How to kill characters?

[Willpower]

OK, first off I know this is a touchy subject. I also want to preface this please don't provide responses like, "Don't do it... Just talk to everyone" sort of thing. If that is your answer, please just don't reply. (Though I know this preface will do no good whatsoever, as many of you will just ignore it, and can't help but try to morally correct something you know nothing about.) Finally I want to say, that I am not necessarily considerring doing this, I just want to have ideas in mind should that become what I want to do.

 

OK, situation: I have a campaign that has gone on for several years, and it is approaching its planned ending. It is a few months away, but it is still approaching. I sent out a poll asking all of the players what they would want to do when the end comes. The answers included starting one of several different superhero campaigns (Street level, Galactic, Normal, Teenage), start a different type of campaign all together, or continue with the same game, but moving it in a different direction (I.E. keeping the same characters, but the campaign itself changes as their original overall goal had been accomplished.)

 

As you can see, I did not actually say that I was going to make people make new characters and play a completely different campaign (Though I sort of want to as some of the newer characters are just stupid, concept-wise, and the campaign itself has become boring for me. Though taking it in a new direction may fix this.). However, just mentioning the possibility of the game ending, nearly cost me a player. Now that player I can live without, but another player explained to me the first one's complaint had to do with a previous game they were both in, where the DM started his campaign over several times, making people make new characters all the time, and they both got sick of it and quit. He explained to me that he would also have a problem with that. I have explained to them that at times games end and new ones come out. Though, I don't think they get it still. He said neither would have a problem if their characters were killed in combat or something in the game, having to make new characters, but not simply because the GM wants everyone to make new characters. (Apparently they still can't understand that campaigns end, and new ones begin at times.)

 

So if I wanted to start a new campaign, and didn't want to risk losing two players, the only way at this point to go about it, is to kill off several players. However, that may not be enough if I wanted a new campaign, as their would still be other players there too. So it may be neccessary to wipe out more than that. Now IF I decided to do this, and it was at the planned conclusion of the campaign, then just the two might be enough, as I could then say, "Well, since the campaign is over, and about half of you have to make new characters, why don't we move on to someting different." With that though, How could I go about killing the characters I need to kill, without looking like I went out of my way to kill them? Any ideas?

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Generally, the best way I've heard of to kill off characters is to talk to their players, find out how THEY feel about it, then give them something heroic to do as their last stand.

 

But then, I've never killed a character (though I've promised it's how stupidity will be rewarded), and I'm not entirely sure I understand why you need to do that. Surely your players can grasp the concept of wanting to run another style or genre, and surely they're smart enough to realize you're not the same GM as the one who annoyed them so badly.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Be honest but get to the point.

 

"I'm starting a new campaign. I want you there and I expect this new campaign to go on for a long time. This isn't a reboot that will happen again and again. You said you are okay with your character being killed so I had an idea. How about we give your character a big heroic death? You'd have to create a new character anyway, but this way you also have a great beginning and end to the character."

 

If the campaign is set in the same world as the first, they could also consider having their new character being related or inspired by the death of their first character.

[Arkham]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Have a nuke with all the characters in range of it. Then allow the character least qualified a chance to disarm it. They say, "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." Then everyone dies.

[ghost-angel]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

Seriously - how long did this last campaign go on for?

 

Let them know the new one will last at least as long as that one. You've built a new story with a beginning and end.

 

Or switch genres. That's another way to make a clean break. Tell the group you'd like a chance to flex your GM muscles in another direction so you don't burn out and then nobody gets a game.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Generally, the best way I've heard of to kill off characters is to talk to their players, find out how THEY feel about it, then give them something heroic to do as their last stand.

 

But then, I've never killed a character (though I've promised it's how stupidity will be rewarded), and I'm not entirely sure I understand why you need to do that. Surely your players can grasp the concept of wanting to run another style or genre, and surely they're smart enough to realize you're not the same GM as the one who annoyed them so badly.

 

Thank you for proving me right... And how can you say surely they understand, when you certainly didn't understand after I spelled it out. I mean no offense, but it is almost as if you didn't even read before you responded.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Thank you for proving me right... And how can you say surely they understand' date=' when you certainly didn't understand after I spelled it out. I mean no offense, but it is almost as if you didn't even read before you responded.[/quote']

You didn't say HOW you explained it to them, just that you told them, this was their resistance, but you weren't doing that, but you had to kill their characters or they'd drop the game.

 

I don't understand how Y follows X. They had one GM who behaved one way. You don't behave that way. They think you'll behave that way because of this ONE thing?

 

Forgive my incredulousness, but these sound like remarkably thick players. How old are they?

 

EDIT: The rest of that post was my requesting clarification. I'd read your post, but didn't understand why you felt something so drastic was necessary, based on what you'd told us. I wanted more information so I could better answer your question. The way I read your initial post, it sounded like you had a communication issue with your players, not a need to kill them off.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

OK' date=' first off I know this is a touchy subject. I also want to preface this please [b']don't provide responses like, "Don't do it... Just talk to everyone" sort of thing. [/b]If that is your answer, please just don't reply.

 

Generally' date=' the best way I've heard of to kill off characters is to [b']talk to their players, find out how THEY feel about it, then give them something heroic to do as their last stand.[/b]

 

Thank you for proving me right... And how can you say surely they understand' date=' when you certainly didn't understand after I spelled it out. I mean no offense, but it is almost as if you didn't even read before you responded.[/quote']

 

You asked for folks to not reply with "don't do it".

 

Alice suggested talking with your players about HOW to do it.

 

Big difference.

[hfergus]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

First of all, let me note that I have no problems killing characters, esp if it is heroic and makes sense. Given, that, how about something I've done? It was a typical champions mid power game. I (mainly me, but not only) was getting tired and decided to go out with a bang. A interdimensional super-super villian was about to take over "our" dimension and one hero died fighting him .(Brought back, but that is another story.) To do this, he tapped several dimensions he had access to. In effect, the universe (this dimension) had a "radiation accident" - making it normal! No super powers. No super tech. None. Read "our universe". In another, parallel dimension some of this heroes still exist as heros, different but similar. This way characters you like can be kept (but different if need be) and others can be dumped. The back history of the world can be different too. Any thoughts?

[Zed-F]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

For any of these, I'd talk to the players first to see what they'd want their character to face at the end of the game:

 

Option 1: PC dies, in suitably dramatic and heroic fashion

Option 2: PC ascends/vanishes on an interdimensional journey/is forced into retirement/otherwise stops active adventuring and becomes an NPC

Option 3: PC has a radiation accident which changes him in some fashion to be suitable for the next game

 

Float whichever options tickle your fancy and see what they think. There's probably other options too, this is just what came to the top of my mind.

[Peregrine]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

In accordance with their characters/characterization. That is, let the heroic die heroically, saving the day, or something in accordance with what motivates them to be heroes.

 

If there are unheroic characters, perhaps their deaths could be the result of their lack of heroism - an object lesson, perhaps.

 

In short, make it part of the story, and drawn from the story and the characters themselves, while remaining respectful of the characters and the players.

 

Oh, and yeah - talk to the players first.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

What do the other players think? Assuming talking the other two around is not an option, maybe you can build an "end of the team" scenario with the assistance of the other players.

 

The original Doom Patrol went out allowing themselves to be sacrified to save innocents. That's a good way to go.

 

OTOH, you could have a "heroes win or the world ends" scenario that the heroes lose. Now that the world ended, with them on it, I guess we need a new game.

[Captain Liberty]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

I have killed several characters in my time in Hero system games, usually with the consent of the players. Generally it was a matter of the players getting tired of the characters.

 

Your situation leaves several questions open.

 

1. Is this the first (or I suppose 2nd) role playing campaign these players have ever participated in? As someone else asked, how old are these players? This sounds like a situation where the players might decide that, if the campaign is ending, that's the end of their roleplaying career. Maybe it's just time for them to stop role playing.
    
   
2. What do you consider a long campaign? Six months? Six years? Somewhere in between?
    
   
3. Are there no other role players around to fill in the ranks if these people leave?
    
   
4. Some people always want to play the same character. I know people who always play the same character (including appearance, habits, mannerisms, etc), changed just enough to fit the parameters of whatever game they are in. Does this seem to be the case with these guys?
    
   
5. Or are they so used to the campaign world that they cannot conceive of playing in anything else?
   

[seelo]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

First off my reading of your post leads me to conclude that what you're asking for is a some method whereby you can maneuver the reluctant player into accepting the new campaign through character death. If that's so I strongly advise that you don't take that route.

 

You will in all likelihood fail to allay the bad feeling you're trying to avoid and perhaps piss off the rest of your players. I suggest instead you be go back to the reluctant players an tell them that you're (really, really) tired of running this campaign (I assume you are) and that you really mean to end it and talk to them about how to allay their fears of bad GMing. If they can't help you with that or otherwise don't want to deal with it then I humbly submit that you're better off letting them go.

 

Once you get buy in to ending the campaign if you still want to end it with the finality that death brings there are two approaches I have used that can be satisfying for everyone without having to try and pull a fast one.

 

The first is the modified Butch/Sundance ending. You wind the campaign up to a big crescendo with the heroes utterly and unquestionably outmatched and make it clear through the build up that their sacrifice WILL BE THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD and then it will be a good day to die.

 

The second is a modified Blake's 7 approach. As before you wind the campaign up to a crescendo and then point the heroes at a macuffin they ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD and then put the heroes through a meat grinder to get to it. The final survivors get to have their moment as they grab the widget and turn to face the overwhelming tide of enemies who have flooded in behind them. Call phase 12 to begin another combat and let the players declare their actions. Then just give a wicked smile, thank everyone for the great campaign and pack up your dice. The game is done.

 

Oh there's a new one:

 

The Tony Soprano ending. The heroes meet up in a diner and you turn out the lights and go home...

[Ferret]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

I like the nuke idea. I would also consider the giant earth quake device. That goes off the only way to stop California from dropping into the sea is jump down and some how stabilize it. Use a nasty super powerful vampire and eat them. Expose their secret id's and then have villians attack in mass. They die but protect loved ones. A smart villian sets up the traps all over the site of combat. Pc's should go out heroically saving millions if possible. Extra dimensional villians are an excellant choice. See Trigon from the Teen titans. Stop the alien invasion!!

Hope this helps Ferret........

[Balabanto]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Well, in the course of my 20 year Champions campaign, I've killed about seven. I am certain there will be others when I review my history again, but some of these are just nasty.

 

I will list them for you now:

 

1) Mist, first wife of Partacel. A villain captured her and implanted her with dozens of cybernetic weapons. Then he put a deadman switch in her head to blow her up if the signal should be stopped. A PC put a forcefield around the character that stopped radio waves even though the other PC's said NO!. Mist died.

 

2) Geostar, Heroic Kenyan Brick. Geostar leaped into the way of an oncoming missile to stop it from hitting the SPIRIT transport jet. The missile hit him, doing a phenomenal amount of damage, and then he took nearly maximum damage from the fall. Killed by Santa's Elves. Officially the worst death of any superhero in the game ever.

 

3) La Bailandera, Argentine Psychic: Shot to death by Doctor Kukulkan's agents.

 

4) Sentron Dega: Gave up his life energy to stop Warstar's fortress from crashing into the earth.

 

5) Timerunner: Shot to death by horde of agents, fell into genetic vat of slime, was reborn as something else AND the player had the character kill herself. An awful psychological experience for me.

 

6) Synapse: An old PC of someone who retired the character. Killed by a pie filled with DMSO. No lie.

 

7) Aikido: Died to bring Black Lace back to life.

[Comic]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Death in campaigns should never be a railroad.

 

Have the other players decide several options how each other could die, or otherwise leave... Er, each other's characters, I mean.

 

Let the players decide in roleplay which of these ways out they take.

 

The campaign is over and enough of the characters have disbanded, and you have an exciting new campaign planned.. well, the birth of a new game should also never be railroaded.

 

I'd recommend against burning all bridges back to the original campaign.

 

Run alternate sessions of the new campaign and 'resolution episodes' of the old campaign.

 

For those who choose to play the new campaign, they may generate heat and excitement and revive interest and draw others.

 

And who knows, you yourself might decide after seeing the new campaign that you liked the old one better and want to revive it.

 

Plenty of room in the resolution episodes of the old campaign to kill characters off, if you still need to.

 

If the old campaign fades, you carry on with the new campaign. Tally ho.

 

Good luck.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

You asked for folks to not reply with "don't do it".

 

Alice suggested talking with your players about HOW to do it.

 

Big difference.

 

(heavy accent) Nooo.... If you will read your own quotes of what I said, I said, please don't post with responses of, "Don't Do it" you are correct on. But I also said, "Just talk to them" Which is what was suggested.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

QUOTE]

 

BTW Supreme Serpent... Just had to comment because of the name, You just died in my game... A Big Bad Viper Villain teamed up with Viperia in order to kill off all of Viper's leadership and take over. Actually, I haven't completely decided if the Supreme Serpent has been killed or not. He will probably show up again in the campaign to help the players defeat said villain. Though I am not positive.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

First of all' date=' let me note that I have no problems killing characters, esp if it is heroic and makes sense. Given, that, how about something I've done? It was a typical champions mid power game. I (mainly me, but not only) was getting tired and decided to go out with a bang. A interdimensional super-super villian was about to take over "our" dimension and one hero died fighting him .(Brought back, but that is another story.) To do this, he tapped several dimensions he had access to. In effect, the universe (this dimension) had a "radiation accident" - making it normal! No super powers. No super tech. None. Read "our universe". In another, parallel dimension some of this heroes still exist as heros, different but similar. This way characters you like can be kept (but different if need be) and others can be dumped. The back history of the world can be different too. Any thoughts?[/quote']

 

 

Thats a really good idea thanks... Though it might be a bit bigger than this campaign. This campaign centers around Viper, and taking it down. As mentioned in my previous post a villain recently took over Viper from all of its leaders. He is much more aggressive and straight forward, as he is a master Brick supervillain, but thinks very straight forward like most bricks. As such, Viper will, and has already started to succeed in places it once failed simply because he uses overwhelming force. But in doing so, he ends up doing much more harm to Viper than good, as now it becomes much more condensed and actually becomes a beatable entity, whereas it wasn't before. This becomes the "good" ending that is possible now. Though icorporating ideas from this may be doable with some work. Thanks again.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

I have killed several characters in my time in Hero system games, usually with the consent of the players. Generally it was a matter of the players getting tired of the characters.

 

Your situation leaves several questions open.

 

1. Is this the first (or I suppose 2nd) role playing campaign these players have ever participated in? As someone else asked, how old are these players? This sounds like a situation where the players might decide that, if the campaign is ending, that's the end of their roleplaying career. Maybe it's just time for them to stop role playing.

 
The players in question are around 36 or 37 and the other is about 50 to 55. But the older one doesn't appear too experienced in roleplaying games. Not positive though It is the first game I ran him in, I have played with him in a couple of others, one being on Hiatus due to the GM being gone for a while, and the other alternating with mine. The younger player is a more experienced roleplayer, but not top notch. Nothing wrong with that mind you.
 

What do you consider a long campaign? Six months? Six years? Somewhere in between?

 
Six months is a short campaign, very short. Though not unheard of. Six years is about right, though not all campaigns ast that long. This one is only a few years old (2 or 3) and has just recently progressed to the point it could end. It was always considerred that it would end when Viper was defeated. I hadn't planned that Viper would become defeatable this soon, but things that happened in the game made that option, one that made a lot of sense. Still, even though right now it is defeatable, doesn't mean the players WILL succeed at defeating them. Viper needs a strong leader again that knows how to run an organization like this and keep it alive. This is one of the main reasons I may end up having the Supreme Serpent still alive. If he is and helps the heroes defeat the bad guy, then it is possible that he takes control of the organization again, and begins to restrengthen it. It should also be noted that the events that led to the villain taking over occured right after the "Sharper than a Serpents Tooth" storyline, so Viper was already weakened by the conception of Coil.
 

Are there no other role players around to fill in the ranks if these people leave?

 
there are a few, though their schedules may be a problem with ours. It is not simply my game as I split with another so I can't just uproot the night.
 

Some people always want to play the same character. I know people who always play the same character (including appearance, habits, mannerisms, etc), changed just enough to fit the parameters of whatever game they are in. Does this seem to be the case with these guys?
 
Or are they so used to the campaign world that they cannot conceive of playing in anything else?

 

I gave them the option of continuing their characters in a different campaign, albeit that depending on the campaign the characters may need a bit of tweaking. I haven't heard back on that idea. I don't expect to hear from the older player on it for at least a week or two, as he said in his last email, not to bother writing him for a week or two, as the emails will simply be deleted without being read... Yeah, this is the player I don't really mind losing.

 

In fact, I am still not positive if he will be welcomed back at all, since all of this was simply about me mentioning the potential of a new campaign sometime in the future. The other player that explained things to me, said he was under other forms of stress and just dumped it on me, so I may be tolerant...

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

I like the nuke idea. I would also consider the giant earth quake device. That goes off the only way to stop California from dropping into the sea is jump down and some how stabilize it. Use a nasty super powerful vampire and eat them. Expose their secret id's and then have villians attack in mass. They die but protect loved ones. A smart villian sets up the traps all over the site of combat. Pc's should go out heroically saving millions if possible. Extra dimensional villians are an excellant choice. See Trigon from the Teen titans. Stop the alien invasion!!

Hope this helps Ferret........

 

Thanks... hehe, and the attacking en mass thing just happened. Not all villains, but all Viper. The villain in question that took over Viper, is basically the more powerful evil twin of our teams Brick. So he took out our teams Brick, got onto the grounds and into the midst of the heroes before attacking them. This was all a distraction so that thousands of Viper agents being led by Viperia could descend upon the base unnoticed. They have nearly killed our teams version of Professor X and the base is nearly destroyed when the our brick finally got back with a neighboring superhero team. They immediately knew this was more than even both teams could handle so a cosmic entity that is a member of the other team tried to teleport all of our team onto their craft. She used area effect though, and Viperia and the villain dupicate of our brick were in the area. (I know that is really hard to actually do, I caveated it for story purposes. Plus it is not technically illegal as it CAN be done if no one resists.) Can we say BIG FIGHT in a small space with not one but two villains in the level of Viperia fighting. Not saying they will win, but they are still just over most of Viper who has probably around a hundred attack vehicles there, and several hundred flying agents. Not to mention the ground agents that seriously outnumber even the other two.

[Willpower]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

Have the other players decide several options how each other could die, or otherwise leave... Er, each other's characters, I mean.

 

Let the players decide in roleplay which of these ways out they take.

 

Ok, after reading this one, I think I have come up with the reason why a lot of you cannot really understand what I am talking about when I say these guys don't want to switch characters, but have no problem with it if their characters die. One thing I failed to mention about both of these players is that by FAR they are both more experienced at roleplaying in D&D. In fact for the older one, he has never played in Champions until this campaign. As such, they are used to characters dying before making a new one. In Champions however death is typically something that is decided upon by player or player and GM. They do not obviously think in this fashion. At least one of them is much more used to hack and slash, the both are more used to D&D. Maybe now you'll see why they have no problem dying, they just want it to be in the game, not something planned out. Knowing Champions the way I do, it is hard to kill characters though, unless you try to. So the trick if I need to do so, is to try to, without looking like I am trying too.

[input.jack]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

If you cater to their "need" to have their characters killed even to switch to a DIFFERENT campaign, youll never break them of this habit.

 

Youre not making them write new characters every week. From what youve said this is the first time theyd have to write new ones.

 

I say tell them to cowboy up and get with the program.

 

Is this a "Dont do it, just talk to everyone" answer?

 

It could be read that way.

 

But when you ask for my advice, you get my best advice. If its not to your taste, so be it.

 

Personally, I think bending over backwards to kill characters just so that you can change genres/campaigns is RIDICULOUS, and will only reinforce their weird preconceptions in the future. AND it means theyve made you dance to their tune on a topic where they are, frankly, being totally unreasonable.

 

But you can obviously do what you think youve gotta do.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to kill characters?

 

(heavy accent) Nooo.... If you will read your own quotes of what I said' date=' I said, please don't post with responses of, "Don't Do it" you are correct on. But I also said, "Just talk to them" Which is what was suggested.[/quote']

 

Ah.

 

From the OP, I think I and others thought you meant you didn't want suggestions that consisted of trying to talk you out of doing it and INSTEAD and ONLY talking to your players about how you want to switch games.

 

Instead you actually just want suggestions about how to kill the characters, avoid any communication with the players about it, and have it look like an accident?

 

Ah.