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

How Often Should PC Death Happen in a D&D 5e Campaign?

  • I prefer a game where a character death happens about once every 12-14 levels

    Votes: 0 0.0%

Coming in at page 172 of a discussion about character death and finding people talking about the British prime minister is almost surreal.
A poster upthread - @EzekielRaiden - introduced it as an ostensible example of the difference between rules and expectations/understandings.

Their posts about this particular topic demonstrated various misunderstandings about it. As someone who (i) is a little bit personally invested in it, given I am an Australian living in Australia, and (ii) who is professionally extremely invested in it, given that I am an academic in a law school who researches on issues in Australian and (less often) British constitutional law, I felt obliged to correct the record!
 

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Religion/politics
A poster upthread - @EzekielRaiden - introduced it as an ostensible example of the difference between rules and expectations/understandings.

Their posts about this particular topic demonstrated various misunderstandings about it. As someone who (i) is a little bit personally invested in it, given I am an Australian living in Australia, and (ii) who is professionally extremely invested in it, given that I am an academic in a law school who researches on issues in Australian and (less often) British constitutional law, I felt obliged to correct the record!
I'm just not sure how I should understand things like this BBC article showing pro-republican political groups being outraged over "royal consent", which technically is distinct from Royal Assent but functions more or less the same, as a denial of royal consent is also functionally a royal veto. It's explicit here that (a) royal consent being applied only under advice of ministers is a matter of convention, not law, and (b) this degree of involvement (which some called totally unacceptable interference by the royal family, either the Queen or the then-Prince) can in fact function as a veto.

Like...this is perfectly in keeping with the laws of the UK, and at least in principle any Commonwealth nation that has not abolished the monarchy. It's also seen as horrifically offensive to some folks, as a breach of the non-interference convention regarding the monarch, but (AFAIK) it is still true to the laws of the UK, which would need to actually be changed in order to forbid this practice.

If so many places, including the BBC, claim that the monarch could deny actual Royal Assent, and has denied royal consent, why is it actually a matter of law that they cannot?

Hell, the Parliament itself says that this still could, theoretically, happen. Emphasis added: "Royal Assent is the Monarch's agreement that is required to make a Bill into an Act of Parliament. While the Monarch has the right to refuse Royal Assent, nowadays this does not happen; the last such occasion was in 1708, and Royal Assent is regarded today as a formality."
 

I'm just not sure how I should understand things like this BBC article showing pro-republican political groups being outraged over "royal consent", which technically is distinct from Royal Assent but functions more or less the same, as a denial of royal consent is also functionally a royal veto. It's explicit here that (a) royal consent being applied only under advice of ministers is a matter of convention, not law, and (b) this degree of involvement (which some called totally unacceptable interference by the royal family, either the Queen or the then-Prince) can in fact function as a veto.
The thing to look at is not whether it can function as a veto but instead how long it has been since it last in fact did.

I'm no historian and thus could easily have missed something, but I don't know of royal assent ever being denied in Canada at either the federal or provincial level. Thus, it's a non-issue.
 

The thing to look at is not whether it can function as a veto but instead how long it has been since it last in fact did.

I'm no historian and thus could easily have missed something, but I don't know of royal assent ever being denied in Canada at either the federal or provincial level. Thus, it's a non-issue.
Yes, it is a non-issue.

By convention. Which was my whole point.

As for when Royal Assent has been denied in Canada, that's easy: Lieutenant Governors (those who exercise the monarch's authority within the individual provinces, not at the federal level) have denied it in an individual province 90 times, the most recent in 1961 in Saskatchewan by Frank Lindsay Bastedo, referring the bill to the federal Parliament, which approved Bill 56 (An Act to Provide for the Alteration of Certain Mineral Contracts). Notably, royal assent was not granted despite Bastedo's advisors advising him to grant it, meaning that even the "on the advice of ministers" type things had no limitation on this. Bastedo was not, as far as I can tell, subject to any particular punishment or loss of political influence as a result, as he continued to serve in the office for two years after this.

Furthermore, this process is entirely legal; in the 1930s, when the "Social Credit" party took power in Alberta, two different Lieutenant Governors exercised the right to withhold ("reserve") royal assent to bills, which was appealed to the Supreme Court and upheld on the grounds that the bills were unconstitutional. Something on the order of half a dozen bills were thus functionally vetoed by the Lieutenant Governors of Alberta reserving royal assent.

This power has never been used at the federal level in Canada, but legally it does exist. Per the Constitution Act 1867, section 55, the Governor General of Canada "shall declare, according to his Discretion, but subject to the Provisions of this Act and to Her Majesty's Instructions, either that he assents thereto in the Queen's Name, or that he withholds the Queen's Assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the Signification of the Queen's Pleasure." This power has never been amended nor removed, but conventions dictate that it essentially can't be used. Legally, the power is still there--it's literally in the explicit law of the land for Canada. It's just that no reasonable person who managed to get the office of Governor General would ever use it, except in the most extreme and dire situations where using it would seem to be the lesser abrogation of democracy, which is the reason why various Lieutenant Governors have reserved royal assent to provincial bills.
 
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I don't personally know the history of the ear-seeker as a monster.

But to me it seems to resemble a host of other monsters that make no sense except as part of a dungeoneering "arms race" between GM and players. Trappers, mimics, lurkers above, piercers, many of the moulds and jellies, gelatinous cubes, rot grubs, etc are all in this category. As I've already posted, I think it is a weakness of classic D&D to include all these monsters in the monster roster without any discussion of their rationale, how and why they were invented, etc.

Being used in the appropriate context makes them no more degenerate than covered pits are. The latter are easily defeated/circumvented by prodding with a pole. So they are fun/interesting/challenging once or twice, but then lose their charm. Ear seekers or rot grubs are much the same: they are rather easily defeated/circumvented by inspection, use of mesh-covered ear trumpets, etc. So after the first one or two times they also lose their charm.

What this really brings home, to me, is that the replay value of simple dungeoneering, in D&D, is not all that high. Gygax himself seems to have recognised this, in his DMG discussions of the level at which experienced players should start the game (p 111).

Where I see a big difference between a covered pit trap and the ear-seeker is in the genre conventions. Collapsing floors, trip wires, and just traps in general are all major parts of the adventure genre. Heck, you see some of that in war movies and various action films as well. I could picture many characters inspecting a floor to avoid a trap. Doesn't even need to be a 10 ft pole.

The Ear-Seeker, if it has any precedence, is so niche that no one remembers it. It can ONLY be countered by the mesh-covered ear trumpet, and you basically never see the like of it, except in one type of scenario. Either a victim in a horror movie getting a sharp object impaled into them from being too close to the door, or a hapless goon being shot or stabbed by the deadly bad-ass hero in a John Wick style action movie. And even that isn't a perfect analogue, because the Ear Seeker is no longer a threat after killing someone, unlike the horror slasher or action hero.
 

Yes, it is a non-issue.

By convention. Which was my whole point.

As for when Royal Assent has been denied in Canada, that's easy: Lieutenant Governors (those who exercise the monarch's authority within the individual provinces, not at the federal level) have denied it in an individual province 90 times, the most recent in 1961 in Saskatchewan by Frank Lindsay Bastedo,
So, depending on exactly when in 1961 this occurred, I can maybe say it hasn't happened in my lifetime.

Sounds like "non-issue" to me.

As for how this translates back to RPGing, I've forgotten the context in which this rule-vs-convention discussion arose.
 

So, depending on exactly when in 1961 this occurred, I can maybe say it hasn't happened in my lifetime.
And? Just because it doesn't happen doesn't mean it's not a legal power that exists. It's just a legal power that would be unwise to invoke unnecessarily. There are many powers (such as the ability to remove a sitting US President or Supreme Court justice) which exist, but have never actually been exercised. Likewise, there are conventions which have held for decades or centuries, but which could be violated.

Consider, for example, the convention set by George Washington, that no person would serve more than two terms as President of the United States. No one violated this convention until Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. And when he did, what happened? The convention became law: the 22nd Amendment. If long-held conventions were identical to rules, there would have been no need to make the 22nd Amendment.

Sounds like "non-issue" to me.

As for how this translates back to RPGing, I've forgotten the context in which this rule-vs-convention discussion arose.
Someone had said that rules and long-held conventions are identical. I disagreed. I used real-world examples to show how conventions are strong, but weaker than laws/rules.

Conventions can be powerful tools, and they serve a valuable purpose. But they aren't rules.
 

Religion/politics
I'm just not sure how I should understand things like this BBC article showing pro-republican political groups being outraged over "royal consent", which technically is distinct from Royal Assent but functions more or less the same, as a denial of royal consent is also functionally a royal veto. It's explicit here that (a) royal consent being applied only under advice of ministers is a matter of convention, not law, and (b) this degree of involvement (which some called totally unacceptable interference by the royal family, either the Queen or the then-Prince) can in fact function as a veto.
Here is a quote from that article:

It shows that the Queen was asked to approve changes to child maintenance in 2007, national insurance in 2004 and paternity pay in 2006 because they would apply to employees of the Royal Households and the "interests of the crown" were likely to be affected.

Legislation introducing tuition fees in 2004 required approval because of the Crown's historical role as a visitor of universities while a bill legalising civil partnerships needed consent because of a declaration on its validity which "would bind Her Majesty".​

This is about the ability of the monarch to govern their own affairs. It is not about general law-making.

You'll also note that the article reports the Cabinet Office stating that "consent had only ever been refused on ministers' advice and never for a government bill". The claim by the republicans that "This is clearly more than a formality. It is hard to believe the palace's claim that consent is only withheld on the instruction of ministers" is mere assertion. Personally, I trust the Cabinet Office.

As for the relationship between convention and law, in circumstances where you're not very familiar with it, I'd suggest that you don't rely too heavily on it to set out your own ideas about RPGing. I already posted, upthread, that the leading Australian textbook takes the position that much of what traditionally, in the UK, would be regarded as convention is, in Australia, law. Even in the context of the UK, articulating the difference between law and convention is non-trivial, and relies on particular features of the common law, parliamentary law-making by way of statute, and justiciability - and also on the distinctive British jurisprudential tradition of Bentham, Austin and Dicey - which do not necessarily generalise to other legal systems and have (in my view) little applicability to the analysis of game rules.

For instance, it is well-known that breaches of convention are in general not justiciable (sometimes they are, at least in an indirect fashion) and hence will not attract a court-ordered sanction. But what is the relationship between a rule being a law and a rule being enforceable by court-ordered sanction? This is not a trivial question; but it is also irrelevant to the analysis of RPGing.

Like...this is perfectly in keeping with the laws of the UK, and at least in principle any Commonwealth nation that has not abolished the monarchy.
I am an expert on the Australian Constitution. I have taught constitutional law. I am a published scholar in the field. My expert opinion has been sought by lawmakers and by journalists. What you say is not correct, in principle or otherwise. Have you consulted Stellios and Zines? If you haven't, then you are not in a position to comment on Australia.

It's also seen as horrifically offensive to some folks, as a breach of the non-interference convention regarding the monarch, but (AFAIK) it is still true to the laws of the UK, which would need to actually be changed in order to forbid this practice.
What would that even mean? Have you read the fox-hunting case, discussing the constitutional standing, in the UK, of the Parliament Acts? Have you read the prorogation case?

To me, you seem to have a more-or-less Wikipedia-level grasp of the relevant issues. But no more.

For instance, how would Parliament go about abolishing the need for Royal Assent, if the monarch were not prepared to assent to such a Bill?

Hell, the Parliament itself says that this still could, theoretically, happen. Emphasis added: "Royal Assent is the Monarch's agreement that is required to make a Bill into an Act of Parliament. While the Monarch has the right to refuse Royal Assent, nowadays this does not happen; the last such occasion was in 1708, and Royal Assent is regarded today as a formality."
What does "right" mean in this sentence? And how do you reconcile "does not happen" with "could happen"?

There are answers to these questions, but nothing that you have posted suggests that you are familiar with them. They are complex, and involve difficult questions of jurisprudence, of legal and political history, and of judicial practice.

If so many places, including the BBC, claim that the monarch could deny actual Royal Assent, and has denied royal consent, why is it actually a matter of law that they cannot?
All you are doing here is reiterating a mid-level undergraduate account of the distinction between law and convention. But you are doing so in a way that fails to convey an accurate understanding of the details of the constitution, the way that it operates, etc.

I mean, the US army clearly has sufficient fire-power to kill any judge that it wishes to, to fight off any police officers that it wishes to, etc. Yet - at least as I understand things - the US army routinely confirms to judicial orders given against it. Why? To say "because it's the law" is no answer at all - parallel laws operate in many jurisdictions, but they don't stop the armies in those jurisdictions from staging coups etc.

One answer is "convention" and "expectation". This answer is richly developed in the work of Martin Krygier.

How, then, does the US constitutional framework ultimately differ from that of the UK? That is a tricky question. A sceptical answer is given in the essay "Can there be a written constitution?" by John Gardner. Other answers are also possible.

But none of this matters to the play of RPGs, or the ways that their rules work.
 

As a player, I don't ever want my character to die, but I want the fear that it might happen. The fear generates suspense and excitement but an actual character death is just disappointing.

As a Dungeon Master, I only want (and want is not the right word) one maybe two character deaths per campaign. But like above, I want the players to have the fear that their characters might be slain in any given encounter. My reasoning is that as DM I put a lot of effort into making sure that the characters fit into the campaign, learn the secrets and lore of what is happening...etc, and character deaths stymie that. Especially if multiple characters die at once. I'd rather the players enjoy the game but have a fear that something might happen to their heroes.
 

As a player, I don't ever want my character to die, but I want the fear that it might happen. The fear generates suspense and excitement but an actual character death is just disappointing.

As a Dungeon Master, I only want (and want is not the right word) one maybe two character deaths per campaign. But like above, I want the players to have the fear that their characters might be slain in any given encounter. My reasoning is that as DM I put a lot of effort into making sure that the characters fit into the campaign, learn the secrets and lore of what is happening...etc, and character deaths stymie that. Especially if multiple characters die at once. I'd rather the players enjoy the game but have a fear that something might happen to their heroes.
That all sounds fine, but how can you have that fear, that threat, if it is never backed up because death is "disappointing"? I don't see a way for the fear of death to work if actual death can't.
 

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