Death, Dying and Entitlements.

[S'mon]

The only time I would pull a punch is on a TPK. If the entire campaign story shuts down that's no fun for anyone

Personally I enjoy it. And the TPKs/failures make the non-TPK/failure campaigns so much sweeter. As a player, it's like playing a board game - I'm not interested in playing unless there are both 'victory' and 'defeat' conditions.

 

[S'mon]

...or tell the DM to get lost. But I generally think that the group deciding together what type of game they want to play is more productive than a series of "this is the way it's gonna be" declarations. Especially if you game with your friends.

Ideally, everyone should be playing exactly what they want to play, and players should not play a game they don't want to play. However the DM is investing a lot more time, effort and energy than the players, there is no game without the DM, the DM's wishes are more important than those of any individual player, and so it's most important that the DM is going to be happy. There's a much bigger danger in a DMing being left unhappy because the game is likely to fail, which is bad for everyone, whereas a single unhappy player should not wreck the game; if really unhappy they can just not play, and the game can still take place.

However I do appreciate that some people reject the '5 Geek Social Fallacies' and believe that all their friends must be included in all their activities or else it is a kind of social failure.

 

[Ryujin]

Dying sucks and isn't fun, unless the death is AWESOME.

It's very rare for a character to die, in one of my games, and generally only occurs at dramatic moments in the story arc. You won't find minions killing off a character unless a single character is holding the door, so that the rest of the party can escape, and gets swarmed in the process. Characters don't fail a climbing roll, in the act of getting from point A to point B, then fall to their deaths. I dislike POINTLESS deaths, in my campaigns.

But if a player decides to do something really dumb.....

 

[Akaiku]

However the DM is investing a lot more time, effort and energy than the players, there is no game without the DM, the DM's wishes are more important than those of any individual player, and so it's most important that the DM is going to be happy.

Perhaps if the gm doesn't like world building, encounter planning and such... they should quit gming? If they DO like that, how does how much effort they spend on doing something they enjoy doing have any real weight in who deserves happiness at the table?

More to the topic. Actual death at the table doesn't need to be on the table. However, you can totally use imagination to have your character adequately afraid of death and do reasonable, in-character actions to avoid it. If you are playing dnd for a high score, you probably need to make a scorecard to go with it, as the default rules have the 'party' get max points eventually. If you are playing it for plot, suspension of disbelief should swing hard enough to 'pretend' that actions have potentially fatal consequences. Often that's eaiser (at least for me) then the whole dude at a table is actually a super hot elf or a super strong dragon monster or that every non player person in the world IS ACTUALLY THE SAME GUY.

 

[DNH]

Dying sucks and isn't fun, unless the death is AWESOME.

It's very rare for a character to die, in one of my games, and generally only occurs at dramatic moments in the story arc. You won't find minions killing off a character unless a single character is holding the door, so that the rest of the party can escape, and gets swarmed in the process. Characters don't fail a climbing roll, in the act of getting from point A to point B, then fall to their deaths. I dislike POINTLESS deaths, in my campaigns.

But if a player decides to do something really dumb.....

One of our player's characters back in our 3.5e days - a fighter called Ablenden - stood heroically to hold off a room-full of gnolls (or whatever it was) while the severely bloodied party made their escape. Ablenden died and ever since then, no matter what rules system we use or what characters we are actually playing, we still refer to mounting "the Ablenden Defence" when things start to get desperate.

 

[wayne62682]

Why do you have to equate "losing" with death? Surely in a semi-open ended campaign (still with an overarching plot or else it's not a campaign but a mini-series) there can be consequences that don't involve PC death? If they don't outright win a scenario, the bad guys are stronger later on or something bad happens (NPC they know is killed, village they grew up in is destroyed, etc). Those are consequences. It doesn't have to be "Success = Life, Failure = Death".

My main argument is that you very rarely see heroes in a fantasy novel die unless it's for the plot; it's not just "Whoops a lucky hit killed him" and that's how I treat D&D, like a novel that's playing out where the major events and the ending is nearly a foregone conclusion but isn't quite set in stone so it could change if it suits the story, but changing the entire story midway through doesn't sit well with me.

 

[S'mon]

Perhaps if the gm doesn't like world building, encounter planning and such... they should quit gming? If they DO like that, how does how much effort they spend on doing something they enjoy doing have any real weight in who deserves happiness at the table?

1. Your first sentence is nothing to do with what I wrote.
2. I already explained re your second sentence. Read my post again. If you're unable to read & comprehend it, I cannot help you.

 

[Fifth Element]

Nope, not true.

Risk of death is not the only penalty in-game, nor is it even the one with most emotional impact. It's just the most obviously easy and blunt one to use.

Agreed. I don't find claims that it's the only way to keep players engaged to be convincing.

 

[Fifth Element]

There's a much bigger danger in a DMing being left unhappy because the game is likely to fail, which is bad for everyone, whereas a single unhappy player should not wreck the game; if really unhappy they can just not play, and the game can still take place.

This does not mean, however, that the DM must be completely inflexible. I'm just saying that DM declarations of how it's going to be are a far less efficient means of starting a game than discussing with the players what they'd like in a game. The prospective DM is obviously free to not run such a game.

However I do appreciate that some people reject the '5 Geek Social Fallacies' and believe that all their friends must be included in all their activities or else it is a kind of social failure.

This does not follow from my comments, at all. Many people play D&D as a social activity; that is, if they were not doing it with their friends, they would not be interested in doing it at all. If it is an activity you're undertaking with your friends, then DM declarations are generally a bad idea.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I try to set up the game so that TPKs or even individual deaths are rare, but I do not set it up or mess with it to the point that TPKs or deaths never happen.

My players are mostly ok with that, and take character death in stride. The game and the adventure goes on. A Nd even if the adventure does not go on, one just as cool replaces it.