Dead in your first combat ever?

[Thanee]

Couldn't happen in my game.

Exactly. This situation is not possible.

Bye
Thanee

 

[howandwhy99]

Sucks to be that player.

As sympathetic as I am in that situation, I think it's entirely unfair to favor a player just because they're new. Why not favor certain players because they're stupid, or because they've had a bad day, then? Nope- start rolling, pal, and don't let pc deaths get you down.

This happened in my campaign a bit over a decade ago. That player has never looked back- he's one of the most fervent players in my game now. And he's a proponent of high-risk, high-lethality games.

qft

 

[Merkuri]

I don't think that people would get turned off from the game if their first character ever died early on. I think people would get turned off from playing D&D if the DM fudged to make sure that this didn't happen.

Really and truly, it depends on the person. I, personally, am a sucker for punishment. If I find a game I like, I stick with it until I'm good at it. I think I lost my first fifty games of Risk, but I loved it to death. The same with Starcraft. I played with the same guy in college once a week or more, and he always kicked my butt, but I liked the game, so I stuck with it until I could beat him.

My sister, on the other hand, gets more easily discouraged. Her first experience with a game or activity extremely influences how she feels about that activity. She asked me to teach her how to yo-yo once. I showed her how I did it, handed her the toy, and when she couldn't get it to come back up on her first shot she handed it back to me and said, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Youth does play a part in it, but so does the personality of the person. Some people get very discouraged when they try something and fail miserably on their first try. Failing itself is not always so bad, but failing in a spectacularly grand fashion, like losing a game of Risk in five minutes or having your first D&D character die in his first combat, can really turn certain people off from a game.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Really and truly, it depends on the person.

And that is really my answer. Probably tough in an online game to get much sense of a person in their first session, but I would try so I could attempt to make a good choice.

All others being equal, I would go the mulligan route, unless the player decided they would rather try a different character.

 

[Iku Rex]

We'd been playing playing 3rd edition for some months. New player joining the campaign. Half-celestial monk character. First battle. Hill giant opponent. Player's first roll: tumble check. Failed. Attack of opportunity - critical hit. -20 HP.

Shortly after the PCs twin brother showed up.

 

[ThirdWizard]

On the topic of getting turned off by dying so early:

Don't forget that that will basically be their impression of what the game is like. They just spent several hours creating their first character for the game and now they have to do it again. If they don't enjoy character creation they might be under the impression that its normal to die often. They might not realize that they'll eventually make characters faster and live longer unless you explain this to them.

It might just not look like fun from their perspective. WoW might look like a better alternative. So, I guess it depends on whether or not you're trying to expand the hobby or just trying to find someone to play with.

 

[pawsplay]

We were in the middle of a World's Largest Dungeon campaign, played online, and a new player asked to join. We're somewhere around 11-13th level. DM said, "sure," after the player was willing to spend a session just watching us. Three of the normal players were missing that day, including the barbarian, so the party was a little underpowered. The DM tried to go easy on us. The NPC with our party figured out a way to "convince" the guardbeasts we'd run into not attacking us on sight, but one of the PCs decided to attack anyway. Our side actually made the first move. It was a bit of stupidity on our part, along with underestimating our opponents, mixed in with a little bit of a new 11th level cleric with only 50 HP that decided to go toe-to-toe with one of four Huge (might have been bigger, I forget my sizes) monsters. They stopped attacking us when we stopped attacking them, but it took one badly-placed swipe, killing the cleric, to make us realize we should stop attacking.

The DM does seem to enjoy killing PCs, but he's very strict with using the die as they land. He would take the suggestion that he fudge a roll as an insult and considers the term "metagaming" a swear word. He doesn't try to throw things against us that are too hard, but he doesn't coddle us, either.

Hm, in this scenario, I think the party got exactly what they asked for. Tis a shame the new guy took the fall for it, though.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

That would never happen in my games. Going from "healthy" to "-30 hp" is just a sign of poor design to me, but that's probably because I've never played at 11-13th level. (I've never played or DM'ed above 8th, I don't think.)

However, I do remember a similar situation in an RPGA Living Greyhawk game I judged. The 1st level party was a group of teenagers, and I only had a quick second to scan the characters for completeness. Everything was in order according to the rules, so we're off.

Along the way, an orc barbarian attacks one of the party. The player looks back and explains that his PC is dead, -11. I stop for a moment, surprised. This is the first attack by a mook, and a PC is dead. I take a look over the character though, and recognize what happened.

The PC was an elf wizard. His dump stat was Con. He had a whole whopping 2 HP. He charged the orcs, ahead of the fighters.

That was exactly what should have happened. I had no problem with his death after that.

 

[Dracorat]

So a CR 1 monster did 13 HP damage in a single blow??

 

[InVinoVeritas]

An orc barbarian with a greataxe? That has definitely been known to happen.