- I want to make death a constant and present threat so that players are cautious and deliberate.
- I don't want to kill off characters my players are invested in and then have to spend minutes or hours making new characters instead of playing.
A 'solution' I have seen (and one I have used myself) is to make death SEEM constant and terrifying, but actually have it be rare and unlikely. This is a bad solution. It's not good. Don't do it. One day the players will see behind the curtain and their whole experience will be ruined.
Instead, I ask a simple question. Well, a few questions.
What is worse than death?
1. What, to a player, is more challenging than rolling a new character?
Roll up a table of hit locations. Hell, here's a simple one (thanks Nemesis!)
1 Left Leg 2 Right Leg 3-4 Left Arm 5-6 Right Arm 7-9 Torso 10 Head
When a player character (PC) runs out of hit points and would 'die,' instead roll a ten-sided die (1d10). You'll get a hit location. Hurt them there. Right arm? Break their sword. Torso? Tear open their backpack and smash all their potions & scrolls. Head? Take one of their eyes. Left leg? Chop it off at the knee. Pick something narrative-appropriate, and don't use it too often.
2. What, to the character, is more confronting than mere death?
This is, to me at least, the fun one. It's also got more potential to backfire, since it requires you (usually) to forgo a mechanical penalty in favour of a narrative one. In some cases, you might even give a mechanical bonus to a character who in traditional rules should be dead. Handle with care.
A holy man, fallen in battle. Their god abandons their spirit, and so a passing devil offers them a return to life. A proud shepherd of the forest, their wounds stitched by cold steel and factory-spun thread. A death curse that can't be dodged, but can be redirected onto a blood relative. Make your players (and by extension, their characters) choose a fate that, to them, may be worse than death.
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