D&D 5E Let 'em live or die?

[toucanbuzz]

Why is death the thing that makes it so?

After 20+ years DMing, I still am juggling my thoughts on this one. Some of the best stories players & DMs have to tell have been not about victory but rather the unique way their character went out. Victory is easy. "We beat Strahd." Echoed from thousands of other gaming tables: "So did we."

Compare this with: "We were in the heart of Acererak's Tower on the Negative Plane with nothing but a tiny amulet of thin metal protecting us from withering away. And there it was, in a chest, a Deck of Many Things. Now we knew better. We should have known better. Just a couple cards, we said. Maybe we'll get a wish. And boom, 1st draw, my character is sucked away, imprisoned at the heart of some planet for eternity. Well of course, now we've got to draw. No one can free them, so it's Wish or go home. We're good but not that good. So, my friend draws, and wouldn't you know it...she draws the exact same card! That's 2 down. Our cleric goes next, and it's just not our day. He draws the "lose all your magic items." Guess what's protecting him from the Negative Plane? He's gone. That leaves our monk. You think he'll have better luck? Not a chance. He loses all his non-magical gear and wealth. He's naked with a little amulet on, and no cleric to Plane Shift him home. So he looks around the table and says "guys, you know what..." And he takes off the amulet.

Although subject to sheer bad luck, the players ended up with a story that no one else had.

This is the second death. The first death was fudged. Does the second player have a reasonable expectation that this death will be fudged too? Is there a possibility that she will regard the DM as "playing favorites" if this death is not fudged?

I definitely want to avoid any notion a character can't die so long as you come up with an awesome story. But, it ultimately is all about weaving that story. I've come to think low-level deaths due to dice aren't much of a story, but invincibility can cheapen the experience.

 

[Umbran]

After 20+ years DMing, I still am juggling my thoughts on this one.

I have come across a recent discussion by a game designer - Rob Donoghue, whose credits include Spirit of the Century, Leverage, other Fate and Cortex games, and a bit of 4e as well. It comes from a discussion of game elements of the form "1% chance that you get amazing result, 99% chance of death," but it is a general point.

"Alternately, take a little bit more time to think about your consequences and how they impact. The problem with Death as a consequence is not that it's dire, it's that it's BORING. In most cases, Death means "Guess I'll play on my phone for the next few hours".

There are exceptions, of course. Paranoia leaps to mind. But in most games, even if the table is generous with replacement, Death means downtime. And that's before we get into issues like player investment and plots.

And, again, to be clear I'm not saying to take death off the table. It has a place. But be careful about being excessively cavalier about it, and be aware of its actual consequences.

Also, death is for chumps.

Seriously, if death is the worst consequence you can put in front of your players, then it's time to start thinking about playable consequence, because those can be so much nastier."

And that last is a pretty interesting bit, here. Death is an unplayable consequence.

 

[toucanbuzz]

So my follow-up from this week's game. I reached out to the player with my little Colville story (about being angry for 30 minutes). She thought it would be a bit funny, it seems, to ignore me for the week instead of 30 minutes and then rolled up a new character already linked in her backstory. In reflection, she felt the prior character wasn't headed in the direction she was wanting anyways (story-wise, and if you're thinking how can your character not go the way you want, it's the fun of the game when that happens). She also felt that we're in a harsh land, and death happens. So, fresh start and that's the type of character death that worked, for her. It's something new for me to try it this way: talk to players about what happens and, key word, build something from there.

 

[prabe]

So my follow-up from this week's game. I reached out to the player with my little Colville story (about being angry for 30 minutes). She thought it would be a bit funny, it seems, to ignore me for the week instead of 30 minutes and then rolled up a new character already linked in her backstory. In reflection, she felt the prior character wasn't headed in the direction she was wanting anyways (story-wise, and if you're thinking how can your character not go the way you want, it's the fun of the game when that happens). She also felt that we're in a harsh land, and death happens. So, fresh start and that's the type of character death that worked, for her. It's something new for me to try it this way: talk to players about what happens and, key word, build something from there.

That sounds something like a best-case outcome. Your player bought in, and so did you, and the story of the campaign can go on, and everyone is (apparently) happy with where things are going.

Huzzah!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I know it's a bit late for providing advice, but...well, I feel like I should speak up anyway.

I don't like death as a consequence. I, too, find it boring. I also find the anxiety over whether I might lose my character not enjoyable. (I have enough anxiety in my ordinary life.) But I want to have consequences that matter, I want to not know for sure what the future will bring.

So I don't generally kill characters. Or, if I ever do kill one (it hasn't happened yet in my game), I'll offer challenges for BOTH sides on how to fix it. Death should never be a speedbump. But it should also not be a dead end, if you'll pardon the pun. Making death a rare but playable consequence is much more interesting to me than either making it verboten or simply letting it happen flat. Maybe it will be difficult to resurrect the character. Maybe an evil person DOES resurrect the character, and now they have a debt! Maybe seeing things from the realm of the dead has granted that character new insight...or maybe for some reason, Death says, "Oh, it's you. You aren't supposed to be here yet. I have to send you back." Or any of a bajillion other possibilities.

If a player really did feel like their character NEEDED to die, and I couldn't see a good direction to take things into the future, I'd roll with it--as you have done. It's cool to have a death happen and work around it, if the player is on board. But I have, for example, talked a player OUT of having his character die. He was about to go on an ongoing hiatus for an indefinite length, and wanted a last hurrah. I persuaded him to take a slightly tweaked approach, which allowed his character to leave the narrative on an unknown-duration basis, while preserving the possibility of his return, should the player wish it. He was quite happy with the result.

 

[jasper]

The BBEG ascends to godhood, and rather than kill you, grants you eternal life, but not eternal youth, and sets about making your life a living hell....

Mullets and bell-bottoms come back into fashion.

.

YES! I knew the BBEG had some good in him.

 

[Helldritch]

I think the issue I have with this is that some DMs ideas of "when it makes sense" to do that are, like, kinda metagame-y. Like, I'm sorry, if the NPCs are fighting for their lives, and the combat is on a knife's edge, I'm not really buying that a bunch of them are going to waste their attacks on a downed guy, esp. if they haven't seem him get up already. But that's a DM/party interface issue, and one you can discuss (and if you can't don't play with that guy).

The other issue is that it's ridiculously easy for some monsters to do this, especially those with multiple attacks - and there's essentially nothing the players can do in 5E if the initiative order means they can't act before the multi-attacker. I saw a DM do this a while back - the initiative was like (made up numbers but correct order), Monster A goes on 16, PC goes on 12, Monster B goes on 6, and the rest of the PCs had already gone that round. Monster A got a lucky crit and dropped the PC just barely to 0 HP from well over half, PC missed his turn because he's unconscious, succeeds on death save but doesn't get 20, Monster B uses a low-damage multi-attack, but it's three hits (easy because he has Advantage because the PC is prone and he's in melee) so the PC auto-dies. It made little sense, and was utterly un-dramatic, and very lame, but there you are.

I guess maybe I feel like a monster should only be able to force-fail one death save per round, regardless of number of attacks.

I am more or less with you on that one. Foes will make sure an opponent will stay down by attacking a fallen enemy only if they have been shown that "fallen" might not be such a big deal. Non animal foes will definitely make certain that the fallen enemy stays down for good. This will avoid the whack a mole syndrome. A spare the dying is a sure way to let a character survive.

Think about it this way. Your group put down a.troll, six more remain. Do they take time to apply fire to the fallen troll or do they keep fighting the other trolls and give a hence to the fallen one to heal up and come back? They apply fire on the fallen troll every single time. A good tactic against trolls. If the player can do it, so can their foes.

A character's need not be the end of a character but what is so bad if it is the case?

And yes, some monsters have it easy on the "coup de grâce " when they have three attacks. Too easy? I am not so sure but yes, I do agree that it can be a problem. I would not go over board on that tactic unless the players have proven that they can spring back from dying to kicking with a single word. Am I meta gaming? I don't think so as I would not "finish" a character with such a tactic if the players had not shown that they could do the spring back from death to kick ass to their current foes.

The important thing is that as a DM you keep being consistent in your approach.

 

[iserith]

I honestly don't think all that much thought needs to go into whether a monster attacks a downed PC. Do it if you want to increase the difficulty of the challenge or to push the players into altering their tactics. That's really the only calculation in my view. If you decide to do it, whether you have multiattacking creatures or not, just tell the players by way of description that this is a possibility and let them decide what to do about it, same as any other challenge.

In a recent game in which I played, we knew this was a possibility and we were fighting a lot of hasted frost giants. (Basically the frost giants were making ice they would snort to get a haste effect.) And because they were tweaking so hard, they would just keep on wailing on someone if they went down. Three attacks from a frost giant in some cases. So we stocked up on diamonds and made sure we had plenty of slots for healing word. We hit them with dispel magic sometimes. Sometimes we'd sneak up and steal their ice before combat started (and use it ourselves!). Nobody died permanently. In fact, it was surprising how many times the tweaked up giant would miss despite having advantage on the prone PC. And our group rolls everything in the open, so there was no fudging going on.

So really, the threat is really made to seem bigger than it really is. Go ahead and do it from time to time. Players will adapt. And if they don't, they'll learn to next time.

 

[Helldritch]

Frost giant sniffing snow... that is deliciously ironic and funny.

And yes attacking downed PC raises up the challenge and good players will adapt. But frosty frost giants... Why didn't I think of it first....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I honestly don't think all that much thought needs to go into whether a monster attacks a downed PC. Do it if you want to increase the difficulty of the challenge or to push the players into altering their tactics. That's really the only calculation in my view. If you decide to do it, whether you have multiattacking creatures or not, just tell the players by way of description that this is a possibility and let them decide what to do about it, same as any other challenge.

I dislike any system which means you need to metagame to get results which match the fiction, and the current death save approach certainly does encourage that, sadly. Whether they attack downed creatures or not should be on the personality/nature of the being, y'know, roleplaying, not on metagame-y stuff like "altering difficulty". IMHO anyway.

I am more or less with you on that one. Foes will make sure an opponent will stay down by attacking a fallen enemy only if they have been shown that "fallen" might not be such a big deal. Non animal foes will definitely make certain that the fallen enemy stays down for good. This will avoid the whack a mole syndrome. A spare the dying is a sure way to let a character survive.

Think about it this way. Your group put down a.troll, six more remain. Do they take time to apply fire to the fallen troll or do they keep fighting the other trolls and give a hence to the fallen one to heal up and come back? They apply fire on the fallen troll every single time. A good tactic against trolls. If the player can do it, so can their foes.

Except in real combat that's absolutely not how people typically act.

In real combat, people don't typically finish downed opponents, because it's actually kind of difficult and requires making yourself vulnerable. Thus I find the "any damage at all = death save" approach to be... weak. Unsatisfying. Not quite right.