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

[Micah Sweet]

I...don't recall doing so, but perhaps I did. Were you meaning the economy-of-verisimilitude thing? I don't consider that a play preference violated. Instead, I consider it one where even someone who highly prizes verisimilitude, like yourself, understands that it is not a totally unalloyed good. Sort of like medicine. One could conduct medicine purely as an optimization of number of days alive, but few doctors would ever pursue such a thing, because, to riff on a quote from Aslan, “But length of days with[out joy or fulfillment] is only length of misery” (from The Magician's Nephew). Instead, at least the way I see it, on the subject of verisimilitude I have (successfully?) persuaded you that it is a means seeking an end, rather than an end in itself, and that there are times (rare ones, but times nonetheless) where a different means produces a slightly superior end.


Is it? You are the one who has made a blanket provision: nothing except what the dice say can be permitted. You specifically cited even the DM overriding the dice as being an unacceptable intrusion. But now it's okay, whenever the DM feels like it? That's the contradiction I'm seeing here.

You already know how much I dislike fudging. I'm not criticizing an anti-fudging stance. I'm just deeply confused, because you have made such a strong and absolute stance against anything interfering with, for lack of a better term, the "procedure engine" of the world. So to then not only back away from that--despite using its absoluteness as the argument in more than one case--but to do so in a way that so casually says, "Yeah, DM can kinda do whatever they want" is just flabbergasting to me. It would be like if I, with my own absolute stance against fudging (I don't do it, I don't want any of my DMs to do it, and I argue against its use pretty much anywhere I talk about D&D stuff), said "but DMs can alter monster stats on the fly, that's fine." Like...that's no longer at all an absolute stance! You are, it seems, completely okay with people interfering with the procedure engine of the world, so long as it's done where you can't directly see it.

The DM shouldn't do whatever they want, but sometimes they do. When I do, I regret it, but sometimes it still happens, because I'm an imperfect being and sometimes make bad choices.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I want to play characters who already are going to do great (and possibly terrible) things, but who still have uncertain futures within that space. I want to find out what those great-and/or-terrible things will be, what costs will be paid, what triumphs and sufferings these exciting people will experience. I don't want "destined to greatness"--I want destined to interestingness. The fake "Chinese" curse, "may you live in interesting times", or the two additional, allegedly worse, "curses" that Terry Pratchett added to make a trilogy: "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and "may the gods give you everything you ask for."

There's a reason I keep making comparisons to things like Babylon 5. We don't watch TV shows about random nobodies with lives of quiet desperation doing mundane drudgery until they die for complicated but uninteresting reasons. We watch for characters like Londo and G'kar, people who start out as jerks you love to hate, and who end with the audience in tears, wishing there were some other way. We don't read novels about Seamus Finnigan and Lavender Brown, even though we are meant to understand that they are just as much real people in the world of Harry Potter as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We read to hear about The Boy Who Lived and what other cool things he gets up to--and then we stop paying attention as soon as he settles into a relatively pedestrian, if still adventurous, job at the Ministry as an Auror.

D&D arose from two roots. The first, as we all know, was wargaming. But the second--the thing that was inserted into wargaming--was telling the story of a Fighting-Man or a Magic-User, and clearly inspired directly by characters like Fafhrd, Conan, Doc Savage, and Aragorn. Many of the early influences were gritty and pulpy, but I don't think there's really any room to argue that Fafhrd or Conan is anything but a classical hero doing classical hero things and being larger-than-life. Nobody mistakes Conan for a random Joe Shmoe.

Now, not one word of that means people can't enjoy playing Random Joe Shmoe, nor enjoy the process of discovering whether a character will ever amount to anything exciting, or will die in obscurity. Personally, I see the latter as not just dying in obscurity, but having an 80%-90% chance of dying for stupid, pointless, depressing reasons in the middle of nowhere whiel accomplishing absolutely nothing and being instantly forgotten. I find that experience soul-crushing. That's why I avoid it like the plague.

Several characters on Babylon 5 had "great interestingness" that was curtailed, eliminated, or greatly changed because sometimes things happen that even DM JMS doesn't control. Examples include Laurel Takeshima, Dr. Benjamin Kyle, Talia Winters, Na'toth, and Jeffrey Sinclair. When these things happen, for whatever reason, the campaign changes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I want to play characters who already are going to do great (and possibly terrible) things, but who still have uncertain futures within that space. I want to find out what those great-and/or-terrible things will be, what costs will be paid, what triumphs and sufferings these exciting people will experience. I don't want "destined to greatness"--I want destined to interestingness. The fake "Chinese" curse, "may you live in interesting times", or the two additional, allegedly worse, "curses" that Terry Pratchett added to make a trilogy: "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and "may the gods give you everything you ask for."

So I very strongly agree with you about one thing here. Destined for interestingness. Yes, absolutely. This is basically one of my guiding mantras when running a game: "Whatever you choose to do, something interesting will happen." I just do not equate being interesting with being great, powerful or even intrinsically exceptional. (Though facing exceptional circumstances, certainly.)

There's a reason I keep making comparisons to things like Babylon 5. We don't watch TV shows about random nobodies with lives of quiet desperation doing mundane drudgery until they die for complicated but uninteresting reasons. We watch for characters like Londo and G'kar, people who start out as jerks you love to hate, and who end with the audience in tears, wishing there were some other way. We don't read novels about Seamus Finnigan and Lavender Brown, even though we are meant to understand that they are just as much real people in the world of Harry Potter as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We read to hear about The Boy Who Lived and what other cool things he gets up to--and then we stop paying attention as soon as he settles into a relatively pedestrian, if still adventurous, job at the Ministry as an Auror.

But to me this doesn't require to have an impenetrable plot armour. Boromir died, Tasha Yar died, Robb Stark died. You can be an interesting character that does interesting things without such plot armour.

D&D arose from two roots. The first, as we all know, was wargaming. But the second--the thing that was inserted into wargaming--was telling the story of a Fighting-Man or a Magic-User, and clearly inspired directly by characters like Fafhrd, Conan, Doc Savage, and Aragorn. Many of the early influences were gritty and pulpy, but I don't think there's really any room to argue that Fafhrd or Conan is anything but a classical hero doing classical hero things and being larger-than-life. Nobody mistakes Conan for a random Joe Shmoe.

Now, not one word of that means people can't enjoy playing Random Joe Shmoe, nor enjoy the process of discovering whether a character will ever amount to anything exciting, or will die in obscurity. Personally, I see the latter as not just dying in obscurity, but having an 80%-90% chance of dying for stupid, pointless, depressing reasons in the middle of nowhere whiel accomplishing absolutely nothing and being instantly forgotten. I find that experience soul-crushing. That's why I avoid it like the plague.

80-90% chance of dying would be too high for my liking too. I'm pretty sure I would not like Lanefan's games that much. But I still do not want infallible plot armour either, I don't want a promise that my character will be great and powerful, I don't need my character to be like Conan from the get go. And this is especially true for D&D, where the characters can level from relative nobodies to mythic heroes. To me that is cooler if it is not destined. That I had a genuine chance to fail makes succeeding feel more meaningful and the perils faced more real.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Several characters on Babylon 5 had "great interestingness" that was curtailed, eliminated, or greatly changed because sometimes things happen that even DM JMS doesn't control. Examples include Laurel Takeshima, Dr. Benjamin Kyle, Talia Winters, Na'toth, and Jeffrey Sinclair. When these things happen, for whatever reason, the campaign changes.

Okay. I don't dispute any of that.

Would you say these characters form even a plurality, to say nothing of an absolute majority?

Even for these characters, would you say their ends are actually comparable to "died for stupid, pointless reasons in the middle of nowhere" the way almost all "old school" deaths end up being? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. Three quarters got interesting ends. Kyle was on loan from EarthGov to begin with, Winters was revealed to be a mole (and--believe it or not!--JMS even included a means by which she could be "resurrected", although it was never used), and Sinclair literally got promoted to alien Jesus.

I'd say that's a pretty strong track record, especially since half of these were either pilot-only characters (Kyle, Takashima) or secondary characters--and none of them led boring lives. Further, an actor departing the show because they desire to...isn't that much more analogous to a player deciding to play a new character, rather than the decision being wrested from them by bad rolls? The actors for Takashima, Winters, and Sinclair all left the show for personal reasons, and Takashima is the only one mentioned who practically just disappeared. All of the others remain important, albeit unseen, characters well after their departure.

Other recurring characters that faded out: Catherine Sakai (who disappeared when Sinclair left), Lyta Alexander (she got brought back later, but absolutely faded to the background between the pilot and her return), Lou Welch (promoted to the President's guard, replaced by Zach Allen), or Brother Theo (he just...doesn't appear again after season 3, no explanation). Such things happen in any show, and in most games too. I don't see how any of this meaningfully detracts from the idea that the reason most folks invest into characters in various media, including D&D, is because they have a reasonable expectation that that person will do, or be involved in, interesting things, and that their end will only quite rarely be pointless and random, without conclusion. Such is not true of the proposed easy-come, easy-go, "it's the party story that matters", "story is always retrospective" approach. Some folks are into that, certainly, and I think the rules should support them. I just don't think that the rules should support them while reducing or sidelining support for folks who aren't into it--and I consider "you only get levels 5-20 to play with" as a form of sidelining.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So I very strongly agree with you about one thing here. Destined for interestingness. Yes, absolutely. This is basically one of my guiding mantras when running a game: "Whatever you choose to do, something interesting will happen." I just do not equate being interesting with being great, powerful or even intrinsically exceptional. (Though facing exceptional circumstances, certainly.)

Anyone who is totally normal and mundane, nothing whatever exceptional about them, doesn't get to be interesting when interesting things happen. They die. That's...literally what the premise of the old-school approach is. Interesting things happen, and 80% or more of people won't survive them.

But to me this doesn't require to have an impenetrable plot armour. Boromir died, Tasha Yar died, Robb Stark died. You can be an interesting character that does interesting things without such plot armour.

"Plot armor" is a low jab. I don't want "plot armor."

I just don't want there to be, again only and specifically random AND irrevocable AND permanent deaths. If a player plays stupid games, they'll win stupid prizes; that's not random, nor is a player deciding this is a good end in their eyes (even if that "good end" IS itself pointless and stupid etc., that's their prerogative).

80-90% chance of dying would be too high for my liking too. I'm pretty sure I would not like Lanefan's games that much. But I still do not want infallible plot armour either, I don't want a promise that my character will be great and powerful, I don't need my character to be like Conan from the get go. And this is especially true for D&D, where the characters can level from relative nobodies to mythic heroes. To me that is cooler if it is not destined. That I had a genuine chance to fail makes succeeding feel more meaningful and the perils faced more real.

You can still have a genuine chance to fail. Why on earth would you think that wasn't the case? Why is it so many damn people interpret "I don't want deaths that are all three of random AND permanent AND irrevocable" as "you never ever had any chance to fail, you were always guaranteed to succeed perfectly at everything you do no matter what"?

I have never, never, said that. I have never, not once, said anything even remotely like it. I have, repeatedly, said that I want genuine stakes and genuine issues. I just don't think character death is an interesting stake in most cases. I find it simultaneously boring and disheartening, which is really the worst of both worlds. I know many people don't see it that way. But death is not the only possible way someone can fail. If it were, then you would have to be okay with the 80%-90% death rates, because even if there's only a 1% chance to fail on any given roll, if you make that roll 300 times in a character's run, that character doesn't even have a 1-in-20 chance of surviving. Even if you only make it 200 times, survival rate is 13.4%, closer to 90% death rate than 80%.

So either you actually do agree with me that death isn't the only or even the most common failure we can consider, or there's something wrong with your claim that you aren't interested in high lethality games. Because I dunno about you, but I'd say I make at least 200 rolls over the course of, say, a year's worth of weekly sessions, where the chance of failure is higher than 1%. If death is the only failure state, that's not gonna work out so great!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The DM shouldn't do whatever they want, but sometimes they do. When I do, I regret it, but sometimes it still happens, because I'm an imperfect being and sometimes make bad choices.

Okay. Bringing it up as a thing that is okay to do is quite different from "this is what I aspire to, I just don't always make it."

The way you brought it up before, you were allowing fudging, as though it were par for the course. It isn't. You see it as a clear failure, and if you succumb to the temptation to do it, you feel bad about having done so, yes? Because you didn't really make any mention of that when fudging was first floated. It was just another thing DMs were permitted to do. With this further context, it's better, but I wouldn't particularly call it good.

Like...if someone were making a hard-edge stance on the subject of telling the truth, saying it is never acceptable to speak any word that is not true, under any circumstances, no matter what....and then say "but yeah, sometimes I tell white lies and feel bad about it", would you not see a bit of a problem there? Especially if that person were making an argument not just about what they do do, not just about what they like to see, but what they think truth-telling needs to be for everyone, on the basis that it is utterly unacceptable to ever tell even the smallest fib?

Because that's pretty clearly the argument you've laid out. D&D cannot--ever, for any reason--be a game that does things for story reasons, and not for world-process-simulation reasons. I should think that fudging, which is done in direct defiance of preserving world-process-sim, would never be acceptable even as a temptation. If it is acceptable as a temptation--something bad, but forgivable--then it's a bit hard to swallow how hard you have opposed anything ever doing anything like that openly, cards face up, for spelled-out beneficial ends. It's just a little hard to accept that doing something disliked covertly, where no one is ever permitted to know or see and which only the person doing it can ever evaluate whether it was the right call, is somehow better than doing a thing openly, for explained reasons, which people can then decide for themselves if they like or don't.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Anyone who is totally normal and mundane, nothing whatever exceptional about them, doesn't get to be interesting when interesting things happen. They die. That's...literally what the premise of the old-school approach is. Interesting things happen, and 80% or more of people won't survive them.

Nah. Plenty of real people who were pretty normal have done a lot of interesting things in the human history. And in fiction too, for that matter.

"Plot armor" is a low jab. I don't want "plot armor."

Yes you do.

I just don't want there to be, again only and specifically random AND irrevocable AND permanent deaths. If a player plays stupid games, they'll win stupid prizes; that's not random, nor is a player deciding this is a good end in their eyes (even if that "good end" IS itself pointless and stupid etc., that's their prerogative).

You're describing plot armour.

You can still have a genuine chance to fail. Why on earth would you think that wasn't the case? Why is it so many damn people interpret "I don't want deaths that are all three of random AND permanent AND irrevocable" as "you never ever had any chance to fail, you were always guaranteed to succeed perfectly at everything you do no matter what"?

I have never, never, said that. I have never, not once, said anything even remotely like it. I have, repeatedly, said that I want genuine stakes and genuine issues. I just don't think character death is an interesting stake in most cases. I find it simultaneously boring and disheartening, which is really the worst of both worlds. I know many people don't see it that way. But death is not the only possible way someone can fail. If it were, then you would have to be okay with the 80%-90% death rates, because even if there's only a 1% chance to fail on any given roll, if you make that roll 300 times in a character's run, that character doesn't even have a 1-in-20 chance of surviving. Even if you only make it 200 times, survival rate is 13.4%, closer to 90% death rate than 80%.

So either you actually do agree with me that death isn't the only or even the most common failure we can consider, or there's something wrong with your claim that you aren't interested in high lethality games. Because I dunno about you, but I'd say I make at least 200 rolls over the course of, say, a year's worth of weekly sessions, where the chance of failure is higher than 1%. If death is the only failure state, that's not gonna work out so great!

Death is not only failure condition. But it is only failure condition (apart player willingly retiring the character) that stops the character eventually becoming a great hero in D&D. As long as the character survives and the campaign continues, they will gain levels, and eventually become a mythic hero.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay. I don't dispute any of that.

Would you say these characters form even a plurality, to say nothing of an absolute majority?

Even for these characters, would you say their ends are actually comparable to "died for stupid, pointless reasons in the middle of nowhere" the way almost all "old school" deaths end up being? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. Three quarters got interesting ends. Kyle was on loan from EarthGov to begin with, Winters was revealed to be a mole (and--believe it or not!--JMS even included a means by which she could be "resurrected", although it was never used), and Sinclair literally got promoted to alien Jesus.

I'd say that's a pretty strong track record, especially since half of these were either pilot-only characters (Kyle, Takashima) or secondary characters--and none of them led boring lives. Further, an actor departing the show because they desire to...isn't that much more analogous to a player deciding to play a new character, rather than the decision being wrested from them by bad rolls? The actors for Takashima, Winters, and Sinclair all left the show for personal reasons, and Takashima is the only one mentioned who practically just disappeared. All of the others remain important, albeit unseen, characters well after their departure.

Other recurring characters that faded out: Catherine Sakai (who disappeared when Sinclair left), Lyta Alexander (she got brought back later, but absolutely faded to the background between the pilot and her return), Lou Welch (promoted to the President's guard, replaced by Zach Allen), or Brother Theo (he just...doesn't appear again after season 3, no explanation). Such things happen in any show, and in most games too. I don't see how any of this meaningfully detracts from the idea that the reason most folks invest into characters in various media, including D&D, is because they have a reasonable expectation that that person will do, or be involved in, interesting things, and that their end will only quite rarely be pointless and random, without conclusion. Such is not true of the proposed easy-come, easy-go, "it's the party story that matters", "story is always retrospective" approach. Some folks are into that, certainly, and I think the rules should support them. I just don't think that the rules should support them while reducing or sidelining support for folks who aren't into it--and I consider "you only get levels 5-20 to play with" as a form of sidelining.

Well, I certainly can't say you don't know your B5. Well done! Quite possibly my favorite story ever.

I don't dispute any if that. I guess we just differ on whether or not we want the game to make sure we get that kind of experience. I don't want the game to do that. I want to play, and see what we do get.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Also worth noting that none of us are perfect and sometimes we succumb to temptation. Seems a little harsh to essentially call someone a hypocrite because they don't always follow their beliefs.

And I would say that in complex and nuanced matter like RPGs, one should be cautious about categorical axioms (aside Wheaton's Law.) "Never do this," "Always do that." Rather I would formulate most things more like "Should usually be avoided," "It is generally a good practice to," etc. There can always be unusual circumstance when deviating from the usual principle might be warranted.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And I would say that in complex and nuanced matter like RPGs, one should be cautious about categorical axioms (aside Wheaton's Law.) "Never do this," "Always do that." Rather I would formulate most things more like "Should usually be avoided," "It is generally a good practice to," etc. There can always be unusual circumstance when deviating from the usual principle might be warranted.

And if one considers fudging to fall under Wheaton's law?

It is, after all, deceiving the players about whether they're actually playing the game they signed up for, or playing "what the DM feels like allowing today". It's not for nothing that I got so mad, as referenced way upthread, about Matt Colville openly stating that he deceives his players by pre-rolling dice with the results he wants, so he can lift the screen and say "see? That's what the die said."

(And please, for the love of God, don't invoke that infuriating non-argument "ThE dM aLwAyS tElLs LiEs". Fiction is not lies. Fiction is not factually true, it is not representing what is real in our tactile physical world, but that does not mean it is lying. Many things that have no physical referent whatsoever can in fact still be true, or be simply without truth-value, neither false nor true. "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are friends" is a true statement, not a lie, even though "Sherlock Holmes" and "Dr. John Watson" are not and never were physically real people.)