It hit me like a hammer

My man died.
He was an old bastard, a crazy religious nut, and Jeff kicked his head off.
It was awesome.

I like character death, it seems cruel to say but it's true. I'm usually a player so one would think I'm usually on the business end of death, but I'm not. The problem is that since we tend to run epic stories like anime or video games that we build up the characters to the point that they are unkillable from a story perspective. I appreciate the type of storytelling we do because it resonates with me as a player and as a gamer (the vidya type), it makes you feel important and powerful.

I'm starting to feel like we've too long coddled each other, we are in our mid to late twenties now and I feel like it's time to sack up about getting whacked. If our characters make a bad decision like fighting a dragon that is far too powerful or challenging that necromancer to a duel when all he wanted to do was offer us a quest, we should die. As it stands it forces our GMs to rewrite the stats of something or worse, ad lib through it until the players realize that would ruin shit for the GM and back off for metagame reasons. We are pussies, and D&D has not traditionally helped us get some balls with it's easy access to raise dead and assumptions that your characters can be brought back from the grave. The World of Darkness doesn't have that handy ability but because of our preferred GMing style the PCs typically end up being invincible.

We are starting up this Pathfinder rotating GM campaign and we nixed raise dead right off the bat. I find myself gleeful about my new mortality in a way that makes me excited to both run this game and play in it. This world is lethal and dangerous, the characters are not "The Chosen Ones" from session one, and the setting we've devised is not particularly kind to reckless asshole types. If we make bad decisions we may very well pay for them with our lives. The fate of the world may end up at our fingertips, but our own fate is something that we'll be constantly considering.

Here I'd like to talk a little about why I feel PC kills can be fun and exciting. They make the table gasp and bring a sort of tension that is impossible to replicate. It also creates a memorable moment for the entire group, another awesome roleplaying story to add to the collection. A dead PC hits the players like a hammer blow to the chest, like this shit just got real. It can also be hilarious, because as serious as the situation was, I still had my head kicked off. We are talking a roundhouse kick to the side of the head, resulting in a messy separation. After a few hours a great many chuckles were had at my character's expense.

We are sacking up in a major way and we'll see if it affects any real change in our play style. I'd like to see a more realistic take on games and a bit more open-mindedness on the part of the players and GMs. With any luck a dead PC won't be a taboo and we'll get some dead guys on both sides of the field.

-Lee