FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Also, and here is where my lack of understanding comes in: I've read a good many posts advocating player death as a teaching mechanic. I'm curious at what it teaches and, and this is most important, whom it teaches in this instance: if the character dies, the only one I can see learning is the player. If the player role played his character and it died w/o any real chance to learn first, what is learned is to meta-game. i.e. You might think you wanted to play a brave knight - but, you know, you should probably have your order's moto be something along the lines of : "Discretion be ith the bestest part of the valorous heart!"
I don't think I've explicitly advocated death as a teaching mechanic, but I'll take up this challenge anyway:
There's nothing wrong with players learning to play the game. A player who knows better can always roleplay something stupid (e.g. casting spells at undead that the player knows won't work), but a new player with no tactical knowledge cannot roleplay a tactically canny high-level PC unless and until he himself acquires knowledge of the game. The order's motto doesn't matter unless the player is on-board with discretion, unless you are the kind of DM who likes to overtly warn your players when the PCs are making a bad decision. "You're charging the hobgoblins, by yourself, on a horse, when they've got cover and 600' of range to play with? You shouldn't do that, they're just going to shoot you down, you should sneak around." I don't do that kind of thing because I think learning to play the game is part of the fun for the players.
In the hobgoblin scenario above, the charging PC got shot unconscious, but he made his death saves while the other two PCs pulled it out of the fire (one aborted the charge after the first volley, another didn't charge in the first place, and then they together snuck around and attacked the enemy position from the woods, ten minutes later, while the hobgoblins were busy examining their loot from the downed PC). So in this case, the player and the PC both survived to learn from the experience (maybe), but if the PC had bought the dust the player would still have gained metagame knowledge, and I don't think that's a negative. If the player does something which is likely to kill the PC, but he thinks it's awesome and in-character and does it anyway, then whether or not the PC dies, the player will be having fun. So, gaining metagame knowledge enables more fun without undercutting roleplaying. It's pure empowerment, and that is good.
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