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

[AlViking]

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

I'm not sure what a billion less realistic would even look like and how people would know what was even possible. DnD world is full of loopholes because it's fantasy, I still want to understand how the world works.

 

[Micah Sweet]

let us imagine for a moment, in any other media where a character looses a fight, how interesting it would realistically be if at that first loss, the character died, the end, that's all she wrote.

imagine a LotR where frodo is just straight up murdered at weathertop rather than receiving the morgul(?) blade's wound that he has to carry through the rest of his journey and life, no tension of if he's going to survive, no race to rivendell, just replace his character with the next one who joins the party at the council of the ring and forget about the one guy who the whole thing started around by having the quest macguffin by next tuesday.

You're talking about stories. My stance will continue to be that games and stories are different things. I'm not interested in rules for D&D-style gaming that work to ensure the kind of story you're talking about. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. The dice and the choices of the PCs (not necessarily in that order) make that determination.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Sounds like a great narrative mechanic for players who want that level of protection.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

"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!'

Precisely.

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".

Okay. As noted above, death can happen at my table. But (more or less) my promise to my players is that, if their characters did die, there would always be some chance to bring them back, if they want it. If they don't, cool. I'll probably feel awful for killing a character dead for real, but the whole point is the player getting the experience they'd prefer to have.

So if the question is "could they have died?" the answer is always "yes". But I suspect your real question is rather more specific than merely whether death can occur. It is whether it will occur, always and and exactly, when certain anticipated triggers fire.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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?



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.

I throw away as little reality as I can manage practically. Hence my stance that the world operates like the real one unless you are introducing something that obviously doesn't (like someone throwing a fireball, or a flying dragon).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Precisely.


Okay. As noted above, death can happen at my table. But (more or less) my promise to my players is that, if their characters did die, there would always be some chance to bring them back, if they want it. If they don't, cool. I'll probably feel awful for killing a character dead for real, but the whole point is the player getting the experience they'd prefer to have.

So if the question is "could they have died?" the answer is always "yes". But I suspect your real question is rather more specific than merely whether death can occur. It is whether it will occur, always and and exactly, when certain anticipated triggers fire.

Fair enough. If there are rules where you die if certain conditions are met, then IMO you die, and that's what I want. Now, there are often ways to come back from death after it happens in those rules, and that's good too.

And by the way, in some types of RPGs I don't hold to this. You mentioned superhero RPGs above. I'm right there with you on those in terms of genre rather than physics emulation.

 

[adrianthebard]

So... in no way using the skill of your character, but falling back on the player's own ability to recognize and manipulate social levers, thus gating out people who don't naturally have those skills.

Got it.

Rude.

Let me clarify:
firstly, i used to think the same as you, but it simply isn't so simple.
I'm not gonna scream at you ir anything if you just wanna roll and be done with it, use a reaction table or split it 50%/50%. any of these has pros and cons, i tried with all of them.
however:
a) lack of social skills is a non-problem: skills can and should be improved, if you foster a positive and fun environment even a rpg table can become a space to hone such skills (ever heard of theatre practice?). basket isn't gating out those wo can't control the ball, just those who are not willing to practice.
b) characters have numbers, players have skills. PC are numbers on paper/a screen, nothing more, they aren't alive, you make them so. Npcs too are numbers, you make them alive by having players reflect on them as if they were, social levers are an aid for just that. Resort to numbers alone and you'll find many players treating npcs as objects in a game (and you can't fault them for that).
c) such approach must be avoided if a player isn't actually capable of recognizing social levers (e.g. they are on the spectrum).

got it?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Rude.

Let me clarify:
firstly, i used to think the same as you, but it simply isn't so simple.
I'm not gonna scream at you ir anything if you just wanna roll and be done with it, use a reaction table or split it 50%/50%. any of these has pros and cons, i tried with all of them.
however:
a) lack of social skills is a non-problem: skills can and should be improved, if you foster a positive and fun environment even a rpg table can become a space to hone such skills (ever heard of theatre practice?). basket isn't gating out those wo can't control the ball, just those who are not willing to practice.
b) characters have numbers, players have skills. PC are numbers on paper/a screen, nothing more, they aren't alive, you make them so. Npcs too are numbers, you make them alive by having players reflect on them as if they were, social levers are an aid for just that. Resort to numbers alone and you'll find many players treating npcs as objects in a game (and you can't fault them for that).
c) such approach must be avoided if a player isn't actually capable of recognizing social levers (e.g. they are on the spectrum).

got it?

No.

Because I do not agree with any of that.

a) You can't force people to develop a skill just to play a character. We don't make anyone go pump iron to play a character with athletics, so it's unreasonable to make someone read How to Make Friends and Influence people to play a diplomancer bard.

b) Characters have skills. They are literally what those capabilities are called in the rules and that's what the rules represent. The entire reason for this is to allow a player to play a character with skills different from thier.

c) Or it can be avoided for anyone who wants to paly a character different from themselves.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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

What is the value in a discussion to respond to things with 'that's just like... you're opinion, man'?

Micah, I know. You can stop telling me. I'm begging you to stop telling me. The electricity used to transmit these nothing responses could power Canada for ten thousand years.

 

[adrianthebard]

I can't see who you are talking to here for... reasons... but I think I know what you are getting at.

If I'm understanding correctly, you prefer the player to tell you what their PC is trying to accomplish (goal) and how they are going about it (approach).
The players should focus on engaging with the in-game fiction (what you call "trying to resolve any problem in context") rather than just explicitly invoking mechanics on their character sheets (what you are referring to as "from the outside").

That's how it works at our table, too. As long as the player is reasonably specific about what they want their PC to do, the DM can adjudicate and the play cycle continues. Importantly, no special IRL skill or knowledge is necessary, nor is their any specific benefit for "gaming the DM with persuasive language" or other such concerns that have come up in the past here when this topic comes up.

For example, the the DM describes a locked chest in the scene. The player might state: "my rogue will closely examine the lock for traps, without touching it". The DM then decides, in the context of the scene and the stated goal and approach, if a roll is even necessary. All this happens instead of the player stating: "I roll Investigation".

reasons? which reasons?

i'd say that stating goal and approach is a staple of any rpg, it's a fundamental part of resolving action. some games simply conflate the approach with the mechanical resolution: the latter becomes the approach, flattening play as a result.
so yes i prefer the player "engaging with the in game fiction" as it also opens the game towards alternative paths to victory.
Most resolution mechanics aren't granular enough to adjudicate perfectly any and all advantages a player might try to seize while attempting any task (nor should they) but i as a gm can by the act of adjudicating/refereeing, that's ultimately why i'm needed the most.
where we might disagree is the use of IRL knowledge and skills. if a player is creative and finds a creative exploit they'll get rewarded somewhat, whereas another will pass trough the standard hurdle of dice rolling. creativity is a muscle that such form of play is meant to stimulate. also charisma and planning: "you want the baron to give you the mgguffinnxz", what do you do? you could "just roll" or maybe, try to understand who the baron is and what he wants, his history and values. once you got that info you could formulate a proposal so well crafted, so fitting for said npc that i will simply award you the mgguffinnxz outright, but you need to use IRL skills to do this. also you could just try to use your charisma to "game me", but in doing so i usually ask for a roll: you might have been very convincing, but krugath the barbarian could have said what you just did in a less endearing way.

i found this approach is the one that best allows players to engage with the fiction and experiment within it, while also preserving their statistical investments and build specifics. a "face" might triumph with the force of their dices alone while having only half baked arguments, while a reclusive wizard might do so with investment in knowing his targets and how to approach them, to counteract his dismal 6 in charisma