Why did he die, daddy?
	Copyright (c) 1996-97 Ricardo J. Méndez
		Other legal blah-blah here.


A lot has been written, and rightly so, on the subject of a 
character's death.  That is a moment which comes to each and
every character, be it fighting against the hordes of darkness
or because of a subtly poisoned meal.  The general lore seems
to be that characters in Call of Cthulhu HAVE to die, or at
least to go insane (which might be even more horrible) to be
truthful to the Lovercraft spirit.

When reading Mythos fiction I've always been a purist.  I
never liked Derleth that much, with his almost cute and 
optimistic endings.  He never seemed to be really terrified
of all the things that really scared old Howard.  And his
characters should have been, because things in the Mythos can 
be deadly indeed, and shouldn't be taken lightly.  Besides, 
Lovercraft characters are tortured by the knowledge, by what 
they fight, in a most Nieztche-ian spirit.

So that was the spirit in which I started playing Call of
Cthulhu with my players.  The Universe is against them, so
they should shudder at the chance of death at almost every
step.  They should fear every moment and every encounter,
since it could be their very last.

That's pretty good for the players, and it keeps them on
edge.  That is a good thing.  The problem is what should a 
keeper do when a real chance of killing a character comes by.
And maybe the situation is just plainly stupid: something
on the sort of a failed luck roll when taking a bath, slipping
on soap and breaking your neck.

Well, maybe not that stupid.  But things are, players come to
you looking for a good time, and not torture.  They want to play
a game, go adventuring, get the handouts and learn the full
story.  They most likely won't like the possibility of going
crazy in the third of fourteen chapters, or maybe dying just
one step away from the final chapter on a quest.

But, indeed, things happen to even the bravest, luckiest or
meanest investigator.  An lucky shot from an enemy can end 
the brightest career in just one round.  And what's a Keeper 
to do? We must maintain an impartial look at things, and limit 
ourselves to tell a story without interfering with it.  

Or do we?



KEEPERS AS GODS

We Keepers are, in some degree, like gods.  Only we have the 
Hounds of Thindalos, the Voormis, and the all powerful Cthulhu
himself to command.  We have our armies to march upon the
hapless players, and to completely obliterate them.  They have
to take our word for the fact that that specific villain had
that many hit points, or that he indeed had the dagger hidden
somewhere else.  That's why we, unlike most gods, must have 
some ethics that we follow no matter what.

But I think that sometimes we must bend those rules a little bit.  
One of those cases is when a player is about to die in a spot 
where the keeper thinks, for some reason, that he shouldn't.
Maybe the party will need some special characteristic from this
character on a couple of hours, and will be doomed without it.
We are not talking about a computer game here, where you can
just restore if you screw up.  And a small slip on an adventure
can send maybe months of playing and preparation down the drain.
I usually roll behind the screen, so my players don't know if,
for example, the gun jammed or was out of ammo.  So who's to
know if, on a would-be critical hit, I stick my godly finger in
the gun and jam it?  Or maybe push the guy's elbow just a little
to the right, so he completely misses the mark.

I know that by this point most of you are divided in two parties:
one finding the address to my house, and the other getting some
kerosene to burn it.  But I do believe that those heavenly
interventions can some times be necessary.



KEEPERS AS STORYTELLERS

As a character in the movie "Up Close and Personal" says, 
"we are only as good as the stories we tell".  The whole point
of buying a supplement as big as, for example, Horror On The Orient
Express, and reading it cover to cover is to tell the goddamned
story.  Let's say your party has played the whole deal up to 
the encounter in the train with Fenalik.  That should cover quite
a few gaming sessions.  But, just when they are one hit point 
away from killing him, he strikes a sudden blow to the last 
conscious investigator, whom it happens, was also mere hit points 
away from going to his ancestors.  Should a Keeper let the whole 
story lapse into oblivion?  

Well, maybe they had some replacement characters ready.

Oh, wait a minute, now I remember!  The characters had contacted
their brothers/associates/partners and told them to meet them at
the next stop, and written letters telling them the whole story 
just in case they died!  How lucky of us.

Believe me, I would rather trip the vampire myself than going 
along with such crap.  At least that way the characters believe
that it was fate what saved them, not some slimy trick that
they performed two stops ago.



KEEPERS AS PLAYERS

In the end, we are not some kind of detached entities.  In telling
the story, we are as submerged in it as our players.  Who hasn't
felt the thrill of those last moments in a fight, when even we
aren't sure of the outcome?  Maybe the Thing From Beyond The Stars
will have its dinner after all.  Or maybe they will be able to
chant that last part of the spell that will return it from whence
it came.

That is the main reason why we shouldn't go about saving 
characters as a rule.  First of all, it takes the edge out of 
it for them, since they start believing that they won't die 
(or maybe realised that you won't let them).  But then again, 
it also takes the edge out of it for you.  Which brings us to 
our last point.


WHEN SHOULD A CHARACTER DIE?

In my humble opinion, characters should die when it is integral to
the adventure, either because you are in the climax, or to make
a point.  Indeed, that gangster who charged into the werewolves
deserves to be teared to shreds, and I would be the first to
make the attack rolls.  Or maybe you are at the start of the
campaign, and want to let them know that their opponents really 
mean business by a shoot-out in which one or more of them might
die.

Another case, and the only case in which I have forced a 
character's death, was when I believed it was fully necessary
to the story.  The case in point is the ending of Horror On
The Orient Express (that campaign has things I loved and things
I consider ...  misguided, so I'll keep placing it as an
example).  At the very end, the spirit of the villain tries
to take possession of an investigator reading a scroll.  If
he fails, the investigators have won without even noticing.
If he succeeds, the investigator in question dies horribly,
and the villain takes possession of his body, summons the
Skinless One, and all hell breaks loose.

I didn't give the investigator reading the scroll a chance,
and everything went like it would have if Mehmet Makryat had
succeeded.  Why?  Well, simply because I believed that the
other ending would have been just plainly lame, and we hadn't
played so long for Makryat to lose just like that.  It is 
better to go out in a blinding flash than to slowly fade away,
someone said.

By the way, all the others survived the ending.  One was
indefinitely insane, but the other almost made it intact.



BOTTOM LINE

In the end, it is just what you feel more comfortable with
what matters.  This are just a bunch of opinions from a guy
that's a little sleepless and decided to write.

Happy Keeping,