Key points
- Dying is not the end: the character reappears in Lumbridge.
- Outside the Wilderness it keeps its 3 most valuable items; the rest wait in a grave for 15 minutes.
- In the Wilderness, another player can take them instead.
- Turn on the Authenticator, set a Bank PIN, and never give anyone a password.
When a character dies
At 0 Hitpoints the game says "Oh dear, you are dead!" and the character reappears at its respawn point: Lumbridge, to begin with. Then:
- It keeps its 3 most valuable items, counted by Grand Exchange price. With the Protect Item prayer on (Prayer 25), it keeps 4.
- Everything else goes into a grave where it died. Go back within 15 minutes and pay a small fee to take it all back.
- If the grave runs out, the items go to Death’s Office, whose door is in the Lumbridge graveyard. Death returns them for a fee: nothing on items under 100,000 coins, 5% on items worth more.
Items in the bank are never at risk. Take only what the trip needs.
Tip. Some activities are safe deaths, where nothing is lost at all: many minigames, for example. Their wiki pages say so.
The Wilderness
On ordinary worlds, the Wilderness is the only place where players can attack each other. Players can attack anyone whose combat level is close to their own, and the allowed gap grows the deeper they go.
Attacking another player first puts a skull over a character’s head. A skulled player who dies keeps nothing, or one item with Protect Item. An unskulled player keeps 3 as usual, and the killer can take the rest.
Careful. Luring is the classic trick: a stranger promises a rare item or a bargain "just over the ditch". Anyone asking to meet in the Wilderness is after what the character carries.
Keeping the account safe
- Never share a password or a code with anyone. Jagex staff never ask for one, in the game or anywhere else.
- Turn on the [Authenticator](term:authenticator). It asks for a code from a phone app at login, so a stolen password alone is not enough.
- Set a [Bank PIN](term:bank-pin), so a thief who gets in still cannot empty the bank.
- Download only from official places: the Old School website, Steam, the App Store or Google Play. RuneLite, an approved third-party client, comes from runelite.net.
- Ignore anything too good to be true: money doubling, "free" items for a small payment first, a trade that changes at the last second, a link from a stranger.
The Stronghold of Security teaches the same rules as a dungeon to walk through, and pays 10,000 coins at the end.