D&D General If not death, then what?

[jmartkdr2]

At low level death is usually permanent. But, at low level one isn't usually too attached to one's character anyway.

After that, death is usually* temporary IME unless the PC in-character declines revival when asked via Speak With Dead. Revival effects have always been part of the game, and if you're playing 5e are more accessible (and cheapert!) than ever.

* - usually but not always in my game; I still have the Resurrection Survival roll as a mechanic and always will, and failing that means you're almost certainly dead for good.

The issue comes from a lot of dms not liking the fact that death is easily reversible, so they remove those mechanics - but that creates new problems (unless you fudge rolls not all pc deaths are meaningful, fun, or even really the pc's fault.) So they try to fix the problems created by the houserule with more houserules.

BUT sometimes "actual permadeath only happens for story reasons" is kind of a good way to run the game. Character loss might mean forced retirement (because of a shortage of limbs, for example) but the character is still around doing stuff. And/or it's easier to imagine a magical fix to loss of legs than loss of soul. S for some people it actually works better.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So since Character death is losing DnD, how do you win DnD? Because I was always told that DnD isn't about winning and losing.

Character death isn't losing D&D. You make a new character and keep playing. I can't tell you the number of PCs I've lost, and for my part I don't get distraught over it. I'm sorry if my position wasn't clear on this.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly, I've told more than one person sitting at the table "Death is far from the worse thing I can do to your character"

There are consequences to being defeated in battle. Those consequences do not need to be "You have Died"

Very true. But to me "You have Died" has to be in the mix.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So that means you have "tacit approval" to edit those sheets? They left them at your house, after all.


Why is death the only "true consequence"? This is a thing you keep saying, over and over. Death is not the only true consequence. Why do you keep saying it is?


That's being dealt back into the game. Like I already said. Repeatedly.


It's absolutely not the same, because none of those involve a character being destroyed forever, never to return. Like, literally, you've given only examples of things which temporarily remove the character.

You're placing a much higher implicit value in a specific PC than others here are doing. That's why there's a disconnect, suspect.

 

[Art Waring]

Then consequences are... inconsequential? Without permanent effect, I fear the danger level is not appropriate to our table. Sad, as I was starting to get interested in that system.

I see what you're saying, but how much/ or how badly do you want to punish the players when it comes to death?

Running a regular game, my players want to get back to the game together with what little time we have to play, not be forced to roll new characters when the dice don't roll in their favor. The point is to have fun together.

 

[tetrasodium]

I see what you're saying, but how much/ or how badly do you want to punish the players when it comes to death?

Running a regular game, my players want to get back to the game together with what little time we have to play, not be forced to roll new characters when the dice don't roll in their favor. The point is to have fun together.

When I express to players that something is dangerous it detracts from the experience when they internally roll their eyes& act as if they are invincible. Sometimes that's for narrative and/or planning reasons, other times that's because it legitimately is dangerous. That detracting is not only for me as a gm as their invincibility complex impacts players who react as if something is indeed dangerous & I wrote about it occurring in a recent game the other day here. Not only did the player who decided they were invincible damage the fun of a fellow player at my table next time the game resumes I basically need to execute them & make said player's invincibility complex the group's problem or reinforce it in order to protect my other players.

 

[Art Waring]

When I express to players that something is dangerous it detracts from the experience when they internally roll their eyes& act as if they are invincible. Sometimes that's for narrative and/or planning reasons, other times that's because it legitimately is dangerous. That detracting is not only for me as a gm as their invincibility complex impacts players who react as if something is indeed dangerous & I wrote about it occurring in a recent game the other day here. Not only did the player who decided they were invincible damage the fun of a fellow player at my table next time the game resumes I basically need to execute them & make said player's invincibility complex the group's problem or reinforce it in order to protect my other players.

Read your linked post, mkay that's a pretty complex problem, but it is still a problem on the player side, either in their misunderstanding what kind of game you are trying to run, or in their disregard for the way you are trying to run the game. Neither has an easy fix. If they are acting invincible, there should obviously be real consequences for their actions in the game, even death.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but aren't these things covered in session 0? When expectations on either side of the table aren't being met, then maybe you need to discuss it with your players.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In theory you were already playing the Torchbearer, right, as she was your hench?

I don't think anyone's really advocating for players taking over the henches of other player's PCs (though I've seen this done once or twice in the past with great results). But usually IME the boss PC's player also plays the hench, with just a few guidelines from the DM as to what makes this person tick.

Thus, if-when your main PC dies or is otherwise out of action for a while, it becomes a seamless transition to playing the hench as your main as you were already playing it anyway.

Nope. Every time I've ever seen them, it has been the DM playing the NPC. I've never had a player role-playing the hench person of the group, because then they can't interact with the henchperson.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sorry, do not buy that. If your player wants his/her character to jump off a cliff at 3 hp and survive 300' of descent, the DM has nothing to do with that. The dice will tell one thing, the character is dead.

I'm sorry, but this seems highly disingenuous to me. Obviously suicidal actions are very different from the DM having them go up against a monster stronger than they can handle.

What if the 3hp PC jumps off a cliff to help someone, they cast Feather Fall, and the DM counterspells it? The DM absolutely killed that PC.

Your stance of "I never kill the players, the dice and the player's actions do" seems like trying to avoid the blame for when a character dies.

On this I agree. This is why I reintroduced moral in my games. In fact it never left it. I just apply a charisma or wisdom check.

Yeah. And if they fail to parley, and the monsters killed them, you allowed the dice to kill the PCs by having their survival rely on a single dice roll.

Don't you think I know? But sometimes, faced with some monsters, death is the result. I don't think a wyvern will do anything but eat the character it killed. In fact, once a character is down, the wyvern will fly with the body to its nest to feast.

I think you know. I just don't think you're connecting the points.

The DM chooses if the PCs die, therefore the DM is always responsible when the characters die. If instead of killing a PC a monster just knocks them unconscious and takes them captive, that proves that the DM is in charge of when the PCs die, not the dice or the players.

No, I do not. The dice do and so are the circumstances.

. . . You make the circumstances. You choose to roll the dice to see if the rest is interrupted. Therefore, you control if/when the PCs get to rest.

It does not prove anything but that you distrust your DM.

I am a forever DM. I have not played a PC in 3 years. I cannot distrust my DM, because I do not have one.

Yes, the DM knows what to throw at PC to kill them. Sure, saying otherwise would be denying facts.

Yes and yes. Thus proving that the DM controls if the PCs die.

But the players often underestimate their foes and often over estimate their own strength.

And that is only/always punishable by death? When my players do that, I almost never kill them for it. More often, I have a piece of their important equipment break, or they lose something else valuable to them, or they're heavily injured.

You see, my games are usually small linked adventures each independant and each written in advance. Once engaged, an adventure is like an episode that will be followed through with a start, beginning and an end. I do not necessarily know what will be the path taken by the players' characters, nor which adventures will they undertake or in which order (they always have more than a few possibilities, after four decades, I have a lot of adventures).

But you designed the adventure, so you know when the deadly encounters are. And you also know the general strengths of the party, so if you design a deadly encounter . . . you're the reason a PC might die.

To all the you. YES! and NO!

1. I choose the trap. The players decide to search for them or not.
2. I choose the monsters. The players decide how they will handle.
3. I do not choose the weather. There are still old weather table to use.
4. I choose the terrain. The players decide how to handle these as well.I
5. I choose whom the monster will attack. Animal like intelligence monster will try to retreat with the body. Intelligent foes will "finish" the character if they know the character can be brought back in the fight.
6. I choose if the monster is intelligent enough to attack the healer of the party. But circumstances dictates how easy or hard it might be.
7. I do choose the monsters. But this is in accordance to the adventure. And it is the players that decide if they engage or not. Not me.
8. I do not choose the adventure to run. Players and I do. We vote.
9. I do not choose if the monsters do lethal damage or not. The rules are exactly there for that.
10. And finally, Deus Ex Machina is the worst possible outcome.

1. You choose the DC for finding/disabling the trap. You choose if the trap is magical or not. You chose to have their possible deaths be up to the dice, so you're liable for their deaths.
2. You choose whether or not to have monsters that are too strong for the PCs to handle in the adventure. If you put in a CR 20 demon in a level 7 adventure, it's not the PCs fault if they don't "handle it" and die, it's your fault.
3. You chose to roll for the weather. The DM chooses the environment. Choosing to leave it up to a die roll still makes the weather your choice.
4. And if they can't handle it? If you put them at the bottom of an active volcano that's going to erupt in 3 rounds and they don't have the ability to handle it at the level they are, it's not their fault for failing to find a solution to the environmental hazard, it's your fault for making that environment.
5. And you choose the monster that fights the party, so you at least decided on a method of their tactics before they fight the monster. If you choose to have the villain be a mage, you know generally how they're going to play, because you know their spells ahead of time and what options are most optimal.
6. Same as #5.
7. In accordance to the adventure you designed. And do your monsters never choose to engage the PCs? You never have surprise ambushes? Because it's not always the PCs choice to engage, sometimes they're forced to engage by the encounter you designed.
8. You already said that you design the adventures. Sure, the PCs might get some say in the type of adventure you run and the setting, but you still choose all of the specifics that could lead to the PCs dying.
9. . . . Yes you do. You do choose if the monsters do nonlethal damage. The option to do nonlethal is the choice of the creature (or the person that runs it), so if you run the monsters . . . you choose if they do nonlethal damage. (And, yes, in 5e nonlethal damage only works on melee attacks, but you choose if the monsters attack at range or melee.)
10. Deus Ex Machina is a tool. An often overused and cliche one, but it's a tool nonetheless. It can be used well, it can be used poorly. That's up to the DM.

Nope, I do not choose when a PC dies or if a party dies. Circumstances and players' choice will lead to whatever fate awaits them. This is what a story that emerges organically amounts to. We are both actor and spectators in the game we play.

The circumstances that you design. So, therefore, you choose when the PCs die. Or at least have a big say in it, unless your PCs for some reason are always choosing obviously suicidal actions, like jumping off cliffs at low levels without Feather Fall or deciding to stab themselves with their own weapons for no reason.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Actually there is a lot of information. Nobody could heal the druid because they were too far away & unaware that he was down. The rest of the group were too far away because some of them were off the map attempting to seem like they were as many attackers as possible rather than a group. The map was a good chunk of a city including multiple buildings, it was probably not a city scaled for ants. The druid who died was so far away from the party that none of them were even aware of the druid going down to do anything about it. There's a difference between giving a story benefit of the doubt & dismissing all possible impacts of player/party choices as having any relevance in order to exclusively blame random chance.

Did the crit have an impact? absolutely but potentially getting critted by something during a boss fight is 100% something that should be an expected possibility just as potentially being attacked & dropped during a fight is a possibility that makes having group members off the map a danger that should not be ignored while a player is going off on their own.

There was no critical hit, and none of this has anything to do with the Barbarian's choice, which has since been explained and seems like an entirely valid tactical choice.

So, again, seems like you are making a lot of assumptions, with little information, based on the absolute certainty that the death must be because of the PC's decisions and that those decisions must have been the wrong decisions.

Here's a question for you... Is there any point where you are willing to admit player choices factor into a death rather than pure DM whim & random chance? If there is not do you admit that 5e's death save rather than death at N is a design choice that sets the DM up for blame by players who believe that way?

Is there any point, in any story where it is clearly the player's fault?

Sure.

But most of those stories involve people making utterly stupid and brain-dead decisions. Such as the "we are level 1, let's charge the dragon" or "I have 3 hp, let's jump off a cliff" stories. None of which actually happen in play. Well, maybe the level 1, but at that point it seems that decision likely was made by new players who don't understand the game, in which case "you don't have characters anymore" isn't the choice I would make. Because it seems rather pointless when the cause was "we don't understand the game"

The majority of the time? It isn't something that is the player's fault as much as it is a convergence of factors.