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

[DinoInDisguise]

I would say you are completely wrong. People do not have shorter attention spans.

Instead, look to DC, Marvel, Simpsons, pick your multi-decade media of choice. The longer it goes on, the more of its luster it seems to lose. A story without end has a problem.

The first statement is counter to many studies over the last 15 years.

A study by Cheng et al. (2010) conducted research on the effects of exponential increase in screen time on children. Noting a significant increase in screen use during brain development since 2000. When parents were asked to rate the distractability of the children on a scale of 1-3, the researchers noted that heavier screen time increased the rated distractability.

Vedechkina & Borgonovi (2021) did a study on school age children and their productivity as well as their ability to work within constraints. They noted that use of technology during childhood development correlates with increased prevalence of attention related disorders such as ADHD. They also noted that technology use activates addiction pathways through the release of dopamine to give children a neural reward. The study noted this was akin to the effects of alcoholism or drug use in it's addictive effects.

A study (Zaveri 2023) showed that online video creators had to boil information down to a timeframe from 1 to 3 minutes to maxmize engagement. Other studies have noted similar effects in teens, young adults, and adults.

To quote Petrillo 2021;

"When there is a significant dopamine release due to consumption of short-form video content, the prefrontal cortex of school-aged children cannot properly regulate the impulse control needed to modulate the addictive behaviours. An addiction to short-form media is essentially an addiction to the constant influx of information presented in the attractive content which is made available by apps like TikTok."

CNN and Microsoft released studies as well, noting drops in attention span, including statistics like the average visit to a website being just north of 4 seconds.

Simply put the more technology we use, the worse we are at focusing. I think it would be hard to argue that this does not influence the length of campaigns. If a person is used to dopamine releases every 1 to 3 minutes, the DM better be on top of their game in order to maintain that person's attention.

I would love to see preferred campaign length by age, but I have a feeling I could guess at it pretty accurately. I expect to see shorter sessions and campaigns as time goes on.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm somewhat harsher on the dead: if someone casts a revival spell the deceased's spirit doesn't get a choice. If the resurrection survival roll succeeds, the target comes back to life and that's that. (if the death was due to sheer old age the target will very soon die again, but that's a different issue)

Usually it's considered a courtesy to, if possible, cast Speak With Dead on the deceased and ask their wishes in the matter (or just read the person's will, if one was ever made); but there's nothing carved in stone saying those wishes or requests have to be followed. In the case of a child who probably doesn't understand the concepts anyway, there's likely no point, so just bring it back to life if such is desired and have done with it.

That change makes all the difference.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree. The permission thing always made sense to me as more of a cultural choice than a requirement to make the magic work, no matter what the book says. Literature has several examples of characters pulled back to mortal life whether they like it or not.

There's no such provision with the Wish spell, or if other different powerful magic is used. I don't see why you can't have both permission and lack of permission going on in the same game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because Chaosmancer doesn't want to and has negative views on being a selfish prick duh.

Mod Note:

You’re new here, so I’ll gently remind you that ENWorld’s rules disallow personal attacks. Don’t do it again, please.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you only play with nice people, "disruptive behaviour" doesn't happen.

If you only play with nice people, who's crapping on someone's preference for playing tieflings or dragonborn? Mm?

Not all my friends play D&D. If they didn't play nicely, I wouldn't play D&D with them. I can socialise with them in other ways. I wouldn't seek out strangers, because not playing D&D is preferable to spending time with people I don't like. I'd rather read a book.

Okay.

I wanted to run a game. I had long thought about it. Then a friend suffered an egregiously bad intro 5e experience (worse than anything I've directly experienced), which was so bad it even defeated my impostor syndrome. I knew I could do better.

So I did.

I find this game extremely fun and enjoyable to run. Is it sometimes a frustration that my players are very skittish/risk-averse? Yeah, kinda. But that's okay. I'm sure there's some stuff about how I DM that they aren't always keen on. To me, it seems both incredibly rude and incredibly dismissive to just drop a game entirely because the players I invited to it happen to be risk-averse. If everyone risk-averse were treated that way, a majority of people wouldn't be allowed to play D&D for more than a few sessions before the DM dropped them like a sack of potatoes. Risk aversion is by far the default psychological stance of most humans (and, indeed, is quite common in the animal kingdom generally). For good reason, it's an evolutionary survival strategy with a proven track record. That does not at all make it always best, nor always correct, nor even merely useful all the time--as is the case with basically everything produced by evolution!--but "it succeeds" is a good reason why it's the default.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because character selection ties to a) setting and b) game design, which are entirely under the DM's prerogative. Character play generally does not, other than some alignment-restricted classes.

You've just made the argument circular. It's verboten because the DM decides it's verboten, but the DM doesn't decide the other is verboten because the DM doesn't decide to. Why are these two things given different standards? Why is disruptiveness as a result of player agency totally unacceptable with setting (frankly, game design is 99% irrelevant here), but totally sacrosanct with behavior? Give me an argument that doesn't boil down to "DM says", an argument that actually justifies why player-agency-caused disruption is unacceptable in one arena but must be absolutely protected in the other.

That should, ideally, be the trade-off choice one has to make: to play it safe and boring with lower reward but a greater likelihood of longevity, or to play it daring and exciting with higher reward but a lower likelihood of longevity.

I tend to go for the latter and prefer when other players do likewise; mostly because boring is, well, boring and I ain't there to be bored.

...which is exactly the problem I keep noting to you. Being rational means choosing boredom; choosing excitement means choosing frequent, severe failure.

What if we did something where the choice wasn't failure vs boredom, but rather...y'know, anything else? What is gained by forcing a "be cool but fail, or be boring but succeed" choice? How is that better than cultivating choices where all of the options are interesting, just in different ways?

For the next campaign I'd invite in other friends, and have done so before.

I don't have any other friends who play.

You like and appreciate their thoughts and tastes, and that's great, and yet you frequently note they have a collective skittishness issue. Seems like a conflict there somewhere.

Not really. Just means adjusting my DM approach. Which isn't hard. It's occasionally frustrating, but show me a DM who doesn't occasionally get frustrated by their players and I'll show you a liar.

Were it me I'd jokingly tack a sign on the outside of my DM screen to the effect of "The Beatings Will Continue Until Courage Improves".

This would have zero positive effects. Genuinely nothing productive, not even laughter, would arise from doing this.

More seriously, one option you've got is to - if one of them ever does do something rash - go through the motions of rolling etc. but let it work just that one time so they can feel the thrill of victory and know what it's like to have the table cheering for them (they do cheer each other's victories, right?). That alone should provide encouragement for others to do likewise now and then, with a reminder from you that as with any game there's wins and losses.

I am absolutely against fudging, for any reason, ever. Even if I weren't, the system I use involves all player-action rolls being made in the open. I can't do the thing you've described with Dungeon World.

Sometimes. Other times they just pragmatically size up the odds, and if staying in means nobody dies then they'll stay in. However, if staying in is probably suicidal then it's book it, pronto. As a player I've made this choice dozens if not hundreds of times; most of the time I stay in but sometimes it's just not worth dying for, and if I (or someone else) survives there's always a chance of reviving the dead later, a chance that doesn't exist if we all die.

You're dodging the fundamental issue: The very thing you've claimed bothers you is what this attitude encourages doing. That's the key problem here. Encouraging ultra-mercenary, purely-selfish behavior IS encouraging people to abandon their erstwhile allies the moment the pecuniary calculus indicates that there's more moolah to be made by doing so.

 

[Lanefan]

No, you do not need to teach your players that failure means failure. They know that. It is kind of obvious. Failure meaning you can still continue is much more rare, and something a lot harder to learn. And, kind of funny you go from "you need to set the tone early on that the game is hard on characters" to realizing... the game doesn't actually work that way, and rarely has. Spells and magic items have CONSTANTLY meant that challenges get easier and easier to heal and walk away from the longer the game goes.

And finally, you-as-DM should never be threatening the characters. That is entirely out of line.

How does that square with the fact that I'm threatening the characters every time any of the following happens:

--- an opponent swings a sword at a PC
--- an opponent casts a dangerous spell at a PC
--- I place a trap in a dungeon hallway
--- the in-game weather turns dangerously bad
--- the character is put under duress by NPCs using (equivlent of) Intimidate
--- etc.

As DM it's my bloody job to threaten the characters. I'm there to produce and present the threats* - i.e. the challenges and obstacles and adversities - the characters face. And it's also my job to follow through on those threats and prove I'm not bluffing, if it comes to that.

* - with rare self-inflicted exceptions when they present threats to each other;.

"Do this or your character will die" is not a healthy mindset to the game, and that is exactly what it would mean to threaten a character. Even in a situation where a character is a hostage is a VERY dicey situation to be in as a DM, because then you have a situation where one character may be sacrificed to protect the rest, and when you actually care about your character and you don't want them sacrificed? That doesn't lead to people having fun with the game.

That's a very specific and narrow subset of threat. That said, as DM I've a few times had PCs get captured and, if-when not rescued in time, sacrificed for some reason or other.

 

[Lanefan]

The game I'm running right now had a first mission. I started with five players.

I am done to one player, and the mission had to be abandoned for a completely different plot, due to losing essentially the entire party, three of whom we lost before the first encounter (One quit, one vanished, one was in a car accident). Play-by-post games are slow, we started in march. It will be a year here soon, and hopefully the player is still enjoying.

If I entered a game with 5 years worth of material? I'd be wasting my time.

I invariably refer to in-person games when speaking of such things. I've done some play by email, and find it a very different beast than at-table play.

That said, you started with 5 players but did you have any others in mind as possible replacements for if-when any of those 5 couldn't or wouldn't continue? I started with four, but had a pool of half a dozen others I could invite in if needed; when we split to two parties some of those others did get in. Also, over the years of a long campaign it's likely you'll meet new people who - once you get to know them - might be worth inviting in as well.

And...one of your players just vanished? Was this someone you previously knew? If yes, that sounds concerning beyond just game issues.

 

[Lanefan]

You've just made the argument circular. It's verboten because the DM decides it's verboten, but the DM doesn't decide the other is verboten because the DM doesn't decide to. Why are these two things given different standards? Why is disruptiveness as a result of player agency totally unacceptable with setting (frankly, game design is 99% irrelevant here), but totally sacrosanct with behavior? Give me an argument that doesn't boil down to "DM says", an argument that actually justifies why player-agency-caused disruption is unacceptable in one arena but must be absolutely protected in the other.

The only argument you'll get from me will boil down to "DM says", because, well, DM says. I design the game and setting very close to what I'd want to play in if given the chance.

Can't accept my setting limitations? Fine. Then maybe this ain't the game for you, thanks for your interest.

...which is exactly the problem I keep noting to you. Being rational means choosing boredom; choosing excitement means choosing frequent, severe failure.

The bolded is precisely why I often use Wisdom as the dump stat when rolling up non-Cleric characters. It's also part of why, IMO, Clerics have historically been considered boring to play: they're expected to most often do the wise (i.e. boring) thing.

What if we did something where the choice wasn't failure vs boredom, but rather...y'know, anything else? What is gained by forcing a "be cool but fail, or be boring but succeed" choice? How is that better than cultivating choices where all of the options are interesting, just in different ways?

I'm honestly not sure how that could be done, given that risk-no risk and excitement-boredom are on two sliding scales where movement on one almost invariably causes roughly equal and opposite movement on the other.

Not really. Just means adjusting my DM approach. Which isn't hard. It's occasionally frustrating, but show me a DM who doesn't occasionally get frustrated by their players and I'll show you a liar.

Agreed; though ideally one tries to draft the less-frustrating players from the selection pool.

I am absolutely against fudging, for any reason, ever. Even if I weren't, the system I use involves all player-action rolls being made in the open. I can't do the thing you've described with Dungeon World.

I'm anti-fudging also, but this might be a one-time exception. That said, if DW ties your hands here then so much for that idea.

You're dodging the fundamental issue: The very thing you've claimed bothers you is what this attitude encourages doing. That's the key problem here. Encouraging ultra-mercenary, purely-selfish behavior IS encouraging people to abandon their erstwhile allies the moment the pecuniary calculus indicates that there's more moolah to be made by doing so.

The pecunary calculus usually runs in favour of trying to keep people alive if the option exists, mostly because if you let someone die and have to abandon the corpse you're not only losing the dead character's own wealth and items, you're also losing that character's future help in acquiring more for all of you because your strength-of-numbers just got weakened.

But if it's becoming obvious the party's in a losing situation and that staying stood in is going to lead to a TPK, it's time to cut the losses and bail out: it's better to lose one or two and carry on than it is to lose all five of you. "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day", isn't that how it goes?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you only play with nice people, who's crapping on someone's preference for playing tieflings or dragonborn? Mm?

No one. Why would you think someone who played a tiefling or Dragonborn was “not nice”? Genuine question, I really don’t understand your logic.