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

[CreamCloud0]

Non-mechanical losses don't count for these purposes.

Consider Snakes and Ladders. Hitting a snake is a significant mechanical loss condition,

DND is a narrative game, Snakes and Ladders isn't, it makes sense that only mechanical consequences matter in a mechanical game but why aren’t narrative consequences valid for DND?

 

[tetrasodium]

DND is a narrative game, Snakes and Ladders isn't, it makes sense that only mechanical consequences matter in a mechanical game but why aren’t narrative consequences valid for DND?

D&d might have narrative elements, but it is not a game fitting into a genre label like "narrative game". Those narrative elements are imported bolt ons at best & adding the additional narrative functionality tends to result in a game that quickly stops feeling like d&d where you have terms like rail roading and back seat GM'ing to describe things common in narrative games.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

DND is a narrative game, Snakes and Ladders isn't, it makes sense that only mechanical consequences matter in a mechanical game but why aren’t narrative consequences valid for DND?

They are valid, but they require the GM to carefully craft the fictional situations so that they're present. This is much harder to do, especially consistently and for every fight, than just clear mechanical defeat condition outlined by the rules. That's why narrative defeat conditions cannot be the only defeat conditions for a combat heavy mass market game aimed at participants of varied level of skill and experience. This obviously does not mean narrative defeat conditions should not be present; they should and your game will be better with them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Who is doing this? I certainly haven't been. I have, explicitly and repeatedly, said that I speak only for my own preferences and that I simply want space for my preference to be possible. I'm not the one projecting a hegemonic thing on everyone else.

Your preferences are possible and the new version of the game even added an optional defeated condition to replace death to specifically cater to such preferences. It still of course requires the GM to avoid framing situations where the defeated characters would logically die, and I think that limits quite a bit what sort of encounters and situations you can use, but I don't see a way around that limitation in any "no death" approach.

 

[TwoSix]

Honestly? I think you are heavily jaded. I think if I had the type of mentality and attitude you have about your characters towards mine, I wouldn't even be playing DnD anymore. It wouldn't be worth the effort of trying to find a game and make it work for something I cared so little about.

You enjoy it in your own way, and that's great, but what I'm trying to get across to you is this attitude of "your character doesn't matter. Don't get attached. They will die and you will shrug and make a new one because it doesn't matter" is you being jaded after decades of play, and NOT how the majority of people approach their characters or the game. Go on reddit for even a second and you will be bombarded by artwork of people's DnD characters. The non-artists don't love their characters less, they just have less skill to express it with.

Just to balance it out, while I know @Lanefan and I have very different approaches to our own games, we are entirely in sync on not getting attached to our characters.

That has nothing to do with being jaded, my attitude hasn't changed in that regard in 30 years. I was as unattached to specific characters at age 15 as I am right now.

Characters, for me, have always be fungible toys; costumes to put on at the table for the purposes of playing the game. I enjoy coming up with some interesting backstories for the characters, or thinking about funny things they could do at the next session, but I'm also perfectly happy to push the character into deadly situations just to create an interesting situation at the table.

And I do the same sort of imaginings for important NPCs I make, it helps me to develop a picture to portray them better at the table. But the end is always the same; I'm deepening my picture of the character to make play at the able more responsive (since I understand them better, I can respond more quickly to changing prompts.) But the goal is always better play at the table, because any character is ultimately a tool to that end.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Your preferences are possible and the new version of the game even added an optional defeated condition to replace death to specifically cater to such preferences. It still of course requires the GM to avoid framing situations where the defeated characters would logically die, and I think that limits quite a bit what sort of encounters and situations you can use, but I don't see a way around that limitation in any "no death" approach.

Lanefan is proposing that we remove absolutely all of that, and force every DM to reinvent this wheel on their own. Hence why I phrased it the way I did.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Lanefan is proposing that we remove absolutely all of that, and force every DM to reinvent this wheel on their own. Hence why I phrased it the way I did.

Do they? To me it seems to be just talk about their own preferences, and reasons why they like to do it that way. Granted, it might be worded in somewhat normative manner, but that is something you constantly do as well.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Characters, for me, have always be fungible toys; costumes to put on at the table for the purposes of playing the game.

Characters, for me, are models of nearly-real people that I have breathed life into, like Adam. They are labors of love, carefully thought through, weighing what is effective (meaning "optimization", even though I know many consider that a dirty word), what is interesting (meaning, concepts or ideas that intrigue me, regardless of other concerns), what is beneficial (meaning, does the party need a healer? A tank? A blaster? etc., but also what would spark interaction or provide contrast), and what naturally follows from the fiction (meaning if an idea is jarringly incongruous, it's out, whereas one that fits neatly is desirable unless it's too costly on some other axis).

To treat my fictional characters as nothing more than a limp costume would instantly, and irrevocably, ruin my ability to invest in, play as, or enjoy those characters.

But the goal is always better play at the table, because any character is ultimately a tool to that end.

Sure. That's a lofty goal, worthy of the pursuit.

I cannot fulfill that goal without investing into my characters. I don't have the capacity. I genuinely have to invest into my characters in order to play them better at the table. To disinvest, to emotionally distance myself, would be to play worse at the table.

Do they? To me it seems to be just talk about their own preferences, and reasons why they like to do it that way. Granted, it might be worded in somewhat normative manner, but that is something you constantly do as well.

He specifically spoke of things like "if the designers left well enough alone" and that, in general, without specifically mechanical loss conditions, all achievements are effectively pointless. Oh, and we can't forget the part where he just recently argued that the current state of affairs, meaning so-called "fast" levelling (>3 levels per year of weekly play) and "not ultra-lethal like OSR", is just the player population in general wanting a thing that's actually bad for the game. Perhaps I am misreading, but it absolutely comes across as "this is the only way, every other way is an aberration in whatever it does that isn't this."

I have yet to see Lanefan explicitly say that this is exclusively personal preferences. It has always come across as "the game would be better for all players if it were this way" and I'm far from the only person who has seen this in his posts.

I have, at times, argued that just because something is popular does not mean it is good or wise design. That is emphatically not the same as saying it's definitely bad design, which is what Lanefan specifically intended. Simply saying that popularity does not guarantee quality is a minimal argument, serving only to point out that an appeal to popularity is not a valid argument on its own.

Further, more than once, Lanefan has specifically argued to me, personally, that I should stop having the emotions I have regarding characters. That isn't a "I like my preferences and think they're wonderful" argument; it's a "you should share my preferences, then my way would be obviously right for both of us" argument. Particularly in the context of the other referenced arguments above, where Lanefan either outright said, or heavily implied, that everything would be Just Better if only people would stop doing X (investing in characters from the start, feeling strong emotions about character deaths, wanting a thematically-satisfying conclusion, etc.)

I have never, ever said that folks should stop having the emotions (or lack thereof) they have toward their characters, and have specifically gone out of my way to show examples both of where a standard I have proposed, like the one-way-function analysis, can sometimes point in directions opposite to my preferences. I'm really not sure what more I could say, short of simply surrendering, to make it clear that my goal is to give real, well-built support for as many distinct playstyles as possible under the D&D umbrella. I've beaten this drum enough that it's had to have its head replaced (would that we all could!), but I specifically champion things like "novice levels." I do so despite having negative interest in using them myself, because I believe that that's the best way to support a playstyle I don't personally like but which is reasonably popular and often given short shrift because of other important design goals (like "make early levels newbie-friendly" and "get characters cool powers/resources relatively quickly to excite the players").

 

[TwoSix]

I cannot fulfill that goal without investing into my characters. I don't have the capacity. I genuinely have to invest into my characters in order to play them better at the table. To disinvest, to emotionally distance myself, would be to play worse at the table.

Obviously, such distinctions are profound, and I'm certainly not attempting to impose any sort of normative judgment on anyone's preferences.

But, I would say that a player feeling demonstrably strong emotion at the death of a PC would have a negative effect on the freewheeling gamesmanship that defines the tables I play at.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would say, "because they didn't like it, or it didn't work for them", rather than your, "because they recognized how (objectively?) bad it was". Not sure how you can claim something is just bad like that. Unpopular? Maybe (although I've never seen the value of popularity arguments in this context). But certainly not just "bad" in anything other than a personal sense.

I would say that having such targeted creatures handy in the event you need them is valuable as part of a DM's toolbox, IMO.

I can claim it is bad because it objectively punishes players for doing the thing they are encouraged to do. A ball covered in razors is objectively bad for Football, as it would discourage people from catching and holding the ball.

A monster whose only purpose is to punish listening at doors and information gathering, in a game where that behavior is VITAL to your success, is just objectively a bad monster to use. Especially since the punishment is harsh, and the solution trivial and simply a matter of having thought about worms that burrow out of doors and into your ears ahead of time. Which is not something you should expect, because unlike things like "large spiders" or "sneaky monsters" or "traps" those sort of ear worm monsters are not a common part of fantasy that could be reasonably expected.