Character Death; or Funeral for a Friend, Love lies Bleeding.

Death is something everyone is familiar with, right?  Unless you're pretty detached (if so, here's some news for you), Death is something that is reviled, revered, celebrated, and lamented the world over.  It's a powerful concept, especially in popular culture (what with the injection of zombies and vampires and other supernatural beings).  I'll leave out my prejudices on how death has been approached in said cultural phenomena, and get right to my point, which is the death of someone you're familiar with, and where storytelling is concerned "Character Death".

Hey Y'all, How's bout a hug?

This past weekend, a small group of adventurers ventured into the waterworks of one of the largest cities in the world (that they inhabit) only to find that the murderer they've been tracking is actually a number of murders, or more specifically a Cult.  The adventurers swept through the hidden sanctum, fighting for their lives through roaring subterranean waterways and pipe filled halls until the reached the leader of the cult.  The leader was obviously mad, and mutated by some dark gift.  The adventurers were in the middle of giving the cult a sound beating when a screeched pierced the room, and out of one of the pipes a sickening other-worldly creature arose from a pipe in the center of the room, a brain the size of a man lined with whipping tentacles and affixed with a razor-sharp beak.  The creature set to work sweeping adventurers off their feet and tearing at them with it's scissor-like jaws.  Eventually the adventurers were forced to flee, two barely alive, carrying the third; unconcious, and the last lost, ripped apart by the alien beast and dropped down the well when he was no longer perceived as a threat.


The players were not happy.  No one complained, and I don't think anyone felt I'd cheated them, but the Grell dominated the fight and the only thing worse then players having to run without victory, is that they lost one of their number.  

Depending on setting, most
dead player characters find
themselves an audience with
this lady.  So, you know,
Not all bad.

Most players see the death of their character as a blessing and a curse.  On one hand you've lost all that time and energy put into playing that character.  On the other (and this has been especially true in my group) you get the opportunity to make a new character.  Potentially you can make a character that fits a little more with the group (cover areas that the group needs), make someone that covers the weaknesses your last character encountered, and/or make something/someone else entirely that's just more fun to play.  My players to date love bringing in fresh blood, much to my disdain as it keeps the group loose and trust a rarity among player characters as new faces aren't readily trusted.


At any rate removing a character from any story by Death creates a hole.  Bad storytellers (and Dungeon Masters looking to get on with the story) ignore that hole, worse storytellers make that hole dominate the story.  But a great storyteller recognize this "Death-hole" (wow, I need to work on my word-smithing)  for what it is and what it represents in real life, a challange, a lesson, and a mark.  


Grief is a force to be overcome.  Not ignored, not fought, but to embrace and resolve.  This is obvious to anyone who has ever lost a loved one, you mourn, you allow yourself to feel the pain of loss, and when you've felt the requisite loss, you let go.  The pain of that loss doesn't just end, you carry it with you, but you resolve that loss, you reconcile your feelings, and you move on.  Only the unhealthy seek to not resolve their feelings and stew in them.  They use that pain as a barrier to defend their actions as opposed to taking responsibility for their actions that hurt others because they were overcome with grief.

A healthy person goes to someone they lashed out at (eventually) and says "I want you to know I was overcome with sadness and pain when I hurt you, but that is no excuse.  I'm sorry."

An unhealthy person says "I want you to know I was overcome with sadness and pain when I hurt you, it's not my fault."

...can you tell I've had "Unhealthy people" issues in the past? Also, sadly, unhealthy characters seem to be popular (those characters who seem to lack insight on the issues they're suffering from, and stumble their way through a happy ending without learning any real lesson).  Death is a very real thing, and should be felt and dealt with the same whether the person is fictitious or not.  No one is stoic enough to say "my friends are dead, well, better just suck it up", if that is the case something is wrong with them (and you should run with it).  Should the death of a character enter into your story, I recommend that the impact of their death be balanced with the resolve of those they left behind.  But, I digress.

Dead Player characters never really
disappear, they're just used as monsters in later
campaigns.  Here's some having a party.

So one of my player's characters were killed, he lived a dangerous life and such a thing is not uncommon for an Great Axe wielding Barbarian, but the pain of the loss brought the game down a notch or two that night.  It was right at the end of the evening as well, which made the closing of the game a little difficult.  Everyone hung their heads, apologized, and seemed genuinely lost on how to proceed for the next week. This struck me as a peculiar thing that a fictitious character was lost, but it was the players who did not know how to move on.  Perhaps this lends a little validity to my last post...  

Under any other circumstances I would point the story in a fresh direction, allow players to roll new characters and see if I couldn't salvage ideas of what I took from this story and this cast.  But what my players don't know is that their storyteller has learned a thing or two about Death and how to handle it.  There will be no new story, no new cast characters (well, except maybe in the case of one of them), or new setting.  Resolution will come to my players and their characters the way it always does in Swashbuckling, Spell-slinging, Tales of High Adventure...


...with Vengeance.