D&D 5E Character Death

[manduck]

My group are cool with player character death so long as it isn't too likely to happen as random occurrence of dice.

So the by-the-book rules for death in 5th edition are acceptable to us, and we use them unaltered.

Though we do slightly alter the 5th edition rules on returning to life, as we have a house-rule to treat all expensive and expended material components as if they were normal material components - so if the party knows a spell to bring a character back to life, there is never a "do we have enough diamonds?" check to potentially fail.

That said, I should also mention that I don't use death as the only consequence of failure. I make sure that scenarios make sense, so while a hungry wild beast might be trying to kill and cart off a single creature, it won't try to kill the entire party, and while undead are likely mindless and aiming to kill, hobgoblins often want to take prisoners, and so on.

Edit: Oh, and we never fudge die rolls under any circumstances other than if I've decided to have players roll randomly to fill out a treasure they've just found (players rolling to save time, and keep them feeling engaged, rather than me taking longer to do it all myself on the spot while they feel they are in non-game mode) - but that's not really fudging since I say "Hmm, no, that result doesn't make sense here" or "That's not worth what you just went through to get it" and telling them plainly to roll again.

This is pretty much how our group handles it. We all accept the rules as they are for character death. Though sometimes what may seem like a TPK may turn out to be a captured scenario instead. It depends on the situation and whatever will be the most fun to play out. If the group drops and wakes up in the enemy's prison, it could be more fun to play the imprisonment and escape rather than make up new characters and fit them into the campaign. We do have character death when it makes sense. Being an adventurer is dangerous, after all. Though doing what is fun always trumps rules at our table.

 

[Lanefan]

The thing I've found is that if you make a character unkillable and the player knows it, it'll inevitably end up getting played like it's unkillable.

I tell people going in that sometimes good things will happen to your characters, sometimes bad things will happen, and to be ready for both. After that, there's no safety net.

Lanefan

 

[iserith]

If you made it this far, thanks! So, how about you guys? Do you let the chips fall where they may? Do you fudge to save PCs in certain circumstances?

I always let the chips fall where they may. But remember, "life or death" is just one kind of stakes. Challenges can have many different kinds of win/lose scenarios or even win/win-at-a-cost scenarios. So if you have players that aren't keen on death being a possible outcome, just change the stakes to something else!

 

[Lidgar]

Our group has all been playing since the '70's, so run death as written (5e standard rules, including death by massive damage).

I try to give players options when a PC dies. They all have "back-up" PC's ready to go, and it is not uncommon for a Faction or NPC to have a scroll of resurrection or two that they will give to the party in exchange for certain favors...

 

[cbwjm]

My group seems to be fine with character death, however, the two that did die were brought back similar to OP, they were in the pocket of the local priesthood (we paid only for the material components, for the actual casting of the spell, we owe the church). Before we knew for sure that they were coming back, one of the players was already rolling up a new PC, just in case.

My bladesinger would/should have been dead, but the DM had messed up something on the battlemat which meat that I probably didn't fall into a pool of acid. I wasn't too worried if my PC did die since it just means I roll up a new character, which I have anyway since my current DM is having trouble hitting my Bladesinger so we're retconning in a dwarf warrior instead.

 

[fredlove]

I've always felt that having players who are invested in their characters improves the game, so I never kill a character without the player's permission. That is, if you fail your death saves, I basically leave it up to you if your character dies or revives in a severely injured state some time later. If you really like your character, you should be able to continue playing that character.

I dig the idea of having the players make their death saves in private. It achieves the same result without having to have a conversation at the table.

 

[Caliban]

It is important to handle character death properly, especially when it comes to new players and children.

That is why when a character dies, I re-enact the death using mini's, making sure to appropriately describe their injuries and death throws. The player gets to provide any last words as they bleed out (fail their death saves), then I take their character sheet and pin it to the Wall of Shame, and put a tally mark in the DM column of the "Player/DM victory board".

It's the only way they'll learn.

 

[MNblockhead]

I handle character death with a maniacal laugh, I also ban facial tissues and handkerchiefs from my games to facilitate the staining of dead-character sheets by player tears.

 

[MNblockhead]

Okay, my serious answer:

For my main game with adult players, I handle death according to RAW. The player were prepped that I don't automatically level every encounter to match CR to character levels. Avoidance is often preferable to confrontation.

For games I run for my kids, I treat most death as if the baddies choose to knock the characters out. So they may wake up to find themselves prisoners or wake up with all their gear stolen (a fate nearly as bad a death for these young boys).

 

[ccs]

If you made it this far, thanks! So, how about you guys? Do you let the chips fall where they may? Do you fudge to save PCs in certain circumstances?

I roll my dice in the open. So no, there's no fudging. If the roll + math indicate a character dis? Then so be it, that's part of the developing story.... Now wether or not the character can be brought back depends upon in-game factors - party resources, NPC allies, etc.
I also have no qualms about characters dying to random encounters.