D&D 4E death and 4E

[Shadeydm]

If the designers of 4E decided that death was no fun and therefore removed the threat or possiblilty of death from the new edition would you be ok with it?

 

[dbm]

This is an interesting question for me. Our group doesn't buy in to resurection magic; if your character died then that's it, they're gone. High level play in D&D is pre-suposed that death is just another type of damage, and resurection just another type of healing.

I quite like the mechanic in SWSE where to die from a blow in combat the hit which takes you to zero must also exceed your Fort Defense; it makes dying from random events less likely and I anticipate that the most likely way to die will Coup de Grace, i.e. a deliberate act on someone's part.

I would prefer the 'instant death' type effects of D&D to instead give you -5 condition levels or such, so that they KO you. If the entire party is knocked out, then they might be killed or might be taken captive. As long as someone in the party is still standing then the other party members can be put back on their feet.

In short, having no risk of death would cheapen the game, but then so does roll-or-die combined with easy resurection.

Cheers
Dan

 

[Minicol]

If the designers of 4E in thier infinite wisdom decided that death was no fun and therefore removed the threat or possiblilty of death from the new edition would you be ok with it?

It would not for me. I do not like the respawn stuff of MMOs.
And how develop a good story if there is no death involved ?

 

[FireLance]

If I wanted death in a game, it would probably be the simplest thing to house-rule in. Just make sure that your players know this in advance.

 

[Szatany]

Death might not be fun, but awareness that you cannot die is even less fun. Therefore, death's in.

 

[FireLance]

And how develop a good story if there is no death involved ?

There are many good stories in which the protagonists do not die. They would usually be threatened, though, and even then, not necessarily by death. The threat of failure, or of the loss of something important to the protagonists, is usually enough to create the dramatic tension necessary for a good story.

 

[jasin]

It would make me seriously question the design philosophy behind it, but as FireLance say, in itself it shouldn't be to difficult to house-rule back in.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I woudlnt like that kind of game.

 

[FireLance]

Now, just mulling over this a bit more. Under the d20 rules as we know them, a number of factors can contribute to a character's death: the player may have made a mistake, another player might have made a mistake, the DM might have over-estimated the difficulty of an encounter, or the dice might have been against the character. The upshot of it is, sometimes a character dies when nobody at the table wants him to die, or thinks that it is a good thing that he died. Some gamers consider this to be a problem, not a feature.

In D&D, the historic solution has been spells like raise dead and resurrection. If the DM didn't want you to die in any edition of the game, some NPC cleric would come along and cast the necessary spell. Of course, some gamers consider this an inelegant fix.

There have been other proposed solutions to the death problem, and these tend to take the form of safety nets, e.g. the character is unconscious instead of dead by expending action points/hero points/fate points, or to place the decision in the hands of the player. In other words, the character risks death when the player thinks that the in-game objective is worth it, e.g. "death flag" rules.

I personally am not too keen on death flag rules, but I would prefer some kind of safety net over the current approach of raise dead/resurrection.

 

[glass]

Death might not be fun, but awareness that you cannot die is even less fun. Therefore, death's in.

What he said, but also...

If I wanted death in a game, it would probably be the simplest thing to house-rule in. Just make sure that your players know this in advance.

what he said.


glass.