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

[Chaosmancer]

So much agreement. I don’t think gamers need to earn the right to have fun by slogging through boring time. The boring part is all the rest of them spent not gaming. Characters should begin capable of worthwhile things - and this should include the capabilities the system assigns them, as well as players’ ingenuity in not actually using characters’ capabilities to get things done.

I agree except for the last part. While it is awesome when the player's make crazy moves, you cannot rely on that to be the fun of the game. Not everyone is going to be at 100% creativity at every moment, and a lot of people struggle with impromptu actions. I've had a lot of tables lock up, unable to think of a solution, and needing me to offer them different paths forward.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That is rather dismissive of people who have fun with starting characters. There a many ways to have fun and people enjoy different things.

In my current 5e game, it took us a year of playing (somethin like 24+/- 4 hour sessions) to get to level 4 and we had a blast the whole time. So much so that we can't imagine playing another edition of D&D really. In fact, we actually started at level 0 we like low powered play so much.

To me the lower levels are there for those you enjoy them. If you don't enjoy them you can just start at level 3 or 5, like many of the WotC adventures do.

I think you are reading far too much into the comment. Remember, old school Wizard design was "early levels suck so you can have fun later". I believe Ezekiel was speaking to that design mentality, not towards disparaging low level characters as being unfun inherently.

Edit: And it isn't like we don't see this creep into other designs and other people's expectations for the designs, where people present the idea of needing "to earn" the right to have an enjoyable experience by "slogging" through early levels. It isn't an idea I can say I've never seen as presented as the "solution" for people who don't like 5e.

 

[dave2008]

I think you are reading far too much into the comment. Remember, old school Wizard design was "early levels suck so you can have fun later". I believe Ezekiel was speaking to that design mentality, not towards disparaging low level characters as being unfun inherently.

Admittedly I jumped in without reading all the context, so you could be correct. I thought @EzekielRaiden was making a comment about 5e as whole (and in particular, relative to their preferred edition 4e). However, prior knowledge could have easily biased my opinion of their post taken out of context.

 

[tetrasodium]

Admittedly I jumped in without reading all the context, so you could be correct. I thought @EzekielRaiden was making a comment about 5e as whole (and in particular, relative to their preferred edition 4e). However, prior knowledge could have easily biased my opinion of their post taken out of context.

We disagree very often on a lot of stuff, but I don't think that you are that far off the mark if you are off at all. It's easy enough to start at higher levels if the GM wants to start there or enough of the table convinces their GM to let them start at whatever level they would expect to be in 4 months time. I think that the "woe is me it takes so long" sentiment gets expressed to push for that as adefault that marks lower level play as some sort of deviant aberration in order to avoid the "I want to start at a higher level this game because I don't find low levels fun" discussion when someone else expected to be physically at the table could say "I don't want to this time because I do find low levels fun, maybe this is the wrong group for you".

 

[Autumnal]

@EzekielRaiden : Sorry, sick day here, with my blood pressure cycling up and down 50 points and like that, and I can barely rub two thoughts together. If I’m more coherent later I may answer then, or may just let it go for now and take up my views on character abilities another time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That is rather dismissive of people who have fun with starting characters. There a many ways to have fun and people enjoy different things.

The original thing I replied to specifically spoke of someone talking about how much fun a class would be once you reach level 7.

You are speaking of a completely different kind of person, and thus of course I wasn't talking about that.

In my current 5e game, it took us a year of playing (somethin like 24+/- 4 hour sessions) to get to level 4 and we had a blast the whole time.

That's great for you. A lot of people--I would argue most people--do not find such a glacially slow pace of levelling particularly fun. I, personally, have found such glacially-slow level pace to be extremely boring, nigh-infinitely frustrating, and directly causative of at least three distinct TPKs or "only one single person survived" situations. All three of which immediately led to the death of the campaign in question.

So much so that we can't imagine playing another edition of D&D really. In fact, we actually started at level 0 we like low powered play so much.

Awesome! I would never want to play at your table, but I'm glad you've found stuff you like. Personally, I would very much prefer that the game actually include "Novice Level" rules, so that you can have your nigh-infinitely-spooled-out "zero-to-slightly-more-than-zero" experience, without forcing me to be trapped in that experience for months or years on end. With well-crafted, front-and-center "Novice Level" rules, you could have an experience actually designed to do what you want, for just about as long as you could possibly want (especially if it includes 13A-style "incremental advance" rules)...and nobody who doesn't want that experience ever has to touch it. Literally a win for everyone involved except the initial design team, who would have slightly more design workload, something I'm quite okay with.

To me the lower levels are there for those you enjoy them. If you don't enjoy them you can just start at level 3 or 5, like many of the WotC adventures do.

In my experience, well over 95% of all DMs refuse to ever start at anything other than level 1. Because it's level 1. 1 is where you start. It's the first number. That's what 1st means. It's first. So you should always start at 1st level. Fragile characters? Nahhh, everything will be fiiiiine, they assure me. (Oops, TPK. Again.) Inability to address common problems? JUST BE CLEVER, 4HEAD! Hoping to actually see some of the stronger spells or magic items or monsters or allies? No no no, you haven't earned that yet!!! JUST WAIT ANOTHER THREE YEARS.

I have beaten my head against this wall so many times, I've got scars on top of scars on top of scars. It never, ever changes, and for folks like me who feel absolutely trapped by this low-level experience and are DESPERATE to get out, it's hard to communicate exactly how infuriated I am by all this--and how much it makes me loathe playing 5e in most cases.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@EzekielRaiden, to me it sounds like you have hard time finding people who like to play the same way like you (perhaps because your tastes are somewhat rarer) and thus want the game to be changed so that others are forced to play like you want. I don't think that will work. Changing the game to play differently than what most people want to play is a recipe for disaster, as we saw with 4e.

 

[Autumnal]

My name is Bruce and I endorse this very fine rant by @EzekielRaiden. I hated being stuck in that rut and its equivalents in other systems/settings and never want to be there again. Nor see anyone else there unless they really are actively enjoying it. In which case they should carry on.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

@EzekielRaiden, to me it sounds like you have hard time finding people who like to play the same way like you (perhaps because your tastes are somewhat rarer) and thus want the game to be changed so that others are forced to play like you want. I don't think that will work. Changing the game to play differently than most people want to play is a recipe for disaster, as we saw with 4e.

I don't see it as forcing anyone to do anything. I see it as removing forces that force me to play like what only some people want to play, turning those forces into opt-in mechanics rather than opt-out ones.

If there really are well-written, effective "Novice Level" rules with "incremental advance" options (read: you can pick up just one perk as if you were a level higher, e.g. more ki points, more rage uses, that sort of thing), I don't see how this would harm anyone's experience. It would help me, because then I could know that any group that is using those rules isn't a group I'll have any interest in joining. And it would help those groups, because now, instead of having to rely on kinda-janky hacks or Billy's untested homebrew, they can have actually polished, tested, reviewed rules for the experience they want to have.

I don't see how any part of that "forces" anyone to do anything. It acknowledges a pattern--DMs have a tendency to start at level 1 regardless of what "level 1" actually means--and responds by providing more tools, more options, more variety, not less. Who exactly is being "forced" to do anything here?

And, for the record, I've been calling for "Novice Level" rules since before the D&D Next playtest ended. This ain't some new song I've only just started singing. I've been beating this drum for a long, long time now. It has absolutely nothing to do with my frustrations with (most of) the 5e DMs I've had over the years.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't see it as forcing anyone to do anything. I see it as removing forces that force me to play like what only some people want to play, turning those forces into opt-in mechanics rather than opt-out ones.

If there really are well-written, effective "Novice Level" rules with "incremental advance" options (read: you can pick up just one perk as if you were a level higher, e.g. more ki points, more rage uses, that sort of thing), I don't see how this would harm anyone's experience. It would help me, because then I could know that any group that is using those rules isn't a group I'll have any interest in joining. And it would help those groups, because now, instead of having to rely on kinda-janky hacks or Billy's untested homebrew, they can have actually polished, tested, reviewed rules for the experience they want to have.

I don't see how any part of that "forces" anyone to do anything. It acknowledges a pattern--DMs have a tendency to start at level 1 regardless of what "level 1" actually means--and responds by providing more tools, more options, more variety, not less. Who exactly is being "forced" to do anything here?

And, for the record, I've been calling for "Novice Level" rules since before the D&D Next playtest ended. This ain't some new song I've only just started singing. I've been beating this drum for a long, long time now. It has absolutely nothing to do with my frustrations with (most of) the 5e DMs I've had over the years.

You're trying to solve a problem that does not exists for most people. There are already novice levels, they're levels 1-4, and most people like playing them. You don't so you want to put them into some optional basket, so that people would ignore them like you want. But the real issue is not the structure of the game, it is that you want to play the game differently than how most other people want to. If a lot of people shared your preferences, they would already skip low levels, but they don't. (Or if they do, then you don't have a problem to solve.)

But I think we've had this exact same discussion before already.