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D&D 4E Fun to die in 4e?
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Templeton580
Explorer
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Templeton580
Explorer
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(contact)
Explorer
Nifft said:
Couldn't agree more. When you forget to check that *one* door, and it turns out to be the room with the six crossbow-weilding lizard men who jump you as you're retreating bloodied from the fight with vampiric half-wolverine pixies . . . good times.
For me, the balance is if in retrospect the death was avoidable-- could we have done better and lived? If yes, then it was a good death.
That said, there are stories that can't be told in D&D if a PC dies every three sessions, and for those character death would be stepping on the fun.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
(contact) said:
It's a good start. The thread has only reminded me that you should have embedded them in the text in the first place.
Still, that's the kind of snappy go-get-em, what-can-I-do-for-you-next attitude that will get you invited to my Digital Game Table.
This is very dependent upon the setting. In one campaign that I play in, admittedly heavily modified from the "typical" setting, the DM does not allow for raise dead or similar spells. In his campaign, death is the end of a character. That's it.
And, in that campaign, we all design characters for the long haul. Campaign arcs last for years (decades, really, two of the players in that group have been playing the same characters since about 1988). Advancement is SLOW (as you'd expect, given that it's taken us 20 years), but the campaign is rich in detail and a blast to play in.
In the campaign I DM, death is common. Characters drop like flies (or, rather, like the first five minutes of a Paranoia session), though we use hero points and the well-timed use of a hero point will auto-stabilize a character (that has died from hp loss) regardless of the means of death.
In the campaign I run, there are all kinds of tales of cool deaths. Players wear their experiences in the afterlife (I have experiences between the time a character dies and is revived) like badges. In my friend's campaign, PC deaths are exceeding rare (I've lost one character, on purpose, in 20+ years). In his campaign, PC death isn't fun in the same way that other things are fun. PC death is to be avoided.
In my campaign, death is fun.
However, there's death and then there's death. In video games, it's one thing to get sniped. No big deal, you re-spawn and go at it again. In D&D, deaths are a little more like in real life (though admittedly still very different). I'd wager that the designers want to carefully negotiate this territory because of the not-too-subtle comparisons we all make between characters and real people.
Dave
And, in that campaign, we all design characters for the long haul. Campaign arcs last for years (decades, really, two of the players in that group have been playing the same characters since about 1988). Advancement is SLOW (as you'd expect, given that it's taken us 20 years), but the campaign is rich in detail and a blast to play in.
In the campaign I DM, death is common. Characters drop like flies (or, rather, like the first five minutes of a Paranoia session), though we use hero points and the well-timed use of a hero point will auto-stabilize a character (that has died from hp loss) regardless of the means of death.
In the campaign I run, there are all kinds of tales of cool deaths. Players wear their experiences in the afterlife (I have experiences between the time a character dies and is revived) like badges. In my friend's campaign, PC deaths are exceeding rare (I've lost one character, on purpose, in 20+ years). In his campaign, PC death isn't fun in the same way that other things are fun. PC death is to be avoided.
In my campaign, death is fun.
However, there's death and then there's death. In video games, it's one thing to get sniped. No big deal, you re-spawn and go at it again. In D&D, deaths are a little more like in real life (though admittedly still very different). I'd wager that the designers want to carefully negotiate this territory because of the not-too-subtle comparisons we all make between characters and real people.
Dave
Masquerade
First Post
Wormwood said:
QFT. The problem with death in D&D, IME, is not having to sit out for the rest of the session, nor is it having to "roll up" a new character. Death is unfun because you're losing a character that you enjoy playing, often as the result of some anticlimactic d20 rolls.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
(contact) said:
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