How likely should character death be

[Bedrockgames]

Inspired by the how much do you wnt to die thread, this won't be a poll because I think a lot of the polls lately have been generating misleading info. So feel free to explain your response. But before doing so kindly provide the percentage chance of character death you would ike to see across the following three categories: encounter, adventure and campaign.

For example (and this is just an example, not my preferences):

Chance of dying during an encounter: 5%

Chance of dying during an adventure: 15%

Chance of dying during a campaign: 25%

Here death means actual character death and all that implies.

 

[Gold Roger]

As likely as the group and campaign played demands.

While personally I'm a fan of rather deadly campaigns, most people I know are decidedly not. And when I want to DM a long running campaign with good continouity, I'd rather keep deathrates low myself.

So, even if I where to answer only considering my own personal preferences, I couldn't give a straight answer.

This is a good place for modular design. The game should have plenty of variants for death and dying rules from "no PC ever really dies" to "hp at 0 and you're a goner".

 

[pming]

Hiya.

This is going to be all over the map, posting wise. So many variables based on player/DM preference...but anyway...

For me, I see PC death as a guaranteed outcome if they go into "a dungeon" (adventure; whatever...) and just hope for the best. Dungeons (and I'll use that term for any "opposition force" against the PC's, be it actual dungeon, wilderness travel, mad arch-mage villain, neferious slavers, killer thieves guild, etc...they are all doing their own thing if left alone, but once the PC's start to go against/stop them, they *should* be trying to KILL them or otherwise remove them from the playing board called Life). Ahem...where was I?

Oh yeah...for percentages...

Unprepared to go into/against a Dungeon/Adventure... 99%
Semi-prepared...50%
Prepared...25%
Over prepared...10%

And using your example...

...during an encounter (of "equal toughness") 20% average I guess
...during an adventure (of "about 20 hours length") 40% average
...during a campaign (of "about 2 years play") 80% average

In my games, the players know I play the situation as warrented. If the players make an assumption that the Temple of the Howling God is going to be infested with were-wolves, gnolls and all manner of wolf-like creatures...so be it. When they get there and find out it's actully infested with a savage and semi-intelligent race of bipedal howler monkeys who worship a twisted version of the Aztec fire god Huehueteotl...tough noogies. They aren't prepared for it, go in half-blind, and half of them die...*shrug*.

I am a rather harsh DM. I like to think I am fair, and neutral, and I'm pretty sure I am (been at this DM'ing thing for over three decades and my players tend to stay in my games). I give the players an even break, but I don't coddle them. They are playing adventurers by default, *not* "heroes". The title Hero isn't something a person is born with...not in my games. If they want to be heroic, they have to actually *do* heroic things and *be heroic*.

Bottom line...character death should be 80% likely unless the *player* is smart and a bit lucky.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[LordBill]

The below assumes the charcater will remain dead. Otherwise, the death was not really a death.


Chance of death when characters are not taking real risks:
Encounter 0%
Adventure 1%
Campaign 2%



Chance of death when characters are reckless and or taking great risks for great rewards:

Encounter 1%
Adventure 5%
Campaign 20%

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I enjoy dying at least 6 times per session. I take it like a boss!

 

[Kaodi]

I do not know about actual character death likelihood, but I think it would be great if a system could manage to make you feel like the party was all going to die without it actually happening in fight after fight after fight. Or to put it another way, I would like a high "danger of death" to death ratio.

 

[the Jester]

This is one of those areas where I really hope 5e has a "dial" (call it a "lethality dial").

Some groups don't want anyone to die, evar.

Some groups like it when you die if you do something stupid.

Some groups like capricious high-lethality games.

There's too broad of a range in playstyles for a simple answer to this question to be useful IMHO.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Encounter: 1 in 256
Adventure: 1 in 32
Campaign: 1 in 4

If your average character party is 4 (not 5 dammit!) then I feel that 1 unexpected (non-player-decision) death is acceptable, even interesting. Then I guess I decided that there were 8 adventures per campaign and 8 encounters per adventure.

 

[Doug McCrae]

For my typical campaign style: 50%

I don't want more than about half the PCs to die over the course of a campaign as its highly detrimental throwing away all that built up history and relationships with NPCs.

If I ever try to run an old school campaign: 95%

It's going to be super-deadly, and there may be unexpected jumps in the challenge level when the PCs go to the equivalent of Tomb of Horrors and the like.

As a player I have rather weird preferences - I want my good PCs to live and my evil PCs to die. But rpgs don't work like that.

 

[the Jester]

For my playstyle, assuming a roughly average encounter with the pcs having about average preparation, and assuming that we are talking about the odds of a single character dying, rather than the odds of each specific character dying, and adding the caveat that odds are more than one pc will die over the course of the campaign (and possibly in a single adventure):

Encounter: 5%
Adventure: 33%
Campaign: 95%

So, yeah. We play rough.