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

[Lonely Tylenol]

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.

I try to reduce sudden lethality while preserving the ability to wear down characters until death. Check out the wound point system in my sig. To this I add action points, with the ability to use action points to turn sudden instant death into "almost dead". I also turn save-or-die into save-or-almost-dead. I like the idea of resource attrition. I also like making the game less suddenly lethal while making raise dead harder to get hold of.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But if the DM says "Okay, you've found a map to the long-lost tomb of Acerak the Insane," I would ALWAYS expect the PCs to have the option to say "We sell the map. Then we book passage to Darokin, always wanted to go there."

The best thing about RPGs is that they're so wide open. Your character can go anywhere.

A lot of players won't, though, not because they don't not want to go there (yes that is what I mean), but because they're used to a certain style of GMing about which no value judgements will be made, where doing that would lead to "no adventure tonight", or worse, the GM bullying, cajoling, or tricking them into it.

 

[Sundragon2012]

Do you see why this bothers me?

My intentions weren't to misconstrue, if I inadvertently did...well I'll chalk it up to a simple error on my part because that is what it was. Your point is duly noted but this conversation is over unless you'd like to engage me in discussing the topic itself.


Sundragon

 

[Raven Crowking]

I try to reduce sudden lethality while preserving the ability to wear down characters until death. Check out the wound point system in my sig. To this I add action points, with the ability to use action points to turn sudden instant death into "almost dead". I also turn save-or-die into save-or-almost-dead. I like the idea of resource attrition. I also like making the game less suddenly lethal while making raise dead harder to get hold of.

That is an excellent description of the sort of game I enjoy, from either side of the screen.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

A lot of players won't, though, not because they don't not want to go there (yes that is what I mean), but because they're used to a certain style of GMing about which no value judgements will be made, where doing that would lead to "no adventure tonight", or worse, the GM bullying, cajoling, or tricking them into it.

In that sort of situation, where the players go along with whatever adventure the DM has in mind and are not actively choosing to take risks, then I'd agree with you that no-warning death-traps are unfair.

 

[Schmoe]

You're right, it doesn't prevent people from just dying, because they could get hit by multiple hits in one round. There's only so much the rules can do. The rest has to go to DM judgment. And as for the risk of failure in attempting to escape after the "first life" is gone, it would depend on the method used to permit escape. I just think that there should be 1) a chance to try, and 2) something to try. Action points are one option. Second Wind effects are another. High mobility and the ability to flee is another. A once per day attack that you were saving but get forced to use on an orc mook is yet another. Each has its own likelihood of success, from 100% to an attack roll to who knows. This isn't a specific prescription, its a design philosophy.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. The one thing I'd like to note, is that you preface the system by saying:

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

But it doesn't actually ensure these results, rather it simply makes them more likely. I think that making random death more or less likely is simply moving along a scale of preference, whereas ensuring there is no random death outside of your 3 presented reasons is a fundamental change in the philosophy of the game. It's a subtle difference, perhaps, but an important one IMHO.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

A lot of players won't, though, not because they don't not want to go there (yes that is what I mean), but because they're used to a certain style of GMing about which no value judgements will be made, where doing that would lead to "no adventure tonight", or worse, the GM bullying, cajoling, or tricking them into it.

While I enjoy both running and playing a sandbox as much as anyone, I will make a judgement on the above - some DMs don't improvise well, and do run very good preplanned adventures that work well once you take the hook. While a "sandbox" campaign may be fun, I'm completely in favor of cooperative metagaming by both the players and the DM. That is to say, if the DM says "I'll give you options, but I don't have the time or talents for a total sandbox" I think a good player takes a plot hook and runs with it. (and for the DMs part, they don't pull the "ha ha, you took this job and it's all a setup, what dorks!" move to punish the metagaming that was there to help the DM in the first place.)

In other words, if you are running a sandbox campaign, say so. If a group is playing in a game which is not a sandbox and decides at the start of the session that they want strike out on their own, then no, I don't think value judgements should be placed on a DM who says "OK, so you take a boat ride. It's boring. See you next week when I'll either have put together something for this adventure direction* or we'll play Xbox."

*(In between my job, my family and the crunch this week that was the reason I picked up this adventure in the first place to reduce my prep but still be able to run a game.)

 

[Brother MacLaren]

That is to say, if the DM says "I'll give you options, but I don't have the time or talents for a total sandbox" I think a good player takes a plot hook and runs with it. (and for the DMs part, they don't pull the "ha ha, you took this job and it's all a setup, what dorks!" move to punish the metagaming that was there to help the DM in the first place.)

Certainly. And two points about this:
1) Presenting 2-3 options makes the players feel like they have some say;
2) Throwing out the hooks and getting the PCs to decide "where do we go next" at the END of a session gives the DM time to prepare.

Neither of the above is always possible, but they certainly can help.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My position:

1. Really nasty, brutal, sudden effects should be possible. They don't have to be "save or die", but something about that bad should at least be possible.

2. Get 20 random gamers together, and you'll get absolutely no consensus on how character death should be handled, when "mooks" or "meaningless death" or such are invoked.

3. Accordingly, there should be some "Get out of Jail" cards available to the players. I like Action Points for this, but anything similar will work.

It's a lot easier for individual groups to adjust "Get out of Jail" mechanics to their tastes than it is to adjust "Save or Die", or the equivalent. Characters dying more than you want? Give them more Action Points and remind them to use them. Characters laughing at death? Be stingier with the Action Points and if they pick the wrong time, their tough luck.

 

[italianranma]

I understand that players want their characters to be like the heroes of fantasy fiction and whatnot, but in D&D this is earned through taking real risks, even the risk of dying like a punk because you didn't check for traps. Characters in stories do what they do because they are written that way, there are no dice involved when R.A. Salvatore writes the cool final battle between Drizzt and the BBEG of the novel. There were no dice involved when Conan battled the manifestation of Set.

It really depends on what kind of game you’re playing. Think of Descent, the board game. It’s dungeon crawling boiled down to it’s very essence: you go into the dungeon, kill the inhabitants, take their loot, and upgrade your abilities. That makes for a delightful experience when you’re in the mood for it. But if you want to be part of a greater story it’s severly lacking.

DMs who live by the rules you quoted aren’t doing anything wrong, they’re doing something different. They provide a game where the players can believe they are the heroes in an epic story.

Of course you can try to do that playing by the rules as written but just as you said, you’re leaving up to the chance of the dice that it’s all going to work out.

Now, I believe there is a way that characters can get killed by mooks and still die heroicly. It depends on what they are doing at the time. Are they in another nameless dungeon for obscure reasons or are they in crypts of the once powerful Elven Warrior-Mages searching for a lost artifact that will refresh the barrier keeping out the Demon-princes of the 7th layer of hell? You don’t have to change that dungeon at all, you just need to make what the characters are doing heroic.

The point is that if players are unsatisfied with their death, the DM is at fault for not provided the game that his or her players want.