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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8710689" data-attributes="member: 7023887">Depends on the edition. In my experience with 5th edition, unless you're at really low levels or get really unlucky with the dice, the players only ever get to the stage where they might be dying if the DM placed something in the campaign that could get them to that state (a more powerful monster than they could handle, a trap, environmental conditions, etc). Again, I know there are rules for what happens if you get to 0 hit points. What I'm saying is that the chance of getting to 0 hit points is only possible through the DM. And the DM chooses how/who the monsters attack, if they're doing nonlethal damage, how hard it is to parley and if the PCs succeed, and if the monsters choose to pursue the fleeing party (and quite a few monsters have higher speeds than the average PC). And there are ways to lose a battle other than death. The party could be captured, robbed, enslaved, or lose limbs. The DM chooses if/when the PCs die. Yeah, the DM does. The DM chooses if their rest is interrupted by a monster and if the dungeon has places where the party could take a rest. The PCs decide if they want to rest or not, but the DM decides if their rest succeeds. I'm sorry, but, no, you do choose when the PCs die. Unless you're a really new DM, you probably know how much your PCs can take. You know which battles they can win and which ones they're likely to lose. You know which traps are deadly and which traps they can avoid easily. Are your dungeons filled to the brim with traps as deadly as the Tomb of Horrors? If so, then you chose to place them there fully aware of the possible consequences for the PCs. If your dungeons all aren't as deadly as the Tomb of Horrors . . . why not? Why aren't you filling every dungeon in your game with traps as deadly as the Tomb of Horrors? Because I think you know the answer to that question, and I think that the answer proves that the DM chooses whether or not the PCs die. And when are the dice given the opportunity to kill the players? When the DM gives them the option to. You choose the traps. You choose the monsters. You choose the weather and other environmental factors (cliffs, bridges, lava, pits of acid, etc). You choose if a monster chooses to attack a PC that's making death saves. You choose if the monster attacks the healer before the rest of the party. You choose if the combat encounter is with 17 flumphs or 17 tarrasques. You choose if rocks fall and everyone dies. You choose the adventure you run. You choose if the monsters do lethal damage or not. The dice don't choose any of that. You, the DM, choose the answers to all of that. And if you do choose to roll the dice and make those situations random . . . you're the one chosing to allow the option of your PCs dying. You choose when the dice are rolled, that is literally written in the DMG. If a PC dies, it is the DMs fault, because they chose all of the circumstances that led up to their death and you chose to have them die instead of fall unconscious, or be taken prisoner, or be saved at the last minute by a Deus Ex Machina. The DM chooses when the PCs die. And that's not a bad thing. I'm fine with that. However, I realize this and specifically craft my campaigns under this realization. I know that the PCs dying is my fault, so I try to make them matter.</blockquote>

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