When a PC dies or is otherwise removed from play, some GMs require that replacement PCs start out less powerful or capable than the rest of the party. This is a terrible idea.
I’ve tried mandating that new PCs join the campaign with less experience that existing PCs, and I’ve tried letting my players bring in new PCs at full strength. The latter approach — no penalty for replacement characters — was friendlier, caused no problems in my games and made the players involved happier. The former, on the other hand, can lead to disgruntled and unhappy players — for me, there’s no question which one is the right approach.
Update: (I reworked this a bit after thinking about the different objections to the idea of penalty-free replacement PCs.) In the process of coming to this conclusion myself, I had to get past three objections — all of which turned out to be false.
There should be consequences for PC death. Consequences are built into nearly every RPG out there. In most games, you don’t get to play that character anymore — and considering how much investment is involved in a good PC, that’s a pretty big deal. In many RPGs, there are mechanics that provide consequences: in D&D, for example, it’s pretty easy to come back from the dead — but you pay a mechanical price until later levels.
My players will switch PCs all the time. Really, they won’t — and if any of them do, that’s a social contract issue, not a mechanical one. Accounting for the rare player who is a chronic character-hopper at the expense of the 99% of players who replace their characters infrequently and for valid reasons is just unfair.
The other players will mind. I couldn’t get past this one until I decided to just give it a shot — and as it turned out, they didn’t mind. If you trust your players and they trust each other, then folks will only replace their PCs when there’s a good reason — and everyone will have more fun as a result.
Have you tackled this issue before? Do you prefer one approach over the other as a GM? What do your players think of your take on this issue?
I’m generally pretty soft on replacement characters, but I think a perfectly valid argument can be made for penalizing players for losing characters in certain kinds of campaigns. But you have to be very clear that those stakes are in play.
I have come to the conclusion that fundamentally, new PCs must come in weaker in most any game I run. But a large part of that is that I almost always run gamist games, where the advancement of the PC is the fundamental reward driving play. If a player can replace a PC with no penalty, then the reward of play is diluted. Now I no longer advocate that new PCs start at 1st level, though to be honest, in my current thoughts of returning to 1980ish AD&D, I’m even re-considering that.
Even in my simulationist games, I still mostly see that replacement characters should not be made at the equivalent “level.” Because I can only identify two simulationist campaigns of any length (and I’m not even 100% sure they were simulationist), I’m less sure of this ideal.
I think part of the problem is that games that don’t intend to support a gamist agenda still include significant power gain for PCs. I believe character CHANGE is important for any agenda, but a flat out power gain undermines any agenda other than gamist (though it could support a particular form of simulationism, which I believe occurs with RuneQuest).
Interestingly, Dogs in the Vinyard tells us exactly how to replace a PC, and it does preserve “power,” yet, if we examine the game, we would realize power gain is absolutely not a goal of the game. More likely, the Dogs replacement rules simply mean that a player has the freedom of more flexibility in designing his replacement PC, but that PC is being created in the context of the ongoing game which would allow the player to better understand how to use that flexibility (a replacement Dogs character is made by taking all the dice from attributes, traits, and relationships, and distributing them as desired for the new PC).
The chronic character jumper is definitely a social contract issue, but my observation is that rules that make it too easy to replace characters make this behavior much more likely to occur.
A related problem is what experience PCs gain when their players miss game sessions. Again, this issue would be simpler if power gain was not a feature of non-gamist games. I would never presume a Dogs PC would earn any changes to the character sheet if the player missed a session. Back in college, in gamist games, the experience solution was solved by the fact that PCs of absent players did get XP, but they got less than if the player was present. This kept the PCs from being irrelevant while still supporting the gamist agenda. In the simulationist games, PCs of non-present players pretty much got full XP, but then the XP wasn’t quite so important. The RQ campaign really only worked well because there was a totally dedicated core of players, and actually probably started to break down when this didn’t happen – but I also think that only the dedicated players really saw the rewards of the game, the other players really just got to be “extras”. My science fiction (with heavily modified Traveller rules) campaign really only featured one player, though one or two other players also participated, several others were extras. But in that campaign, XP was very minimal. Over the course of the campaign, players could hope to perhaps master one or two new skills, and perhaps advance some mastered skills a level or two, it was easier to add competancy in some secondary skills. Essentially, the system did not support power gain, and primarily supported more rounded characters (it was possible to start with a skill at the maximum skill level).
So I guess in the end, I’d suggest that if the issue of how much XP to give replacement PCs is important, and there is a feeling of need to not penalize replacement PCs, then perhaps the game system in use is not the ideal choice for the type of play. At a minimum, the effect of character advancement should be examined.
Frank
This isn’t a criticism, Martin but I find it interesting that you support brining in new characters at full strength but keep the XP penalty for resurrected characters. One can argue (and I am) that character’s dying during the course of play, presumably in a heroic manner, deserve the same consideration as a new character entering the game.
I think most modern game design is leaning toward the friendlier side of character death. After all, playing any game is about having fun, and losing your character is already a bad situation.
On the other hand, you’ve got to be careful to avoid the situation in which a new PC “at full strength” isn’t actually more powerful than the rest of the party. For example, if you keep your players at lower wealth than standard and allow the new PC to start with the prescribed starting wealth for their level, they’ll actually have more wealth than everyone else.
In other words, don’t penalize PC death, but don’t reward it either.
This issue arose viciously in a game I was playing earlier this year and that incident helped focus my feelings on it. Weaker replacement characters suck (as do XP penalties for resurrection, btw). You can get plenty of Step On Up gamist challenge without tying it specifically to XP.
My current campaign is using Iron Heroes (like D&D, XP and treasure are really the only mechanical rewards available) and the players are very drawn towards gamism. I’m not so much, but I’m trying to embrace it for this game. For advancement, I give the players a sheet with a few goals (usually 3) that they must accomplish to gain the next level. The goals are generally abstract or high-level enough that they can choose the exact way they go about doing it.
If a PC dies, the new one comes in at the same level as everyone else. If a player misses a session in which the goals for the current level are completed, their character advances along with everyone else. It hasn’t hindered the gamism at all as far as I can tell.
The Step On Up challenge comes in the form of them working together to survive and meet the goals. There is also a lot of bragging rights that get passed back and forth for individual performance. In short, taking the variable advancement rates off the table has moved the reward cycle to other concerns, but it’s still there and working.
-Reed
Note: This post is explicitly D&D-centric.
I understand the “same level” approach, but I don’t use it. My experience is a bit different, and I think encouraging players to stick with their characters is an appropriate use of the rules.
1. In d20, a character generated at higher levels will generally be more focused or specialized than one who has been “leveled up naturally” (from 1st level or so). The “natural” character will have been built to survive and be effective at those lower levels, while the “artificial” character will be optimized to achieve certain abilities (prestige classes, feats, spells, etc) at the first-available level. Penalties for swapping characters will help mitigate the “powerful new guy” effect.
2. In my experience, the incidence of character-hopping is higher. I’d say that at least 10-20% of players would ditch a character for a more optimized one in a heartbeat. Throw a regular procession of “creeping power” sourcebooks, and this gets worse.
3. Party balance. This is a social contract issue, but most D&D games have an expectation of a balanced party. When your Rogue gets swapped out for a Ranger because someone wanted to be more combat-effective, that can change the whole dynamic at the table. Penalizing character-swapping helps promote party stability.
My house rule is simple: New characters come in with 90% of the experience of the lowest-XP member. If the group shuffles a couple of PCs within a few sessions, they all take 90% of the lowest pre-shuffle character’s XP. In no case can a PC come in more than two levels lower than the average party level.
Finally, the XP charts will gradually equalize PCs if their levels are somewhat close. In other words, the penalty is not permanent.
It was touched on earlier, but a player who’s not present only gets 50% of XP for a session if someone else runs his PC, none if he chooses not to have his PC present.
over the years, i’ve run and played in the full gamut, from replacement PCs are first level for the meat grinder, to one level or 10% xp penalties, to whole replacement. i’m finding that whole replacement simply works best for me, and nobody’s abused it yet. though, given the specifics of my current eberron campaign, i suppose i’ll encourage the players to not loot a fallen comrade’s body. 🙂
A related item that hasn’t been mentioned yet: starting equipment. If you penalize starting XP for a mid-stream introduced character, do you also penalize starting equipment (net value)?
A crazy idea for d20 might be to make new PCs start at the same level and wealth as the existing PCs BUT penalize them as much as if their old PC had been resurrected. So it ends up being an either/or question: get raised or start fresh — the “cost” is the same. But for a D&D 3.5e campaign, if the PCs only have access to a lvl 5 caster, the cost is 1 character level and 5000gp — yikes! (And that’s assuming the caster doesn’t charge a fee for casting the spell.) For PCs below about 9th level, this could be very painful.
Another assumption behind the discussion here is that character deaths even happen; but that’s a whole other post (already done?).
As a DM I’ve only dealt with character deaths that also included the associated player dropping out of the game, so I guess my comments are skewed. Still, my opinion right now is that the new PC should start with some penalties. How much is up to debate. It’s kind of like the difficulty level in a video game: you want death to be painful, so the player gets a sense of accomplishment for getting through and doesn’t just hammer the re-starts until he gets lucky. But you don’t want it to be so painful that the player throws up his hands and walks away.
Oh, one other related topic: starting level and wealth for NEW player/PCs. (I’m thinking full/full here…)
In a well ran game, I dont think chronic character hopping would ever become an issue. Everyone would always like playing the same character because there would always be a rewarding experience every session. Probably a bit too idealistic, but it is something to strive for at least.
If you don’t LIKE your current character, it’s certainly easier to kill them off or retire them and make a new one than “fixing” them either through re-design, leveling in a new direction, etc… and beyond a certain point, depending on the game in question, some of those aren’t really good options.
So… removing the penalty to starting a new character could well make the decision between scrapping an old character or making a new one that much easier. I don’t think that’s a reason to NOT remove the penalty, just something to look out for.
You might also impose a certain level of “mission creep” on new advanced characters by forcing them to take a certain level (commesurate with the rest of the group) of abilities, equipment, skills, etc… that are non-optimal. After all, in the “real life” of an RPG, characters take a level or skill that doesn’t revolve around their core concept from time to time based on environmental dictates, and end up picking up and using sub-optimal equipment because it’s the best they’ve found. Imposing these things on a newly created advanced character will prevent them from out-stripping the rest of the characters and (if properly linked with backstory events can make a richer character.
I agree, mostly. I think players should get a reward ingame for sticking with a character and building the campaign. That being said, I also do not think a new character should be significantly weaker, just enough that he or she is the ‘new kid’ for the first adventure or two. After that, things should approach equity.
Our group has found that the “lose a level from death and resurrection” in D&D meshes badly with the cooperative nature of the game, and is a perverse incentive to character swap instead of getting raised.
Instead, our house rule is that death and resurrection causes the PC to gain a negative level which persists until the character next levels or performs a particular ritual or some other campaign-specific event. I think a temporary penalty to death works far better than the “lag behind the rest of the group for a significant time period” of RAW D&D.
We’ve also had to deal with the “XP for absent players” issue, since it’s been years since we actually assigned XP, shifting over to a “you level when the GM says you level” system.
From a strictly gamist perspective, it seems unfair to reward players who don’t show up. The problem, however, is that the more such a player’s PC lags behind the rest of the group, the less likely they are to enjoy themselves, making it less likely for them to show up, creating a vicious cycle.
My general feeling is that having all PCs in a group be on roughly the same general power level is more of a social contract issue, unless you’re playing a hardcore “every man for himself” gamist game. XP rewards the player, not the character, and if the enjoyment of a game session isn’t enough by itself for players to come out, that’s a problem in and of itself.
(Frank) So I guess in the end, I’d suggest that if the issue of how much XP to give replacement PCs is important, and there is a feeling of need to not penalize replacement PCs, then perhaps the game system in use is not the ideal choice for the type of play.
That made something click in my head, Frank. My growing dissatisfaction with D&D-flavored d20 makes perfect sense in that light — I’m not sure the way I think about RPGs, and what I like most in them, lines up very well with how D&D 3.x approaches them. And I find XP stuff very fussy in d20 games overall — I much prefer leveling by GM fiat largely for that reason.
Thank you for the light bulb moment — I should have caught onto that disconnect a lot sooner!
(Abulia) This isn’t a criticism, Martin but I find it interesting that you support brining in new characters at full strength but keep the XP penalty for resurrected characters.
It’s been almost two years since I last had to make that call, and I’m not sure I feel the same way anymore. Ditto with topics like fudging die rolls — writing TT and interacting with other GMs here has helped me see different sides of all sorts of GMing stuff, including those two areas.
I guess the sticking point for me with D&D and level loss due to character death is that without that potential sting, death becomes sort of ho-hum — more video game-y, less RPG-y. But as a player, it’s not much fun to have to eat a level and recalculate a bunch of crap, hence my internal waffling on this one. 😉
(Stephen Ward) On the other hand, you’ve got to be careful to avoid the situation in which a new PC “at full strength†isn’t actually more powerful than the rest of the party.
Amen to that. With D&D, it’s definitely key to manage replacement PCs’ wealth — letting players choose their gear will definitely produce a more powerful character, given how gear-dependent the system is.
(Brian) XP rewards the player, not the character
Damn, that’s good. That’s the best explanation of what XP is for and why it’s there that I’ve ever heard, and in only seven words!
I agree with Martin on this one mostly, it seems that whenever players lose a character through a simple mistake, they dislike the character because they are weaker than the rest of the party.
I give out roleplaying awards for players who played their characters fantastically, so characters arent always evenly matched. If a player creates a new character, I simply start him with xp equal to the lowest leveled character in the party, and he does not have the roleplaying bonuses to XP that he might have had. Meaning one player may have 10,500, while the other might have only 7,000. Its not a considerably difference, but in my experience it seems to alleviate the problem with players hopping to other characters.
Also, I referee over new character creation to make certain that the players aren’t getting more gold than other players. I typically give the player wealth equal to the poorest character’s assets.
There’s another phenomenon which can occur, although it too is probably more of a social contract issue than a mechanics issue:
“Hi, I’m Todd! I’m Rodd’s twin brother, long may he rest in peace. Yep, we’re pretty much entirely identical, except he’s dead.”
XP rewards the player, not the character
That’s always been my philosophy. I always return characters at the same level as the others, new characters xfer over their Action Point totals, etc. Experience and levels may be a metric to measure character strength but it’s always been earned by the player.
Interesting comments all, but this discussion is pretty academic from my point of view. 🙂
I’ve always favored the old Dark Sun character trees. Each player creates three or four characters from the beginning, but only plays one at a time. The player can choose to swap out characters from the tree between adventures, and always have a replacement “ready to go” if their current character dies during the adventure. If the character dies, the replacement arrives “about a day later” in whatever manner the DM decides is appropriate.
Whenever XP is awarded to the character at the end of an adventure, that same amount of XP gets put into an XP “pool”, which is then divided amongst the unplayed characters. The player can drop it all into one character, split it between two, or divide it any other way they see fit.
Something that wasn’t in the old character trees in 2E but now seems appropriate would be to also include an “Equipment Equivalent” pool, which would be the GP value treasure found during the adventure and could be split up the same as XP. My only rule about it would be that existing equipment can’t be “sold” by characters not being played, so a character can’t “cash in” all of their magic items when they swap characters from the tree to put it back into the pool. They’re stuck with it until they can sell it off in-game.
This does several things:
1) Players will always have several reserve characters to choose from in case their character dies in an adventure.
2) It gives the players a sense of control about their replacement’s starting equipment and experience because all of that is decided by the player, not the DM.
3) Character trees allow players to try out a bunch of different character types (classes, alignments, and personalities) without any penalties, because they can swap out of their tree between each adventure.
4) If a character dies because the party is completely unprepared for the adventure, the player can swap out for a character that is much better suited for it.
5) On the flip side of 4, a DM can also tell players what types of characters would best suit the adventure he has planned if he has a specific type of one-shot in mind (maybe characters with a talent for larceny for something out of Ocean’s Eleven, or spellcasters for a Harry Potter theme, or even saying that all of the characters for the adventure have to be members of the same secret society).
Another option would be for new characters to receive the equivalent starting wealth (from the DMG) for the average party level, then having that amount to buy equipment AND XP (at a 1 GP per 1 XP ratio) for their new character. That would keep new characters reasonably close to the general party level and provide decent mechanical rewards (getting to choose your own magical equipment) and penalties (magic items at the cost of character power) for character death.
This is one of those reasons that I dislike mechanics based play like DND 3.5. It takes so much focus away from what is actually happening to the characters, and on the numbers behind them. There is still a lot of necessity for the mechanics to be there and to support the game, but it shouldn’t be the main focus.
The way I have always handled replacement characters whenever possible is to do a “history session” with the player. I have them build a level 1 character, then do a semi-short form session detailing their rising from the ground up. I give out a level, or a huge amount of XP after a “section” of their life has gone by. I let them use it and build up. I improv most of the stuff they do. Sometimes it can take 2 sessions or so, but because it is 1 on 1 it goes faster. We keep going till this character is up to the level of the others, and then we make the 2 storylines merge. It is intensive but preserves the sense of achievement.
I dispute the contention that this problem is somehow unique to more gamist RPGs like D&D. The same problem will occur in, oh, Mage the Ascension. After several sessions, the characters have acquired not only new abilities but also new resources, allies, contacts, etc. Some of this will have been represented by awarded experience points, but other elements will simply have developed from roleplaying.
If a new character comes in the GM is faced with two dilemmas. First, do you provide the new character with enough XP to bring the mechanics to level on par with the rest? Second, does the new character get a package of non-mechanical benefits like that of the previous?
I think the problem is a little more inherent to gamist games, simply because they are gamist games and have a heavy focus on the mechanics. A narrative game will tend to gloss over things like inequality in power levels and focus on the “Why does the party accept this new person into its folds”. A simulationist style game tends to handle death very differently. Either it is glossed over that a new character takes the place, or it is written in how. As sarlax points out it isn’t only an issue in gamist focused games. However, it is more of a prevelant issue there. You not only have to think about how it impacts the character’s situations, but also if you follow the definitely defined set of rules prescribed ways for dealing with the mechanics or if you chose to go your own way and change things about how the rules work to fit the situation at hand.
While I agree, that it’s no fun running a character you don’t like, I do impose level and XP penalties when players want to outright swap characters or when a character dies. I too believe that it takes some of the risks out of the game to have death be so meaningless. Despite the social contract issue, I know for certain that at least half the players at the table would create new characters on a monthly basis if it there were no penalties for doing so. I also have rules for the rewrite. The same point buy applies and character wealth cannot exceed what the previous character had.
That being said, I do make allowances for certain changes when the characters first start out or are trying out a new class.
The first thing I do is allow players to make changes to their characters for the first 4 levels of advancement without any penalties. This doesn’t disrupt the makeup of the party too significantly, as I have certain players who like filling the face man, healer, and front line roles.
After that, I allow players to make changes to the most recent level they took without penalties as long their XP is 40%-50% below reaching the next level.
Sarlax Says:
I dispute the contention that this problem is somehow unique to more gamist RPGs like D&D. The same problem will occur in, oh, Mage the Ascension. After several sessions, the characters have acquired not only new abilities but also new resources, allies, contacts, etc. Some of this will have been represented by awarded experience points, but other elements will simply have developed from roleplaying.
I think the issue is strongest in gamist games, but your notes above suggest there may be a gamist element to your Mage game. I could see an issue with simulationist play here also, but so long as the replacement PC doesn’t break the celebration, I don’t see an issue.
For a narativist game, this issue just doesn’t matter, because a narativist character isn’t about power, it’s about being a vehicle to address premise to create theme. In that sense, the death, or retirement of the former PC make a statement. The new PC will also make a statement, but the real meat will show up in continued play.
Frank
The only time I penalize players is when they kill a character on purpose because they found something ‘cooler’ or they keep trying to retire a character for same reason.
I think Roger’s comment is succinct and to the point, and I think a lot of people missed it. (if anyone is still reading this thread)
I have seen a player (granted, not the best player in the group) do something incredibly stupid with their character, resulting in the GM having no choice but to let the character die (rather than perform an entirely obvious intervention just to save the character). The player goes home, writes up a new character that has slightly different stats, but the way he played the new character was entirely identical to the original character. So much so, that the other players had to be reminded to use the new character’s name. This is more like penalizing the other players.
If the group is a focused team, replacing the fallen team member with another of the same type and level (played by the same person) is often no different than using a GM intervention to save the original character.
I like alot of these ideas that I see. We play D&D and the main problem for me is that character death and non-resurrection causes the characters to lose touch with their roots. We have a bunch of 12th-13th level characters now in a party in a city “Cauldron” and only one original character exists from the initial thread of the story. This has caused alot of confusion when the party meets recurring villians or npcs, we are constantly reviewing which characters know this NPC and trying to recall who actually knows anything about the NPC without metagaming.
The reality of bringing in a more efficient character after character loss seems to be the norm for our group. I personally frown on resurrection but our group has tried reincarnation, resurrection, rescuing a character who was turned to stone while the rest of the group continued on the quest. Character death and penalized resurrection costs the party in multiple ways.
Our DM is now trying to formulate a resurrection penalty bank instead of an outright loss of level. The character is over time penalized XP instead of an entire level and I believe this is working out so far.
I like alot of these ideas that I see. We play D&D and the main problem for me is that character death and non-resurrection causes the characters to lose touch with their roots. We have a bunch of 12th-13th level characters now in a party in a city “Cauldron†and only one original character exists from the initial thread of the story.
Wham! Hit the nail right on the head!
If you have good backstories and recurring villains, permanently losing a PC can really torpedo an entire storyline. Assuming the player doesn’t hate their current character, try to find a way to keep them in the game. Go ahead and raise them on credit or something 😉
One of the best ways to keep players tied to their characters is to make sure that every character has at least 1 big goal they’re trying to accomplish. The easiest one is to give them a recurring personal nemesis to hate. Then, when their character dies and the player wants a new one, remind them that their character’s nemesis will win if the character stays dead.
I always allow players to make new characters to make a new character at the same level as the previous. If a PC dies or the story removes him/her from play, then it happens right away. If it happens due to player choice (i.e. I just want a new character) I make them miss a couple of sessions. This helps the continuing PCs to disconnect the previous character from the new one, allows their characters to grieve/cope with the loss, and causes the player requesting the change to consider the PCs loss of leaving the group. It has been VERY effective and I have had a player tell me later that it helped him realize how much he liked his original character in the long run. It decreased impulsive character swapping.
Hm. There’s still a lot of assumptions being made in this thread. All this discussion reminds me of how I USED to play D&D before it actually became fun 🙂 I would like to address some of those assumptions as pertains specifically to D&D 3.5.
The fact of the matter is that the ‘Step On Up’ element in D&D 3.5 has *absolutely nothing* to do with survival, life vs. death or XP.
The ‘Step On Up’ in playing D&D comes firstly from designing your character in a way that is cool and original and effective, and comes secondly from designing your character in a way that meshes perfectly well with your party in a cooperative way. Those two points are the whole point of playing D&D at all. Anything else is ‘drift’.
And… neither of those things has anything to do with death or XP penalties. These two things are included in the D&D rules, I believe, largely as a result of a misguided assumption that they need to be there in the first place.
-ALL- of D&D’s structure, strategy, design and rules revolve around and focus on designing your character, growing your character, showing off how you chose to make your character, finding new features for your character, making your character perform a cool trick that you planned in his design, etc etc etc.
It is a character-design focused game.
Once you’ve played enough D&D to realize this basic fact, You come to realize that you can easily do away with both character death and new character penalty rules altogether.
Once you can be comfortable with doing this, the REAL Step On Up of D&D becomes clear, and it’s pretty much all ‘character design’ and ‘party design’.
My players are free to resurrect their characters for free with no penalties. They are free to bring in a new character every session if they like. Only rule is that the new character has to have the same exact treasure and XP as the previous. They never lose their treasure or XP in any way. They are free to allocate those resources individually and cooperatively as they see fit, at any time.
What’s been the result of this? Smashing fun. It’s not deep, it’s not serious, it’s not official, but man, it’s just FUN. I would never go back to playing the old way.
So, in the end, ironically, if you are a person that thinks that death should be a part of play and that it should bering consequences for the player etc., then D&D is possibly the wrong game for you. As weird as it sounds, at its root, D&D 3.5 is about you making a character, not about whether that character lives or dies or what happens to them.
Additionally, I think a lot of confusion over this comes from people who really don’t quite grasp the term ‘gamism’ and just try to apply stuff they’ve read in a generic manner. This is where stuff like assuming that ‘gamism’ automatically means that everyone is trying to accumulate XP as much as possible. What? Sorry, not even close.
I am a pure gamist, my players are all pure gamists, and we can tell you that, if you understand the D&D game and what’s going on in it, you’ll know that the ‘gamism’ part comes in the CHOICES you make for your character, NOT in any XP you may have or not have. It’s just not relevant to the game.