Tom’s GM Tips: Dealing with Death

Death is a part of D&D as much as any other medium.

My last session of my D&D proved to be an interesting one. After plumbing the depths of an underwater tomb, the party’s Warlock ended up dying in a thrilling, dramatic conclusion to a fight with the dungeon’s big nasty. It was equal parts shocking, sad, and unexpected: exactly the right cocktail of emotions that you want to tap into as a GM in these situations.

But there’s something interesting to note here. I’ll spend a lot of my time online- some might say too much- looking at other people’s D&D games and experiences and comparing them to my own. Of course, every GM has a different kind of game in terms of atmosphere, players, goals and aims: that just makes sense when it comes to a game which relies on creativity and individuality as much as D&D does. However, there’s always been one detail within a lot of these experiences which didn’t match my own.

Other people’s characters died often.

I’d never had a character die in over ten years of playing and running D&D.

It’s made me think about the threat of death, and death itself, within the game. Posting onto Reddit about this story, I got a variety of different opinions on how other players would react when their character died, including the extreme opinion of one user that they would simply stop playing in that campaign- that’s how attached they were to their character! It’s an important concept to think about in regards to the game, and making sure that you’re striking a good balance and that you’re also prepared for the shock when it eventually does hit you- emotionally, as well as from the point of view of the campaign’s health as a whole.

Danger, Will Robinson!

A good adventure should have some kind of danger. Whether that’s from a physical threat to the players, or some kind of metaphysical or philosophical danger (betraying principles and friends, that sort of thing), the game needs threat. If everything is too easy, your players will get disengaged and realise that they’re gods within this world and that nothing is a big deal. Likewise, if it’s too hard, they’ll resent the fact that you won’t let them have fun and will probably want to leave your game. It sounds harsh, but nobody wants to show up to a D&D session and be treated as the GM’s pincushion.

Just like every adventure needs a good balance of combat encounters in terms of difficulty, so too does your adventure need to narratively have a good balance. There’s something to be said for a Mad Max: Fury Road level of intensity and threat, but it’ll tire your players out and probably you in the process. A good D&D game should manage narrative beats as well as a movie does: balancing action with down-time and quieter moments.

Don’t feel like you have to threaten the players with retribution constantly for the world to feel alive. If you don’t give the players a chance to breathe, there’s no way they can take anything in around them, instead seeing the game as just a matter of reaching the next challenge.

Harsh but Fair

In a game that revolves around results coming up on different dice, inevitably you’re going to get a curveball thrown at you now and again. Your attacks just keep affecting one member of the party up until they get knocked onto the ground. You can’t help it- they’ve just been unlucky.

For the longest time, I indulged a ‘gentleman’s rule’ as a GM where I wouldn’t kick somebody while they were down, with foes often ignoring a downed opponent unless they had no other choice but to attack them. For the record, I just want to say that this is a terrible rule. Don’t follow my example here.

There’s a middle-ground between the GM who just wants to slaughter his players and make them miserable and the GM who wants to hold their hand and for everything to be fine and dandy. You want to be the GM who challenges their players consistently, in a universe that’s harsh but fair.

For example, if the players are fighting intelligent foes- let’s just say hobgoblins, for example- hobgoblins are consummate tacticians. They know that a downed foe poses no threat, and that if they waste their precious few seconds slitting the throats of unconscious foes, they could easily throw away their life to a stray arrow or thrust of a sword. They’re going to try and block off anybody from shoving a healing potion down their throat, and attack any mages (simply because they could be packing healing spells). This is intelligence, and if you communicate that to your players, they should understand that there’s a legitimate reason that the downed player has gotten “lucky”.

Now, if those enemies were zombies instead, they’re unintelligent. They just want to consume flesh. A downed opponent is the perfect opportunity to do that. They don’t have any sense of self-preservation, and they’re not concerned about what could happen to them while they’re busy feasting.

Having your enemies tactics be consistent with their way of life makes the world feel more alive, but also makes your players have to consider the tactics of their opponents in these situations: this leads to more interesting encounters on the whole. Thinking like this regarding your encounters will please both roleplayers and the generals of your group- as well as giving you the benefit of running harder/harsher encounters, depending on the context.

I’ll admit that, in the past, I’ve ‘fudged’ rolls for my players if I think they’ve been getting an especially raw deal in combat (as in, they’ve done everything right and they’ve not been tactically stupid, but they’re just getting repeatedly hit and getting bad luck). I’m personally okay with this, as I think somebody getting “the luck of the gods” now and again isn’t exactly a bad thing, but there are different schools of thought when it comes to D&D. My best advice? Don’t be afraid to fudge rolls, but don’t make a habit of it and certainly don’t do it too much to hold your player’s hands: you’ll strip your game of all sense of threat and drama.

Death is the Beginning, Not the End

Losing your character can be a crap experience for a player. The time and effort they spent into creating them (with a backstory to boot, hopefully!) and playing them in the game, getting attached to them, and then losing that character can be crushing. If you’ve been running your game right, that person and the party should be feeling pretty bummed out.

If left unchecked, behaviour like this can lead to players getting disinterested and even resent the fact the character died. There’s a number of things that, as a GM, you have to ensure.

Make it meaningful. Every good story has its highs and lows. As a GM, you need to emphasise the drama and pathos of the situation. Have a funeral or a burial for this character, or at least have the party address what’s happened. See if you can roleplay it out a bit. It’s not likely you’ll get a few tears out of your party, but by acknowledging what’s happened, you’ve integrated it into the story- rather than just throwing up a roadblock to a player’s fun.

Accentuate the positives. I couldn’t find another way of wording this! I’m not saying that you should tell the player that it’s all just a game and it doesn’t really matter, but rather that you should be there to help the player draw up a new character and that the world’s their oyster in terms of creating something new and awesome. Respect their character and talk about how awesome they were (because they were in your game, so you made sure they were awesome, right?)

Take care to integrate the new character. So you’ve just had this tragic character death, and then New Character McGee shows up to fill their spot. Oh, well, on we go! You’ve got to be incredibly careful introducing a new character into the party. Work with the player to make this new character scratch a new itch and say a new thing that the old character did not. Simply have ‘Bob the Fighter 2" show up will just entirely erase the threat of death when the players realise that, metagame-wise, they can just show up as a new person and have the game carry on.

If there’s a narrative opportunity, use it! I can’t stress this enough. Don’t let the death be the end for the character. Plumb their backstory, or look at their recent deeds, as a way to have the character ‘live on’ in terms of what happens next in the world. For example, my player was a Warlock. They had a Patron, who’s the source of their power. The players may be able to go on a quest to ‘save the warlock’s soul’, or perhaps find out if there’s any way of bringing her back. The opportunities are endless, if you’re looking in the right place.

Resurrection

The ‘R’ word in D&D’s case, Resurrection is an often discussed spell. Some GM’s will outright ban it because of the implications that it can have for moments like we’ve been talking about, whilst others embrace it. Since I’ve not had to use the spell or manage a game having one been cast before, I’m just going to say it:

Resurrection should not be a spell: not in the traditional sense.

If we think about the context of resurrection within our own stories and mythologies, a character returning from the dead is a huge deal, only reserved for characters of great power (your first thoughts will have either been Gandalf, Jesus or Aslan: you can see that these characters have a lot in common).

Since it’s such a big deal, being a Level 7 Necromancy spell just doesn’t cut it for me. Sure, it has a 1000gp investment and the requirement for a diamond, but monetary investment is a little boring, and money is something the party (at least in 5th Edition) won’t have a massive need for.

Let Resurrection be a huge deal. If the character was a Paladin, perhaps their god/goddess might intervene; but what would the price be? A great deed or sacrifice if they were good, or a more sinister sacrifice if they were evil. A quest to resurrect a dear friend and companion is an incredibly interesting story to explore- especially from the point of view of a character who may just be joining that party. How would that make them feel? Would they worry about being cast aside once the old hand returns to steer the ship?

Perhaps I’m thinking about this too much, but it simply seems to be a bit of a waste to have Resurrection simply be a spell, rather than a great undertaking and odyssey to save a loved one’s soul.

This piece was a little scatter-brained, but that’s primarily because I’m tossing and turning the subject in my head preparing for my next session!

Thanks again for the amazing reception that my last few D&D bits have received: for all the feedback, advice- keep it coming!

Many apologies for being absent for over a month: jobseeking and bad mental state have their way of digging their claws into my creativity.

As always, you can message me @TheRealZeppy on Twitter or tebrierley@gmail.com. Thanks for reading! -T