If D&D doesn't look like Monty Python and the Holy Grail you are playing it wrong.
I will note that very few Python characters are suicidal idiots. Many of them are idiots, but they do not generally do things that get themselves killed,
particularly when they actually know something is dangerous. (Those sketches specifically
about suicide are a major exception.)
The game I run
absolutely has its share of funnies ("Bard. You're in a hole. Why are you in a hole? Don't be in a hole." was a well-remembered one), and one player cracks some really quite funny jokes on average once or twice a session. We now have a hayseed Barbarian yokel who can be both funny and impulsive, but
not suicidally stupid, so it's perfectly fine.
By my standards, getting through 1st level in 3-5 sessions is lightning fast.
Then I don't think we can meaningfully discuss on this topic. That sounds like it would be literally the second worst experience I've ever had, and the worst was one I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Was there any point during that bandit ambush when a PC could have cut and run for it with a decent chance of survival? If yes, and that opportunity wasn't taken, there's a lesson to be learned for next time.
No. The bandits jumped us, so they were between us and the exit. We had literally just gotten inside a ruin, fought some spiders that almost murdered several people, and then taken a short rest because we knew if we fought anything else without healing, we'd die. The Paladin used up all but a trace of his
lay on hands to help out. We weren't second level yet, otherwise I would have been able to give folks
song of rest, but as noted that would have made no difference
anyway. The DM sprung the bandits on us in the middle of the short rest with no prior warning that there were any bandits to fear, ruling that because we hadn't
finished the rest, we got nothing out of it.
Oh, and did I mention that more than half the group was brand new to TTRPGs? To the best of my knowledge, none of those new folks elected to try again, because this experience turned them off of tabletop. Not just DgD,
tabletop. Not that I can blame them. They'd eaten a thing folks were raving about and it tasted terrible; why would they ever want to eat it a
second time?
Because all it needs is one survivor for the campaign - and game - to keep going.
But not our enthusiasm for it. And it is that enthusiasm which actually decides whether the game lives or dies.
There's a flip side to this as well: the well-meaning but misinformed players who are impervious to the fact that the game really is out to kill their characters and yet, safely cocooned in their assumption that every combat is winnable, don't ever think to have their characters cut and run to save themselves when things are clearly going south...even if it means abandoning others to their fate.
Except the game
isn't "really out to kill their characters." That's one way to choose to play it. It simply IS NOT the only, best, or even general way to play it. It is a way that deserves support. It is not a way that should ever be enforced on all groups, because most people
don't like that method, and enforcing it would end D&D as surely as enforcing hardcore permadeath on Mario would end that franchise.
And that's the problem with telling players it's a game of "heroic fantasy". People are so conditioned to the idea that the heroes always win that as players of heroes they just naturally assume they're going to win every time no matter what; and then don't know what to do when the situation changes such that the main objective is no longer to win, but simply to - by any means possible - not lose.
No. They naturally assume that
you won't take their story participation away.
There are MANY ways to lose that are not death or something equivalent to it.You already asked me about several of them, and I noticed you did not respond to the fact that I was anywhere between "eh, not my thing but it's fine" (level drain) and enthusiastic (limb loss),
especially if these things build new story as a result of the loss.
But because half of DMs are stuck on this idea that death is the
one and only consequence that matters. A ludicrous notion, as though nothing in your life ever matters unless it could kill you. The birth of one of your children doesn't matter, the death of a spouse doesn't matter, the winning of a marathon doesn't matter, the loss of a devastating court case doesn't matter, your first kiss doesn't matter, *nothing except your death?" Come the frick on. Consequences and results matter all throughout our lives and the vast majority of them, indeed the vast majority of the ones that are most memorable and impactful to us, have nothing to do with death or even violence.
Heroes lose sometimes. But the form and shape of that loss is different compared to random shlubs, because those differences make it more interesting for most players. Surely not all. Some folks love playing random shlubs, and the game
should support them at doing so (better than it does, at the very least.) But it should not be mandatory for all players that
everyone must play hours and hours and hours of random shlubs before they're
permitted to play heroes.
Because this is a FANTASY game. And one of the most common fantasies out there is to be a hero, making a difference, changing the world, helping others, doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time. Indeed, data collected from video games, e.g. achievements, shows that easily 3/4 of players who are given the opportunity to choose to do selfish evil vs selfless good
choose the latter option. And a portion of the remainder will be from achievement hunters or completionists who want to see every piece of content.
It turns out people like being heroic, and getting the opportunity to fight the good fight, and getting
satisfying victories and losses, not just
random ones.
