The PCs are fighting a tough, dramatic battle. Their foes are pulling no punches, and an ogre’s lucky critical kills one of the PCs, the fighter.
The battle continues, and a couple of rounds later you realize that you made a mistake: you forgot a modifier, and if you’d remembered it that ogre wouldn’t have hit the fighter, and she wouldn’t have died.
Oops. Now what? Here are five simple ways to fix this mistake.
1. Let it ride. Everyone — players and GMs alike — makes mistakes at the table from time to time. The downside here is that assuming it’s not easy (or even impossible) to bring back dead PCs in your game of choice, this is a small mistake that will have a large impact on the game. This won’t sit well with most groups, and the fighter’s player is probably going to be bummed (rightly so).
2. Correct the mistake. The fighter is back in action, just as if the ogre’s blow never hit. Nothing else changes — they still missed the last couple of rounds, etc. This is a good balance between acknowledging that mistakes do happen and accounting for how important this one turned out to be. The best solution overall, and likely to be a good fit for most groups.
3. Retcon the end result. The fighter isn’t actually dead, she’s just unconscious — out of the action, but not permanently out of commission. Like the second option, this one reflects the fact that mistakes happen, but keeps this particular mistake from derailing the game. It could be pretty boring for the fighter’s player, though.
4. Roll back the fight. Ignore everything that’s happened since the PC went down, rewind to the point where the ogre hit (now, missed), and then continue. This can get finicky in RPGs with lots of status changes, modifiers and other factors that change during combat, but sometimes it can be the fairest approach.
5. Restart the whole battle. Scratch everything that’s happened since the fight began and play the battle over again. This is the tidiest solution, but can be pretty unsatisfying for players who did cool things the first time around and (due to changed circumstances or bad rolls) don’t get to do them again.
How else could you handle this oops moment? And do you agree that #2 (correcting the mistake) is the best approach?
We just had something like this happen because of both a math error and missing a part of a rule. In this case, we stuck with the result, but the GM allowed the character to be raised much more easily than normal and without the normal level loss.
Usually 1, sometimes 2, and occasionally 3.
Guidelines we use:
If a player or GM remembers something before the next person’s initiative is done, we’ll add it in. If that means we also re-do the next person’s action (because the situation changed), so be it.
If it gets past the next person (and on to the third), it happened as we decided it. I’m not going back more than one person’s turn to retcon the fight. Sorry, but you (and I) should have remembered.
Exception: If this kills/incapacitates a PC or boss NPC, and we discover it within a reasonable time, the damage/effect is reduced considerably. As GM, I play it by ear.
Example: Holk the barbarian gets hit for lots of damage, and goes unconscious. Player starts making stabilization rolls. One full round later, the GM (who manages hit points) realizes that he forgot to add in Holk’s rage HP. GM apologizes and says Holk was stunned by the blow, and gives him a free stand-up and extra HP for the mistake.
In situations like this, I usually do something to make up for the issue, but what is done is done.
For example, in the above, I would double the ogre’s penalty that should have kept it from killing the fighter for a number of rounds equal to the amount of time I let the mistake slide (perhaps doubling it if it was only 1 or 2 rounds).
In a previous campaign, I completely misspoke; the players had no idea that they where mounted/on a wagon in the encounter. When someone finally spoke up, I realized that the fault was my own. I made up for it by stretching the definition/usage of fascinate. The party wasn’t suddenly mounted, but the situation was reimbursed.
I usually find this is more important for PC’s than NPC’s; I rarely change an established result for an NPC, even if I’ve made a gross error (which happens far too often it seems!), though I might move his state from dead to unconscious and see if the players notice (this also has the potential for a reoccuring bad guy, always fun).
For PC’s, we usually use #3, as we’re not big fans of the continuity breaks of #2, and #4 or #5 have never happened in any of the games I’ve DM’d or played.
The only exception might be a case where having the fighter out of the action would end in a TPK. Even still, he would probably end up dazed and shaken, but still able to fight.
tlorin makes a good point about NPCs: I don’t do any of these things for NPCs either. For me it comes down to wanting to preserve the appearance of fairness — if my mistake as the GM only impacts one of my characters (an NPC), it slides.
I like the different shades of correction (variations on #2 or 3, IMO) that have come up so far — there’s quite a bit of wiggle room with that kind of light retconning.
my group has tried #4 exactly once, and it was too much work for everybody involved and has never come up again. we’ve settled on doing whatever’s simplest; generally #1, sometimes #2.
Generally I just let the game roll with whatever mistakes are made, but player character death seems like a reasonable and justifiable exception.
However, maybe if resurrection is tough in your game and every one is down with a “try and resurrect Joe’s PC” side trek, it could be fun.
But maybe not for Joe. 🙂
As if players don’t finish rolling up characters then immediately start to daydream about who’s next.
In the cases where I do this and death isn’t at stake, I just refund a few hps invisibly either immediately or by reducing the next few hits a few points each and call it a wash.
When death IS on the line, I call a time out, explain my mistake and ask the player wheather they’re dead of just unconscious. Somethimes they’re excited by the chance to change things up, sometimes they want to hang on to their characters.
If death is on the line and my mistake has kept them ALIVE, I just let it slide. Oops! No one wants to ret-con their own death… Then again, maybe they do…
A different set of standards ought to apply to GMs and players. A GM has enough tools on his side (adjusting encounters, fudging, outright cheating) to keep things on track and the players have none. On the other hand, the loss of an NPC represents a small portion of a GM’s investment in a campaign, but the loss of a PC represents an almost total loss of the player’s investment in the game.
Regardless of who forgot the minor modifier, it shouldn’t kill the player character. Being knocked out, missing experience, getting captured – these are fair results. But the loss of the character? If the GM isn’t required to abandon his entire campaign because of a missed +2, a player shouldn’t abandon his entire investment, either.
Sarlax Said:
“If the GM isn’t required to abandon his entire campaign because of a missed +2, a player shouldn’t abandon his entire investment, either.”
You say that as if those two investments are even marginally close in magnitude.
(Rick TWA) You say that as if those two investments are even marginally close in magnitude.
In a way, they are. For the current game, the campaign represents the largest possible loss for the GM, and a PC represents the largest possible loss for the player. For that game, those are their maximum investments — and hence, maximum potential losses.
What I suspect you were getting at is the fact that comparing most PCs to most campaigns, there’s a huuuuuge gulf in time invested between the two — because while the player and GM both spend the same amount of time at the table, the player doesn’t spend any time outside the game working on the campaign, and the GM does.
I’ve never considered this problem from the standpoint that if a player made a mistake along these lines, they shouldn’t lose their PC as a result. That one’s open to debate, IMO — in most of the groups I’ve gamed with, since players don’t have as much to keep track of, they don’t get as much slack for mistakes made after the fact as the GM does.
That said, I agree with Sarlax’s sentiment. Considering the mistake I wrote about in this post as if it had been made by a player, I don’t see any reason why they should lose their character for making it — the end result is too major, and the mistake (my assumed mistake, that is), is pretty minor.
“Can I get one of you guys to cast Ressurection on my campaign?”
OK, while that’s silly, the fact is that in most cases, death is not necessarily the end of a character. In the worst case scenario (no ressurection), it’s true that a forgotten modifier can whack a character forever. And in irrevocable cases, I think we’d agree that something temporarily debilitating (unconscious, broken bones, coma) is far more interesting than death.
This is a touchy topic, and should by all rights vary from table to table.
But if the player’s character is his maximum investment in the campaign, shouldn’t he be making sure that it’s performing at maximum efficiency?
That’s the reason that I only go so far back. If the GM has to remember the modifiers for the eight mooks he made up last week, versus the one character that a player is “vested in”, then I don’t expect that GM to have much mercy.
But I’m a cruel and heartless bastard. *shrug*
(Martin)
(Rick TWA) You say that as if those two investments are even marginally close in magnitude.
In a way, they are. For the current game, the campaign represents the largest possible loss for the GM, and a PC represents the largest possible loss for the player. For that game, those are their maximum investments — and hence, maximum potential losses.
What I suspect you were getting at is the fact that comparing most PCs to most campaigns, there’s a huuuuuge gulf in time invested between the two — because while the player and GM both spend the same amount of time at the table, the player doesn’t spend any time outside the game working on the campaign, and the GM does.
That’s exactly what I’m getting at. I’m talking about order of magnitude, not amount of contribution. Also keep in mind:
1: Removing a character in NO WAY completely eliminates a player’s entire investment. Their prior impact on the game world is still intact (unless they got hit so hard they never existed, perhaps by a wish or a diety-level opponent).
2: Ending a campaign destroys not only the DM’s entire onvestment but ALSO the investment of all the players.
Thus, not only are they not the same order of magnitude in terms of time spent, they’re also not even the same order of magnitude percent wise, as the death of a character destroys a PORTION of their investment, whereas the death of a campaign destroys ALL of the investment of the DM and all of the investment of all players.
Presuming the PC’s death wasnt spectacular (ie a very messy horrible death) and the battle is still occurring, have the PC make a “recovery” roll on his next turn then resume taking actions normally.
If its over and the party is still searching the room or took the body with them, let someone realize the PC was merely knocked senseless, not killed as believed and let him rejoin the action.
Otherwise resurrect him “behind the curtain” by some NPC and let him rejoin the party under the Player’s control.
I’m a hearty advocate of #2. PC was knocked out / stunned / whatever, but is now back in the fight. I’d probably allow them some sort of “surprise strike” if the fight’s still going, since their opponent isn’t expecting the dead to come back to life mid-fight.
There’s also all sorts of ways to apply this to NPCs as well. Intelligent NPCs could stay slumped down (now that no one is paying attention), act dead, and slink away while the party is otherwise occupied. Non-intelligent beings would probably act as per their intelligence and temperment would dictate.
I’m still learning the rules of the game, in this case D&D.
My player rolled a great Intimidate check against a Dire Weasel and it ran and hid. By the rules a Dire Weasel isn’t smart enough to be intimidated but I only looked this up after for confirmation of a sneaking suspicion that it was a bad call.
I didn’t retcon anything, just gave my players a “heads up” that it may not actually work next time.
If the situation had been reversed I’d definitely have overturned the call. If I can possibly avoid it, the players shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes.
I would let the situation roll as it is, for the simple reason that players should be reminded that they can die/ suffer life threatening injuries and not at the hands of the GM but by the cruelties of fate. An element of tension inherent in any dice based game is the fact that the dice can go against you. I would never take this away from PCs.
BUT…
Death isn’t that much fun, I would take the PC aside and ask whether they would like to carry on with their character and if so stretch my GM power to explain how the character apparently died before all the other players but is in actual fact alive.
My favourite tactic is the rescue mission, the character is held captive and the other PCs have to rescue the character. If the character in question wants to play; well, some careless guard can leave the door open or something equally deus ex machina >=0)
I have also used things like ‘spirits trapped on a plane of existence’, ‘buried alive’ (funny to see PCs faces when they realise they just buried a comrade but every NPC thinks that they can’t grieve properly and refuse to exhume)etc.
To summarise IMHO, PC deaths should be the potential start of new stories not the end of old ones… unles the PC is bored and wants to try a new character.
Coming to the party a little late on this one, but as far as OOPS moments go I tend to fall heavy to the Number3. Retcon the end result category. I’m not a rules heavy GM, which is one of the reasons I’m not big on DND, and I tend to think the story or the experience is the important thing in a game, so I tend to go with the characters always get a second chance, or they get knocked out but not dead.
One of my first moments of GMing was running a DND one shot with a friend. It was all great, everything was going beautifully, the game was fun, we enjoyed ourselves, and then the villain killed him. Being of the school of thought that players die, it ended the game. I hadn’t balanced out the encounter enough, and it just sucked to think oh, well that’s the game. Now I tend to be of the opinion that the player(s) is(are) the spotlight of the game, I’m getting my enjoyment by structuring a game/story with known monkeywrenches, and lets make sure its fun. I kind of think of it like a TV show or a movie. The BDH (Big Darn Heroes) are always going to come out decently, unless the plot takes a major turn for the worse, and then it should feel dramatic, not random because a roll went wrong, or a modifier got left out.
Being of the school of thought that players die, it ended the game, should probably read that characters die. Otherwise it’s got a whole new spin on reality in gaming.
If a character dies due a mistake I made, and I catch it during or immediately after the battle, I’ll usually go with option 2 or 3.
I tend to go with #2. If the mistake is caught soon enough, I’ll go with #4. Sometimes I might do a pseudo #4 (grant the PC a few free swings to make up for the lost rounds).
It also depends on the magnitude of the mistake. If you were just a little off on your hit point count, I might still rule you dead, because the NPC would probably have managed to hit you again (this assumes the NPC survived at least a few rounds while you were thought dead). Of course if it’s not too vengefull an NPC, it might be possible to retcon the death to a feigned death, and now the NPC has lost his chance to actually kill you.
Frank
(Rick TWA) 1: Removing a character in NO WAY completely eliminates a player’s entire investment. Their prior impact on the game world is still intact (unless they got hit so hard they never existed, perhaps by a wish or a diety-level opponent).
I don’t see how prior impact plays into it — what I’m thinking of is time, effort and emotion already invested in the character, and cutting off the potential for future investment. In other words: players get attached to their characters (ideally, at least), and loss of a PC due to a random mistake can be a big deal.
2: Ending a campaign destroys not only the DM’s entire onvestment but ALSO the investment of all the players.
Good point! No disagreement that the order of magnitude is different. I stand by the fact that each element (campaign, PC) represents that maximum investment for that person (GM, player), even recognizing that the player’s investment is smaller, and that that’s an important consideration for this discussion.
I see where you’re coming from on both points, I just don’t agree with everty aspect of either of them. 😉
Regarding comparative investments, Martin’s said it. I would like to point out again, however, the consequences of the missed modifier are different. Players lose all/most of their investment in the game, but the GM just loses an NPC.
Applying the same standard – no forgiveness for GMs or players on a missed modifier – results in wildly different outcomes for GMs and players.
1. Play a game where the rules are easy enough to keep in your head so that such a mistake doesn’t happen.
2. Use Fate/Hero points so that in the end, it’s really the player’s choice whether that character dies in that kind of incident.