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

[Chaosmancer]

Can two groups have different "fictions" or is this fiction universal? And if the answer is yes they can differ, does anything in you comments here apply to Micah or anyone besides you? And if universal, who decides what the one true fiction is?

Maybe in my fiction, the PC seems like an impossibility and not just lucky.

I'm hoping you can clarify how your fiction applies to Micah, myself, or anyone else. Because I might have missed something simple.

If I said someone had a metal rod driven through their skull, and survived, would you call it impossible? Most people would. Most people would say "that is impossible to survive, you would die"

Except Phineas Gage didn't die. Neither did the Australian Teenager in 2012. Or Michael Richards in 2022. Or the man in 2019.

This impossible thing has happened AT LEAST 4 times. Metal rod, through the skull, survived. So... it isn't impossible actually.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Except it is absolutely the case with NPCs.

The player of the NPC (the DM) automatically creates a scenario where the NPC can never die unless their player (the DM) chooses to allow it. No NPC can ever possibly die without the DM's consent, right?

Wrong. If the dice says they die, they die. PC and NPC alike, in the vast majority of cases is my preference.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If I said someone had a metal rod driven through their skull, and survived, would you call it impossible? Most people would. Most people would say "that is impossible to survive, you would die"

Except Phineas Gage didn't die. Neither did the Australian Teenager in 2012. Or Michael Richards in 2022. Or the man in 2019.

This impossible thing has happened AT LEAST 4 times. Metal rod, through the skull, survived. So... it isn't impossible actually.

And you see nothing off about multiple "impossible" survivals happening to the same group of people, for no reason in the universe they are theoretically a part of? More importantly, you see nothing people who don't share your point of view might consider off about that?

 

[Chaosmancer]

"... in general, where you think players want it to go", more properly.

I just want the PCs to be an integral part of the setting they live in, rather than somehow removed or remote from it.

Looking at them, listening to them, etc. an observer in the setting shouldn't be able to distinguish a PC Elf from an NPC Elf assuming those Elves are of the same class, age, abilities, etc.; because if they can be so distinguished just because one of them is a PC you might as well throw setting integrity out the window.

I think it's more that they're told to want heroic characters and can't or won't go against the marketing. To me, that's just a bucketful of sad.

They still start out as ordinary Joes and Janes, though; because - however you define it - heroism of any kind comes from what you do rather than who you are.

Flip side: the PCs could be special-powered edge-cases all day long and still not be heroes, depending what they actually use all that special-ness to do. Which means, in the end, that the ordinary-Joe-and-Jane-ness of the PCs is completely tangential to their degree of heroism.

Can you tell the difference between Rambo and Paul Blart mallcop at a glance?

You kind of give away the whole game here, by saying "assuming those Elves are of the same class, age, abilities, etc.". Maybe you can't tell someone's piety from a glance, but if you were true and loyal to your God or Goddess, then... wouldn't it make sense they might reward you? That's what Sainthood is. On a fundamental level, it is saying "this person has abilities, ect. beyond what other people have".

Yes, if two people are exactly the same, then they are the same. But the fact of the matter is, some people are not the same as other people. Anyone could have theoretically been Isaac Newton, he wasn't a god or an alien or a dragon.... but also only Isaac Newton could have been Isaac Newton. And sure, in theory any mugger could have cut out his kidney and killed him at any point in time.... but they didn't. He didn't die in a mugging. He didn't die until after his work was changing the world.

The story of the man who was killed before he did anything important isn't what most people are interested in playing. They don't want to be random civilian #3 in the Rambo movie. They want to be a named character with an important role, and more than likely... they want to be Rambo. That's why they made a character like Rambo. Who could have in theory died at any point in any of his movies... but didn't.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Wrong. If the dice says they die, they die. PC and NPC alike, in the vast majority of cases is my preference.

So, you as the DM, consent to their death, and therefore allow them to die. As is your preference?

That makes me right. Not wrong.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And you see nothing off about multiple "impossible" survivals happening to the same group of people, for no reason in the universe they are theoretically a part of? More importantly, you see nothing people who don't share your point of view might consider off about that?

How many impossible survivals have I claimed must happen? I've never put a number on it.

So, would one be a problem? What about two? I've read a book series where the characters survived probably around 7 or 8 impossible things for people to survive. Still never broke my suspension of disbelief, because these characters survived in ways that were believable to me, based on who the characters were.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, you as the DM, consent to their death, and therefore allow them to die. As is your preference?

That makes me right. Not wrong.

Still the dice, sorry. If the dice say they live, they live. It actually works both ways.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How many impossible survivals have I claimed must happen? I've never put a number on it.

So, would one be a problem? What about two? I've read a book series where the characters survived probably around 7 or 8 impossible things for people to survive. Still never broke my suspension of disbelief, because these characters survived in ways that were believable to me, based on who the characters were.

Sounds like a story to me, which I have said many, many times is IMO not a game.

 

[GobHag]

"... in general, where you think players want it to go", more properly.

I just want the PCs to be an integral part of the setting they live in, rather than somehow removed or remote from it.

Looking at them, listening to them, etc. an observer in the setting shouldn't be able to distinguish a PC Elf from an NPC Elf assuming those Elves are of the same class, age, abilities, etc.; because if they can be so distinguished just because one of them is a PC you might as well throw setting integrity out the window.

I think it's more that they're told to want heroic characters and can't or won't go against the marketing. To me, that's just a bucketful of sad.

Well then get a Dam for that sadness. And the marketing works, because I want that specialness.

And yes, Setting integrity is generally unimportant compared to the PCs

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well then get a Dam for that sadness. And the marketing works, because I want that specialness.

And yes, Setting integrity is generally unimportant compared to the PCs

Solid opinion to have. Some people want PCs to be somehow a different order of being from NPCs, even though there's no in-setting reason for that. Others do not.