Death, Dying and Entitlements.

[malraux]

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What I generally want in a game I run (and what I want is not absolute, but if I'm running it, it carries a lot of weight), is that death be feared strongly, but happen rarely. In a perfect world, the characters would fear for their life every time they did anything remotely dangerous, but would never die. And to top it all of, I don't want to run a particularly gritty game. So no maiming instead of death. No, "didn't get there in time to save the orphanage--so all the little orphan halflings burned to death." But I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

That isn't to say that there can't be some fairly nasty consequences for failure. There are. They just tend towards the heroic or villanious, instead of grit. Heroic death is one of the options. We just happen to see, "any death that occurs while on an epic quest is heroic, even if that death was eaten by a wandering owl bear two days out from town."

What I've found with various players over the years is that what produces this result varies. I've run for people where the "Don't do anything stupid, and I'll fudge you out of it," works great. They wear "be clever all the time" like a badge, and never take their eyes off the ball. They stay alive right up until they bite off more than they can chew, or go down in a heroic frenzy of self sacrifice. Either way, we are happy. If I go for something more strict, we TPK constantly, from living on the edge all the time.

I've also run for people for which that exact same setup is a complete disaster. They get so worried about doing something stupid that they go into extreme turtle mode. You'd think we were running "The Red Dragons with Chainsaws Massacre" with those halfing orphans as PCs, instead of a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser kind of story. OTOH, if I run zero fudge, dice in the open, "time matters, and you don't have that much of it," style--suddenly these same turtles turn into Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in the action scenes from the LotR film.

Both types have tended to engage with the story. They weren't just playing to advance in power, get more treasure. Sometimes they didn't care about that side at all. What I have noticed is that some players tend to not metagame in the "use player knowledge as character knowledge" way, but will try to "read the DM." Those types tend to react in the turtle mode described previously, if the DM gives them signals, such as "being stupid removes your plot immunity." I've found it better to not give them anything to read. The game happening in the story is the game. React to that, and see what happens.

For some reason, as my game has evolved, I tend to attract that latter type.

 

[Barastrondo]

Honestly, why do you even need to make death even harder? What do you want, have to drop to - triple your hp and then fail five saving throws before you die?

Rules as written. No rules are changed, just the framework. It involves doing things like:

* A lower percentage of encounters that use tactics/powers that are more likely to kill with a few lucky rolls.

* No use of brutal pacing; you don't generally pull a L+3 encounter on a party that's already heavily depleted in healing surges and dailies, at least without giving them a chance to avoid it.

* Fights to the death aren't as high a percentage of encounters; there are more social, investigative or exploration challenges, and more enemies who are likely to have goals other than "kill the PCs outright."

* Choosing enemies that exploit the PCs' specific weaknesses some of the time rather than all of the time; not frequently using monsters that ignore concealment to target the warlock, for instance.

4th edition already pampers to the ones that don't like death anyway, asking for more is like biting the hand that feeds you.

You keep framing this as a rules issue. I assure you it isn't. If you understand how to build encounters, you can adjust the slider bar of lethality without changing a single rule.

 

[eamon]

What I generally want in a game I run (and what I want is not absolute, but if I'm running it, it carries a lot of weight), is that death be feared strongly, but happen rarely. [...]
What I've found with various players over the years is that what produces this result varies. I've run for people where the "Don't do anything stupid, and I'll fudge you out of it," works great. [...] I've also run for people for which that exact same setup is a complete disaster.

For some reason, as my game has evolved, I tend to attract that latter type.

Good stuff! Too much so, apparently, as I can't XP you for it ;-).

 

[Fifth Element]

You keep framing this as a rules issue. I assure you it isn't. If you understand how to build encounters, you can adjust the slider bar of lethality without changing a single rule.

This is dead on (sorry). There is no rule in D&D dictating what level of encounters the PCs must face and the purposes of those encounters. Playstyle is not hard-coded into the rules of any edition, IMO.

 

[the Jester]

Honestly, why do you even need to make death even harder? What do you want, have to drop to - triple your hp and then fail five saving throws before you die? 4th edition already pampers to the ones that don't like death anyway, asking for more is like biting the hand that feeds you.

I honestly don't see why anyone needs to take this another step. Random deaths do not really exist in 4th edition D&D.

SRSLY, this.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This is dead on (sorry). There is no rule in D&D dictating what level of encounters the PCs must face and the purposes of those encounters. Playstyle is not hard-coded into the rules of any edition, IMO.

Yes. You can do this with any edition, though without some kind of action points or the like, it can be more difficult in the earlier editions. The more the game spikes, the harder it is to pull off. But even in a cut throat 1st ed. game, you can manage a lot of the spikes with generous equipment and careful encounter selection.

Transparency in a rule set is not to make the game easier or harder for the players, but to get the DM (and players) more quicky to the point where they can fiddle with the dials to get the game they want. It's pretty easy in novice hands for, say, 1st ed. to come out different than the participants want. But once you know where all the dials are, in any edition, it is hardly rocket science.

There is a convenience and effort side of it too, but only in terms of something that is totally optional--playing a game well. I find, for example, the effort required to get high level 3E to work the way I want to be too much for what I get from it. But this isn't because I don't know how or because it is that hard. It's just more effort than I care to invest in a leisurely hobby, when I have other options.

 

[Saracenus]

I have played pretty much every edition of D&D there is (starting back in the 6th grade in the late 70s) and my DM and play style has evolved over the years.

Forever Slayer, there is no one true way to play D&D.

I have played/run RAW only games and enjoyed it. I have also played/run Borg-stylie D&D that has assimilated rules and tropes from a multitude of games.

Play what you want to play. Play with folks that play the way you want to play. Howerer, don't presume to lecture me (or anyone else here) on how I should be playing. There is no faster way to find yourself on my ignore list.

Now, I am going to go back to having some fun with my style of D&D and let you go have yours. See ya.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I have played pretty much every edition of D&D there is (starting back in the 6th grade in the late 70s) and my DM and play style has evolved over the years.

Forever Slayer, there is no one true way to play D&D.

I have played/run RAW only games and enjoyed it. I have also played/run Borg-stylie D&D that has assimilated rules and tropes from a multitude of games.

Play what you want to play. Play with folks that play the way you want to play. Howerer, don't presume to lecture me (or anyone else here) on how I should be playing. There is no faster way to find yourself on my ignore list.

Now, I am going to go back to having some fun with my style of D&D and let you go have yours. See ya.

Great for you......bye!

 

[Rel]

I have played pretty much every edition of D&D there is (starting back in the 6th grade in the late 70s) and my DM and play style has evolved over the years.

Forever Slayer, there is no one true way to play D&D.

I have played/run RAW only games and enjoyed it. I have also played/run Borg-stylie D&D that has assimilated rules and tropes from a multitude of games.

Play what you want to play. Play with folks that play the way you want to play. Howerer, don't presume to lecture me (or anyone else here) on how I should be playing. There is no faster way to find yourself on my ignore list.

Now, I am going to go back to having some fun with my style of D&D and let you go have yours. See ya.

The first rule of Ignore List is "Do not talk about Ignore List!"

But I otherwise agree with your sentiment of "play and let play".