Favourite Mortality Rate by Edition

[Huw]

So, how often should your characters die? How often should they come back, and at what cost, to maintain the fun/danger balance? Above all, what edition got this balance the closest to satisfaction?

 

[Umbran]

I don't think there's a single answer to his - I've run a variety of campaigns, and wanted a different feel for each.

I want an edition that allows me to fairly easily adjust the mortality rate - and no edition has really failed me in that regard.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

In all my campaigns in both D&D and other game-systems, death is definitely oriented toward being a plot-point.

 

[jdrakeh]

I want an edition that allows me to fairly easily adjust the mortality rate - and no edition has really failed me in that regard.

This. In fact, I think the argument that different editions of D&D have a specific mortality rate hard-coded into the rules is a fallacious one. To wit, I played in a three year AD&D 1e campaign under an old school DM and I don't recall any permanent death taking place (lots of death, but as treasure flowed freely by the RAW, we always had the money to pay for resurrection).

[Edit: I stand corrected. There was one permanent death, and that only happened because a PC became the BBEG due to fiddling with an artifact. And, really, he might not have actually died. Since we couldn't best him in direct combat, we sunk him to the bottom of the sea. If he was able to breathe water, he may still be down there.]

 

[Schmoe]

I don't think I can really pick any of the options you presented. In my games, mortality increased as we progressed from 1e to 2e to 3e.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Since I started GMing in 1984, I can proudly say that no PC ever died while I was running a game (now 70% of that was in the Supergenre, where character death is not an assumed, and can be considered genre breaking).

So I am sure which version I voted on.

It better be plot related.

 

[Heselbine]

Since I started GMing in 1984, I can proudly say that no PC ever died while I was running a game (now 70% of that was in the Supergenre, where character death is not an assumed, and can be considered genre breaking).

So I am sure which version I voted on.

It better be plot related.

Did you fudge a lot of die rolls?

 

[Jack99]

I can't pick one either. A player dies every 10 hours of gaming time in my 4e campaign so far. I am pretty sure that's a higher mortality rate than I had in both 2e and 3.x.

 

[Fifth Element]

I too reject the options given. PC mortality rate is not hardcoded into the rules, and varies too much from group to group to bear any meaningful comparison.

 

[howandwhy99]

Not really a fan of high lethality, but I still want it to be a consequence of my actions vs. some plot point or player-DM agreement.

And all new PCs start at level 1, always.