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

[EzekielRaiden]

Am I the only one who has had the hellish experience of trying to rehabilitate players who are absolutely terrified to do things they think would be fun because they've had characters killed for not being 'careful' enough for the DM's liking?

Not at all. That has been my experience with nearly every player I've had who wasn't very new to TTRPGs. Even those who were new to TTRPGs have tended to be very, very cautious for that exact reason. I have had to slowly, patiently coax them out of that shell, showing them that taking risks can be rewarding, and that failed rolls are not the enemy, but rather can be the foundation of a future awesome story. We had a whole adventure through a time-shattered wealthy estate out in the wilderness because of a single failed roll, which has been my go-to example for how much good play can come from not always succeeding 100% of the time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This sentence?

This sentence is the virulent poison that continues to plague this discussion. The accusation that playing without death, or playing using skills or any other 'bad' way to play means the player is putting in no effort, is instantly willing or some other condescending pejorative.

Until we can agree not to fall back on this pointless canard, there can be no honest discussion.

Precisely.

@adrianthebard: Do you genuinely believe that a D&D game that doesn't include deaths that are (again, specifically all three of) random, AND permanent, AND irrevocable, is literally just instant-win no-threat no-effort absolutely 100% always?

Random meaning caused by crap luck, not because of a stupid decision that was specifically called out for being a stupid decision, nor for intentionally going up against an opponent the player knows is extremely dangerous, nor for making a heroic last stand etc. Permanent meaning the death isn't going to "go away on its own" (like what happened to Gandalf), but is instead just how things are gonna be from now on. And irrevocable meaning that the players can't do anything to fix the death. Any death that lacks any one of these properties (e.g. it isn't random, or it isn't permanent, or it isn't irrevocable) is a-okay by me, and I've put in a lot of effort to ensure that nearly all potential deaths would be either not permanent or not irrevocable.

So, to ask the question again: When I ONLY excise deaths that are random, AND permanent, AND irrevocable, do you really, genuinely believe that that one change suddenly turns everything into an instant-win no-effort experience?

 

[pemerton]

It's pretty binary: you either can always get what you want or you cannot.

This is just wrong.

One well-known example: it's utterly trivial to play a RPG in which (i) players, and their characters, don't always get what they want, but (ii) no PC is ever the victim of sexual harassment.

Likewise, it's utterly trivial to play a RPG in which (i) players, and their characters, don't always get what they want, but (ii) no PC dies in circumstances where the player would prefer the PC to keep on living.

And of course there are endless possible variants on (ii). For instance, there is the Prince Valiant approach, where a PC will die only if their fictional position mandates this as an outcome (eg a fall from an impossible-to-survive height); or the Burning Wheel approach, where a PC who suffers a mortal injury will always have the will to live, if the player has a persona point available and opts to spend it.

As @Vaalingrade, we are talking about a game of shared imagination. So we can set whatever boundaries and conditions that we like!

 

[pemerton]

IMO someone who leaves a game just because their character dies is a) taking it all way too seriously and b) is probably doing the whole group a favour by departing.

IMO someone who doesn't care about the characters as a central element of the game is someone I don't want to play RPGs with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Except that I do want lasting, rules-relevant (from the game perspective) effects that happen and you can't decide not to have happen.

I just don't want the one specific thing of "random, permanent, irrevocable death." I'm VERY okay with all sorts of other things, things that can have permanent impact, even mechanically. Generally, I prefer those to be the result of a PC having to make a terrible choice (e.g. sacrificing a limb, which would prevent them from using a shield or 2H weapon, OR not sacrificing the arm, and thus having a creeping corruption inside them that will slowly try to take over their whole body) rather than being just a one-and-done "because your number wasn't big enough, now you've lost an arm."

Your stance is the absolutist one here. You require absolute sim. I don't. I like sim; I think it's very useful and emphatically shouldn't be abandoned for light and transient reasons. I just think "this consequence is both more boring and actively draining on the ability to continue participating and enjoying that participation" is an exceptionally good reason to not do things. And my preferred solutions for these problems are, always, diegetic ones. That doesn't always mean I know everything in advance; maybe the player surging to life after they SHOULD have died is an unsettling mystery that the party must now investigate (read: giving me, the DM, time and breathing room to consider the causes). But I try to have stuff prepared well in advance, stuff that the party could know about if they dug into it, but which they may or may not actually DO so.

As an example in my current game, the party has all accepted earrings crafted by Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon. I have explicitly told them that this means there is a very small piece of Shen's soul with them wherever they go. What they do not realize is that Shen can sacrifice these little pieces of himself, which would diminish him permanently, in order to prevent their deaths should it prove necessary. Nobody has asked, nobody has really looked too deeply into the earrings or how they function, they've been quite content to just benefit from the other useful functions the earrings have. This is one route amongst several that I have prepared in advance, just in case a character dies, so that if the player would prefer to continue using that character, there is a diegetic means by which they could continue doing so. Several other characters have individual things I could use as well (such as the party Bard's mysterious connections to his devilish ancestor, or the party Battlemaster's connection to spirits and Death which could see him return to the living....albeit permanently marked by the experience.)

As noted, all of these things exist in advance; further, all of them have limitations on their use, and can't be simply invoked at leisure. All of them come with permanent costs if they have to be invoked. And, perhaps most importantly, there have in fact been times where even these defenses wouldn't have worked, because the party was doing something very dangerous and even these measures wouldn't have helped. (Such deaths would not be random, and thus would be 100% okay, because they happened in a suitably threatening, and thus suitably heroic, context.) Of course, I'm also pretty good at communicating to my players when something is Extremely Dangerous, so that coupled with their naturally ultra-cautious attitude means they generally do a LOT of preparation before they try to face anything like that.

Awesome! That is a very cool, diagetic explanation for an effect that suits your play preferences. I actually love it!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Game of thrones countless

Not really. Once you get relatively far in, random pointless death becomes a lot rarer. Remember that Jon Snow survived being killed, without becoming an undead monster or catatonic lump.

Babylon Kosh and a few others

Kosh's death was not even slightly random. In fact, this would be precisely what I would use as a possible cost for preventing a PC's death. A beloved NPC pays the price for the choice.

Battlestar Galactica Starbuck
and a couple others turned likely skin job

Except nearly everyone who "died" in the show was actually a Cylon and thus woke back up again in another Cylon body. Genuinely surprised you'd use it as an example given how many times it had fakeout deaths.

The matrix neo trinity Morpheus

Actually, per official canon, we don't know for sure that Neo or Trinity died. (The Machines did not report their bodies as recycled, which is extremely unusual if they were Just Dead.) Morpheus survived. Even if we ignore the post-film canon and look just at the original trilogy, both Neo and Trinity die in entirely non-random ways on a mission they knew was almost certainly suicidal. So this really isn't as much of an example as you might like.

Lord of the rings gandalf the grey∆

You already covered this in your note, but...yeah. This death wasn't permanent. That was kinda why I explicitly used it as an example earlier.

Doctor who... The first Many doctors, a few companions captain jack harness

Jack Harkness is literally super-immortal. We never 100% for sure see him die and stay dead. It was never explicitly confirmed that he was the "Face of Boe" though it seems likely that he was.

Like every soap opera in existence

Yes, because soap operas only invoke death randomly and without build-up or pay-off of any kind.

C'mon, man. I know you know better than to compare these kinds of deaths to Random Hobgoblin #12 getting an unlucky crit against your level 2 character and causing instant death.

Death is fairly common in "other media". What is less common is permanent irreversible death, and that remains even more true in d&d where death has been an almost soap opera level revolving door in so many editions. It's weird to ignore the fact that returning a PC from death is a matter of spending some gold on casting a spell or having it cast then build a case for purity of & commitment to story that is the height of roleplaying based on a case that presents death as some permanent irrevocable thing in d&d where rules and most setting make it a temp inconvenience. Doing that while pinning on the gm for filling the gap left by the removal of a core component of risk from play that is normally also a notable component of the setting itself.

I genuinely don't understand the point you're making here.

The sports ttrpg comment was about losing for that reason... But sure ...
Dale Earnhardt fatal crash @Datona

Yes. Deaths do occasionally happen in sports. Would you agree that these are rare, preventable accidents? Would you claim that a well-constructed sports RPG should have legit straight-up death as an expected consequence?

There's also a reason why boxing deaths went down drastically after the Marquess of Queensberry established rules in the 1800s &why us style football banned appearing and a few other styles of tackle that resulted in quite a few broken necks

...yes. Which is precisely why I said, in the very post you quoted, that death shouldn't be present on the sports field. As in, if it is present on the sports field, something has gone terribly wrong and needs to be fixed.

Your claimed analogy between sports TTRPGs and D&D-alike TTRPGs fails for the very specific reason that "losing" in a sport DOES NOT CAUSE DEATH. Like....that's literally where the analogy fails! Yes, I completely agree that IF you removed the possibility of losing a game, that would make a sports TTRPG quite boring. BUT I WOULD NEVER DO THAT. I would never do that specifically BECAUSE there's no need to! It's not like D&D-alike games where the consequence of failure in combat is permanent. A sports team that loses even every single game in an entire season is extremely unlikely to be under threat of ceasing to exist, of ceasing to be able to continue games in the next season. The Cleveland Browns had a perfectly winless season in 2017, going nineteen total games (16 actually on-season) with an unbroken losing streak. Hell, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games, all 14 in 1976 and a further 12 in 1977, and yet that team is still in existence now.

Your analogy to sports games is simply, fundamentally broken, because sports TTRPGs just do. not. have. a consequence that is comparable to what death is in D&D-alike games. They just don't, and it would be extremely weird to try to add such a consequence. Sports TTRPGs have already "removed" death as a consequence, and yet you seem to think they are still games that can be played and that have consequences!

 

[GobHag]

If death must be so important, then I'll always just play Jimbo.

Wizard? Jimbo. Rogue? Jimbo. Warlock? Jimbo.

Always the same person, sure he died but he's back.

 

[Autumnal]

Am I the only one who has had the hellish experience of trying to rehabilitate players who are absolutely terrified to do things they think would be fun because they've had characters killed for not being 'careful' enough for the DM's liking?

We gave the subject a lot of space in 1st edition Adventure’s GMing chapter because we’d seen too many cases of people who genuinely wanted to have good pulp fun with Justice Inc and the like, but ran it exactly the way they’d run anything else. We wanted to get them realizing that pulp adventure includes characters and antagonists alike frequently doing ill-considered, unwise things in the face of sensible alternatives, and that Game therefore need to let it happen, to reward players going off impulsively rather than spending a half hour or more working out the minutiae of sensible, prudent plans. Players who zip into action are doing it right for pulp, and the GM needs to make it worth their while. And this is hard for people with habits built up through long experience, even when they really want to.

The overall environment is better now for genres that should reward anti-careful behavior, but it’s definitely not a solved problem.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not really. Once you get relatively far in, random pointless death becomes a lot rarer. Remember that Jon Snow survived being killed, without becoming an undead monster or catatonic lump.


Kosh's death was not even slightly random. In fact, this would be precisely what I would use as a possible cost for preventing a PC's death. A beloved NPC pays the price for the choice.


Except nearly everyone who "died" in the show was actually a Cylon and thus woke back up again in another Cylon body. Genuinely surprised you'd use it as an example given how many times it had fakeout deaths.


Actually, per official canon, we don't know for sure that Neo or Trinity died. (The Machines did not report their bodies as recycled, which is extremely unusual if they were Just Dead.) Morpheus survived. Even if we ignore the post-film canon and look just at the original trilogy, both Neo and Trinity die in entirely non-random ways on a mission they knew was almost certainly suicidal. So this really isn't as much of an example as you might like.


You already covered this in your note, but...yeah. This death wasn't permanent. That was kinda why I explicitly used it as an example earlier.


Jack Harkness is literally super-immortal. We never 100% for sure see him die and stay dead. It was never explicitly confirmed that he was the "Face of Boe" though it seems likely that he was.


Yes, because soap operas only invoke death randomly and without build-up or pay-off of any kind.

C'mon, man. I know you know better than to compare these kinds of deaths to Random Hobgoblin #12 getting an unlucky crit against your level 2 character and causing instant death.


I genuinely don't understand the point you're making here.


Yes. Deaths do occasionally happen in sports. Would you agree that these are rare, preventable accidents? Would you claim that a well-constructed sports RPG should have legit straight-up death as an expected consequence?


...yes. Which is precisely why I said, in the very post you quoted, that death shouldn't be present on the sports field. As in, if it is present on the sports field, something has gone terribly wrong and needs to be fixed.

Your claimed analogy between sports TTRPGs and D&D-alike TTRPGs fails for the very specific reason that "losing" in a sport DOES NOT CAUSE DEATH. Like....that's literally where the analogy fails! Yes, I completely agree that IF you removed the possibility of losing a game, that would make a sports TTRPG quite boring. BUT I WOULD NEVER DO THAT. I would never do that specifically BECAUSE there's no need to! It's not like D&D-alike games where the consequence of failure in combat is permanent. A sports team that loses even every single game in an entire season is extremely unlikely to be under threat of ceasing to exist, of ceasing to be able to continue games in the next season. The Cleveland Browns had a perfectly winless season in 2017, going nineteen total games (16 actually on-season) with an unbroken losing streak. Hell, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games, all 14 in 1976 and a further 12 in 1977, and yet that team is still in existence now.

Your analogy to sports games is simply, fundamentally broken, because sports TTRPGs just do. not. have. a consequence that is comparable to what death is in D&D-alike games. They just don't, and it would be extremely weird to try to add such a consequence. Sports TTRPGs have already "removed" death as a consequence, and yet you seem to think they are still games that can be played and that have consequences!

I was responding to Post 593 with that list. Not whatever you are attributing it to with this endless goalpost shifting talk of random pointless and so on. You do however make clear the quicksand foundation under the whole remove PC death &rely on "interesting" consequences thing by not even mentioning how much weight the players need to be lifting to find what they consider interesting consequences they care about and make sure that everyone knows them in addition to the GM even being capable of saying "ok yea that's relevant enough &works with this adventure/campaign".

IoW: most GM's with ongoing games tend to be thrilled to work with players who are willing to go the extra mile and seem credible in their commitment, but the gm can't be expected to go on a Snipe hunt with each player on the off chance that maybe a given player is very much outside the norm. Stop treating the players as passive spectators to be entertained by a gm who needs to step up and start talking about what the players are bringing to the table for the GM to potentially work with when they are the ones to step up as players.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the people who don't think death needs to always be on the table in a game like D&D might say that neither death nor a career-ending injury is likely to be the primary consequence in a TRPG about ... some competitive league sport with a ball involved. The focus in such a TRPG seems likely to be about winning and losing the individual games/matches, maybe roster management over the course of a season, eh? You absolutely can lose a game of baseball (or tank a whole season) without any of your ace pitchers blowing a UCL; the PCs in a D&D game at least should be able to irrevocably botch a situation without any of them dying. (Most games of D&D plausibly aren't run with that in mind, but I think that's a different thing: It doesn't at all seem to me to say more D&D games couldn't be run with non-death consequences in mind.)

I don't think that this whole thing boils down to a disagreement over "what if d&d could" so much as "some players like this better so here's why you the gm and only you the GM should step way up to make it work" vrs ""uhh no that's on the players to make it happen by setting that stage through the actions their PC's take"