in on it so it wasn't so much a sacrifice as a convenient way to get rid of an unloved PC.
Another time I ran a module that actually required a PC sacrifice halfway through with no chance of Resurrection. However, the dead character later becomes a sort of Deus Ex Machina when he shows up at the end of the scenario, popping out of a portal with a MacGuffin of BBEG Slaying. We were able to play out the whole thing in one session so the player didn't have to fret about making a new character, but I wouldn't have run that thing if I didn't think my players trusted me a GM. It wasn't a very well thought-out adventure, and it was pretty of track-laden, but some of the set pieces were cool and the map was carved into the sides of a giant D20 so that made it fun.
End of the Campaign scenarios are probably better places to use these kinds of things, but I think a lot of your success will depend on your players' trust in you as a GM and how you handle the set-up. Making a hint available (but not obvious) about the possibility of a sacrfice might smooth things over for anyone with reservations about the idea. It'd give them a chance to plan ahead, maybe surprise you. A summoner might let his Eidolon take the hit if he thinks he can bring him back the next day or a wizard might march a construct into the portal.
I love the idea of the heroic last stand, and most of my players do too. in our last game, my alchemist refused to leave the dwarf behind, and when he was knocked unconscoius in a fight, the dwarf dragged him back to safety, while running from enemies (there was only the 2 of us that session).
I think people willing to take this kind of end are few and far between. I'd be willing to be the guy who goes through and presses the button, but most of my players wouldn't. I could count on two, maybe three of them to consider this kind of end some kind of railroading on my part, and at least two of those would think the whole thing was unrealistic and too idealistic. Those two would poke fun - after they vented their fury over the situation.
There are two or three of my players who would sacrifice themselves under the right circumstances, but the other two would still start a fight, if they could.
I like the idea, but I'd rather go the way of making an unavoidable death seem more heroic, than to force an unavoidable heroic death on anybody.
Thanks for all the input everybody, I'll keep all of this in mind as the campaign progresses and I decide whether or not to actually include this in the story.
Based on your responses I feel like half my players will love the idea, half the players will hate it. I think the key to this will be to make sure that the players don't feel forced into it, so that character sacrifice is a possibility but not inevitable (as well as the portal event as a whole of course), so I'll definitely stress that as I plan it out.
Only time will tell, like I said in my first post though, only an idea.
This reminds me of a thread I read on these forums once.
I highly recommend reading it, there is some pure-de-epic stuff in there.
I think the idea sounds pretty cool. I hate the planes generally but I would sign up for that in a heart beat. They would not necessarily need to be all good but they all would need to have something that they are willing to die for and that would need to be in jeopardy. The biggest problem would seem to me to create the no win senario with the only option being the PC's. Players are so used to finding the "way out" the how to survive they might all sit around and try to plan an alternate course, especially durring the onslaught. It is one thing to go down swinging like Jack Sparrow into the maw of the Krakken its aother for everyone to die while they are trying to find where the puzzle to get out alive is.