D&D 5E How often do characters die in your campaigns?

[Stormonu]

Character death in my campaigns are rare, and it's never my intention to kill a character, but if it happens, it happens. Usually, it's just one but I have had cases where the other characters linger too long either trying futilely to save the one or exact revenge only to end up with a TPK. I've had a couple characters ressurected, but mostly the dead stay dead and the players prefer to write up a new character and try something new rather than bring someone back.

In 5E alone, there's been about four actual deaths in the three campaigns I've run, and in the Tomb game I'm playing in I've lost track if I'm on my 4th or 5th character. The Saltmarsh game I'm running sorta had a TPK, the party was bludgeoned to unconsiousness by a villain (as part of their actual tactics) and is now their prisoner. I offered to end the campaign (it was basically a wipe), but the players have insisted they want to try to escape, so I'm setting up the adventure where they get the chance.

 

[Ancalagon]

Character death has been rare for me as GM, but over the years quite a few bit the bucket. In 5e I had one PC died an inglorious death - on fire, stabbed with spears - for no good at all but a vain attempt at glory. The GLOG has been more lethal, with at least 2 character death in less playing time.

In the pahtfinder game, we've had 2 PC death over 2 years, one of them mine.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In a 4 year long campaign I had 4 player deaths (one with source forgotten, two with a vampire, one possessed by a ghost when alone) playing by the rules fairly closely.

In Part II of the campaign we played just a few months before Covid rolled in and I killed a further 3 in a TPK versus an Oblex and two rat swarms. They players wanted to play on hard mode so I instituted some restrictions on character creation to lower the PC power level a bit AND started playing the monsters more intelligently. They chose to play missing the 4th player in a session and dug their heels in rather than fleeing when things got rough.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I don't like killing individual characters. Whenever I'm running a campaign I try to give each character a lot of ties to the story and the overall plot. I work with the players in session 0 to tie each of the characters together with their backgrounds. In short I try my best to make everything an interconnected web so that players feel their characters are connected to the world. Whenever just one or two characters die thought it just kinda slices that web to pieces. Now I have some new character/s to introduce who have no ties to the party or plot and all the old threads tied to the dead character/s are usually just left dangling. While I can (and have) made it work I just find having any individual character die just messes with the plot and usually creates a less satisfying story.

On the other hand I don't mind TPKs at all. I think I've had two campaigns where the characters succeed against about 4 or 5 where the party died. I run hard games in general and sometimes the party gets in over their heads. Often TPKs create stories that are as interesting as succeeding (though in a different way).

How do you guys run your campaigns and death?

So much to unpack here! So much so I'm not going to even try. Suffice it to say...you sound like a more "narrative story oriented" type of DM. That's cool, to each their own and all that.

But...this is the "problem" with what I call a "pre-designed story". An RPG is, imnsho, not a "story to be told". It's more like "a series of improve sessions that form a story". I am all for giving little 'strands of webbing' for the Players to have their PC's grasp onto...or not. It's THEIR story and THEIR call...I'm just the DM. It's NOT my job to "tell a story" so much as it is my job to "facilitate the telling of THEIR story"...in a manner of speaking.

I DO have "things going on" in the world... "plots", for lack of a better word. But, these plots are initially almost always completely independent of the PC's. If the PC's get involved with them, well, then we do the whole roleplaying thing (re: the "improve" part of the storytelling). I have NPC's and the world react to the Players choices they have their PC's make...the Players then react to those NPC/world reactions and act on those...rinse and repeat. This continues on forever, effectively, with some 'plots' coming to a close (often unexpectedly), some kinda piddling out into non-issues, and some being epic quests resulting in the PC's besting the dungeon, saving the princess, recovering the Ancient Foozle of Power, and wresting Glory from the edge of despair!

And TPK's? Yeah, they happen. All that is is one of those stories that the NEXT adventurers get told by that old enchanter in the dark corner of the bar (some call him.. Tim?...). "There lies the Cave of Caebannog! Where the entrance to this cave is guarded by a beast so foul, so cruel, that no man yet that has fought with it...and lived!". Yeah, well...all those "men that have fought with it" and gotten killed by the beast were PC's who were in a TPK.

But...I'm what is now considered a "Killer DM"; I don't build or run my games around "the PC's are heroes, destined for greatness". I run my games MUCH more akin to the old origins of the game; the PC's are adventurers...sell-swords...treasure seekers...less-than-honourable men and woman who seek fame, power and glory over the adoration of the populace. That's not to say that I haven't run games in which all my Players choose to play "really good guys...heroes doing the right thing out of the goodness of their good hearts". I have, and some of them even ended up really epic and with an adoring populace.

So, how do I "handle" deaths and TPK's? Easily...I guess? It never "wrecks the story"...it only changes it.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There are other important variables involved that makes it difficult for this poll to really answer your questions.

First, you need to know the length of a campaign. 3 deaths in a three month campaign isn't the same as 3 deaths in a thirteen year campaign. When I'm running a theme adventure (10-15 session game), usually no one dies. When I'm running a multi-year campaign, characters always die, and the longer it goes the more character deaths happen!

Second, the availability of resurrection magic has to be directly addressed. The OP seems to imply the lack of resurrection magic, but the default in 5e D&D is fairly cheap and easy ways to come back (300gp for a 3rd level revivify, or 500 gp for a 5th-level raise dead). In games I've played in under multiple DMs, it's generally been assumed that if your character dies and you want to keep them, you get someone to cast one of those spells. If the party level is too low to afford it, then you look for a cleric who will trade it for a service. From reading the forums, I'm not sure if the people that post are just outstanders in not having resurrection magic available in their campaigns, or they are assuming that the discussion is assuming we are talking about permanent death when resurrection isn't possible (got incinerated and too low level for true resurrection to be within reach, etc).

 

[The Green Hermit]

Players frequently die in my campaigns. We also TPK a fair amount. When a character dies, but at least one party member lives, a new character is rolled and we figure out a way to introduce them. If we have a TPK, we do an auto-reset before the battle that killed us.

 

[Li Shenron]

How do you guys run your campaigns and death?

I haven't had any PC death in 5e, although they got close to it a few times, including a couple of times getting just 1 point of damage less than needed for instant death.

That said, my policy has been for years to always ask the player in case of PC death if they are OK with it, or would rather suffer a different penalty but keep playing the PC.

 

[Older Beholder]

In 5e I‘ve only had the one TPK as a DM.

In a different campaign I ran, I had two characters die at different times, one was killed by an invisible stalker, the other a revenant. In both cases the monster was specifically focused on killing the character based on things they’d done.

One got raised, the other was happy to play something new.

As a player I’ve only seen a couple of other PC deaths. I haven’t been killed yet, although Zook my Eldritch Knight Gnome came close more times than I could count.

I did once drop out of a PotA campaign that ended in a TPK a few months later.

 

[reelo]

I roll attacks and damage in the open and let the dice fall how they may.

 

[Earth2Carnifex]

Every campaign I have ever played had at least one PC death. TPK's are pretty rare, I have seen a few of them, maybe 3 over the last 40 years, but it was always because the party as a whole got stupid and unlucky in the same game.