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

[Elf Witch]

I have seen PCs die in a lot of games and a lot of the times you can just see the frustration written on the players face. It sucks to have your character die because of another player's stupidity or because the DM threw an encounter that was just way to hard for the party to handle.

Those players were not having fun and the last I looked we play because it is supposed to be fun.

I remember one session we lost a PC and the player was okay with it he got raised lost his level had a nice vision while dead. But the next session he died again. Both times were not his fault he didn't do anything stupid, the DM just had two tough encounters and rolled out in the open. The dice favored the DM he rolled two crits and the player was rolling badly. The player came out and told the DM this is not fun. I am not enjoying myself.

This is why I roll behind a screen so that I can fudge if I need to. Killing a PC two sessions in a row is not something my players enjoy.

I think having a threat of death can up the suspense, but having to much death can suck the fun right out of the game for some players.

 

[Lockridge]

A slightly different take:
A couple of years ago a player wanted a turn at being the DM. This person DM'd by the book and PC death was therefore real and common.
The group eventually fell apart.
Why? Players were tired of making new characters. We were all in our late thirties with families so the prospect of spending time making a new character, building stats, choosing skills, feats and considering future feats along with writing a character background (this DM wanted a background) just took too much time.

When we were in our early 20s PC deaths didn't matter at all but in our late 30s the feeling was completely different.

To answer the question: PC death should be there but depending on age and lifestyle it should be used sparingly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The threat of death is an important element in the type of RPG that I enjoy running and playing in. Of course, I am of the school that says that "story" is what we tell of events after the fact, so that death never damages the story -- if death occurs, that is the story.

RC

 

[Mallus]

It's been my experience that player enjoyment in directly proportional to player player investment. Frequent PC death tends to discourage player investment. While the threat of death may offer a reliable way to increase the tension in a campaign, there are other means that don't carry the risk of discouraging player investment.

Death ends a character's adventures. Failure, when done right, enriches them (nothing sweeter than offing the party's nemesis, right?).

 

[Awakened]

To some degree, I agree with you Kahuna Burger. The writer's ideal- the "holy **** I have no control over what I'm writing, this NEEDS to happen and I'm not even thinking of my audience" is a rarely attainable goal, but when it's noticable in a story. It sucks us in so much more.

 

[danzig138]

Wow. Maybe 4th edition needs to come out. Something needs to happen in gaming to get everyone focused on it for a while, so some of these questions can take a vacation. I'm pretty sure that we know by now that character death is necessary.

For some people.

And it's not necessary for other people.

Here is the issue from a DM point of view.

If you're intent on having a story that is too easily disrupted (not my style, but hey, your boat), then don't allow the characters to die. If you know you're having a lot of player turnover, don't build your game around a story/sub-story that can be disrupted until your group stabilizes.

I've always held that a DM needs to be very good at being flexible. Sure, your adventure path might have important clues in the early levels that new characters wouldn't have in the higher levels since they somehow bypassed those early levels. If none of the characters that discovered the early clues are available, you know I handle that situation? I drop that adventure path.

In a Temple of Elemental game I ran, this basically happened. Despite some pretty good effort (and the burning of Nulb, and the razing of Hommlett), they failed in stopping the forces of the Temple. I didn't bring in new characters to pick up where they left off. I'm not going to either. That adventure path was finsihed,one way or another, it ended. When we pick back up on GH, they'll be characters in a world in which the forces of the Temple have gained a strong foothold.

 

[danzig138]

The dice favored the DM he rolled two crits and the player was rolling badly. The player came out and told the DM this is not fun. I am not enjoying myself.

This is why I roll behind a screen so that I can fudge if I need to.

The rules in D&D allow for this kind of thing to happen. If this kind of thing isn't fun for a player, that's not the fault of the game. He knows going in that it can happen.

To me, complaining that you're not having fun in D&D because you keep dying, or having to fudge rolls, well, it's like using a screwdriver to hammer in a nail. You can do it, but it's a poor way to go about it.

There are games that aren't built around the possibility of character death at the hands of a rogue die (I hear all kinds of good stuff about Savage Worlds). Seems to me like those would be better tools for getting that nail to stay in place.

 

[RFisher]

I don't think PC death is a necessary part of an RPG. I love Toon. The lack of PC death may be essential to it.

For me, the possibility of PC death is nigh a necessary part of D&D. It just doesn't feel like D&D to me without it. More than once I've been disappointed when the DM fudged to prevent my PC's death.

 

[Glyfair]

For me, the possibility of PC death is nigh a necessary part of D&D. It just doesn't feel like D&D to me without it. More than once I've been disappointed when the DM fudged to prevent my PC's death.

That's one thing. You were playing assuming death was an option and found out it wasn't.

Let's change things a bit. You go into a game with mature players and are told it will be run under different rules. The player characters will never die outright. The only way a PC will die is if the "D&D death" situation comes up and the player decides that it's appropriate for his character to die. There will be consequences of failure, often serious permanent ones. However, if you don't want your character to die, then he won't.

Would that be a deal breaker for the campaign?

 

[Raven Crowking]

For me, yes.