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

[Oofta]

As a player I'd howl if you did this - for better or worse you've made your ruling and now that ruling should be locked in for this campaign.

Any change like that would be something we discuss at the table though. In general if it's better for the player I'd allow it. I'm not as concerned about changing my mind as you are though.

All fair. Maybe another part-way ruling would be that Thief casting only works on spells with casting time of a round or less?

Maybe. It's never come up.

I'd probably come up with a better example and one that's come up in one of our games but it comes up so rarely I can't think of any. The real point of this debate seems to be that I should listen to everyone who wants to do something that has already come up in the past (likely more than once) and come up with some form of "compromise" for that particular player no matter what.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because you are utterly unwilling to consider any other possible approach MIGHT be worth considering. Just "this is how it has always been, and it is right and correct and attempting ANY discussions on whether or not it is the absolute best method in all circumstances is a waste of everyone's time"

And, as I said, I get annoyed with the argument "I put in the most work therefore my opinions are the most important". You know, you constantly say that the DM has the be the final authority on all aspects of the game... but that is literally not true.

If the meeting place isn't the DM's house, or the DM isn't scheduling the meetings... maybe someone else is the final authority on the schedule.

If one of the players has far more experience and understanding of the rules than everyone else, DM included.... maybe they are the final authority on rules question.

One of my games the entire group came together to make a homebrew setting together. So who was the final authority on every detail of the setting? We were planning (and may be able to may not) to have rotating DMs, so which person is it? According to you we cannot possibly have a setting where we can all compromise, because we will inevitably hit a yes/no question that no compromise is possible on.

I'm not saying your approach is evil. I'm not saying you are a heartless tyrant who loves putting your boot on the necks of your players, but you just move to shut down any possibility that other opinions about how the role of DM should be looked at, and it kind of infuriates me that any time you get pushback about that, you want to default to "well, I've been a super popular DM for ten years, so obviously my opinion is unassailable." And yes, though I'm sure in person you are a much better person, via text you immediately shutting down all conversation the way you are with constantly asserting reality must be one way with the relationships between people DOES make it seem like you think your opinions are unassailable truth.

No one is saying it has to be that way for everyone. Just for him. I'm sure both sides allow for other schools of thought. I'm sure your approach works just fine for you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What? I'm describing how Ezekiel was completely correct in predicting how this conversation would go, when everyone told them that they were wrong and no one would take the conversation in this direction.

What part of that makes sense with your statement of this not being vanishingly rare?

My accepting the word of those who claim hard binary choices come up fairly often.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

As a player I'd howl if you did this - for better or worse you've made your ruling and now that ruling should be locked in for this campaign.

Why? I mean, I agree that there is a great importance to consistency in how the DM runs a game, but this maxim seems to take consistency a bit too far. Have you ever made a ruling in the heat of the moment in order to keep the game flowing then, upon further reflection between sessions, decided to change how you'd rule that particular case in the future? I know I have. Perhaps (or ideally) that reflection involves a conversation with the players. A DM might even retcon the result, although I prefer that be used only in very extreme outlier cases. A DM can simply admit that their ruling was wrong, reaffirm to the players how it will be done in the future, and then everyone can move on to the fun of the next session.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Of course, because it is utterly impossible to consider a different perspective, that's why all of human history we've never been able to see things or discuss things that we did not personally experience.

You know, conversations would go faster if instead of just trying to sink them at every single opportunity, you engaged in them.

I am engaging. To my mind this discussion, like most of we talk about around here, is our personal preference regarding a particular aspect of gaming.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

These ground rules are an excerpt of what was presented to the players before Session 0 of our current 5e campaign. We have 2 concurrent adventures being run on alternating weeks by 2 different DMs and with 6 players with PCs in each party. Does anyone find any issue with these ground rules? Why or why not?

• no evil characters, no lone wolves
• the party will have some backstory element(s) that binds them together as a cooperative unit
• any official WotC classes and sub-classes are fine; no UA
• races/lineage are limited to those found in Wildemount/Exandria and can be selected or rolled for according to their frequency in your chosen homeland/city/village
• feats and multiclassing are ok; exception being no feats from another setting, like Eberron, Strixhaven, or Dragonlance
• DMs are fans of the PCs but we will run enemies true – keeping in mind that enemies often have motivations other than “fight to the death” – and, that said, death is a real possible outcome for PCs (included this last one in here so it has something to do with the OP despite the tangent the last several pages has taken)

 

[Oofta]

These ground rules are an excerpt of what was presented to the players before Session 0 of our current 5e campaign. We have 2 concurrent adventures being run on alternating weeks by 2 different DMs and with 6 players with PCs in each party. Does anyone find any issue with these ground rules? Why or why not?

• no evil characters, no lone wolves
• the party will have some backstory element(s) that binds them together as a cooperative unit
• any official WotC classes and sub-classes are fine; no UA
• races/lineage are limited to those found in Wildemount/Exandria and can be selected or rolled for according to their frequency in your chosen homeland/city/village
• feats and multiclassing are ok; exception being no feats from another setting, like Eberron, Strixhaven, or Dragonlance
• DMs are fans of the PCs but we will run enemies true – keeping in mind that enemies often have motivations other than “fight to the death” – and, that said, death is a real possible outcome for PCs (included this last one in here so it has something to do with the OP despite the tangent the last several pages has taken)

They look very similar to my own.

 

[Lanefan]

Why? I mean, I agree that there is a great importance to consistency in how the DM runs a game, but this maxim seems to take consistency a bit too far. Have you ever made a ruling in the heat of the moment in order to keep the game flowing then, upon further reflection between sessions, decided to change how you'd rule that particular case in the future?

Probably once or twice, but more often if the further-reflection process tells me I've merely set a poor precedent I just accept the fact that I'm now just going to have to live with it for the rest of the campaign.

I know I have. Perhaps (or ideally) that reflection involves a conversation with the players. A DM might even retcon the result, although I prefer that be used only in very extreme outlier cases. A DM can simply admit that their ruling was wrong, reaffirm to the players how it will be done in the future, and then everyone can move on to the fun of the next session.

To avoid any of this, my preference is to take a bit of time in the moment and at least try to get the ruling right the first time. If a five-minute break during a session can save me potentially years of headaches down the road, I'll take that five minutes every time!

 

[Micah Sweet]

These ground rules are an excerpt of what was presented to the players before Session 0 of our current 5e campaign. We have 2 concurrent adventures being run on alternating weeks by 2 different DMs and with 6 players with PCs in each party. Does anyone find any issue with these ground rules? Why or why not?

• no evil characters, no lone wolves
• the party will have some backstory element(s) that binds them together as a cooperative unit
• any official WotC classes and sub-classes are fine; no UA
• races/lineage are limited to those found in Wildemount/Exandria and can be selected or rolled for according to their frequency in your chosen homeland/city/village
• feats and multiclassing are ok; exception being no feats from another setting, like Eberron, Strixhaven, or Dragonlance
• DMs are fans of the PCs but we will run enemies true – keeping in mind that enemies often have motivations other than “fight to the death” – and, that said, death is a real possible outcome for PCs (included this last one in here so it has something to do with the OP despite the tangent the last several pages has taken)

Those all sound great to me. If I had an issue with any of these, I sincerely doubt I'd ask you to change your campaign for me.

 

[Lanefan]

These ground rules are an excerpt of what was presented to the players before Session 0 of our current 5e campaign. We have 2 concurrent adventures being run on alternating weeks by 2 different DMs and with 6 players with PCs in each party. Does anyone find any issue with these ground rules? Why or why not?

• no evil characters, no lone wolves
• the party will have some backstory element(s) that binds them together as a cooperative unit
• any official WotC classes and sub-classes are fine; no UA
• races/lineage are limited to those found in Wildemount/Exandria and can be selected or rolled for according to their frequency in your chosen homeland/city/village
• feats and multiclassing are ok; exception being no feats from another setting, like Eberron, Strixhaven, or Dragonlance
• DMs are fans of the PCs but we will run enemies true – keeping in mind that enemies often have motivations other than “fight to the death” – and, that said, death is a real possible outcome for PCs (included this last one in here so it has something to do with the OP despite the tangent the last several pages has taken)

As points 3, 4, and 5 are 5e specific I'll leave those alone. As for the system-agnostic ones:

I'd have a real issue with both parts of point 1. I'm all about "anything goes", and even if I don't play an evil character or a lone wolf I still want those options open both for myself and for other players.

I'm not a huge fan of point 2 but I could live with it; mostly because point 6 makes it fairly clear that the party who starts the campaign isn't likely to be the party that finishes it, so there's room for later replacement characters to be outside of this common backstory. If we were stuck with our starting characters forever, or if replacement characters were forced to come in under the same premise, I'd have much more of an issue with this (no matter what character I'm playing) as I'd almost certainly find it too constraining.

Point 6 is a winner!