Making CHARACTER DEATH More Digestible | 5 Tips for When a PC Dies

Today we are talking about how to make your player character's death a little easier to swallow...
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[@sketchie_guy]

Obligatory first (also dude your worldbuilding stuff is literally the basis for the entire expansive universe I'm writing for my campaign, you're phenomenal my guy keep it up)

[@DracthyrBlackHalo]

Awesome 😎

[@TheFantasyForge]

aw happy to help! Appreciate the love

[@potatolord6726]

Just had a character death in my own game that I dm. It was surprising, both in character and out of character for everyone at the table, but I did my homework and knew that telling your players straight-up on a meta level that the upcoming journey/campaign/battle is going to be extremely dangerous (and at sometimes deadly) can really help ease that pain of losing that character because it becomes a player choice instead of a random chance occurrence. So even though the death was unexpected it was forewarned in and out of game as well as in and out of combat.

[@TheFantasyForge]

100% As long as everyone is on board it's all fair haha

[@spinesauce2687]

3:24! Little man is just basking in the campfires warmth. Love the video as always!!!

[@TheFantasyForge]

Always loves a good campfire

[@20hermanator10]

3:25 Awesome crossover idea, Tobias (cat, not the dragonborn) hanging out with Vox Machina!

[@TheFantasyForge]

LOL I didn't even realize the two of them in one 🤣

[@hammotimee]

Dude your channel is one of the best I've found, thank you so much for all the easily digestable learnings!

[@rozens_craft]

3:25 so cute little kitty )) He looks so happy..... he have NO idea, what's he got himself into, by joining that group... ^_^"

[@paulmorrison3148]

Really like the idea but have had trouble finding a Maiming table I loved, any recommendations on good ones out there?

[@TheFantasyForge]

I know exactly what you mean, I've sort of put a bunch of different ones together but I don't have any good one made. I'll put one together and link it here at some point

[@paulmorrison3148]

@TheFantasyForge That would be great, bew to the channel but love your stuff!

[@MemphiStig]

If you haven't, try looking for hit or wound locations, lingering or permanent injuries, or if you want something super crunchy (and brutal), look up RoleMaster for ideas.

[@TheShepherdFilms]

most important part is around 2 minutes..."I talked to the player, and they were into it", as long as you do that...fun will ensue...I once killed my son's character(20 year old or so at the time, but had already told me, death is very much on the table for him, he wanted the story, I killed him (didn't think it would happen, it was finger of death on a maybe 5th level character, but they had a halfling divination wizard with halflings luck(my wife), and I gave every player the lucky feat, I wasn't keeping track, but it came down to him rolling two nat ones on his save and it was more than his total hp in the negative, so instant death...however I made it a plot point, he went to his gods realm, became a right hand homie of his god(off screen) (in my campaign different planes have different time dilation, so his character was working with deep salash for hundreds of years, got captured by the raven queen, was there for at least tens of years, but for the party it was a couple weeks) anyway he (my son) got to play a couple different characters in the intrem, while the party was focused on rescuing him from the raven queen in the shadowfell.) I got a whole arc of cool storys from a death, but because my player was cool with it. But also I made it clear in my dnd its pretty close to "standard dnd" when you die you either go to your alignment plane(I barely use alignment, but it was my failsafe for non-god worshiping pcs)or the plane of there god...also I am running an epic campaign where the players will possibly based on player choice ascend to godhood. So death can be dramatic but also not the end if people are attached to their characters, but for this player, his character is hundreds of years older and way different now, but also leave options for people that want to play other characters, it was also on the table if he wanted to continue playing one of the characters he was playing in the interim he could have done that and his OG character could have had a life(afterlife?) off screen, but he wanted to go back to the og character and it was awesome.

[@TheFantasyForge]

I love this! Never had a character die (mostly because I'm always DMing) but I'm playing one now, and I'm READY lol

[@Rankidu]

I'm new to dnd, and I've a question. If my character dies during the session, am I out of the game for that evening? what shoud I do, stay put and listen to the others going on? Even if resurrection is a thing, I recon it would be a rather long quest for the rest of the party

[@TheFantasyForge]

Yeah that's a great question, it really depends on the DM. If it was my table, I would try to include the character somehow, maybe with an "afterlife" scene or something like that. Some DM's will just continue the story and then it's up to you whether you want to hear what happens, or be surprised with a more "realistic" approach, by just leaving since you weren't there to know any of that stuff in the first place. The best thing you can do is to have a back up character, and ask the DM for a pee break or something like that, and talk to them and get the new character introduced or something like that. The best way to avoid that is by just having a plan. If your DM knows there's a chance someone might die, they should have a plan with how to incorporate the player or players that go down into the session, even if it's just "heres a monster block, help me fight the party", which can be fun for players too.

[@Rankidu]

@@TheFantasyForge thank you, lots of ideas to think about!

[@user-hd8vo8ih5u]

I wanna see a game u ran

[@Donnerjack93]

The only time had one of my characters die was a temp character I played after my old character went evil and before I moved away. I knew that death was on the table because the DM liked to be brutal with his combats and I was on board. That being said, my temp character got instant-killed after failing a single save. Left a bad taste in my mouth for my final session with that group. Thankfully all the other players agreed and we just retconned that he joined the circus afterwards

[@TheFantasyForge]

Ooof yeah one save instant death is rough. Was it a Disintegrate spell?

[@Donnerjack93]

@TheFantasyForge No, I attacked a shiny Demonic rock (Barbarian thought process) mid fight and it killed me/ turned me into a weak demon that got one-shotted by another player (i don't blame them we thought it'd have more than 5hp).

[@TheFantasyForge]

​@@Donnerjack93 oh geez yeah thats kind of intense

[@Donnerjack93]

@TheFantasyForge the DM had a really intense story he wanted to tell, but that did come at the cost of player agency at certain plot points.

[@TheFantasyForge]

I hope it didn't turn you away from all DND in the future @@Donnerjack93

[@MemphiStig]

3:24 You get two views this time. I always forget to look for that stupid flerken. JK. Tobias is so cute my cats are jealous.

[@justinblocker730]

Depending on how they died, their stuff is still there. The party can (and should) go threw the dead 's stuff. Hey he he was rich! what was he saving money up for? I found like 3 healing items on him, why didn't he stop and just use 1? That liar, he said he didn't know what happened to that possible magic item three quests ago... So the party gets some good reactions of looking threw the "life" of a former party member.

[@TheFantasyForge]

LOL this is comedic gold.

[@justinblocker730]

@@TheFantasyForge well only if the party are crazy and read the dead guy's Diary instead of returning it to any family he may have.

[@TheFantasyForge]

​@@justinblocker730 ...who...would....do that?......*ahem* 😳

[@samusamu5342]

My character almost died in last session so now in the last two session he has been hit with like 10 fire balls and a meteorswarm

[@TheFantasyForge]

ooof, are you a rogue or something? How did you survive lol

[@samusamu5342]

@@TheFantasyForge fighter and with this little thing called luck and death ward

[@TheFantasyForge]

​@@samusamu5342 ahhhh, I love me some fighters