D&D 4E 4e How Should PCs be allowed to Die (Cinematically or Like Everyone Else)?

[gizmo33]

Why? As a lot of other games have evolved away from the 'you die just like a pissant peseant' model, so eventually will D&D.

Peasants get disintegrated? Peasants get turned to stone by basilisks? That's a strange world you are describing. Most peasants I would assume die straw deaths, or perhaps fall down wells. I think the list of likely ways that PCs die and peasants die are distinct. I'm tempted to make a list of the ways that the various English kings died.

 

[Stormtalon]

There's a lesser-known form of player death -- "Death by scrubs." One group I played in had a very, very nasty run-in with about 3 Shocker Lizards, resulting in one dead player and the others (including my own) all on death's door.

To this day, they refuse to say the words "Shocker Lizard." Instead, the massacre was caused by "Blue dragons. Lots of them." Actually, the only original character left from that group is the poor, ultra-naive Catfolk fighter (now known as the "Trauma-kitty"). The others have all passed: death by Sh... Blue Dragon, flesh golem, dire wolf and one rather convoluted death involving all of the following, in order: Vampiric domination, player-inflicted damage to exactly zero, blood drinking, player-inflicted posthumous staking, and finally being turned into a skeleton and commanded to simply RUN -- by the aforementioned vampire.

Ignominious? Only the sh... blue dragon incident. I think the save-or-die stuff can be minimized, really. There's already soooo many ways to bump off characters already....

 

[delericho]

I'm in favour of changing save-or-dies. On the one hand, they far too often have an all-or-nothing effect, where they either kill the character or do nothing (as mocked recently by Order of the Stick, with their duelling Clerics). On the other hand, they tend to be too effective if the save is failed.

So, I would adopt the model used for the Disintegrate spell more often - a failed save does a lot of damage, and can lead to instant death but is not certain; a successful save does a lesser amount of damage.

Otherwise, I wouldn't change the lethality level of the game one jot. The game actually plays better when characters can be struck down by a freak run of the dice, in my experience.

 

[Dragonblade]

The big difference comes down to...

a.) death by player action (stupid maneuvers, bad tactics, epic battles, poor judgment)
b.) death by die roll (save or die, random crits, bad die rolls)
c.) death by DM (assassination while sleeping, dropping a moon on you, no-save, just-die effects)
d.) death by plot (akin to death by DM, but usually a more scripted out method with player consent)

We (almost) all agree a.) is acceptable, Player actions should have consequences or the game is pointless. Most people agree c.) is unfair and usually bad form. d.) is permissible within certain groups (usually because its joint with the player) but not always for everyone.

When you come down to it, b.) is the only controversial one. Some players/dms like the idea of random death happening by "gambling" (aka dice rolling) and thus keeping it is intregal to the game. Others dislike the idea of dice completely overriding the PC/DM's actions and that luck is as equal an element in the game as skill (when skill should be much more important than luck in that mindview).

At the end of the day, the only argument about PC death comes down to "should the dice be able to kill you even if you've done everything right?" If yes, you typically favor a harsher view of the RAW, but if you say no, you're more at home with action points/hero dice/dm fiat.

I'm not sure they can make a core-rule set that will appease both audiences though...

Brilliant post! You sum it up nicely. I lean toward the camp where PC life or death coming down to one make it or break it die roll should be rare, but not necessarily removed from the game completely.

 

[Dragonblade]

In real life, people die ignoble and meaningless deaths. So it should be the same in the D&D game.

This I completely disagree with. I don't play D&D to simulate real life. I play to be a larger than life hero that survives challenges that no ordinary person should survive. This means that I think randomness as a factor in PC death should be reduced. But of course, not eliminated.

 

[Glyfair]

I for one am really excited about 4e's Player's Handbook II: The Complete Book of Heart Attacks

There was an RPG that had you roll to see if you died from natural causes (heart attack, etc.) on a regular basis. It was annually, if I remember correctly. I think it might have been Powers & Perils.

Player actions should have consequences or the game is pointless.

Some of us will agree with this and still argue that the "consequences" do not have to be death.

That being said, I would argue against that being default D&D. It certainly is worth exploring in an article as a game style. I think many groups actually would prefer that style of play (those that regularly fudge death results) but haven't really been exposed to that style of play.

Plus, coming up with appropriate consequences without death takes a lot of creativity on the fly. It's much easier just to make the consequences death.

 

[Grog]

What makes the actions of the hero "extraordinary" is that the expectations of real life are the base. If you have a game system where the only possibilities are "extraordinary" possibilities, then those become less extraordinary because your frame of reference is no longer real life. If no one can die from a kobold's crossbow bolt, then the action scene where the hero dodges a dozen such bolts to save the princess doesn't have much zing in the game system (other than what you invest in it with a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, ie. suspension of your knowledge of the probable results of the game system which in this example is the rule that your hero cannot be killed by kobold crossbow bolts)

But the fact that the "extraordinary" is even possible is only because D&D models heroic fantasy and not real life.

In real life, no one could dodge a dozen crossbow bolts (it might theoretically be possible, but it would be a truly freakish occurrence). Yet PCs do it as a matter of course. If D&D modeled real life, the PCs would be killed in the first volley of bolts and that would be that. They wouldn't even have a chance of surviving to rescue the princess. Yet in D&D, not only do they have a chance, it's (usually) a pretty good chance. That's the stuff of heroic fantasy.

 

[psionotic]

I've said this before, but my vote is for making it harder for PCs to die, but making death more final. Just as PCs (and NPCs) shouldn't die from one bad roll, so too they shouldn't be able to come back to life every morning...

 

[gizmo33]

But the fact that the "extraordinary" is even possible is only because D&D models heroic fantasy and not real life.

In real life, no one could dodge a dozen crossbow bolts (it might theoretically be possible, but it would be a truly freakish occurrence). Yet PCs do it as a matter of course. If D&D modeled real life, the PCs would be killed in the first volley of bolts and that would be that. They wouldn't even have a chance of surviving to rescue the princess. Yet in D&D, not only do they have a chance, it's (usually) a pretty good chance. That's the stuff of heroic fantasy.

Agreed, and so the game should have hitpoints and you should get enough of those to be heroic (that's a simple version of it). The notion that PCs regularly dodge crossbow bolts is the reason that some people consider being killed by a crossbow bolt a "peasants death" (though they weren't very specific). Note, if you believe my premise, how dodging a crossbow bolt has gone from something extraordinary to something ordinary. This is basically what I'm saying, IMO you can't say that the game is going to be about nothing but extraordinary things and then expect those things to stay extraordinary in people's minds over time. Just look at how the Epic Level Handbook says Conan is an example of a 30th level character - that's a testimony to how 9th level characters are now considered "ordinary". I, for one, am not going to buy the Complete Book of Heart Attacks, and I'm not advocating that DnD characters not be heroic.

 

[Samnell]

The big difference comes down to...

a.) death by player action (stupid maneuvers, bad tactics, epic battles, poor judgment)
b.) death by die roll (save or die, random crits, bad die rolls)
c.) death by DM (assassination while sleeping, dropping a moon on you, no-save, just-die effects)
d.) death by plot (akin to death by DM, but usually a more scripted out method with player consent)

I consider adventuring itself generally poor judgment, but that said I have objections to C and D. C is always wrong. It's the DM being a jerk. "Poof! You're dead! No roll! Ha!" So far as D goes, I would not plan an adventure with the notion that a PC must die here or else. If a player comes to me, on his or her own initiative, and asks to be killed in some manner, I will try to oblige. Yes, I have seen deaths by plot forced on players before. Not just that, the poor guy got killed, lost a level, and got turned into undead without so much as an interrogative glance from the DM. He was expected to continue playing the PC too. Apparently, this was supposed to happen to another player who would have been ok with it. But he missed the session. Stupid and mean. I wouldn't even ask a player about such a thing, because some of my players might feel obligated to try to cooperate if I did.

The DM I once had made it a firm policy that some trap that fell under C existed in every adventure.