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

[Chaosmancer]

The music existed in the moment of creation, but after that it only exists in the memories of those who created and/or experienced it. There's no absolute unless, just if you weren't there when it was performed.

So the music existed in the moment of creation.

Therefore the story of an RPG session exists in the moment of its creation.

Same process. Same result.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean the sort of unity of goal and of action that is characteristic of D&D party play.

Most groups I've played D&D with are like this, but not all.

One group I play with, set in Middle Earth, will sometimes have unity of goal and action, say when we are all playing Rangers of Ithilien sent to bring back an escaped prisoner. The group will be pretty unified then.

Most times, though, the group goes something like this. The wife of someone wealthy has been kidnapped by a bad guy. The local magistrate sends two men(two of the PCs) to capture the kidnapper and rescue the victim. A third PC has heard that the woman was kidnapped wearing a diamond necklace and he wants to get his hands on it. He doesn't tell anyone that of course, so he joins to "rescue" the kidnapped woman. A fourth PC lost his wife when the kidnapper did the same thing, but killed her when he didn't get the ransom he was asking for. He's there to kill the kidnapper and joins the group to "rescue" the woman and says he will bring the bad guy to justice. The fifth PC has been hired by the 4th PC to help him take out the kidnapper.

So we have two tasked to bring the bad guy in, two who are there to kill the bad guy and not bring him in, and one who couldn't care less if the victim is rescued or whether the bad guy is killed, captured, or escapes. If he gets his hands on that necklace, he's out of there.

No unity of goal, and in fact we have opposing goals in the group. The lack of goal unity often causes lack of action unity in some situations. It's much more realistic and fun, but you have to accept that CvC is a possibility, especially when goals are diametrically opposed like the capture and kill goals above.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

1e DMG page 102

"As the DM you are game moderator, judge, jury, and supreme deity. You are also actively engaged in actual role playing throughout the course of the campaign, from game to game, as you must take the persona of each and every henchman and/or hireling involved. (See also Monsters, here-after.) To play such roles to the hilt, it is certainly helpful to the DM if he or she has player characters of his or her own in some other campaign."

Of course it also says on page 103

"Some few players will actually play their henchmen as individual characters, not merely as convenient extensions of their main player character. In these rare cases, your involvement with these henchmen will be minimal."

So basically the DM plays them as people unless the player does. Another of the many Gygax contradictions in the DMG.

While that is a legitimately interesting point, it's not technically the thing I was looking for, though I wasn't exactly clear in the specific post you quoted, I admit.

I meant a citation for "henchman" = "goes into the dungeon, gets a share of treasure" vs "hireling" = "stays with the horses, no share of treasure just fixed pay". Yours very softly implies there's a difference, since it has at least the implication that hirelings need not be henchmen nor vice-versa, but it doesn't seem to have nearly such a hard and fast division of henchman = with the party and gets a share, hireling = not with the party and doesn't get a share.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The lack of goal unity often causes lack of action unity in some situations. It's much more realistic and fun, but you have to accept that CvC is a possibility, especially when goals are diametrically opposed like the capture and kill goals above.

[Citation needed.]

Any form of PVP violence is an instant, complete fun-killer for me. Doesn't matter who's involved, doesn't matter why it occurs. It's going to completely and totally ruin my experience of that session without fail, and if it's severe enough, it may damage my experience of the entire campaign irrevocably.

Whether it is "more realistic" or not depends rather heavily on the exact setup and buy-in from the players. As an example, Zeitgeist has the PCs start out as official deputies of the Royal Homeland Constabulary of Risur. Under those conditions, PVP would be quite unrealistic.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Any form of PVP violence is an instant, complete fun-killer for me. Doesn't matter who's involved, doesn't matter why it occurs. It's going to completely and totally ruin my experience of that session without fail, and if it's severe enough, it may damage my experience of the entire campaign irrevocably.

Same here, even as DM. I prefer NOT to invest countless hours into a game where one player wins at another's expense due to some bad die rolls or not being sufficiently backstabbing. PvP is fine for a two-hour long sports game or board game or video game; or maybe even a quick and light-hearted one shot. But not in a multi-session cooperative story-building game, thank you very much.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

[Citation needed.]

Any form of PVP violence is an instant, complete fun-killer for me. Doesn't matter who's involved, doesn't matter why it occurs. It's going to completely and totally ruin my experience of that session without fail, and if it's severe enough, it may damage my experience of the entire campaign irrevocably.

Whether it is "more realistic" or not depends rather heavily on the exact setup and buy-in from the players. As an example, Zeitgeist has the PCs start out as official deputies of the Royal Homeland Constabulary of Risur. Under those conditions, PVP would be quite unrealistic.

I'm not a fan of PvP and mostly prefer characters to get along, but your stance still is way more absolute than mine. Sometimes the dynamics of the events and personalities of the characters might create a situation where a confrontation occurs. And that is fine. That again is one thing we might find out in this story we are playing.

In my current campaign it happened once that the characters came to blows. The situation got neatly resolved in-character, and there was no hard feelings between the players and not even between the characters.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not a fan of PvP and mostly prefer characters to get along, but your stance still is way more absolute than mine. Sometimes the dynamics of the events and personalities of the characters might create a situation where a confrontation occurs. And that is fine. That again is one thing we might find out in this story we are playing.

In my current campaign it happened once that the characters came to blows. The situation got neatly resolved in-character, and there was no hard feelings between the players and not even between the characters.

Okay? That would still pretty well ruin that session for me. That it was cleared up without long-term impact would mean it wouldn't permanently mar the campaign, but unless it was an extremely short interaction, it would definitely leave a lingering bad taste in my mouth.

I'm not saying everyone should do things that way. Some folks love that stuff, more power to them. But if I'm going to play at the table, I need a group that actually wants to work together, and actually wants to resolve issues when issues arise, rather than coming to blows over it.

I've had far too many real-life experiences where people who should be getting along and working together have come to physical blows over something. Real-life experiences I would very much prefer to never think about again, and especially not in the middle of an activity that's supposed to be a fun time for all involved.

 

[Maxperson]

[Citation needed.]

Any form of PVP violence is an instant, complete fun-killer for me. Doesn't matter who's involved, doesn't matter why it occurs. It's going to completely and totally ruin my experience of that session without fail, and if it's severe enough, it may damage my experience of the entire campaign irrevocably.

Whether it is "more realistic" or not depends rather heavily on the exact setup and buy-in from the players. As an example, Zeitgeist has the PCs start out as official deputies of the Royal Homeland Constabulary of Risur. Under those conditions, PVP would be quite unrealistic.

I didn't think I need to say that fun was subjective. Of course that part was personal and not something you had to feel about CvC(not PvP).

As for realistic, every party always having the same goals and action isn't very realistic as @pemerton noted. I also in my post noted that sometimes groups would have unity of goal and action and gave a similar party composition to the one you just talked about. Ithilien Rangers sent to bring back an escaped prisoner.

 

[tetrasodium]

Same here, even as DM. I prefer NOT to invest countless hours into a game where one player wins at another's expense due to some bad die rolls or not being sufficiently backstabbing. PvP is fine for a two-hour long sports game or board game or video game; or maybe even a quick and light-hearted one shot. But not in a multi-session cooperative story-building game, thank you very much.

While I'm not a fan of CVC in d&d, I think it provides cover for a particular flavor of toxic behavior to scorn CVC with too wide of a brush (especially one like "any CVC"). There are a lot of ways that flavor of problem behavior can manifest, but all of them can often fly under the cover of being a plausible one off "maybe I'm seeing things not there" for any given observer. Almost all of them involve some degree of It'sWhatMyCharacterWouldDo∆ action welded to using the social contract as a shield.

∆the phrase doesn't need to be invoked for a PC to be a notch or six too "flavorful" or for someone to find the final straw in Bob's Mary Sue expectations from the campaign.

 

[thundershot]

As I try to encourage character development and storytelling, death just puts it to a halt. However, they’ve reached the level where resurrection is now am option, so the only way they won’t come back is if the player doesn’t want him or her to.