Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
PC Permadeath: Yea or Nay?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7317885" data-attributes="member: 6919838"><p>Well, see that is where my group is different.</p><p></p><p>my players are very worried and very engaged in whether or not their character's achieve the goals they are pursuing. Their main concerns are more often about all sorts of things and "character death" is just one of them. Consequences include failure and that may mean losing the ship they have worked so long to get, losing NPCs they have come to be invested in, seeing their rivals take greater power and control but in general the result of loss more often manifests itself in one thing that mostly i have seen players hate the most - loss of control. </p><p></p><p>Most often, on the big picture level - Winning = making the decisions of what happens... Losing = losing that control. </p><p></p><p>Death (temporary) can be another impediment to that exertion of control/influence.</p><p>Death (perma) is the opposite - a removal of participation until the next character comes along with new backgrounds and such.</p><p></p><p>When i have had players who came from games with the mindset of perma death being the only source for feelings of <strong>tension</strong>, <strong>danger</strong> and <strong>consequences</strong> I try and show them that they can play in my game in a way that says "there is more to value in this game than my survival" and IMX (not necessarily yours) that increases their fun, their eagerness to engage in the story and so on.</p><p></p><p>But, yes, we do agree on that last part. its what i tried to get across in my earlier response... there needs to be two different decisions not just a perma death yay or nay in most campaigns.</p><p></p><p>For setting purposes - what are the effects of death and return - how does it happen, who can do it etc all of which affect the world in major major ways. For this in my game it is done with the soulcatchers approach which creates a lot of roleplaying opportunities, leaves permadeath as a possibility and as a common man thing for most people, etc. it essentially turns the ability to be revived into a reward.</p><p></p><p>For PC/player purposes - how can we die? How common will it be? As you referred to it, how will that play out as a game mechanic. Can it happen just off a bad die roll? For my games, that answer is essentially it cannot occur from bad dice but can occur from either player choice (including obviously suicidal acts which will prompt cautions from the Gm) or from neglect (others not moving to take actions to save them.) this highlights the drama involved in the "dying" parts. As such, things like "massive damage you dead" disintegrate and power word kill get significant changes or they get removed.</p><p></p><p>Disintigrate for example replaces the at zero body poof with: <em>If you are reduced to zero the body begins to disintegrate. Death saves are made with several adjustments. Each failed death save accumulates to the three AND the loss of one item of exceptional value plus 1d6 items of mundane value. A successful death save, stabilization efforts and even active healing only prevents the gaining of a failure for that round and they do not accumulate positive saves. the effect continues until the character gains three fails and dies and the body disintigrates OR ranks of healing spells equal to the rank of the spell slot used have been expended. At that point the character is at zero HP and stable. </em></p><p></p><p>that leaves disintegrate as a very dramatic difference from say other normal "zeroes", adds a more serious path to cure, restricts what can be done to save etc... without the IMO tension killing "poof gone one bad roll, over now, nothing to see here, move along."</p><p></p><p>by making "unusual zeroes" creates different dynamics for the "three way dance to death" that turns each of those "more serious" ways to get zeroed into much more extreme cases that play out while the combat, scene win/loss is still "en prise" so to speak.</p><p></p><p>But that is me and that is what my players find more enjoyable. I am sure others can have different preferences.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="5ekyu, post: 7317885, member: 6919838"] Well, see that is where my group is different. my players are very worried and very engaged in whether or not their character's achieve the goals they are pursuing. Their main concerns are more often about all sorts of things and "character death" is just one of them. Consequences include failure and that may mean losing the ship they have worked so long to get, losing NPCs they have come to be invested in, seeing their rivals take greater power and control but in general the result of loss more often manifests itself in one thing that mostly i have seen players hate the most - loss of control. Most often, on the big picture level - Winning = making the decisions of what happens... Losing = losing that control. Death (temporary) can be another impediment to that exertion of control/influence. Death (perma) is the opposite - a removal of participation until the next character comes along with new backgrounds and such. When i have had players who came from games with the mindset of perma death being the only source for feelings of [B]tension[/B], [B]danger[/B] and [B]consequences[/B] I try and show them that they can play in my game in a way that says "there is more to value in this game than my survival" and IMX (not necessarily yours) that increases their fun, their eagerness to engage in the story and so on. But, yes, we do agree on that last part. its what i tried to get across in my earlier response... there needs to be two different decisions not just a perma death yay or nay in most campaigns. For setting purposes - what are the effects of death and return - how does it happen, who can do it etc all of which affect the world in major major ways. For this in my game it is done with the soulcatchers approach which creates a lot of roleplaying opportunities, leaves permadeath as a possibility and as a common man thing for most people, etc. it essentially turns the ability to be revived into a reward. For PC/player purposes - how can we die? How common will it be? As you referred to it, how will that play out as a game mechanic. Can it happen just off a bad die roll? For my games, that answer is essentially it cannot occur from bad dice but can occur from either player choice (including obviously suicidal acts which will prompt cautions from the Gm) or from neglect (others not moving to take actions to save them.) this highlights the drama involved in the "dying" parts. As such, things like "massive damage you dead" disintegrate and power word kill get significant changes or they get removed. Disintigrate for example replaces the at zero body poof with: [I]If you are reduced to zero the body begins to disintegrate. Death saves are made with several adjustments. Each failed death save accumulates to the three AND the loss of one item of exceptional value plus 1d6 items of mundane value. A successful death save, stabilization efforts and even active healing only prevents the gaining of a failure for that round and they do not accumulate positive saves. the effect continues until the character gains three fails and dies and the body disintigrates OR ranks of healing spells equal to the rank of the spell slot used have been expended. At that point the character is at zero HP and stable. [/I] that leaves disintegrate as a very dramatic difference from say other normal "zeroes", adds a more serious path to cure, restricts what can be done to save etc... without the IMO tension killing "poof gone one bad roll, over now, nothing to see here, move along." by making "unusual zeroes" creates different dynamics for the "three way dance to death" that turns each of those "more serious" ways to get zeroed into much more extreme cases that play out while the combat, scene win/loss is still "en prise" so to speak. But that is me and that is what my players find more enjoyable. I am sure others can have different preferences. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
PC Permadeath: Yea or Nay?
Top