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

[FrogReaver]

In answering the original question, I think that the majority of players who play the modern editions don’t actually want this risk or challenge. They want the illusion of it.

I don’t think so. I think they have certain expectations about the levels of risk/challenge they expect to face and when those don’t line up with what’s happening they dislike that. That doesn’t mean they expect to never lose an encounter

There is an expectation of balanced encounters, where, they can enjoy a tougher end encounter, come out bruised and battered but just about surviving. There is an investment into the character, their story, their arc. The focus shifted from using the character as a vehicle to explore the world, to, using the world as a vehicle to exploring the character.

Sure, but even this doesn’t mean they don’t want actual character death to be possible.

I’ve seen too many threads, posts and comments where if a player character dies, there is an askance look at the DM, hushed whispers of adversarial DMing, DMs themselves hand wringing at having “accidentally killed PCs” and how this can be “fixed” to believe otherwise.

It’s easy to make a campaign/ encounter much harder than intended. It’s easy to accidentally kill PCs. It’s easy to make an incorrect ruling in the moment and want to fix it. I think these reactions are more to do with these things than the character simply being dead.

 

[Fanaelialae]

actually they aren't "making the average dm the good guy" because that hypothetical gm is not making any changes. By setting so many dials too high they are even denying said gm the opportunity to be the good guy. Past editions made allowances for both by including sections where the dial was set in one position whie guidance was included talking about the reasons & resulting effects that could result in changing the dial slightly up/down along with things to look out for when doing that.

Also your distorting "more lethal" by twisting it to an extreme position of "punishing games" to support your position. more lethal than 5e' dial setting where the average wizard having durability on par with woverine & deadpool in loony toons is a far cry from the sort of meatgrinder that one could call "punishing games". 5e forcing DMs to either invoke save or die mechanics or effectively execute a downed player just to put lethality on the table in some meaningful faction makes the current setting on those dials one of a "punishing game" where death feel arbitrary & beyond their control when it happens to a player.

The last thing I'm going to say on this matter is that different people have different views on what they consider punishing. My friend doesn't see Resident Evil Code Veronica as a punishing game, whereas I do. I don't see Dark Souls as punishing, but there are people who do.

The fact that you say you're getting pushback from your players suggests to me that what you see as more lethal, they might view as punishing. I don't know you or your group, beyond what you've expressed here, so that's based on very limited information. However, IME, if your players are pushing back, something is out of sync, and it's worth listening to them and discussing it, rather than trying to place the blame on the game's design. I mean, if it's really simply a problem with 5e being overly generous, the issue should be easily solved by simply switching to a more lethal system, like the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

 

[tetrasodium]

Honestly I think one of the key reasons level drain went away was the increased complexity of levels. In Basic it was fairly simple to figure out what losing a level meant, mechanically. In 3e and later, it got a lot more complicated. That's why 3.5 level drain was re-written to a broad -1 penalty to a bunch of stuff, rather than losing spells known and so on.

I agree, 3.x sidestepped that by creating an alternate mechanic that carried similar levels of terror with attribute damage. You had a potentially severe pain that would take a good length of time to recover where they continue imposing that pain. It sidestepped the rebuilding of the character problem by making a simple mechanic that could even be calculated on the fly during recovery but 5e got rid of that too.

 

[transmission89]

I don’t think so. I think they have certain expectations about the levels of risk/challenge they expect to face and when those don’t line up with what’s happening they dislike that. That doesn’t mean they expect to never lose an encounter



Sure, but even this doesn’t mean they don’t want actual character death to be possible.


It’s easy to make a campaign/ encounter much harder than intended. It’s easy to accidentally kill PCs. It’s easy to make an incorrect ruling in the moment and want to fix it. I think these reactions are more to do with these things than the character simply being dead.

Therein is the rub. The notion of “accidentally killing the characters”. And also “making an encounter harder than intended”. This is the mindset difference to which I was referring. If you take the “dice fall where they may” approach, it is not accidental, it just is. Encounters aren’t harder or easier than intended, they just are.

This is part of the challenge that I think many players of modern rule sets don’t want. The dice are indeed arbitrary and cruel. Certainly, a skilled player can mitigate the effects of the dice (in a similar manner to the bloodbowl board game. Many will lament that it’s just dice based, but a good coach will ensure the odds are stacked before they roll).

Removal of that, is removal of part of the intended (insofar as the earlier editions design) challenge.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing (whatever your table prefers is cool), but it is a challenge dial that is being turned off.

 

[FrogReaver]

Therein is the rub. The notion of “accidentally killing the characters”. This is the mindset difference to which I was referring. If you take the “dice fall where they may” approach, it is not accidental, it just is.

This is part of the challenge that I think many players of modern rule sets don’t want. The dice are indeed arbitrary and cruel. Certainly, a skilled player can mitigate the effects of the dice (in a similar manner to the bloodbowl board game. Many will lament that it’s just dice based, but a good coach will ensure the odds are stacked before they roll).

Removal of that, is removal of part of the intended (insofar as the earlier editions design) challenge.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing (whatever your table prefers is cool), but it is a challenge dial that is being turned off.

That’s not really true though. The DM creates the encounter and the dice may still fall where they may. The people aren’t getting upset at the bad dice. They are upset when the DMs encounter doesn’t meet their table expectations - usually due to being much more difficult than anticipated due to the enemies enlisted punching much higher than their CR would indicate.

it’s not always easy to judge encounter difficulty - especially for newer dms.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Alot of the time, D&D veterans may have criticisms that the game is a bit too easy. Its certainly easier than the older editions and player death isn't nearly as frequent, but the risk is there.

The question is: Do players actually want this risk?

Yes, but not all.

I think there always need to be consequences, something to "lose". But, as time has gone on other loss states became available- character death, hostage death, loss of reputation, failure of the "mission", loss of wealth, &c.

 

[prabe]

That’s not really true though. The DM creates the encounter and the dice may still fall where they may. The people aren’t getting upset at the bad dice. They are upset when the DMs encounter doesn’t meet their table expectations - usually due to being much more difficult than anticipated due to the enemies enlisted punching much higher than their CR would indicate.

it’s not always easy to judge encounter difficulty - especially for newer dms.

Yes, this. There's a difference between "I didn't intend to kill the PCs" and "I intended not to kill the PCs." DMs generally seem much more bothered by the latter than the former.

 

[transmission89]

That’s not really true though. The DM creates the encounter and the dice may still fall where they may. The people aren’t getting upset at the bad dice. They are upset when the DMs encounter doesn’t meet their table expectations - usually due to being much more difficult than anticipated due to the enemies enlisted punching much higher than their CR would indicate.

it’s not always easy to judge encounter difficulty - especially for newer dms.

And CR is part of it. Even the notion of balanced encounters. It’s that expectation that’s what I’m talking about.

As to the lack of complaint regarding dice, there’s a character death in critical role that also got a lot of complaints, because of the dice... And again, it shattered the pre conceived expectation that a character might gasp die...

 

[Fanaelialae]

And CR is part of it. Even the notion of balanced encounters. It’s that expectation that’s what I’m talking about.

As to the lack of complaint regarding dice, there’s a character death in critical role that also got a lot of complaints, because of the dice... And again, it shattered the pre conceived expectation that a character might gasp die...

CR may not be perfect, but IMO it's worlds better than before it existed. I started with the Basic set and 2e, and in those days if you wanted to create a balanced encounter, you just kind of eyeballed it and hoped your guess was somewhere in the right ballpark.

Nowadays, I still sometimes eyeball it, but at least I have guidelines to fall back on if I want a sanity check.

I actually think this falls more under the Combat as War/Sport distinction. If you have a DM who runs a CaW game and players expecting a CaS game then you're going to have a problem. However, that is more an issue of communicating and managing expectations. If you tell the players that they shouldn't expect encounters to be fair, then there's no reason for them to expect fair encounters. Of course, whether or not a given player actually wants to play in that style of campaign will be up to that individual, but there are certainly players who will.

 

[transmission89]

CR may not be perfect, but IMO it's worlds better than before it existed. I started with the Basic set and 2e, and in those days if you wanted to create a balanced encounter, you just kind of eyeballed it and hoped your guess was somewhere in the right ballpark.

Nowadays, I still sometimes eyeball it, but at least I have guidelines to fall back on if I want a sanity check.

I actually think this falls more under the Combat as War/Sport distinction. If you have a DM who runs a CaW game and players expecting a CaS game then you're going to have a problem. However, that is more an issue of communicating and managing expectations. If you tell the players that they shouldn't expect encounters to be fair, then there's no reason for them to expect fair encounters. Of course, whether or not a given player actually wants to play in that style of campaign will be up to the individual, but there are certainly players who will.

And that’s my point in a nut shell. In following a scheme of fair and balanced encounters, it’s the “illusion of challenge” I referred to in my original post.

They want to feel challenged, but don’t want the risks of an uncontained confrontation. Which is fine, I’m not saying one play style is inheritantly better than the other.

You can test this, offer to run your group a DCC funnel with the randomly generated 0 level characters. Explain to them the concept.

Your group might be game for it. They might reject it.
If they reject it, I can predict the reasons are :
A) “we don’t want to play with that level of lethality”
B)”we don’t want to play with randomly rolled, potentially low stat characters”.

That there is the inherent challenge of the game. Make do with what you’ve got and become a hero through surviving. To control for system variance, you could also convert a funnel adventure for a 1st level 5e group. It would massively break the basic “agreed illusion of challenge” expectation. See how they react.

Instead, many players prefer the power fantasy. They want to make their character, have control over every aspect of their hero, bravely overcome the (balanced) odds and win the epic quest.

It’s fine, some want to play Diablo, swatting demons aside through their builds than play dark souls. And that’s cool, but that challenge isn’t on the same level.