I'm planning on GMing for a DH game early next year, and while looking over the corebook and such, one thing that seems to go unanswered is how a GM ought to do with re-rolling a character after a player's previous one kicks the bucket. Since I know about DH's high mortality rate, I thought some information regarding that would've been important.

So, how do you existing GMs deal with XP for re-rolled characters? Do you have them start completely over again with 400 XP? Retain all of the accumulated XP from their dead character? Take a percentage penalty?

I've recently considered the same issue. My plan was to have my players roll up two or three characters to start. Once on dies, they level up the new character to the average level of the surviving group, give him/her some equipment and we're back on track. Of course, the new character would enter as appropriate by the story, but that gives the player time to level up.

This also lets the GM know what to expect. You have an adept, a techprist, an assassin, and a scum currently, with two psykers, a cleric, an arbitrator, and two guardsmen waiting in the wings.

Cervantes has the right idea. Staffing a character stable or Character Tree (any Dark Sun players remember that?) provides a stable platform for your players to draw from. Actually, I found that Dark Heresy really isn't that Rank or level dependent. Pcs of differing Ranks should not pose a significant problem. If you were feeling particularly generous and wanted to give the dog a bone, you could either allow the character to reroll a charachter of the appropriate rank or perhaps give the pcs new rank 1 character a few extra Fate points, thus allowing the poor sap that continually dies a fighting chance. Personally, I use a group Fate pool that gains points equal to the Rank of the fallen pc. For example, my party of 4 acolytes posses a group Fate pool of 5 Fate points. Through their own folly, they find themselves trapped aboard a flaming transport. By spending 4 Fate pool points and one gm deux machina later, the group survives the fiery explosion but are horribly scarred and maimed (I rule that they are stripped of 5 Characteristic points from an Characteristic of their choice or permenantly loose 1 Wound). A character that is without fate points for personal use can draw a point from the group pool, but only with the consent of each member of the group. Sorry if I digressed. I hope this rambling rant helps!

I had another player join the game I'm running after the cell finished their first mission. Started him a couple of hundred XP behind the rest and he's doing fine. Will probably do the same should any characters snuff it.

An age-old RP issue - replacement PCs.

For me, the answer is really about how you've constructed the game, and what you and your group wants. To that end there really isn't a right or wrong answer.

As GM, i'm initially inclined to have a new PC begin as a starting character with the base XP total.

However, in practice, in most games i run, i tend to surround the PCs with a cast of NPC henchmen who act as 'potential PCs'. therefore when a PC dies, there's a pool of potential replacements for the player to choose from to 'promote' to a PC. In this case, i'll already have the key aspects of the character mapped out, and a good number of stats/skills already done. So the player has a 'partial template' already generated so i'll give them a number of xp or advances appropriate for them to fill in the blanks as they wish.

Of course, the PCs and players will know the 'new guy' quite well which really helps integrate the new PC into the group.

Alternately, should the player wish to not take on an available NPC, they can make a completely new PC. I'll tend to make these new PCs have less xp though, and integration becomes more problematic. That said, DH makes it easy to slot new PCs in as they can simply be assignd by the Inquisitor.

Ultimately, its up to you and your group to decide how you want to handle things and as long as everyone is happy, you're doing it right...

In my game replacement characters start with approximately the same XP as the rest of the group (give or take a few 100 points). The in-universe explanation for this is that replacing a KIA acolyte with someone who is less experienced and unproven would decrease the performance of the cell and is therefore an undesirable solution.

I go from what thousand point interval that they have passed last, although I generally give bonus experience for me to spend on where I think it would be best applicable for a character to have based on background.

Problem is, I have one Acolyte that has survived against all odds, and has made it to 4500 experience, while the rest have died (some repeatedly) and are around 2400-3200 experience while one guy (the prime) is at 4500, and is incredibly insane and paranoid.

Bit at a standstill with him, trying to get him not to kill PCs.

Initially, I wanted to just let people start over from scratch. The difference in ranks isn't that huge in Dark Heresy, anyway.

Apparently, I was the only one who thought that was a good idea, so I'm working on a system that will essentially allow a player to 'level up' between adventurers. Each interval of 'free' xp (say, 200) requires a roll on a table of what has happened to the character to earn said experience. From nothing, over little unimportant events, to big permanently-crippled-or-dead stuff. Yes, you can actually end up dying in chargen this way... when that happens I'll allow three options: 1) Burn a fate point to play the guy anyway. Close call. 2) 'roll-back' one interval of xp - with apropriate feelings of impending doom. Or 3) Let the character join the Hall of Martyrs, and roll something else.

I feel it kinda follows in line with the spirit of Dark Heresy, and it solves both issues of new characters and players who miss a session being able to keep up with the others. However, I don't just want to hand out free experience. Experience comes with a serious risk of death, injury, insanity and corruption. This system (when done) will allow the players to choose whether they want to risk it or not (and will probably be a little harsher than actually earning the xp by sitting through a session).

Havn't quite worked out the tables for it yet though.

I think there are older systems that do something similar. Alas, I don't know any, so I don't have anywhere to steal ideas from. Right now I'm going on vague recolections of the Darklands crpg chargen and such.

I've long had a policy that if you need to make a new character for whatever reason, your new character gains any unspent XP possessed by the previous character. I do this because as far as I'm concerned XP is earned by the player, not the character.

I've let my players re-start with the same XP they already had for the same reason, but they don't get te xp for the game they died in :

Some methods I've used:

1) Start from scratch with a new character.

2) Start with an xp boost relative to the current party average.

3) Start with an xp boost relative to the level of the previous character.

I've stopped using method 1. It's delightfully old-school, but it's not all that much fun for "modern" rolepalying. I use method 2 for those occaisions where a new player joins the campaign and method 3 for replacement characters for players whose characters have died or retired.

-K

One method I've thought about is the have it entirely done in game. So when a cell member is KIA the rest have to go a recruit someone else, HOWEVER only certain options will be available based on what planet they are on at the moment.

For example:

One of the group snuffs it and the team is on a feral world. The new character WILL be from a feral world. None of the Void-born in the middle of Catachan bollocks.

Until a new guy is recruited, the player sits out the game. The player doesn't get to say what he does want, only what he doesn't want.

The exp level is also up to the group although the player previous exp level acts as a marker. i.e If a character had 4500 exp, his new character could have anything up to, but not over, this amount

Surprisingly, I have not yet smeared any of the main characters all over three scenes yet, though we have had a few very dramatic adventures where the healthiest acolyte was at 1 remaining wound, THREE were at zero and the rest were in criticals but still standing (and messy!).

What I have had is new players wanting to join in after the campaign started...

Originally I used the roll up a character, tell me the concept, spend 400xp and give me a chance to arrange for "the new guy" to be introduced. This worked for a little while, and it is perfectly workable to have advanced and rookie characters together in DH. More to avoid GM headaches in tailoring "threat level" of adventures to the group to make for a more satisfying game experience while at the same time rewarding the players that are solid and attend any games they were not hospitalized for I decided to start "tiering" the new characters. I do not put them at the same XP as the existing characters, as they have earned those points at literal risk to body, mind and soul. Three of the core characters have different fate point totals than when they started and almost all of them have some insanity points.

The method I have begun using is to place the new characters about one full rank tier behind the "old guard" and usually do so in blocks of 200-400xp, stacking until They stand a fair chance to do cool and exciting things. This also has the perk of making gear easier to deal with. Per DH core rulebook every extra 400xp at character creation is worth a month's pay. Sure, this means you don't START play with a gold-filigreed best-quality boltgun that was personally blessed by Saint Timothy the Mostly Deaf, but you DO get a nice serviceable kit. Half the missions involve undercover or special-issue gear anyways or restrictions on what can be used for denyability. Besides, any piece of wargear that cool is certainly not for sale for mere Throne Gelt. I also will make custom changes to their starting "free" kit depending on their character story. "My character is very devout and mutters prayers whenever under stress. I would like to start with a prayer book or two and a special bookmark that was given to me by the Sister Sororitas that first taught me to read." is rewarded. "So, my guy collects postage stamps and power swords." is not. I likewise require descriptions of any Charms that a character might posess at character creation. If you can't tell me what it is and why it is special to your character, then it obviously is lacking in any real power.

For the main game the core team of acolytes just barely creeped over the line into rank 4 and the newbies are top of 2/bottom of 3 depending on how much they have spent (sometimes you just want to save up for the big expensive advances..). It also helps that my current batch of players saw wisdom in making a team with diversified talents, so I am not stuck with 4 feral guardsmen and a lobotomized psyker poking at a toaster with a stick, goading the strange xenos artefact into revealing it's secrets!

I do as a principle give the same xp to all PCs in the saga (apart from a few rare bonus xp once in a blue moon), no matter if their player is there on a particular gaming opportunity or not. I also let my players grade the groups performance in a few simple areas, such as "fun", "ooc-limiting", "involvement of the story", "caracter acting", "john woo descriptions", "constructive storytelling" etc. Only "fun" is mandatory by me, the rest are set by the players and me together. These are not static. sometimes they change to reflect something we feel the group wants to focuse more on. Xp earned is based on how the players rate our performance. (nb: the characters rate of success or ability to cooperate is not a factor at all, this is all about how the players spent the evening).

This system came as a conclusion after a lot of thinking and comparing gamesystems. Important questions for me was: Exactly what is the purpose of xp? Are they a reward? What for? Do they belong to the character? Can caracters gain xp outside gaming sessions? Do they belong to the player? How does a potential discrepancy in the number of xp affect the group dynamics between the players? What do I want my players to do during an evening of play? What do my players want to do during an evening of play? Could I bribe them with xp to get them to do what I want them to do? Should I? Does that mean that they actually want xp, rather than play the game? Do I want them to compete with one another for a limited pool of xp? And so on... I decided that xp should be a reward to the group (of players) for making a good time for the group. It is a cooperative effort, so should be rewarded cooperatively. A few times during this latest campaign I have handed out bonus xp (usually 50xp) to a specific player, following a general acclamation that the player had done something truly wonderful for the enjoyment of our evening. Dropping an excellently epic and clever oneliner in character was one such feat, oneshotting a 'stealer with a table leg(!) was another and baking a wonderful cake (with aquila) for the group was a third.

This pretty unusual xp-system will of course mean that every character that is created as a replacement will be at the same level of xp as all the other characters in the party. The xp-number belong to the group of players after all. Storywise I will make my very best to involve the new character with the party, and the players input tend to be invaluable to that end.

Zilla-Prime: You do realize most of the threads you posted in are between a half and a full year old, don't you?

Heh, I like thread necromancy.

In principle, I give new characters something like 400XP plus 75% of the average earned XP of the rest of the party. In practice I have had zero character deaths so far (my campaign is not at all combat-heavy). I have had one character retire for in-character reasons (she started the game as a 50-odd-year-old psyker who had spent most of her years stuck on a black ship in a warp storm, then encountered a daemonspawn which drover her temporarily insane; after that she IC couldn't see the point in continuing). When the party move towards the 4000XP mark I might be a bit more generous... I think starting 1000XP behind might be a bit much.

For me it's Half of what their last character had. So the more they die the less they get over all

Teaches players to be a bit more careful with stuff in game and ponder whether challenging a bar room full of Metallicans to "pull n shoot" fastest for a throne to the winner...

I tend to base it around HOW the character died, and if they do everything to keep the character alive that they feasably could. Examples A and B:

A)

Mordiki the assassin and his party of six acolytes are on a rogue trader whom succumbed to the temptations of the warp, and realizing his end was comming he overloaded the plasma reactors before putting his own laspistol in his mouth. Lucky for the group, however, there is an escape pod that will get them to saftey on the planet below. Unfortunatly, the controls to send the pod out are external, from the bridge, and there is only enough room in the pod for six people. Time is short, and while the group bickers at the enterance of the pod who will be the one to stay behind, Mordiki uses his brute strength to push all six in and seal the pod behind them. He gives one final salute to his brothers and sisters in arms before rushing to the bridge to send them to safety, after the pod is clear, the plasma reactors blow, sending poor loyal Mordiki to the Emperor's side.

(This above situation would give the PC who played Mordiki 100% of the exp his character had, as well as an additional fate point to the new character. Mordiki's equipment would be examined by the GM and a fair balance of new equipment would be given to his new character.)

B)

Castus the adept gets his arm blown off in a firefight. His vitals are stabilized and he now ponders over the stump that was once his arm. He looks into buying a new replacement arm, only to find a rather old shabby piece of cybernetics. He refuses to pay money for such a "worthless pile of junk", and sends his inquisitor a communicae stateing his retirement.

(This situation is an in-game representation of power gaming, IMHO, therefor the PC who retired Castus just because he could only afford and find a poor quality bionic arm, in a character who should never be in a firefight to begin with. I would give this PC 50% of his former characters exp, and 2-3 monthly salaries to buy new equipment with.)

Rule of thumb my friends, if it makes a good story, or the bloke does everything in his power to keep the character alive (I.E. burning all fatepoints), then they should be rewarded. If they play their characters and are unhappy with one turn of events so they retire or commit suicide, then they shouldnt be rewarded. Warning, this does cause inner party conflict from time to time. But overall it encourages players to be heroic and roleplay well insted of powergame well.

In every system i'm the DM, i'll grant new rolled chars a average grouplevel -1 (sometimes -2) rank/level with 1-3 special items depending on the level.

When this becomes an issue for me, I intend to start them off on two-thirds of the average XP of the group, and introduce the new character when sensible for the plot. I'm not a fan of "Start again on full XP" since it rather takes some of the drama out of the death in the first place. There's no point a PC dying if the player in question doesn't care

Tullio said:

The drama about a characters death should be about the noble sacrifice of an individual for her friends and for the Imperium. It should be about "Hand me those grenades. I'll delay them here at the airlock. You bring the tome to the shuttle and get the hell out of here!" It should be about tears and resolution and fighting the horror and the pain of knowing your inevitable mortality is catching up with you. It should be about hesitantly doing what you know needs to be done. It should be about composing silently in your head the letter that you wish you could send to your husband, the one that makes him understand why you were gone so much, why your stories doesn't always add up, where you have gotten all your scars from, that you always understood that he didn't believe your stories but loved you too much to question you. That you loved him. The drama should be in knowing that you will never see your youngest daughter walk, and never get to look at that drawing your eldest son talked so proudly about on the vox when you were in transit off your homeplanet.

The drama should be about the loss and powerlessness that her friends feels. It should be about the outrage over one of the Imperiums most stalwart defenders getting a lie about her death sent home to her family, because so secret was her work that noone can tell her husband why she really died. So he and their children will forever go about their lives doubting that there was an accident at the mining colony that they are pretty sure she wasn't quite honest about working at. The drama should be played out with the acolytes breaking a direct order about discretion to sit in a car parked by the local chapel. Their only reason for going AWOL to get a look at the funeral through rainspattered windows. The drama should be about noone pretending to hear the silent sobbing.

The drama should be in questions: Could we have done something different to save her? Could we at least have challenged the horrors of the warp to bring her body home? Didn't she deserve better than being left to forever drift as a frozen corpse among the debris that once were the Ekkstont IV station? And the drama should be about an empty coffin in a shallow grave that is all there is to raise a headstone over.

If the only drama that results from a character death is players outrage over loss of xp, you are not playing a roleplaying game. They you are playing a strategy game.

Sorry about the rant. I didn't mean it quite as harsh as it came out.

If the only drama that results from a character death is players outrage over loss of xp, you are not playing a roleplaying game. They you are playing a strategy game.

I agree. However, it's a lot easier for a death to be dramatic if the character means something to the player - part and parcel with the other factors that (With any luck) add up to a memorable moment inthe game. Besides which, a lot of people treat an RPG as at least partly strategic anyway, which is something that has to be worked around if one intends to have a group to keep playing the game with

Personally, I allow them to start out with the same XP that there last (swoon) pc had.

My reason behind this is that I like to encourage my players to perceive the death of pc not as a "Game Over" but as part of the story. I had non till know, but I would even go so far to offer rpg xp "posthum" if the players makes it figure deliver a good scene of breathing his final breath.

Yes, this could encourage stupid players to do stupid things. But since all my subjects are rather attached to their figures, they normally wouldn´t thinkg about abusing my method.

Mellon said:

That is awesome... Unfortunately my character is a hateful nasty b**** that wouldn't shed a tear over a death of a member of her team. And if she ever died in a noble or self-sacrificing way everyone on the team would know that it happened by accident. But I totally agree with the sentiment. Rant on.

EDIT: Doh! I can never get the quote thingie to work right.

Here's something I threw together using a suggestion in an earlier post.

Roll a d% for every 200XP your new character wishes to have advanced to them. Then consult the table.

01-10: Salary(x3).
11-30: Salary(x2).
31-60: Salary.
61-80: Nothing.
81-90: Misfortune.
91-95: Calamity!
96-00: Explosive Critical (1d100 on pg 194 DH for location) 1d10-TB for effect. Or -1 fate point to avoid result.

Misfortune:

- Rank 1 and 2: None.
- Rank 3 and 4: - Salary.
- Rank 5: +1 Insanity or Corruption.
- Rank 6 and 7: +2 Insanity or Corruption or +1 to each.
- Rank 8: 1d5+1 Insanity or Corruption.

Calamity:

- Rank 1 and 2: +2 Insanity or Corruption or +1 to each.
- Rank 3 and 4: 1d5 Insanity or Corruption.
- Rank 5: 1d10 Insanity or Corruption or 1d5 to each.
- Rank 6 and 7: 2d10 Insanity or Corruption or 1d10 to each.
- Rank 8: 2d10 Insanity and 2d10 Corruption.

Basically you can tweak this however you like. I tried to curve the Misfortune and Calamity rolls based on the level of threats an acolyte of the appropriate rank would face.

Salary means the monthly amount of thrones the acolyte would receive.

The critical roll only counts for death results, limb loss results and/or characteristic loss. Any replacement cybernetics would come out of the character's pockets. Sorry. Or if the GM is particularly nasty they'll make you roll to see if you bleed to death (thus have to burn a fate point) or lose a limb and a fate point.

This would represent what happened to the acolyte before they joined with the group.