It happens in virtually every campaign. The longer the game runs, the more overprotective of their characters the players become. They become more and more attached to the characters and more adverse to exposing them to serious risk.

The GM, on the other hand, wants to continually raise the stakes and up the ante, in order to keep the thrill of virtual danger alive. The resulting increase in threat levels only serves to increase the tendency toward caution by the players, who know that one wrong move will kill off one of the characters to whom they have become attached.

I’ve seen proposals from time to time to solve this problem, none entirely satisfactory. The best solution to date has been a gradual shift in attitude on the part of the GM from one of “the PCs may not survive this” to “the PCs may not be able to solve this”. Character survival is an inherent assumption.

But there are a couple of alternatives that I would like to present for consideration in today’s article.

Proposal One: Use-by dates

Characters have a fixed use-by date measured in a maximum number of game sessions before the character has to be retired, one way or the other, even if it is by GM fiat. Missed game sessions still count against this total, so skipping play does not extend the life of your character. As the date of doom approaches, the player will either start to look at ways for the character to either retire gracefully, or to experience a heroic ending. The latter is incompatible with the ultra-cautious approach that naturally tends to arise, leading players to attempt ever-more-spectacular accomplishments before they finally bite off more than they can chew.

As solutions go, this works, but it is not without its drawbacks. First, there is an ultraconservative no-risk alternative built into the proposal. Second, if everyone generates their characters at the same time, they will all expire at the same time, placing group continuity at risk; it would be much better if the infusion of new blood was more gradual. If you run the sort of campaigns that have a high mortality rate a low levels, this will be achieved naturally, so this solution remains viable, but it won’t work for everyone.

There are many variants that use a trigger other than the number of game sessions – it could be character levels (if the system has them), or an xp total (much the same thing, but applies more universally), or a calendar based approach (2 years from the start of play). Ultimately, they all add up to the same thing.

Proposal Two: Sword Of Damocles dates

A variation on this approach is one that pre-establishes a use-by date as such, but instead nominates a date at which point a Sword Of Damocles will be (metaphorically) positioned over the character’s head. Prior to this date, the GM will not try any harder to kill the character than he tries to kill anyone else; past this date, the GM will actively seek to forcibly retire the character at any point where doing so enhances the overall plot.

Again, if necessary and useful to the plot, this can be by GM Fiat rather than with the usual escape clauses that might be provided like saving throws, etc. The Adventures the GM designs should offer chances for the character to go down in a heroic sacrifice to save others and provide the PC with a fitting ending.

The biggest problem with this solution is that it deliberately introduces an adversarial element to the game between the Player and the GM. The GM is trying his darnedest to kill off the PC and the player presumably doesn’t want this to happen, and so will fight tooth and nail to avoid it.

On the other hand, it does give the GM the option of leaving the sword suspended until an appropriate ending does manifest itself as an option. So it’s not without its merits, either.

Proposal Three: Mandated Exit Strategies

This only really works in campaigns that require or expect a lot of character development by the player. The idea is that each character has to specify a condition that, if met, will lead to that character retiring as soon as possible. For example, my Co-GM in the Adventurer’s Club Campaign has a character in another friends’ 7th Sea campaign who would almost certainly retire if the character discovered who had sold her into slavery and was able to obtain a reasonable revenge for that act, by the player’s own admission – or who would die heroically in final battle with that adversary, with the player content if that brought down the villain. What’s more, if that villain presented themselves, there would be no room for a softly-and-with-caution approach – it would be maximum firepower and hell for leather, regardless of the cost, also by the player’s own admission.

Requiring something similar from each player as part of the creation process provides the GM with the ammunition he needs to liven things up as soon as the players begin taking things too cautiously.

The major downsides are that this can disrupt a campaign plan, can be less than satisfying if mishandled by either party, and relies completely on the player’s creativity and the fairness of the circumstances they nominate. It avoids the problems of the first two solutions, but introduces new ones in their place.

Another reason this works is that if the character is still generating general entertainment by not playing it too safe, the GM is unlikely to play that trump card. So there is an incentive for the player to continue to embrace a life of risk on the part of his character. Unfortunately, this reveals a second layer of risk: the player may easily go too far, taking silly risks. These can be just as out-of-character and disruptive to the campaign as the habit of playing too cautiously.

This works really well in conjunction with one of the other solutions listed.

Proposal Four: The Dorian Gray Solution

This uses one of the first two approaches, possibly in conjunction with proposal three above and/or five, below – but permits the player to spend some of his xp to delay the inevitable. The more in excess of the point at which the initial trigger should be applied, the higher the price.

This is especially powerful if you use a system like the one implemented for my D&D campaigns, which presumes that the higher the character’s level relative to the party average, the harder it is to learn anything new from any given encounter, and hence the smaller the individual xp awarded to that character. With this combination, no matter how hard the character runs away from it, sooner or later they become unable to advance further (the danegelt matches the character’s xp “income”), and at some point soon afterwards (when the payment rate further increases), they are unable to put off the inevitable.

This grants the character a grace period in which to “put their affairs in order”, and lets the player prolong the character – for a while – if they really can’t bear to see them go. It gives the player time to get used to the idea that their character has reached the end of it’s tether.

Proposal Five: The Mockery Solution

Picture it: The PCs come across a problem, with a valuable reward up for grabs if they succeed in solving it. They take their time, planning meticulously and, when every contingency is covered, they put their plan into operation. But the expected opposition fails to materialize; only broken and battered bodies and the scars of battle. Finally, they reach their target, where the reward is seemingly theirs for the taking – only to find it already gone. Despondent and dejected, they return to their base of operations, a tavern, to find the drunken crowd roaring with laughter and toasting the bravery of the heroes who braved the dangers and won through to claim the legendary reward. Everywhere they turn, people are telling and retelling the tale, frequently embellishing it, a constant rebuke against over-planning. And if one of them should reveal that they also went after the reward, only to arrive too late, an element of ridicule will enter the story, compounding the humiliation.

After the second or third such incident, even the thickest player should have the potential pitfalls of over-planning drummed into their heads – for all time. But anytime one seems to forget, all it will take (even in a completely different campaign) to remind them is for someone to start talking about a suspiciously familiar-sounding story…

The elephant in the room so far as this solution is concerned is that it – humiliates – players.

No-one likes being embarrassed. People play for fun, and being embarrassed and humiliated is no fun at all. I’ve seen players get up from the game table and walk out, for good, over less.

And that makes this the last resort of last resorts. I would prefer to point offending players at this article and tell them to “read proposal five” rather than have to actually put it into practice. But, be warned: once you pull out the “read this” card, you are committed to following through on the threat if it is still necessary.

In an effort to avoid having to do this, it is far better to agree to a metagaming solution in which you overtly warn the players that they are beginning to over-plan – “get on with it” – than it is to have to actually carry out your threat. And if they don’t listen to that warning, you have bigger problems – because some players may turn sulky, and petulant, and hostile if you actually carry out your threat, but you will lose all authority if you don’t. Either way, you lose, and you campaign loses.

Perhaps a “Yellow Card (warning) / Red Card (send-off)” system could be implemented as a last-but-one resort – the Yellow Card tells an individual player that they are over-planning and overthinking the problem, being too safe, too cautious, raising too many “what if’s” – and the red card demands that the other players vote publicly on whether or not to keep planning and playing it safe despite the GM’s warnings while the player who receives the card (because he’s been the most obstructionist or cautious, in the GM’s eyes) doesn’t get a say in that vote. In other words, this demands that the other players decide whether or not to tell the player that the GM judges as most seriously offending to “shut up and get on with it”. It’s still harsh, even too harsh, but it’s better than having to implement the real final resort – if it works.

Proposal Six: The At-The-Speed-Of-Plot Approach

Personally, I employ a completely different approach – though I would like (and intend) to incorporate proposal three with this solution. Why deliberately kill off a character, or force them to retire, until you have started to run out of stories and plot ideas for that character? Or perhaps that should read, “stories or plot ideas that both player and GM find entertaining”. Either way, the question stands.

When the character approaches the limits, when ideas begin to grow thin or dated and repetitive, when the player is forced to contemplate the character’s life becoming a hollow caricature of what they have been until now, that is the time when retirement – one way or the other – should beckon, and may even seem like the most satisfying solution to the player.

In the meantime, the very nature of the plots, if planned correctly, can keep a player from becoming overcautious; the margin of error progressively becoming so knife-edge, the planning time available so scant, that characters are increasingly forced to take risks in order to achieve victory. And, so long as the plots are good, the character enjoyable, and there are stories that remain untold or incomplete, the GM has a vested interest in keeping the character alive (no matter how drastic the odds against them may appear to be).

If the GM simply keeps in mind the villain’s goals and the tactics they are employing to achieve them, and recognizes that the longer the players take to cautiously plan their approach, the longer the villain has to make his own preparations (and the closer to success he becomes), excessive caution becomes the players’ enemy just as much as it is that of the GM. A perpetually-shifting compromise equilibrium will be reached – caution, but not too much caution, becomes the objective, and that becomes the players’ technique, keeping the campaign exciting.

Where other ideas have been antagonistic, this is collaborative. Player and GM work together to give the PC a rousing send-off (one way or another) letting them depart with dignity and honor.

Other solutions?

I’m sure there are other solutions. These are just the ones that have occurred to me. Equally, I’m sure that some groups never have to worry about this problem. When Stephen Tunnicliff was alive, it was never a problem to me – he was always ready to dive in, boots and all, when one of his buttons was pushed, or the right bait dangled; incorporate such a trigger that you can pull whenever the players are growing too cautious, and let nature take its course.

Far more than solutions, what’s important is to put the problem in front of the GM so that they can watch for it and decide on one if and when a decision is required. I’ve done that – the rest is up to you.