Are players more afraid of PC death or lack/loss of magic items?

[the black knight]

I lose companions all the time, but I'm usually the first one looting the bodies. Sometimes I will intentioanlly put myself near a sub par character so when he falls I can loot him that more effectively. Cohorts, too.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I lose companions all the time, but I'm usually the first one looting the bodies. Sometimes I will intentioanlly put myself near a sub par character so when he falls I can loot him that more effectively. Cohorts, too.

And people say there are no winners in D&D.

 

[Azgulor]

The very existence of this poll is proof that bog-standard D&D has waaaaaaay too many magic items wired into the game.

Azgulor

 

[Terraism]

I'm currently running a druid focused on wildshape - you know, one of those traditional "can survive without magic items" guys. Way more worried about death, personally.

 

[Midknightsun]

Since I've actually had a few players indicate pretty clearly that they'd rather have their characters be killed than loose their favored magical treasures, I have to go with more afraid of item loss.

Makes me sad, really, all the magic item grubbing and need to get the "bigger, better sword". Personally, I blame capitalism.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Despite the fact that Raise Dead and similar spells aren't at all hard to come by following the RAW like most of my games do, it seems that my players are always more afraid of death.

Items have always been just that. The players seem to rarely get strongly attached to an item and they do a great deal on the whole self preservation end. Even though it might not make sense in a world like the RAW presents to fear death, I like it. It keeps a nice feel to the way the PCs act but without having to actually change any rules or lower the availability of the ressurection type spells.

 

[JDJblatherings]

over the years regradless of edition I've seen that players tend to fear losing a charcters equipment (magical or not) far more then having the pc killed. Capturing a PC is often worse then killing them becasue htey lose some options and they lose their stuff.

 

[tzor]

As a player I am afraid of neither death nor magic item loss. I'm annoyed at sitting on my hands waiting for the character to be raised from the dead. I'm less annoyed at the thought of loosing my favortie toy which my character clearly worked very hard to get.

Dying is not the problem. It's dying in such a manner that not only you know your side will win and someone will raise you from the dead, but that you managed to survive long enough so your comrades won't complain about dying too early and making them do all the real work.

 

[Oryan77]

Magic Items are fun, but they don't define my characters. Part of the fun for me is trying to pick my character out of the gutter if he falls on bad times. It's also a status thing for me. My characters will always be cooler to me if I am able to describe how my PC got screwed but pulled ahead in the end....while your PC lost all his crap and threw himself off a cliff cause he couldn't handle losing his junk.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

IME, as a practical matter, loss of most/all magic items usually has a bigger direct impact on the potency of the PC the player will get to play in the near future than the infliction of death or level loss.

If this summation is true about your campaign(s), it is likely player attitudes will reflect this reality.

This was even more extreme in pre-3e where the notable mechanics of your PC might be more defined by his magical gear than his class abilities.