An alternative to making a last stand and dying heroically is for a character to retire peacefully. They might ride away into the sunset with their NPC of choice, or decide they need to take charge of something else going on.
Letting characters have some kind of option for retirement means your players can have confidence that things are worth doing outside of combat- and outside of the main storyline. Maybe they want to settle down and start an inn, or head a group of thieves you just rescued, or marry that handsome prince. As a GM, you can absolutely use this to drive your stories instead of just losing them- you can bring in your players' old characters as questgivers, and as people who can drive the storyline. It's important that while you can threaten them, or maybe even hurt them (burn down their inn, kidnap their kids, etc.), you shouldn't kill them off. It doesn't make them immortal, but don't just end them offscreen- they used to be a hero, don't you know! Not that you have to tell your players that... Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 26 July 2019. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
May 2022
Categories
All
|