D&D 5E Krynn's Free Feats: setting-specific or the future of the game?

[TwoSix]

I think the real problem with easier deaths is you need to balance the game so that a full party isn't necessary to complete a mission, because the way it is now, if you do kill a party member off, everything gets dramatically harder, and depending on which one died, continuing might be impossible, so now you have to have "extra characters" to rotate in quickly, which can be just as troublesome for verisimilitude.

And really, what's the difference between your original character surviving til the very end or "Exact Clone # 34" surviving to the end?

I think it very much depends on what sort of game you're playing. If you're playing more of a story arc where a character or characters' personal motivations and connections are drivers of the plot, character death can grind the game to a halt.

If the game focus is simply on having the party complete missions they find, then the individual components of the party don't matter so much, since they aren't the driver of play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

that is not my experence (bob son of bob brother of bob come to avenge the last 2 bobs not withstanding)

an example from forever and a day ago.

I was in a game that started with 4 players, I was a Druid, we had a Ranger, a Paliden, and a Sorcerer... very early (like level 2 or 3) we got 2 new players bringing us to 6, a rogue and a psiwarrior (we were a combat heavy party)... and when my druid died I decided to try a new class I just found in our newest book... a warlock. He lasted 2 sessions and died to a badly placed fireball. I brought in a mult classed cleric wizard mystic thurge... and we not only realized that not 1 PC from game 1 was left (druid, ranger paliden and sorcerer all died by this point) but I was NOT the one that had the most PCs (that rogue that joined early died then was reincarnated... then died and the player brought in a wizard that died in a blaze of glory... but he then made a half dragon (level adjustment) drow (level adjusment) cleric... and died in the first encounter he was in(since he was like 5ish HD behind everyone from LA) and now was a barbarian cleric... his barbarian cleric didn't have a back story. Neither did our new aasimar sorcerer, and I kind of had a simplistic paragraph about my mystic theurge...

we had all had detailed backgrounds at first. Each new character got a little less and less... and we even joked there was no reason to be on the quest we had handed down all these times...


the game just wasn't fun. Especially because as our Aasimar sorcerer put it "I am already figureing out my next build anyway since we keep dieing"

Was this in 5e? How the heck did so many people die?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Number one, you don't play an exact clone. That's not an option at my table, and my players don't push for that anyway.

I have not seen that happen in like 15+ years... but I still have heard of "I have coem to avenge my twin brother/sister" happneing.

Number two, you build in ways in the game for new PCs to enter the game in case of death. That maintains yourselves of verisimilitude.

except when you can't... right now I am in a new game, but in the last one this DM ran around level 9 my warlock's patron become a MAJOR force in the background of the game. If my PC died it would have derailed alot of what was going on... but not all since we had a noble who had ties to the other Major force in the story... but if death were easy (and in 3e, and 2e and some retro clones it is... like 1 failed save) we could still both have died and ruiend that game.

Number three, given the softball default of 5e combat, you have to push for there be a real risk of PC death in any case.

people keep saying how soft ball it is (or other words like nerf or simple or candy land) but I have not seen a single campaign in 10 years now where death wasn't a possiblity if a) we did something stuipid or B) luck turned against us... and if BOTH A and B happened it has almost always lead to atleast the fear of a TPK...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Was this in 5e? How the heck did so many people die?

no that was back in 3e... right around the time that COmplete Arcane came out that is why I was trying the Warlock. It was a completly knew idea at the time.

But I have seen meat grinder 5e games (but less then 2e and 3e...) so it is possible.

off the top of my head the worst turn over we had in 5e was when we had the airship and the DM kept pushing people off... and even then we never lost more then 1 character per fight and (I think) never even 2 characters in teh same level...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think it very much depends on what sort of game you're playing. If you're playing more of a story arc where a character or characters' personal motivations and connections are drivers of the plot, character death can grind the game to a halt.

yup... I live in fear of the Shadar Kia in my tuesday (who sometimes takes big risks) getting a few bad rolls and turning the game on it's head. We already lost our assassin (and with him contact with the guild and the plot hook of his lost mother) but we still have the Aasimar who was born of a cleric and an angel and his family drama even if we loose the Shadar Kia... but without his revenge drive the game would have way less drive to it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have not seen that happen in like 15+ years... but I still have heard of "I have coem to avenge my twin brother/sister" happneing.

except when you can't... right now I am in a new game, but in the last one this DM ran around level 9 my warlock's patron become a MAJOR force in the background of the game. If my PC died it would have derailed alot of what was going on... but not all since we had a noble who had ties to the other Major force in the story... but if death were easy (and in 3e, and 2e and some retro clones it is... like 1 failed save) we could still both have died and ruiend that game.

people keep saying how soft ball it is (or other words like nerf or simple or candy land) but I have not seen a single campaign in 10 years now where death wasn't a possiblity if a) we did something stuipid or B) luck turned against us... and if BOTH A and B happened it has almost always lead to atleast the fear of a TPK...

According to what you said above,death for your warlock wasn't really a possibility. No PC has plot armor that thick in my game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

According to what you said above,death for your warlock wasn't really a possibility. No PC has plot armor that thick in my game.

how was it not possible... I never once said I couldn't die... and Baba Yaga was NOT about to bring me back.

 

[Jer]

I think it very much depends on what sort of game you're playing. If you're playing more of a story arc where a character or characters' personal motivations and connections are drivers of the plot, character death can grind the game to a halt.

If the game focus is simply on having the party complete missions they find, then the individual components of the party don't matter so much, since they aren't the driver of play.

It really comes down to is your game trying to tell a story, or is it a virtual world that people exist in and their stories don't actually matter to anyone but themselves.

The latter used to be the assumption of play way back in the day for most rpgs, outside of a few outliers, but now it's the reverse. The assumption now is that there's a narrative, which means character death becomes a narrative stopper, not an interesting outcome.

(It's funny too - I described a real "virtual world" game that we played back in the day to my 14 year old and asked them what they thought and they shrugged and said if that was what D&D was like back in the day they'd "rather play video games" - they felt like the narrative was the point and they could get a virtual world elsewhere. So I wonder if that's part of the shift.)

 

[TwoSix]

According to what you said above,death for your warlock wasn't really a possibility. No PC has plot armor that thick in my game.

Having the death be a bad thing for the game IF it happened doesn't mean the possibility of the death doesn't exist.

I mean, I have one game right now where are the PCs are childhood friends, any death would probably see the PC group disband/give up adventuring. But we all know that we COULD die, it would just likely end the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

how was it not possible... I never once said I couldn't die... and Baba Yaga was NOT about to bring me back.

You said the game would be ruined if the Warlock died. I took that to mean that the DM wouldn't allow them to. Apologies if I misunderstood.