D&D 5E Why penalize returning from death?

[abirdcall]

You made the statement that death is always meaningful. I was countering that with ressurection spells and removal of a death penalty....it really isn't.

My post was a reply to someone else.

If you aren't following that thread then don't reply to it.

Actual death is always meaningful. I made the statement earlier that resurrection spells just make D&D death into a knock out.

If you want to make that point, then just make it. Don't cherry pick someone's reply to someone else and take it out of context to say something plainly.

It muddles up the conversation.

A character being removed from the story is always meaningful. That is clearly the meaning of my statement. If you disagree with that then fine, but don't make a strawman just to have an argument.

 

[5ekyu]

What you're doing is refusing to believe something that is widespread and universally accepted among the people who are experts in this topic because you personally haven't seen it. That's like arguing the world is flat because you personally have never seen the curvature of the earth. I'm not asking you to believe me personally, I'm saying this is proven fact by experts in the field of human behavior. Even if you haven't seen it yourself, you should be able to make a conclusive statement just like you should be able to make a conclusive statement that the earth is a globe despite you never actually traveling around it in space.

So to argue against someone and say they are wrong (what you did to Caliban) in spite of the overwhelming evidence is just silly. What you're arguing is that penalties for death won't change behavior because you haven't seen it personally, and have not give any reasoned objective argument why it would be exempt from every other context of risk v reward that drives human behavior in literally every other context.

Your obviously now intentional refusal to acknowledge the difference between challenging a specific carrot- stick result and dismissing the whole of all cartot-stick results shows a lot.

Let me show you a quote from someone else on page 1

"Since a player most likely wants to see the character advance in power (requiring both levels and, in theory, gold), a death penalty of levels and/or gold is another incentive to pay attention and make good decisions during play. Whether or not it's a good incentive is debatable. ".

That poster recognized dearh tax and its effectiveness as not some proven from on high absolute. Did you jump them with murder question from,real life? Did they challenge the holy sociology?

If you look at the post i challenged it was even more extreme claims about the benefits of death taxes - video games resave vs better decisions - and i simply said it would affect some, not all.

So other than some specific maybe personal thing on your part or trolling, what is the diff between that and this that gets you to,jump all the way to murders talk?

Do you have a lot of players in your games that you have sern go all video game resave crazy soon as you reduced or removed death taxes?

You mention this massive evidence. Please point to the studies on death tax and video game resave in tabletop rpg play studies...



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[CleverNickName]

It doesn't take players very long to exploit a penalty-free death campaign, in my experience. The players quickly take a cavalier, "don't worry the cleric will resurrect us" attitude toward traps, monsters, cliffs, and the like. I have to make death costly, otherwise my players dismiss it.

 

[abirdcall]

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.

They are only important characters because they are still alive. They have become more important because other characters have died, giving them more screen time.

And of course the hero in the hero's journey isn't going to die. It wouldn't be the hero's journey if that were to happen.

Is that what D&D is though? Does one player get to be the protagonist in a story that is already written? In that case, why play rather than just reading a story?

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.

Anyone in your group maybe. Sounds like a group I would never want to play with. There have been character deaths in random encounters in my group, those encounters certainly became memorable.

The players care about the characters because there is risk and the outcome is uncertain.

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.

What is prematurely? Level 10? Level 15? Level 20? The character's tale comes to an end when they die. The group's tale comes to an end when they get wiped out.

Is the game not satisfying if everyone doesn't always win? Was it not fun up to the character death? What are you really playing for? I don't see the appeal.

Here is a great example from the DCEU:

[sblock] Superman's death has no meaning and carries no weight because he's not really dead. He just comes back immediately. At best it is the equivalent to taking a short break in the Fortress of Solitude.

And while we know the heroes will always trimuph in these movies, there are other reasons to watch them.[/sblock]

Ultimately I think if you're going to play Magical Tea Party then there are much better systems and storytelling guides than D&D. If that is how a group wanted to play, and I was interested in such a game, I would find all the number crunching in D&D to be a huge chore which takes a large amount of time away from other aspects of the game which should be highlighted.

 

[billd91]

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.

But who or what determines whether a death is premature or not? If it's defined by the player and he or she doesn't feel ready to stop playing that PC, then you want an easy route back from death that's relatively cheap. If you're content to let the game as it plays out determine when it's the right time for the PC to die, then it doesn't need to be easy or cheap.

Either way, there isn't one single source of authorship in an RPG like there is in a novel or movie. There's the player, the other players, the GM, and the game as it plays out all submitting their input into the story being generated. Which one of those inputs will you give the authority over whether or not a death is appropriately time to?

 

[abirdcall]

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

Why are you playing D&D?

 

[5ekyu]

To address the video game analogy, people (in general) played Ninja Gaiden much differently than they play Call of Duty. If you died in Ninja Gaiden, you had to start at the beginning. Call of Duty has save points you can load from infinitely. Heck, the web is loaded with articles about how modern video games are too easy. Because of the "death tax", people played a game like Ninja Gaiden much differently than a modern game with save points. They played more cautiously, and didn't just rush in without planning nearly as much. This is no surprise, because it aligns perfectly with typical human behavior with everything else when faced with risk vs reward. There is no evidence that I've seen that D&D is exempt from this.

Ok so anyone with more than a passing interest in sociology or scientific methods and group studies would be lol at this.

You example is practically meaningless because the samples are not selected by fair means.

True statistic - kidney donors lifespan is higher, significantly, than average lifespan.

Thats donor. Not recipient.

That does not mean giving up your kidney makes you live longer.

Neither does folks playing game a behaving different than folks plsying game b is DUE TO a rule being different changing folks behavior.

Google please causation and correlation.

Both the kidney example and the two games have selection criteria bias. That throws things way before folks start getting mind twisted by exposure to death tax inside the game.

In the kidney example, general in US docs wont accept donor, living donor, ehose health is not meteting high standards, so when you compare that pool results to average pop redults - wow giving up kidney makes you live longer... Well if you just jump the shark and call it science.

Same with foljs who choose to play one game vs folks who play another game. Results show the kinds of players the game attracts, not comparative *change in behavior* caused by exposure to the rules.

That kind of conclusion requires a much,more specific kind of controlled study than "i saw how folks played" to be consideted evidence - beyond the tinfoil hat crowds who like to use such "obvious reasoning" everytime a mass shooter has DND books on his shelf.

Really, it does.

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[Michael Silverbane]

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."

We're not heartless. In my game, if a character dies, we also kill the player. You know... put them out of their misery.

 

[5ekyu]

We're not heartless. In my game, if a character dies, we also kill the player. You know... put them out of their misery.

Good to know.

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[Sacrosanct]

This was your response to Celebrim saying:

Quote Originally Posted by Celebrim View Post
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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And I'm telling you this is false, because the widely accepted and proven studies of human behavior state that almost everyone will. Not "some". Your comment was completely dismissive of the actual science behind human behavior. I've never denied that there may be an exception here and there, but we're not talking about exceptions. We're talking about how things may affect human behavior on a whole. And something like a death penalty will have an affect. We have plenty of evidence of this. You have not provided any evidence that D&D is somehow exempt from this, other than to say "I haven't seen it, and this other guy isn't sure."

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. Sorry.

Your obviously now intentional refusal to acknowledge the difference between challenging a specific carrot- stick result and dismissing the whole of all cartot-stick results shows a lot.

More irony. The only person here refusing things is you refusing to admit how basic human behavior works; a topic that has been widely studied and theories proven over literally centuries.

If you look at the post i challenged it was even more extreme claims about the benefits of death taxes - video games resave vs better decisions - and i simply said it would affect some, not all.

And I'm telling you it's almost all. A universal truth that has been proven scientifically. Not "some". When talking in general, it's the accepted default.

So other than some specific maybe personal thing on your part or trolling, what is the diff between that and this that gets you to,jump all the way to murders talk?

Ad hominem aside.. What murders talk? The part where I said killing the actual players? That wasn't much more hyperbole than you saying to not allow players to play the game again until the next campaign. I.e., neither scenario actually happens, neither is part of the actual rules about penalties for PCs dying, therefore both are ridiculous examples that shouldn't even be considered and certainly don't "cheapen the death of a PC in the game."

Do you have a lot of players in your games that you have sern go all video game resave crazy soon as you reduced or removed death taxes?

Yes! Well, ignoring your hyperbole strawman again that is (I said the behavior changes, not that they instantly go "video game resave crazy"). I said that way early in this thread:

"IME, players are a lot more cautious in 1e. It's not because character creation takes less time, it's because it's actually an accomplishment to make it to 4th or 5th level. And with so many save or die, traps, and whatnot, the players are a lot more cautious in 1e. Also, a mid to high level PC like a MU or thief could die in one round from "regular' monsters like an owlbear or ogre since HP were much less. You don't see very many groups with 10ft pole in 5e describing in great detail how they are approaching that chest, where that's pretty much the default in 1e."

So the behavior of the players has changed to be less cautious when the risk to the PCs has been reduced.

You mention this massive evidence. Please point to the studies on death tax and video game resave in tabletop rpg play studies...

The studies of risk v reward is well documented. Here's a basic google search with thousands of articles for you to read. I don't know why you insist on the qualifier for a specific study of death taxes in a TTRPG. That infers that you think that TTRPGS are exempt from this very common and basic aspect of human behavior. I'd love to see your actual evidence as to why the basic human behavior of risk v reward that applies to everything else doesn't apply to RPGs.