I remember that moment playing Cam Greywood as he demands an audience with Kelemvor. I think something that was very unique about that moment for me as a player was the idea of experiencing the same feeling of “I must be special because I’m a PC” as countless other players across time. Definitely one of my favorite interactions at the table with you, Cody :)

@Taking20

Жыл бұрын

Love ya Alex!

@GameMastersWorkshop

Жыл бұрын

@@Taking20 Heads up, you have a scammer on your channel sending invites to Telegram in your name. You might want to report and block them while you got the chance. Good Luck brother

We had a character death in our campaign at level 5. We didn't have the resources or know how to bring her back anyhow, but their death made such an impact on the rest of our characters, and was a driving force for them up to our current level 14. From burying her, and visiting her shrine once in a while, to getting revenge. We just had an encounter with the person responsible and our rogue who was close to the dead character finally brought vengeance and it was so satisfying for us and our characters.

@jiminkpen9750

Жыл бұрын

Yes. This exactly. It's a group game and the story is so enhanced by such things.

@The-0ni

Жыл бұрын

I have a story that shows the flip side of yours. My PCs had bought a diamond to use the Revivify spell on an NPC. They never ended up needing to cast the spell. Fast forward in that same session and the Bard gets torn apart by a Hydra because he wasn’t expecting 5 opportunity attacks (1 from each head). After the battle finished the Cleric casts Revivify and we just move on. Fast forward to the present and we are recounting stories and the Bard doesn’t even remember ever dying and gets argumentative until he remembers he did die. The death had been so meaningless/pointless and unmemorable because he was instantly brought back to life.

Strahd was kicking my groups butt, we had been out of everything spells/rages etc. when he showed up. So I did the only thing I could think of I cut my neck slightly and yelled to him to take me and leave them alone. He whisked my character away and later we had to fight my char along with his other concubines lol it was really fun and memorable.

@ThisIsNotYourFriend

Жыл бұрын

That's some gangsta shit right there! The other players would've appreciated that so much!

When I died my DM created a short story to introduce my new character. In the meantime, I got to DM that story he created and he got to play a character in that story that was actually a bad guy. It was fun having a PC turn on the other PCs. Once my new character was introduced I got to take over playing as a player again and the DM went back to his role. It was pretty fun switching things up for a few sessions.

@teleg-ramnrolls

Жыл бұрын

Giveaway session ✨️ 😊 just chasing the dream DM!!👆👆

In Lost Mine, the partys grave cleric was killed by a nat20 at late level 2. There was really no way to save him at that level, and they left the body to be eaten. Player made a new Tempest cleric. A few levels later, she got access to summon celestial spirit. For the spirit, I plunked down the mini of the first character. Everyone was excited, like he'd moved up the ranks.

@The-0ni

Жыл бұрын

I did the exact same thing for one of my players! He had made a Paladin for Curse of Strahd with the help of one of my more experienced players that loves bad builds (Dwarf Wizard with no Armor or Mage Armor/shield, 16 Strength and runs into melee) and inevitably died because the party abandoned him after Paladin gave them the thumbs up to use and control his character for a session he couldnt attend. Paladin is pissed and totally upset and doesnt care anymore about the campaign or whatever he plays as. I convince him to play a Cleric I created and plead with him to cast Spiritual Weapon since hes never played a cleric before. He relents to my request and I plop his Paladin down and describe how this holy ghost charges forward and starts tearing apart his enemies. To this day whenever he plays a Cleric he describes his Spirit Guardians or Spiritual Weapon in that same manner using the ghosts of previous party members.

I am very transparent about player autonomy. I will not save you from your bad decisions. I will not save you from your dice rolls, it's why we roll dice.

@Dsrikers

Жыл бұрын

My tables most memorable moments is when our fighter caused an accidental explosion that killed him and another players character along with causing enough mayhem in the fortress they were trying to break into that the rest of the party completed the quest with little struggle.

@samdurfee6093

Жыл бұрын

I would advise caution. Do try to give the players ‘chances’ so that they can rectify their worse choices. However yes if the player in question consistently make bad choices and all ‘chances’ are spent then yes they die. Just don’t go out your way to kill them for one bad choice.

@salamshalom

Жыл бұрын

@@samdurfee6093 failure in stages. One player openly attacked a new captain guard in an inn in broad daylight She was arrested and set to hang. This became a breakout/heist mission. She ruled a new character for the heist. The heist was successful but with some drawbacks for the party's larger goals.

As a firefighter I really appreciate the reference. :) As a DM and a Player I got to say I've had the most fun when a player dies in a meaningful way on either side of the DM screen. It is like getting to the end of a really good book.

@michaelmiller1442

Жыл бұрын

As a cop, we get no love haha

Player death can be very satisfying, especially when it's the character's choice. I still remember playing a soldier in a Call of Cthulhu game. We stole a nuke in an attempt to stop Cthulhu from entering our realm, but it had to be set off manually. My character sacrificed himself to save the rest of the group (for now). That was almost 30 years ago, but it's still a great memory and a favorite story moment.

Can I just say I love that I found a D&D commentator that recognizes the brilliance that is supernatural

@teleg-ramnrolls

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My wizard died near the end of session 1 in curse of strahd. They died from making a dumb decision (ran into melee with the big monster, there was no need). They were resurrected by the dark powers of ravenloft at the start of session 2 with a new and crippling fear of death which manifested as alcoholism to numb it. It was a huge keystone in my roleplay decisions and I wouldn't go back and change it if I could

@teleg-ramnrolls

Жыл бұрын

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Boy oh boy did I need this video today. Just had a player die in the game I'm DMing this past Sunday. I think I took it harder than the player did. It's so hard not to feel like I failed at encounter balance, but the entire party has taken it incredibly well and our group discord has been more active this week leading up to next week than it usually is. And everyone, including the player who just lost their character, are all incredibly excited to get back into the world. Great video Cody!

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I've only been running my games for a short (relatively) time. But I never thought about an afterlife scene /quest. That's a great idea, and I'll definitely keep that in mind.

@teleg-ramnrolls

Жыл бұрын

Giveaway session ✨️ 😊 just chasing the dream DM!!👆👆

My group started Dungeon of the Mad Mage this year. We've had 8 character deaths so far. lol Our approach is, if a character dies, you roll a new one. As I run my games though, I try to keep dead characters' stories incorporated in the campaign however I can and try to make character death feel impactful and heroic if possible.

@teleg-ramnrolls

Жыл бұрын

Giveaway session ✨️ 😊 just chasing the dream DM!!👆👆

Completely agree with #2, no gloating. I've been in a group where that's all the DM did, as he relished killing off the PCs and forcing us to roll up new ones. He didn't just gloat, he laughed in our faces. Also, no resurrections were allowed. We were kept poor and low level so we were forced to make new characters as he wanted to see how badly we'd roll. On the opposite end, I had a DM who refused to let us die and make a new character. Everyone who "died" was instantly resurrection, but with a flaw attached. Some characters came back mighty ugly and almost unplayable. Didn't matter how desperate we were for a new character, we had a story to complete and that took priority over our wants.

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@colinehasaki

7 ай бұрын

Dayum both are rough and you got both

My favorite character I ever played in D&D from when I started ( aging myself ) 2 decades ago, until just a few years ago, was a character who died in a brutal and intense story wise fight that the party barely won. This was in 3.5. Alas before my character's body could be recovered or done anything with a dark figure that chilled the area around them snatched my body and disappeared. Later they hear about an issue with a necromancer and how the recently dead are being stolen away. The party acquired a sell sword ( merc fighter temp character that I played ) to join them as they followed the gossip to a ruined temple. After fighting threw minions, they eventually found the Necromancer who had been performing a ritual on my character to turn them into a Death Knight. The DM actually ran a timer that I was made aware of privately that once it got to a certain point my character would be fully undead and would have to roll an entirely new character. However the party stopped the ritual half way through. Upon resurrections I was "half undead" split down the middle. I had both some vulnerabilities but also some positives from that. It ended up being amazing and so very memorable.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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I'm going to be starting my first real campaign as a dungeon master within the month. With a good group of friends and super excited and nervous. Channels like yours and x3 have helped a lot get my thoughts together. Thank you. :)

At the beginning of every campaign. First thing I tell everyone. Death of your character can happen. I'm not going to try to kill anyone, but I wont save you either! It sets the tone for the rest of the game. My last three session, someone was rolling death saves during a fight.

As a tip, well, our DM encourages small write-ups either of the events or of a key moment from the session. If a character dies, it is highly encouraged for that person to do the write-up, and any last thoughts / afterlife etc. for the hero.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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One of my favorite ways a dm played a PC death for us was, one party member fell in combat. After combat we found an enemy cowering in hiding. It begged us to spare it and it would flee and in exchange it would tell us where a hidden scroll of resurrection was. We accepted, it got to the door then shot an arrow with a message away. We found the scroll and used it right away. The scroll was cursed and it resurrected our member... as another race.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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I totally loved what you said about keeping players playing. I am running a SWSE campaign with my friends to change up our DND 5e campaigns. One of the players in our group had their character die. In order to get them playing as soon as possible, I handed them the stats for some of the mobs that the party was facing and help me control them for the next combat. This was a great assistance for me as the DM as it took some of the time consuming choices and dice rolling away. It also allowed that player to remain occupied the entire session until we could introduce his new character next session.

The problem with killing PCs, from my experience and how most players I know seemed to be roleplaying, is that they're raising a single character and like seeing them grow stronger, cooler, badasser. Killing their character is like erasing a save file. And for those who had a story and character development planned, they might not want to die before the character has lived all of those. It's hard to do right, but unplanned deaths are cool too.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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Thank you for this! Excellent concept

I had a player die once where the local temple did have a cleric who could raise them. But since they weren't members of his church, he required every surviving member of the party explain why it was personally important to them that this member to be brought back to life. It was a nice bonding moment for the party. He also required that they accept a Geas to return to the temple in no less than one year to perform a service for the church. That was as also meaningful to the resurrected member to see his companions willing to make such a binding promise on his behalf.

i fully agree with you however my players are so sensitive to character death that even the risk of death turns them off from my game so much that recently they preformed a coup to replace me as the DM with a more passive DM who is super insecure about making things too difficult for us. D&D is about drama and challenge for the players so they can overcome near impossible odds for a satisfying victory for the players.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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During our run of waterdeep dragon heist I had a player die from a disintegration ray and was really upset. So we worked together to find a way to bring his character back. Unfortunately there wasn’t a body left to anchor him to the material plane so the rest of party, along with Nim the nimblewright, whom the player in question had formed a bond with and was temporarily playing, went out to find materials and components to build him a new body. Also because none of the remaining players had a resurrection spell powerful enough to bring him back the had to enlist the help of a powerful cleric who lives in the city. The cleric would not except gold but instead had the party retrieve a sacred item and return it to him. It wasn’t until after they returned the item that the cleric revealed it was necessary to complete the resurrection. When it was all said and done the pc was brought back as a war forged.

I lost my storm sorcerer by underestimating some monsters... was amazing!

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Great video! Love all your tips & thoughts 😁🙌🏻

This video is so interesting and relevant for me right now. I started my first ever D&d campaign a couple of months ago. I have played other games over the years but never D&d. One of my friends from work is a GM and asked me if I would like to play as he was about to start a new campaign using Roll 20 with a couple of other players he has run campaigns for that live in other states and another guy from work. This just to let you know how the game came about. The point I am working towards is that over the years I have experienced character death multiple times and while it always sucks I am used to it as a necessary part of the game and a risk we all take as players. NONE of the other guys I am playing with have ever had to deal with it before somehow. One of them is brand new to RPG's so I assumed he wouldn't, but coincidentally he was not at our most recent game this past weekend as he had Covid and was in bed and out of action. We did not know that he was going to miss the game and we all logged in and were waiting but when he didn't show, we all knew why and decided to go ahead and just take a job from the board to clear a cave of goblins that way we could still play and get some funds for the group. We were all only lvl 3 at that point btw. For a little context our normal party is 4 players, Myself as an Aasimar circle of stars druid, and the rest are A half elf artificer multiclass( not sure what the other class is), A dwarf fighter and a Variant human moon druid. The guy missing was the other druid and the only other player that can heal. One of the rooms of the cave we go into has 4 or 5 goblins in it as well as 2 hobgoblins. The dwarf just bumrushes the first couple of goblins knowing they are easy to kill, but keeping myself from being able to drop spike growth and control the battlefield as I planned since there were so many. We all are getting garbage rolls, but of course the enemies are all critting right and left. It is Roll 20 so it just happens that way sometimes just like at a real table, and our group is still new enough that we really haven't had any conversations about group strategies yet. Anyway The GM is trying to spread the damage around instead of just hammering the dwarf, because while he wants to make it challenging he really didn't want to kill any of the players at this low of a lvl if it could be realistically avoided, so through some bad rolls on our parts and good on the enemy's GM takes the last shot of the enemy's turn right before it will be my next go and the dwarf has just finally gotten clear enough for me to start managing the situation, but he gets another crit and down goes my character. They grab my body and book it. on the way out I fail one death save, succeed on the next, but then roll a natural 1...Every goes quiet. I do not typically metagame, so I have not said anything to any of them about the fact that we all carry med kits nor the fact that I have a bunch of goodberries in my pack by the time this happens. They all kind of freeze up and start trying to figure out what to do, but I tell them all that it is ok. Characters die. I really liked this character and had big plans, but I also love to make new characters so it will be ok. I'll just make a new one and a back up for our next session this coming weekend. I then sit and enjoy watching them think tactically and bait all of the rest of the enemies out of the cave in small groups that they pick off from range and clearing the cave and getting a ton of gold and great loot, they found our first real magic item, which is a pair of gauntlets that boost your strength to 19. I really enjoyed watching them avenge me and was looking forward to making a new character while thinking of how we might honor my dead character and get some closure, I don't actually like when my characters die. This is when they all tell me that it is the first time that they have dealt with a player character actually dying. I guess that they always just run modules and even their longest ones usually end around lvl 10 or so, so they usually just figure out a way to revive downed characters before they can actually die. I have been a part of some really long and epic homebrew campaigns in games like Vampire and Shadowrun, so as I said I have lost characters before, even some I really got attached to. Anyway the issue I am having right now that makes this video so relevant, besides just that my character just died, is that while I have already drawn up 3 new characters, 2 for myself so that the GM can pick which he would prefer to work with, 1 is a Custom lineage Twilight cleric, yes I am taking a little advantage of the gm feeling generous since the death lol, and A Tortle Wildfire Druid. The 3rd character is a back-up just in case anyone else should lose a character and not be prepared with a replacement, I did sit for a couple of hours and watch the rest of the game and while I enjoyed it they may not. Today at work though, My GM mentions that I can bring my character back as a reborn. Now I am not sure what to do. While I think that idea could be great fun and even considered it myself right after my character died and we established that there were no nearby clerics, I am kind of looking forward to playing either of the new characters I drew up. I get the feeling from the way that he was talking about it that he kind of hopes I will choose the reborn option. I know, without a doubt that whatever choice I make is going to be perfectly fine, aside from that I will need to choose between the Cleric and the reborn as the GM isn't quite ready for the wildfire mechanics right now, but this video really is helping me consider a lot of things and gave me some really great ideas. Also on a side note I think that I may start buying the necessary stuff to start running my own campaigns, but I want to homebrew up some proper long adventures. Sorry that I am so long winded, but thanks for the vid. I just wanted to let you know that at least for this nobody important, lol, It is a really big, immediate, and well timed help.

Excellent video! Thanks!

I always love your take on things

Thinking back one of the most interesting role-playing experiences didn't involve my character dieing, but his entire life motivation and why he was who he was died. We were mid campaign and one of the other people wanted to DM and the current DM and the rest of us were okay with it. However, the new DM went a bit more grim dark and had not DMed before; basically he managed to kill off all of the reasons behind my character's motivation. The only thing I could think to do, was have him walk away into the ruins and leave the party behind. It was a bit more profound than an actual character death, like the character died without physically dieing.

@teleg-ramnrolls

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This gave me a great idea if the time comes... thanks!

Thank you for making this video, i had been struggling with reading negative opinions about consequences in D&D. As a DM i had the displeasure of having players removed from the game because of their behavior and not accepting loss. This tied into my anxiety with trying to find new players and worrying about them complaining about every single failure. I do really like the phrase "without consequences there can't be heroes.".

My brother and I were playing a campaign together as in-game brothers. He was taken from us. My Druid took one point in tempest cleric the next session and raged out for several sessions. 6+ months later my character eventually converted his cleric levels from tempest to life, as some of his wounds started to heal. I think this same character arc would be fantastic to explore without the real-life involvement, and I highly recommend implementing things like the stages of grief into your game. There are so many different ways that other party members can react to a death (or near-death) experience of someone close. Changes in diet or spending habits being some of the simplest.

The first DnD campaign I played was with an experienced DM running a world with multiple parties, and after a friend begged him, he allowed the group I was a part of to join; it was a group of 6-8 people. We had gotten to around lvl 10, and we needed to get to a city, but the quickest route was via boat, so our DM (god bless his would idk how tf he put up with us) put together a ship, fully crewed with NPC that had their own agendas and task for us and a set of encounters both combat and RPing. Well, in the first session on the boat, our kenku artificer convinced a sea elf that came to the boat that it was a slave ship and we were the cargo; the same sea elf returned with some friends, 4 of them being hydra's. After the party was forced into joining the mutiny to not fight each other, our wizard used a firebolt on a barrel of gunpowder. It apparently hadn't crossed his mind that that would set off all the barrels near it, setting the ship on fire and blowing up my arcane archer; admittedly, I overreacted and shot him down on my turn. The ship basically sank, and we were on a paddle boat by the end of the session. The DM straight up said next session was going to be hard because actions had consequences we all agreed fast forward the next session was hell understandably we were on a boat with a water elemental under us who wanted our magic items we said no it said "aight bet" we didn't know but there were sharks under the paddle boat so when the elemental pulled me and the wizard down the party couldn't save us the encounter basically ended with 3 PC's dead the Kenku, wizard, and me I accepted it since I was an archer on a paddle boat I kinda knew it was gonna suck for me and also he said it was going to be very hard the other two complained so much that our DM allowed them to bring back their characters (I was given the same option but I had deleted the PC's sheet already and just played a different one) the encounter for the rest of the campaign also didn't feel as hard anymore I was pissed off with the other two because they caused the situation and cried when their actions bit them in the ass. idk I wanna hear other opinions on the matter maybe I over reacted.

Meanwhile my zealot barbarian; Death: "Oh hey bro. How'd you die this time?" Barbarian: "Sliced into small pieces by 6 efreeti. Killed them all but my rage ended." Death: "Oh." Barbarian: "Yup. How many does that make?" Death: "I think that's #97." Barbarian: "Oh, neat. Approaching triple digits!" Death: "Yeah, nice!" Barbarian: "The clerics gonna cast raise dead without any material components now, see you later man." Death: "Take care." Barbarian: "You know I won't."

My PC died and then was brought back a year and a half later. The sorcerer who used the "Wish" spell lost her eyes from it, and my character learned a great deal about the "behind the scenes" storyline that they were able to pass on to the other PC's about how the BBEG damaged the world and it's connection to the other planes of existence. It gave my PC a great way to learn more about their God, Vecna, as well as what's really going on. And when my PC came back, they were able to change their alignment. I also became a DM in this game, as my group is large and needs more than 1 DM. I feel like the death of my PC was just a turning point in the story of how the PC's in our world dealt with the problems associated with the BBEG.

Looking good these days with the hair dew and beard! I'm still listening to what you're saying as well, I swear! Just much nicer to look at. 😃 keep it up!

I have a short story built out in the afterlife for when a character dies to give them a chance to roleplay and play their way back if they are lucky. Typically only use it for a TPK on the rare occurrence they happen.

Had a two year campaign in 5e. Only one character was killed "by me" and that was a series of 5 crits in a single fight. That PC was subsequently resurrected by the BBEG (who ironically was a former PC Paladin that the player no longer wanted to play ... so I turned into the BBEG. He also happened to be the only PC who knew where the dead PC was buried ... so the story developed by itself.) The players never saw it coming. The PC became dead at level 3 and the Paladin PC left at level 4, but the campaign continued to level 14. It was glorious fun for all.

100%! Great advice!!!

When I ran Curse of Strahd I implemented an NPC called "The queen of maggots." A night hag that stalked the mists of Barovia, snatching souls to consume, who took an interest in the party. Whenever one of them died she would grab their soul before it was lost in the mists and give them an offer. She could send their soul back to the party and live again, but someone else's soul would have to take their place. Before the campaign i had the players all come up with 3 important NPC from their backstories to work as 'extra lives' And whenever they completed a side quest that resulted in an NPC ally, they also became a viable extra life.

I ran a campaign with a few experienced players, who were all trying to goof around (without becoming a murder - hobo party) and didn't take combat seriously. When 2 of the players had their characters die, both players had to make choices on what pantheon of gods they would try to appeal to, and who they would try to convince to be their patron out of their selected pantheon. Both players chose differently, and we ended up doing an RP of their greatest faults from before becoming adventurers, and incorporating that as comeuppance as they were revitalized. Along with a few disadvantage mechanics (i.e. having disadvantages on attack roles against the monsters that killed the players for a while) it provided a set of consequences without feeling like punishment. Overall, lesson learned, but kept the party engaged and happy.

Oh man, I've got a few stories here... My half-orc barbarian in one group sacrificed himself to save the rest of the party from a howling army of orcs and goblins that were chasing them through the woods. While the rest of the party hid, he loudly stormed off through the woods on the back of a cart, lighting up all their torches... the next session the party found his dead body, wreathed in flowers by appreciative goblins who thought he was their god made flesh. The player came back with a goblin sorcerer and helped in the quest to locate a diamond in a distant elven ruin to bring back the half-orc character. It was fantastic. In the meantime, I wrote up a description of the afterlife for the barbarian, so he could see what was happening after his death and see his ancestors. More recently a wood elf monk in the second group ran out of the party's instant fortress to face off against the BBEG lich and got disintegrated. The party sacrificed a sentient ring to bring him back via Wish... but he refused to come back the way they thought. They mourned his passing, while he created a new druid character who could talk to the party's panther... an animal they had thought was dead in the depths of the dungeon, but crawled back to them with the druid. Turned out the Wish worked, but the monk decided to inhabit the panther's body to get their beloved animal companion back to them. Tying back to the orcish ancestors in the afterlife, another half-orc cleric in the second group lost his god early in the campaign (the "old gods" are back with a vengeance, imprisoning the "new gods"). The cleric began worshipping one of the old gods, but fell out of favour when he wouldn't follow the god's demands. He wound up being godless, uncertain where to turn. He was enraged by the monk's death and took a few levels of barbarian afterwards, embodying his fury and lack of faith. But now he's started reflecting on his lost faith, and found a way to commune with the spirits of his ancestors in the afterlife, and through them his clerical powers are slowly being renewed. And how did he find those ancestors? The monk was there to greet him as he fell into a religious trance and guided him to the ancestors. It played out beautifully. I love having two groups going at the same time in the same world, facing the same threat. The ways I get to tie the two groups together through shared experiences is amazing, and I can't wait for December's game where the two parties actually meet for the first time, after more than three years of gaming!

@textme342

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Very good advice. Cool video! I have noticed that sometimes players who play the same pc for years and maybe decades stop playing when that character dies. So I would give the advice to teach new players that it is normal to not play the same character for forever. Even if the pc don’t die, just play something else next campaign. It does not hurt anyone.

As a player, as much as I sometimes love the characters I'm playing, character death means I get to take one of the several other character ideas running around in my head and finally put it to paper. As a DM, the last time a PC died in my game, I gave the player a chance to describe their last moments, what they thought of last, who they made eye contact with, etc. It gave the player some measure of agency on how the character passed. They took it well and immidiately started rolling up a new one with some anticipation. I also made sure, after the game to give a huge shout out to the player for how well they took it, adding that I know how attached we can sometimes get to our characters.

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Definitely going to develop the idea of a rebirth possibility. Thanks!

Have always wanted to this try out. At the moment of a PC's impending death they are shrouded by a dark mist, and upon waking , after a little exploration, they find themselves in the realm of Ravenloft. Queue weird inter-realm adventuring.

I love the subplot thread. I had a player sacrifice themselves in a tough but not impossible encounter. He played another character for awhile and the party went on a quest for a petty god to bring them back to life. I might have tried to recreate that while fighting some devils but nobody died that time, good on them.

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Ran a game where the Bard would often put himself into bad positions and would often fail his death saving throws afterwards. After the 3rd time we had him visited by a God of the player's choosing that he felt represented the Bard well. After a long, meaningful conversation, he was eventually resurrected with retraining into two levels of Paladin from this God, but would not be able to continue to grow in Paladin levels unless he maintained his faithfulness.

I took 3 PCs that died in the ToA campaign I was playing in, and brought them back as a party of NPC adventurers in the Ravenloft campaign I’m DMing. One player is in both, so when they recognized them it was pretty awesome.

The afterlife was the very first thing I started developing in my setting. It helped to fill the world with so much!

@teleg-ramnrolls

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I have a houserule called “The Valeria Rule”, inspired by the movie “Conan the Barbarian”. When a PC dies, its player gets to have that PC’s spirit interfere with a negative result *once* on the behalf of any PC. Then the dead PC’s spirit moves to the afterlife. For example: Brad’s elf mage Laeldied last session. This session a dragon breathes on Bob’s paladin and he takes lethal damage. Brad could use the one “Valeria” he has when his elf mage died to say, “Lael’s spirit intercedes and blocks the breath weapon so the paladin lives.” It still stinks to lose a character, but the player gains a powerful resource that makes some sense within the game as well.

@textme342

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Thanks for the content

The only issues I have ever had with PC deaths is when a player acts childish and throws a temper tantrum about the loss. I try to always warn the group when a fight can be really bad for them and to play smart. Some players have "main character syndrome" though and think they should be immortal. its very frustrating.

I have a graveyard in my game. There are 2 plots. 1 died at level 4 to a Zombie beholder. Very sad time. Came back as a ghost in the grave yard in a later campaign. The second grave was dug when a PC died, but the corpse was not to be found immediately, it was mostly just a headstone and a ceremony. That character, convinced Bahamut though through play, to come back as an Avatar. Then, subsequently later died fighting a Draghoul. Nasty time, but was destined to go in the ground for sure now. But the body was stolen off the PCs, and was used at the Mini Boss fight as an introduced enemy that crawled out of the lake that adjoined the crypt they were assailing. The PCs killed the zombie ex-PC, and this time got the body into the ground, and had the grave yard Hallowed. God damn good time were had by all.

I had a golem that had gems on it. Each gem when broken would slow down the golem and unlock a chest. Well the party died. So we talked about continuing the game with new PCs that are hunting down the old PCS who just so happen to be wanted. I say if the party wants to play new characters do so. Link the new PCs with the old ones. Maybe a new pc is the brother of an old one and is sent to kill his own brother. Maybe the original party is brought back through magic or divine intervention and are now monsters driven insane

@teleg-ramnrolls

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Pc's TPK'ed when they made pretty bad tactical decisions during an encounter with one of the badguys.. the bbeg is the avatar of an ''Old One'' and he spoke with them in the afterlife as he collected their bodies and souls and placed them in stasis, saying they were clever and resourceful while fighting against him, and wanted their aid with dealing with someone else (ofc he disguised himself as a previous NPC the party had thought was dead, so they gladly went along with it..

Before Watch Comment: I've died as a player for the first time recently (during our fun little Halloween side quest), still trying to figure out what to put in. So I'm glad to see this vid

in my homebrew ruleset when somebody dies other players has a skill to stabilize them (with a malus of how many -HP he has). If someone really dies the players have no way of resurrection themself, the corpse has to be brought to a temple within 3 days (which can be a adventure in its own). there the player can be resurrected, but for a lot of gold and a permanent handicap like unusability of one arm, movementspeed cut in half by crippled leg etc

Thing that has worked for me: The PC who died had a pretty strong rivalry with their NPC Sister. So after they died and it was clear they couldn't be resurrected, I started to describe that NPC Sister having bad dreams during a stormy night, wake up and see the ghostly appearance of the PC. And back to the player: "Is there anything left you would like to say?" Worked great.

Personal story time. My GF was playing a tiefling paladin who was gonna MC into hexblade next level. Got in a little over her head and ended up dying during a combat encounter. We had a talk and RPed that the traveler came and made a deal for her to come back with the gift of a hexblade on exchange for a favor of the travelers choosing. This cane back many session's later after she gad forgotten where she had to deliver a magical Tome to the emissary as payment. Was fun to see her realize I cane though with the end of the deal and watching the other members realize she had made a deal behind them.

My brother's character died in his second session of a solo campaign. At first I regretted the decision to have one of the NPCs he rescued use diamonds from the pirates treasure to cast revivify. But, the character got a good look at the afterlife, and got to decide whether or not to come back. He had a wicked scar on his sternum, and of course missed out on 300 gold worth of the treasure because it got used to resurrect him. But also, when the slavers / pirates found out he was still around and looking into them, it became a cat and mouse game for who was going to ambush and murder whom first.

During my HotQD game while thr party was in Waterdeep they decided they needed money so their barbarian went to the gladiator pits. I gave the thw option of easy, standard, or deadly fight. He got cocky and went deadly and died when the monster had 3 hit points. The city destroyed the body (with the players permission) so he made a wizard....and hated it. The group went to the plane of death to fight for the right to resurrection. The enemy was thr spirit of the barbarian. After the fight was done the barbarian was back. But I can still remember when I rolled the hit and he looked at me and said "I'm down". I offered ideas, like inspiration, lucky, his relentless endurance... literally everything I could think of. We had to take a break after the fight for all of us to process.

Absolutely love your content, and I'm even planning on making my own - primarily from my experience as a writer and narrative designer in the tabletop and games industry - what made you choose a "brand name" such as Taking20 rather than say, using your personal name?

My character had a heroic wrestle, drowning the big-bad in the dingy sewer waters as all the party escaped. It felt like a heroic final stand. You know, the weird thing is, after several miraculous rolls he was actually going to survive. Passed all constitution rolls and rolled minimum for drowning damage. Won every athletics check despite being 2 lower for 6 rounds in a row. So I *voluntarily* offered the character death to the DM in private chat, saying it felt very appropriate for my character to go out that way. It was a glorious scene to end the night. The lady he had sworn to protect in a fit of rage forged the horns of the drowned enemy into her crown as a memorial!

Wooooah - with the 7th Saga reference!

During a Planescape game I ran like 20 years ago, we actually ran a scenario when a PC died, where the party had to enter the afterlife and seek out the soul of their companion (ie. Petitioner), capture it (since Petitioners didn't remember their previous lives), bargain with the god of death, and escort their companion back to the world of the living, through multiple encounters. If they turned back to help or talk to their companion before reaching the end of the quest, he wouldn't be allowed back to life. Just like in the the Greek myth.

@textme342

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I've only had three character deaths in the seven years I've been running games in my homebrew world. Even still, I've had two players leave my game because of complaints about how hard my combat encounters are. Ironically, nether of which were ones who lost characters. I love the idea of switching to one on one with the player that just lost a character. As well as putting a throw away character together so they can keep playing. These will certainly be implemented for the next time a lose a character.

In the edition I play, a player usually has control of more than one character because of their ability to recruit henchmen and attract followers. Because of this, death isn’t as big a deal because, more often than not, the henchmen and followers I create for my players are cooler than the player character. Resurrection is no laughing matter however. It’s cost in gold is great (20k gold). And a favor must be done for the priest prior to the resurrection. Usually a dangerous favor.

As a player I am always willing to die for the content. :D I have had a character die at least once in almost every campaign I've played with this same DM, no regrets. Once, our DM accidentally full party wiped us in our second session of a campaign at level 3 by setting a trap on a door that blew us up for like 10 fire, lightning, and force damage (each). We were never supposed to be able to trigger the trap, but it happened and the damage rolled high. Since it was their miscalculation the DM allowed us to choose if our characters full on died or if we whited out and woke up in a jail cell the day after. I was playing as a noble/princess of a local triton community in the city who ran away to "find adventure" so I decided to let my character die as I thought it would be more interesting narratively. The rest of the PCs (and my new character) all had to deal with basically be framed for kidnapping and murdering her. It took the story in a very different way then originally planned but it was super fun to see the consequences of that situation play out. Another time we were playing Vampire the Masquerade and were trying to set up a party so we could assassinate a political leader of one of the local factions. One of our PCs, not thinking it through very well, used one of their abilities on a crowd of 100 vampires that made them all go into a frenzy, killing everyone in the room including the entire party and themselves and spilling out into the streets essentially starting a vampire apocalypse, masquerade broken. We successfully completed our assassination. 100% not intended to be the last session of that campaign but you couldn't plan out a better ending. We ended up going on to play a new campaign set in the post-apocalyptic world our previous characters created. These are just some of the more notable examples.

I've always wanted to play a character who gets killed off, only for some kind of spirit or soul to either possess the body- or to perhaps get unintentionally caught up in the resurrection spell tying them to the body and replacing the original character

@teleg-ramnrolls

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Not that I even like the concept of resurrection in my campaigns, but, IF you create a plot branch to raise a fallen character, then I like raising the character quickly after some negotiations, along with some kind of magical "timer" to send him on the quest, as well, to satisfy the costly, consequential "deal" for the resurrection. That keeps the player from needing to play a side character just to reacquire their main character.

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We have had so many deaths. There are a lot of times when the tables leave full of tears, it pulls the characters more motivation to stick together.

I used to be afraid of offing a PC, now I try to take out 3 in a long campaign. 1 early to show that there's high stakes, somewhere in the middle where there was some major quest, and towards the end when the epic is nearly over. I had one campaign almost tpk at the final boss, the players still love to talk about that final encounter and campaign. I don't specifically target a PC or player to axe, just set up a more dangerous set of encounters that is not in the heroes favor or splitting up is surely to have major consequences. It's really added thrill to the game and excited most the people in my playgroup.

In one campaign world, only clerics of the god of death could cast raise dead or resurrection. This meant pleading their case to the the high priest, and usually performing a task. The exception was if the character died fighting undead - the temple of the g.o.d. considered undead an abomination and blasphemy, so those who fell fighting undead (and somehow didn't get turned into one) would book brought back at the traditional gold piece price, but without jumping through hoops. If a character is brought back from the dead through raise dead or resurrection, they lose 1 Constitution permanently. My reincarnation charts are also more creative.

A point not mentioned is to be sure to allow the consequences if the player decides to do something. Don't take away agency by narratively forcing survival, thus negating both the gravity of the consequences of their choices and the option to die heroically.

I'd say: If you get the chance as a DM, make a PC's death memorable. A story I'll remember till my brain falls apart was the ending of a Shadowrun campaign from years back. We essentially lost the fight against the BBEG and my character, a Shaman, had a "hidden" piece of cyberware just for fun, a bomb implanted that would be set off the moment he flatlined. The BBEG had my character at the throat in some kinda ritual chamber separated from the rest of the group by some kinda force field, ready for a sacrifice to some ancient god. The GM had a whole BBEG speach prepared and heresed and I (in character) kept interrupting him with stuff like "You really don't wanna do this!", grinning and chuckling until he lost patience and the BBEG offed my character. Containig my grin, I slid the envelope with my "secret" inventory over to the GM. And I quote: "Well sh...." , then he described how the chamber turned into essentially a jar of strawberry jam, completing the ritual. I mean we lost but the BBEG didn't win either.

I love the reference to Supernatural!

Made me think of Not Another DnD Podcast. I think they handled character death really well (in multiple ways for the same player, no less).

Thanks for bringing the subject up. As someone who has been playing since early 1977 (yes, you read that right… over 45 years), I’ve seen a lot of PC deaths (my own and others, and both as a player and as a DM). My only concern in the subject matter here is that it has to be brought up at all. To me, it highlights how ‘soft’ the game has become over time. Character death used to be part and parcel of the game challenge one accepten when sitting down to play. PC death used to be frequent enough that a number of common phrases and play methodologies used in the game now came from those far deadlier days. Example: Do the words, “Don’t split the party,” sound familiar? It had been a common phrase and play practice for over 25 years before WotC even existed. Certainly, the transition to ‘less deadly play’ is part of the shift from dungeon crawling ‘murder hobos’ towards more story-driven ‘heroes’. But the degree of decline in threat of PC death has now gone so far that everyone talks about how ‘scary’ it is. There was a time when it added incentive to creative play - such a researching and inventing new spells, or creating magic items (for which ingredient acquisition missions provided additional ‘side plot’ play). Now, it seems players (and even DMs) need fainting couches at the mere thought of PC death and have to be given ‘shot in the arm’ counseling lectures (like the one in this vid) about what benefits it can provide to the game. Dealing with loss is a crucial part of personal development, both in real life and in the game… and not only for the players, but for the development of vivid PCs as well. No one should go out of their way to kill a PC, of course, but it shouldn’t be shied away from either. Stop treating it like a taboo.

As far as consequences of resurrection are concerned, once a PC that died was brought back via the Reincarnation spell. He was an Elf (and proud of it), but sadly (for him) the dice decided he would be brought back as a Tiefling. Oh, and the party had to spend almost all of their funds to finance the components for the spell. Even though they kept going without having to reroll a character, from that point on, death was a plausible threat, whether it could be negated or not. Plus the resurrected character had a new side quest of his own, to try to find a way to turn back to an Elf. Fun times!

This is great. You could set up the location of the resurrection priest early in the campaign, long before anyone would ever die. Bringing them back to revisit the location later on. Perhaps something happened at the location since the last time or the reason you left makes revisiting not as easy. Have an NPC they met earlier join them to help find the priest, and have the dead player play this character setting up his departure at the time of the dead players resurrection.

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I had a character in a campaign that was notoriously crafty and was able to cheat death on more than one occasion. His manipulation tactics were even more impressive than his combat which was scary as a rogue paladin. He made shady deals and always had a back up plan. He managed to make the first bbeg his minion without the rest of the party’s knowledge. However, when one of his plans got a different pc killed, he chose to trade his life for the life of his friend. And that was at the end of the campaign. I thoroughly enjoyed the last hour or so of watching the story wrap up even though I was not directly involved at that point.

I had a PC in Starfinder. A chaotic good android monkey that was born into slavery by the dark elves. The group had to do a mission for a dark elf and my character almost tanked the campain teying to attack the ef. Thats when I started working with the DM to give my PC a plausible death fighting the race that made him loose all control. I had time to create a new character and we still have my old pcs dead android body on our ship to this day. My new PC is now friends with my old PC's friend that the gm had to create for me during one of the sessions. The gm even created a decent backstory for this npc including artwork. My PC may be dead, but not forgotten.

At the beginning of the campaign, hoard of the dragon queen, a little goblin monk leaped from the walls to face landragoza's challenge. He failed, but he alone tried, and did well enough they gave the town reprieve. Later the goblin was sprinting through their camp, escaped from thier capture and burning it to the ground. In the cave that housed thier main base, they found landragoza once more, who challenged them to a rematch. the goblin fought. the party used it as cover to run after a failed ambush. The two stopped for a moment to talk about that, landragoza feeling the slightest mote of pity, and the goblin shrugging. He expected it, he was just a goblin. It took days before the fighter had even acknowledge he existed. 2 years later, a few more deaths (though not all stuck), there's only two original party members left of the now 5 players. the now level 15 players had a drink before the final march on Tiamat. And that fighter stood and gave a heartwrenching toast. To them, the cause, and most importantly to Zignaut. The goblin that opened his mind. He wouldn't be standing here without that goblin. Barely a dry eye in the house, and when the statue was erected, a little goblin monk stood just as tall as the rest. the other deaths had thier boons too. mending relationships, changing a character's outlook. A heartbreaking moment of the paladin screaming in fury, burning every item he had to chase down and kill the killer. Pacing around the cave well into the next day, trying to find the bodies. none of that would happen without death.

Got something in my coming up campaign where if they die die, they revive in 1 minute with the effects of a long rest but have z permanent death save fail. so they have to die a few times before they are "perma" dead. A few other negatives and positives thrown in there depending on how many times they have died, but they are essentially becoming undead.

Try to plan ahead the potential scenarios for when their characters die. What do you do when Bob the wizard or Timmy the cleric dies? If there's a TPK? Have a tailored story for each situation. It will give you more confidence for when this happens and will also help you to lift your foot from the break during combat. As a DM I tend to go easier on the pcs as their are nearing 0 HP and being prepared helped me a lot with this.

...but Jeremy Crawford from marketing said killing PC's might effect books sales. Oh yeah, We're DM's, we don't roll that way.

I am playing a fire based dragonborn paladin in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and last sunday I had the best night of gaming in my life. In the session before last our Soulknife Rogue, who was under the control of Mind Flayers until he escaped and came to the yawning portal tavern, died due to his player going on a gap year program up in the Sierra Nevada's. Then most of our group (I had work that day) went into his mind and my character helped the group escape his mind. Anyway his 201 souls are now in a keyblade that is in the possession of our fighter. This session we gave him a Viking funeral and mourned his loss. We then continued through the dungeon we found a cleric woman who would not leave the room as she was scared that the Revenant we released up in level 1 would find and kill her for betraying it. we got some killer charisma rolls to get her but she would not budge. Then our fighter took out the keyblade and the sash that our friend had around him and told her about our friend who we lost earlier in the dungeon. Our fighter went on this long "monologue" about it and then threw the sash into the room and our dm was like roll charisma with advantage (even though he had disadvantage) and then he was like the only way to fail would be if you rolled a 1, he rolled like an 18 and our DM was kinda tearing up and said you didn't need to go so hard. we got ourselves a new NPC ally. Rest in peace Xenos.

@textme342

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Good video! The message on accepting character death should really be aimed more at players. The only reason a DM would be compelled to avoid the death of PCs is from poor player reaction, and really unless everyone has agreed that character death isn’t going to be a part of your table, the player(s) are just being poor sports.

I was playing in my buddies 5E ravnica setting a while back, and I was a paladin that somehow forgot about my lay on hands so I died. I realized this after I died but I laughed and just got to work on a new character. I was offered to come back via a resurrection spell but I declined because it was my bad for letting myself die. I'm also a long time DM since 3.5 and playing since 2nd edition so it's especially bad on me for forgetting 🤣. RIP Boros Gang.

Like the death tarot card, a character death can become an entirely new quest, like Finding Nemo, in Planescape.

In my latest campaign I designed the BBE's lair in advance (which was massive) because PCs got the opportunity to explore some parts of it around mid-campaign. Unfortunately the PCs found a way to unlock parts of the dungeon that should have be inaccessible at the time, and despite EVERY signal was there that the place was too dangerous for them they kept exploring, until eventually one of them opened a portal to a dark dimension and was devoured by horrors... Good times, especially the anxiety that followed during the escape!

I sacrificed my 6th level Dwarf Cleric. I smashed a doomsday machine that was being constructed in the Underdark, taking our recurring adversary with it. This gave my comrades a chance to escape through a tunnel leading to the surface.

My first ever campaign playing DnD (2E) about 4yrs a my character died session 2, I sat there for 2 hours and helped with rules, and decisions lie you suggested. The party res'd me and the GM gave us a mission on the next session so my character could get his CON point back which we did only for my PC to die the following session (session 4) lol. That PC did go on to betray the party despite all their help and has become the big bad across 2 different GM's campaigns.

I have both a very negative and positive experience from player death. My positive was when I was a player as we had lost a party member due to us being murder hobos and playing the game like it was Skyrim and we learned our actions will and can have dire consequences and it made us shape up big time and all our characters grew from the experience. As for negative I was dming when I killed 3 players in one session warranted one player decided to ignore the parties plan and ruin it for them but I did make the encounter tougher for them with it being a boss fight. After the 3 players died only 2 people left and any attachment really to the plot with one of them also having to leave and one of the players just draining me I eventually canceled the campaign but at the same time it had made some great roleplay for the small time the campaign was still going so it was a mix of pros and cons

@textme342

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Giveaway session ✨️ 😊 just chasing the dream DM!!👆👆

Im not entirely sure what Matts rules are for dnd but I do use a base dc12 check for the resurrection, the idea of channelling the players energy into the spell being a difficult task is something that appeals to me, the dc increases by 5 after the character is resurrected meaning next time it'll be dc17 (if there is a next time) I have a god of blood, feasting and cannibalism that I'm using as a "good guy" in an attempt to fight an undead army, because my party is just 1 person they've made a deal and the god is essentially trying to find a replacement as he is aware his death is incoming and there's nothing he can do to stop it, the character has been resurrected by this god and I'm going to have the player do a little rp with me to solidly figure out what they were willing to give or do to be brought back

Not a PC death, but once a buddy of mine ran a 1 shot for me and mutual friend of ours. It was PF1e, I was a paladin, he was a monk, and we ended up fighting a babau (a murder demon), and a succubus. Both demons had class templates on top of their base stats, and the DM did basically no prep We barely downed the babau, and the succubus charmed the monk, so now I was fighting 2v1, and then the succubus went invisible and just ran, even though she was cornered. It felt like a lot of BS since the monk couldn't make his saves (he was an archetype that didn't use Wis) and the template on the succubus made it so even with smite I couldn't hit it. It felt very DM vs Player. The worst part about it was that the DM was snickering and giggling to himself while we struggled

Absolutely murdered a player back in the day when he charged forward into a Drow ambush. Told him that I was sorry but I couldn't see why they don't finish him off. Helped achieve, like you said, added gravity to choices.