How to Deal with Player Character Deaths

It's a possibility that looms over every game: what if the players die? No matter what kind of game you're playing, there's a chance that the players will die. But how do you get there? And then what happens? Those questions can decide how a player feels about their entire experience as that character, so we need good answers for them. 

In short, I say don't let characters die unless it's deserved. That can mean different things, and I'll get into them in a moment. But for now, I want to repeat this: if someone has carefully made a character and made reasonable decisions, they shouldn't die. If you're playing a brutal variant of the game where character deaths are common, that's one thing; but for a full campaign, player characters should survive until they shouldn't. 

Let's dig into the details. The conditions under which we let a character die are all related to the idea of being deserved. One element of that is in making reasonable choices. If a character does something truly stupid, and it puts their life in danger, that is an acceptable death. Let's consider an example. A character is warned repeatedly to not enter the cage with the displacer beast in it. They enter the cage unarmed and with low health "to pet it." The displacer beast is of course going to attack the character. If that character is brought to death conditions—negative 10 hit points in D&D—then I wouldn't do much in the way of intervening. That player was deliberately reckless with their character, and so we let the conditions kill them. Note here that I'm not talking about "punishing" the character for being stupid by creating dangerous conditions. I'm not fudging all of the displacer beast's damage rolls for the higher. I'm only allowing existing dangerous conditions to do what they do. 

But that's a rare instance when players actually care about their characters. More often, you encounter a scenario where something unfortunate happened to the characters. Perhaps they were taken off-guard, or they just got bad dice rolls; what matters now is that the character is dying. Now we have to ask a difficult question: does the campaign improve (including the experience of the player with the dying character) if the character dies? This might mean, "Is this death dramatic and narratively satisfying?" or something more like "Does this wrap up loose ends and allow the player a new route?" It's context-specific, and you'll need to use your best judgment to decide whether a character death actually works. Remember that we are trying to avoid having players feel like they're not in control of their characters. We're trying to avoid taking a character away from a player before they're ready for it. There's always a way to save them (more on that below). But if the conditions are right, a player character death can be very meaningful. 

By way of example, the Eastweald campaign ended with Carric turning to join the evil Vecna against his former party members; when Gerald and Ell defeated Carric, it was a satisfying dramatic moment. The conditions for this character death were perfect. Firstly, it was good timing. This was our last session in the campaign, and the players knew it. This moment had big finale energy, and it made Carric's player willing to make a move like switching teams. There was to be no missing out in future sessions. Keep this in mind—deaths in finale sessions are more open game than earlier in campaigns. 

Secondly, Carric's death was earned. He had chosen to turn against his allies in a fight to the death. Speaking logically, either he would die, or they would. Since he pitted himself against the rest of the party, there was no avoiding dying. So when Ell and Gerald began to win the battle, I felt no need to intervene with DM assistance. I would like to say more broadly that it's a bad idea to mess with the outcomes of player versus player conflicts, though. For fairness sake, and for the sake of making everyone feel empowered, allow those fights to unfold by the numbers. 

And thirdly, this was a dramatic death. I had no idea going into that last session that Carric would turn to Vecna. Carric's player had given me indication that Carric was being corrupted, but I had no idea how that would unfold. I have to tell you, reader: the look on the other players' faces were incredible. I'm sure mine was too. Carric was part Paladin, after all! We reacted in a big way because it was a big action. And with a turn like that, there were only two things that could happen: Vecna and Carric win, leaving them to negotiate in the wreckage, or Ell and Gerald win like they did. The dice favored Ell and Gerald, and seeing Carric perish as a resolution to his turn was very satisfying—it may even have been the only satisfying way to end the campaign at that point. 

So now let's address the tools of hastening or preventing deaths, now that you know what you want to do. The first route, and the easiest to use, is fudging rolls. I've handled this topic in detail before; here’s the quick and easy guide. First off, in battles where you suspect that there’s a real chance of a player character getting close to dying, start rolling privately. Unless you have a policy of showing every roll for fairness’ sake, hide your rolls in combat. I would argue that hiding your rolls constantly is best. This is especially a good idea if your players will notice when you are and aren’t hiding your rolls.

Write down the Armor Class or similar information for all of the player characters. Saying, “What’s your Armor Class? Oh, it’s that minus one. They miss,” is not satisfying. Conversely, don’t let them get a bead on enemy armor classes if you can. I give identical enemies slightly different armor classes to keep them on their toes. And give them more information than they need when it comes to rolls. It distracts from whether or not the number is real. I’m talking about information about the attacks by way of description—specifically where attacks hit or how they miss. There’s a big difference between the above example of an unsatisfying description in combat and the following: “Wow, they rolled a sixteen; just missed you, Horace. Their axe head swipes through the air, but you lean out of the way, and you can feel it touch the whiskers on your chin.” A player who hears this is probably not thinking about what the DM actually rolled.

My favorite tool for fudging is a simple question to ask players with low health. If a character with low health gets hit, you should already have decided that they either are fair game for a death or you’re deliberately getting them close to death for a dramatic fight (but without killing them). If you want that player to stay on the verge of death, roll the damage against that player (hidden, of course) and then look at the dice. Then, ask them, “How many hitpoints do you have left?” Leave them with between one and three hitpoints. It’s very dramatic, and it works pretty much every time. You can of course strengthen this gambit by knowing how many hitpoint they had and skipping the question, but it’s difficult to always know that information. You can occasionally gather that information (and keep it recorded along with the Armor Classes) by asking for hitpoint checks every few rounds—this is a pretty innocuous question that won’t seem like a fudging tool to most players.

But then, maybe you’ve gone the other direction: you’ve decided to kill a character. As mentioned above, this isn’t a problem necessarily if it’s the end of the campaign. But if your campaign is ongoing, you've got a characterless player on your hands. There are two main solutions to the problem, and solving it means inspecting your gaming situation closely. You might want to seek a way to resurrect the dead character, or you may decide to go the route of creating a new character. 

Let's talk about resurrection. When I was first learning to play D&D as a teenager, I played an elven monk named Algar. Algar suffered a bit in combat; his 3.5 build meant his elven frame was less hardy (low constitution score), and being a monk means being in the thick of battles. He survived for a long time due to careful battle tactics, but then he went up against a vampire in a room by himself. Algar rolled very poorly, missing every strike in two consecutive Flurries of Blows. The vampire slashed him up viciously. At that point, a party member entered the room, summoned a massive fire ball, and walked out. The vampire was badly wounded; Algar was dead. 

I was pretty crushed. Algar was my first character. My DM could see that I didn't want anything except to have him back. When the party finished the dungeon, he set them on a path to a high cleric who could resurrect Algar. And though the party complained about the time and money wasted, they resurrected Algar, and he went on to live out a peaceful life tending to a monastery garden deep in the forest. It was more satisfying than Algar dying—he had been a bit reckless in fighting the vampire alone, but that had come from being abandoned by his allies. My DM saw that Algar didn't really deserve death, so he push the party (which included his daughter) to resurrect him. 

You can go the same route my DM did: have them seek out a powerful spellcaster who can bring back the character. Maybe they're at a beautiful temple; maybe they live alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals; maybe they run a healing and resurrection shop in a major city. The choice is up to you, and you should pick whatever best suits your world and your story. There's also the matter of payment. You might decide on a large sum of cash; you might have them pursue a magical item; you might make them complete a quest in payment. Again, it's about what suits your world and your story. 

Once you've decided on who's doing the resurrection and for what, it's time to decide the conditions of the resurrection. The official spells in various versions of D&D specify different types of resurrection. Let's look at the 5e versions up close. 

• Revivify: This spell only works on creatures that have died in the last minute, but it's lower level than other resurrection spells. Storywise, we can use this as the idea that resurrection costs more the longer it's been since death. 
• Raise Dead: This spell only works on creatures dead for less than ten days, but it takes a full hour to cast. Storywise, we can use the idea that a more powerful spell extends its usefulness, but also expands how long the process takes. This might not be an issue sometimes, but it couldn't be used in the middle of a battle. There is also an extended sickness which lowers skills, which we can interpret as the body struggling to return to its former self. 
• Reincarnate: This spell also allows for creatures dead up to ten days, and it also takes an hour. One significant side effect is that the character is randomly reassigned a race, which changes the game no matter your approach to it. 
• Resurrection: This spell extends the time limit to one hundred years, and it also takes an hour. As with Raise Dead, there is a significant penalty over time to rolls following the reincarnation. This spell also specifies that body parts can be regrown and diseases and poisons can be cured, adding the story detail that higher level magic actually makes the body healthier too. 
• True Resurrection: This spell again extends the time limit, this time to two hundred years, and it still takes one hour. The spell can do everything that Resurrection does, but without the penalties after being resurrected. It also lifts curses and doesn't require a physical body. Storywise, this shows us that the most powerful healing transcends physical nature. 
• Wish: Because Wish can duplicate any other spell, you could use it to cast any of these spells. 

But beyond these rules, let's talk about resurrecting a character. The moment the character returns, you're going to have to answer some things. What did the dying character feel? Did they experience an afterlife? Do you grant them an audience with their god? (I have any character who dies roll a d100 and have them speak with a random god before reaching any kind of afterlife; a roll with a "meaningful" number means an audience with their god--meaning however likely you think their god would want to speak to the character.) And as DM, you're going to want to stand back narratively. Let the players talk about their reactions to the character's death. There's going to be a lot going on, so let the players work it out. 

And then there's the final option: rolling a new character. If a player is truly finished with a character and they need to begin again, work with them privately to make the new one. Try to grant them privacy from the rest of the party to develop their new character. And let them guide their introduction to the group as much as possible. 

There are things to consider when rolling this new character—how will they relate to the party? What reason does the party have to take on this new character? How will the new party balance affect the story/combat/social dynamics? When you answer these questions, you're going to be affecting the path of the campaign, so be especially mindful. But also don't dismay—sometimes the changes that follow a new character can be for the better. 

By way of example, back when I was playing Algar, I created a second character, Morana, a frightening orc with a scythe who had carved the symbol of the god of death into her body. She slayed monsters and intimidated foes for one glorious session, and then the rest of the party abandoned her in an ambush. My DM—the same DM I mentioned above—couldn't get me out of it. Morana was tragically slain before she even began. 

But the campaign, my first evil campaign, carried on. I needed a new character. I devised a mischievous gnome spellcaster named Loki, and he entered the evil campaign with some fanfare. And Loki became the mastermind of the campaign. We captured castles, we slayed heroes, we even avoided death at the hands of an inevitable. The party had not wanted a big clunky slasher; they wanted a devious murderer with designs on owning the world. I didn't realize that when I first got invited into the evil campaign. But after seeing Morana fail like she did, I knew I needed something else. Loki was that something else. 

My DM had the wisdom to see that I had created the wrong character for the group. He also had the faith to let me try again. And I think it's fair to say that everyone at the table benefitted from having Loki around rather than Morana. I'm glad, in a way, that my DM let Morana die, because Loki is still a figure lurking in my homebrew setting—little gnomish kids in my world tell boogeyman stories about Loki the mage, who comes to steal your breath in your sleep or trick you into a terrible bargain. My DM is as much responsible for that legacy as I am, in some ways. So don't be afraid of rebuilding a party. If you're in doubt, follow this guide to getting a good party together so you can address any changes you might need to make. 

So there you have it. Now you can control and write around character deaths. Just don't forget that these decisions are more weighty than others, so when death starts to loom its head, just slow down and take your time. Your players want your best judgment, not your fastest judgment. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: stereotypes in my gameworld, how to balance plot and exploration, and how to use dreams and hallucinations for storytelling. Until next time, happy gaming!

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