D&D General character death?

[Oofta]

To use a crass metaphor, I prefer RPGs with a bit of "carrot and stick" mentality. By all means, players/characters should be rewarded with the carrot for good story, character growth, etc. But the stick should also be omnipresent. Consequences, costs, and limitations provide fuel and form. Characters don't necessarily even have to interact with the stick directly, but the threat of it being there is very important.

There may be some situations where threat of capture, loss of equipment, etc, is a sufficient threat. But a lot of the time that isn't going to cut it. The threat of death is the ultimate stick.

I have no problem with a "stick" now and then but PC death ca be one of the more boring options. It just ends a PC's story which, depending on the player will either be heartbreaking or just an excuse to write up another character. If it happens too often, people just don't care; why put thought into a PC that's going to die anyway. It can have exactly the opposite of the desired effect.

 

[payn]

Death is always on the table in my games. I do like metacurrency to help a player save their PC's bacon. Mostly, because I like 3E/PF1 with its criticals and multipliers which can swing wildly. That means hero points. The metacurrency turns a death into an unconscious and out of the fight, among other things. That is, of course, you saved some points to do so. Its up to the player to manage that resource; or not.

 

[Andvari]

Another issue with character death in rules heavy systems is how arduous a task it can be to create a new character. I dread killing off PCs in PF2E because I know it’s probably going to take them at least 2 hours of real time to create a new one at the same level. And that’s just the mechanical part.

 

[overgeeked]

been thinking... this might be a bit of a shock coming from and old school player like me, but im wondering if the way the modern dnd game is played, where its so character or story driven -if it would be better do away with character death. or let the player decide what happens. like, if you feel your character met a good death, go with it, otherwise, pretty much any monster could have a reason to capture fallen characters, which gives them a chance to escape later. even mindless undead and non intelligent creatures may save their "food" for later, and drag them back to their lair, for example.

I mean...going RAW...character death is effectively eliminated from the game. There are vestigial bits that can cause characters to die, but they typically only happen in incredibly corner cases that involve the dice going hard against a particular PC, the referee targeting that same PC, and the whole rest of the party abandoning that PC to their fate. There's so much healing in 5E that you basically have to refuse to heal at all for a character to die. You also have to have a party that doesn't work together, i.e. not healing, not stabilizing, etc for a character to die. But that's all predicated on the dice utterly hating a PC and a referee intentionally nuking a PC. Short of that, PCs are immortal in 5E. Especially after resurrection comes online at 5th level. The referee has to go out of their way to prevent the PCs from gaining access to the material components of the relevant spells. And short of outright banning those spells, the PCs will have access to them.

It just seems a little strange to have a game where you basically are trying to maintain the illusion of danger, or risk killing the game when characters die.

It's really bizarre. There's effectively no mechanical danger. But we still pretend that there is. While playing this game about pretend danger. It's all kinda meta.

But there's no reason to kill a game when the characters die. Have them wake up in prison, wake up in their afterlife of choice...and have to fight the god of death to escape, be brought back by an evil necromancer...and have to fight to escape, wake up in an afterlife not of their choice...and be given a divine command to go right some wrong, etc. Character death and TPKs are nowhere near the hurdle people seem to think. It only takes a little imagination and leveraging the high fantasy genre to get around death.

I also dont think players will be any less motivated to win any battles if they knew there isnt any "real danger" of dying, people pretty much want to be successful in any circumstance. I guess im just not too happy with just starting off a campaign with a TPK on a medium difficulty encounter, lol. im interested to hear what people think, would you want to play in a game like that or would it take away from your enjoyment?

Well, depends on the players. Most that I know would literally stop playing if there were no risk of character death. They enjoy the chaos of the dice. I know others (mostly online) who say they'd rather not play if character death is a possibility or things are in any way random. It takes all kinds. Some people play these games for the challenge, others play them to be told repeatedly how awesome they and/or their characters are by simply winning all the time. Personally, I can't think of anything more boring than that. But, from experience, that kind of motivation to play fades over time. It's just too boring to constantly win without effort.

Part of the problem is the OC (original character) mindset and how long character creation takes. The game's lethality should have a reverse correlation to how long character creation takes. Character creation takes a long time in 5E, so the lethality is quite low...to the point of being effectively nonexistent. People who prefer OC play also spend a lot of time crafting their characters outside the mechanics, with long backstories, character motivations, descriptions, childhood traumas, etc. If you spend that much time creating a character you don't want that to be thrown away because of a random roll of the dice. Trouble is, 5E is a game with random rolls. The dice go against you sometimes. I've had a player rage quit a 5E game because their character took one (1) point of damage. Not get knocked out, not die. Took literally one (1) point of damage. The idea that their character wasn't perfectly invulnerable to everything at all times was simply too much and they bounced. It's like we're not even in the same hobby...yet, somehow, here we are.

All this is why I vastly prefer old-school games and the OSR. Gimme quick, random character creation where the character's backstory is "he's a peasant," characters can die from a single bad roll, and we jump into the game and play.

 

[Shiroiken]

Even in a heavy story based game, death is always an option. I try very hard not to limit the story based on a few PCs, so even if half the party dies off (and is replaced), the overall story continues. The story of the fallen PCs, however, comes to an end.

 

[payn]

Another issue with character death in rules heavy systems is how arduous a task it can be to create a new character. I dread killing off PCs in PF2E because I know it’s probably going to take them at least 2 hours of real time to create a new one at the same level. And that’s just the mechanical part.

PF2? Hard to believe.

 

[Oofta]

I mean...going RAW...character death is effectively eliminated from the game. There are vestigial bits that can cause characters to die, but they typically only happen in incredibly corner cases that involve the dice going hard against a particular PC, the referee targeting that same PC, and the whole rest of the party abandoning that PC to their fate. There's so much healing in 5E that you basically have to refuse to heal at all for a character to die. You also have to have a party that doesn't work together, i.e. not healing, not stabilizing, etc for a character to die. But that's all predicated on the dice utterly hating a PC and a referee intentionally nuking a PC. Short of that, PCs are immortal in 5E. Especially after resurrection comes online at 5th level. The referee has to go out of their way to prevent the PCs from gaining access to the material components of the relevant spells. And short of outright banning those spells, the PCs will have access to them.

It's really bizarre. There's effectively no mechanical danger. But we still pretend that there is. While playing this game about pretend danger. It's all kinda meta.

But there's no reason to kill a game when the characters die. Have them wake up in prison, wake up in their afterlife of choice...and have to fight the god of death to escape, be brought back by an evil necromancer...and have to fight to escape, wake up in an afterlife not of their choice...and be given a divine command to go right some wrong, etc. Character death and TPKs are nowhere near the hurdle people seem to think. It only takes a little imagination and leveraging the high fantasy genre to get around death.

Well, depends on the players. Most that I know would literally stop playing if there were no risk of character death. They enjoy the chaos of the dice. I know others (mostly online) who say they'd rather not play if character death is a possibility or things are in any way random. It takes all kinds. Some people play these games for the challenge, others play them to be told repeatedly how awesome they and/or their characters are by simply winning all the time. Personally, I can't think of anything more boring than that. But, from experience, that kind of motivation to play fades over time. It's just too boring to constantly win without effort.

Part of the problem is the OC (original character) mindset and how long character creation takes. The game's lethality should have a reverse correlation to how long character creation takes. Character creation takes a long time in 5E, so the lethality is quite low...to the point of being effectively nonexistent. People who prefer OC play also spend a lot of time crafting their characters outside the mechanics, with long backstories, character motivations, descriptions, childhood traumas, etc. If you spend that much time creating a character you don't want that to be thrown away because of a random roll of the dice. Trouble is, 5E is a game with random rolls. The dice go against you sometimes. I've had a player rage quit a 5E game because their character took one (1) point of damage. Not get knocked out, not die. Took literally one (1) point of damage. The idea that their character wasn't perfectly invulnerable to everything at all times was simply too much and they bounced. It's like we're not even in the same hobby...yet, somehow, here we are.

All this is why I vastly prefer old-school games and the OSR. Gimme quick, random character creation where the character's backstory is "he's a peasant," characters can die from a single bad roll, and we jump into the game and play.

At low levels it's easy to kill off PCs. At higher levels, most monsters have multiple attacks. Hit someone when they're down and it's a crit and causes two failed death saves. Pick up the corpse and run away. Or target the cleric of course. Monsters that can swallow a PC blocking line of effect are also more common. Heck, just throw a swarm of shadows at just about any group and watch all those PCs that tanked strength drp like flies. Weak, weak flies.

I could have fairly easily killed off PCs at every level if I wanted.

 

[jgsugden]

In my world, once something is put into play, it stays in play until it resolves. If the PC that cared about it died - it still resolves and the player can (usually) see it - or hear about it in some way. This gives the world a more dynamic feel. Further, when a character dies, their story doesn't need to die.

I had a near TPK about a year ago. They took on a dragon, made some mistakes, and had bad luck. They also went in with an NPC that was there both to help them - and to make sure that he was the only one to walk away. The cards were stacked against them, and the dice were against them.

The one PC that survived was retired rather than continue on as new PCs were created.

There were 38 story elements in play that I was tracking from backstories, decisions they'd made, and things I'd introduced - and every single one of them stayed in play. One of the PCs was looking for her family - and two of her brothers were actually right there in town with her and she didn't connect the dots. In the first session with the new party, the group decided to investigate something that involved the local thieves guild - and when they did they heard two of the rogues they encountered refer to each other by her brothers' names. She reacted, but her PC didn't.

One of the PCs they created was a bounty hunter - and it made sense that she'd be hired to hunt down the PC that survived.

The big plot of the game continued and the new group got involved ... but came at it from a very different perspective. There were multiple sides of the story, and this group discovered a new one and aligned with them.

Heck - there is a revenant type creature walking around - that is a former PC that died in an early session. He potentially has a major role in the story.

I try to make the PCs life and death mean something in the story - and it has always worked well for me (except when they cycle through too many PCs very early in the campaign.... that adds too many things to track and master).

Given all of that - I don't feel the need to pull punches to protect story. A massive failure can be part of a great story. To that end, I always try to be impartial and fair while I run games. I don't modify monster HPs, I don't remove or add monsters to planned encounters, I don't fudge dice, I don't change monster tactics to be nice or mean.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

been thinking... this might be a bit of a shock coming from and old school player like me, but im wondering if the way the modern dnd game is played, where its so character or story driven -if it would be better do away with character death. or let the player decide what happens. like, if you feel your character met a good death, go with it, otherwise, pretty much any monster could have a reason to capture fallen characters, which gives them a chance to escape later. even mindless undead and non intelligent creatures may save their "food" for later, and drag them back to their lair, for example. It just seems a little strange to have a game where you basically are trying to maintain the illusion of danger, or risk killing the game when characters die. I also dont think players will be any less motivated to win any battles if they knew there isnt any "real danger" of dying, people pretty much want to be successful in any circumstance. I guess im just not too happy with just starting off a campaign with a TPK on a medium difficulty encounter, lol. im interested to hear what people think, would you want to play in a game like that or would it take away from your enjoyment?

For my Dungeon World game, death is certainly a possibility. But death will not happen that is all three of random, permanent, and irrevocable.

A random death is exactly what it sounds like. It just happens, without any rhyme or reason, without any real error or decision. The classic example is "monster just happens to crit you at exactly the wrong moment and gets a single-digit number over the line for instant death." (I have, personally, had such a death happen to one of my own characters. In 4th edition, the one everyone says nobody can die in!)

A permanent death is slightly more specific than you might think from the word. It means a death that won't be reversed on its own. A non-permanent death, for example, would be one where the player can "fight their way back to life," or go on some kind of spirit-journey before being restored, or be helped by an outside force that might just not be available right this second to restore them. A permanent death, on the other hand, is one that doesn't have a time limit, more or less.

An irrevocable death is one that cannot be recovered from through the players' efforts--and, by implication, not within a reasonable time frame. E.g. if it could happen but it's a minimum IRL six-month wait for that player to get to play that character again...that's effectively irrevocable in my book, because they'll have to make, and become attached to, a whole new character long before they'll get that one back.

I want to emphasize, again, that the only deaths I don't allow in my game are ones that are ALL THREE of these things. They're random (nobody made an error or a willing sacrifice or an intentional "this character's time is done"), AND they're permanent (character ain't coming back unless the party does something), AND they're irrevocable (the party can't do anything to bring them back.)

If the player has embraced this death, or if it was very clearly the result of foolish actions that the player was warned about being extremely risky, then the death is not random even if it results from a die roll--the player made a choice, and must accept the consequences. (I am quite liberal with my warnings, so a player that still gets their character killed despite that really should have seen it coming.) Hence, a death that results from clearly intentional actions on the player's part would play out normally.

And for any deaths that are random, but could be exploited for interesting story potential, or put the character into a novel situation that would force them to grow and change? Then I have both impermanent deaths and revocable deaths as options in my quiver.

It would take away from my enjoyment. Having no risk of an out of my control death for my guy would ruin the fun of death defying feats. If I want to die heroically I can do that on my own.

Conversely, the constant risk that I'll be thrown back to square one by some random naughty word I could never have prepared for or addressed completely ruins any fun I could have with the game in general, death-defying feats or otherwise.

If I want to lose and have to re-start play, I can do that on my own. Getting a story actually worth exploring and developing >>>>>>>>>> any possible "thrill" from that kind of death. I can't invest in a character I'm constantly afraid I'm going to lose.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean...going RAW...character death is effectively eliminated from the game.

No, it isn't.

Short of that, PCs are immortal in 5E.

No, they aren't.

Especially after resurrection comes online at 5th level.

Revocable death =/= no death at all....

But there's no reason to kill a game when the characters die. Have them wake up in prison, wake up in their afterlife of choice...and have to fight the god of death to escape, be brought back by an evil necromancer...and have to fight to escape, wake up in an afterlife not of their choice...and be given a divine command to go right some wrong, etc. Character death and TPKs are nowhere near the hurdle people seem to think. It only takes a little imagination and leveraging the high fantasy genre to get around death.

....as you yourself just showed, since you have no problem with non-permanent deaths. Players having revivify or raise dead is simply letting them get in on the game--if they're willing to pay the price. (Personally, I like having more interesting prices than fabulously expensive material components. A 1000 gp diamond is boring, unless it's an adventure to acquire one, which I find is very rare. Having to steal flaming heart-stone from the Elder Mountain? That's awesome, and an adventure in itself.)

Well, depends on the players. Most that I know would literally stop playing if there were no risk of character death. They enjoy the chaos of the dice. I know others (mostly online) who say they'd rather not play if character death is a possibility or things are in any way random. It takes all kinds. Some people play these games for the challenge, others play them to be told repeatedly how awesome they and/or their characters are by simply winning all the time. Personally, I can't think of anything more boring than that. But, from experience, that kind of motivation to play fades over time. It's just too boring to constantly win without effort.

Your constant disparagement of people who don't agree with you does nothing for your argument. It's a bit hard to believe you can't see how this is openly insulting to anyone who doesn't share your preferences. How would you like it if I characterized your preferences as "every combat is Russian Roulette" or other actively antagonistic descriptions?