D&D General Why fear is good for PCs

[Piperken]

Obergruppenführer John Smith: " ...See, now you're some place, where good people actually look out for one another. I'll see you tomorrow."
Juliana Crain: "Okay. Thanks." (pauses) "Wait. What about the key?"
Obergruppenführer John Smith: "Oh, there isn't one." (smiles) "No one locks their doors around here."
-- Man in the High Castle, "Travelers" (Season 2, Episode 3)

Having a good handle on the PCs (as supposed to the players), really understanding what motivates them, and applying pressure at those points during dramatic moments, constructively inspires emotional response.

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

I love the Cup of Doom. Genius.

I know there’s games that use dice pools for DM’s but for me the idea came from trying to implement a Doom Mechanic as per Conan 2D20. I love the idea of characters pushing their luck until it runs out.

I recently bought Nord Games box set of critical hit cards, and it came with good/bad fortune cards. They are great and as of last session I’ve used them when either the players or I drain our cups of dice.

 

[CreamCloud0]

My best tip for Real Fear is run an Old School Style Hard Fun Unfair Unbalanced Game.

Just Random Meaningless Character Death at any time fills many players with fear. They worry the whole game that the DM might say something like "well, that is 11 damage, your character is dead".

Just Random Meaninglessness Character Death at any time can also fill many players with apathy, if their character can die for no real reason at the drop of a hat why should they care about them in the first place?

 

[bloodtide]

Just Random Meaninglessness Character Death at any time can also fill many players with apathy, if their character can die for no real reason at the drop of a hat why should they care about them in the first place?

Having the characters be immortal demigods can fill the DM with apathy. Why even have game play if it will always be "well, your characters already won" right from the start.

Just different gameplays

 

[Bill Zebub]

Just Random Meaninglessness Character Death at any time can also fill many players with apathy, if their character can die for no real reason at the drop of a hat why should they care about them in the first place?

Define "die for no real reason at the drop of a hat"....?

 

[Distracted DM]

"Random meaningless character death." I had to think about this one, because it sounds bad and I thought it was trolling at first- but then I think back to my playing OSE games and I think I know what you mean.

So yeah playing 1st level characters in Old School Essentials, it takes a few minutes to make a new character, we were climbing down a ladder to a deep delve. Ladder was old, rusty, parts of it broke- failed a check to save yourself, roll bad? Dead character, that sucked but oh well, roll a new one! AND we were more careful going forward, and took precautions. I one could say this gameplay style has roguelike elements to it, if you were to compare it to video games- you basically learn to play the game a new way as you go. Occasionally a character dies. Hold on lightly.

I don't love it for games with longer character creation processes, like DnD5e. If the PC made some bad choices and/or had really bad luck with rolls, and that led to their death? That's just DnD. But one hopes that death was seen coming and the player chose to roll the dice, or maybe they ignored the telegraphed dangers. But 5e characters, especially A5E characters, have repeatedly defeated encounters that I thought were impossible and should be avoided at the time. Sometimes a character dies in those attempts, and while the players aren't happy about it they either look to make a new character or hope that they can get raised.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Having the characters be immortal demigods can fill the DM with apathy. Why even have game play if it will always be "well, your characters already won" right from the start.

Just different gameplays

Define "die for no real reason at the drop of a hat"....?

i'm not saying characters should be immortal beings* who nothing challenges, but between you saying 'Random Meaninglessness Character Death' and 'They worry the whole game that the DM might say something like "well, that is 11 damage, your character is dead" doesn't sound to me like damage you take in battle, from a failed skill challenge or the result of a poor decision, it sounds like the character is constantly in a lottery to learn the universe hates them and to get blindsided with unexpected unpreventable damage, 'the cave is dark and even with your lantern you couldn't see properly, you twist your ankle and take 6 damage' 'the jungle is filled with masses of poisonous plants and creatures, you must have touched one at some point, take 11 damage'

*although 'death is off the table' campaigns are still incredibly viable but that's not my point.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I actually think not-dead-at-0 is something that takes some fear away from the game- but I wonder if removing it (aka dying at 0) would be tough to acclimate to for players. I feel like it'd result in a lot of character deaths before people got used to it, if they ever did. After all that was how it worked in the early editions, but there were quickly alternative rules to introduce not-dead-at-0.

I think that the main reason that the "down-and-making-death-saves" system was added to the game wasn't to remove fear, but to add it, as well as increase player engagement and increase tactical complexity.
Options to "just don't take damage" are limited in 5e, particularly for the types of character that tend to be on the front line defending the rest of the group, and healing couldn't keep up to mitigate it either.

A character dropping to zero and dying immediately loses any engagement for their player, except by proxy for their friends for the rest of the fight. For the rest of the party, there is no response or counterplay when the DM rolled lucky: the character is dead and that's it.
No pressure, no build up of tension, just the wait until the new character can be introduced.

A character going down and starting to bleed to death immediately adds tension and changes the tactics the players need to use. There is now a new and probably overriding objective in the fight: protect and revive that character. Can the fighter get there and push the monsters away from their comrade? Should the Rogue deliberately provoke an attack of opportunity on their turn, so that the druid can safely break off to go heal the downed character? Does anyone have any potions? It isn't just the player of the downed character feeling fear, the entire rest of the party feels fear for their endangered member and have to shift gears to try to save them.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Define "die for no real reason at the drop of a hat"....?

Just Random Meaningless Character Death at any time