D&D General How Often Should a PC Die in D&D 5e?

[prabe]

Lots of campaign worlds are independent of any given PC or group of PCs. There are things happening, locations present and factions moving all the time. A "campaign" is when a group of players creates characters that interact with that stuff. When the "campaign" ends (successfully or otherwise) the world continues on.

Or, more modern: just because there is a TPK for one party, Elturel is STILL in Avernus and someone has to save it (or not).

I'm running the third campaign in my setting. I haven't really used any explicitly world-ending threats so far, no TPK at any point heretofore would have forced me to stop running games there.

And "Elturel is still in Avernus" is the sort of thing that I don't think will matter as far as one PC death being easier or harder than a TPK, for various reasons.

 

[Imaro]

Out of curiosity, why did you choose to do it by level, rather than another metric (real world time, game time, adventures run, etc...)?

Honestly I'm not sure... I guess for me it felt more defined than say an adventure or even a session... probably should have thought this whole thing out more but it was just something I thought would spur some interesting conversation.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, if the PCs are pursuing one PC's revenge, and that character dies, there may well be continuity problems. That's what I was getting at, talking about a given character being more connected to the narrative. As you say, it will vary and depend.

And certainly in my games, several other characters can strongly intersect with each other, such that losing one character might derail three or four. I like to have games where the characters start with connections to each other.

It helps to drive character interactions, but does have the consequence of causing issues if a character does die.

 

[TwoSix]

As others have said, there is no "Plot A". There are just locations, events, NPCs and the goals the NPCs are pursuing that the players may choose to oppose or support. So if there's a TPK I'll figure out what the logical consequences are, the plans that fail or succeed based on their death and so on. But then it's entirely up to the players during our session 0 whether or not they want to even start the next campaign in the same region and what timeframe because decades in-world regularly pass between campaigns. The group may choose to pursue some of the same goals as the old group, but that's completely up to them.

There are plenty of games that do feature a plot "A". Most WotC 5e adventures, and Paizo adventure paths, depend on that concept, as an example.

 

[prabe]

There are plenty of games that do feature a plot "A". Most WotC 5e adventures, and Paizo adventure paths, depend on that concept, as an example.

Most long published adventures IME don't really depend on a "Plot A" mainly because they don't really have so much as a "Plot B." There is but the one ...

 

[TwoSix]

Or, more modern: just because there is a TPK for one party, Elturel is STILL in Avernus and someone has to save it (or not).

That's an interesting one. If you had a TPK 10 sessions into "Descent into Avernus", would your group roll up a second party and keep going?

For my groups, that would certainly be a signal to start up the next game instead.

 

[TiQuinn]

One implies, as was stated earlier...the DM creating a situation to force an outcome (a schedule). The other is assuming it is happening without direct force from the DM (frequency).

Yes but the latter still comes with a preference.

Okay. How’s this? Zero. I prefer zero deaths.

But if the PCs happen to die 100 times, then there’s a 100 deaths.

 

[TwoSix]

Most long published adventures IME don't really depend on a "Plot A" mainly because they don't really have so much as a "Plot B." There is but the one ...

Solid point.

 

[Oofta]

There are plenty of games that do feature a plot "A". Most WotC 5e adventures, and Paizo adventure paths, depend on that concept, as an example.

I was talking about my home campaigns only.

 

[Imaro]

Yes but the latter still comes with a preference.

Okay. How’s this? Zero. I prefer zero deaths.

But if the PCs happen to die 100 times, then there’s a 100 deaths.

This isn't some sort of gotcha contest or competition... if you prefer zero then it seems you want a non-lethal game and wouldn't have issues with 5e not being lethal enough. The question then is whether you feel (for your preference and experience playing 5e) that the game skews to high in lethality?