D&D 5E Need a safety net for 1st level characters -- it's complicated

[Sword of Spirit]

Thanks for the thoughts! I'm pretty close to having it all worked out.

Since there are some things that keep coming up, I'll address them (and try to keep it brief...but that never works).

As far as starting at higher level, it won't work because of the types of adventures I want character to experience. 5e characters are objectively more powerful than AD&D or 3e characters of their level (if you had them face off against each other, for example), and they are subjectively more powerful (facing off against the world) at most levels also. Just take a look at the CRs in the MM. Creatures that used to be mid to high level challenges have become CR 4s. Because of bounded accuracy and the power of out-numbering, solo monsters are usually gonners unless they are much higher CR than the party. This means that I can't present adventures based around a single werewolf (or hag, or ghost, etc) hiding amongst the populace of the town, and have a final battle against that foe actually be a challenge unless I do one of three things: a) give them minions, b) artificially inflate their stats beyond the MM, c) have the party be low-level. Option a) provides a different experience them I'm going for, so it's off the table. Option b) isn't something I want to have to do. It's likewise not appropriate. That leaves option c) using characters that are at the levels where those adventures actually work as intended, which means starting with 1st level characters to get the maximum value out of those adventures.

There is also the fact that I want them to feel like adventurers who are just slightly better than the town guard or the acolyte at the temple. They are wet-behind-the-ear newbies for conceptual reasons.

Grittiness. I'm not talking about grittiness in the sense of consequences are permanent and you might lose your character. I'm talking about grittiness in the sense that you heal slowly, you might lose an eye (and have it missing for 10 levels until you can find someone who can fix it), monsters don't fight fair, and if you want to be the hero you have to become so by your success, not because the rules coddle you.* Almost anything that happens to your character can be fixed in D&D--but the type of grittiness I'm using is just that you can't fix it effortlessly, or expect that you won't face challenges you can't overcome. I'm not talking dark, grim, and gritty. I'm talking that I'm playing that goblin band as sentient creatures who want to stay alive, and if one of them puts your eye out with a spear, you might not get it back for a long time.

The limited charge safety net problem. Years ago it was brought to my attention that there is a theoretical problem with any RPG allowing a limited number of resources that can prevent character death, to try to make sure the plot gets to come to its completion and nobody's character has to die. The problem being that you might run out of those resources, so they didn't really accomplish what they were intended to do. It is literally an ineffective solution.

After much work, I have derived a solution for a story-oriented RPG I'm making (not D&D). In this system, a group agrees on the nature of the story before it begins (such as deciding that it will be a story where the heroes win and defeat the villain, or it will be a horror story where everyone probably dies, etc.) Characters are given destiny points that they can spend to make sure things go how they want (including not dying when something would have killed them). The number they are given is dependent on how heroic the story is intended to be, and can even be 0. So now I have exactly the problem I was just talking about. The solution I came up to was that characters who have run out of destiny can continue to spend it (theoretically indefinitely)...but each time they do so they gain a point of dark fate. The GM uses these points to cause undesirable consequences to happen to the character (plot complications), which should be something they will try to avoid, but should still be an enjoyable experience for the players (pop culture reference below). If the end of the story is reached and there are more points of dark fate than the GM has been able to discharge, he has to either discharge them in the story climax, or include them in the epilogue. The GM gets to be creative, because the dark fate is meaningful, but cannot contradict the goal of the story. So, for instance, a character with too much dark fate might defeat the villain, but die heroically doing so. Or with a little dark fate, maybe they have a triumphant victory, but in the epilogue the GM describes how they suffered financial or legal issues in the aftermath (preferably making it funny or ironic). Think of what happened in the story between the ending of Ghostbusters and the start of Ghostbusters 2, for example. Perfect example of dark fate getting discharged in the epilogue (though they didn't tell you what happened until the sequel.)

The point is that there are unavoidable and meaningful consequences but those consequences are constrained by story theme. Now the pop-culture example of a more extreme version of this phenomenon that could be also be handled in the system I created: Star Wars. Anakin is the hero. He is supposed to defeat the bad guys and bring balance to the force. Unfortunately, he used up all of his destiny points and racked up a crazy amount of dark fate showing off his moves. At the end of the story, instead of defeating the big bad, he became the big bad. To fix that and make sure the original goal is achieved, a new storyline has to be introduced involving his descendants to finally create the opportunity for him to finish his failed hero's journey. And of course, he still dies at the end. Real consequences, but not Game Over.

Sorry for that extensive non-D&D aside, but the point is that (in addition to me loving my system), I understand the fundamental paradox, and I know how it can be addressed.

So what I'm doing with this D&D campaign is attempting to come up with a way of addressing the problem within the bounds of a more simulationist D&D system. While the hope is that the PCs become great forces for good and such, that isn't a required goal. The only real goals are that the players get to continue to play these characters for as long as they like in this extremely broad campaign, and get a chance to interact with the major events going on. Now, this is normally not very difficult in D&D, because you already have the ability to indefinitely avoid death at the cost of racking up dark fate points, in the form of raise dead and other spells, and expensive components (which means the PCs are giving up the opportunity to buy other things) or quests to acquire NPC aid. So, boom, goal accomplished by default.

However, in order to make that happen at low-levels, I would have to make some changes to the campaign that would be outside of theme, which is rather undesirable.

But--the nature of mysterious things going on in the multiverse (the nature of which I don't want to type up, because it would spoil the campaign if one of my players wandered on here and read it) means that I can use magical means to account for some of that--to allow characters to remain in the game even if there is no way to afford to resurrect them yet. These things include their own "dark fate" with them, and are theoretically unlimited. There is nothing stopping me from having these things happen from the get-go. Someone could die in the first session and I have a way to make sure it isn't Game Over for that character.

But...the price of these things happening at that low level involves an undesireable change in the way the campaign would otherwise play out. "And now for something completely different!" The only way to truly eliminate that possibility would be to think of another solution (with an unlimited number of uses) that might apply at lower levels and do something similar with meaningful, but less drastic consequences. But, I can reduce the chance of such happen by coming up with some limited resources, that don't incur dark fate by their usage (like destiny points).

So what I'm primarily interested in is suggestions for solutions that might be unlimited at low-levels, but would have meaningful consequences, and suggestions that would provide a limited, consequence-free safety net that can be used as a buffer before even that situation needs to be implemented.

The point isn't to make the players feel afraid of losing their PCs, but to let them see what the world is like when you are weak, including how dangerous it can be. I want them to play carefully and in-character be afraid of monsters.

Hopefully that's cleared up the apparent paradox. Thanks for the suggestions so far. It's been very useful.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

EDIT: Delete this, the OP basically said they were doing the suggestion in this post anyways.

 

[Pling]

Given what you have said-- and I respect what you are trying to accomplish in your world, I believe the solution is quite simple.

When characters die, they stay dead and the player rolls a new character. That new character is allowed to start with the same number of experience points that the dead player character had accrued. A funeral is had, and peace is made. The story then continues.

#2 and #3 below are mutually exclusive (meaning having them both as criteria is a logical fallacy) but here is my take.

1) Unlimited at low-levels (Players can reroll a character and come into the group as many times as is necessary. The show must go on.)
2) Meaningful consequences (Dead characters stay dead. Maimed characters stay maimed or retire from the story as the player chooses.)
3) A limited, consequence-free safety net that can be used as a buffer before even that situation needs to be implemented.
(When you reroll a new character you retain only one resource. Experience. Experience is connected to the player, not the character in other words. Experience also becomes the unlimited resource mentioned in #1.)

P.S. Side note: It sounds like you want to play Call of Cthulhu. Have you ever run a game of CoC? Almost completely what you describe. In Call of Cthulhu, it doesn't matter how many characters die or are rendered insane or ineffective during the story, what matters is that humanity lives on for one more day in an uncaring and cruel universe. In that sense, players take the win if they can.

 

[Pling]

"Meaningful consequences" and "limited consequence-free safety nets" may not be contradictory, but there is a high level of inconsistency between those two statements. Inconsistency is a type of logical fallacy. A number of folks in this thread have called you out for your reasoning, and that is why.

 

[Dausuul]

I suggest supplying them with a limited number of "get out of death free" cards - either single-use raise dead items, or single-use talismans that trigger when the character would die to prevent that death. I've used this before and found it works pretty well. Death remains a scary threat, because you only have a few of these things and no expectation of getting more; but it offers a little bit of a buffer against bad die rolls.

Edit: Should have read the whole thread - OP already came up with this idea. Well, great minds and all that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My first thought was to use a death flag mechanic - PC's are not going to die permanently unless they opt into it. Maybe key the "opt into it" bit to flaws/ideals/bonds.

It's interesting to drill down a bit, though.

As far as starting at higher level, it won't work because of the types of adventures I want character to experience. 5e characters are objectively more powerful than AD&D or 3e characters of their level (if you had them face off against each other, for example), and they are subjectively more powerful (facing off against the world) at most levels also. Just take a look at the CRs in the MM. Creatures that used to be mid to high level challenges have become CR 4s. Because of bounded accuracy and the power of out-numbering, solo monsters are usually gonners unless they are much higher CR than the party. This means that I can't present adventures based around a single werewolf (or hag, or ghost, etc) hiding amongst the populace of the town, and have a final battle against that foe actually be a challenge unless I do one of three things: a) give them minions, b) artificially inflate their stats beyond the MM, c) have the party be low-level. Option a) provides a different experience them I'm going for, so it's off the table. Option b) isn't something I want to have to do. It's likewise not appropriate. That leaves option c) using characters that are at the levels where those adventures actually work as intended, which means starting with 1st level characters to get the maximum value out of those adventures.

It's worth noting that most of the MM creatures (like a hag) aren't really designed to be encountered alone as the only encounter of the day. If you go that route, you may see that the party is STOMPING your monsters simply on action economy, unless you loot some lair/legendary mechanics. At that point, you're basically doing (b) anyway. You're removing the "dungeon" from "dungeons and dragons," and while that's fine and awesome, the best way to do that involves modifying monsters to be dungeons in and of themselves. Use a monster just out of the box, you're likely to be disappointed in how it performs all by its lonesome.

Grittiness. I'm not talking about grittiness in the sense of consequences are permanent and you might lose your character. I'm talking about grittiness in the sense that you heal slowly, you might lose an eye (and have it missing for 10 levels until you can find someone who can fix it), monsters don't fight fair, and if you want to be the hero you have to become so by your success, not because the rules coddle you.* Almost anything that happens to your character can be fixed in D&D--but the type of grittiness I'm using is just that you can't fix it effortlessly, or expect that you won't face challenges you can't overcome. I'm not talking dark, grim, and gritty. I'm talking that I'm playing that goblin band as sentient creatures who want to stay alive, and if one of them puts your eye out with a spear, you might not get it back for a long time.

Sounds appropriate for a Death Flag - reduced to 0 hp, the character drops unconscious and suffers some lasting trauma that, even healed, remains a scar or a psychological wound.

After much work, I have derived a solution for a story-oriented RPG I'm making (not D&D). In this system, a group agrees on the nature of the story before it begins (such as deciding that it will be a story where the heroes win and defeat the villain, or it will be a horror story where everyone probably dies, etc.) Characters are given destiny points that they can spend to make sure things go how they want (including not dying when something would have killed them). The number they are given is dependent on how heroic the story is intended to be, and can even be 0. So now I have exactly the problem I was just talking about. The solution I came up to was that characters who have run out of destiny can continue to spend it (theoretically indefinitely)...but each time they do so they gain a point of dark fate. The GM uses these points to cause undesirable consequences to happen to the character (plot complications), which should be something they will try to avoid, but should still be an enjoyable experience for the players (pop culture reference below). If the end of the story is reached and there are more points of dark fate than the GM has been able to discharge, he has to either discharge them in the story climax, or include them in the epilogue. The GM gets to be creative, because the dark fate is meaningful, but cannot contradict the goal of the story. So, for instance, a character with too much dark fate might defeat the villain, but die heroically doing so. Or with a little dark fate, maybe they have a triumphant victory, but in the epilogue the GM describes how they suffered financial or legal issues in the aftermath (preferably making it funny or ironic). Think of what happened in the story between the ending of Ghostbusters and the start of Ghostbusters 2, for example. Perfect example of dark fate getting discharged in the epilogue (though they didn't tell you what happened until the sequel.)

The key here will be in making dark fate something the PC's want to avoid, but also not seeming like the DM is just being a jerk. That can be a hard line to walk - D&D's normal rules codify death pretty strictly so that the DM's judgement is taken mostly out of the equation on purpose. The Death Flag is pretty much a player agreement that death is off the table unless the player decides otherwise, but that everything else is on the table - but those only kick in when you would otherwise die. A bit of financial issue in the epilogue or a death in defeat of the villain aren't huge deterrents - they're fluffy penalties for mechanical advantages. It's also a rather significant burden on the DM to "be creative."

The point is that there are unavoidable and meaningful consequences but those consequences are constrained by story theme. Now the pop-culture example of a more extreme version of this phenomenon that could be also be handled in the system I created: Star Wars. Anakin is the hero. He is supposed to defeat the bad guys and bring balance to the force. Unfortunately, he used up all of his destiny points and racked up a crazy amount of dark fate showing off his moves. At the end of the story, instead of defeating the big bad, he became the big bad. To fix that and make sure the original goal is achieved, a new storyline has to be introduced involving his descendants to finally create the opportunity for him to finish his failed hero's journey. And of course, he still dies at the end. Real consequences, but not Game Over.

It's a consequence, but it's not one Anakin's player really feels. It also subverts the narrative arc - a face heel turn shouldn't come out of the blue, it should be a logical consequence of the character's flaws. And it should be a decision the character makes, not something fate makes the character do (did Anakin's player have to attack the...younglings...or did the DM make Anakin do that because of dark fate?)

So what I'm doing with this D&D campaign is attempting to come up with a way of addressing the problem within the bounds of a more simulationist D&D system. While the hope is that the PCs become great forces for good and such, that isn't a required goal. The only real goals are that the players get to continue to play these characters for as long as they like in this extremely broad campaign, and get a chance to interact with the major events going on. Now, this is normally not very difficult in D&D, because you already have the ability to indefinitely avoid death at the cost of racking up dark fate points, in the form of raise dead and other spells, and expensive components (which means the PCs are giving up the opportunity to buy other things) or quests to acquire NPC aid. So, boom, goal accomplished by default.

However, in order to make that happen at low-levels, I would have to make some changes to the campaign that would be outside of theme, which is rather undesirable.

But--the nature of mysterious things going on in the multiverse (the nature of which I don't want to type up, because it would spoil the campaign if one of my players wandered on here and read it) means that I can use magical means to account for some of that--to allow characters to remain in the game even if there is no way to afford to resurrect them yet. These things include their own "dark fate" with them, and are theoretically unlimited. There is nothing stopping me from having these things happen from the get-go. Someone could die in the first session and I have a way to make sure it isn't Game Over for that character.

But...the price of these things happening at that low level involves an undesireable change in the way the campaign would otherwise play out. "And now for something completely different!" The only way to truly eliminate that possibility would be to think of another solution (with an unlimited number of uses) that might apply at lower levels and do something similar with meaningful, but less drastic consequences. But, I can reduce the chance of such happen by coming up with some limited resources, that don't incur dark fate by their usage (like destiny points).

So what I'm primarily interested in is suggestions for solutions that might be unlimited at low-levels, but would have meaningful consequences, and suggestions that would provide a limited, consequence-free safety net that can be used as a buffer before even that situation needs to be implemented.

If you like your fate system, go ahead with it. Use this to playtest it.

 

[Quartz]

Thanks for the thoughts! I'm pretty close to having it all worked out.

Since there are some things that keep coming up, I'll address them (and try to keep it brief...but that never works).

As far as starting at higher level, it won't work because of the types of adventures I want character to experience. 5e characters are objectively more powerful than AD&D or 3e characters of their level (if you had them face off against each other, for example), and they are subjectively more powerful (facing off against the world) at most levels also. Just take a look at the CRs in the MM. Creatures that used to be mid to high level challenges have become CR 4s. Because of bounded accuracy and the power of out-numbering, solo monsters are usually gonners unless they are much higher CR than the party. This means that I can't present adventures based around a single werewolf (or hag, or ghost, etc) hiding amongst the populace of the town, and have a final battle against that foe actually be a challenge unless I do one of three things: a) give them minions, b) artificially inflate their stats beyond the MM, c) have the party be low-level. Option a) provides a different experience them I'm going for, so it's off the table. Option b) isn't something I want to have to do. It's likewise not appropriate. That leaves option c) using characters that are at the levels where those adventures actually work as intended, which means starting with 1st level characters to get the maximum value out of those adventures..

I think you're missing some options here with regard to option B. The first is to give the monsters legendary or lair actions or both. The second is not to bump the monster's stats but to bump their HP, like 4e's Elite and Solo monsters. The third is to have a low starting point buy and stat maximum, like 14 or 15 - that's after racial adjustments, BTW. Indeed, you could drop all racial stat adjustments entirely and give non-humans one feat and humans two.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Simple solution: just decide what you actually want: a gritty game, or a safety-netted game. You quite literally can't have both, OP.

You can have a safety net game, and a gritty story though. It really sounds more like he wants to run a planned out story. If you are saying the characters are going to ongoing, I'm not sure why you are even pretending perma-death is an option. Lots of story based LARPs are kind of like this, lots of threat, little follow through. But if people are into it, it doesnt really matter if no one can "really" die.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As far as starting at higher level, it won't work because of the types of adventures I want character to experience. 5e characters are objectively more powerful than AD&D or 3e characters of their level (if you had them face off against each other, for example), and they are subjectively more powerful (facing off against the world) at most levels also.

Though, not in the one area that's causing you problems: durability. AD&D variant or 3e or 5e, a 1st level fighter has 10 hps, plus a CON bonus. 5e's fairly liberal version of deaths-door makes it harder to kill PCs but only once they have some real hps...

Just take a look at the CRs in the MM. Creatures that used to be mid to high level challenges have become CR 4s. Because of bounded accuracy

Exactly, because of bounded accuracy, not because monsters are weaker or PCs are stronger, but because a low-level party can hit, and thus, outnumber and tackle a lone, powerful monster, bringing it's CR down.

This means that I can't present adventures based around a single werewolf (or hag, or ghost, etc) hiding amongst the populace of the town, and have a final battle against that foe actually be a challenge unless I do one of three things: a) give them minions, b) artificially inflate their stats beyond the MM, c) have the party be low-level. Option a) provides a different experience them I'm going for, so it's off the table.

(c) means you run a very high risk of PC deaths, which you don't want, so discard it. That leaves (b). there's nothing artificial about boosting some of a monster's stats. Give it more hps, give it legendary actions or the like to make it more effective going solo (npi) against a party.

There is also the fact that I want them to feel like adventurers who are just slightly better than the town guard or the acolyte at the temple. They are wet-behind-the-ear newbies for conceptual reasons.

You can start the whole world, metaphorically, at 3rd level, if that's what it takes.

Grittiness. I'm not talking about grittiness in the sense of consequences are permanent and you might lose your character. I'm talking about grittiness in the sense that you heal slowly, can't expect that you won't face challenges you can't overcome. I'm not talking dark, grim, and gritty.

That's just incompatible with the idea that you're guaranteed to play the same character the whole campaign.

However, in order to make that happen at low-levels, I would have to make some changes to the campaign that would be outside of theme, which is rather undesirable.

Or some changes to the mechanics. Like starting at 3rd (which is still low-level) and just staying there a long time or giving PCs some extra hps at first level.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

When characters die, they stay dead and the player rolls a new character. That new character is allowed to start with the same number of experience points that the dead player character had accrued. A funeral is had, and peace is made. The story then continues.

Let me roll back the window a bit (this won't ruin anything for my players, because we'll be talking about it next week). This is intended to be my biggest, longest running, "campaign to end all campaigns." In order to make sure the players get maximum enjoyment, we are going to have a discussion before character creation wherein certain aspects of character creation are discussed. I'm going to ask them things like, "what has traditionally been your favorite character (or type of character) to play?" "if you could only ever play one D&D character again, no matter how many campaigns you play them in, who would it be?" You know how some people will recreate or adapt the same character concept--often with the same name--in a variety of video games or such? That's the character they're going to be playing in this campaign. The one they always identify with and will never get permanently sick of playing. This is going to be an ongoing "Sim Adventurer" game, rather than a specific storyline (though there is a metaplot in the background), and they need to feel invested.

Players are free to change their mind on their character, removing one and adding another in if they so choose. But unless they choose to do so, part of the premise of this campaign is that they are guaranteed the opportunity to play their personal iconic character until the end of the campaign (somewhere in the misty future).

Their character might end up out of action for a while though. That's a meaningful consequence for failure.

#2 and #3 below are mutually exclusive (meaning having them both as criteria is a logical fallacy) but here is my take.

1) Unlimited at low-levels (Players can reroll a character and come into the group as many times as is necessary. The show must go on.)
2) Meaningful consequences (Dead characters stay dead. Maimed characters stay maimed or retire from the story as the player chooses.)
3) A limited, consequence-free safety net that can be used as a buffer before even that situation needs to be implemented.
(When you reroll a new character you retain only one resource. Experience. Experience is connected to the player, not the character in other words. Experience also becomes the unlimited resource mentioned in #1.)

As a correction, "dead characters stay dead" is not a consequence that is part of the game. Meaningful consequences doesn't mean permanent (at least in that sense). It means meaningful setbacks (time, money, story elements, or things of personal value to the characters).

In addition, the concepts are not contradictory. Limited "consequence-free" safety net was probably a poor phrasing on my part, because there is a consequence--it is a limited, non-renewable resource, so the consequence for using it up is that now you are into the area where consequences are bigger. It would perhaps be better phrases as "gradiated consequences." The limited safety net helps the gradiation start smaller.

P.S. Side note: It sounds like you want to play Call of Cthulhu. Have you ever run a game of CoC? Almost completely what you describe. In Call of Cthulhu, it doesn't matter how many characters die or are rendered insane or ineffective during the story, what matters is that humanity lives on for one more day in an uncaring and cruel universe. In that sense, players take the win if they can.

I haven't, and I'm not sure whether I'd enjoy it or not.

It's worth noting that most of the MM creatures (like a hag) aren't really designed to be encountered alone as the only encounter of the day. If you go that route, you may see that the party is STOMPING your monsters simply on action economy, unless you loot some lair/legendary mechanics.

Very true. Solo monsters are not viable in 5e...except at very low levels.

The key here will be in making dark fate something the PC's want to avoid, but also not seeming like the DM is just being a jerk. That can be a hard line to walk - D&D's normal rules codify death pretty strictly so that the DM's judgement is taken mostly out of the equation on purpose. The Death Flag is pretty much a player agreement that death is off the table unless the player decides otherwise, but that everything else is on the table - but those only kick in when you would otherwise die.

Absolutely. It requires a lot of trust in a GM.

A bit of financial issue in the epilogue or a death in defeat of the villain aren't huge deterrents - they're fluffy penalties for mechanical advantages.

It depends on the mood of the story, and whether or not there is going to be a sequel.

It's also a rather significant burden on the DM to "be creative."

Yep. I love doing this, so I see it more as an opportunity that a burden.

It's a consequence, but it's not one Anakin's player really feels. It also subverts the narrative arc - a face heel turn shouldn't come out of the blue, it should be a logical consequence of the character's flaws. And it should be a decision the character makes, not something fate makes the character do (did Anakin's player have to attack the...younglings...or did the DM make Anakin do that because of dark fate?)

Good point. It is an imperfect analogy (like most) designed to illustrate the way a story can take a major and "dark" detour and still get to a heroic end.

You can have a safety net game, and a gritty story though. It really sounds more like he wants to run a planned out story.

Sort of. The "story" is about the characters exploring and interacting with a world, while a major overarcing story or metaplot is going on in the background, which they will in some cases be drawn into regardless of their choices, but otherwise have freedom to decide how much they want to interact with it.

If you are saying the characters are going to ongoing, I'm not sure why you are even pretending perma-death is an option.

Perma-death is not an option--that's part of the point, trying to figure out the most satisfying way to balance a few different goals. I think I must have been unclear at some point, since you aren't the only one who got that impression.