Chance of PC Failure

[FireLance]

My pc fails all the time. I generally just reboot.

Me, I just kept upgrading the operating system. Version 4.0 seems to be the most stable, to date.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Generally I like things to be a bit nonlethal. I think erratic and irrational gaming should result in short life-spans; I have no soft spot for "I was just playing CN!".
Adventurous but reasonably cautious approach should only get your PC killed if the dices are absolutely against you that day.
Overly cautious gaming should be avoided and with overly lethal games you often get nervous players and PCs with 20 minute adventure days and rest of that stuff that doesn't belong in this game. So the deadlier you have things, the less your game will resemble a game of heroic adventure.

5E Dark Sun should be very lethal, however. It goes with the setting.

 

[Li Shenron]

D&D puts alot of emphasis on character growth, and going backwards (i.e. having a character die and having to start a new one at lvl 1 or at least a couple of levels behind everyone else) just sux! Its the nature of D&D, you cant spend a year building a character through the levels then in one night of bad rolls have the character die and expect players will enjoy it. Its a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.

The problem I have with this, is that nowadays it is not so common.

According to what I read in this and other forums/websites, the average D&D player today typically wants:

- To create a character more powerful that normal, where normal means according to the core rules (which supposedly are already designed to represent some talented soon-to-be heroes); there is almost no gaming group which deliberately house-rules character creation downwards, while on the other hand almost every house-rule for character generation goes towards giving more, sometimes openly with the target of a "high-power campaign". Some groups do play "low-power campaign", but always by making magic items scarce and almost never by giving less personal numbers/powers to the PC.

- To start playing at a higher level than 1, except at the beginning of a new edition. Soon after an adventure or two, almost everybody is bored by 1st level and wants to start higher.

- To create more powerful combos, as soon as splatbooks become available.

- To play characters that have no real flaws. One or two moderately low scores are ok, but God forbids if the PC has a weak spot or significantly low defense. They want to be well protected from everything. They will minimize something (dump stat) only if they can use some combo that effectively makes the dump stat replaced by something else thus irrelevant.

- To level up quickly, because otherwise they think it's boring.

- To skip over the story quickly, get into combat, then another combat, then another combat, all in a row without such thing as resting getting in the way.

- To see "defeating the opponents" as the only conceivable way to win an encounter, therefore banging their heads against any enemy presuming it is always doable, and then complaining to the DM if they didn't succeed.

- To have stats for Gods in the books, or something akin (guess why).

- To die rarely, but repeatedly.

I can't help but think that many of the average gamers come from the world of computer games, and I wonder how many of them have a culture of playing with cheats and hacks and codes... it's a very different idea of fun from mine, since I'm practically the opposite of all the points I've listed, but what can I say, they're entitled to their own fun too.

Maybe I just treat the game too seriously... but I've learned from life that if something is either trivial (no chance of failure) or impossible (no chance of success), you get no reward from it. So in my own view a PC must have a chance of dying...

Of course if it's too frequent then it becomes frustrating, but for me frustration appears only if:
- character creation is cumbersome and takes too much time
- changing the party composition too frequently kinda "breaks" the story consequentiality

Otherwise, death of a PC is the perfect chance at trying another character type.

 

[Grazzt]

How do you feel about the chance of pc failure? There's a great range of opinion on this, and I think DnDN will support a wide array of playstyles, but what's your preference? If you, as a dm, use a "world will end" plot in your campaign, are you prepared to end the world if you have a tpk? Do you prefer a "no pc dies without the player's permission" style? Do you like a game where pc turnover is common or rare? Do you like it when there is a real chance of actual mission failure, and real consequences, or is it more fun when the pcs always win?

There's no challenge or point (IMO) if there is no chance of death or failure. I've used the "world will end" plot before and was ready to destroy the world if the PCs failed. Luckily they didn't. : )

I don't have a preference for high/low turnover honestly. What happens...happens. If players play smart and creative, I'll sometimes fudge obvious death situations in their favor to keep the story going. If the player does something completely stupid, gloves are off. Whatever befalls said PC...

And it's never fun when the PCs always win. No challenge and more importantly no sense of accomplishment on their end of the table. I've had players say this; not about my campaign per se but about others and the general state of D&D as a game and how it's progressed and about video games and such. I've been on both sides of the DM screen and tend to agree with them. Sucks to lose a PC (been there done that in all editions), but in the older days it was much easier to roll up a new PC vs. now too.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My games tend to be very story-based, and thus the players and their characters are very tied in to what is happening to the plot. Thus, to have them arbitrarily get yanked from the story due to "death" because a combat went wonky is not a part of the fun of playing for them.

Now "failure" occurs all the time... things the PCs want to do sometimes don't happen because they make mistakes. That they're relatively okay with, because it's now part of the story and it is something they have to work through. It's builds character, desire, and tension.

But if/when a PC dies in the game, its because either because the player does not have a vested interest in his/her character anymore, the PCs are in a position to have the character raised from the dead if that's what the player and the party want to do, or the PC has finished his/her part in the story. But I do not use character death as the de facto way of telling the party they've "failed". There are much better ways of doing it so that they retain a vested interest in how the story is progressing.

 

[steenan]

Both when I play and when I GM, I like the characters to have reasonably high (about 30-40% on average) chance of failure in every serious challenge. On the other hand, I rarely if ever want the failure to result in death. I prefer games where it is impossible to die just because some unlucky rolls.

I want failures to bring complications and to have painful consequences that the characters need to take care of. This way, failures make the game interesting and drive the story forward, often in unexpected directions, as opposed to blocking or disrupting it.

This approach also allows for real risks without endangering continuity of campaign. There are many things PCs may lose if they make mistakes or run out of luck; it's just that their lives are not on the list.

 

[BobTheNob]

Maybe I just treat the game too seriously... but I've learned from life that if something is either trivial (no chance of failure) or impossible (no chance of success), you get no reward from it. So in my own view a PC must have a chance of dying...

Couldn't agree more. It sort of takes the thrill out of succeeding when there is no chance of failure.

We used to play a game called SLA industries (if you have ever heard of it...BEST SETTING EVER!) and that had a hideous attrition rate. But it was ok because character creation was easy and character growth was fairly flat.

D&D, on the other hand, has dynamic and palpable character growth. So if you loose a character, it can really hurt.

This is very subjective of course as it also comes back to the maturity levels of the players. We are an older group so I dont have issues, but try high attrition with a bunch of late teens/early twenties...it can get ugly.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

A while back I ran B3 followed by B4 using the Basic/Expert rules. We followed the rules exclusively save one rule - a nat 20 is double damage. Any pc who died had to start over at first level if he couldn't get raised/reincarnated. At low levels that's pretty much impossible. There were deaths galore. One pc only died once. Everyone else died at least 3 or 4 times. One unlucky/careless pc died around 20 times by his count. None of those deaths ruined the game or the story. A player whose character died simply rerolled and the others role played a recruitment process or freed a prisoner somewhere. He was back up and running in less than 5 minutes generally. The feedback on the game I got was positive. No one whined because they died. No one got frustrated. Most dungeons have a reputation that "No one has ever returned from there." There's a reason for that. Death has to be a possibility or the game is boring.

 

[nnms]

• I usually make sure that the party can get access to a cleric with Raise Dead - I dislike when DMs restrict access to Raise Dead because it would mess up their plots/setting/sense-of-realism. The setting and plots should reflect how the game works, not the other way around. That's the whole point of it being a fantasy game rather than a historical simulation.

Not to turn this into a raise dead discussion, but I'm opposed to raise dead precisely because of the game effect it has. The removal of risk and the entire game result of losing. I prefer a character death to be final precisely because it gives the release of an ending and then you grit your teeth and make a new character to send into the breech.

I'm definitely pro PC failure. I even believe you can win (or lose) when you play D&D by meeting challenges (or failing to) that come your way.

I also don't buy your prioritization which lowers plot, setting, or sense of realism as being anything universal when it comes to D&D. Some people play specifically to experience a fantasy setting and thus would prioritize setting above other things.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I prefer a game where PC death is a tangible option. However, over the years as our groups frequency of play has become more sporadic, it is nice not to have to deal with character death as often as I once used to prefer. As such, I would prefer that this is an aspect of D&Dn that is flexible and easily controlled by the DM and group.

Baseline: PC death is easily enough achieved and resurrections are rare and difficult.
Options: Ways to insulate PCS from death and various ways of returning a PC from the dead or beyond.

As such I would prefer for something between the two ends of the spectrum (AD&D and 4e). This is one balance that I think Pathfinder has gotten spot on in terms of my overall outlook.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise