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

[Glyfair]

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

It doesn't have to be personal. Take the classic "epic campaign." That's a spot where this rule would be appropriate.

Say the players are given the task of defending the village from the secondary villain. If a player is "killed" he can just be rendered unconscious. The only negative consequence is if the party fails. In that case the enemies overrun the village and control it. If appropriate the players might be taken captive (typically because this either gives them a key bit of information, or a chance to reverse their failure).

Every "death" doesn't need to have a major negative consequence. Just the major ones and the dramatic ones. In the above example the a player might decide that a "death" should be the character's death because it's appropriate. It's just not automatic.

Obviously this isn't for every group. I wouldn't recommend it for an inexperienced group. I do think it's more likely to be used by a storytelling focused group, because they don't want to interrupt the flow of events by an out-of-place death (and that group is most likely to suggest an appropriate death).

 

[Lanefan]

The threat of PC death is necessary. Actual PC death is sometimes just as necessary, to validate the threat.

I want to cast caution to the winds and be reckless when I play*: charge first, ask questions never. As a result, I tend to lose more PCs than most, but I still far prefer this to being uber-cautious with every step and spending all night planning.

* - most of the time. If I'm playing a character who in-character *would* be the meticulous planner, that's how he'll be played...but I'll get bored playing him all too soon.

When I DM, it says right in the introduction to the game (paraphrased): it is almost inevitable that sooner or later your character *will* die, please be able to deal with this. And they usually do, at some point; but the game just keeps on rolling and people keep having fun...

Lanefan

 

[Li Shenron]

Many are convinced that D&D is no fun unless the threat of dying is a regular element of the game. Must this be true?

Yes

What is a better adventure/action movie? The one where the main characters face serious dangers, or the one where they just wade through the scenes without any fear of losing?

That said, having threats of death doesn't necessarily mean they are going to die. But to continue the analogy with movies, sometimes you DO get a movie where the main character sacrifices his life for a greater good, or (more commonly) where the life of a dear sidekick is lost. That makes us thrill at every movie, because we know that it does happen in some of them...

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Threat of Death? Yes and No.

See, if the GM and the group wants to put together some epic story (and the group is mature enough) I think you can get rid of the fear of death and still put together a great story and almost act like a communal storytelling rather than PCs simply reacting to frightening stuff and dangerous adventures that the GM throws at them. As I said, if the group is mature enough to do this (they will not take silly risks because they know they are invulnerable). For the most part characters in Star Ward, LotR and these kinds of films are not in any real danger (yes, Obi Wan will disagree with me) but usually when a character gets bumped off you can just attribute it to Obi Wan being an NPC, his player had to leave or the player wanted a new PC.

On the other hand, if the GM and the players just want to do some action stories and have closer to a beer and pretzels game, then death should be creeping around the corner. It keeps the players on edge and allows them to get the sense of excitement. Their motivation is to best challenge (save princesses and slay dragons)

 

[an_idol_mind]

I would say the threat of death needs to be real, but then I haven't killed a PC in years and my games are running just fine.

 

[(un)reason]

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.

On the other hand, I can think of quite few soap operas that have gone through several complete turnovers of cast over the course of decades, and are still regularly topping the ratings, despite regularly having inconsistencies in continuity, or plots being suddenly dropped because an actor left. The key here is that there needs to be enough continuity that a single death doesn't derail the whole thing. This is where troupe play, with each player controlling multiple characters becomes a definite strength.

 

[SavageRobby]

I think the threat of death needs to be there. It doesn't need to be happen often or indiscriminately (unless you're playing 1st level C&C or AD&D characters ), but I think it needs to be present, always hovering in the background, always a concern. Some "skin in the game", as an old boss of mine used to say.

In the movie Serenity, Wash's death makes us really, really concerned for the characters as they're trapped in the hallway with the Reavers at the door. The director made a point, "this isn't your typical movie where the heroes all walk away at the end". And the experience is the better for it. I think RPGs are similar. There is positive dramatic tension caused by the specter of death ever looming over the characters.

 

[Shadeydm]

Most of my most enjoyable DnD memories center around pitched battles where the PCs were pushed to the brink (sometimes a PC or two actually goes down during the fight) with death sitting in the front row of the battle munching on popcorn watching the show. When the PCs win a fight like this it gets added to their pantheon of DnD war stories that get retold over and over again. Granted this should be a fairly rare happening or else players become desensitized to it. I think if death was not even a possibility something would be missing from the game. I think its fine that death could be a sliding scale for different campaings perhaps in some games it might be very very rare but I don't think it should be totally eliminated imho.

 

[Rothe]

I think you hit the nail on the head, there needs to be a threat of loss/failure that means something to the PLAYERS but it doesn't need to be death. Without the risk of failure/loss success is not nearly so sweet or meaningful. That being said death is a great one which I always keep in my games, even though magic allows one to be brought back. It adds to versimiltude and is a major loss (xp and gp wise). Further, without the threat of death there is no threat of TPK, TPK is real scary to my players, one PC death is bad, two PC deaths always results in retreat before things get out of control.

On the "death" threat I also count near death situations. That is, you can save the PC but if you don't act this round (usually with magic,potions etc.) they will be dead the next one. They instill fear and often force the other PCs to defend the fallen comrade so they can be "healed."

What I don't like is when metagame concerns cause GMs to shy away from death, player's don't want to spend time rolling up another character, they don't want to sit "idle" when their charcter is dead, it just "sucks", etc. These certainly can detract from fun, but I' d rather addreess them with other metagame approaches, assume a NPC, have more than one PC per player, let the player play the monsters, etc.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

In the movie Serenity, Wash's death makes us really, really concerned for the characters as they're trapped in the hallway with the Reavers at the door. The director made a point, "this isn't your typical movie where the heroes all walk away at the end". And the experience is the better for it. I think RPGs are similar. There is positive dramatic tension caused by the specter of death ever looming over the characters.

[tangent] Actually, I've known people who had a very different reaction to Wash's death. As I alluded to earlier a "shock death" can sometimes be the big visible hand of the author, and the very fact that one could see it as "the director making a point" causes me to lose investment, not gain it. I don't want to be thinking about what the director is doing - make me think about you as the director, author, whatever, and you have moved towards ruining the experience for me.

"Wow, what will happen next?!?!"
"Whatever the director decides, I suppose... *yawn*"

Good direction, good acting, the occasional good music, and working within narrative patterns without complete predictability create dramatic tension for me. The director standing up and shouting "HA! Watch as I subvert the narrative pattern! I am so cool!" turns it into a performance art piece instead of a story. Your mileage obviously varies, just letting you know it is your mileage, and different from some.