D&D 5E Where does the punitive approach to pc death come from?

[MasterTrancer]

I'm not sure I follow. You suggested that death is not a punishment because the PC can be resurrected.

If there is a general expectation that resurrection of dead PCs is available, then "death" isn't really death - it is a type of cash-soaking speed bump. Given that there are other cash-soaking speed bumps available which, on balance, might have less of an impact on verisimilitude, why not just go with them?

Hmm...sorry? Yes, I said that a PC can be resurrected, which is not the same than saying that (s)he will, nor that the the resurrection is free and easy as to a snap of fingers.

What I said, and I apologize if it didn't come across, is that if there is a deep involvement/attachement in/to the PC, then a resurrection can be a viable option, for the party and the DM. Of course if the level is low the party would resort to some powerful NPC (be it a high-level cleric, a Power or whatever fits the campaign). On the other hand, if the table is fine with that particular death the player proceeds to roll another PC and the game rolls on.

Still, for me PC deaths are not, and should not, be a punition nor a lesson; the only exception is an in-game lesson: the remaining PCs learn, for example, that Gnolls give one more hit to their downed foes.

 

[Fanaelialae]

On the same token, why bother with combat at all if you can't die? To show how the PCs are awesome?

It's the same concept as, "Why bother playing out a disagreement between the PCs and NPC(s) if there's no risk of death". Conflicts are likely to arise numerous times during a campaign, and it's only the most basic of hack and slash dungeon crawls where death is always a risk. For example, the party might try to convince the captain of the king's guards to allow them to see the king. Unless they escalate the situation by attacking the captain, the worst outcome is likely to be that the captain says no (in the extreme, perhaps they are thrown in the dungeon as suspected assassins). I see a campaign where you can't die as working similarly.

I keep the threat of death in my campaigns because my players prefer it that way. Even though they grow attached to their characters, they usually have a cool idea that they want to try waiting in the wings, so unless I'm killing PCs every 5 minutes (which I don't) it's a non-issue.

However, I can see the attraction of a campaign where they can't (or can't without choosing that possibility via Death Flag mechanics). In such a campaign, I expect that combat is simply another approach to conflict resolution. If you argue with the villainous senator, you might sway the crowds in your favor, costing him a great deal of influence. Or he may gain the crowds favor, attaining even greater power. Or you might kill him, ending the threat he poses but becoming murderers in the eyes of the people. Or he might capture you and have you arrested, forcing you to either escape jail or attempt to argue your case before the court. Death isn't necessarily a threat in any of these outcomes, but many of them have potentially undesirable outcomes.

It depends on the group in question, but for some groups in-game consequences are far more important than stats. I've seen players willingly and knowingly sacrifice their beloved PCs to avert in-game consequences, despite that it would incur level loss. I've seen players give up incredible power to bring about an in-game outcome (the character was a low level rogue who'd come across a Ring of Wishes with one wish left, and used it to restore the sight of a kindly, blind, retired adventurer who'd helped the party).

I'll grant you, there are groups that would both hate and run roughshod across a campaign that didn't hold the threat of death. But I have no difficulty believing that it works just fine for some.

 

[SteveC]

I guess I'm going to challenge the premise of this thread from the beginning: there's no consensus that when a character dies you start over at level one, and there never has been.

On EnWorld there are some posters who are very loud about their support for it, but that doesn't make it a consensus. I don't think there's an actual consensus on anything more than "we like playing D&D" here. Some days I don't even know if that's true.

I was just cleaning up my dad's house before selling it and found my old character binder from the 70s. In it you'll find my first serious character who died, Gimlet, a level 6 dwarven thief who died fighting hill giants in G1. When he died, the DM had me create a new character at 10% less experience than the rest of the party. Some variation of that was pretty much how everyone did things where I was, because as you point out, a level one character going up against the frost giants would be a recipe for frustration.

My suggestion (as I said in the other thread recently) is to replace characters who are lost at the same level as the rest of the group and move on. The "punishment" for losing Gimlet was just that: I lost a character who I had great memories of and had really enjoyed playing. If that was compounded by having to start all over, I would have left the game. And that would have been a shame because my next character, Mouse (a half-elf fighter magic user thief) made it to epic levels and got to punch Lolth in the face much later.

So with the caveat that there's no wrong answer here, I'd say the notion of starting over is just one of many playstyles and not the one true way.

 

[Sunseeker]

No. It's called "plot hook": you care for a friend? You go and try to have him resurrected. Or do your PC care more about raiding the dungeon than bringing back a friend?

That's assuming you have the body and the ability to cast gentle repose. Maybe we just look at death differently, but I still think parties need to deal with death. There are other ways of caring for your friend after death than bringing them back to life.

In the proposed scenario in any case, what a heroic friend holding the halls against impossible odds. Ressing the friend was out of the question.

While I may deride the gamist idea that "all you have to do is res them and carry on" that wasn't really an attack on the people behind that idea. You don't need to deride me in return.

 

[pemerton]

It's the same concept as, "Why bother playing out a disagreement between the PCs and NPC(s) if there's no risk of death". Conflicts are likely to arise numerous times during a campaign, and it's only the most basic of hack and slash dungeon crawls where death is always a risk.

<snip>

I see a campaign where you can't die as working similarly.

<snip>

In such a campaign, I expect that combat is simply another approach to conflict resolution.

<snip>

It depends on the group in question, but for some groups in-game consequences are far more important than stats.

This is a pretty good description of a "non-risk-of-death" approach to play.

My 4e game is by-the-book with only some very minor tweaks around PC build options. So the risk of death is the mechanical default for 4e ie there, but not very great. In the course of a campaign from 1st to 28th level with 5 PCs, there has been one "TPK" at 3rd level, and four other PC deaths.

With the "TPK" - at the hands of dead spirits conjured by a goblin shaman - I asked the players whether or not they wanted to continue with their existing PCs. All but one did, and only one of the PCs had actually died on stage, being dropped below negative bloodied hp by "friendly fire".

So 3 PCs recovered consciousness in the goblin prison, with a 4th prisoner there (the new PC for the player who wanted to change characters). The PC who had died was returned to life by his god (the Raven Queen) on a ceremonial slab where the goblin shaman was using his body as a focus to summon another dead spirit to whom that PC had had a strong connection.

Of the other four deaths, in 3 cases the PCs arranged for Raise Dead to be cast. The first happened at 2nd level, so Raise Dead was beyond their abilities, but again the player wanted to keep playing the PC, so he was sent back from death by the Raven Queen to recover an artefact hidden in the ruined Nerathi site where he had died. The idea of an artefact as the reason for being sent back was invented by the player (as best I recall) - it ended up being the first part of the Rod of Seven Parts, which has been a major focus for that PC and the campaign in the 25 subsequent levels.

As well as 4e, I've recently been running a bit of Burning Wheel. The threat of death in that system is also pretty low, but the players nevertheless care about failure because things can go wrong (in the fiction). For instance, in our most recent session the ship the PCs were on sank because they were unable to rally the crew to put out a fire in the rigging. The PCs were then rescued from the sea by a passing Elven ship (the player of an Elven princess made a successful Circles check, which is the BW mechanic for meeting NPCs from out of your backstory). The captain of the ship put two of the PCs in the brig, because they were marked by the Shadow (the two PC sorcerers), and put them off the ship on the shore of the Bright Desert. The Princess jumped ship with them, because she was concerned that the captain was going to make her return to the Elven court, whereas she was trying to make her way among humans. So now the PCs have to make their way through the desert.

For players who are following the fiction, fictional setbacks are the consequences that matter. Death is only one of many possible fictional setbacks.

 

[SirAntoine]

I guess I'm going to challenge the premise of this thread from the beginning: there's no consensus that when a character dies you start over at level one, and there never has been.

On EnWorld there are some posters who are very loud about their support for it, but that doesn't make it a consensus. I don't think there's an actual consensus on anything more than "we like playing D&D" here. Some days I don't even know if that's true.

I was just cleaning up my dad's house before selling it and found my old character binder from the 70s. In it you'll find my first serious character who died, Gimlet, a level 6 dwarven thief who died fighting hill giants in G1. When he died, the DM had me create a new character at 10% less experience than the rest of the party. Some variation of that was pretty much how everyone did things where I was, because as you point out, a level one character going up against the frost giants would be a recipe for frustration.

My suggestion (as I said in the other thread recently) is to replace characters who are lost at the same level as the rest of the group and move on. The "punishment" for losing Gimlet was just that: I lost a character who I had great memories of and had really enjoyed playing. If that was compounded by having to start all over, I would have left the game. And that would have been a shame because my next character, Mouse (a half-elf fighter magic user thief) made it to epic levels and got to punch Lolth in the face much later.

So with the caveat that there's no wrong answer here, I'd say the notion of starting over is just one of many playstyles and not the one true way.

I'd have to disagree. Unless you were making characters for a module or other prepared adventure, all characters started at 1st level. As I said earlier, this wasn't a punishment either. It was just an accepted fact, and it was presumed you would enjoy playing a new character.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'd have to disagree. Unless you were making characters for a module or other prepared adventure, all characters started at 1st level. As I said earlier, this wasn't a punishment either. It was just an accepted fact, and it was presumed you would enjoy playing a new character.

Different groups handled things differently. Back when I played 2e we allowed players to bring in characters at half their previous level (half experience would have made more sense, but for some reason that's not how we played it). After a while I think we changed it to half the party's average level, because one poor guy just kept dying (and the more he died, the more likely it became that he'd die again).

 

[scruffygrognard]

I recently joined (and promptly left) a Pathfinder game where the DM had me make up a 1st level character to join a group of 5th level characters. It sucked...

 

[SteveC]

I'd have to disagree. Unless you were making characters for a module or other prepared adventure, all characters started at 1st level. As I said earlier, this wasn't a punishment either. It was just an accepted fact, and it was presumed you would enjoy playing a new character.

Well you're free to do that, of course, but you're 100% wrong in my case. No one I knew at the time played it that way. If you think about the example I used from the G series, it would be quite ridiculous to handle it that way.

I'm certainly not saying that no one would have you roll up a new level one character in order and go after frost giants (or fire giants, or drow...) but I'm arguing that there was no consensus that things were done that way, and no one I ever met played it that way. The group I was with, the DMA up in Madison, had a huge number of players in it as well, so this wasn't just some home house rule.

I certainly know people who are all about that now (as evidenced by this and several other threads) and am certain some folks did it back then, but you're fooling yourself if you think that's how everyone did it back in the day. Much like Mitt Romney (is it too late for that joke?) I've got binders full of proof on it.

 

[SirAntoine]

Well you're free to do that, of course, but you're 100% wrong in my case. No one I knew at the time played it that way. If you think about the example I used from the G series, it would be quite ridiculous to handle it that way.

I'm certainly not saying that no one would have you roll up a new level one character in order and go after frost giants (or fire giants, or drow...) but I'm arguing that there was no consensus that things were done that way, and no one I ever met played it that way. The group I was with, the DMA up in Madison, had a huge number of players in it as well, so this wasn't just some home house rule.

I certainly know people who are all about that now (as evidenced by this and several other threads) and am certain some folks did it back then, but you're fooling yourself if you think that's how everyone did it back in the day. Much like Mitt Romney (is it too late for that joke?) I've got binders full of proof on it.

I didn't say I think everyone did it, just that it was "a common standard" throughout the community. It was intuitive. Every character starts at 1st level, with 0 experience points. I am sure this perception would have been commonly shared.

The next time it happens to you, ask the other players and the DM to play some adventures with new characters with your character. It would be hard mid-adventure, but surely they'd agree to take time away from their higher level guys so you can enjoy the game as you catch up.