In before wankery. Oh wait...

Going to download now.

I'm with Pat. I hate it when my characters die, and the risk of character death in a character I'm really invested in can prevent me from furthering the plot because I don't want to lose the character. It's upsetting to lose a character that you're invested in, and character death does make you run the risk of either not furthering the plot or not getting invested in your character. Both of these can lead to really bad sessions or campaigns.

That said, I'm also with Chad on this. There are times when character death is permissible for a variety of reasons. Fits with the story or what have you.

I'm still listening through this now. I had a bunch more comments, but forgot them before I could get to a computer.

• Cafepress site was not me.
• The doctor story is not completely accurate, but it is pretty close. He was telling me to go to a doctor for months, but I was so stuck on not taking a day off work that I didn't schedule one. The conversation he referred to though I said that yes I should have gone for that cough, but that this was something different. Basically I had an annoying issue for a while, then that day I got hit with something BAD. I was trying to make an appointment then, but had issues getting in.
• I am jealous of Pat because yes female gingers are hot.
• I have doctor horror stories if we ever do the bedtime stories episode Dan mentions. I think it would be a boring overly series episode though because the stories I have involve my parents nearly being killed and in the case of my mom permanent damage. Not really the "fun" topic of typical bedtime stories.
• <Comic Wank here> Chad is wrong. Kara Zor-El is Superman's cousin not sister.

still listening....

"My character died very unexpectedly"

Hmm....

Recently on Fear the Boot

Episode 216: Chad: "I like him [Rot] more than your original character - I love your second character! Love the guy!"

Episode 221: Dan: "Just remember, Pat, if you kill me, I start playing Rot..."

1 + 1 = ?



~PS

Geeze, guys, way to cover all the bases so that no one sane can argue with you

I maintain my stance in favor of plotting ahead in true Chad style, and I definately agree with his point on staying in character, regardless of what the player wants for their character. And I absolutely, positively, agree with Pat on having characters have a certain amount of 'understanding' between themselves and the GM regarding risk killing the fun of the adventure, as well as John on feeling it in my nipples pushing forward regardless of the risk, because that's the point of the game so stop being a whiner.



Come on, you know these guys don't listen to their own show

On Character Death:

I generally don't like character death - at least not in a hard-and-fast sort of way. In my own games, I will provide an "out" that players can take if they'd like. If your character is killed by the mechanics but you don't want the character to be gone from the game, I will come up with some way for the character to be brought back - though it will most likely cost something and have some strings attached. If you want the character to be gone, he/she can stay dead. For me, this is just about everyone having fun - i think the player should have some input into whether their character is removed from the game.

There are some systems that allow this even in the mechanics. In Star Wars Saga, you can spend a Force Point to save yourself when you would have ordinarily been killed. I believe you can burn Fate Points in 40k games to keep yourself from dying as well.


All that said, one of my favorite things about character death (permanent or otherwise) is how it can affect other characters in the game. If players are RPing well, and Bob sacrifices himself for Fred and George, Fred and George are going to have some great roleplaying come out of that, and their characters may be significantly changed by the event. This adds a tremendous amount to the story.


Edit(s):
@Aaron Stack: Haha. Point.
@John: Love hearing you on the show! Wish you were around more often!


~PS

About half-way through the episode now.

I suppose I'm the classic gaming hypocrite here: When I GM I'm totally in favor of PC death, but when I'm playing I find it painful to have a character die on me. Even when I tell the GM "Okay, this guy's boring, please feel free to kill him off," it rubs me the wrong way and I'm frankly pissy for the rest of the night. It is a lot of investment seemingly gone to waste. As a GM, though, I feel that the games I run shouldn't have a foolproof safety net for characters; otherwise there simply isn't any feel of risk and reward.

Of course, it might be that I've never had a character die in anything other than meaningless combats; if I ever had the opportunity to do so I might be perfectly happy to do it.

I said everything I had to say on character death in the thread you guys mentioned in the show. But it was a great show regardless. It really had that early FtB vibe, a lively debate about a topic that is pretty much universal in RPGs.

@Saragon: I think that perspective is probably fairly common, not necessarily because it's a true hypocracy, but because when you're the GM, you know you're going to do it in a way that you think is cool for the game. When someone else is the GM, you lack that certainty...

On the other hand, I tend to be the other way around: I don't mind dying as a player (unless it's completely pointless and/or stupid), but as a GM, I don't want characters to die if they don't want them to (because I'm trying to make sure everyone's having fun).

~PS