Death Spiral vs Starting at 1st Level - X-post from 'Death by Infelicitas'

[Agamon]

The biggest issue I'd highlight here is the potential goofiness in the narrative.

Adding a PC to the group is generally hard to justify in-game -- a good friend and partner has just died, so you go to the local pub/guardhouse/bounty hall and recruit someone roughly similar? And [/u]only[/u] one person rather than deciding that actually having a group of 10 people would be nice rather than 4? And whether you go with "lose a level" or "start at 1st level" as your penalty, it also implies that the group specifically settles for exactly one person who is generally less useful than the guy that just died.

It's not insurmountable, but it's a big part of why my group generally tries to avoid the whole thing.

Not at all, imo. In fact, the party should constantly be looking for henchman, as well (a group of 10 is much better than 4, you're right). And higher level people are tougher to find than those of 0 or 1st level.

 

[S'mon]

At least he had a reason for what he said. Mirroring the expression back to him with a different playstyle preference doesn't really follow. Or necessarily make any sense.

Possibly, but I have had a rough day and it was quite satisfying.

 

[S'mon]

The biggest issue I'd highlight here is the potential goofiness in the narrative.

Adding a PC to the group is generally hard to justify in-game -- a good friend and partner has just died, so you go to the local pub/guardhouse/bounty hall and recruit someone roughly similar? And [/u]only[/u] one person rather than deciding that actually having a group of 10 people would be nice rather than 4? And whether you go with "lose a level" or "start at 1st level" as your penalty, it also implies that the group specifically settles for exactly one person who is generally less useful than the guy that just died.

It's not insurmountable, but it's a big part of why my group generally tries to avoid the whole thing.

In my Pathfinder BB game, the PCs are members of the Swordsman's Brotherhood adventurer/merc guild, paid for missions; naturally the senior guys go to recruit whoever they can get from the Guildhall, ie the new PCs. Works fine.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Not at all, imo. In fact, the party should constantly be looking for henchman, as well (a group of 10 is much better than 4, you're right). And higher level people are tougher to find than those of 0 or 1st level.

As a player, I have no interest in running around with a stack of DMPCs. As a DM, I have no interest in managing a stack of DMPCs that the PCs have recruited. A (single) temporary tagalong is fine and not at all uncommon, but our playstyle -- and I suspect a fair percentage of folks' -- generally does not involve the party having a bunch of groupies constantly in tow, for both narrative and logistical reasons.

 

[Desdichado]

Possibly, but I have had a rough day and it was quite satisfying.

Heh. Well, there's always that.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], you and Tuft seem to be using quite a different definition of Death Spiral than the common one. When I hear or read "death spiral" I expect: combat system where getting hit makes it harder for you to fight and easier for the other guys to hit you.

Yes, that's the standard meaning.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I did the "start again at first level" thing for a very long time in AD&D. It's not as bad as it sounds. As long as the PCs could take the initiative, they were smart enough to be able to send characters where they were needed with appropriate challenges. Frex, the 10th level fighter would hold off the enemy champion while the 2nd level fighter would go kill the orc holding the gate shut so the rest of the part could get into the room. As long as the DM avoids area effect spells, it's not hard. And with AD&D's xp tables, new PCs got back to near the level of the party very, very quickly. Later on we we had new characters come in at four levels less than the lowest level character.

I think PC death should hurt. Coming back at the same level with a character that's optimized for the current level rather than organically grown doesn't hurt. Always winning is really boring.

 

[gamerprinter]

At least in my Kaidan setting this can't happen. When a character dies, he always reincarnates and to whatever the reincarnation roll tells you - which is always someone of the same level, but could be any class, depending on the roll.

In fact, in some ways, nobody truly dies, they just continously are reincarnated living out their adventuring careers across multiple lifetimes.

Now you could choose not to run the reincarnated character and simply start over, but that would be breaking the rules of the setting to some degree.

 

[S'mon]

The biggest issue I'd highlight here is the potential goofiness in the narrative.

Adding a PC to the group is generally hard to justify in-game -- a good friend and partner has just died, so you go to the local pub/guardhouse/bounty hall and recruit someone roughly similar?

In my PBB game, after 2 PCs died and we had a time jump (I do the Gygaxian DMG real time = game time, and several weeks had passed IRL), I narrated it that the lone survivor, racked by guilt over the deaths of his friends 'just one week from retirement' had spent weeks drinking himself into a stupor like a Mel Gibson movie hero, until called out for One Last Job...

 

[S'mon]

I think the key to this line of thought is how you play. The OSR movement isn't just about player agency or simpler rule systems. How the players approach each encounter is important, as well. In my 3e games, if a monster was met, 90% of the time it was fight time.

But not every encounter in a sandbox game should be assumed to come to a fight. Especially when a 1st level party is doing some wildness exploring and a dragon flies by. They probably don't want to engage unless they're suicidal.

I'm making sure my players understand that the game is about exploration and survival, not kicking the ass of everything they come across. Live to fight another day, and all that.

My 4e D&D 'Loudwater' players are not the greatest combat monsters ever, but I *love* how they often turn scheduled combat encounters into non-combat by negotiation,evasion et al. One particularly brilliant player, Emma, managed to use her deva Paladin's high Diplomacy and some great dice rolls and roleplaying to turn an ice-hearted white dragon to something approaching friendship*.

*Although she does actually do that for a living - she's a schoolteacher!