The Show Must Go On: Dealing With PC Death

It's something that happens to everyone that's played the game.  The luck of a player goes south, the DM dice are hot, and suddenly, nailbitingly, the PC is down for the count.  Maybe the player failed his roll; maybe the monster stopped just long enough to stomp on the character's head for good measure before moving on to the next one.  Any way you slice it, in D&D, PCs die.

Or do they?


A lot of players and DMs are afraid of what happens when PCs die.  The DM will fudge rolls to keep them in the fight, perhaps, or artificially lower the monster's HP as the fight goes on hoping the PCs win.  The players will fudge the dice and hope the DM doesn't see.  As the campaign progresses, the danger of combat fades.  Especially with 4th edition combat, where PCs are wrecking crews in and of themselves, it's easy to reach a point where nobody is afraid of their character's death.  At this point, I will say one thing.

Your game is boring.
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PCs That Don't Die, But Should
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A lot of time, death in a D&D game ends up being avoided because the DM feels like there would be conflict with the players when their characters die.  A lot of times the people you game with are your friends outside the table too, and you don't want to mess that up, right?  Or maybe the DM wants to keep the story going and it wouldn't make sense for one of the "Chosen Ones" to die.  The story can't go on without them, so why not keep them alive through this one encounter?

Wrong idea.  The PCs should be allowed to die, and it all comes down to one word.  Epic.
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Players Want Their Characters To Be Awesome
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Epic is the word people use to describe really awesome things that they've heard about, or that they've seen.  They want to tell tales about all the monsters they killed, and the close shaves they had.  And they may not know it, but they also want to be able to tell the last tale, the final quest.

Give the players what they want, but be fair about it.  I'm not saying never fudge a roll.  I'm saying that the drama and excitement is heightened when there's a real possibility of the PCs dying in a fight, when it really is all on the line.  and when they do go, and they hit their 3 death saves or whatever works for the edition you're in, let them have their last memories of that character be badass.

I used a house rule in a 3.5 game I ran once where players that hit 0hp or less would still be allowed one last attack, a final chance to hit an enemy, and allowed that same variant to some enemies.  That ended up with a showdown in a burning village  where the boss elf faced off with the fighter and they ended up knocking each other out in the same round.  Was pretty awesome, especially when the fighter woke up with a note telling him that the boss elf would be back for him.
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Goblins Are Fodder, or Don't Be A Dick
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Even though I'm telling you all of this about killing off the PCs, I don't mean to send the wrong message here.  Unless it's exactly what you're going for and the players are aware of it, don't get super gritty with the amount of death in your game, and don't kill the PCs at the drop of a hat.  They're still heroes, dammit.  If you murder your party with a group of fucking kobolds or something equally weak, that's a pretty lame way to go.  If your party destroys all the kobolds and one or two of them die fighting the black dragon directing them, that's something worth remembering.

Basically what I'm getting at is that when a PC dies, it should be done for a reason.  4th edition heroes are difficult to kill as it is, and while threatening them is encouraged, actually following through and killing them off should be an occasion that the players will be talking about for months to come.  You'll know you did it right when the players focus on how badass the character was in his last stand, rather than how much of a bitch move it was to kill him off.
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When They Die; Directions to Take
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Now, once one or more of your group is down and out, you have to figure out what to do with the players controlling the recently deceased.  There are a couple of options you can take, which I'm sure you're already aware of: rolling new characters, resurrecting them, or doing something else crazy like having them be a ghost or something.  Losing the character can be an intensely personal event for your player, so it should really be a collaborative process.  Talk to the player outside of the game and ask them what they want to do.  In a lot of cases, they'll have a good idea ready made for you.

Maybe they want to let the character go and chase after a different concept.  This is pretty common for games that stretch on for a long time, because frankly, players will want to try out new classes, new feats, new everything.  It was especially true as splat books kept coming out with more character options that sounded more and more badass.  Who wouldn't want to hang up their hat as a cleric and be a runepriest?  Shit sounds awesome!

Perhaps they want to hang onto their character and see if they can roleplay him fighting his way out of the underworld.  Always an awesome time, and the rest of the group may want to join in and try to go into the underworld in an attempt to bring him out.  When the chance is there for a great roleplaying experience, never settle for clicking "raise dead" and moving right along.

Other times, though, the player really doesn't know what to do, or the rest of the group is powerful enough to just click "resurrect" and keep on truckin'.  That's okay too, but make sure they bear in mind the implications of this action.  Think about it.  That dude just died a gruesome death, very likely had a harrowing time in the underworld, then got yanked back into his body.  He could have some awful nightmares and be unable to sleep, or appreciate his new lease on life and have a completely different reaction.  Try not to let such an opportunity go to waste.
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The Show Must Go On, But A Moment Is All We Ask
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As in the title, you have to keep moving when a PC dies, regardless of how you decide to tackle it.  The world keeps on moving, and events keep happening around the party, but you should still give the group time to figure out what to do about the fallen party member.  It's one of the most significant things that can happen to a group, and the worst thing you can do in a situation like this is to trivialize it.  By making it seem like nothing, it's just as bad as if you had never had them die in the first place, because the end result is the same; there are no real consequences or difficulties in the game.