"Banking" PC deaths? (Or, what is the interest rate when lending from Death?)

[RumpinRufus]

PC death is a difficult balance: necessary to keep combat tense and decisions meaningful, but difficult to stomach.

After all, when a player has invested tens of hours into a character (including backstory seedlings which haven't yet fruited) it can feel like a letdown to cut off that story with a bandit's axe. So you end up scaling back the combat difficulty so as not to chop down too many budding trees.

But what if you could have both: meaningful combats and narrative satisfaction?

What if: when a character dies, their player can choose for the PC not to die immediately... but the character must then die within 5 sessions (with no further resurrections.) Either the player or the GM can then pick an appropriate time and manner for the death.

That way, combat remains meaningful, since once you first meet Death your clock is started, and there's no going back. But, it gives the player enough time to wrap up their loose ends and potentially go out on their own terms. For the GM, it provides a grace period to throw in any backstory-related content you've created, and also a potential narrative driver (for example, introduce a new enemy by having them kill a party member.)

Should I try this system for the AP I'm running? The players have definitely invested a lot of time into backstory and I have some big reveals I want to get out. Has anyone done something like this?

[SorrySleeping]

The two problems that I have is that it feels gamey and sessions aren't always the same. I realize 5 sessions helps balance this out. When a character is dead and keeps on moving, there needs to be a reason (limited resurrection spells) in your world.

PC Death sucks, but faking their life to resolve things makes the death almost meaningless.

[Lusinian]

Mmh, I don't really know. But with players and GMs I'm confortable with, we'll usually hint each other for 'that should be played' and 'I want my character to die this way' and such. Basically, we're designing the back bones of the story arcs before playing them. We do know that encounters and roleplay is meaningful since we still have to get to the results and everyone tries to sabotage the others (specifically, the players still try to sabotage the Big Villains' plans), and the GM keeps making us big surprises anyway. We don't decide how things will happen, but we're knowing there's something out for us, be it the general of an evil empire, a powerful lich or just fate. For when we have a character dying on us and it's no fun... there's still the deus es machina tricks, like having a god saying 'I'm sending you back, but you're mine now, and I'll have you pay me back' (had this done to an atheous character, once) or NPC had a true resurrection ready because he cares.

So basically designing deaths is totally possible and real fun, but it has to be extremely flexible, lots more than 'you died, but I'm keeping you alive for some more time so you can end this your way'. One should either live or die, and both should be solidly grounded in the world and the story. Then you could also give a reprieve, but that too should be grounded by the world and by the story. That way death and life are no sentences (for the player, as the character is still dying or living), but story elements capable of fueling new arcs.

[Shiroi]

You could make this a campaign setting specific thing that happens to some people chosen by fate, blood, or random cosmic boredom.

"Those who bear the mark of the eight sided stone shall speak the true name of the reaper and be freed."

This gives you DM Fiat to be selective about giving this to all PCs, new PCs introduced later who may not be part of why the original group is adventuring, and important NPCs and villains who have better things to do than die right away.

It also means that assassinations in this world would be harder to pull off, you'd need to investigate thouroughly to make sure your target wasn't marked.

The concept would be that if a person born with this mark (or who chose to receive it with a magic tattoo or whatever in game rational you want) could sell their soul to the reaper for more time. Never mind that it's a sour deal that tends not to last long, and I'd say it would work better as a maximum in game time of one week. The reaper isn't patient, but a week is a decent in game time usually to get your owls sent to nogbarts school of heroism and finish clearing this dungeon. On the other hand, it's a maximum and if they mess up big with the BBEG on day six, or finish their story arc wrap-up on day five...

[Jhaeman]

I'd say it's an interesting idea! Try it out and report back how it works . . .