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

[Oofta]

I think lots of people actually do do this

I can see it now "This is a really, really bad choice to make but it will make a great story if I survive!"

 

[prabe]

I can see it now "This is a really, really bad choice to make but it will make a great story if I survive!"

Seems like a longer way to say, "Here. Hold my beer."

 

[soviet]

I can see it now "This is a really, really bad choice to make but it will make a great story if I survive!"

That's a good one. I was also thinking a lot of people (possibly all people) are heavily swayed by cultural and familial pressures and their own perception of how they fit in with (or rebel against) them. 'I'm a good son and this is what my duty is'. 'I'm ultimately selfish and I deserve the short term benefit because of what happened to me'.

Also the classic 'this is fate' or 'you get what was meant for you'

 

[dave2008]

From my point of view the story only exists once you start telling it as a story, which can only happen once events have occurred. Until then it is, as Bart Simpson said, "just a bunch of stuff that happened".

But, from my perspective, that is the same thing. It seems to me like you place unnecessary baggage on the word "story." Like it is bad thing. A story is just a bunch of stuff that happens IMO.

 

[Autumnal]

As Stephen King wrote, “This is what happened.” Is the mantra of all story.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But, from my perspective, that is the same thing. It seems to me like you place unnecessary baggage on the word "story." Like it is bad thing. A story is just a bunch of stuff that happens IMO.

It's not a bad thing at all. I love stories more than games, actually. But they are simply not the same thing, and I don't play RPGs because I want to tell a story. I do it because I want to explore and interact with an imaginary world. A story will come out of that, as part of the process, once we have a chance to look back at it and sort it out, but I'm not telling the tale of my PC as I'm playing, at least not deliberately as a story.

 

[Vaalingrade]

As Stephen King wrote, “This is what happened.” Is the mantra of all story.

I mean, there's a reason why movie adaptations of his have a bad reputation, largely due to the endings.

 

[prabe]

I mean, there's a reason why movie adaptations of his have a bad reputation, largely due to the endings.

Actually it's because so many of the movies were made by people who didn't understand the novels and/or the difference between the needs of novels and movies. This plausibly includes the director of Maximum Overdrive.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Actually it's because so many of the movies were made by people who didn't understand the novels and/or the difference between the needs of novels and movies. This plausibly includes the director of Maximum Overdrive.

I got to the middle of this post, opened my mouth to say 'Maximum Overdrive' and you beat me to it.

But really, I make a similar argument all the time when it comes to gaming: while I find the fun in telling collaborative stories, the medium of a game changes what kind of stories work because the characters aren't just something the author can do what they want with, they're something that must be fun for a player to inhabit and make choices for.

That's why I'm not a fan of character death without player buy-in, and I'm also not a fan of stuff like 'I set up a fight to make the players run away and then castigate them for not doing so and treat having your character killed as a punishment and learning opportunity and the reality is for a lot of players... well running away isn't fun and the game... still has to be a game.

 

[Autumnal]

Sooo much agreement, @Vaalingrade - gaming is kind of like a lot of things but not the same as any of them, just as fiction of genres often overlap and share elements, without Naked Lunch, Lonesome Dove, and Blood Meridian being interchangeable.