Let's say a character died. In the dark grimness of the Empire, this is hardly an unexpected event.

How do you handle the replacement PC? I could see three ways:

1. Sucks To Be You: the new PC is a new PC, period. He starts with whatever new PCs got at the beginning of the campaign.
2. Instant Awesome: the new PC starts off as above, plus gets free XP / Advances equal to the rest of the party.
3. New Guy Learns Quick: the new PC starts off as in (1), but gains XP / Advances at an accelerated rate, until he's caught up with the rest of the party

So, what does your group do?

Create a new character, with half as many "free" advances as you had when you perished. If you had 10XP when you died, now you have 5.

This makes death a "bad thing" without completely causing you to start over.

In addition, you might want to discuss this with your group – especially if this might happen repeatedly.

I guess on the whole this is less of a problem if your group is not min-maxing and more into role playing and narration.

In my games, new or replacement PCs start off with a little less experience than the rest of the party, sometimes exactly the same amount.

Starting them off half way is a fair deal, it makes it not totally suck to have to start a new guy, but it also doesn't allow the players to just be crazy and have the attitude "oh well, I'll just make a new guy if I die".

It still punishes them, but won't ruin the game or have one player lacking.

D.

Death don't need extra penalty, really. Players intuitively try not to die. Dying is a bad thing in itself and that's common in every games. So I'll make them start a new character with the same amount of advances as the others.

Don't forget that in this system, you basically gain 1 xp just for showing up at the game, so if you have to start off with no advances when you die, a player who's always there will be more penalised since he have more chances of dying than the one showing up once every other session.

Silverwave said:

I totall agree. Punishing players for bad luck and/or a hardcore killer system kills off alot of energy that should go into the roleplaying.

I even give a player the extra points he missed if he was away for a session or two, just to keep up with the rest of the group.

I believe it's the level of the group that is important not the player that has the most points. It is not a competition (powergame-race), it's about group effort (fun).

I'd agree with the above.

I've played/run in games where characters have greatly differing experience levels. On the whole I don't think this was a good thing. in my experience it tended to be a buzzkill.

I think it's completely reasonable to have them make a new character at around the same experience level as the party for a couple of reasons:

• It is easier to manage.
• From a roleplaying prespective I figure more experienced heroes would look for someone compatable to join them, not some FNG mook.

Ultimately though I think WFRP is designed in such a way that characters of different experience are only slightly different from one another (in terms of ability and capability). Even using characters of different ranks shouldn't throw a game off or out of balance.

I have always played it like this:

A new character gets the same amount of experience points, as the lowest amount the remaining party have.

In that way, experience points will if the characters tend to die one at the time.

If all players die at the same time: Game Over/restart.

DJ Rebel said:

Unless you give extra xp to only some players (which the game advises not), this will do nothing.

I've always killed PC's off rather quickly in my groups. I'm a Duke of Evil Rat Bastardry so estimate one PC per 1-2 game sessions get's turned over and sometimes there are even enough remains to be buried...

Our rules: (D&D, Pathfinder, WFRP and otherwise):

1. 5% less xp

2. 5% less loot

3. All items were buried with the dead character unless they were a major plot item.

On the same lines, we have some table rules:

1. No player holds our games hostage. Meaning: No single player character is /the/ plot device. 2nd Meaning: If someone doesn't bother to show up, we play anyways as long as we have at least 3 players (normally 5). 3rd Meaning: Player WILL be replaced if he starts missing games regularly. 4th Meaning: we don't schedule or wait for any players and xp is given accordingly.

2. Players police their own. I rule. If someone disagrees, the ruling stands until THEY look it up. 2nd Meaning: if a player is being a jerk, it's up to the other players to straighten him out (this only applies at conventions

jh

1000th Download of my FALSE PRETENSES scenario

My players are usually depressed enough after they die. I always feel like penalizing them further is like kicking a puppy that just had its back legs run over by a truck.