D&D General character death?

[Oofta]

Yeah that's true, but if a character or caster doesn't have that, and if I were playing it where churches don't do resurrection, then a player is effectively dead unless the party wants to Gentle Repose them and waste that slot until the group can get a diamond lol.

It is one way to make the players more cautious!

 

[O-Castitatis-Lilium]

It is one way to make the players more cautious!

I agree lol

 

[Quickleaf]

been thinking... this might be a bit of a shock coming from and old school player like me, but im wondering if the way the modern dnd game is played, where its so character or story driven -if it would be better do away with character death. or let the player decide what happens. like, if you feel your character met a good death, go with it, otherwise, pretty much any monster could have a reason to capture fallen characters, which gives them a chance to escape later. even mindless undead and non intelligent creatures may save their "food" for later, and drag them back to their lair, for example. It just seems a little strange to have a game where you basically are trying to maintain the illusion of danger, or risk killing the game when characters die. I also dont think players will be any less motivated to win any battles if they knew there isnt any "real danger" of dying, people pretty much want to be successful in any circumstance. I guess im just not too happy with just starting off a campaign with a TPK on a medium difficulty encounter, lol. im interested to hear what people think, would you want to play in a game like that or would it take away from your enjoyment?

Stakes aren't just important for killing vampires - they are important for building suspense, creating narrative moments, inspiring player creativity and engagement.

The stakes do not have to be death. But there need to be stakes.

The problem I see with the "illusionism of death" that pops up in some modern D&D games is that there is no thought being given to the actual stakes. IOW it's lazy (and not in the good "efficient" sense).

In my mind, the design move is not "remove threat of death", rather it is "what are we replacing death with as an interesting narrative stake?"

 

[Clint_L]

Character death is a much bigger deal for some players and for some characters than it is for others. We all probably have a sense of this with our long-time groups, but when in doubt, have a conversation. I personally like a decent risk of failure and death in my games, but there's no one way to play the game. I definitely agree that you can create narrative stakes without death being on the table.

When it comes to resurrection-type magic, that is always consent first. You can't raise a PC (or do other permanent consequences-type magic) without the player's permission. And they don't always give it.

 

[Lanefan]

"Player decides" is how I handle it. Seems like that's the best way to make everyone happy.

If you like the excitement of knowing you can lose your character at any time, you get to have that.

If you don't want to lose a character until you feel like you're done with them, you get to have that too. In that case, a character can still die but won't be permadead without the player's buy-in.

I think this has to be equal around the table, otherwise there's an inherent degree of unfairness buult in where one player's characters can perma-die while another's cannot.

I feel like some GMs are afraid that if they don't have permadeath, players will abuse that knowledge by doing dumb stuff that should kill their characters in any realistic scenario. And with certain groups of players, that would absolutely happen.

<raises hand> Ayup. And I'd probably be one of those players. If you're not willing to kill my character then you'd better be ready to hold its beer, 'cause sooner or later it's gonna do some crazy stuff.

If I got one of those players, I'd probably want to have a chat with them outside of game time.

To what end? You're asking the player to solve a problem that you yourself have caused by making the setting unrealistic.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah that's true, but if a character or caster doesn't have that, and if I were playing it where churches don't do resurrection, then a player is effectively dead unless the party wants to Gentle Repose them and waste that slot until the group can get a diamond lol.

I really hope you mean 'character' in the bolded.

And inability to afford revival at low levels (the churches would charge for the service too, right?) is a large part of why low-level play sees a lot of character turnover. It's just part of the game, IMO.

 

[jayoungr]

I think this has to be equal around the table, otherwise there's an inherent degree of unfairness buult in where one player's characters can perma-die while another's cannot.

It wouldn't cause feelings of unfairness with my players because we're all basically on the same page about how we play and what we want a campaign to look like. If feelings of unfairness were to arise, that would clue me in to a mismatch in player expectations.

<raises hand> Ayup. And I'd probably be one of those players. If you're not willing to kill my character then you'd better be ready to hold its beer, 'cause sooner or later it's gonna do some crazy stuff.

I didn't say I'm not willing to kill your character. You'll notice that I used the expression "permadeath." That doesn't mean your character won't be killed. It just means that if you're not done with the character, I'll work with you to find a reasonable way to bring them back in the event that this happens. And yeah, this is built on the idea that we all want the same thing from a campaign and the player is not just being an asshat for the sake of it.

To what end? You're asking the player to solve a problem that you yourself have caused by making the setting unrealistic.

The reason I'd have the conversation is because I'd suspect there was a mismatch in goals between that player and the rest of the table.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's a matter of playstyle and taste, but I definitely would not be interested in playing or running a version of D&D where death was off the table.

To use a crass metaphor, I prefer RPGs with a bit of "carrot and stick" mentality. By all means, players/characters should be rewarded with the carrot for good story, character growth, etc. But the stick should also be omnipresent. Consequences, costs, and limitations provide fuel and form. Characters don't necessarily even have to interact with the stick directly, but the threat of it being there is very important.

There may be some situations where threat of capture, loss of equipment, etc, is a sufficient threat. But a lot of the time that isn't going to cut it. The threat of death is the ultimate stick.

 

[Blue]

Combat-to-the-death as common stakes has a lot to answer for. This isn't the same thing exactly as character death, but it is highly tied to it in some systems.

The following has to do with character death when lethal combat is a frequent way to overcome challenges. A superhero game where it is possible to die but if someone does - on either side - it may be the only death for an entire campaign, is not what I am talking about.

Normal story telling has up and down beats. Those down beats are important in setting up tension, in showing progression, in a lot of different ways. This has been going on since before recorded history. Hold onto this for a second while I make another point.

Players get attached to characters. Permanent character death therefore is generally unfun. Mind you, not always - I've had epic deaths, I've been the intentional martyr. But in general, unplanned permanent character death isn't fun. Unfun things are to be avoided in a game.

When you try to combine these two points, you get something interesting. In a game without common lethal combat, you can have upbeats and downbeats and they are just parts of the plot. If the villain escapes with the last piece for the Doomsday Device(TM) it's just a fork in the plot, and leads to attempting to stop them in their Evil Lair (also TM) as the Clock of Doom counts down to zero. All of these are fun. You can put consequences on the PCs, and you can go hard with them, because character failure is not player unfun.

But in a game with combat-to-the-death as a common challenge stake, character failure will commonly lead to character death. This is where many players end up conflating character failure and player failure - because it is in this scenario. Characters losing a battle can lead to player unfun of permanent character death.

Which means that it's a lot harder to do those downbeats in the most common challenge type. As a general group (and there are exceptions), weekly PC death isn't seen as a sign of a good campaign. So the GM needs to softball - either make sure that it's almost always upbeats - characters win without deaths, or go soft on consequences of what was presented as lethal stakes.

In other words, GMs can't call in the most common consequences and therefore generally goes easier on the players because the downbeats lead to player unfun, vs. other games where the GM can use a full range of potential consequences and let them have real chances to occur. Between these two debuffs to what the GM can do, common-lethal-combat games therefore are easier than games where downbeats are fun and the GM can really lean into them.

D&D pretends to have permanent character death, so it has all the disadvantages I mentioned above, but in reality has both a good buffer between fear-of-death and actual death, and even past that is "impermanent character death" once that characters hit level 5ish, either through a party member or an NPC (paid/favors/etc). Impermanent means they will come back, perhaps at the end of the combat (revivify), or if not later in the session or next session. Which, since "player sitting idle unable to play" is also unfun, is also something to be avoided but at least isn't quite as unfun as losing all the bonds, history and such that are part of a character who has been played.

 

[ezo]

I wouldn't enjoy a game without character death, neither as DM or player.

Now, I do think a "pointless death" is sorta badwrongfun for all. Sometimes a player is over zealous with their character, and playing it too free and loose; other times the DM under-estimates how lethal an encounter will be, and still other times the dice just roll badly for those involved. There are ways to mitigate all these scenarios, IMO, so a PC death can be more dramatic and meaningful to the story, etc.

A lot depends, however, on how the group and individual players want to play. If I was in a group where "the player decides", I would always choose death for my PCs, and a bit put off by player who choose "No, I want my PC to survive." It would be their choice, sure.

Finally, one thing I feel is very often overlooked is the idea of most foes "fighting to the death" all the time. Our games have taken a turn away from this mentality. Enemies will more often run, surrender, etc. that continue fighting on. Generally, mindless undead and fiends, etc. are the only ones who will fight to the bitter end.