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

[Ruin Explorer]

The PCs in the example above certainly had a chance to avoid the Symbol of Death -- but they CHOSE to enter a lich-lord's lair. They made the decision to accept a gamble of high risk for high reward.

Suppose the players know they have their choice of adventures:
The local bugbear tribe has killed a famous paladin and taken his magic sword.
The local giant clan has killed a legendary paladin and taken Purifier, his fiendbane sword.
The lich-lord has killed an epic paladin and taken The Holy Avenger.

Now, if they choose to go for the highest risk and highest reward... that risk should mean something.

Gosh, is this really how your campaign runs?

In most D&D games I've seen, it's not "let's weigh up risk versus reward guys, then decide what to murder!", it's more like "there are people dying in the streets, how can we stop this evil". I suppose this is loot-oriented vs. heroism-oriented play, though.

If you play a game that's all about risk vs. reward, that's cool and all, but that seems like the exception, not the rule, when I hear people's D&D campaigns described. Most people these days, particularly the designers of 3E/4E, seem to be running very "cinematic" campaigns, where risks are taken to save lives, not to acquire the phattest lewt.

Edit - PS. remembering the sort of PCs I knew in the days when my campaigns might have been a bit more like this, they'd just have done all three adventures in order, and gotten all three magical swords. Not like the lich is going anywhere...

 

[Wormwood]

This is how I am when I play kids in basketball. Life is just going to dunk on them sometimes and they might as well get used to it.

Reminds me of when I introduced my six-year-old niece to kickboxing.

 

[Darkness]

Malchior, you're free to express your opinions, but insulting other users isn't allowed here. So please don't do it again. Also, please read the rules in case you don't know them. Obviously, this goes for everyone else as well.

If you have questions or comments, e-mail me.

 

[gizmo33]

Reminds me of when I introduced my six-year-old niece to kickboxing.

We should start a youth center.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

That is meta-game anger. I always find the game more enjoyable when I don't concern myself with the adventure author, but concern myself with actors in the adventure. If I was Bob the Fighter invading the crypts of the lich-lord, I would be surprised not to find some sort of death traps around. It's more fun for me to imagine that I'm Bob the Fighter, than for me to imagine that I'm Schmoe, Adventure Critic/Player of Bob.

And yet the example of fear you gave was purely metagame fear. "Oh no, I have to roll a 17!" Bob the fighter isn't thinking that, he's thinking either "ooh tingly, wonder what that was" or "so this is what dust thinks about".

Why call inspiring one metagame reaction good writing/DMing and inspiring the other bad playing?

 

[Cadfan]

I am the person who wrote the original material which Sundragon2021 used to kick off his post.

The material which Sundragon excerpted does not include the paragraphs in which I answered the rhetorical question I had just asked. Instead, he simply expresses shock and dismay that the question I asked could even be posed.

This is the link to the full post.

You can go there and read, or just reread a short summation I'll put down here.

The way to ensure that character death occurs from 1) stupidity, 2) voluntary acceptance of risk, or 3) climactic battles is as follows:

Begin by making sure that the players can't be killed in a single roll during standard encounters. Allow them to instead be horribly wounded but not actually killed by a single roll, leaving them close to death but with the opportunity to react. Death looming over a character is better than being struck from full health all the way to dead in one shot.

Then, give the characters abilities and tactical options that let them react to precipitous danger. This can be as simple as a good method of running away, or as complex as a system of once a day abilities that the characters can use to amp up their power level.

Under my system, when the characters get nailed by a lucky critical, or a save-or-be-screwed effect, the character will be horribly wounded instead of outright killed. As a result, the players will have to change their strategy from "kill the monsters without expending more resources than we can afford," to "do everything it takes to save our ally and escape." And fortunately, they'll have tools to do so.

If they don't change their strategy, in spite of having the opportunity and the means to do so, then their deaths can be blamed on stupidity or on voluntarily accepted risk. Which are ok reasons for character death.

See the change in focus? The possibility of death is there. Screw up, and you can die. Take risks you know are bad ones, and you could die. Its just that now there are also contingency plans available for avoiding that death.

And that's my take on the subject. Sorry you had to wait until page 2 of the thread to hear what started it.

 

[Schmoe]

Gosh, is this really how your campaign runs?

In most D&D games I've seen, it's not "let's weigh up risk versus reward guys, then decide what to murder!", it's more like "there are people dying in the streets, how can we stop this evil". I suppose this is loot-oriented vs. heroism-oriented play, though.

Could you be more rude? I'm not sure if I'm offended yet.

The point was about choices and risk-taking, not about heroic vs. loot based play. If you don't want to save the prince from the lich-lord's crypts, go rescue the village idiot from the kobolds. One carries more risk than the other.

If you play a game that's all about risk vs. reward, that's cool and all, but that seems like the exception, not the rule, when I hear people's D&D campaigns described. Most people these days, particularly the designers of 3E/4E, seem to be running very "cinematic" campaigns, where risks are taken to save lives, not to acquire the phattest lewt.

First, "cinematic" has nothing to do with why people are taking risks, whether it is to save lives or get loot. You could make a pretty awesome wuxia film about some tomb raiders.

Second, I think you've mistakenly assumed the intentions of 3E/4E designers to support your opinion. Unless, of course, you have some sort of inside knowledge on the designers and therefore know for certain that they support heroic adventuring over loot raiding. From what I've read, the designers want to make sure all the players have options to do fun stuff in all aspects of the game.

Third, people I've met and talked to seem to enjoy campaigns where they take risks to get great loot. Do you think maybe, just possibly, there could be a sizable number of people who support heroic games, and a sizable number of people who support loot games? Do you think maybe, just possibly, they are both good games as long as the participants are having fun?

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Gosh, is this really how your campaign runs?

Really, it's not. I was trying to convey the sense of an old-school dungeon delve. I prefer more heroism-driven games myself. But even then, if you are going to invade the lich's lair because he's researching the spell "Apocalypse from the Sky"... well, you're willing to die a hero. You're willing to lay down your life to even make the attempt to stop him, and you KNOW his lair will be well-trapped.

The lich is a great example of an enemy who SHOULD be able to kill you in "unfair" ways you didn't see coming. Immense magical power combined with genius-level intellect and centuries to fortify and plan. And you should know that going into the situation.

 

[Schmoe]

And yet the example of fear you gave was purely metagame fear. "Oh no, I have to roll a 17!" Bob the fighter isn't thinking that, he's thinking either "ooh tingly, wonder what that was" or "so this is what dust thinks about".

Why call inspiring one metagame reaction good writing/DMing and inspiring the other bad playing?

Hmm, that's true. It's a good question, really. One the one hand, there's no reason that Bob doesn't know that he just narrowly won a struggle with some sinister magic over his soul. That would be pretty harrowing, and it would also put all the characters on edge for the rest of the adventure. So it seems to me like it doesn't actually have to be a meta-game fear, depending on how it's described in the game.

On the other hand, I guess I've just found that it's very difficult to frighten players without the risk of legitimate bad stuff happening to characters. So a certain amount of meta-game knowledge, i.e. the knowledge that these risks are real and not just flavor text, has a direct impact on how frightened the players are.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Really, it's not. I was trying to convey the sense of an old-school dungeon delve. I prefer more heroism-driven games myself. But even then, if you are going to invade the lich's lair because he's researching the spell "Apocalypse from the Sky"... well, you're willing to die a hero. You're willing to lay down your life to even make the attempt to stop him, and you KNOW his lair will be well-trapped.

The lich is a great example of an enemy who SHOULD be able to kill you in "unfair" ways you didn't see coming. Immense magical power combined with genius-level intellect and centuries to fortify and plan. And you should know that going into the situation.

So long as you say to your players "some of your characters are gonna insta-die through no real fault of their own, it'll be in a good cause, though, k'?" and they're all okay with that, then that's fine. It's just not a style of adventure I'd be interested in running. It always seems dumb to engage a powerful enemy on his terms unless it's strictly necessary. I mean, why does the lich need to die right now? It's one thing to desperately and heroically push through his lair to stop a spell, it's quite another when it's a case of "an ancient and powerful lich lives here, suuuuuure, he's not actually DONE anything in oooh, 500 years, but he could be up to no good, so you've all got to go stand in incredibly dangerous traps that really depend more on how lucky your Rogue rolls than anything else!" (which is pretty much what a lot of trap-heavy lich-involving adventures are).

I dunno, I'm used to players who play smart, and find a way to demolish the Lich's citadel without actually going inside it, and so on, not who like to run through traps and hope they get lucky (which is all you can do with 3E traps, most of which completely disallow player-smartness, and rely entirely on rolling).