D&D General How Often Should a PC Die in D&D 5e?

[Lanefan]

"Not what I like" =/= "Massive Flaws in the design"

And they aren't making a superhero game. They are making a High Fantasy game. The sort of game where the main character might be the avatar of a god who does battle for the fate of the universe (Eddings).

And even he starts out as a farmboy, albeit a farmboy watched over by one overpowered NPC and mentored by another.

A better example from the same series is Durnik, who starts out as a simple smith and largely remains so (though still slowly gaining "levels" as he goes along) while running with all sorts of high-powered types.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, he can! Like that's literally a thing the UK monarch can actually do!

It's just that if he ever did so, Parliament would almost certainly near-immediately strip the royal family of anything resembling influence or authority that it still might have. The power remains without being officially stripped away because there is a gentleperson's agreement that it will almost never, but not quite absolutely never, actually be used.

This isn't quite right.

The King is a part of the Parliament - and so if the King purported to dismiss a PM who enjoys the confidence of the House of Commons, presumably he would also refuse to grant royal assent to a Bill declaring the UK a republic. (Or anything similar.)

So if the Parliament was prepared to take the revolutionary step of appointing a new King (as happened in the late 17th century) to then assent to its Bill, or the even more revolutionary step of declaring a republic, presumably it would likewise disregard the King's dismissal of the PM. Which would be sufficient, I think, to show that the King did not enjoy the power to dismiss the PM.

There is no normative force here, nothing binding that prevents it. There is, however, a consequence for choosing to break the convention against doing that thing. But, to give an actual, concrete example: conventionally, anything that Parliament passes as law will be given "royal assent". In essentially all cases, this is a mere formality, a convention preserved because of the arcane way that English law crystallized out of the previous pure-autocrat system that had previously existed. (Hence where we get ridiculous, but legally essential, concepts like "the Crown-in-Parliament"--because technically speaking, it is still the Crown that has the right to legislate, it's just that "the Crown" is not actually the person of the monarch, but the legal framework surrounding how laws are created.)

Thing is...nothing actually forces the monarch to give royal assent. At any time, for any reason or no reason at all, the monarch could deny royal assent, which, completely legally, prevents that law from coming into effect. It is, effectively, an absolute veto power. No part of English law prevents this and while it would be a flagrant violation of custom, no actual penalty or punishment arises from that act.

None of this is very accurate. For instance, if you were correct than the recent prorogation case would be wrongly decided. But I think that case is rightly decided; and even those who deny that it is rightly decided don't do so on the basis that the Crown enjoys a unilateral power to act independently of advice. QED.

 

[pemerton]

Isn't that what common law is?

No. Common law is binding judge-made law.

 

[pemerton]

As a side note on this, I was recently watching a short from a UK Youtuber who was talking about Royal Assent. Turns out, at least during the time of Queen Elizabeth II, advisors from both the Prime Minister and the Royal Family would meet constantly to discuss upcoming laws to ensure that the Queen was not inclined to deny them Royal Assent.

Meaning that while nothing was ever denied... that was because intentionally nothing was ever proposed that would be denied. Whether that was because the PM pressured the Queen, the Queen pressured the PM, or BOTH, I find irrelevant.

I don't know how this fits into the discussion, I've been skimming this, but I thought it was a neat fact.

I think the film you have watched has given you a misleading impression of how constitutional monarchy works in the UK.

 

[pemerton]

This prerogative of the Crown remains in existence. As an example, the Governors-General of various Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, also feature this quirk of law, because each Governor-General acts on behalf of the Crown, and thus--legally, literally, per the letter of the law in those countries--retains the right to absolute veto. A Governor-General using this power would be somewhat less scandalous, but still would very likely have negative consequences.

Same thing goes for Parliament itself with its "absolute sovereignty" concept. Parliament's sovereignty in the UK is truly absolute. It can write whatever laws it wants, even laws that are impossible to enforce or impossible to comply with. If Parliament wished to, it could abolish elections tomorrow and rule as an oligarchy. If Parliament wished to, it could declare that all persons must wear pants with legs that are shorter than one foot long and longer than two feet long, even though it is logically (and physically) impossible for any pair of pants to meet that requirement. Nothing--not even Parliament itself--can limit the scope of Parliament's legislation, and UK courts functionally cannot declare any Parliamentary law unconstitutional. (Note that I did not say literally cannot; there are contexts where it is possible, but they're exceedingly narrow.) Per the rulings of Lord James Reid in 1965:

"It is often said that it would be unconstitutional for the United Kingdom Parliament to do certain things, meaning that the moral, political and other reasons against doing them are so strong that most people would regard it as highly improper if Parliament did these things. But that does not mean that it is beyond the power of Parliament to do such things. If Parliament chose to do any of them, the courts would not hold the Act of Parliament invalid."

Most of this is not very accurate.

On the possibility of legislation being found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the UK, consider this blog by Adam Tucker: Adam Tucker: The Rwanda Policy, Legal Fiction(s), and Parliament’s Legislative Authority

One doesn't have to go all the way with common law constitutionalists to reach conclusions about the scope of judicial review in the UK that are different from what you state in your post.

The Parliament of the UK also clearly can limit its own legislative authority, at least as far as implied repeal is concerned. This is illustrated by the European Communities Act and Factortame - Jeffrey Goldsworthy has what is probably the best account of how this possibility is to be reconciled with traditional accounts of parliamentary sovereignty.

As to the situation in Australia, the legal character of the Governor-General's obligation to act on advice - except when exercising reserve powers - is a matter of dispute. The leading textbook, which is Zine and Stellios's The High Court and the Constitution, defends the view that at least some of these matters which historically been taken to be matters of convention are really matters of law. (That is not the same thing as saying that they are justiciable, although even then I think there may be reasonable arguments either way as to whether, eg, the High Court of Australia would issue an injunction to restrain the Governor-General appointing a minority leader Prime Minister after an election.)

And when you say that a unilateral veto of legislation by the Governor-General would be "slightly less scandalous", that is utterly wrong. In fact it would precipitate a constitutional crisis, although one that would likely be easily resolved: the Prime Minister would advise the King to dismiss the Governor-General, and then whoever those powers were then vested in (a new Governor-General, or an acting Governor-General) would assent to the legislation at issue.

In this context, it's also worth noting that in Australia the "Medevac" legislation that was enacted despite government opposition, because the government temporarily lost control of the House of Representatives, was assented to. In the UK, there was debate around whether the government might advise Her Majesty not to assent to legislation that had been enacted in similar circumstances (ie when the government had lost control of the House of Commons), but the government did not end up precipitating that particular constitutional crisis (Brexit having already given rise to sufficiently many of those). So describing the principles around Royal Assent as a "gentelman's agreement" is completely wrong, not to mention quite misleading.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But caring about them doesn't naturally lead to, "so they can't die unless I decide it's ok".

Obviously.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh, absolutely not. If that were true, we'd still have suffrage limited to property-owning white men.

That a complete non sequitur. We are talking about language, usage of words. Basically everyone thinks that D&D has rules despite the GM being able to override them. If you think those are actually not rules, it is you who is wrong.

And my argument is that the books are wrong. "The books disagree!" is not a useful rebuttal to "The books are wrong."

What does this mean? It is not wrong, it is not a printing error, they obviously meant to write those things. You might not like it, and you can houserule it for your own game (ironically perfectly within the rules by the rule you want to eliminate,) but it doesn't make the rule "wrong."

It literally is, as in it actually is true that, legally, the monarch is not required to give royal assent and, legally, cannot be compelled to do so. Just because they choose not to use the power--due to knowing that the consequences would be dire--does not mean the power doesn't exist.

What you mean is not "literally". It is "practically." Because in practice a veto by denial of royal assent would be political suicide for the monarch.

I said what I meant by literally, and that was not "legally" and it definitely was not "theoretically," it was "in actuality." King having such power is polite fiction, it is not a power they can actually use.

Yes: in practice. But what is in practice is not what is literally true of the law. Practices are rarely written down. Laws, and rules, are written down or rehearsed or otherwise formally established. That's part of what makes them laws or rules.

Except there can be unwritten laws and rules that are just agreed upon verbally. Conventions and practices can also be written down. These theoretical distinctions you try to make are not as clear cut as you think, and many times in practice do not matter.

EDIT: But I regret mentioning the UK political setup, as whilst an interesting subject, is not exactly fall within the remit of this forum, so perhaps it would be best to direct further discussion towards RPG rules?

I appreciate your effort to provide advice, but it is unlikely that I will apply it.

I am not particularly surprised.

 

[GobHag]

Here's my opinion on what the general D&D player populace wants: The world/game should be depicted as if they can die 60-70% chance of the time but in actuality the chances of dying without the player's explicit or implicit decision is 0%.

It is an admission and allowance for the GM to lie, 'just' make it non-obvious. Victory is assured but both the players and DMs are hopefully kayfabing enough so that both can have a fig leaf of realism.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's my opinion on what the general D&D player populace wants: The world/game should be depicted as if they can die 60-70% chance of the time but in actuality the chances of dying without the player's explicit or implicit decision is 0%.

It is an admission and allowance for the GM to lie, 'just' make it non-obvious. Victory is assured but both the players and DMs are hopefully kayfabing enough so that both can have a fig leaf of realism.

And then, if the above is true re what the general playing populate wants, the question becomes whether this is a "be careful what you wish for" situation; where what they want ends up being bad for the game/hobby as a whole in the long run.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

And then, if the above is true re what the general playing populate wants, the question becomes whether this is a "be careful what you wish for" situation; where what they want ends up being bad for the game/hobby as a whole in the long run.

A bit of an overstatement, my friend. Session zero sets the stage for how a group wants to play. That’s where explicit permission is obtained from players to have their PC potentially die. Just b/c PC death is no longer the “default” doesn’t mean the sky is falling.

That said, I can’t imagine playing D&D without PC death as a possibility. But if some/many tables want to play where it is not, they can have at it. As long as books are selling, it’s good for the hobby, IMO.