I am curious how "old school D&D gaming" handles deaths of high level characters (though, really, this applies to anyone playing D&D anywhere ever). We all know that low level characters can often die, and depending on how stereotypical the "fantasy vietnam" game is, they die in droves.

But eventually a few characters always scrounge their way past the heap of the dead and make it to higher levels, often enshrining themselves a central place in the campaign. These characters, being the ones who were there from the start, often end up driving the adventure. They're the ones the parties are built around.

How do you handle the death of such characters? They have the potential to end the campaign or dissolve the party if everyone else was mostly tagging along. It's also a big blow to lose a character after investing so much time in them.

Do you just let them die, and let the campaign die if that's the natural result? Or should one put ways to bring the character back, or avoid the death altogether?

If it's true "old school D&D," there is no such thing as "the party."  Each player will have several characters that they play at different times; I had a high level fighter (Gronan) and a low level magic user (Lessnard).  In addition, henchmen can be played as a player character as well.  So if Gronan had bit the big one, I could have taken over playing one of my hencmen.  The other would have wandered off on their own destinies, but I could have played them at other times as well.

Also, the players vary from session to session as well as the PCs varying from session to session.

Old school D&D is the antithesis of "one group of heroes tried and true welded together at the hip."  It is "a number of adventurous neer-do-wells who cross one another's paths from time to time."

The world, and the campaign, are far bigger than any one character.

Ah, so there's no main quest of sorts, so there's no big deal if one group dissolves because they were never going to stick around in the first place.

What about a character dying after spending a lot of time investing in them? Would that make you not want to invest in future ones because it was a waste?

Totally subjective.

One player will take it well and laugh it off if its an ignominious end or feel proud if its a heroic end.
One player will take it badly no matter. They may quit. They may bitch. They may blame the DM for their own screwup. They may blame the game, the dice, whatever.
One player will shrug and start anew. So what?

Everyone reacts differently. There is no one answer.

Quote from: Omega;1018121Totally subjective.

One player will take it well and laugh it off if its an ignominious end or feel proud if its a heroic end.
One player will take it badly no matter. They may quit. They may bitch. They may blame the DM for their own screwup. They may blame the game, the dice, whatever.
One player will shrug and start anew. So what?

Everyone reacts differently. There is no one answer.

Well, I think the way a game handles it can definitely influence how players react too. Take for instance games like DCC with a 0-level funnel. Everyone goes in expecting those PCs to die, and you don't invest much mental effort into those characters, so when they die it's no big deal. But conversely, you won't really care what happens to them because they're just throwaway characters.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum there's characters people spend a ton of time lovingly detailing, but then if they die it's a much harsher fate.

I certainly would let them die, if that's the natural outcome of play. But old school D&D rules tend to make high level PCs robust, and also tend to make the players of high level PCs highly skilled! So it's not a common event. And it tends to be a dramatic, epochal event when it happens.

I think it was in 2016 I last saw a really high level PC perma-death: At the climax of my BECMI campaign, my son's PC the Duke-Sultan William of Castellan/Karameikos/Alasiya, an MU 18 (boosted to 19th caster via Ioun stone) was pressing home the attack against the Heldannic Knights during the Soderfjord invasion of Ostland. He had just nailed the Heldannic Knights-Marine with a well-placed fireball as their Warbird's bay doors opened, saving his party from being overrun by a couple dozen high level Fighters, when he was Disintegrated by the Heldannic Warbird's Bile Belcher cannon. AIR he was targetted 3 in 6 and would have survived on a roll of 4+ on d20, but made me roll and I got a 2.  William was gone, after years of play (he had started at 4th around 4 years previously, when my son was only 5 years old!) but his side was victorious, King Hord Darkeye of Ostland was defeated, his kingdom conquered, and William was mourned by an assembly of high level heroes, including his son Bravery the new Duke-Sultan, the High Priestess Lady Roseanna and Baroness Alexandra Vorloi, all great champions in their own right.

In that case I was already planning to end the campaign with that session, although I did end up doing some epilogue stuff.

No very high level (15+) PCs have perma-died in my 5e Wilderlands sandbox game yet; High Priest Thuruar (Clr-15) did perish to the hellfire ball of the Death Knight Varek Tigerclaw*, but Hakeem the Barbarian defeated Varek and was able to get Thuruar raised by Lady Meda of Thusia. If a really major PC like Hakeem (now Barbarian-20) did die it would certainly alter the campaign (Hakeem's newly founded empire would almost certainly collapse, for a start) - but it certainly wouldn't end the campaign.

*A former PC reanimated by the Necromancer Borritt Crowfinger, BBEG of the campaign for many years until his final demise a few months ago.

If you get killed, you die and roll up a new one unless you are somehow revived. No kid gloves or special treatment. Death comes to everyone sooner or later.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018120Ah, so there's no main quest of sorts, so there's no big deal if one group dissolves because they were never going to stick around in the first place.

The open campaign is bigger than any one quest, but I've seen major (like 20+ session) quests emerge from play, like the time a group of PCs decided to quest far to the north of the normal campaign area to find and destroy the Gate Castle of the Black Sun. We still had a fair bit of PCs swapping in and out over those 20+ sessions, but I'd say there were 3 core PCs, and if all had died then that particular quest might logically have been abandoned/failed.

If it's my high level character I tend to let them die. I always felt it was kind of cheap to be raised from the dead. Far better to have a heroic death and play a new character. If death is just a temporary inconvenience it really takes the edge off dangerous situations.

Quote from: S'mon;1018124I certainly would let them die, if that's the natural outcome of play. But old school D&D rules tend to make high level PCs robust, and also tend to make the players of high level PCs highly skilled! So it's not a common event. And it tends to be a dramatic, epochal event when it happens.

I think it was in 2016 I last saw a really high level PC perma-death: At the climax of my BECMI campaign, my son's PC the Duke-Sultan William of Castellan/Karameikos/Alasiya, an MU 18 (boosted to 19th caster via Ioun stone) was pressing home the attack against the Heldannic Knights during the Soderfjord invasion of Ostland. He had just nailed the Heldannic Knights-Marine with a well-placed fireball as their Warbird's bay doors opened, saving his party from being overrun by a couple dozen high level Fighters, when he was Disintegrated by the Heldannic Warbird's Bile Belcher cannon. AIR he was targetted 3 in 6 and would have survived on a roll of 4+ on d20, but made me roll and I got a 2.  William was gone, after years of play (he had started at 4th around 4 years previously, when my son was only 5 years old!) but his side was victorious, King Hord Darkeye of Ostland was defeated, his kingdom conquered, and William was mourned by an assembly of high level heroes, including his son Bravery the new Duke-Sultan, the High Priestess Lady Roseanna and Baroness Alexandra Vorloi, all great champions in their own right.

In that case I was already planning to end the campaign with that session, although I did end up doing some epilogue stuff.

No very high level (15+) PCs have perma-died in my 5e Wilderlands sandbox game yet; High Priest Thuruar (Clr-15) did perish to the hellfire ball of the Death Knight Varek Tigerclaw*, but Hakeem the Barbarian defeated Varek and was able to get Thuruar raised by Lady Meda of Thusia. If a really major PC like Hakeem (now Barbarian-20) did die it would certainly alter the campaign (Hakeem's newly founded empire would almost certainly collapse, for a start) - but it certainly wouldn't end the campaign.

*A former PC reanimated by the Necromancer Borritt Crowfinger, BBEG of the campaign for many years until his final demise a few months ago.

What was his reaction to the death?

Quote from: S'mon;1018128The open campaign is bigger than any one quest, but I've seen major (like 20+ session) quests emerge from play, like the time a group of PCs decided to quest far to the north of the normal campaign area to find and destroy the Gate Castle of the Black Sun. We still had a fair bit of PCs swapping in and out over those 20+ sessions, but I'd say there were 3 core PCs, and if all had died then that particular quest might logically have been abandoned/failed.

If people come and go based on whatever quest their PC is interested in, what happens if your one PC is interested in something nobody else is? Does that mean you have to rely on coincidence to be able to join whatever session is happening? Like, I could imagine 20 different PCs, with like 12 different goals spread between them, making a fairly fractured group that may never actually get together in any real combination.

Quote from: Fiasco;1018131If it's my high level character I tend to let them die. I always felt it was kind of cheap to be raised from the dead. Far better to have a heroic death and play a new character. If death is just a temporary inconvenience it really takes the edge off dangerous situations.

I play with a guy who will get tired of or restless with his characters and will engage in suicide missions...sometimes he dies a glorious a death and rolls up a new guy, sometimes his mission succeeds legendarily, which sometimes will reengage him with his PC, sometimes he dies a pathetic death and rolls up a new guy...

In those kinds of games, do the PCs ever bond with each other and have any roleplaying? Or is it more like a "society of anarchists" thing where everyone is a loner after their own quest but just happens to be on the same quest alongside a bunch of other people?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018120What about a character dying after spending a lot of time investing in them? Would that make you not want to invest in future ones because it was a waste?

No it would not.

We were wargamers.  You will lose forces.  It happens.

Also, the old epics always end with the hero's death.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018136In those kinds of games, do the PCs ever bond with each other and have any roleplaying? Or is it more like a "society of anarchists" thing where everyone is a loner after their own quest but just happens to be on the same quest alongside a bunch of other people?

Depends on the players.

I have an extremely low mortality rate in my campaigns ... partly due to playing GURPS, which while it's relatively easy to incapacitate a character is not at all easy to one-shot-instakill one, and partly due to what I call the Tasha Yar Rule, which boils down to that I'm not going to kill a PC for no better reason than a grunt orc made a good roll.

But that being said, risk is part of the milieu.  If you don't want to risk a high-level character, don't take him into risky situations.  If you do, accept that death is a possible outcome.  What, do your GMs whine when you kill Big Bads?

And on the flip side, if a high-level character getting whacked puts paid to the "campaign" or the plot arc, start a new one around the survivors.  Shouldn't be any more of a big deal than starting a new campaign for any other reason involving character death or retirement.  Heck, how many times have we seen high-level characters leave campaigns because the players moved, schedules changed, personality conflicts kicked in, or any number of the usual reason?