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"Hot Take": Fear is a bad motivator
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<blockquote data-quote="Democratus" data-source="post: 8244762" data-attributes="member: 7027043"><p>There's a misconception here that killing a character is somehow "punishing" players. And you posit that death is a result of "poor play". </p><p></p><p>This simply isn't true for all tables. In old-school games, death can come at any time. It's not poor play - it is the nature of the wilderness. Surviving adventure is as much luck as skill. </p><p></p><p>Character death - common character death - is an essential part of what makes the world feel dangerous. And this danger is an essential part of what makes surviving high-level characters so legendary. </p><p></p><p>Having a character live to reach name level was a great feat. It was something that only a small fraction of characters achieved. And it was something you would talk about with fellow players for years to come.</p><p></p><p>This style of play isn't dependent on a specific edition, either. We played a 2-year campaign of <em>Out of the Abyss (5e).</em> There were 6 players at the table and there were 15 character deaths. Only one PC made it all the way from start to finish. And we had a blast the entire time. Whenever a character was turned to stone by a beholder, eaten by a gelatenous cube, crushed by a gnoll club, etc. we all cheered and patted the player on the back as they put together their next character.</p><p></p><p>There are other schools of thought on how a game should play out, and how much death there should be in a game. Those are fun games, too! But I take umbrage at the assumption that PC death - for which there are entire rules in the PHB - is somehow a "punishment" for a player.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Democratus, post: 8244762, member: 7027043"] There's a misconception here that killing a character is somehow "punishing" players. And you posit that death is a result of "poor play". This simply isn't true for all tables. In old-school games, death can come at any time. It's not poor play - it is the nature of the wilderness. Surviving adventure is as much luck as skill. Character death - common character death - is an essential part of what makes the world feel dangerous. And this danger is an essential part of what makes surviving high-level characters so legendary. Having a character live to reach name level was a great feat. It was something that only a small fraction of characters achieved. And it was something you would talk about with fellow players for years to come. This style of play isn't dependent on a specific edition, either. We played a 2-year campaign of [I]Out of the Abyss (5e).[/I] There were 6 players at the table and there were 15 character deaths. Only one PC made it all the way from start to finish. And we had a blast the entire time. Whenever a character was turned to stone by a beholder, eaten by a gelatenous cube, crushed by a gnoll club, etc. we all cheered and patted the player on the back as they put together their next character. There are other schools of thought on how a game should play out, and how much death there should be in a game. Those are fun games, too! But I take umbrage at the assumption that PC death - for which there are entire rules in the PHB - is somehow a "punishment" for a player. [/QUOTE]
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