D&D General Do players even like the risk of death?

[jmartkdr2]

This boils down to the player. The older editions were more lethal for sure, but there were always players who disliked dying (and complained about it). But I think there were two basic camps. I always felt having death on the table, including random death from stupid things, made the game more exciting and played into the random aspect of dice rolls sometimes determining outcomes. For me it definitely makes the game more enjoyable. For others it takes away from the game.

Regardless of edition, I find it's mostly to do with how much the player has invested in the pc - if they spent a lot of time working on the pc - backstory, detailed personality, build, advancement, attachments to npcs and the world - losing the character is a big loss and not a lot of fun.

If they rolled up the character in five minutes, gave them a name and a quirk and got playing - it's not a big loss.

Note that the outward signs don't always mean the same thing between players. One player with a lot of system mastery might pull off a triple-class monster of synergies in a few minutes, where another might struggle with a basic fighter. Length of backstory can be affected by writing style and comfort with creative writing as much as anything, and just because a pc has been on a lot of adventures doesn't mean the payer's really into them. But these are all correlations worth looking at.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They are, but they are not that different. Sure, a battle could have other lose conditions than death. An important resource may be lost, or the players may fail to stop the villains from achieving their goal. These are all valid lose conditions.

But when I go to fight a dragon, the lose condition that is on my mind the most, is if me and my party will survive. Sure, if the dragon succeeds at burning down the town, that is a huge loss. But if there is no risk of being killed by the dragon, the fight doesn't quite have the same punch to me. I feel some monsters need to be scary. Scary that they can kill the pc's.

I never want to feel like the DM is trying to shield me and my fellow players from harm. I have been in that situation, and it is the lamest experience I've ever had in D&D; the knowledge that no matter how badly things go sideways, the DM won't let anyone die.

Okay

 

[FrogReaver]

Regardless of edition, I find it's mostly to do with how much the player has invested in the pc - if they spent a lot of time working on the pc - backstory, detailed personality, build, advancement, attachments to npcs and the world - losing the character is a big loss and not a lot of fun.

If they rolled up the character in five minutes, gave them a name and a quirk and got playing - it's not a big loss.

Note that the outward signs don't always mean the same thing between players. One player with a lot of system mastery might pull off a triple-class monster of synergies in a few minutes, where another might struggle with a basic fighter. Length of backstory can be affected by writing style and comfort with creative writing as much as anything, and just because a pc has been on a lot of adventures doesn't mean the payer's really into them. But these are all correlations worth looking at.

But that’s a far different question. I may not like losing particular PCs I am invested in, but I might still like having the fact that they can die be in the game.

 

[jmartkdr2]

But that’s a far different question. I may not like losing particular PCs I am invested in, but I might still like having the fact that they can die be in the game.

Fair point.

And skimming the whole thread it seems there's a consensus that while players rarely want their characters to die, most wouldn't want a game where it couldn't possibly happen. At least for DnD.

The rest is just tangents about alternative consequences.

 

[Nefermandias]

You might be onto something here. As a GM I really don't want to decide that a random enemy coup de grâces a downed PC.

Me neither. That's why I'm always tempted to remove death saves altogether.

 

[Reynard]

You might be onto something here. As a GM I really don't want to decide that a random enemy coup de grâces a downed PC.

I tend to have smart enemies who would reasonably have experience fighting "adventurer types" to target the cleric first, and hard. The go for the wizard types. Leave the tanks for last, they aren't going to matter. Now it is up to the players to try and disrupt that NPC plan.

I usually have hungry animal types try and drag off a downed PC for a meal, and usually I have them run away at 25% health since animals don't usually fight to the death.

Zombies and other hungry dead? Yeah, they are going after downed PCs.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Fair point.

And skimming the whole thread it seems there's a consensus that while players rarely want their characters to die, most wouldn't want a game where it couldn't possibly happen. At least for DnD.

The rest is just tangents about alternative consequences.

So, am I the only the only one that does a doubletake every time I see the title of this thread?

All I can think is, "Do you even lift, bro?"

"Do you even play D&D with consequences, bro? Oh, you play with three death saves? That's cute."

 

[Maxperson]

Regardless of edition, I find it's mostly to do with how much the player has invested in the pc - if they spent a lot of time working on the pc - backstory, detailed personality, build, advancement, attachments to npcs and the world - losing the character is a big loss and not a lot of fun.

My group invests and spends time on their PCs, and wouldn't dream of trying to remove death from the table or view such a loss as a bad thing. So long as death isn't common, it's okay to do both.

In my last campaign I had 3 deaths, which is higher than usual. Typically a campaign of mine has 0-1 PC death, so 3 was pretty high.

The first death was to a Banshee. 3 of the 4 PCs failed their save, leaving the Barbarian to try and fight the Banshee and save everyone, which didn't work out well. One of the 3 PCs failed all of his death saves. Cause of death: Bad luck.

The second death was to a group of Spawn of Kyuss. They had been dutifully getting rid of worms for most of the fight, then one player inexplicably decided not to and ended up with the worm burrowed and no magic to stop it from killing him. Cause of death: poor decision making.

The third death was to an encounter that had been designed as a deadly challenge for the group. They had encountered it and it had used hit and run tactics, vanishing from sight. They knew it was powerful, but decided to split up and look for it. The afore mentioned Barbarian encountered it alone and while he did more than half its hit points in damage before he died, he died. Cause of death: poor decision making.

I will never step in if a PC is dying due to a poor player decision. That's player experience and I want high level players I will step in if extreme bad luck happens, such as my rolling a bunch of 20's for the monsters at the same time as the players are rolling a bunch of 1's. The party shouldn't die to extreme bad luck, so I will fudge a few rolls to make the fight more even. They can still lose or even TPK, but the extreme bad luck won't be the cause. With the Banshee, the whole challenge of it is the occasional bad luck, so I didn't change anything. Without bad luck, it's a cakewalk encounter.

 

[tetrasodium]

I see where you're going with this, but it's a bit of a false comparison. We make children eat their broccoli because eating nothing but ice cream can have very serious consequences for their health. The same cannot be said for players and mechanics like level drain.

You might like the idea of level drain, but that doesn't make it any objectively better or worse than no level drain. If your players don't have fun with it, then it may be better to leave it out.

Let me put it another way. If I'm playing a video game and I'm getting frustrated because a level is an hour of play and I keep dying, I put down the controller and walk away. Maybe I'll pick it back up later and maybe I won't. I play video games for fun, not to prove to anyone how "hardcore" I am. If it's not fun, then the game is not fulfilling its intended purpose for me. Whereas I don't love salad, but I eat a salad for lunch at least 5 days a week because I know it is good for me. Its purpose is not enjoyment, except in the sense that I hope eating salads will allow me to enjoy retirement in good health (though that's still decades away).

Sure it might be easier to force your players to accept level drain if it's the only option. However, I think it's reasonable to consider whether you even ought to, given that many people play this game for fun. I think that a reasonable approach would be to talk to the players and explain that you'd like to do a one-shot with level drain - if they like it you can keep playing that way, and if not you don't. It's not as though level drains are inherently better for them, though they may find they enjoy it if they give it a chance.

No you are missing the point. The consequence of you many dials timed yo high is then the GM wanting to dial them back starts out as the bad guy wanting to nerfed them. If those dials are about right or you lie the gm wanting to change them is the awesome guy making things better for the player.
You don't need to agree with or accept the mechanical game and campaign negative impacts to see that us how wotc removing too many things and making pcs so close to deadpool &wolverine levels of endurance to damage sets up a gm wanting to change that to any degree downward as the bad guy the second they bring it up.

 

[Fanaelialae]

No you are missing the point. The consequence of you many dials timed yo high is then the GM wanting to dial them back starts out as the bad guy wanting to nerfed them. If those dials are about right or you lie the gm wanting to change them is the awesome guy making things better for the player.
You don't need to agree with or accept the mechanical game and campaign negative impacts to see that us how wotc removing too many things and making pcs so close to deadpool &wolverine levels of endurance to damage sets up a gm wanting to change that to any degree downward as the bad guy the second they bring it up.

The players will only see something like level drain as negative if they don't want it in the game. Assuming that they are experienced and know their own tastes, they know whether they like it or not. If they aren't experienced, running a one shot where they get to try it out is a good way to give them that experience.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but I disagree that a designers role is to design a game that's "dialed low" so that the GM can be "awesome" when they house rule it into a better game. Better to just set the default dials where the majority enjoys it.

Those groups that have a different preference can adjust those dials as desired. If the group is on board, they won't see turning dials down as a bad thing. If they're not on board, they'll complain even if you don't turn the dials high enough (based on my own experience from previous editions).

Trying to force the players to eat their "broccoli" is misguided IMO, when the "ice cream" is just as healthy. Either your players will like broccoli or they won't. Trying to force feed it to them is likely to simply result in an activity that is meant to be fun, being less fun.