When Bad Things Happen to Good Characters

I’ve recently had a run of really bad luck with my die rolls while gaming. By bad luck I mean a disturbing number of fumbles. Six fumbles in a single battle with gargoyles was only a small part of my dice-related woes. What could I do but laugh about it? Sometimes even bad rolls can be fun.

You can’t really look at an RPG as a game in the conventional sense. Since there are no set conditions for final victory, the game can go on indefinitely. Characters may die, but they are replaced my others who are hopefully as original and inspired as the ones that were lost. Things like fumbling, character death or, worst of all, losing levels, can be depressing. Losing a character who’s concept your really liked, or one who you’ve kept alive for a long time can be sort of traumatic, but it can also be part of the fun.

The bad things that happen during an RPG session ad to the drama, and therefore to the fun. ‘Winning’ an RPG is kind of impossible. This fact is often responsible for novice gamers abandoning the hobby because most people think of a game as being something to be won or lost, while the object of RPGs aren’t as easily define. Risk is won when your fictional army dominates the world. Monopoly is won when every other players is bankrupt. When can you declare an RPG as being won. Victory is often measured by having your character survive to be used in the next adventure.

The characters themselves are abstract. A set of statistics and possibly a drawing being maneuvered in an imaginary world confronting imaginary threats. This world is detailed to a degree that those most people find virtually incomprehensible. So when someone who is experimenting with RPGs for the first time gets a character killed, or has some other setback befall them, they give up.

Those players that stick with gaming still can get upset when a character is killed. I’ve seen quite a bit of moping, (some of it mine) and even a few temper tantrums after an adventure went badly for the players. Having played RPGs for over two decades now, I’ve learned to laugh at setbacks; even when my favorite character fumbles every other time she attacks. Setbacks and character death are what makes the good things that happen more satisfying. RPGs are built around adventure, without the possibility of setbacks, there can be no adventure.