D&D General Do players even like the risk of death?

[MGibster]

Alot of the time, D&D veterans may have criticisms that the game is a bit too easy. Its certainly easier than the older editions and player death isn't nearly as frequent, but the risk is there.

The question is: Do players actually want this risk?

As a player, I do. Some of my favorite campaigns I've played through resulted in multiple deaths that were a lot of fun. And while I think it's too easy to avoid death in 5th edition, I don't want to go back to the "good" old days when character death was much more common.

 

[Imaculata]

As a player, when my party enters the lair of a dragon, I want there to be a chance that we do not make it out alive.

As a DM, I want my players to fear death. At low levels I tend to be a bit more forgiving and the training wheels are on. But as soon as my players reach the mid level range, they can expect combat to be deadly. But what does that mean?

In my 3.x games, all encounters are balanced based on party level and strength. But I play my monsters with the intent to kill. I play as efficient as is reasonable for their intelligence.

Dangerous foes are fore shadowed, so the party can prepare accordingly, or choose to avoid the fight entirely.

Each fight could cause a character to drop to 0 HP. This is not actual character death, as long as the character receives healing in time. At low levels a foe may ignore a downed pc, at higher levels they close in for the kill.

This could result in a TPK, if the party messes up royally and chooses to fight to the death rather than flee. If that is how the campaign ends, so be it.

 

[Lanefan]

Constitution loss wasn't too bad in older editions due to how stats scaled (although it did negatively impact future rez chance).

However, we tried it for a while in 3.x and it didn't really work too well. Because every 2 points was -1 hp / level, it could result in a fairly vicious feedback loop where once your character died, they'd be more likely to die, which would cause them to be even more likely to die.

Unless you consider hit points to be locked in by house-ruling that permanent changes to your Con score - in either direction - do not and cannot affect past hit point rolls and temporary changes don't affect hit points in any way.

This serves two functions. One: it tones down Con's importance a bit, which it needs in all editions. Two: it's one less thing to have to update if-when the stat changes.

You could certainly have a chance of failure for resurrection magic in modern games. As I understand it, Critical Role does something like this where a rez requires a ritual involving a fair bit of role playing along with a check (that is modified by that role playing). It's been a while since I read about it, but it certainly has a potential place even in more modern editions of the game.

Agreed. I never liked that they took it out.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Unless you consider hit points to be locked in by house-ruling that permanent changes to your Con score - in either direction - do not and cannot affect past hit point rolls and temporary changes don't affect hit points in any way.

This serves two functions. One: it tones down Con's importance a bit, which it needs in all editions. Two: it's one less thing to have to update if-when the stat changes.

Yeah, that's reasonable. We ended up using something similar even after we decided that the Con loss was too harsh in 3e. For quite some time we had a rule that the maximum number of times you could be brought back was equal to your starting Constitution. We ended up getting rid of that rule, however, simply because no one ever died frequently enough for it to be relevant.

In our campaigns since 3.x, resurrection has usually been limited by the setting. You can technically get resurrected as many times as you want, but it's oftentimes very difficult to find someone who can provide the service. Even if there's someone in the party who can cast the spell, there's no guarantee that anyone will have 100s or 1000s of go worth of diamonds just laying around, particularly that they're willing to part with (as this may be an insurance policy in case they or a loved one die).

Recently, one of my characters beseeched a local deity of the earth for a resurrection for a follower's mother. He was informed, however, that because the god was not one of the gods of death, it was simply beyond his power to do so. The god did agree to put the body into a semi-permanent stasis by petrifying it, thereby giving my character as much time as he needed to find someone who could actually perform a rez.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Weird, I've had quite a few. One of the reasons I'm trying out my odd houserule on death -- I wanted to see what happens when TPKs are off the table and instead character death is only when a player stakes it. I may not have mentioned that staking death is something you'd do if you'd normally die, and instead you don't and get a nice set of bonuses but you absolutely, without recourse, die at the end of the scene. That way, choosing death is meaningful, and choosing to not die is meaningful (I get to do bad things to your character). This plus combats that don't always focus on killing the other side first have made for some very interesting combats, as there's zero need for me as GM to be fair or pull punches. I can overstack combat challenges (with proper foreshadowing, of course) and not worry about the fairness of it. All in all, it's lead to more exciting combats, especially for me.

Can you please elaborate on the bolded part? What are the bad things you get to do?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Can you please elaborate on the bold part? What are the bad things you get to do?

Whatever seems dramatically appropriate to me at the time. I have stripped items, ruined reputations, added unwelcome truths to backgrounds, added a ghostly possession, and put a character in debt to supernatiral forces. Since I don't have a murderhobo problem, these all hit hard.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Agreed. I never liked that they took it out.

As an opt-in system, the possibility of rez failure isn't a bad thing.

As an opt-out system, I don't think it would go over well with the fanbase.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Alot of the time, D&D veterans may have criticisms that the game is a bit too easy. Its certainly easier than the older editions and player death isn't nearly as frequent, but the risk is there.

The question is: Do players actually want this risk?

Good question. In a long running game I tend shy away from death as I have invested in the character. For single adventures or short campaigns I can get into a highly lethal game though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can you please elaborate on the bolded part? What are the bad things you get to do?

I'm not Ovinomancer myself, but I might do something similar too. Death, when it happens, can be quite costly--and the costs are rarely ones you can pay in coin. I likewise do not have a murderhobo party (they even DO have a house to crash in! ...though it technically is where the Bard's family lives), so such "insubstantial" costs are workable for them. I'm pretty sure the aforementioned Bard would mourn the loss of his mere +1 leather duster jacket pretty hard. Likewise, if the Ranger had to deal with a true threat to his incipient claim to the First Sultan's legacy, such as "your death has broken the blood-link," that would be far more impactful than "alright, make a new character."

All such things create new story expansion through loss, rather than ending a story through loss (and thus forcing a totally different story to replace it). That's the whole point behind such non-death consequences; they can still hurt, and in some ways hurt worse than death itself, but the hurt spurs new efforts and new experiences. As the Genie and Jafar are so fond of saying in Aladdin: "You'd be surprised what you can live through!"

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Alot of the time, D&D veterans may have criticisms that the game is a bit too easy. Its certainly easier than the older editions and player death isn't nearly as frequent, but the risk is there.

The question is: Do players actually want this risk?

I've seen lots of player act very "paranoid" about their characters dying. You're not playing when your PC is dead, and even if you can easily create a new PC, you might not want to.

D&D is a broad game that can suit many playstyles. However, GMs and players need to be on the same side. I cringe every time I see a new poll or idea about PCs not reviving from below 0 hit points, or slowing down healing, and so forth. IME players lose confidence if their PCs aren't at the top of their game. I'd rather have fewer maximum hit points and full healing between encounters; the risk of death would be there (low hit points) but I wouldn't have to say "sorry, I'm not going to rescue the princess, as I'm half-dead and it will take me a week to heal". (LotR could have long healing periods because the plot was less time-sensitive than a modern RPG. Yes you have to destroy the ring, but do you have to do today?)