D&D General The DM Shortage

[overgeeked]

We didn't have many house rules as far as death and dying, in fact since 2E I've made getting raised from the dead more difficult for thematic reasons. We just didn't run super deadly games. But sure. I'm not lying, just what I'm saying can't possibly be true because it doesn't match your experience. I fail to see the distinction.

D&D has always been and is still as deadly as the DM wants it to be.

I’m not comparing your experiences with mine. I’m comparing your experiences with the RAW of AD&D. Unless the referee used house rules or put their thumb on the scale, then AD&D is more deadly than 5E.

 

[Oofta]

I’m not comparing your experiences with mine. I’m comparing your experiences with the RAW of AD&D. Unless the referee used house rules or put their thumb on the scale, then AD&D is more deadly than 5E.

The game has always been as deadly as the DM wants. The DM has unlimited dragons, can double tap, can disintegrate if they want. The DM always determines difficulty.

I don't know why you keep insisting that somehow old school D&D must be deadly. It was easier for a DM to accidentally kill PCs which is why we probably avoided some monsters and types of traps. But avoiding a medusa because it can instantly turn you into stone is not the same as house ruling, fudging or any other claim you want to make.

 

[jasper]

One reason shortage of DMs. Players don't want to deal with limits. What Jasper is only allowing the PHB and banning warlocks because he thinks their lame.
Player1, Quickest way to get banned PC is to say they banned.
Player 2. What I know Jasper has all the books he should allow everything.
Jasper, "First time DMING give me a break."
Player1, "You never gave Oofta a break. He burnt his books and became a run way model after last January session."

 

[jasper]

Especially when those players are also your friends. Doubly so when those friends are also sometimes your GMs.

Again for the record. None of the games I started with was the whole group my friends. And some my friends were asshats just for fun when I was the DM.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The game has always been as deadly as the DM wants. The DM has unlimited dragons, can double tap, can disintegrate if they want. The DM always determines difficulty.

I don't know why you keep insisting that somehow old school D&D must be deadly. It was easier for a DM to accidentally kill PCs which is why we probably avoided some monsters and types of traps. But avoiding a medusa because it can instantly turn you into stone is not the same as house ruling, fudging or any other claim you want to make.

I can see what they're saying. Purely by a reading of RAW you'd have every reason to believe that AD&D was deadlier than 5e.

That said, based on experience, I agree with you. The AD&D games I played (several different groups) were the same or less deadly than 5e.

It was easier to accidentally kill PCs in AD&D, so some DMs would fudge their rolls. Whereas in 5e, you can generally go all out, no need for fudging.

Additionally, in AD&D, encounters were often significantly smaller/easier than typical encounters you'd see in 5e.

Finally, in AD&D DMs we're often fairly generous in allowing shenanigan style strategies that eliminated most or all of the threat that an encounter posed. In 5e, you generally don't need to do that to survive (though it can still be fun).

 

[Oofta]

One reason shortage of DMs. Players don't want to deal with limits. What Jasper is only allowing the PHB and banning warlocks because he thinks their lame.
Player1, Quickest way to get banned PC is to say they banned.
Player 2. What I know Jasper has all the books he should allow everything.
Jasper, "First time DMING give me a break."
Player1, "You never gave Oofta a break. He burnt his books and became a run way model after last January session."

Shh! Don't give away my secret strut surprise career! I have a reputation to maintain!

 

[Zardnaar]

yeah, I assume there is also a "I don't want to try 3 DMs looking for a good one" that may be handled by "If they charge they must be good"

For the record I do NOT believe that charging means you must be good, but some will

If I charged to DM I would assume the players are more likely to turn up.

 

[Velderan]

I’m not comparing your experiences with mine. I’m comparing your experiences with the RAW of AD&D. Unless the referee used house rules or put their thumb on the scale, then AD&D is more deadly than 5E.

The game has always been as deadly as the DM wants. The DM has unlimited dragons, can double tap, can disintegrate if they want. The DM always determines difficulty.

I don't know why you keep insisting that somehow old school D&D must be deadly. It was easier for a DM to accidentally kill PCs which is why we probably avoided some monsters and types of traps. But avoiding a medusa because it can instantly turn you into stone is not the same as house ruling, fudging or any other claim you want to make.

I think what overgeeked is trying to say is RAW AD&D (if memory serves correctly) was much easier to actually die in without significant house rules to deal with players going unconscious or something. RAW 5e you need 3 failed death saves to actually die. If you make 3 death saves, you stabilize and can eventually wake up. Put a party of 1st level PCs in both versions of the game up against the same number of goblins and the 5e party might have a player go down but they're less likely to die. A Healing Word can quickly get a player back up before they fail their death saves also.

Lastly an AD&D mage had 1d4 HD so less HP and you need less constitution to get a positive HP bonus per level. Overall it gives 5e players a high chance to survive.

 

[Oofta]

I think what overgeeked is trying to say is RAW AD&D (if memory serves correctly) was much easier to actually die in without significant house rules to deal with players going unconscious or something. RAW 5e you need 3 failed death saves to actually die. If you make 3 death saves, you stabilize and can eventually wake up. Put a party of 1st level PCs in both versions of the game up against the same number of goblins and the 5e party might have a player go down but they're less likely to die. A Healing Word can quickly get a player back up before they fail their death saves also.

Lastly an AD&D mage had 1d4 HD so less HP and you need less constitution to get a positive HP bonus per level. Overall it gives 5e players a high chance to survive.

All I'm saying is that characters did not die with any greater frequency back in the day than they do now. The game was as deadly as the group wanted it, just like it is today. About the only house rule we had for PCs with survivability was that when you rolled for HP you always got 1/2 max (round down) or more. We also tended to be fairly lenient with stat rolls, but the game was different back then and I don't remember any PCs having super high con.

I can go more all out as a DM in 5E than I ever would have in early games, I regularly have one or more PCs down in a tougher encounter. That's something you couldn't really do in older games which I think adds to the tension of the game. I roll death saves secretly and if I want to I can always double tap (hitting an unconscious creature is an auto-crit and causes 2 death save failures). Even then back in the day if somebody did die (which, again, was rare) most of the time you just had to haul the body back to town to get a cleric to raise dead. You'd have to do a favor for the cleric if you didn't have enough money but that was it.

I've had PCs of mine die in every edition. Mostly because I keep insisting on running elves now and then. But the overall rate of them dying has not changed and most groups I play with rolled out in the open.

We didn't use house rules. We rolled in the open. We may have avoided some monsters and been more generous with healing potions or NPC clerics in town, I have no clue. But we didn't modify the rules on dying. We didn't have a half dozen hirelings as meat shields. The rate of PC death, even temporary death, was still relatively low.

I don't care that RAW it was more easy to kill a PC. It did not happen any more often than it does now. I get tired of having to repeat that. Based on other people's responses my experience was not unusual.

 

[Reynard]

People have different experiences. It's probably not worth arguing about the veracity or broad applicability of those experiences.