D&D 5E Not dying?

Warmaster Horus said:

Then don't play my game. As a DM the NPCs are in my domain of control. I will endeavor to adjudicate as fairly and true to the story as I can. I may even use tables and morale modifiers. But the final situation is mine to tell.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what you are disagreeing about. I do the same.

MiraMels said:

I do not kill a player's character without their explicit permission. This is something that make clear to players before we set out to play. I cannot abide the pace of survival-oriented play, and this encourages my players to play harder in combat.
The fact that the players can fail a combat encounter without losing their characters gives me the freedom to create more challenging scenarios. It also forces me to come up with more interesting stakes to combat encounters than "win this combat or your character dies".


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

Click to expand...

So winning is a given eventually. Losses may cause setbacks but since the characters always make it through, they can can just try try again until successful. That kind of makes not only dying, but the whole process of taking damage not worthy of concern. Why should a character fear the powers of enemies if he/she KNOWS that it is only a bluff?
There is no need to heal wounds, or even worry about getting enough rest, food, or water because nothing can cause any real harm.

Even should the party fail to stop the big bad from destroying the world, its no biggie because while the world dies, they are OK because they didn't give Mr. bigbad permission to kill them.

ExploderWizard said:

So winning is a given eventually. Losses may cause setbacks but since the characters always make it through, they can can just try try again until successful. That kind of makes not only dying, but the whole process of taking damage not worthy of concern. Why should a character fear the powers of enemies if he/she KNOWS that it is only a bluff?
There is no need to heal wounds, or even worry about getting enough rest, food, or water because nothing can cause any real harm.

Even should the party fail to stop the big bad from destroying the world, its no biggie because while the world dies, they are OK because they didn't give Mr. bigbad permission to kill them.

Click to expand...

I won't try to speak for [MENTION=6855497]MiraMels[/MENTION], but this analysis fails the reality test for many campaigns in my experience. Sure, this might be true for some players and groups, but it certainly isn't a universal law. My last epic group and I tended to think of the game along the lines of a great novel like The Lord of the Rings. The story was epic. The stakes were high. There were setbacks and problems and unexpected events. A few characters died along the way, but the fact that the main characters were going to survive didn't detract from the power of the story at all. Indeed, the bittersweet ending of LOTR was something we felt was true for the game too, with so many sacrifices made along the way. (Even on rereading LOTR, I still feel like everyone is going to die at Helm's Deep, even though I know exactly how it ends.) The game was thrilling for all of us because we didn't know how it would end and we didn't know all the twists. We just knew that time invested in backstory wouldn't be tossed aside because you slipped and fell into a pit or got hit in the eye by an orc arrow.

The logic of player investment can be reversed. We've all likely seen players who don't invest much in their characters or the long-term story. Sometimes they take ridiculous risks because there's nothing at stake. After all, they've got a nifty warlock concept in their back pocket. That's a bigger hassle, IMHO, than players not investing because they think they have invulnerable plot armor.

In reality, of course, there are many styles of play and many types of players. I've enjoyed playing in and running many different styles and love hearing about styles that go beyond my own experience and comfort zone. I don't doubt that the groups are having a rewarding time, and that's ultimately what this is all about.

It honestly all depends on the game and the players. There's no real "right" answer for this. Some people want the possibility of death around every corner, while others want to engage in an epic story where PC deaths only occur when fitting to the narrative. As others have said, there are plenty other ways for PCs to "lose" beyond death. (And in fact, PC death tends to be the least interesting option, as the story ends there, rather being something the character reacts to and grows from.)

I've played in and run games that from one extreme to the other. I tend to prefer things somewhere in the middle, where death is a possibility but it's not constantly one unlucky roll away.

I seem to recall an article someone wrote a few years back about having a system wherein PC death generally doesn't happen, but it certain circumstances a player can choose to "Raise the Death Flag", making their character vulnerable to death in exchange for some mechanical bonuses. I always thought that was interesting, as it put things in the players' hands, though I never actually tried it.

ExploderWizard said:

So winning is a given eventually. Losses may cause setbacks but since the characters always make it through, they can can just try try again until successful. That kind of makes not only dying, but the whole process of taking damage not worthy of concern. Why should a character fear the powers of enemies if he/she KNOWS that it is only a bluff?
There is no need to heal wounds, or even worry about getting enough rest, food, or water because nothing can cause any real harm.

Even should the party fail to stop the big bad from destroying the world, its no biggie because while the world dies, they are OK because they didn't give Mr. bigbad permission to kill them.

Click to expand...

Wow, that's a flimsy-looking strawman you've built yourself there.

Character death is honestly the least interesting stake I can possibly think of in an RPG. There are certainly types of games that that probably works well for, dungeon crawls and episodic merc-type campaigns (though even in the latter case there should be other interesting things at stake, likely with plenty of fail conditions beyond TPK).

But if I'm playing with players who've invested a great deal in their characters and the stories they've built and created around them, I'm not willing to remove that from my campaign if my player isn't. There are a plethora of more interesting complications and consequences for failure and "death" that I can think of then simply telling the player to reroll a new "toon", or whatever the kids call it these days. Permanent, serious consequences, not just temporary "setbacks". It's not a JRPG "Game over - Restart from last battle?"

This of course obviously makes more sense in a narrative-focused campaign than a challenge-and-combat-focused episodic campaign. If combat challenges are the focus of the campaign than death and dying should of course be real consequences. It's just that that's not every campaign.

But yes, even if death-averse campaigns, PCs still need things like "HPs" and, you know, "consciousness", in order to accomplish their goals or stave off disaster or other negative consequences. And while I can't speak for everyone, I can say that even if my strictest "no death" campaigns, the gloves come off for the final battle. If the good guys fail and the Big Bad kills the world, that's game over.

S'mon said:

I have no idea what you are disagreeing about. I do the same.

Click to expand...

The assumption is that PCs argue regarding DM decisions while NPCs don't. I don't worry much about PC arguing about my choices for NPC morale. They can have their say but it should be brief and polite, and I should be able to not give them a full, under-the-hood explanation because it may have impact on the game later on. If they can't do that then it's time for them to find a new game.

"To the death" is too easy. Ever heard of "to the pain?" Much more effective. Just think if careless PCs had to spend the rest of their lives listening to children cry out in horror at seeing their mangled faces...with their pristine ears...

ExploderWizard said:

There is no need to heal wounds, or even worry about getting enough rest, food, or water because nothing can cause any real harm. \

Click to expand...

There's a word for creatures who live like this. Trolls.

ExploderWizard said:

So winning is a given eventually. Losses may cause setbacks but since the characters always make it through, they can can just try try again until successful. That kind of makes not only dying, but the whole process of taking damage not worthy of concern. Why should a character fear the powers of enemies if he/she KNOWS that it is only a bluff?

Click to expand...

At least in theory, that's meta-game information that the character isn't allowed to use in order to make their decisions. The character doesn't know that they have plot armor, or that the enemy can't possibly kill them.

In practice, it can be difficult to operate on such a wide disparity between player knowledge and character knowledge for a long period of time. The rules (whether official rules or house rules) should never put the player into that situation.

DMMike said:

There's a word for creatures who live like this. Trolls.

Click to expand...

YES! The PCs are trolls who also happen to be immune to acid and fire.

If characters are never at risk of dying, then many players will find the game less rewarding and possibly downright dull. Here is an excerpt of mine from another thread regarding my suggestions on handling character death...

"Part of the art of DMing is (and shhh don't share this with your players) creating the illusion of a threat that is greater than the reality of that threat. The risk of a wipe should sometimes seem all too real, but should very rarely materialize. The risk of individual death should be almost omni-present in dangerous situations, but death should only occasionally actually happen. The risk of perma-death should be a very real concern for the player, but in most cases, given the appropriate time, money, and effort put forth, should omit the "perma" even if there are lingering effects for some time."