So here is a house rule that I thought of. If one of your PCs dies, and the player goes out with a flourish, with a suitably dramatic end, such as an inspirational speech, diving on a hand grenade, using his last breath to drive a mortal wound into an Ork Warboss, something along those lines, award the player's new character a bonus fate point.

Even in death, good roleplaying should always be rewarded.

indeed i stole that rule from Deathwatch as well

makes for better motivation to die epic/dramatic

Deathwatch works a tad differently though, as it has to do with Geneseed retrieval.

true enough but the spirit is what makes such rules awesome

Instead of giving them 1 fate point for dying dramatically, I like to give my players certain bonuses to their new characters if they die while doing something their characters would have done. I don't expect a character with the coward demeanor to jump on top of a grenade, or to charge, while missing an arm, against a carnifex. If the character was reckless and died while shooting his melta with one hand, while running with an unpinned krak grenade on the other, then that will give that player's new character, bonus xp at character creation, or an extra fate point, their choice.

Death is death whatever else it might mean, it always means "you lose."

Why are you rewarding players choosing not to survive? if yu put this in lace make sure you aren`t building an exploitable mechanic.

eg.

player1: I just finished rolling up my ratling, bow before the sniper hobbits! How about your Stormie?

player2: I`m not goin to play the stormtrooper straight off.

player1: what? Oh I see learn the system with a basic class first yeah?

player2: Nope, I`m rolling a scrub rifleman, I`m going to hurl him to his death in the first session for the bonus xp/fate on my next guy then because most GMs are too afraid to their player having a tantrum to punish death I`ll build that stormtrooper I planned with the extra bonus and all the xp you guys earned for surviving.

Death is death whatever else it might mean, it always means "you lose."

Why are you rewarding players choosing not to survive? if yu put this in lace make sure you aren`t building an exploitable mechanic.

eg.

player1: I just finished rolling up my ratling, bow before the sniper hobbits! How about your Stormie?

player2: I`m not goin to play the stormtrooper straight off.

player1: what? Oh I see learn the system with a basic class first yeah?

player2: Nope, I`m rolling a scrub rifleman, I`m going to hurl him to his death in the first session for the bonus xp/fate on my next guy then because most GMs are too afraid to their player having a tantrum to punish death I`ll build that stormtrooper I planned with the extra bonus and all the xp you guys earned for surviving.

I think the only way to lose in a role-playing game is by being a terrible player, and I don't mean in the competitive sense.

Killing your characters on purpose to get some mechanical reward is terrible role-playing and also wastes everyone's time while you roll up your new "better" character.

People who would do something like this would be better off just playing video games.

Well, our reward for a "blaze of glory" is the blaze of glory. Once we had a very dire scenario where one soldier was shot in the leg, making it a real mess, slowing down his entire squad. It was an urban scenario and they were cut of other units and under nonstop guerrilla sting-attacks (hope you get what I mean, not my native language^^). The only thing keeping them alive was a tank in their unit of an armored regiment and it was a real thrilling campaign where they had to be constantly vigilant. The tank was keeping them alive, and they protected the tank.

Though after some time, after they were weakened by opposing forces, tired, sleepless received wounds and losses due to ambushes and occasional sniper fire the enemy launched an attack when they had to cross a small square. The tank was lost due to a lucky shot and bursted into a huge explosion silencing the entire battle when the seperatists launched their final attack, leading to a desperate fall back of the imperial troops. This is where one of them received a horrible leg wound, nearly loosing his leg and was carried away and the medic saved him while their squad fought the insurgents off, taking shelter in a near building.

When they continued their desperate escape things started to get worse. They were slowed down by their tiredness and the wounded they had to carry with them when the wounded soldier pushed the man, backing him, away and turned around and with a short nod between the sergeant and him everything was clear. He decided to stay back, making his last stand and buying his comrades the time they needed.

Finally he managed to delay their pursuers until he was killed by an enemy sniper, immortalizing this character as a memory for us, of how awesome RP can become and to the other PCs that still remember all their fallen comrades by name to this day, keeping a place and a shot glass free among them for those that did not make it.

Imho there are situations like these where characters get the chance to die as a hero. Though there are also that situations where death is not that heroic at all. We do not allow special actions, killing the cult leader just because the PC was killed etc. for we accept that these two scenarios exists. But every character is, or should be played with dedication, or love, or whatever. This is what gets remembered and does not require a reward on its own for the story that had been told is the reward.