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

[Crimson Longinus]

It is, after all, deceiving the players about whether they're actually playing the game they signed up for,

It literally isn't in 5e though. The GM has explicit right to override the rules and the DMG (at least 5.0) gives advice on fudging. So the possibility is already part of the default state of the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It literally isn't in 5e though. The GM has explicit right to override the rules and the DMG (at least 5.0) gives advice on fudging. So the possibility is already part of the default state of the game.

"You can totally fudge the rules whenever you want" is not--and cannot be--a rule. Because if it is, then it isn't fudging, the rules just don't really exist. They are merely suggestions, not rules. Something I have rather a large degree of antipathy for.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

"You can totally fudge the rules whenever you want" is not--and cannot be--a rule. Because if it is, then it isn't fudging, the rules just don't really exist. They are merely suggestions, not rules. Something I have rather a large degree of antipathy for.

Then by your definition 5e and many other RPGs don't have rules. I don't think most people think this.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

"You can totally fudge the rules whenever you want" is not--and cannot be--a rule. Because if it is, then it isn't fudging, the rules just don't really exist. They are merely suggestions, not rules. Something I have rather a large degree of antipathy for.

Is there a meaningful difference between a "rule" and a wide spread expectation?

I don't know that there is in TTRPGs. I have to address deviations from either in pre-game discussions like Session 0, and I've seen people get more push back for not allowing feats, an optional rule, than for house ruling long rests, as an example.

So I think the DMG grants that power whether it's through a rule or through setting the expectation. In both cases individual tables can override it, but in both cases they have to in order to avoid it. Many have stated they roll in the open for this very purpose. Because if they didn't players would assume they were fudging. Some, in the thread on that topic, even said they assume hidden rolls are being fudged.

To me, I don't see much of a difference. The expectation is I, the DM, follow the rules - most of the time, kinda...

EDIT: I bet most players care more that you meet their expectations than you follow the letter of the rules. So maybe that's an indication.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Is there a meaningful difference between a "rule" and a wide spread expectation?

Yes. Firstly, the term for the latter is generally "convention." Conventions are not required; they are simply a common practice done by many people. Sometimes conventions are for practical utility, e.g. righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Sometimes they're done just for convenience, e.g. English acquired its indefinite article (a/an) from Anglo-Saxon speakers being too lazy to fully use the word "an"--which meant "one"--and dropping the "n" before words that started with consonants (e.g. "an scip", "a ship", became "a scip", but you wouldn't change "an ācbēam", "an oak").

Great example: By convention, in many previous editions, 1st level characters would get maximized HP, and then roll for HP every level thereafter. The rules did not say to do this, but it was commonly done because folks understood that getting a really crappy roll for your 1st level HP led to a less fun experience in most contexts. This is not a convention in 5e, it is the actual rule of the game (and, further, you may choose to take the HD average rounded up, rather than rolling, which is also not a convention, it is actually what the rules say.)

A rule is how the game actually does tell you to play. "Do X." A convention is an adopted practice external to the rules, which you aren't technically required to do. Non-gaming example: it is conventional, now, to orient maps so that north is at the top of the map. This convention has not always been the case. For example, ancient Egypt oriented their maps relative to the flow of the Nile, which is why "Upper Egypt" is in the south and "Lower Egypt" is in the north, as the upper/lower distinction is relative to whether you are nearer the headwaters or the delta of the Nile.

I don't know that there is in TTRPGs. I have to address deviations from either in pre-game discussions like Session 0, and I've seen people get more push back for not allowing feats, an optional rule, than for house ruling long rests, as an example.

A house rule is still a rule, so long as it is actually followed. It is not a rule that every table will use, of course, but if it is in fact a house rule, it will be used consistently. Both of the things you are speaking of here are choosing to consistently use, or consistently not use, some specific rule. That is not the same as a convention.

So I think the DMG grants that power whether it's through a rule or through setting the expectation.

I disagree. If the things are actually rules, they should be followed consistently. If you don't want to follow them consistently, explicitly disclaim them with house rules--which are, themselves, actually rules--and make sure that the players know those house-rules. It is dirty pool to have house-rules and only spring them on the player when they have done something that contradicts the house's rules that they didn't even know applied.

In both cases individual tables can override it, but in both cases they have to in order to avoid it. Many have stated they roll in the open for this very purpose. Because if they didn't players would assume they were fudging. Some, in the thread on that topic, even said they assume hidden rolls are being fudged.

I don't necessarily assume that hidden rolls are definitely 100% fudged, but it may invite the question, especially if other context clues are also present. Like if a DM typically rolls everything in the open, even Perception rolls (one of the exceedingly rare cases where I think rolling in secret is ever even remotely warranted), and all of a sudden THIS roll is behind the screen...that's going to invite some questions, I should think. Likewise, if the DM pauses for a noticeable time after the roll is made, that could invite the question of whether they were re-evaluating. Etc.

In basically all of those cases, I would prefer that the DM level with me rather than lie about the result the die/dice indicated.

To me, I don't see much of a difference. The expectation is I, the DM, follow the rules - most of the time, kinda...

I do. A convention is just a frequent pattern, sometimes done for specific utility, sometimes done for convenience, sometimes simply because it is commonplace (e.g. whether a nation uses right-hand or left-hand drive

EDIT: I bet most players care more that you meet their expectations than you follow the letter of the rules. So maybe that's an indication.

But what expectations can they bring that are not playing the game you have offered to play? What expectation can they have when you claim that a monster crit, or that something was beyond their ability to detect, except that you actually used the rules honestly?

The rules provide the starting baseline. If those rules have ever and always "...unless the DM decided otherwise this time", then they aren't rules, they're at very best suggestions and the only "rule" is the DM's whims.

 

[Lanefan]

I was not saying that D&D is a supers game.

I was saying that the existence of superhero RPGs proves that story is perfectly achievable as part and parcel of gaming.

Ah. I was thinking of it in terms of character power relative to the setting they exist in, as that had come up in a tangential "PCs are special" bit; and suggesting that while supers start out and remain crazy-powerful relative to the mundanes in their settings, D&D characters do (or at least should) instead start out not far removed - if at all - from their settings' mundanes or commoners.

A degenerate triangle is still degenerate even if it shows up in real physical situations. 0 and 1 are frequently degenerate solutions to math stuff. As an example, most mathematics teachers will lie to you and say that f(x)=e^x is the only function that equals its own derivative at every point. This is false. It is the only nontrivial function with this property. There is one other function that has this property: the zero function, the degenerate case of f(x)=0. The zero function appears all over the place in nature. That doesn't make it any less a degenerate case of "a function that equals its own derivative."

I've no idea what any of that math stuff means - I quite intentionally forgot all that the moment I finished passing the classes in high school - but it seems you're using the word "degenerate" as a neutral descriptor here rather than as a disparagement, where in nearly all other uses (including when used to describe anything in gaming) it's used as an insult.

So? We tell the story about him and not about a bazillion other Greeks with divine parentage. The point remains that "hero" in the classical sense meant anyone who was capable of incredible feats and changing the world, for good or for ill, and you absolutely did not need to be a divine nepo baby to be a hero. And even if you were a divine nepo baby, your inheritance could be absolute crap, e.g. Bellerophon was a son of Poseidon who...was a really good horseman. Not immortal, not massively strong, not superspeed. Just a mortal who could horse real real good. But I brought up Atalanta and Odysseus because they really were understood as ordinary mortal people who were still classical Heroes who did amazing, sometimes even "impossible" things (note quotes).

Two things to note here:

1. From this, then, Atalanta and Odysseus might well fall into D&D-characters territory in that they started out as ordinary people and - due to what they did - became heroes.

2. The tales of what they did have had 2000+ years to grow in the telling, just like fish get bigger every time you tell the story of how you caught one (or didn't).

 

[Lanefan]

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.

And yet we could both write and read those novels (copyright issues permitting) if we so desired. What the HP tales give us are the underlying setting precepts (vital) and a story about some key characters in a specific period of time within that setting. However, there's other times and-or other characters in that setting that can be fertile ground for all sorts of stories (as has already been shown by the Fantastic Beasts movie series).

In game terms, what this means is that we could, if we wanted, take Seamus Finnegan and Lavender Brown on as our PCs and play them through their own tales and adventures, with the Harry-Hermione-Ron story from the books as nothing more than a backdrop to what we're playing out at the table.

That said, all the non-squib witches and wizards in that setting already qualify as "supers" in relation to the muggles, it's just that there's enough of them to maintain their own sub-setting and only deal with each other for the most part. And despite all that, Jacob Kowalski (a muggle central to the FB movies) is arguably the most endearing and relatable character in the whole franchise.

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.

For me, that's the core of the challenge at least at low levels: that Rogue-like sense of "how far can this one get?", which works for me as I like Rogue-like games anyway. A corollary sub-challenge is "if this one is gonna die, how can I make its life and-or death memorable and entertaining in the meantime?".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet we could both write and read those novels (copyright issues permitting) if we so desired. What the HP tales give us are the underlying setting precepts (vital) and a story about some key characters in a specific period of time within that setting. However, there's other times and-or other characters in that setting that can be fertile ground for all sorts of stories (as has already been shown by the Fantastic Beasts movie series).

You could. Would anyone care? Genuine question. "Slice of life" stories are already a hard sell in most contexts, unless someone is looking for something "cozy," which I don't think would appeal to you. "Slice of life for characters that never do anything particularly interesting, and then die due to random BS" is going to be even harder.

You have, more than once, indicated that you think this is exclusively because it's what people are taught. I strenuously disagree. People do try to tell these stories. They don't take off.

In game terms, what this means is that we could, if we wanted, take Seamus Finnegan and Lavender Brown on as our PCs and play them through their own tales and adventures, with the Harry-Hermione-Ron story from the books as nothing more than a backdrop to what we're playing out at the table.

But what would you do? What would it mean?

If the answer is "probably die horribly" and "little to nothing," the vast majority of people are not interested.

That said, all the non-squib witches and wizards in that setting already qualify as "supers" in relation to the muggles, it's just that there's enough of them to maintain their own sub-setting and only deal with each other for the most part. And despite all that, Jacob Kowalski (a muggle central to the FB movies) is arguably the most endearing and relatable character in the whole franchise.

As said, I made no argument whatsoever about whether characters themselves are superpowered or not, so I won't respond to this.

For me, that's the core of the challenge at least at low levels: that Rogue-like sense of "how far can this one get?", which works for me as I like Rogue-like games anyway.

Guess what genre I happen to almost exclusively dislike? Roguelikes.

Guess which games within that genre I do like? The ones that are gentle, having relatively low stakes, and which make death feel rewarding and story-rich rather than dead-ending and wasteful. I tried, I really did. I really tried to like roguelikes. FTL. Rogue Legacy. This one ASCII Doom roguelike I found online. Etc. Inevitably, I always had to walk away from them because playing them was soul-crushing. I don't, can't, feel that "how far can this one get?" feel. I instead feel, "Wow. I failed. Again. I'm such a goddamn failure. Why do I always fail at everything? Why must life be such suffering?" This is not a joke. This is not hyperbole. That is precisely how that sort of thing makes me feel. That's why I don't do it anymore. I don't have fun with such games. I have the antithesis of fun. It's not the mere absence of fun that so many love to accuse my interests of producing. It is outright emotionally painful to play these games, it is a gnawing void that actively removes joy from other parts of my life.

A corollary sub-challenge is "if this one is gonna die, how can I make its life and-or death memorable and entertaining in the meantime?".

A sub-challenge that would be irrelevant to me, because I can't feel those feelings. Making the emotional pain more memorable would be twisting the knife.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

And the few who do survive become the heroes.

A horde of Orcs could attack a small town that has nobody with any class levels in it. The townsfolk fight back as best they can; and while 80% of them might die (or flee) before the Orcs are driven off there will still be the few who - usually for reasons of sheer luck - stand into the thick of the fighting and come out on their feet at the end. There's yer heroes, at least for today - the 15 surviving mundane townsfolk who with their pitchforks and meat cleavers drove off the Orc invaders and who get to tell that tale for the rest of their lives.

And that's not to say that the 184 who died were any less heroic; one could argue they were more so rather than less in that they gave their lives for the town.

The difference between us, I think, is that you'd somewhat insist on playing one of those surviving 15 where I'm happy with playing any of the starting 199 and if I happen to be one of the 15 still standing at the end then good for me - I get free beer for life in the local tavern.

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"?

This is where the different types of death, recently referenced upthread, come into play. Most of us aren't necessarily always talking about random permanent irrevocable (RPI) deaths only, we're talking about character deaths in general as a fail state whether temporary (the player sits out for a while before the PC is revived) or permanent (the player rolls up a new one).

At low level deaths are almost always permanent and irrevocable even if not random, which represents the overlap in the discussion, because the PCs just don't have the resources and-or ability to access revival effects. At higher levels deaths are rarely permanent or irrevocable due to the greater ease of access to revival effects but (depending on edition or system) can come across as much more random e.g. through save-or-die effects.

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!

Which means, then, that our death-as-failure rate is mighty low indeed in the long run, way lower than 1%, even though characters die in our games relatively regularly (though more so at low levels than high).

And, if revival effects are in play death isn't necessarily the end of a character's career. In 1e death carries a lingering penalty (loss of a Con point) which I very much like, but even there I've seen (and DMed, and played) characters who have died numeroues times and yet who are still active today.

 

[Lanefan]

You could. Would anyone care? Genuine question. "Slice of life" stories are already a hard sell in most contexts, unless someone is looking for something "cozy," which I don't think would appeal to you. "Slice of life for characters that never do anything particularly interesting, and then die due to random BS" is going to be even harder.

Are the Fantastic Beasts movies just "slice of life" stories, then?

But what would you do? What would it mean?

If the answer is "probably die horribly" and "little to nothing," the vast majority of people are not interested.

In the specific case of Seamus and Lavender, we could write about (or roleplay through) their adventures during the summers as they encounter their own evidence of Voldemort's return and deal with his servants and associates, safe in the knowledge that S+L can't die as we already know they'll be back at school in the fall.

Guess what genre I happen to almost exclusively dislike? Roguelikes.

Somehow this doesn't surprise me...

A sub-challenge that would be irrelevant to me, because I can't feel those feelings. Making the emotional pain more memorable would be twisting the knife.

Oh, I can. Sometimes a "shooting star" character that burns bright then burns out can be the very best.

Also, I rarely if ever get emotionally invested in my characters to that extent; and even if-when I do I can still pivot easily into remembering the character fondly rather than playing it should its career end prematurely.