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

[Crimson Longinus]

"I lost my hand and my magic sword, my friend has been captured by bad people, I didn't complete my magical training because there was no time, the cause I believe in has taken a big knockback and morale is down, and I have to spend the next few weeks recovering from my injuries while the bad guys capitalise on their gains. But at least I'm not dead - PRACTICALLY A VICTORY!'

Right. Good stuff. Most of which 5e mechanic do not support.

 

[soviet]

Optional Rules Adjustment: Theme Music

If the theme music is not playing, player characters and level boss type NPCs reduced to 0 HP are not killed. Instead they are knocked out, captured, incapacitated, disarmed, or escape. Inspiration cannot be used. Abilities that reset on a long rest cannot be used.

If the theme music is playing, player characters can die at 0 HP as per the written game rules.

Any player may declare that the theme music starts up at the beginning of their turn. It lasts until the end of the encounter.

The GM may declare that the theme music starts up at the beginning of a level boss type NPC's turn. It lasts until the end of the encounter or (GM choice) after the death of that NPC.

 

[soviet]

Right. Good stuff. Most of which 5e mechanic do not support.

[whispers a secret] I don't think 5e is very good.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

[whispers a secret] I don't think 5e is very good.

No way! I would have never guessed!

But yeah, if one wants to remove the only mechanical defeat condition 5e has, then it might be good idea to invent some new ones.

 

[soviet]

No way! I would have never guessed!

But yeah, if one wants to remove the only mechanical defeat condition 5e has, then it might be good idea to invent some new ones.

To be fair it doesn't always need to be mechanical. If the encounter is to defend the PCs' village or fight off an assassination attempt on the king (etc), if the PCs are defeated then presumably the village is destroyed, the king is killed, etc.

 

[Umbran]

A genre about deviated from reality in specific ways,

Which then brings up a question. If there are "specific ways" the genre deviates from reality, we can ask: Why those ways, and not others?

If we have a stack of thing that are all "realistic", and we discard three-quarters of them, the differentiator between what we keep and what we throw away is not "realism". So, the reason we keep death in is not actually realism. There's some other reason we keep it, and throw away the other realistic things.

The question is then what is that reason?

not in any and every way depending on what's convenient for you at the time.

This is a vague, and thereby passive-aggressive, comment that has nothing to do with the current conversation. Highly bogus.

And, by the way, it is a crummy accusation - I mostly run games. Death is the least interesting complication for PCs, but is it also the simplest and easiest for the GM to implement! So, if I was doing what was most convenient for ME, then I'd be eliminating a whole lot of other things before I avoided death as a consequence.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I could do with one billion percent less realistic in my fantasy game.

Enjoy your play then. That is not what I want.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just to elaborate on this: the notion that the stakes must be character death, if they are to be more than nothing at all, is ridiculous.

From time to time I play the Prince Valiant RPG. As the rules say, normally death is not an important part of Prince Valiant. But we have had many epic combats - jousts; skirmishes; battles in which the PCs lead their warband against enemy forces; battles in which the PCs intervene in others' conflicts, trying to tip things one way or the other. The PCs have assaulted castles, had castle they're defending fallen, led their warband to victory, and sometimes suffered the ignominy of defeat.

None of this was changed by the fact that "normally death is not an important part of Prince Valiant".

More recently, I've played quite a bit of Torchbearer 2e. Normally, in Torchbearer, death is not on the line. For a non-combat situation, the GM has to overtly put death on the line, and that is only permissible if certain preconditions (pertaining to a PC's depleted status) are satisfied. I very rarely do this - I can't remember the last time that I did.

In combat situations, a conflict is expressly characterised as a Capture, Kill or Drive-Off conflict, and only the middle one of those puts death on the line. My players mostly enter combat with the goal of capturing or driving off their enemies; and when I initiate combat as a GM, kill is very far from my default go-to.

The fact that death is not normally on the line does not stop physical action being exciting and consequential. The PCs in my game have been captured by bandits and pirates, driven into dark tunnels by Orcs, led by a tricksy Troll deep into the heart of the Troll Fens, enervated by dark spirits, shot by crossbow bolts, and more.

I realise that D&D's combat resolution system is probably not as powerful, in its fictional scope, as either of the two RPGs that I've mentioned. But it's not so attenuated that things must be death or nothing.

I don't recall anyone ever saying that is the only consequence that matters. A lot of us are saying that death has to be a possible consequence of engaging in activities where death is a logical possible consequence in order for us to be happy with the game.

Those two stances are not identical.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But @EzekielRaiden's experiences are the opposite of this - GMs ignoring the rulebook's guidelines for encounter design, and doing crazy stuff like having 1st level PCs encounter mummies and then getting surprised when this kills those PCs.

Like I said, @EzekielRaiden is the unluckiest player I have ever heard of. They appear to have played in games run exclusively by jerks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"I lost my hand and my magic sword, my friend has been captured by bad people, I didn't complete my magical training because there was no time, the cause I believe in has taken a big knockback and morale is down, and I have to spend the next few weeks recovering from my injuries while the bad guys capitalise on their gains. But at least I'm not dead - PRACTICALLY A VICTORY!'

The question isn't "did they die?". The question is "could they have died?". I want the answer to that second question to always be "yes".