D&D 5E Why penalize returning from death?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

From a narrative point of view, yes, there are meaningless deaths. Luke Skywalker is not going to be killed by the only accurate stormtrooper in the galaxy. If the movie was real life, sure. And Leia, Hans and Obi Wan would be very upset. As a story, however, it would be silly. Even in Game of Thrones, we are not going to see Jon Snow or Tyrion die before their story arcs are played out.

My players come to the table with characters they care about. We start building stories together and death through random bad luck is not satisfying for anybody. Stores focus on characters who survive long enough to actually have complete tales. These tales can end with death, heroics or tragedy, but they shouldn't be cut off prematurely.

This is, by far, my favourite way to play, and fortunately, I have a group who agrees.

I understand though its not my bag.

However every character always has a complete tale, the start at level 1 and then die at some point. Beginning and end. Some stories are just more epic than others.

 

[Arilyn]

I understand though its not my bag.

However every character always has a complete tale, the start at level 1 and then die at some point. Beginning and end. Some stories are just more epic than others.

For sure. What did Death say in Sandman? "Everyone gets a lifetime."

In a narrative, however, we don't focus on red shirts, except for the one scene, where the captain has to compose the difficult letter to the family, and then can go back to ignoring their deaths for the rest of the series. In Ars Magica, the grogs are red shirts, but the players have a wizard and a companion. The grogs are meant to be disposable.

Anyway, my points are for heavily narrative style games, which is not for everyone.

 

[epithet]

The simple answer to "Why penalize returning from death?" is, "You should not." The more complex answer has everything to do with the difference between a consequence and a penalty.

There are a couple of broad categories of character creation, which hopefully match the style of the particular D&D campaign. They're very different approaches, and it makes it impossible to have one perfect approach to handling the issue of character death in D&D. One approach is driven by narrative, the other is driven by mechanics. Narrative character generation starts, unsurprisingly, with the story of the character and puts some numbers on to quantify those narrative traits. Mechanical character generation reverses that, hanging a story (often sparse) on the framework of the numbers. Most of us have probably done it both ways at one time or another. How that character is created often has a long-reaching impact on how the character is played, how the character is spec'd on level-up, and the expectations the player will have regarding character death, and returning from it.

If you are dealing with a narrative character in a narrative campaign, then death should have narrative consequences. Even if you're DMing the game in a largely procedural, mechanical way, that's when you turn to the indefinite madness tables, lingering injury tables, etc. If your DMing style is more focussed on the narrative, you probably have given some thought to what will happen to the story when characters die, and how the story will accommodate either a return from the dead or the introduction of a new character. This is the time for the side mission to the outer planes to free the character's soul, or the journey to the home of the NPC who can, for a price, bring a character back from the dead. The consequences for the death of a narrative character should be grounded in the narrative of the campaign, even if there are mechanical repercussions (like the cost of material components or falling behind the xp curve.)

If you are dealing with a mechanical character, then even if you tweak the campaign narrative because of its death, the repercussions should be largely mechanical. This is not likely to be a player that wants to derail the main quest for a side story to bring the dead PC back, it is much more likely that this player will want to reroll, or to accept whatever mechanical cost there is for bringing the character back from the dead. This player has probably been thinking about the race/class combo they want to try next anyway.

The important distinction is that for the narrative character, the story of bringing it back from death (if done right) is a reward, not a penalty. For the mechanical character, a chance to re-roll can (sometimes) also be rewarding. Conversely, the permanent destruction of a character with a huge narrative investment shouldn't be taken lightly--if the death isn't epic, and doesn't offer a satisfying conclusion to the character's story, then you should consider providing an "out," whether it's a deal with a devil, or coming back as a revenant, or divine intervention with an appropriately weighty plot element. In the same way, forcing a lot of narrative onto a mechanical character shouldn't be done lightly--a lot of players would probably rather tear it up and start over than spend a lot of time mucking about with the narrative fallout of any kind of character-driven story arc focused on bringing their PC back from the dead. They don't want a relationship with the Raven Queen, if they can't just buy the diamond and move on they'd rather stat up the new arcane trickster with ritual caster and an owl familiar they've been thinking about lately.

The job of the DM is not to run the NPCs and draw up battle maps. That's a big part of how the DM does the job, sure... but the actual job is to provide a fun experience for the players. You don't do that with punishment and penalties, but you do get a lot done by making sure that the choices the players make have consequences, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Just keep in mind that, based on the player and the character, a "bad" consequence can be rewarding, while a "good" consequence could be regrettable. As a DM you have many different ways to deal with a dead character, and none of them will be "the right way" in every circumstance. What makes D&D better than a computer RPG is that you have the flexibility to choose the outcome that your players will ultimately enjoy.

 

[5ekyu]

If the player would have made a different decision for the character, had the player known more about the world and how it worked, then the decision was made incorrectly; the player thought that's what the character would have done, but they were wrong, as they are now aware.

It's also possible to play a reckless barbarian, of course, who would have done the exact same thing even if they'd known how dangerous a goblin is to an inexperienced character. If the player would have made the same decision, even knowing how dangerous goblins can be, then the character was played correctly... although perhaps not on purpose.

I don't want to read too much into this story, but it sounds to me like the player may have been operating under a misconception about how powerful a goblin is relative to a level 1 character. In many games, a level 1 character can mow through goblins like they were nothing.

Or its possible to play a character whose flawless knowledge of goblin power and capability and approximations are not gifted at birth who cam as a low level adventurer make a guess, wind up getying unlucky and suffer for it.

The notion that getting characters killed somehow morphs into lack of player roleplaying and then supports adding to next character knowledge is silly.

If instead of goblins, it was an ancient riddle box and each wrong guess kills a character, is his "replacement" character supposed to know all the wrong answers too, just like this new character wont repeat that goblin mistske? Cuz, its learning roleplaying if he does?

Right?

Part of Roleplaying is separating player and character knowledge, or so i always thought.

Thats part of why losing and not dying is so much better in many cases, the continuation of shared knowledge and history.

The whole notion of "carryover to next character knowledge" seems to be a huge step in devaluing PC death, which seems to run counter to the pro-death positions.

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[5ekyu]

To discourage careless and disinterested and often dysfunctional play. If death has no negative consequence, players will tend towards playing like it's a video game with a save feature.

Some may, others wont. Some will regardless.

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[Sacrosanct]

Some may, others wont. Some will regardless.

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As someone who's studied sociology and human behavior patterns, responses like this never sit well with me. It seems like it's a handwave of an excuse as to why there shouldn't be rules. Human behavior is very much impacted by the structure of rules around them. Risk, reward, etc all modify our behavior. In fact, there's a saying in the leadership/management world: "You get the behavior you reward."

So to dismiss a reason why a rule exists because there is an exception here and there is not a very accurate way of addressing the problem. Taken to the extreme, it's: "Well, some people will kill others even if there is a punishment, so why bother having laws at all?"

In this context, having a negative things associated with PC death will have an impact on how players play their PCs. One of those behavior changes will be how cautiously the PCs are played

 

[5ekyu]

Question tpo pro-deathers...

Pc dies = player out of campaign, see yah in a few years when we start new campaign.

Too much "consequence" or not?

Too much "meaningful" or not?

Isnt that an accurate representation of the consrquence and stakes and every "start at first again" or "take over npc" or "new character few level back" or " new character at level" just varying shades of cheapening death and rewarding blah blah blah?

Its like the old joke... "We already know what you are, we are just haggling over price."



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[Sacrosanct]

Question tpo pro-deathers...

Pc dies = player out of campaign, see yah in a few years when we start new campaign.

Too much "consequence" or not?

Too much "meaningful" or not?

Isnt that an accurate representation of the consrquence and stakes and every "start at first again" or "take over npc" or "new character few level back" or " new character at level" just varying shades of cheapening death and rewarding blah blah blah?

Its like the old joke... "We already know what you are, we are just haggling over price."



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Well, no one is "pro death". Just that people are saying that death should be a risk in a game that's designed around combat and tracking life points. Kind of a big part of the game design. Just like no one is pro STD, but it is a very real risk of being sexually active, especially if you take no precautions against it.

Secondly, I don't know anyone who has said that if your PC dies, you aren't allowed to play again until the next campaign. That question isn't like the old joke, because it's extreme hyperbole. That's like saying, "If you aren't arguing for killing the actual player when his or her PC dies, then you're just cheapening the effects of PD death in a game yourself." That's ridiculous.

 

[5ekyu]

As someone who's studied sociology and human behavior patterns, responses like this never sit well with me. It seems like it's a handwave of an excuse as to why there shouldn't be rules. Human behavior is very much impacted by the structure of rules around them. Risk, reward, etc all modify our behavior. In fact, there's a saying in the leadership/management world: "You get the behavior you reward."

So to dismiss a reason why a rule exists because there is an exception here and there is not a very accurate way of addressing the problem. Taken to the extreme, it's: "Well, some people will kill others even if there is a punishment, so why bother having laws at all?"

Wow... Just wow... Over blown drama much.

Linking rpg rules differences to murders is really going a long way to suggest you might ought to be less worried about society decision making.

Perhaps a vacation.

In my experience in RPGs the varying degrees of death taxes have not significantly altered behavior across the board.

That, listen closely, is not me saying no rule in any context has never altered any behavior.

Really, it does not.

Its a discussion of specifically death taxes and play in RPGs.

The closest to it that i have sern is that for **some players** removal of significant death threats, not death taxes, the threat of death, has allowed them over time to spend more brain cycles and pay more attention to non- survival aspects of the game, sometimes making more sub-optimal choices for non- optimization reasons.

Some, not all.

But i have never, not once, in decades seen a given player who when playing in a game with death tax rules played "cautiously" or "reasonably" but who when in a different campaign without death tax went all video game resave mode.

Not once.

I have seen players of each type and many in between, but not seen them swap between those modes because of core game death tax rules or lack thereof.

The **real** death tax is not doing stuff. Sitting by while other play is not fun. You can get players really hackled up with hold monsters or petrify or even just frequent stuns.

In my experience, its inaction thay most players want to avoid most.

Not some added after the fact bookkeeping

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[iserith]

Question tpo pro-deathers...

Pc dies = player out of campaign, see yah in a few years when we start new campaign.

Too much "consequence" or not?

Too much "meaningful" or not?

Isnt that an accurate representation of the consrquence and stakes and every "start at first again" or "take over npc" or "new character few level back" or " new character at level" just varying shades of cheapening death and rewarding blah blah blah?

Its like the old joke... "We already know what you are, we are just haggling over price."

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

I'm pro-death because that's the only way you can tell if you're a good DM - body count.

But seriously, my main concern is always to keep the player in the primary mode of participation with the game, that is, playing a character and not sitting out. Rather than take death off the table (or limit when it may occur), my solution to the long iteration time of D&D is each player has multiple characters.