Killing off your characters isn't intrinsically a good or bad narrative technique.
If the player has become attached to the characters (read: Lee, Kenny, or Ben as probably the biggest examples of this), then it's a good way to make the player feel emotionally lost or hurt, bringing them into the world of The Walking Dead by making them vulnerable.
Killing characters for no reason, though, is just lazy, especially if you do it clumsily and without establishing a connection with the player. Chuck is probably the most egregious example of this. He's introduced as a kind of emotional cornerstone for the player to lean on after losing Carly/Doug and Lilly, but his impact isn't great enough for his death to be felt. Especially given that it's off-screen and pretty much ignored.
All in all, deaths were handled well in this game. It's a sad story, yes, but it's a good sad story.
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