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

[shilsen]

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.

I'm in complete agreement. When it comes to the actual core rules, I'd rather they kept PC death as a real possibility in there. The individual DM could simply remove it from their game if they felt that would benefit it, as I've done. If PC death as a concept was removed from the rules I think it would be a lot more difficult for DMs who want it in there to insert it.

 

[Rothe]

....And yes, I've tried "collaborative storytelling" or whatever you want to call it. I find it to be a useless, uninteresting activity (YMMV blah blah). If we're playing a game, let's play a game. If it's a game about "dungeoneering" then that implies the threat of death. If you were playing a board game about WWII, would you want it to have a rule that says that your soldiers never die... they just drop their weapons and run away if they're shot at enough (like the A Team)? Would that really seem genuine and worthwhile?

....

Why actually yes, as that is Squad Leader. If a broken unit fails a moral check they are removed from the game, i.e., they ran away. Which is a different result than KIA, a very hard result to achieve. I have to say Squad Leader seemed very genuine and worthwhile.

 

[RFisher]

Would that be a deal breaker for the campaign?

Not a deal breaker, but then, I simply cannot fathom refusing to play a TRPG. As long as its not a LARP or a CRPG (& I have the time), you can be nigh guaranteed I'm in.

But...in my mind...I'm no longer thinking of that game as "D&D". It's a "D&D variant". Which may be splitting hairs, but I'm not sure you have a thread if we aren't splitting hairs. (^_^)

 

[RFisher]

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.

Dying can be cool.

Death has played an important roll in many great stories, including movies, TV shows, & video games.

My PCs aren't nameless & soulless pieces either. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't ever let them die. That doesn't mean that their death should always be left up to me. That doesn't mean that they should only die if it is "cool" or makes "a good story".

And frankly, I think "Gnigel was killed by the stirges because he was too stupid to think of any of the three simple ways he could have survived" may not be a great story, but it is generally a better story than "Gnigel miraculously survived the stirges even though he made some really stupid, fatal mistakes."

So, I get over the saddness & create another named PC & try to fill him with a unique soul.

(I'm not trying to say that you are wrong. Just sharing how things are both similar & different for me.)

 

[Visceris]

Without the threat of death then there is no consequence for the 1st level wizard to charge in against great wyrm red dragon wearing only his underwear and using only a rotted quaterstaff. Besides, killing PCs can be both fun and give good dramatic story telling.

 

[Remathilis]

Dying can be cool.

Death has played an important roll in many great stories, including movies, TV shows, & video games.

My PCs aren't nameless & soulless pieces either. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't ever let them die. That doesn't mean that their death should always be left up to me. That doesn't mean that they should only die if it is "cool" or makes "a good story".

And frankly, I think "Gnigel was killed by the stirges because he was too stupid to think of any of the three simple ways he could have survived" may not be a great story, but it is generally a better story than "Gnigel miraculously survived the stirges even though he made some really stupid, fatal mistakes."

So, I get over the saddness & create another named PC & try to fill him with a unique soul.

(I'm not trying to say that you are wrong. Just sharing how things are both similar & different for me.)

Don't get me wrong, death HAS a place in D&D. I just think there are some people (mainly DMs) who have a "one wrong move and your dead" mentality that smacks of Fragging in Halo rather than facilitating a role-playing game.

My general rule is, make D&D a game where death is final but really hard to do (something like SAGA, which has multiple ways to stave of permanent death, but doesn't make PCs invincible), or death is easy but not a huge hindrance (akin to 3e now). Games where PC life is nasty, brutish and short don't appeal to me.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

And frankly, I think "Gnigel was killed by the stirges because he was too stupid to think of any of the three simple ways he could have survived" may not be a great story, but it is generally a better story than "Gnigel miraculously survived the stirges even though he made some really stupid, fatal mistakes."

if Gnigel "miraculously survived" with no repercussions, probably... but since no one on this thread has seriously suggested that as a death alternative, why bother using it as a comparison?

Badly done lack of death can be as bad as badly done death. We all get that. I've played with DMs who were just as unrealistic in maintaining a threat level as the extremes of removing it discussed here. (particularly monsters who all have the "sense PC plan" and "detect having been located" abilities...) But I'm not going to assume that every DM who says he likes imminent death really plays a "Gnigel was killed by stirges because all of the three simple ways to survive strangely didn't work today and the DM's desire for a tense "skin of your teeth" combat ended in his death. (but no fudging of die rolls for us!)" game. Can you do others the same favor?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Without the threat of death then there is no consequence for the 1st level wizard to charge in against great wyrm red dragon wearing only his underwear and using only a rotted quaterstaff.

wrong.

 

[ST]

I think it's interesting to hear people say that they don't want death, or they don't want it to be likely, but they want themselves and the other players to feel as if it is a significant possibility.

I think "there is a risk your character will be removed from the game without your consent" and "You should play as if your character could die" are two different things. There's a lot of suspension of disbelief in roleplaying, and I think this is one place it gets used a lot.

Some game systems establish stakes, or a consequence for each conflict, and you want to win that fight because you care about those stakes. Stakes of "You live, or you die" don't make things very interesting to me.

In fact, you can generalize that by including capture or maiming to "You get to keep playing the character as you envisioned them, or you don't." Put that way, those seem like pretty bad stakes.

None of this is a criticism of 1e-style "live or die" play, it's just a different way of playing.

 

[RFisher]

Can you do others the same favor?

I am genuinely meaning to. Mea culpa. My rhetoric may have been a bit overboard there.

Still, the point was that for me, death was the appropriate consequence for Gnigel. Anything less would have smacked of deus ex machina & thus been a worse story & have felt like cheating. In another situation, another setback may have been just as acceptible as death. In this one, not so much.

(Of course, there's the issue of whether you feel deus ex machina is always bad. Or that certainly there is some scenario that would have worked for me here. But I don't think that invalidates what I'm trying to get across here.)

Edit: OK, no. (Slaps self around a bit.) The real point I was trying to make is that even though I'm a fan of PC death being a real possibility, my PCs are still not soulless & nameless pieces.

I think. (^_^)