D&D General If not death, then what?

[EzekielRaiden]

For the bolded part.
Good! Me neither.
But I am not going out of my way to save it either. It is exactly because there are risks involved in my games that my players play with me.

I don't understand this response.

If I tell players, "I will not take away your character unless you're okay with that," that cannot mean anything other than that that event won't happen. You will not lose your character, ever, unless that's what you want. Everything else is fair play. The people you love? The locations you call "home"? The signature items you rely on? The class features you exploit ruthlessly? The factions you favor? The villains you love to stymie? All of them, every last one, can be turned against you or taken away from you (whatever is relevant), and you may never be able to un-do the damage. Maybe you die on the way to stopping the Big Bad, and the party takes a day to save your butt. That's a day the Big Bad has just used to get stronger, or kill someone you love, or destroy a resource you were relying on acquiring, or, or, or.

Who knows what might happen? There could be all sorts of horrible and non-fixable problems that result from you dying and then coming back later. Learning how to address those problems or finding a way to start the healing could be a new adventure, but sometimes there is no fixing it. Sometimes a person you loved is just Dead Forever, and you'd better believe I'm going to milk that for all the pathos and grief that it's worth.

But the one thing I won't take away is the character you brought to the table. As long as you want to keep playing that character, you can. You may pay hefty prices. You may have to work with your enemies or compromise your moral stances or do things you absolutely hate doing. But it will always be possible to choose to keep going with that character if you really want to.

Death is rare enough that I haven't seen anyone who decided "I would keep going but the prices have grown too high, so I guess that's the end," but it is part of it.

For those who like the whole "responsibility" and "you earned this result" etc. logic, I pose for you a poker parallel. Why is poker still exciting or worth playing, if you cannot be ejected from the game due to a random card forcing you to fold? Because that's exactly what people are saying here. That the only way a game can be enjoyed for the stakes is when there's a "you have lost, quit playing or wait for the next deal" card. Why is poker, or chess, or any of a number of other games, still a thrilling experience despite your ability to keep playing not being put on the chopping block?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't understand this response.

If I tell players, "I will not take away your character unless you're okay with that," that cannot mean anything other than that that event won't happen. You will not lose your character, ever, unless that's what you want. Everything else is fair play. The people you love? The locations you call "home"? The signature items you rely on? The class features you exploit ruthlessly? The factions you favor? The villains you love to stymie? All of them, every last one, can be turned against you or taken away from you (whatever is relevant), and you may never be able to un-do the damage. Maybe you die on the way to stopping the Big Bad, and the party takes a day to save your butt. That's a day the Big Bad has just used to get stronger, or kill someone you love, or destroy a resource you were relying on acquiring, or, or, or.

Who knows what might happen? There could be all sorts of horrible and non-fixable problems that result from you dying and then coming back later. Learning how to address those problems or finding a way to start the healing could be a new adventure, but sometimes there is no fixing it. Sometimes a person you loved is just Dead Forever, and you'd better believe I'm going to milk that for all the pathos and grief that it's worth.

But the one thing I won't take away is the character you brought to the table. As long as you want to keep playing that character, you can. You may pay hefty prices. You may have to work with your enemies or compromise your moral stances or do things you absolutely hate doing. But it will always be possible to choose to keep going with that character if you really want to.

Death is rare enough that I haven't seen anyone who decided "I would keep going but the prices have grown too high, so I guess that's the end," but it is part of it.

For those who like the whole "responsibility" and "you earned this result" etc. logic, I pose for you a poker parallel. Why is poker still exciting or worth playing, if you cannot be ejected from the game due to a random card forcing you to fold? Because that's exactly what people are saying here. That the only way a game can be enjoyed for the stakes is when there's a "you have lost, quit playing or wait for the next deal" card. Why is poker, or chess, or any of a number of other games, still a thrilling experience despite your ability to keep playing not being put on the chopping block?

Those games have winners and lovers, and if you lose you are absolutely out of the game. I don't see the comparison.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Those games have winners and lovers, and if you lose you are absolutely out of the game. I don't see the comparison.

Are you not "out of the game" if your character dies and cannot be brought back? Do you not have to be metaphorically dealt back into the game in order to continue playing?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Are you not "out of the game" if your character dies and cannot be brought back? Do you not have to be metaphorically dealt back into the game in order to continue playing?

The PC is out of the game. The player is not. That's why we can't see eye to eye. The player matters more than the PC to me.

 

[Helldritch]

I don't understand this response.

If I tell players, "I will not take away your character unless you're okay with that," that cannot mean anything other than that that event won't happen. You will not lose your character, ever, unless that's what you want. Everything else is fair play. The people you love? The locations you call "home"? The signature items you rely on? The class features you exploit ruthlessly? The factions you favor? The villains you love to stymie? All of them, every last one, can be turned against you or taken away from you (whatever is relevant), and you may never be able to un-do the damage. Maybe you die on the way to stopping the Big Bad, and the party takes a day to save your butt. That's a day the Big Bad has just used to get stronger, or kill someone you love, or destroy a resource you were relying on acquiring, or, or, or.

Who knows what might happen? There could be all sorts of horrible and non-fixable problems that result from you dying and then coming back later. Learning how to address those problems or finding a way to start the healing could be a new adventure, but sometimes there is no fixing it. Sometimes a person you loved is just Dead Forever, and you'd better believe I'm going to milk that for all the pathos and grief that it's worth.

But the one thing I won't take away is the character you brought to the table. As long as you want to keep playing that character, you can. You may pay hefty prices. You may have to work with your enemies or compromise your moral stances or do things you absolutely hate doing. But it will always be possible to choose to keep going with that character if you really want to.

Death is rare enough that I haven't seen anyone who decided "I would keep going but the prices have grown too high, so I guess that's the end," but it is part of it.

For those who like the whole "responsibility" and "you earned this result" etc. logic, I pose for you a poker parallel. Why is poker still exciting or worth playing, if you cannot be ejected from the game due to a random card forcing you to fold? Because that's exactly what people are saying here. That the only way a game can be enjoyed for the stakes is when there's a "you have lost, quit playing or wait for the next deal" card. Why is poker, or chess, or any of a number of other games, still a thrilling experience despite your ability to keep playing not being put on the chopping block?

1st bolded part
Nah... you got it wrong.
I never kill a PC without good reasons and their tacit approval. And guess what? They gave me this approval at character's creation. They know that death is a real possibility. It is not some far remote possibility. It can happen at level one, session 1, even session 0.5 if we started in session zero! And when a campaign is over and the players look at what they have accomplished, they know that they did it. They did not rely on some shenanigans I made to save their arses. They succeeded because they bested everything I have thrown at them. Nothing more, nothing less.

2nd bolded part.
This is one of the baddest analogy I have ever seen. And yet...
You get booted out of poker when you lost all your money you brought at the table with you. Better luck next time. In D&D therms, character died. See you not the next game, but the next campaign! That is way much harsher than simply having a set back and "roll" a new character.

Did you ever played chess tournaments? I did. Guess what, when you're out, you're out. No 2nd chances. There are no "Ho, let's go back to this move and see what you will do from there". You're out! I showed many people how to play chess and I never ever let them win without fighting for that win. We would analyze their game(s) together and we would look at what could have been done better. But I never, ever let them win. When one of my friend finally beat me at chess in college, he yelled "YES" so loud and so many times while jumping around that people were wondering if he had went mad. It was just a game of chess, but for him, he had finally beaten me. Fair and square. He had finally done it! (And it would not be the last time either. )

And this is the sense of accomplishment you get in D&D when the DM is not handling you "victories" without earning them in earnest. They have known success despite the traps, monsters, foes, events and what not that were thrown at them! They earned their victories by struggling, convincing or fighting for every inches/encounters they did. The more dramatic these were, the longer they remember. Hell, I have old players retelling me their exploits from over 30 years ago when we meet. And you know what? Even after hundreds of players, I remember these events as well. Because they had earned it and earned it in memorable ways. This is the kind of stories that arise from a game where there is a real possibility that the characters die.

 

[Helldritch]

Are you not "out of the game" if your character dies and cannot be brought back? Do you not have to be metaphorically dealt back into the game in order to continue playing?

Hey! NPCs, Henchmen and Hirelings (or sidekicks) are there exactly for that! Character dies? Great, time to promote one of the former to full player character's status! The players matters way more than the character. Infinitely more.

 

[James Gasik]

But what if you don't use NPC's, Henchmen, and Hirelings, because you find combat has enough moving parts with just the PC's and your own NPC opponents?

 

[Art Waring]

And at which point does a character become so cripple that it becomes unplayable? If any?

Well, hopefully never?

I've been using the A5e Strife rules for mental stress/ trauma and it works fine as the effects aren't permanent.

 

[Medic]

But what if you don't use NPC's, Henchmen, and Hirelings, because you find combat has enough moving parts with just the PC's and your own NPC opponents?

Now, I definitely don't speak for everyone, but the most characters I've lost in a single session of 5th Edition is two, and our group collectively lost five characters altogether that day yet managed to keep trucking. Sitting on a few spare characters just in case is a good habit.

 

[James Gasik]

Now, I definitely don't speak for everyone, but the most characters I've lost in a single session of 5th Edition is two, and our group collectively lost five characters altogether that day yet managed to keep trucking. Sitting on a few spare characters just in case is a good habit.

I have decided for my next campaign to pitch the idea for players to make three characters, and switch between them between adventures, as well as use milestone leveling, so after all three characters go on an adventure each, they all level up.

This way, even if one dies, you can switch to another character that is "yours" that you have been playing (and we can introduce a replacement at an appropriate time later).

I'll also insist all characters in a player's "character tree" know each other, and arrange for all the characters to end up working for the same patron who presents them with missions so the can mix and match parties from time to time, so everyone can develop a working relationship with one another.

I'm still debating on non-death setbacks as well, the "three daggers" idea from earlier in the thread sounds pretty neat as well. Actually asking the players to come up with things that matter to their character. It really comes down to what they feel is ok.

Thinking about Micah Sweet's comments, I think the best approach is for death to be on the line some of the time, but not necessarily all of the time.