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

[Henry]

I would say that (based on the opinions most people in this thread have espoused) most players want a risk of character death, but a low risk of character death - especially since even people who think 5e is too forgiving tend to list death as LAST among other possible losses.

id say maybe it would be helpful to quantify the risk level. What is ‘low’? On average, 1 PC death per entire campaign? Per 10 sessions? Per 4 sessions? Per every other session? (I’m pretty sure not many would agree with that last one.)

for me, if character death is not so risky that it averages out to about 1 per two or three months, real time, I’m OK with it, because depending on play frequency, that means I’ve had a chance to go through at least one story arc with him or her. That also means, on average, I’ve had maybe one PC die in a real year’s time, and the other times have been with the other three or four players with their PCs instead. (TPKs for the group doing something monumentally dumb notwithstanding.)

 

[FrogReaver]

That sounds really interesting. Would you give more detail on that please?

Sure.
my wizard that was obsessed with knowledge and experimentation died and a small sliver of his consciousness merged with his magical spell book giving the party an important artifact to them that had some interesting magical properties and would try to convince them to find a way to raise him from the dead and do other ‘experiments’ that he couldn’t. The party often gave in because they felt partly responsible for his death.

The fighter was charmed by the dryad never to be seen from again until the campaign fast forwarded into the future after our tpk and we found he had become a living tree that had helped forge a peace between our people and the fey forest.

The bard/warlock was obsessed with the great old one (think devourer of worlds for our game - but not necessarily evil - more like an interesting part of the cosmology) and upon his death he was given the option by the creator god of becoming the great old one which made for a much more interesting pending apocalypse that we were trying to avoid.

things like that.

 

[the Jester]

I strongly prefer a campaign where death is a real possibility, both as a player and as a DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure.
my wizard that was obsessed with knowledge and experimentation died and a small sliver of his consciousness merged with his magical spell book giving the party an important artifact to them that had some interesting magical properties and would try to convince them to find a way to raise him from the dead and do other ‘experiments’ that he couldn’t. The party often gave in because they felt partly responsible for his death.

The fighter was charmed by the dryad never to be seen from again until the campaign fast forwarded into the future after our tpk and we found he had become a living tree that had helped forge a peace between our people and the fey forest.

The bard/warlock was obsessed with the great old one (think devourer of worlds for our game - but not necessarily evil - more like an interesting part of the cosmology) and upon his death he was given the option by the creator god of becoming the great old one which made for a much more interesting pending apocalypse that we were trying to avoid.

things like that.

Love it. Thanks!

 

[Nefermandias]

Allow me to go a step further, then.

What type of player death risk is tolerable?

Is it just the ones where no agency is had between how their character dies? If so, does that include the swing of dice?

What about deaths that occur because of a mechanic that players simply forgot?

What about deaths that were preventable but only through some obtuse method, like having counterspell to avoid the cleric getting PWK'd?

Players are almost always okay with death by dice randomness or death by poorly made decisions.
My biggest gripe with 5th edition though, is that death is almost impossible to happen by reasons other than DM fiat. What I meant is that PCs are so freaking resilient to damage and harmful effects that the DM is forced to deliberately target specific weaknesses or chose to execute downed characters if he wants to introduce death in the campaign.

I believe it's a big flaw in the system.

 

[Mallus]

Some do, some don't. From what I can tell, this has remained true for the past few decades, ie as long as I've been playing & DM'ing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Players are almost always okay with death by dice randomness or death by poorly made decisions.
My biggest gripe with 5th edition though, is that death is almost impossible to happen by reasons other than DM fiat. What I meant is that PCs are so freaking resilient to damage and harmful effects that the DM is forced to deliberately target specific weaknesses or chose to execute downed characters if he wants to introduce death in the campaign.

I believe it's a big flaw in the system.

I think that that's part of the flaw. The overall flaw is that the NPCs are great big bullet sponges with at times literally hundreds of hp and very little tactical interaction possible. If we look at the CR2 ogre it's inflated from 19hp in AD&D through 29 in 3.X to 59 in 5e - and its javelins are almost as dangerous as its melee so there's no point trying to glue its feet to the floor or kite it. (The 4e one was IIRC CR8).

It gets worse when we look at monster creation benchmarks; those 59hp are appropriate for a CR 1/2 monster. And this makes death slooow. So very avoidable.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Players are almost always okay with death by dice randomness or death by poorly made decisions.
My biggest gripe with 5th edition though, is that death is almost impossible to happen by reasons other than DM fiat. What I meant is that PCs are so freaking resilient to damage and harmful effects that the DM is forced to deliberately target specific weaknesses or chose to execute downed characters if he wants to introduce death in the campaign.

I believe it's a big flaw in the system.

You might be onto something here. As a GM I really don't want to decide that a random enemy coup de grâces a downed PC.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Players are almost always okay with death by dice randomness or death by poorly made decisions.
My biggest gripe with 5th edition though, is that death is almost impossible to happen by reasons other than DM fiat. What I meant is that PCs are so freaking resilient to damage and harmful effects that the DM is forced to deliberately target specific weaknesses or chose to execute downed characters if he wants to introduce death in the campaign.

I believe it's a big flaw in the system.

I find that using waves helps with this. A hard encounter with another hard encounter reinforcing it a few rounds later can push an unoptimized party to their limits. If you increase the difficulty and/or add a third wave, even a reasonably optimized party can be taken close to TPK.

I don't always use this technique, but when I do I more commonly have 5MW issues than any problems challenging the players.

YMMV

I think that that's part of the flaw. The overall flaw is that the NPCs are great big bullet sponges with at times literally hundreds of hp and very little tactical interaction possible. If we look at the CR2 ogre it's inflated from 19hp in AD&D through 29 in 3.X to 59 in 5e - and its javelins are almost as dangerous as its melee so there's no point trying to glue its feet to the floor or kite it. (The 4e one was IIRC CR8).

It gets worse when we look at monster creation benchmarks; those 59hp are appropriate for a CR 1/2 monster. And this makes death slooow. So very avoidable.

Too far in the other direction though, and you end up playing rocket tag, which is equally undesirable IMO. While potentially quick and exciting, it is only a matter of time before the monsters win initiative and TPK the party before anyone can even act. That, IMO, epitomizes the worst kind of death (one you had no real influence over).

 

[AnotherGuy]

And all those are basically custom-tailored consequences which you are claiming are at random things.

On this I agree with you. So a random fireball won't do the trick, but maybe the dragon breath of an Ancient Wyrm.

Losses like that might be fantastic backstory - but they are not things that are remotely a consequence of the rules I'm criticising. A Blades in the Dark style Devil's Bargain mechanic that gave the rogue the opportunity to sacrifice their ring is entirely different from it being destroyed by a random AoE spell. And the paladin with the shattered Holy Avenger is far more likely to be a tailored major consequence in Fate. And backstory is backstory.

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