Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
character death?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9257549" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Refreshing, until the series actually got going, and you realize that there are plenty of characters that won't just randomly, unceremoniously die, because that would be boring.</p><p></p><p>For the TV show, it was always a marketing ploy. For the books, it was a shockingly successful like, two or three characters that die early on--and after that, nada. Remember how much of a <em>thing</em> they made of Khal Drogo's death, how "bringing him back" was a horrible choice that left him in a permanent vegetative state, killed Danaerys' child, and basically had zero positive consequences?</p><p></p><p>And then remember how Jon Snow got resurrected scot-free (in the show)? Zero consequences? Something GRRM must have approved?</p><p></p><p>Yeah. Because randomly killing off anyone and everyone <em>doesn't actually make for good story</em>. Once the audience is invested, it's too much of a risk. Killing off Ned Stark was easy. Killing off Jon Snow for real, five books in, when the mystery of his parentage has been such an important backdrop? Not happening.</p><p></p><p>When we make death the only consequence that matters, we force authors into a corner where their only choices are "ruin the story" or "piss off fans who demanded death."</p><p></p><p></p><p>My problem with rogue-likes is mostly that I run into some kind of impassable skill ceiling in most cases, which leaves me demoralized and frustrated. It happened with Rogue Legacy, this one Doom roguelike, FTL, and some other roguelike I've played but can't remember the name now.</p><p></p><p>Conversely, I very much enjoy Hades and Desktop Dungeons. The former actually <em>rewards</em> you with...get this...<em>more interesting story</em> each time you die, and each death feels like a bittersweet opportunity, rather than just a straight "sorry, you lost because of Random Bovine Feces you couldn't possibly predict or manage, try again motherfluffer." And Desktop Dungeons is just funny, and never really had a skill ceiling--there was always something else I could do to improve my chances or obtain new options, even when failure abounded.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I enjoy the mid-to-late game of strategy stuff. The early game is usually quite boring to me, because it's always pretty much identical for any given game. Civ 6? Kill the 2-3 barb camps in your area, fail to get the Great Bath, try for a few early wonders, squeeze out as many cities as you can, pray you get some useful city-states nearby. Stellaris? Explore the dozen-or-so systems in your area, fling colony ships at every colonizable world in reach, <em>achingly</em> slowly work your way through the traditions, hope you get one of the moderately-interesting events because you've seen all ~24-ish before and know what every choice works out to be.</p><p></p><p>Honestly, I feel the same way about 5e. The first few levels are incredibly boring, but everyone seems to want them to last forever and be a painful, ungodfully long <em>slog</em> before you're <em>allowed</em> to get to anything actually interesting or engaging. Levels where you have to play a mostly-useless rube so green around the ears, folks wonder if you're related to the Jolly Green Giant, where a single unlucky crit can potentially <em>kill you outright from full HP</em>.* Because apparently churning through six characters before you ever get to see level four is how we have fun nowadays. I'd rather have a fingernail pulled.</p><p></p><p>*If you think I'm exaggerating: A CR1 Dire Wolf is classified as a "Medium" encounter for four characters. It has 37.5 average HP and, on a crit, deals an <em>average</em> of 17 damage. The maximum HP a typical 1st-level character--Barbarian with 16 Con--can achieve...is 17. Meaning an <em>average</em> crit leaves the hardiest starting character lying on the floor, dying. A character with d6 or d8 HP, even with a +1 Con mod, is rocking 7-9 HP. For the former, an <em>average</em> crit kills them instantly--no death saves. For the latter, it need be only one point above average (9x2 = 18) in order to instantly kill. More than two thirds of classes are, quite literally, one unlucky crit from death against an allegedly "medium" encounter, to say nothing of a "deadly" one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9257549, member: 6790260"] Refreshing, until the series actually got going, and you realize that there are plenty of characters that won't just randomly, unceremoniously die, because that would be boring. For the TV show, it was always a marketing ploy. For the books, it was a shockingly successful like, two or three characters that die early on--and after that, nada. Remember how much of a [I]thing[/I] they made of Khal Drogo's death, how "bringing him back" was a horrible choice that left him in a permanent vegetative state, killed Danaerys' child, and basically had zero positive consequences? And then remember how Jon Snow got resurrected scot-free (in the show)? Zero consequences? Something GRRM must have approved? Yeah. Because randomly killing off anyone and everyone [I]doesn't actually make for good story[/I]. Once the audience is invested, it's too much of a risk. Killing off Ned Stark was easy. Killing off Jon Snow for real, five books in, when the mystery of his parentage has been such an important backdrop? Not happening. When we make death the only consequence that matters, we force authors into a corner where their only choices are "ruin the story" or "piss off fans who demanded death." My problem with rogue-likes is mostly that I run into some kind of impassable skill ceiling in most cases, which leaves me demoralized and frustrated. It happened with Rogue Legacy, this one Doom roguelike, FTL, and some other roguelike I've played but can't remember the name now. Conversely, I very much enjoy Hades and Desktop Dungeons. The former actually [I]rewards[/I] you with...get this...[I]more interesting story[/I] each time you die, and each death feels like a bittersweet opportunity, rather than just a straight "sorry, you lost because of Random Bovine Feces you couldn't possibly predict or manage, try again motherfluffer." And Desktop Dungeons is just funny, and never really had a skill ceiling--there was always something else I could do to improve my chances or obtain new options, even when failure abounded. I enjoy the mid-to-late game of strategy stuff. The early game is usually quite boring to me, because it's always pretty much identical for any given game. Civ 6? Kill the 2-3 barb camps in your area, fail to get the Great Bath, try for a few early wonders, squeeze out as many cities as you can, pray you get some useful city-states nearby. Stellaris? Explore the dozen-or-so systems in your area, fling colony ships at every colonizable world in reach, [I]achingly[/I] slowly work your way through the traditions, hope you get one of the moderately-interesting events because you've seen all ~24-ish before and know what every choice works out to be. Honestly, I feel the same way about 5e. The first few levels are incredibly boring, but everyone seems to want them to last forever and be a painful, ungodfully long [I]slog[/I] before you're [I]allowed[/I] to get to anything actually interesting or engaging. Levels where you have to play a mostly-useless rube so green around the ears, folks wonder if you're related to the Jolly Green Giant, where a single unlucky crit can potentially [I]kill you outright from full HP[/I].* Because apparently churning through six characters before you ever get to see level four is how we have fun nowadays. I'd rather have a fingernail pulled. *If you think I'm exaggerating: A CR1 Dire Wolf is classified as a "Medium" encounter for four characters. It has 37.5 average HP and, on a crit, deals an [I]average[/I] of 17 damage. The maximum HP a typical 1st-level character--Barbarian with 16 Con--can achieve...is 17. Meaning an [I]average[/I] crit leaves the hardiest starting character lying on the floor, dying. A character with d6 or d8 HP, even with a +1 Con mod, is rocking 7-9 HP. For the former, an [I]average[/I] crit kills them instantly--no death saves. For the latter, it need be only one point above average (9x2 = 18) in order to instantly kill. More than two thirds of classes are, quite literally, one unlucky crit from death against an allegedly "medium" encounter, to say nothing of a "deadly" one. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
character death?
Top