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

[JediSoth]

How did a thread where nobody is bragging about kill counts result in that being the first thing to pop into your head? Can you point to any posts that you consider to be highlighting kill coiyin ways that meet the badge of honor bar that popped into your head? A few people have mentioned PC deaths at their tables for obviously illustrative reasons related to points being made, but. meat grinder play has really only been raised by the posters who are pushing for no PC deaths ever unless the player chooses to bless it, but that is starkly at odds with games like paranoia and such that you mentioned.

Dude, I've known you for all of a couple of forum posts and I've enjoyed none of it. I'm not about to do homework for you. I've already apologized for offending your sense of right and wrong since my opinions are clearly wrong. I do not wish to continue this conversation with you, if that wasn't clear by my last post.

DROP IT PLEASE.

 

[tetrasodium]

Good to see the attack on strawman kill count bragging for what it was

 

[Chaosmancer]

Again, @Lanefan does not play WotC 5e. You keep attacking his arguments as if you are both playing the same mechanical game.

I am very aware of the game Lanefan runs, as he is aware of the game I run. I am also aware that he has made plenty of statements regarding the state of the current game and his opinions on how it is bad for the health of the game moving forward into the future.

I am not attacking him at all.

 

[Lanefan]

I am very aware of the game Lanefan runs, as he is aware of the game I run. I am also aware that he has made plenty of statements regarding the state of the current game and his opinions on how it is bad for the health of the game moving forward into the future.

I am not attacking him at all.

And even if you are, it doesn't bother me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Clearly, we have - and-or are - different players.

Yes. Obviously.

You've had a fairly consistent group with little change for decades, if memory serves me. I've had dozens of groups over the last few years. My play experience has remained consistent across all of those players, which indicates something about how common the sentiment is.

Like I said before, some abstractions are necessary evils.

I don't care if you call it evil or call bubblegum. The point that it is NECESSARY and that that has consequences for how people conceive of and approach the game is the point. DnD has NEVER operated under a different dynamic since it was codified. HP has been with us the entire time, and it is a design choice that has an effect.

John Wick* and James Bond have plot protection to an extent I'd never want an RPG character to have.

* - I have to assume, having only seen about 15 minutes of one movie.

I don't care if you think of it as plot protection. I'm talking about their attitude, their approach to the conflict. When people decide to emulate these characters, they are not approaching the conflict full of fear. And while you may want them to be fearful, that is not how the majority of people who play the game want to play. The occasional "oh crap this is too much for us" so they can flee, get stronger, and come back to defeat it? Sure. But they do not want to play a game where every single combat fills them with dread and fear unless they have planned a strategy so complete that no dice are needed and no loss is possible. If they DID want to play that game... they wouldn't be playing any version of DnD made in the last 25 years.

I know, and to me that's a major bug rather than a feature - in part also because of the flip side: a single low-level PC isn't a serious threat of any kind to, say, a Hill Giant. What I'd like to see is the "threat range" be much broader; and while 5e is better in this regard than was 3e, there's still a long way to go.

No, it is not a bug. Yes, it is a feature. The entire point of leveling up is to get more powerful, getting more powerful means that things that were potential threats stop being threats.

A single Kobold is only barely a threat for a 1st level character. That is why they are CR 1/8th, they are one of the weakest possible monsters. And, actually, depending on how you approach the fight, and what you mean by low level, a level 3 PC might be able to (with luck, terrain and a great plan) take out a hill giant.

It's the same thing.

If I foreshadow a scythe trap by narrating mysterious bloodstains on the floor near one wall, I've just flat-out told them there's a trap there; and that all they have to do is find and disarm it.

So the only challenge to your traps is the players not paying enough attention to notice them. Beyond that, they are toothless and not a challenge. That doesn't mean you shouldn't foreshadow. That means you need to make better traps. Something as simple as the trigger on one end of the hall, and the mechanism being on the other, while the blades continue slicing which forces the PCs to find a way through the blades is already a far more interesting trap than what you have presented here.

Here we disagree. Whether or not I foreshadow or even outright tell them what the threat is, it's still their choice as to whether they go there and (try to) deal with it; and sometimes the threat will be known or learnable while other times it will be unknown or mysterious.

Of course it is their choice, but you can't make a choice if you are not informed about the choice. IF you don't have enough information to make an informed decision, it isn't a decision, it is random chance disguised as a choice.

And AGAIN, my initial point was that I have seen DMs complaining "I told them it was dangerous, they went anyways and TPK'd, why are players so stupid?" and the solution to that is not to say "this is dangerous" because that is meaningless information. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't even be worth the PCs attention.

To a point, I agree, in that I often play low-Wisdom characters just so I can have them do things that might be contrary to their own self-preservation. A high-Wisdom character, if played true to its stats, wouldn't do such potentially foolhardy things.

And there's a great many stories* where a protagonist's unwise choice(s) is(are) what sets and-or keeps things in motion.

* - starting with every rom-com ever made.

If you want to present the entire source of the gameplay as "not making wise decisions" then you can't critique players for making "unwise decisions". To do so basically says, "the optimal way to play DnD is not to play DnD, because playing DnD involves acting like an idiot."

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. Obviously.

You've had a fairly consistent group with little change for decades, if memory serves me. I've had dozens of groups over the last few years. My play experience has remained consistent across all of those players, which indicates something about how common the sentiment is.

Given that the common denominator in your various groups is you, you might want to look in the mo=irror on this one.

I don't care if you call it evil or call bubblegum. The point that it is NECESSARY and that that has consequences for how people conceive of and approach the game is the point. DnD has NEVER operated under a different dynamic since it was codified. HP has been with us the entire time, and it is a design choice that has an effect.

However, that doesn't mean that abstraction ethos needs to be exported to the rest of the game's design.

I don't care if you think of it as plot protection. I'm talking about their attitude, their approach to the conflict. When people decide to emulate these characters, they are not approaching the conflict full of fear.

Fine. Better than fine, in fact. But they've no reason to complain if-when their characters get killed.

And while you may want them to be fearful, that is not how the majority of people who play the game want to play. The occasional "oh crap this is too much for us" so they can flee, get stronger, and come back to defeat it? Sure. But they do not want to play a game where every single combat fills them with dread and fear unless they have planned a strategy so complete that no dice are needed and no loss is possible. If they DID want to play that game... they wouldn't be playing any version of DnD made in the last 25 years.

That's just it - the last 25 years of D&D design has, in some ways, sucked monkey turds.

No, it is not a bug. Yes, it is a feature. The entire point of leveling up is to get more powerful, getting more powerful means that things that were potential threats stop being threats.

Stop being threats, or merely become less of a threat?

That's the difference here. As an example, using something akin to 3e as the comparitor and rounding off any long-tail decimals, here's what I'd like to see. The first column is character or party level, the second is a party of that level's rough chance in percent to knock off a level-6-appropriate opponent in something like 3e, the third is closer to what I'd like to see:

1 - 0 - 5
2 - 0 - 15
3 - 0 - 30
4 - 5 - 55
5 - 75 - 70
6 - 95 - 85
7 - 100 - 90
8 - 100 - 95
9 - 100 - 99

The third-number sequence represents a much flatter power curve than WotC has ever given us.

A single Kobold is only barely a threat for a 1st level character. That is why they are CR 1/8th, they are one of the weakest possible monsters. And, actually, depending on how you approach the fight, and what you mean by low level, a level 3 PC might be able to (with luck, terrain and a great plan) take out a hill giant.

In RAW 1e or in my system, if said PC had a giant-slayer sword and a lot of luck, sure. In 5e, I'd believe this only after I'd seen it - maybe.

So the only challenge to your traps is the players not paying enough attention to notice them. Beyond that, they are toothless and not a challenge. That doesn't mean you shouldn't foreshadow. That means you need to make better traps. Something as simple as the trigger on one end of the hall, and the mechanism being on the other, while the blades continue slicing which forces the PCs to find a way through the blades is already a far more interesting trap than what you have presented here.

My favourites are the traps where the trigger is here but the effect happens somewhere or sometime else entirely.

And AGAIN, my initial point was that I have seen DMs complaining "I told them it was dangerous, they went anyways and TPK'd, why are players so stupid?" and the solution to that is not to say "this is dangerous" because that is meaningless information. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't even be worth the PCs attention.

And my point is that "This is dangerous" can (and realistically will) encompass a huge great variety of situations and it's on the PCs/players to narrow it down from there by seeking further info before standing in.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Given that the common denominator in your various groups is you, you might want to look in the mo=irror on this one.

Looked in the mirror. Determined that I did not cause the car accident in England that nearly killed one of my players. Determined I did not give my close friend's Grandmother-in-law Alzheimers, nor did I get his wife pregnant with two children, nor did I alter his career or relationship in a way that we drifted apart. Determined I did not cause another player to move to Texas to pursue his career. Determined I did not alter the laws of my state, driving two close friends to flee the state out of fear for their safety. Determined I did not cause my friend to leave a job he hated and end up on a schedule that forced him to drop the group.

I might be responsible for deciding to run at a High school where I temporarily worked, but not meeting with teenagers outside the school in violation of the policies of the profession. That could be my bad. Could also be responsible for deciding to run at college, where we intentionally allowed ourselves to be open to new, incoming people, so the groups shifted every year pretty regularly, I could be at fault for going with the guild policy of being open to new people, and understanding that people were coming from out of state and had to go back home.

Oh right, none of this was about whether or not I'm a horrid person who drives away anyone who could possibly call a friend, left desperately clinging to online relationships as my only connections to people. This was about the fact that I've met a wider section of the gaming audience than you have. But thanks for bringing that all up as a smokescreen and strawman about my point. Real feel good moment for me to mentally go back over all the friends I've lost.

However, that doesn't mean that abstraction ethos needs to be exported to the rest of the game's design.

Still has not a single thing to do with my point. You might as well be talking the price of eel.

Fine. Better than fine, in fact. But they've no reason to complain if-when their characters get killed.

Right, because you believe in "teaching people a lesson" instead of even considering meeting them halfway. Or in acknowledging how the game actually functions in such a way that a dagger to the throat isn't actually a deadly threat unless you homebrew it to be so.

That's just it - the last 25 years of D&D design has, in some ways, sucked monkey turds.

That is fine as your opinion, but two of those game design ethos's have been the most popular DnD has ever become. Pathfinder EXISTS because of 3.5 to the point people called it 3.75

You can not like the game design, and that is perfectly fine, but considering how it has shaped the MAJORITY of the TTRPG community and games? You can't say your opinion is objectively correct.

Stop being threats, or merely become less of a threat?

That's the difference here. As an example, using something akin to 3e as the comparitor and rounding off any long-tail decimals, here's what I'd like to see. The first column is character or party level, the second is a party of that level's rough chance in percent to knock off a level-6-appropriate opponent in something like 3e, the third is closer to what I'd like to see:

1 - 0 - 5
2 - 0 - 15
3 - 0 - 30
4 - 5 - 55
5 - 75 - 70
6 - 95 - 85
7 - 100 - 90
8 - 100 - 95
9 - 100 - 99

The third-number sequence represents a much flatter power curve than WotC has ever given us.

You realize those numbers are largely meaningless, correct? "Level 6" is a meaningless thing. It means what we want it to mean. You could make level 6 capable of destroying mountains, and still have your chart have that flatter power curve. But what you wouldn't have is people more like commoners. Because that is ENTIRELY separate.

And even back in the days of 1st and 2nd edition... PCs killed gods. From the very very beginning, PCs could be god killers, with power equal to the gods. Now you are going to say that was very high level... but expand your chart out. You either need to weaken the gods and their foes... or basically cut off that traditional part of play and say it is impossible.

And NONE of this alters what IS. The game is not this, I will agree with you on that, so when talking about people who like the game as it is, play the game as it is, and how things should be approached with people who enjoy playing the game as it is.... whether or not you would prefer the game to be different really doesn't apply.

In RAW 1e or in my system, if said PC had a giant-slayer sword and a lot of luck, sure. In 5e, I'd believe this only after I'd seen it - maybe.

Rogue cunning action with plenty of terrain. Giant has low wisdom, so low chance of spotting the, Hill Giant is stupid, so might not be able to come up with a counter plan. Rogue peppers them with shots until they die.

Any spellcaster, with the correct terrain and the right spells could potentially cause massive damage by taking advantage of hazards, auto-hits, and some potential spell/ability combos (Flaming sphere + Druid Wildshaping into a small crevasse comes to mind)

Funny how you were the one limiting yourself to "Stand in front of it and hit with sword"

And my point is that "This is dangerous" can (and realistically will) encompass a huge great variety of situations and it's on the PCs/players to narrow it down from there by seeking further info before standing in.

To find out something was dangerous, wouldn't they ALREADY be seeking information? Why should they have to seek out information that a place exists and is dangerous, then seek out even more information to narrow down the danger? Should they then be required to seek out EVEN MORE information to make sure the areas around the dangerous area aren't dangerous? Leading to them seeking out EVEN MORE information...

And some point, they have sought out information, and you as the DM need to give them something useful. Not "well, I've decided that the threat here is too careful to ever leave any clues to its real nature, so the players have no idea what they are really walking into" because at that point they literally stand no chance, and after you stand no chance enough times? You stop bothering. If putting in effort and not putting in effort give you the same result... what's the point of trying?

 

[pemerton]

To me, the notion of a module with a pre-established "end of campaign enemy" does sound very much like a railroad.

could you elaborate on your reasons why you think this? i mean, i assume that playing most any module comes with a certain level of assumed goals and expected story beats simply because that's how a module works, it's a prewritten story outline, the supporting skeleton of events, it expects some level of buy-in to using the stuff it's going to present otherwise why are you even playing it in the first place?

What you describe - a certain level of assumed goals and expected story beats, a pre-written story outline - is what I am calling a railroad. Because the pattern of events is pre-written (ie pre-determined).

I personally have found other ways of using pre-written material. For instance, what is pre-written might be a framing but not a resolution. I've posted about this in other threads - eg [urk=[URL]https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpging-and-imagination-a-fundamental-point.701162/post-9230692]here[/url[/URL]].

however, IMO the most 'important' defining factor of what qualifies a railroad is not that the skeleton exists but that you are entirely unable to deviate from it in any way that matters, that your choices and actions have no influence, not that some things are already decided to exist but that anything the players do has no chance of affecting the outcome from a pre-scripted chain of events, if no diplomacy with the knight would ever change anything about their goals, their alligance, their methods. if they could not ally with other factions to help take him down together everyone responds with 'that's not our problem' or 'we have no aid to lend', if the players had genuinely decided 'F this', left the continent and the knight still showed up as their final battle or they had been prevented from leaving in the first place yeah those would be railroading.

I'm not sure how you reconcile the players saying "F this" with the players "buying in" - I often see posers who are into module/AP-style RPGing describe that sort of thing as bad play done by problem players.

But anyway, if there is a pre-scripted chain of events there must, by definition, be fairly strict limits on the outcomes of the earlier events, or otherwise the later events won't follow.

is it a railroad that frodo gets flashes of sauron before he even properly accepts to be the ringbearer at the rivendell(?) council?

is it a railroad that luke encounters vader in a new hope long before he finally defeats him in return of the jedi?
(i know these media aren't TTRPGs where you have total free will but i feel the point stands)

These are not episodes of RPGing, so the concept of "railroading" doesn't really apply.

Let's put it another way: who gets to decide that the main concern of a PC will be resolving a cursed heirloom? And who gets to decide what the resolution might consist in? If the GM is deciding all this stuff, then the game to me looks like a railroad.

 

[Oofta]

What you describe - a certain level of assumed goals and expected story beats, a pre-written story outline - is what I am calling a railroad. Because the pattern of events is pre-written (ie pre-determined).

I personally have found other ways of using pre-written material. For instance, what is pre-written might be a framing but not a resolution. I've posted about this in other threads - eg [urk=[URL]https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpging-and-imagination-a-fundamental-point.701162/post-9230692]here[/url[/URL]].

I'm not sure how you reconcile the players saying "F this" with the players "buying in" - I often see posers who are into module/AP-style RPGing describe that sort of thing as bad play done by problem players.

But anyway, if there is a pre-scripted chain of events there must, by definition, be fairly strict limits on the outcomes of the earlier events, or otherwise the later events won't follow.

These are not episodes of RPGing, so the concept of "railroading" doesn't really apply.

Let's put it another way: who gets to decide that the main concern of a PC will be resolving a cursed heirloom? And who gets to decide what the resolution might consist in? If the GM is deciding all this stuff, then the game to me looks like a railroad.

Your definition of railroad is far, far broader than most people's definition. A campaign can be linear and give PCs autonomy on approach while still having a clear default outline. If I'm playing Curse of Strahd, I may have multiple ways of approaching the campaign but when I agreed to play the game I knew what I was signing up for and that there would be certain aspects of the game predefined.

There may be a fine line between a linear campaign and a railroad at times, but saying that a DM's campaign is a railroad is one of the most negative things you can say about a DM and rightfully so. But defining railroad too broadly like you do and it becomes you stating a one-true-way to run games, not a useful descriptor of a style of game DMing to avoid.

 

[Yaarel]

Relating to the original post.

I prefer a game where deaths are theoretically possible, and danger is real, but actual deaths are rare if they happen at all.

If a character does die, the players can figure out some way to resurrect the character − as part of the adventure story.