D&D 5E Sidelining Players- the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Poll

I have to vote NO.

There's almost always something I can do to make failure meaningful that doesn't involve my players being unable to take actions. Campaign Setback is always a tool in your toolbox, and all kinds of status effects exist that allow your players to keep taking actions even with a penalty. Some players even like being Dominated, which allows them to keep roleplaying.

But just sitting there, missing turn after turn? No thank you.

I'm definitely in the camp of success being only as meaningful as the risk around failure is. If there is no chance of true failure and the worst that can happen is "fail forward", then you didn't actually succeed at anything, you just rode the rail even if it wasn't smooth. On the other hand, it really does suck to sit out large chunks of the session and/or have to create a new character. So, I try not to have anyone "Die like a chump." I don't shed any tears over sucking for a round or two, though.

All things in moderation, I suppose. I'd be willing to try a "fail forward" game, and am even considering running a Fate game. But, I have no qualms about standing in box #1 -- Bad things happen.

The consequences of failure need to be significant enough that the players will want to avoid them, but not so bad that they spend more time indulging their paranoia than actually moving forward. If death can be reversed instantly and without cost, then there's no incentive to not die, and that can get silly pretty quickly. If consequences of failure are so bad that it's better to spend ninety percent of your time on precautions so you don't lose all of the progress you've made so far, then that's not much fun to play.

It's a bit of a balancing act, so preferences will vary. Different games lend themselves toward different balances. Getting stunned is worse than dying in 4E or falling unconscious in 5E, while the opposite is true in earlier editions.

As a general guideline, I like to be able to estimate my odds before I figure out how badly I lose, because that gives me more ownership over the outcome. If I charge a mindflayer without knowing about its mindblast, then I feel like I'm being sidelined without a good reason; it wasn't something I could take into account, so it wasn't a threat that could change the way I approached the problem in any way, unless it's just supposed to make me paranoid about attacking anything I don't recognize. If I charge a mindflayer and I know that it has a mind-affecting stun attack, then whether I estimate my odds of resisting at 5% or 95%, that's a consequence that I accept when I decide to engage it.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

So it is in D&D.

I just keep an open mind and have easy access to new blood should the party require.

Edit: Spelling errors. Thanks for the catch.

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56% of voters (so far) think it's okay to force a player to sit around not playing for hours?

Option 1 seems like the one where the DM does nothing. The player just sits there.
Option 2 seems like the one where the DM offers alternatives like playing monsters.
Option 3 seems like the one where the DM uses different punishments.

And Option 1 is winning?

The greatest successes are not as sweet without the bitterness of failure lurking somewhere in the mix.

As others have said, it should not be a frequent event, but it should never be off the table.

Warmaster Horus said:

The greatest successes are not as sweet without the bitterness of failure lurking somewhere in the mix.

Click to expand...

But this poll doesn't seem to be about the bitterness of failure. All options allow the bitterness of failure. This poll seems to be about whether or not it's okay for a player to spend large amounts of time not being able to play the game.

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Seramus said:

56% of voters (so far) think it's okay to force a player to sit around not playing for hours?

Option 1 seems like the one where the DM does nothing. The player just sits there.
Option 2 seems like the one where the DM offers alternatives like playing monsters.
Option 3 seems like the one where the DM uses different punishments.

And Option 1 is winning?

Click to expand...

If the game is entertaining enough, "not playing" does not automatically mean "not enjoying" or "not having fun". That said:

One baseline assumption being made here that might warrant a second look is that everyone is only ever playing one character at a time. In the sort of game where it's likely that characters will be out of action reasonably often (high lethality, lots of save-or-suck effects, high chance of PCs getting captured, etc.) both DM and players might want to be open to people running more than one character...and yes, this means a much bigger adventuring party...such that when one character gets hosed there's still the other to play.

Pleasant side effect: you'll also see lots of classes etc. get played that you might not otherwise.

Lanefan