commandercrud
Hero
I've never asked my players how deadly they want their game. I show them that I run it that way early on. It's on them to stay alive.
All permanent death does is end a particular PC's story. I find that boring at times. I've been in "killer" games where everybody quit because there was no point, death was random and meaningless. Eventually the characters became meaningless and just a set of numbers on a page because there was no point in developing history, personality or story.Yes, even if they are not aware of it. If the game is too easy there is no risk then I believe boredom will set in.
Veteran player here who thinks things should be more deadly. 5E is exceedingly generous with death. For your table, perhaps death is "too much" or "boring", but many find it essential. For one, death being hard reduces verisimilitude greatly. At this kind of table, the 100hp barbarian can fall 100 feet, not die, and people think it's ok. It's kind of silly!All permanent death does is end a particular PC's story. I find that boring at times. I've been in "killer" games where everybody quit because there was no point, death was random and meaningless. Eventually the characters became meaningless and just a set of numbers on a page because there was no point in developing history, personality or story.
Death being off the table may make it boring for you, for a lot of people knowing that their PC could die at any time takes away a lot of their fun. To put it another way, I've run campaigns where no one died and no one was bored. There are many, many ways to fail. Death is one of the most boring failure options IMHO.
I'm a D&D Veteran having played since 1981 or so.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?
This is 100% true, but even despite the potential difficulty, I advocate strongly for non-death consequences. Not because I fear the players having to deal with death, but because there are so many other rich, exciting, and plot-hook filled options besides death. Everything from a setback to your story arc goals, giving an advantage to a political opponent, suffering a curse with pros and cons, having body parts amputated, suffering chronic pain or having dramatic scars, a change in reputation, etc.And, this is a logical outcome of how the rules are presented. Death really is the only thing the rules codify as a consequence, spending a lot of pages on how it happens, how to prevent it, and how to reverse it. This puts death front and center in the rules. Any other meaningful consequence is left to the GM to invent and insert themselves. This takes a lot more work on the GM's part because there is no support in the ruleset on how to do this, what this could be, or how to employ it fairly. Because of this lack of support, deployment of other consequences can run afoul of excessive GM Force, which can leave a bad taste -- just think to how many players have bkand PC backstories or are orphans just to protect from having GM's screw with family. This is an attempt at other consequences in a failed play state.