Death, Dying and Entitlements.

[the Jester]

What are your opinions on the matter?

If death is too rare, you never get the chance to play new types of characters.

If death is too rare, you don't feel like surviving is an accomplishment.

I run a notoriously high-lethality game and love it that way. YMMV; some playstyles are very far from mine in this regard.

 

[Spibb]

Yeah I see what you're saying about the Player's getting upset. I killed off a friends character because his character was being ridiculously violent (constantly shouting death threats in towns, killing babies as intimidate checks, threatening npc's with sexual assault). He tipped me over the edge once so i had a treant in the forest they were in (lvl 18 to his lvl 6) crush him and throw his body from the group and made it unrecoverable. He was cranky with me and genuinely didn't enjoy the game for like a year, feeling like his death was unfair.

If I had sent something more his lvl and killed him properly with dice rolls, I think it would have gone better. I ended up letting his character get resurrected though a year (real time) later and he's acted much better (little to no threats of rape).

 

[Fifth Element]

It's purely a playstyle thing. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that death is the only risk that PCs have in the game world, and lethality is therefore needed to prevent the game from being humdrum.

In my game, there's more to accomplishment than mere survival. There's also, you know, accomplishing things.

 

[Ourph]

Does this sound like too much entitlement on the player's part?

I think players are entitled to have fun. If the players don't find death as a consequence fun, then I think they are entitled to ask the DM (politely) to remove it from the game or to have some reasonably accessible way to work around it.

 

[Dracorat]

I have a lot of DM experience.

As a DM, my take on dying is this:

When a player dies because his dice just cannot roll "to save his life" no matter how many times it rolls, that sucks.

When a player dies because I told him something he acted upon - but he acted upon "the obvious" meaning of my words when I didn't mean them that way - that sucks. (And I mentally kick myself.)

When a player dies because I overestimated their ability or underestimated a moster ability - that sucks.

but ...

When a player dies because he blindly charges in, odds-be-damned and party-be-damned - that's awesome. He learns that he needs to change if he wants to be successful.

When a player dies as a last-ditch effort to save his party mates or an NPC - that is also awesome - for the unselfish act of doing so.

But as a DM, death is a tool. I have to wield it sometimes as a hammer, sometimes as a feather. In the end, the perfect use of death is to create reward (not dying) for playing well while at the same time offering incentive to consider your action. For if I removed the essence of death all-together, then the plot becomes empty. Victory is assured - I'll just respawn and go at the goal again.

So far, I have found the 4E death mechanic to be the best as far as this is concerned, but taking it up a notch, I have found the adventure paths to be the perfect companion to the 4E rules. For even if you fail miserably this gaming session, you start tabula rasa next session and can try again. You need not abandon your character or its concept nor explain their sudden re-emergence. Everyone nods, and then everyone starts rolling the dice again...

 

[S'mon]

I think players are entitled to have fun. If the players don't find death as a consequence fun, then I think they are entitled to ask the DM (politely) to remove it from the game or to have some reasonably accessible way to work around it.

And the DM is entitled to tell them to get lost.

I think the DM's duty is to tell the players what kind of game he's running, and let them decide if they want to play. Personally I run a high lethality game, I TPK'd the party in the last session I ran, despite halving all monster hp - and the 4 PCs were wiped out by 5 goblins, to boot. But I had warned the players in advance about my play style, and they all seemed to enjoy it a lot.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I don't agree that the DM's dice have the final say about what happens, especially regarding the player character's life. That's why we roll our dice behind the screen. Its the responsibility of the DM to ensure that when the climactic battle comes and a PC is on the ground at the feet of the villain, when the villain brings his sword down upon the PC, instead of it hitting (even if it's a critical) the PC blocks the crucial blow with their shield and is able to continue to fight. Eventually winning and remembering this battle forever. It's the DM's job to ensure a fun, epic story plays out. There's nothing awesome about a story where the protagonists get jumped by a group of goblins and die.

Granted, the DM also has to keep the players afraid of death. If they do something really stupid, then it's ok to kill them (but try and hint them away from it). Also, its necessary instill the terror of death into the players by making an example. Perma-Kill one of PC's in the Heroic Tier in what seems like a fair fight they could have one.

Basically, I disagree with your idea that the dice are the arbiter of fate within the game. That job falls to the Raven Queen. But more directly it falls to the DM. The dice, in certain climactic situations like death, are more like guidelines.

Then why bother with rolling dice if it's not the final arbiter?

D&D is a random game because it would turn into a cops and robbers "I shot you, no I shot you first, nuh uh I shot you first".

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I think players are entitled to have fun. If the players don't find death as a consequence fun, then I think they are entitled to ask the DM (politely) to remove it from the game or to have some reasonably accessible way to work around it.

In all honesty that is going a little over board. What if you have player's that say they don't have fun unless they get all the items they want? Do you give them everything they want? You can houserule anything you want but I wouldn't recommend messing with the core rules too much.

 

[wayne62682]

I believe PC death should only happen when it suits the story, but I also believe that a D&D campaign is meant to be telling a story along relatively predefined goals (not a complete railroad, though), and not an ad-libbed story.

As a player, I don't like that a bad roll (or good roll from the DM) can wreck the story, or that it can kill my character, because it's very rare in most fantasy novels for the main characters to die unless it's a plot point.

As a DM, I hate to kill off characters unless it's an agreed upon plot point (redemption, saving the rest of the party, etc.) because I have a "vision" of the story and having someone die abruptly doesn't usually fit.

 

[Spibb]

Then why bother with rolling dice if it's not the final arbiter?

D&D is a random game because it would turn into a cops and robbers "I shot you, no I shot you first, nuh uh I shot you first".

You raise a valid point. I intend to play tonights session strictly to the dice now haha. Give it a shot