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

[Micah Sweet]

It's not hard, in RPGing, to eschew the use of adventure hooks.

It's part of sandbox worldbuilding, unless your play is entirely player-driven like yours, which neither I nor my players want. And it can be presented in a way that is setting-logical.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it is easier to have an interesting game if your characters are not a boring featureless void awaiting external motivation to adventure, but instead have things they want to do built in already.

Sure, but I feel the world and the game are richer experiences when activity is driven by both external events and internal PC drives. Not everyone (and certainly not me or my players) wants an entirely player-driven game.

 

[Autumnal]

I think it is easier to have an interesting game if your characters are not a boring featureless void awaiting external motivation to adventure, but instead have things they want to do built in already.

The solo game Loner adds a fun twist to this. A standard but optional part of character creation is identifying your character’s nemesis. A Loner character has a name, an overall concept, a couple of skills, a frailty. A couple of pieces of gear, a goal, a motive for the goal, and a nemesis: “a person or organization that hinders the protagonist. It can emerge during the first game sessions. It may or may not be the direct antagonist of the story, ready to appear to make life even more difficult.”

First time I recall seeing that outside of supers games, and I like it. It fits well with a lot of genres I like.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's part of sandbox worldbuilding, unless your play is entirely player-driven like yours, which neither I nor my players want. And it can be presented in a way that is setting-logical.

Okay. But that means you explicitly do want some amount of narrative conceits engaged as part of play. This has genuinely gone beyond doing something with deep regret, metaphorically holding your nose and wishing there were a better way. This is, "I want that result, so I use the tool that achieves it."

Sure, but I feel the world and the game are richer experiences when activity is driven by both external events and internal PC drives. Not everyone (and certainly not me or my players) wants an entirely player-driven game.

I mean, in fairness, even my game isn't purely player-driven. The GM is the one who creates Fronts in Dungeon World, after all. The difference, at least as far as I can tell, is that you frequently position things as (effectively) being judged on a scale of verisimilitude, with higher verisimilitude presumed to be superior....unless one of your other goals happens to be on the chopping block as a result. Like having a game that isn't entirely player-driven, or a game that preserves pacing by having an unrealistically high proportion of engaging and worthwhile events, or a few other things. Then a little bit of lost verisimilitude is an acceptable sacrifice, because the real end goal is an engaging and worthwhile experience, not verisimilitude alone.

Which, as I said above, leads to a much more interesting discussion...but also one that necessarily is way more nuanced and full of grey areas. And, because it bears repeating and because I want to be totally clear, I am not harping on this point as a means to say "well see you don't ACTUALLY care about versimilitude" nor "so every possible sacrifice of verisimilitude is actually totally okay and you're just being persnickety about it." I am harping on it because that's a conversation I would find far more stimulating and rewarding. Because I don't think anyone here thinks verisimilitude is worthless or harmful; I think most of us would, all else being equal, prefer a higher verisimilitude solution if that's the only meaningful difference between two approaches. Conversely, I also doubt that very many people--especially since it seems this applies to you, too!--would argue that nothing is ever more important than increasing verisimilitude.

Hence, it becomes a question of cost vs benefit; we could view verisimilitude as a currency, where we are obliged to spend some (very, very) minimal amount, but can elect to spend more if it would buy us something of greater value. That's an interesting thing to investigate! Much more interesting than debating what things count or don't count as "story" or as "game", and certainly more interesting than some of the other...well, to put it charitably, non sequitur "discussions" that have cropped up in this thread.

 

[Oofta]

Oops

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay. But that means you explicitly do want some amount of narrative conceits engaged as part of play. This has genuinely gone beyond doing something with deep regret, metaphorically holding your nose and wishing there were a better way. This is, "I want that result, so I use the tool that achieves it."


I mean, in fairness, even my game isn't purely player-driven. The GM is the one who creates Fronts in Dungeon World, after all. The difference, at least as far as I can tell, is that you frequently position things as (effectively) being judged on a scale of verisimilitude, with higher verisimilitude presumed to be superior....unless one of your other goals happens to be on the chopping block as a result. Like having a game that isn't entirely player-driven, or a game that preserves pacing by having an unrealistically high proportion of engaging and worthwhile events, or a few other things. Then a little bit of lost verisimilitude is an acceptable sacrifice, because the real end goal is an engaging and worthwhile experience, not verisimilitude alone.

Which, as I said above, leads to a much more interesting discussion...but also one that necessarily is way more nuanced and full of grey areas. And, because it bears repeating and because I want to be totally clear, I am not harping on this point as a means to say "well see you don't ACTUALLY care about versimilitude" nor "so every possible sacrifice of verisimilitude is actually totally okay and you're just being persnickety about it." I am harping on it because that's a conversation I would find far more stimulating and rewarding. Because I don't think anyone here thinks verisimilitude is worthless or harmful; I think most of us would, all else being equal, prefer a higher verisimilitude solution if that's the only meaningful difference between two approaches. Conversely, I also doubt that very many people--especially since it seems this applies to you, too!--would argue that nothing is ever more important than increasing verisimilitude.

Hence, it becomes a question of cost vs benefit; we could view verisimilitude as a currency, where we are obliged to spend some (very, very) minimal amount, but can elect to spend more if it would buy us something of greater value. That's an interesting thing to investigate! Much more interesting than debating what things count or don't count as "story" or as "game", and certainly more interesting than some of the other...well, to put it charitably, non sequitur "discussions" that have cropped up in this thread.

That's fair. I guess I do see verisimilitude as a currency, one I am loathe to spend without need (although that need does exist and regular expenditures occur). My preference is to minimize those expenditures. Sometimes you do it because what you're getting is worth the cost, like making sure players are aware of fun things to do in the world, or abstracting aspects of combat (the old hit point debate), or using a different format to represent downtime versus active adventuring. In those cases, the game will take precedence, but I still try to do that in a way that fits with the setting.

You're right: valuing verisimilitude over other considerations is more of a principle than an actual plan, but I still try to follow it when I can (while knowing that sometimes it's better to depart from it).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I seem to have read quite a few people on this forum over the years who take "a character with a built in motivation" and turn it around as "how dare you try and impose your main character syndrome mary sue upon my narrative-less game world" so.... they seem to have a reason not to do both.

But this gets I think back to the original question about death too. We like seeing the characters achieve their in-built goals. We like seeing them pursue ends and it come to fruition, so we tend to look for narrative elements that make permanent death less likely, so they can achieve and pursue and fulfill the character's in-built motivations.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But this gets I think back to the original question about death too. We like seeing the characters achieve their in-built goals. We like seeing them pursue ends and it come to fruition, so we tend to look for narrative elements that make permanent death less likely, so they can achieve and pursue and fulfill the character's in-built motivations.

Some people do those things, yes. But it's not a given.

 

[Oofta]

You inserted yourself into a discussion about whether "adventure hooks" were a narrative conceit or not. If you don't see the relevance, why did you join the conversation in the first place?


I'm not sure what the "both" here are supposed to be. From the thing you quoted, the two sides seem to be "characters who are boring, featureless voids" and "characters with built-in motivations". I am quite confident nobody here wants "a boring, featureless void" of any kind, so I'm unclear what the dos are supposed to be in this ¿Por qué no los dos?

I was responding to you saying that "speedrunning through all the unimportant times in order to focus on the important ones, is a narrative conceit."

I disagree. There are plenty of reasons to "speedrun" that have nothing to do with narrative conceit or verisimilitude. As a game we always skip over a bunch of stuff. Whether we don't narrate much detail about downtime, going to the latrine, or going on a wild goose chase, it doesn't matter. We don't go into detail on everything because we literally cannot.

 

[pemerton]

I think it is easier to have an interesting life if you do not live in a boring featureless void.

Hang on - what does "adventure hook" mean again?

Upthread I was given this:

a perfectly logical opportunity for exploration and interaction with the setting

And not far upthread you gave me this:

my understanding of that term is basically "interesting things that can be pursued are telegraphed to exist in the world,"

The setting not being a "featureless void" doesn't depend upon there being "opportunities for exploration" or "things that can be pursued".

The character might already have their own projects, have created their own opportunities, etc.