D&D General If not death, then what?

[The-Magic-Sword]

Sure, losing something you have no attachment to has no meaning. But, again, most of us aren't using the "no death" rules in such a way that there is nothing of value lost. And if the player has nothing of value to lose... then the DM has not done a good job engaging them in the world.

I think it is a bizarre statement to say that death is more meaningful than other consequences, because death "always matters" while at the same time people are claiming that those for whom death matters... don't care about their characters beyond "Race x Class" and will casually replace the dead ones. Then death isn't even something to avoid.

I actually don't think that's true past low level, level 1 characters are generally disposable in the old school, but higher level characters represent a great deal of investment.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sure, losing something you have no attachment to has no meaning. But, again, most of us aren't using the "no death" rules in such a way that there is nothing of value lost. And if the player has nothing of value to lose... then the DM has not done a good job engaging them in the world.

I think it is a bizarre statement to say that death is more meaningful than other consequences, because death "always matters" while at the same time people are claiming that those for whom death matters... don't care about their characters beyond "Race x Class" and will casually replace the dead ones. Then death isn't even something to avoid.

That bolded bit at the end is a 5e-ism. Most* past editions players needed a somewhat steady stream of magic items & general expenses of various flavors from edition to edition. Having to light a bunch of gold on fire to raise dead on bob because he was reckless in ways people tried to tell him not to had a visceral impact because that was gold that couldn't be spent on magic items consumables & other expenses related to being awesome. Having to do that regularly would result in the group being more & more behind the curve of expectations so the threat of death was something to mitigate as best as possible with teamwork & other competence porn type force multipliers for the party allowing that gold to be spent on being more awesome. In 5e gold isn't really needed for anything & there's no magic item/meaningful upkeep/meaningful consumable expenses ensuring that there's no real sting for bringing bob back up for the Nth time after he died being reckless. Without the sting the group has nothing to push back against Bob's recklessness.

*I'm excluding 4e because I don't know it well enough to speak meaningful words but I've heard that gold was still important in 4e for some things like rituals & such

 

[Lanefan]

Why would a player with the low level of emotional engagement that you describe care whether or not their PC dies and they have to bring in a new one ("Bob II")?

They might care, but not to the point of getting upset over it.

And the "Bob II" piece has been done to death on the whiteboard even though it seems to have rarely if ever been seen in the wild.

If they're turning up with their friends to play beat the module, wouldn't they care about winning or losing vs the module as much as whether or not they have to change their game piece?

As a group they might care about beating the module, sure. But as a group. The party won, as opposed to any given individual; and Jocantha's role in helping achieve that victory was, it turned out, to die against the Goblin patrol (a.k.a. wandering monsters refluffed to suit the situation) that stumbled on to the party's camp one night.

 

[Medic]

I actually don't think that's true past low level, level 1 characters are generally disposable in the old school, but higher level characters represent a great deal of investment.

Much like a real person whose 9-5 job is "mercenary-graverobber," a prevailing philosophy in "old-school"-style play is to act recklessly at low levels where you have nothing to lose if you die, and cautiously at high levels when you might lose everything if you die. The investment is the time and effort of making that character rich and powerful, and a bad death can end all of that forever.

Whether or not there is any merit to this, I'll leave open for discussion.

competence porn

I've never seen this phrase before, but I'm into it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Much like a real person whose 9-5 job is "mercenary-graverobber," a prevailing philosophy in "old-school"-style play is to act recklessly at low levels where you have nothing to lose if you die, and cautiously at high levels when you might lose everything if you die. The investment is the time and effort of making that character rich and powerful, and a bad death can end all of that forever.

Whether or not there is any merit to this, I'll leave open for discussion.


I've never seen this phrase before, but I'm into it.

It's a term coined by one of the guys who wrote the leverage tv show. You used to sometimes see it with mid battle strategic discussion where everyone in the group knew roughly what others could do & they could quickly converse a strategy that made them far more than the sum of their parts making it a great term for when players are maximizing each other's contributions

 

[Chaosmancer]

I actually don't think that's true past low level, level 1 characters are generally disposable in the old school, but higher level characters represent a great deal of investment.

For some, but that isn't the feeling I've gotten from these discussions. And maybe that is the another dividing line? People who are only picturing lower levels vs higher levels?

It also seems strange then there is such a pushback on the grounds of people who "don't care beyond slinging dice" because if you don't care... you don't care? And a lot of us just simply have those higher investments early.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That bolded bit at the end is a 5e-ism. Most* past editions players needed a somewhat steady stream of magic items & general expenses of various flavors from edition to edition. Having to light a bunch of gold on fire to raise dead on bob because he was reckless in ways people tried to tell him not to had a visceral impact because that was gold that couldn't be spent on magic items consumables & other expenses related to being awesome. Having to do that regularly would result in the group being more & more behind the curve of expectations so the threat of death was something to mitigate as best as possible with teamwork & other competence porn type force multipliers for the party allowing that gold to be spent on being more awesome. In 5e gold isn't really needed for anything & there's no magic item/meaningful upkeep/meaningful consumable expenses ensuring that there's no real sting for bringing bob back up for the Nth time after he died being reckless. Without the sting the group has nothing to push back against Bob's recklessness.

*I'm excluding 4e because I don't know it well enough to speak meaningful words but I've heard that gold was still important in 4e for some things like rituals & such

There was nothing I saw in anyone's post that death is a meaningful consequence because it costs money. By that same token, just destroying their money directly would have the exact same impact, sans death.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

*I'm excluding 4e because I don't know it well enough to speak meaningful words but I've heard that gold was still important in 4e for some things like rituals & such

Believe it or not, 4e actually had increasing resurrection costs for high-level characters. Resurrection in Heroic tier is 500 gp. At Paragon, it's 5000 gp, and at Epic it's 50,000 gp. Explicitly this is defined as "death is less inclined to return paragon and epic" characters, but a more direct explanation is that souls that have reached higher tiers are more weighty, metaphorically speaking, and thus require a larger amount of magical mojo to restore.

 

[James Gasik]

Believe it or not, 4e actually had increasing resurrection costs for high-level characters. Resurrection in Heroic tier is 500 gp. At Paragon, it's 5000 gp, and at Epic it's 50,000 gp. Explicitly this is defined as "death is less inclined to return paragon and epic" characters, but a more direct explanation is that souls that have reached higher tiers are more weighty, metaphorically speaking, and thus require a larger amount of magical mojo to restore.

Of course, once you're spending astral diamonds at the Citadel Mercane in the Astral Plane, that's not a big deal. And some Epic Destinies grant various forms of immortality anyways, like my personal favorite, the Hordemaster:

The Legend Lives On (24th level): If you die and do not return to life within 12 hours, a devoted follower, such as a trusted lieutenant, takes your place, adopting your identity, your equipment, and your goals. This follower is identical to you, with the same level, race, class, paragon path, epic destiny, feats, and so forth. The two of you are essentially the same person and even have the same memories and experiences, if only because your follower listened so closely to your tales. If you are revived after being dead for more than 12 hours, your trusted follower returns to his or her former role.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course, once you're spending astral diamonds at the Citadel Mercane in the Astral Plane, that's not a big deal. And some Epic Destinies grant various forms of immortality anyways, like my personal favorite, the Hordemaster:

The Legend Lives On (24th level): If you die and do not return to life within 12 hours, a devoted follower, such as a trusted lieutenant, takes your place, adopting your identity, your equipment, and your goals. This follower is identical to you, with the same level, race, class, paragon path, epic destiny, feats, and so forth. The two of you are essentially the same person and even have the same memories and experiences, if only because your follower listened so closely to your tales. If you are revived after being dead for more than 12 hours, your trusted follower returns to his or her former role.

Oh, the Epic Destinies had some of the most...well, epic features ever included in stuff. That one, Thief of Legend, and Bahamut's Vessel were some of my favorites for that, the third there because it pretty much literally is, "Once per day, when you die, you instead turn into a FRIGGIN PLATINUM DRAGON."

Though my favorite Epic Destiny is actually Legendary Sovereign, which has a rather more tame "avoid death" feature. (Still good flavor though, what with it being called, very literally, "This Is Not My Fate.")