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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do players even like the risk of death?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8268510" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>I think the focus on death as a needed consequence is very limiting. It puts undue focus on death as the sole motivating consequence, which means that it becomes a large focus of play. Play is not balanced unless death is often threatened, and threatened seriously. This is the issue behind most of the hp recovery rate/daily encounter balance/CR/encounter balance threads -- how to seriously threaten death as consequence and do so often enough.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Other consequences than death can absolutely drive an exciting 5e game, but you're on your own for how to implement them. This is where experience with how other games operarionalize consequences can be helpful in running 5e (or other D&D) as being less centered on death. It still must have some centering on death, because the rulest effectively demands it, but you can minimize it with work.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8268510, member: 16814"] I think the focus on death as a needed consequence is very limiting. It puts undue focus on death as the sole motivating consequence, which means that it becomes a large focus of play. Play is not balanced unless death is often threatened, and threatened seriously. This is the issue behind most of the hp recovery rate/daily encounter balance/CR/encounter balance threads -- how to seriously threaten death as consequence and do so often enough. 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. Other consequences than death can absolutely drive an exciting 5e game, but you're on your own for how to implement them. This is where experience with how other games operarionalize consequences can be helpful in running 5e (or other D&D) as being less centered on death. It still must have some centering on death, because the rulest effectively demands it, but you can minimize it with work. [/QUOTE]
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