Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 1592736" data-attributes="member: 1049">d4, two objections (of sorts) with your play style.First, you yourself pointed out that campaign climaxes can produce memorable PC deaths.  The problem with that in D&D is that campaign climaxes tend to be rare (campaigns lasting a good, long while).  I tend to be fairly lenient about most random encounters, but any plot arc climax strips away plot immunity.  Misfortune during a plot arc resolution is weighty enough that I don't think a drama-minded player would feel "cheated" out of anything.Second, before I'll okay plot immunity, I have to ask the players what they want out of a campaign, and they have to answer in what I consider sufficient detail.  Quite simply, as we're all aware, campaigns are no fun if there's no risk, success is no fun if there's no chance of failure.  But there are certain players to whom the game is just about showcasing how cool their character is, and to (most of) them, death is the only "failure state" that really feels like a failure.So if your game is about restoring your noble family to prominence, and adventuring is just your way of being cool while you earn the funds to do it, death can be a nonissue; real success or failure is all in those diplomacy rolls, where no punches should be pulled.  If you're playing a swashbucking campaign where looking good is all-important, attack rolls can be fudged while jump and tumble rolls are "call 'em as they fall".  But if the players answers to "what motivates you, beyond adventuring/combat success" are two-bit words like "role-playing" or "character development", or if they fall into "Standard Adventurer Mode"...  well, if they only have one metric of success or failure, it behooves you as DM to give them challenges that they appreciate the risk of.</blockquote>

Verification