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

[Chaosmancer]

You realize that @Lanefan's perceived attitude of "your character doesn't matter... don't get attached" is the the context of his table and his campaign. Your table doesn't play the same way so his table has nothing to do with your character. His rules can't affect your character. There is zero to worry about. You can acknowledge that neither of you would like to play at each other's table, nod, and move on. Or continue to argue in frustration, reading into his statements as him declaring universal truths rather than specific preferences, and never convincing him of anything since it doesn't apply to his playstyle.

I can never convince him that his style isn't universally beloved or followed by all people? That it isn't the best thing for all people? Cause THAT is what I'm trying to convince him of. His response to people saying they get very upset and frustrated by the loss of characters is to essentially tell them to "get over it". To treat it like it doesn't matter.

The point I opened with, the point he is arguing against, is that people who invest a lot of time into something (and for most people, 3 to 4 hours is quite a lot of time) get attached to the success of that thing, or the outcome of that thing. And constantly telling people that the six hours they spent with their character is meaningless and they would be so much happier simply not caring about that character... doesn't solve anything. It is like telling someone without a car that life would be easier if they drove everywhere. Doesn't really address the reality of the situation.

All that said, if you (the general you) sign up for a campaign and, in session zero, everyone agrees to a campaign premise that death is a possibility for your character, players have no right to get mad at the DM or at their fellow party members if their PC should die. Getting mad at the dice is fine, of course. In our last campaign, where we agreed death was on the table, I did spend quite a bit of effort creating a backstory for my kenku goo warlock. It is part of the fun for me. He made it to 7th level before being consumed by a Shambling Mound. Was I sad? Actually, I was a bit. Was I mad? Not at all - it was something that could... and did... happen b/c I signed up for that possibility. In the end, it was a glorious end for ol' Scritch. And my other character, his smuggling partner before they both got sucked into Ravenloft, vowed to avenge him... and thus the story continued.

This misses three things. Well, four.

1) "death is a possibility" is vague and potentially worthless. EzekielRaiden would say in their game that death is a possibility, but they don't mean that you are going to die to spike trap in the first room of the first dungeon because your ally pushed you into a room as a joke. This is also how Lanefan has described his games in this thread... while also calling them old school meat grinders. Do you think those two people have the same table culture and expectations?

2) Level 7. That's actually a long time. That is toward the end of most campaigns I've been in that have even lasted that long. You had a really long run with that character. Do you see how it might be different if you only got to level 2?

3) When have I ever, EVER stated anything about being mad at the DM because my character died? There is only one or two instances where I've been mad at a DM during a game, and generally when sharing those stories I get told that they were a bad DM. And even in those, the people I'm usually the most upset with is the party that either abandoned or gaslit me.You are making this sounds like some sort of wisdom of "if you agree to it, you can't be mad at the DM later when it happens" but that has literally nothing to do with the discussion.

4) The biggest part of the discussion? It is generally that AS A DM I and others prefer to minimize the risk of death significantly. Then we get accused of running baby's first RPG and coddling our players, never offering them a challenge. Because the people who are accusing us of this, cannot conceive of how failure works without death. It was literally stated a bit above, that without death no defeat is a failure, because they can just try again. And so we try to explain. This doesn't mean we are throwing tantrums at the table because our level 7 character died.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I care more about the world and the emergent story than any given PC, even my own.

Am I too jaded to play D&D in your estimation too?

Since I never said that anyone was too jaded to play DnD, this seems like an utterly ridiculous question.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Since I never said that anyone was too jaded to play DnD, this seems like an utterly ridiculous question.

You came pretty darn close with @Lanefan .

 

[Chaosmancer]

TBH I know very little about how Arneson ran Blackmoor; I'll have to take your word for it that he ran it differently than did Gygax, but what most of us were playing in the early 80s was by all appearances a fairly direct descendant of Gygax's game.

Except, on this very site, I've heard a lot people reject that and say they played a very different game from Gygax. So, again, this idea that Gygax's methods must have been good, because the majority of people played that way.... holds less and less water, and it seems it was complicated. And maybe, even if most people did play "like" Gygax, maybe things like the Ear monsters that punish you for listening at doors and scouting if you don't use an ear horn... were a thing they didn't copy from him, because they recognized how bad it was.

 

[GobHag]

And then, if the above is true re what the general playing populate wants, the question becomes whether this is a "be careful what you wish for" situation; where what they want ends up being bad for the game/hobby as a whole in the long run.

I don't think that matters, or matters to them specifically. You're thinking Swamps aren't good places for lions but alligators are fine living in them,

 

[Chaosmancer]

And even he starts out as a farmboy, albeit a farmboy watched over by one overpowered NPC and mentored by another.

A better example from the same series is Durnik, who starts out as a simple smith and largely remains so (though still slowly gaining "levels" as he goes along) while running with all sorts of high-powered types.

I was actually thinking about Sparhawk, the aging knight-magician who duels the ancient evil military god. I think Sparhawk was the name he had at least.

Edit: Which of course, doesn't change the point. You say a "better example" but the truth is... no, Durnik would not be a better example of the heights fantasy can go to.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think the film you have watched has given you a misleading impression of how constitutional monarchy works in the UK.

It wasn't a film. It was a British person who talks about Britain, reporting on an article published in Britain, about this exact thing. Possible I could have misunderstood them, but it was a 60 second short talking about a news article.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And then, if the above is true re what the general playing populate wants, the question becomes whether this is a "be careful what you wish for" situation; where what they want ends up being bad for the game/hobby as a whole in the long run.

I honestly feel like you need to expand your media consumption sometimes. No, it wouldn't be bad for the hobby in the long run. There is literally no reason for that to be true. Death isn't some magic ingredient X that makes a game good by its mere presence. Tons, and I do mean in literally terms of pounds and ounces, TONS of games and even RPGs exist, are beloved, and create massively memorable experiences without a character permanently dying and needing to be replaced.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You came pretty darn close with @Lanefan .

No, I came nowhere near telling him he was too jaded to play DnD.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Except, on this very site, I've heard a lot people reject that and say they played a very different game from Gygax. So, again, this idea that Gygax's methods must have been good, because the majority of people played that way.... holds less and less water, and it seems it was complicated. And maybe, even if most people did play "like" Gygax, maybe things like the Ear monsters that punish you for listening at doors and scouting if you don't use an ear horn... were a thing they didn't copy from him, because they recognized how bad it was.

I would say, "because they didn't like it, or it didn't work for them", rather than your, "because they recognized how (objectively?) bad it was". Not sure how you can claim something is just bad like that. Unpopular? Maybe (although I've never seen the value of popularity arguments in this context). But certainly not just "bad" in anything other than a personal sense.

I would say that having such targeted creatures handy in the event you need them is valuable as part of a DM's toolbox, IMO.