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

[Mort]

You honestly don't?

I suppose I should say some instead of many - for example George RR Martin novels - you really don't - unless you look ahead (I didn't). And in many novels you may be certain that the main character won't die - but plot immunity doesn't extend to the supporting characters.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

There's a reason I italicized threat in my post. Yes, we know our heroes survive, but we still feel the tension throughout the book or movie, because we feel like they could get hurt, even though we know better.

In a game with Drama Points (by whatever name you prefer), the characters can enjoy plot protection while still leaving the players something to lose.

Ah, you are saying threat as in a narrative threat from the character perspective, rather than a threat from the viewer/player perspective. While I'm all about this distinction, I think it would be helpful to clarify in this sort of thread (since the word threat in the title is being generally interpreted the other way).

 

[Mallus]

It's just a piece in the game.

Yes, but some people enjoy playing the same piece over an extended period of time. Sometimes they also play under DM's who don't have any difficulty in providing them challenging gameplay that doesn't involve taking said piece away and making them use another piece.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

But there is a huge difference in a a roleplaying session and a novel or movie.

to you, yes. On the other hand, when people say "god mode" in these discussions, my response is that for me there is so great a difference between a FPS and a roleplaying session as to make the analogy equally invalid.

(and the post I responded to, with others, brought up novels and movies as analogies first.)

 

[Mallus]

I suppose I should say some instead of many - for example George RR Martin novels - you really don't -

I admit Martin surprised the hell of out me in TSoIaF...

My point was just that a lot narratives, especially genre stuff, are built around a certain predictability. It's more of a feature than a bug; an accepted, if not flat-out desired genre convention. More often that not it's abundantly clear who's going to make it to the last page.

 

[Mort]

On another note - in some campaigns threat of death becomes less and less important as the characters progress. The first 3e campaign I ran was like this.

At 1st level the characters were concerned with only survival - were they going to make it to the next town before the orcs on their tail got them.

by 5th level they were still concerned with survival -but they were as or more concerned with stopping the rampaging orcs from destroying the countryside and killing/enslaving their family and friends.

by 10th level they were much more concerned with the threat to their lands (deeded a keep) and the fact that they had "accidentally" let loose an undead menace from another plane bent on turning this one to its nefarious will.

by 15th level all the PC's had multiple contingencies (in some case literally in some cases figuratively) to prevent permanent death - that means they could focus on the bigger threats to their respective lands and to the world as a whole. So threat of death to others not themselves was the driving force.

 

[Glyfair]

Just to make sure I'm not misunderstood, I'm not suggesting that PC death should be taken out of D&D. I'm suggesting that removing PC death from a given campaign can be a good thing.

 

[Remathilis]

And who are these people who burst into tears when their character gets killed? It's just a piece in the game. Do these folks freak out when they lose a horsie in Chess, or when their scottie dog busts out in Monopoly? Maybe some folks should lighten up about their characters, if that's the case. It's not that big a deal. The point of playing the game is not to have a 'connection' to your fictional alter-ego... the point of playing the game is to "play".

One of the reasons I PLAY D&D and not games like Final Fantasy or such is that I DO get to make a character I can emphasize and connect to, rather than some nameless, soulless avatar who responds to my controller movements but isn't mine. He doesn't look like how I'd make him look, talk like I'd have him talk, or (usually) isn't named what I'd name him. Even games where I do have control over these things (like WoW) don't fulfill me because I don't have a "real" stake in the narrative; I'm just a shmuck (like the other 3,000,000 shmucks) who is trying to get to level 21, going on raids, and trying to get rare-loot. Ever really "role-play" on one of those servers? I rest my case.

I play RPGs because they are the next logical step in the "lets pretend" game I played as a child. I create a persona, make him do cool things, and share that with my friends (who are doing the same thing). They let me try my own hand at creating stories and personas that I loved in movies, TV, and video games. And that is why I'm still playing almost 15 years after getting into it.

If my PC was a nameless and soulless as a knight in chess or a piece in Monopoly, I'd have quit years ago.

 

[gizmo33]

"Vanilla" DnD to me is as follows: the DM makes up a setting (dungeon map, encounter key, or more sophisticated equivalents), players explore the scenario, DM adjucates results based on a combination of versimiltude (what "makes sense") and random dice rolls. Death is the same thing as taking 5 points of damage, it's one of the possible outcomes of following the rules. This is the impression that someone who reads the PHB would have if they never read EnWorld or played with Storytellers.

PC Death is not fun. But neither is losing at soccer. Or a more appropriate analogy - neither is failing to meet a personal goal. Yet a personal goal that can always be reached is not worth achieving IMO. Not being able to die is not fun for some people (like me), yet dying is not what I'd call "fun" either. It would be very complicated to try to sort out the meaning of all of this - hopefully the soccer analogy explains it. An "adventure" where my PC has a chance of dying is exciting.

And that brings me to my concern about PC death in other people's games, which is what happens when Storytellers aren't honest about the chance of death. I've played in such a game. There's an expectation when you read the PHB that I've covered in paragraph 1. Storytellers can take advantage of the dramatic tension created by the illusion of random chance, player choice, etc. The first time the DM fudges some dice behind the screen and the PC survives, it's probably pretty exciting. However, IME players have a running stats meter in their heads and over time, fudging becomes pretty clear for what it is. When I've reached that point as a player, it's been very disappointing. And no, just because the DM runs the game doesn't mean he can be dishonest about what kind of game is being run. As people playing a game, we sit down at the table as equals.

The challenge/problem for Storytellers is that the vanilla version of DnD doesn't support their style - and neither do the default expectations. I expect the same thing from a Storyteller DM as I do from someone (like me) who wants to use a certain set of house rules - because the situation IMO is the same. It's not a matter of one way being "better" than the other (I happen to think my houserules are pretty cool). It's just a consequence of the PHB being the default reference point.

If a particular Storytelling group has been playing together long enough to figure all this out, then that's cool. If the situation is explained upfront (DM: "I'll decide who dies, don't worry about the rules") then that's cool. But what I've experienced, and what I read between the lines on EnWorld often, is that the DM is not always honest about how he's running things. He often seems to want the best of both worlds, at the cost of honesty between people at the game.

So ultimately, IMNSHO, PC Death is not as important to the game as being honest with your players about how you're going to run it.

 

[mmadsen]

Tweet's article on Grogs in Ars Magica seems topical:

One aspect of troupe-style play in Ars Magica is the “grog.” “Grogs,” in Hermetic jargon, are the guards, watchmen, and bodyguards that work for a wizards’ covenant.

In table terms, a grog is a named NPC that players can play but not keep. They have a much higher mortality rate than the magi and companions.

A story from a friend of Mark’s and mine was one of the inspirations for the grog. This guy Scott ran a creative D&D campaign. He told us about a ferocious monster that he created to teach the cocksure players a lesson. “It tore them apart,” Scott said. Mark and I were impressed that he was willing to gun for the PCs like that. “How many characters did you kill?” I asked. “Oh, none,” he admitted.

Thus was born the concept of the “grogs.” The problem with story-oriented play is that the campaign can’t bear to lose main characters. But without the threat of death, combat can lose its drama. Grogs are a solution to that tension. They can die in combat without driving the adventure or campaign into a ditch.

Grogs serve secondary purposes as well. If you have a magus or companion that doesn’t do much in combat, you can play a grog on the side, and then you have something to do during a battle. It also works pretty well to run your own character’s bodyguard. Grogs allow the players to scale an adventure. If the adventure is tough, bring more grogs. If you don’t play a wizard or companion, you can play the whole grog contingent.

Grogs started as a way to bring the threat of death back to story-oriented campaigns, but they also serve other functions in troupe-style play.​

Old-school D&D certainly involved more "red shirts" than the modern version seems to.