Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Druss_the_Legend on July 18, 2017, 03:15:17 PM
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How often to do player characters die in your campaign?
When it does happen, how do you handle it as a GM?
For example I know one GM that pre-rolls a second pc well ahead of time and plays it as an NPC that can get XP until it is needed should the PC die.
Depends on your campaign right? How deadly it is. You need a balance between too deadly/die at any moment and a campaign where none dies ever.
I guess the death of a pc could serve as a motivator and story hook for rest if the party in a plot driven campaign right?
I think in my current campaign id almost want to pre-warn the player its likely they will die if they are on a particularly dangerous adventure.
If your campaign allows resurrection then the threat of death is a lot less. Th resurrection should come at a price though and imo be rare.
Im interested to her how other GM deals with PC death in their campaigns.
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Our campaigns usually last about 7 or 8 levels, starting at level 1. We play every couple weeks or so, and our campaigns last about 6 months to a year. We have on average about 2 or 3 character deaths per campaign. Almost all those characters stay dead: we usually don't have a high level Cleric around to resurrect them. I also think a healthy fear of death is what imparts tension to our game and gives players a sense of accomplishment (and joy!) when they win the big battles.
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Highly unusual. Firstly, we run campaigns far longer than most from what I can tell. 8 months would be short, and that was with playing a couple times per month. We've run campaigns for years.
That said, if you die you're going to be brought in at a similar level as the party (we'd average the exp between everyone). Given that, because we play for fun and starting from scratch would be very un-fun, there really isn't a reason to not kill characters as they are already going to suffer time loss for being out of the fight/game for a while. Unless they actually want to play a different profession they'd just end up looking the same.
This is why we use Fate Points instead of the GM 'fudging' things. Not to mention the Fate Points can be used by the GM for important NPC's (friendly or not).
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Highly unusual. Firstly, we run campaigns far longer than most from what I can tell. 8 months would be short, and that was with playing a couple times per month. We've run campaigns for years.
That said, if you die you're going to be brought in at a similar level as the party (we'd average the exp between everyone). Given that, because we play for fun and starting from scratch would be very un-fun, there really isn't a reason to not kill characters as they are already going to suffer time loss for being out of the fight/game for a while. Unless they actually want to play a different profession they'd just end up looking the same.
This is why we use Fate Points instead of the GM 'fudging' things. Not to mention the Fate Points can be used by the GM for important NPC's (friendly or not).
cool.how do fate points work in ur campaign? Do they get to ignore a deadly crit or reroll it?
how many do they start with? is it like a luck ability can they get more once they are used up?
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It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion. We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently. Overall it's as simple as...
Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's. Usually it's used against killing criticals. This can be slightly subjective at times. For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off. Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death). The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result. Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll. So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you. You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.
Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.
The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike). This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed. But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point. So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it. This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.
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It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion. We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently. Overall it's as simple as...
Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's. Usually it's used against killing criticals. This can be slightly subjective at times. For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off. Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death). The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result. Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll. So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you. You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.
Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.
The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike). This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed. But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point. So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it. This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.
cool.
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Ditto on Fate points forcing a reroll of a crit from a foe.
Every level we refresh the pool.
To calc, the PC gets to roll a die closest to that level count, if even. If odd, we add +1 to the roll. So Level 6 is a six-sided die roll to see how many are recovered.
Previous points are lost so they do tend to get used to add a flourish to attack/crit/MM results.
We use them closesly as per D&D Eberron with edits, too.
We also allow them to be used to add a D10 to the result of any roll - needs to be declared before knowing a Pass/Fail result re:MM Table that I use for almost every skill Static or otherwise, along with how many are to be used(down to 0).
===MM Table % results are rolled under/over to achieve 100% success or part of it in an extended round maneuver(Lock Picking); so roll on MM table with mods, generate original % result, then roll a second time to get under/over to be successful = 20% means roll under 20 or over 80 | 70% means roll under 70 or over 30 - player chooses for flavour.
Some Players never wanna roll low, haha.
For extended round results, any MM chart original % that is less than 100% can add to the time it takes someone to achieve a full end result.
So instead of complete Pass/Fail after the second roll to confirm, the difference of the original % from 100% is what is still needed to complete the action - usually used in picking a lock/disabling a trap, etc. It adds to the tension escaping and getting through an obstacle with foes on your tail===
If spent(and only if spent) and RR still fails, I take an extra Fate if player desired, to negate the effect of the result and reroll but the next effect is locked in.
For deaths that do occur still from this locked in result, no matter what intervention happens, I tell the PC we can deplete his/her pool of theirs down to 1 - the minimum per session that gets replenished to 1 upon next game, so there is always the chance of help.
However, once Fate points are at 0, the PC is "naked" and whatever befalls them thereafter is a done deal - they can only cheat so many times, haha.
EDIT:
To answer your question, haha, we have players with dead PCs roll up a new character with midlvl-point XP at one level less than lowest party PC possesses.
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How often to do player characters die in your campaign?
The last more than ten years we had no character deaths that I would remember. We are using the Fate Point rules from RMFRP Channeling Companion to avert unlucky critical rolls and our GMs (everyone has to be the GM once in a while) all try to create encounters that the players can handle and/or try to give more or less subtle hints when the players should not challenge a given enemy.
Before that time we had two GMs that were not so benevolent and where, after always starting out at level 1, the PCs would often die between level 7 and 15, when I got the impression they got bored with the characters.
When it does happen, how do you handle it as a GM?
During the time when it sometimes happened that a PC would die we used to have some of our old characters, e.g. where the rest of the group was killed and we decided to start a new one, with us. If one of theses characters would fit into the current group the GM would try to integrate the character into the running adventure on the next occasion. If no such character was available we would create a new one and integrate that new character. But that was not often the case. And in many cases it was not necessary to think about integrating a new character into the current session because either the whole group was killed or sometimes the PC death occurred towards the end of the session and we decided to start with a new group in the next session.
Depends on your campaign right? How deadly it is. You need a balance between too deadly/die at any moment and a campaign where none dies ever.
IMO the death of a PC always needs to be possible to keep the tension up during battles. And - even though we did not have a character death in years - we often have criticals rolled against our characters. And every such critical incurs the risk of a fatal result, which means the loss of a Fate Point, and, if no more Fate Points are left, the death of the character. But IMO it is not necessary to actually kill the characters from time to time to keep the tension up. Just recently we had the case that our group would have died because the GM had sent out too many opponents against us. All characters were already injured, one already unconscious, and soon all would have died, one after the other. But he rather decided to have one NPC save us with a powerful spell than kill the group, because he decided it was not the characters' fault but rather bad encounter balancing on his side. Good decision IMO.
I guess the death of a pc could serve as a motivator and story hook for rest if the party in a plot driven campaign right?
But, depending on the circumstances of the character death, it might also demotivate the player whose character died. We still sometimes tell the tales of former GMs having unjustly killed this or that PC years ago and where we were quite upset...
If your campaign allows resurrection then the threat of death is a lot less. Th resurrection should come at a price though and imo be rare.
We allow resurrection within the bounds of the RM rules and without further restrictions. But IMHO it does not reduce the threat of death too much. It is IMO too restricted in its usefulness to do so. You need to have a high-level Cleric available shortly after the PC death or live with stat deterioration (which may make it unattractive to continue with a so stat-"crippled" character) or be able to preserve the dead character's body quickly and then carry him to the next Cleric that can cast Livegiving. Therefore Livegiving very, very rarely was the reason for a character escaping death.
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I kill characters if the dice/critical kills the characters but I also make life giving available.
Our campaigns last for years, the current one has been going something like 5 years, the one before that was 7 years. We rarely ever get above 20th level. In the current game no one has died yet. The characters are currently working for a church so life giving would be available to them and the PC cleric is not far off being able to cast life keeping soon.
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In my non-fantasy stuff death is not unusual. In fantasy it's less common, mostly because I do have life-giving stuff available. I use Fate Points (my own versions) in my non-fantasy stuff for sure. Each character starts with a pool known only to me (once it's expended it's gone forever) and a second pool based on their level (1 point per level). Like Hurin, I found that having death ever-present (if not automatic or common) heightens the tension and has made my players much more tactical in their thinking.
If a character is killed, the player brings in a new one generated to the party's average level. That makes it easier to scale encounters and also keeps things fairly even in the party.
My campaigns vary from a few months to a few years depending on the players.
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My campaigns are deadly by design, but not impossible to survive. Also, my games tend to be open world so players can end up facing something their characters can't beat.
They have to figure out when they are over their head and run away to survive, if they don't the characters die.
Adventuring is a dangerous life and the players quickly learn (after loosing a few characters) to have an healthy fear and run away more.
They learn to have better strategies and also working as a group to resolve any encounter.
But characters still die, nobody is immune to death.
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My campaigns are deadly by design, but not impossible to survive. Also, my games tend to be open world so players can end up facing something their characters can't beat.
They have to figure out when they are over their head and run away to survive, if they don't the characters die.
Adventuring is a dangerous life and the players quickly learn (after loosing a few characters) to have an healthy fear and run away more.
They learn to have better strategies and also working as a group to resolve any encounter.
But characters still die, nobody is immune to death.
You raise an interesting point. Players can prolong longevity by making smart decisions #self_preservation
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That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
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That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
This is why I won't allow Fate Points to be used to modify things like attack rolls. They are to save you from bad luck, not allow you to win a fight you had no business being in in the first place.
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It's pretty close to what is in the Channeling Companion. We had to tweak it just slightly for integration with RM for that, but we sometimes use it differently. Overall it's as simple as...
Fate Points let you cause a re-roll for something that would surely cause your death, whether that be your own roll or the GM's. Usually it's used against killing criticals. This can be slightly subjective at times. For example; say you're the last character standing and you've just been knocked out and the foes are sure to finish everyone off. Or maybe you have to make a jump over a cassavas and you missed (and will fall to your death). The first one causes a re-roll and, if that fails, the second just negates the bad result. Essentially this is intended to save a PC from dying due to an 'un-lucky' die roll. So keep in mind if you are in a situation where you're going to die by hit point depletion it's not going to save you. You can't run up to a Dragon and just keep spending Fate Points to stay alive.
Depending on the GM players are either handed their own (say 3-5 maybe) at the start of the campaign or the group is given a pool of them.
The GM gets to give them to important NPC's (friend and foe alike). This is mainly intended to allow the GM to keep running foes alive that s/he doesn't want killed. But the positive side effect of this is that when you cause someone to spend a Fate Point you get that Fate Point. So when the GM spends a Fate Point the player(s) get it. This makes it so you don't have to keep handing them out and the players still 'get' something when they roll well against a foe and the GM negates it with the targets potential Fate Point.
My campaign uses "Luck" as an extra stat, you can modify a roll by your stat bonus to change a result, but this burns down your luck Stat by the bonus amount. As you increase in levels your stat can go up just like any other stat.
That said, I kill players all the time. If you do something really dumb like attack a Dragon at level 6 then you die. You want to attack that Orc settlement? Go ahead, but if they get the upper hand you are going to die more than likely, they are not dumb animals. Yet as a GM I have to ensure I do not put the players in situations where they will face a dragon at level 6.
If you die, you get 1/2 your XP to create a new character. Do your development and bring in the character. The players appreciate it, they know there is a risk, and that I will kill them, if it is called for. The 1/2 xp character lessens the blow of losing someone you have built up from a noob. The campaign runs as long as it runs.
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I generally only kill a PC in a "climax" session. Outside of that- bad luck on a chance encounter might result in a permanent injury (a -5 penalty etc.).
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I generally only kill a PC in a "climax" session. Outside of that- bad luck on a chance encounter might result in a permanent injury (a -5 penalty etc.).
Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible. Of course mine is an open world and to know what is a side track is difficult to say the least, but it does keep the players on their toes.
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Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible.
I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
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I often try to explain it this way: Let's say you're watching a TV show or movie, forget what the actual plot it, but one of the main characters is killed off in a completely random and meaningless way out of sheer bad luck... like tripping and falling down the stairs. Most people would think that is pretty damn stupid.
Now, it's unusual a character is going to die in a way that silly, however consider they are even more invested in their character than they would be characters in a movie. Players are playing the character in a story, for them to effectively 'fall down the stairs' and die just isn't fun. And why else do we play other than to have fun?
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That tends to be how mine run. If players are stupid, they tend to die much more often.
This is why I won't allow Fate Points to be used to modify things like attack rolls. They are to save you from bad luck, not allow you to win a fight you had no business being in in the first place.
I also hand out far fewer Luck points than most people from what I've seen. Given a finite, non-replaceable amount players tend to be far more cautious in using them. When your luck's gone, it's gone. And at that point the line from Hamburger Hill comes into play: "In the A Shau valley when your time is up, your time is up."
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I often try to explain it this way: Let's say you're watching a TV show or movie, forget what the actual plot it, but one of the main characters is killed off in a completely random and meaningless way out of sheer bad luck... like tripping and falling down the stairs. Most people would think that is pretty damn stupid.
Now, it's unusual a character is going to die in a way that silly, however consider they are even more invested in their character than they would be characters in a movie. Players are playing the character in a story, for them to effectively 'fall down the stairs' and die just isn't fun. And why else do we play other than to have fun?
I understand and respect your perspective, but our group doesn't prioritize narrative to the same extent. In our games, narrative doesn't override the dice, or the general rules, or the physics of the world. We prefer more of the 'fantasy Vietnam' style game, where you can die at any time and from any opponent if the fates are against you. We prefer the game to be as realistic as possible in that respect-- that is, as realistic as a fantasy game can be. I think we'd find it quite boring if all the players knew they could only die in the boss battles. We prefer a Game of Thrones style narrative to a King Arthur style one. The fear of omnipresent death is what gives our games life.
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I think if you manage Fate points like any other in-game resource they are fine. I just don't think they are a get out of jail free card. The problem has always been they are not written in to the system (aside from the Channeling Companion) and so they immediately become just that, a get out of jail free card......one which players plan on using just like any other asset. And who can blame them.
The idea of only being able to die in climax scenes is a compromise, but does not mean only boss encounters....all skill and spell use falls under this category too. What I do agree with is that there has to be consequence for encounters. Which is why the compromise in my games has always been fate points managed like any other in game resource.
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I'm going to add something else the discussion.
There are story driven consequences as an alternative to death. Perhaps not as bad as death but they can be severe. Here is an example. In my campaign two players betrayed a powerful crime-lord by murdering his most experienced NPC, a fighter who was his second of command within his organisation. The motive was ambition. To cover their guilt the pcs set him up to look like a traitor. It was a clever plan. Devious even because one of the pcs wasnt in on the scheme - he actually thought the guy WAS a traitor thanks in large part to his friend telling him so and persuading him the killing was required.
Now the crime-lord who knew there was a traitor in his organisation of course wanted proof the dead npc being a traitor and therefore interview the pcs individually seeking the truth of the matter. This was when their story started to unravel and he deduced there was foul play afoot.
As GM I had to sort out the consequence for their actions. Crimelords dont get to be crimelords by being nice and giving second chances. They tend to make examples of people who betray them. This particular crimelord was an ex-gladiator, slave dealer, smuggler and general badass who you didnt want to cross. He is motivated mostly by money and ambition/furthering his reputation. Clearly this was a dent to both of these. My initial reaction was to have the crime-lord order them killed immediately. He has 20+ fighters/rogues working for him so that would have been a quick and easy response and totally true to his motivations. I decided on a different course of action.
It turns out the NPC they murdered owed him lots of gold. This dept is now passed to the pcs. One of the pcs, the ambitious one who master-minded the murder is demoted to the lowest rank within his organisation. He was previously 3rd in command and poised for a promotion to 2nd in command due to the vacant position helped create. The fine needs to be paid in a month otherwise both will be kicked out (or worse... maybe he will have them killed after all... its got good for his reputation to have people who owe him money just left alone after all). Like all crime-lords he of course used this event to keep his other men in line and publicly stated to his remaining men that the traitor had been found out and death with accordingly. In reality the traitor is still alive and he knows it but they now might let their guard down and slip up now thinking they are safe from discovery.
This news was taken hard by the players. They knew they screwed up and they will be paying for it for some time. They are also on the crime-lords radar as 'under supervision' so will need to keep in line or risk his wraith.
One last thing happened that impacts on the guilty pcs. One of them is a skilled burglar will caches of loot hidden throughout the city. These were located and taken. It isnt known who looted them but he suspects the crime-lords hand in this. That gold they owe the crime-lord? just got a lot harder to repay now they are starting from ground zero. This was as you might imagine very upsetting for the burglar who had made plans for the money with his sights set on having a cool magic item made. A triple blow. Demotion, massive fine and loss of wealth.
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A fate worse than death? No but annoying as hell. I'm betting they are regretting crossing paths with the crime-lord and plan to leave his employ as soon as they have paid their dept.
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Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible.
I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
If there isn't any risk, then the fight should not be played through if it happens at all. That's just bad time management. If you want kobold attacks in the woods for setting purposes, but don't want any chance a PC will be killed or crippled, just say something like "It takes you three days to pass through the forest. During that time, you are harassed by kobold snipers and ambushers, but they were no match for your prowess and you come through with nothing more than a few scratches and bruises." Then get on with stuff you'll actually allow to be important.
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Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible.
I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
If there isn't any risk, then the fight should not be played through if it happens at all. That's just bad time management. If you want kobold attacks in the woods for setting purposes, but don't want any chance a PC will be killed or crippled, just say something like "It takes you three days to pass through the forest. During that time, you are harassed by kobold snipers and ambushers, but they were no match for your prowess and you come through with nothing more than a few scratches and bruises." Then get on with stuff you'll actually allow to be important.
yes. agree with this 100%. well said.
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Agreed as well.
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I handle Fate Points slightly differently in my campaign.
Rules for using Fate Points as follows:
1. All starting PC characters start with one (1) Fate Point.
2. A Fate Point may be used to modify any single dice roll eg a skill check, an attack roll (for any PC, NPC or monster), a critical roll etc
3. Use of Fate Points is subject to the following rules:
- the use of the Fate Point must be declared immediately after the dice roll to be modified; and
- the user of the Fate Point states the result of any dice roll (increase or decrease); and
- once used the Fate Point is lost.
4. Additional Fate Points may be allocated for exceptional play (as determined by the GM).
5. Some (major) NPC's may also have Fate Points.
Fate Points do not replenish each level or adventure. They are very rare, I might award a single Fate Point to a player once every ten or so sessions.
If a character dies... he dies. It is up to the players with Fate Points to decide if they want to expend them. I very occasionally may fudge a dice roll (but not often). This for me keeps the "every combat is possibly deadly" feel to the game.
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Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible.
I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
I didn't say "Cannot Die" I said Little to no, it still can happen, it mainly depends on the characters. As an example, I had an encounter for my players with an individual who had a temper and often duelled. He challenged a player, that player had the option to grovel, or apologise for the slight, run away, or fight. They chose to straighten out the misunderstanding. The NPC became a strong contact for the players and supported them in later episodes. This was totally random, in fact, I hadn't even intended that they really interact with this NPC, he was thrown in as a quick aside that was easily discarded, but the players chose to make him more involved in the storey. If they had fought the player probably would have died, but being rolemaster who really knows?
I have definitely killed more players in my campaign than the average, and more than almost anyone at a bet. My players know that they can die at any time. I do allow luck to modify the roll, but as I said it can only modify the roll by your luck stat bonus, and then the luck stat drops by the amount used. Additionally you may only modify the last roll, so if you are in a fight and the guy rolls a hit, you decide then and there to burn the luck to modify that roll, if you get a C critical on you and don't change that roll and I roll the next one That becomes the one you can change. As the player you hate to lose your level 5 sorcerer to that lesser orc scout with the bow, but it happens.
In all of my campaigns the players are basically free to do what they will, a completely open world. Pick a direction and travel, pick a building and try to get in. Want to be a crime lord, do it, want to take over the realm, go ahead and try. You face the consequences for your actions.
Another thing I add is fame and infamy. Help that little old lady across the street, here is a fame point, drag her into the alley and stab her for her purse here is an infamy point. The first one is easy to get, as you get more they become harder, the second fame point is not earned by helping that little old lady across the street. Your fame / infamy levels determine how well known you are in the town / city / land / world. If you have a lot of infamy, well there may be law enforcement / adventurers / soldiers looking for you. If you have a high fame, you may be summoned by the council / king to help with a big problem.
The players all know there are consequences both immediate and future to their actions at all times. Try to live life gaining only fame, it is pretty tough.
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I agree with people wanting to keep players on their toes. Rolemaster being as it is gives a wonderful feeling of victory after every battle.
I never liked other games that make PCs invincible when facing lower level opponents.
In my game Fate points are very scarce and need great deal of efforts from the pcs to obtain.
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That was my biggest complaint with D&D, as a level 10 fighter you can walk into a colony of orcs and kill the whole tribe without taking a single hit. Where is the challenge? How is it possible for the orcs to have survived as a race?
In Rolemaster, go ahead and try, one dead fighter coming up.
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Chance encounters should have little to no risk to the party at large. To die in a side track is terrible.
I respectfully disagree. If there is no risk, there isn't the same excitement; at least, that's how our group feels. To die in a side track is terrible... but c'est la vie. That threat really keeps you on your toes -- and not just in the big battles, but all the time. Every battle becomes meaningful, and every victory a cause for celebration.
I didn't say "Cannot Die" I said Little to no, it still can happen, it mainly depends on the characters.
Ah, sorry then; I misunderstood you.
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Good blog post on this:
http://www.gnomestew.com/game-mastering/how-to-make-death-matter/
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great read. thanks B Hanson for posting it.
i like the shady dealings angle and the quest. id do a mix of these. in my campaign world necromancy is outlawed and resurrection magic is rare.
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It depends.
In our main campaign, death is rare. There is a gentlemen's agreement between all players and GMs involved that characters will often (but not always) be given an extra chance; and usually the GMs elect to maim instead to kill (permanent penalties; one character has -5 to all MM with his legs due to frostbite suffered to one foot; one character lost her eyesight completely; one was beaten to near-death and suffered permanent loss to some of his potential stats as if he were dead for a few rounds).
That's not to say nobody dies. This campaign has been ongoing for 17+ years now and has seen four or five deaths, one char banished for treason and threatened with death should he ever return, and one abducted by powerful enemies and MIA. We play an "Adventurers Guild" style where every player has a pool of several characters available to him, and occasionally gets to play two or even more simultaneously.
We have alternate settings that go by different rules, including one "Arabian Nights"-esque where we try to strictly follow the game rules, making it much more deadly while every player runs only one character. Most players (all save one) have lost at least one character here so far. Death is a very real possibility. We've found that it doesn't affect the playing style very much, though it does pose problems for long-time campaigns.
Our current alternate setting has the group playing as Orc grunts. It's not quite working out as I imagined as GM (more on that in another thread perhaps), but I got a chance to largely reset the board through a near-total party kill in the third playing session. We explicitly agreed for this setting that players shouldn't expect to survive beyond level 3 or so, and that their orc characters should be seen as throwaways. The same pattern begins to emerge as in the Arabian Nights setting though.