D&D General How do you feel about Save or Die?

[Garthanos]

the slow tank gets left behind to die, etc.

Or hold the door and fake his own defeat/death while they race after the others too late and he meets up with them later oh wait only rogues are allowed to be sneaky my bad...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Or hold the door and fake his own defeat/death while they race after the others too late and he meets up with them later oh wait only rogues are allowed to be sneaky my bad...

Maybe the 'tank' - who presumably has damn good (heh, or at least 'remarkable') Athletics & Endurance - should be able to get away, in his own right, after delaying the enemy for a round or two...

'...should...'

 

[Garthanos]

Maybe the 'tank' - who presumably has damn good (heh, or at least 'remarkable') Athletics & Endurance - should be able to get away, in his own right, after delaying the enemy for a round or two...

'...should...'

That fulfills tropes too Base ,move somewhat on athletics in a general sense wonder what that might look like.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Save or die is fine with us, but...

We handle death a little differently in our campaign. The players decide whether to follow the roll of the die, or if something else happens.

For example the most common save or die circumstance in our campaign is still poison (since AD&D days...). In most cases, if the PC fails, then the player will simply accept that the character has passed, although many poisons have an onset time and there is a potential opportunity to save them. But if the player feels this isn't the appropriate time for the PC to die, then they can decide what happens. They often come up with a long-term or permanent consequence, which frankly can be a bigger challenge than just the death of a character.

It really comes down to what's going on in the narrative, where they are in terms of their attachment to that particular character, and what seems right at the time.

 

[oxybe]

I've never seen it implemented or executed in any way I found palpable in my 20+ years of gaming.

It doesn't add tension, if anything it kills tension.

Death is, for the most part, the least interesting result that can occur in a game.

You want me to stop caring about the character and the world? randomly kill my dude.

 

[Yardiff]

(shrug) I never really had a problem with it, myself.
I've never felt like the game needed my permission to kill my character.

I agree. While its annoying to die, or get paralyzed, stone, hold, etc. it usually isn't campaign ending and generally creatures that can do these things are not common.

 

[Jd Smith1]

A straight-up old school save or die, I don't like.

Dying because you failed to save versus dragon breath and took full damage, I'm fine with.

 

[billd91]

I'd suggest just using the standard methods from 13th Age, Fate, or some other modern games: If the players agree, they can immediately concede the encounter and retreat to a safe place, but they will suffer a campaign loss. The "campaign loss" term essentially means that there will be in-game consequences for the loss.

I can see how a mechanic like that wouldn't be satisfying for some players who would be more interested in playing out the gap between realizing the encounter is going south and actually extricating themselves. It becomes a bit like the scene from the "Witchsmeller Pursuivant" episode from the first Black Adder series in which Edmund, Percy, and Baldrick are all being sentenced to burning for being witches when they suddenly teleport away with basically a "whew, that was lucky" and no explanation.