D&D 5E [+] Questions for zero character death players and DMs…

[Hussar]

Not possible? I think that's a bit extreme. I mean, look at The Keep on the Borderlands or the Village of Hommlet. There's things going on, but really you're just poking around looking for the adventure- be it the Caves of Chaos or the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I'll admit there's more story to the ToEE, of course. But lots of early adventures are like "for whatever reason, you're here. Go look around!"

But even something as incredibly bare bones as KotB still has a strongly implied story. Your characters are going to go to the Caves. There really isn’t anything else to do except go to the caves.

As well, KOtB is set up for Basic DnD play which specifically tells you “go to the dungeon”. There’s no game if you don’t.

And even then the caves are set up with story. This tribe hates that tribe but is allied with the other tribe. That’s story right there.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, because a TPK wouldn't be an ending. Just... the end of the game? The end of that story? But somehow that isn't an.... ending?

I never stopped playing D&D when a TPK happened. We kept playing the RPG. So no, the RPG didn't end with the TPK. Further, I have been in multiple campaigns where a whole new group started up where the old one left off.

And there is no work that is ever started and never finished, right?

Sure there is. Those are incomplete and people don't go to the book store to buy them, or the movies to watch one. I almost pre-emptively answered this in my last post, but then I thought, "Nah! He wouldn't try to claim incomplete works are the same as finished products."

How, very rarely in media is a character killed off without completing most of their arc. And how, therefore, it wouldn't be wildly crazy to not kill off a PC before they achieve most of their goals. Kind of like... the entire crux of my point.

False Equivalences remain false. It's not relevant what happens to character arcs in movies, books, and plays. Those are not even close to what an RPG is. That they share something called "story(which isn't engaged in the same way)" doesn't make them the same or even very similar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The thread reads an awful lot like story-focused players have a predefined end-point in mind before they start play that must be reached for the story to be satisfying.

I have seen not a single post that aligns with this reading of the thread.

That seems antithetical to player agency and playing to find out what happens. Both of which are high on my list of priorities as a player and referee. For me, protecting a player from their bad choices is not how I want to run a game.

This post is hardly in the spirit of a + thread.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, things should generally be going on in the environment, cause that helps make it feel alive. But, mostly things happen independently of, rather than to, the PCs. Kinda like Fronts in Dungeon World. Random events can also be good. But there’s no prior plans for a story; the only story is the one the players create as they interact with the world.

I can't do that. Two of my players are reactive, and two are semi-proactive. I say semi-proactive, because they'll come up with side goals and pursue them, but if I leave them to direct the game entirely, they'll founder.

My games are run with plans for a story, but it's one that the players and I come up with during session 0 or -1, so they have full buy in before it begins. They're also free to wander off the story and into other things that happen in the world, but I keep the story there for them to glom onto when/if they want.

 

[James Gasik]

I never stopped playing D&D when a TPK happened. We kept playing the RPG. So no, the RPG didn't end with the TPK. Further, I have been in multiple campaigns where a whole new group started up where the old one left off.

Sure there is. Those are incomplete and people don't go to the book store to buy them, or the movies to watch one. I almost pre-emptively answered this in my last post, but then I thought, "Nah! He wouldn't try to claim incomplete works are the same as finished products."

False Equivalences remain false. It's not relevant what happens to character arcs in movies, books, and plays. Those are not even close to what an RPG is. That they share something called "story(which isn't engaged in the same way)" doesn't make them the same or even very similar.

I have had a game just end because of a TPK, with the momentum just sucked out of it. And suddenly, everyone is "busy" for months. So I really consider a TPK to be something I should work to avoid as a DM.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To kill a character with a purpose in mind and goal towards the overall narrative, one must have an overall narrative in mind. Many people object to this in D&D. They want a satisfying narrative to emerge organically, they don’t want to plan one first and then act it out. Rather than keeping characters alive because their death wouldn’t suit the narrative they already had planned, they want to accept the character death that occurred as a result of gameplay and come up with a way to incorporate that into the narrative they are actively creating as they go.

eh, not necessarily.

I had a character nearly die in a recent game. We were level 1, first bandit went down to a single firebolt, second bandit was a CR 2 Bandit captain and started wrecking us. (We weren't going to retreat, because supposedly they had kidnapped a small child. and must of it was absolutely naughty word dice. Both my character and the ranger missed every attack for 3 rounds.). I didn't die, thanks to some timely and possibly illegal healing magic, but the thing is I'd nearly guarantee that no one thinks the story would be served by my character's death in that fight.

Because it was our very first session of the game.

Everyone has been starting to build the bonds between our characters, just starting to figure out how this group fits together. My character's death would have been a massive disruption to all of that. We don't need to know where the narrative is going to know that we don't want it to go in that direction. If we did, I'd have played a different character instead of talking it out with the party before making them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not possible? I think that's a bit extreme. I mean, look at The Keep on the Borderlands or the Village of Hommlet. There's things going on, but really you're just poking around looking for the adventure- be it the Caves of Chaos or the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I'll admit there's more story to the ToEE, of course. But lots of early adventures are like "for whatever reason, you're here. Go look around!"

I think @Hussar 's point (and he might answer this on the next page) is that if the Village of Hommlet is written with the plot hooks to lead you to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and you present the Temple of Elemental as a "bad place" where "bad things are happening" then there is an authored story. Because the DM clearly intends you to go to the Temple and stop the bad things.

Now, I think that the definitions are getting a little stretched and extreme, but I can see the overall point. I don't make a campaign where there is a zombie apocalypse on the rise, or growing trouble with the orcs in the north, without the expectation that the players are going to go and solve those issues. I may not know how, maybe not even why, but I have clearly set expectations in the goals. And it would be very difficult to run any sort of game where you did not do at least that much planning.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I think there is quite a difference between a DM providing adventuring hooks and a DM planning how the narrative must ultimately play out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I never stopped playing D&D when a TPK happened. We kept playing the RPG. So no, the RPG didn't end with the TPK. Further, I have been in multiple campaigns where a whole new group started up where the old one left off.

That's still an ending. The new group is just a sequel. There is nothing that says the only ending an RPG has is to stop playing the RPG.

Sure there is. Those are incomplete and people don't go to the book store to buy them, or the movies to watch one. I almost pre-emptively answered this in my last post, but then I thought, "Nah! He wouldn't try to claim incomplete works are the same as finished products."

Obviously they aren't the same, but people buy them all the time. Beowulf is incomplete, but I'm sure people buy it consistently every year.

But, funny thing, an incomplete work starts the exact same way as a completed work. You cannot possibly tell if a work will be completed or not from how it starts. So... incomplete games don't discredit the comparison.

False Equivalences remain false. It's not relevant what happens to character arcs in movies, books, and plays. Those are not even close to what an RPG is. That they share something called "story(which isn't engaged in the same way)" doesn't make them the same or even very similar.

True Equivalence remains True.

You don't engage with an Opera the same way you engage with a novel, but both still tell stories. Storytelling is a fundamental connection. And just because Opera and Novels have differences, does not mean they do not share any similarities. Therefore, just because RPGs have differences, since they share the root of Storytelling, they also share similarities.

 

[Hussar]

eh, not necessarily.

. We don't need to know where the narrative is going to know that we don't want it to go in that direction. If we did, I'd have played a different character instead of talking it out with the party before making them.

That is a great point. You don’t need to have a fixed end point in a narrative to know that you don’t want it to go in that direction. Excellent way to sum up the whole thread really.