Is threat of death a necessary element of D&D?

[Glyfair]

It's not necessary (We haven't had a player die for...5 years), but if the players assume they're invulnerable, it can be bad for some games. Imagine this conversation.

But if there are significant negative repercussions to this activity, why does the threat have to be death? There are plenty of bad things you can do to characters because of rash actions that death doesn't have to be the main threat.

I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be negative repercussions to unwise and rash activity (or other activities that might seem appropriate). I definitely feel there should be. But why is taking death out of the equation (or at least mostly out of the equation) generally considered uunacceptable?

Here are some possible negative consequences:

PC is taken captive and ransomed back without his equipment.
PC is outlawed and no longer allowed to roam freely around his normal base of operations (town, country, etc).
PC has permanent damage with negative consequences that are difficult or impossble to heal (lost eye, crippled limb, etc).
NPC tied to the PC is put in the power of an adversary of the PC.
PC is cursed by an adversary deity (not a curse removable by remove curse).
PC's deity removes their favor from the PC and he loses use of some abilities, or they aren't reliable.
PC is "almost dead" and requires being moved through enemy controlled territory to get healed.

Sure, many of these are situational and some of these won't work in some campaigns. In less immersive campaigns the PC may not care that their mother thought they were dead and became engaged to the evil overlord. Use something that will motivate the player. Some of these require house rules, but that should be expected in a game where the players know they are very unlikely to die.

We all know James Bond isn't going to die in his movies. However, we still felt his torture in Casino Royale. One of the most moving moments in the movies is in On Her Majesty's Secret Service when his wife is killed by Blofeld hours after their wedding.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Death should always be an option. Losing Gear is fine and all, but nothing is scary as losing a character.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

It's not necessary (We haven't had a player die for...5 years), but if the players assume they're invulnerable, it can be bad for some games. Imagine this conversation.

Heroic Knight: We have to rescue the princess from Count Evil's Castle!
Rogue: But its crawling with guards, traps, has only one exit, and Count Evil's henchmen are all in the castle in preparation for his plan. We won't last 5 minutes!

But if there's no chance of death:
Heroic Knight: We have to rescue the princess from Count Evil's Castle!
Rogue:YEAH! LETS KICK EVIL BUTT!

OK, it's exaggerated, but in my experience, things like that happen if the players are invulnerable.

There are two simple solutions to this problem. You can provide for failure that does not include death (is there an echo in here?) and/or you can play with folks with a good suspension of disbelief (which seems harder to find than one might think in a rpg community).

The other extreme from the invulnerable feeling players is of course the disposable feeling players.

Heroic Knight: We have to rescue the princess from Count Evil's Castle!
Rogue: OK, looks like I'll die a little earlier tonight, but someone might make it through. Speaking of, I've been thinking of going for a soulblade next time if we can just make it non-psionic mechanically...
Heroic Knight: That would be cool, if I die this run I wanna try that barbarian variant with pounce!

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't think death makes the game better or more fun. I have seen the opposite in a game with a high body count the players start playing way to cautious to the point that the game starts to drag down. They refuse to put any development into the character because what's the point.

When I DM I give let my players use fate points to escape death and if they do die I don't make raise dead hard to get. I will make the death part of the campaign and the fact that a character can be raised part of the quest.

As a player I will not play DnD with any DM who gets rid of any raise dead spell. I would hate it.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Yikes!

PC is taken captive and ransomed back without his equipment.
PC is outlawed and no longer allowed to roam freely around his normal base of operations (town, country, etc).
PC has permanent damage with negative consequences that are difficult or impossble to heal (lost eye, crippled limb, etc).
NPC tied to the PC is put in the power of an adversary of the PC.
PC is cursed by an adversary deity (not a curse removable by remove curse).
PC's deity removes their favor from the PC and he loses use of some abilities, or they aren't reliable.
PC is "almost dead" and requires being moved through enemy controlled territory to get healed.

What's better ... death (preferably a heroic one) or a life of eternal torture?

-Samir

 

[Glyfair]

What's better ... death (preferably a heroic one) or a life of eternal torture?

I think none of my examples are "eternal torture." All of them are reversible and definitely add to the story of the game. Most are gameable without being reversed (how many one-eyed heroes have floated around fiction?)

 

[Emirikol]

Knowing when to run and when "you almost died" is one of the most interesting aspects of D&D. For other games, like Cthulhu, deat is pretty final and usually the end of the adventure. In D&D, it seems it's just the beginning.

D&D is like the 300 when the threat of death is there. When death is trivialized, it is the anti-300.

jh

 

[Eltharon]

There are two simple solutions to this problem. You can provide for failure that does not include death (is there an echo in here?) and/or you can play with folks with a good suspension of disbelief (which seems harder to find than one might think in a rpg community).

The other extreme from the invulnerable feeling players is of course the disposable feeling players.

Heroic Knight: We have to rescue the princess from Count Evil's Castle!
Rogue: OK, looks like I'll die a little earlier tonight, but someone might make it through. Speaking of, I've been thinking of going for a soulblade next time if we can just make it non-psionic mechanically...
Heroic Knight: That would be cool, if I die this run I wanna try that barbarian variant with pounce!

Disposable is horrible.
Other threats only work sometimes. Magic items are rarely seen in our games after character creation, and they are minor things there, so that won't work. Imprisonment always leads to dramatic escape, which is not death.
I don't want the shadow of death lingering over the characters. I just want there to be the occasional thought of "Maybe we shouldn't attack all 3 dragons at once"

 

[Imp]

Man, nothing is necessary. I suppose if you are running long storyline campaigns, periodic permanent PC death is hard to swallow, it's like having the cast of a sitcom rotate twice over the course of its run. In an episodic campaign without a total overarching narrative that kind of story-continuity is less of an issue.

The rest is taste... since it's a game, braving PC death and PC item loss doesn't have to be a super big deal (personally I tend to consider that the essence of heroism, though I am not actually that fond of PC death)... but maybe it is and you want to focus on accomplishing "stuff" (for others, the essence of heroism is not crawling back from low points, but saving the world).

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Celebrate the Misery

I think none of my examples are "eternal torture." All of them are reversible and definitely add to the story of the game.

I see your point.

However, the absence of release (death) and the credible threat of continual loss (suffering) could be construed as a life of agony.

In other words ... how many times can a PC (or player) truly ignore imprisonment, ostracization, mutilation, enslavement, divine retribution, physical degeneration, and/or coma?

-Samir