D&D General Lethality, AD&D, and 5e: Looking Back at the Deadliest Edition

[Krachek]

My view on lethality for editions.

1ed. Vietnam war. The DM is the sergent, the players the recruits in a Boot Camp. reference movie: Full metal jacket.

3ed. The players have at last access to the rules. The key to survive was the rules mastery, and often the fierce fight was not against monster, but against the DM on a rule interpretation. At the end the Wizard win and became a god. reference movie The Matrix.

4ed. WoW. Frankly it’s a video game that shape the game play. you can’t die in Wow. You can only fail or run out ressources,

5ed dying is no more a concern, the real concern is to play fully his character concept. reference Critical role show, Harry Potter Saga.

NeoLethal
Lethality make some come back. OSR, new game like ShadowDark push on lethality like a new fresh experience. You don’t die in shame, you die like in a show, Reference movie : Suicide Squad, The mission.

 

[Oofta]

My view on lethality for editions.

1ed. Vietnam war. The DM is the sergent, the players the recruits in a Boot Camp. reference movie: Full metal jacket.

3ed. The players have at last access to the rules. The key to survive was the rules mastery, and often the fierce fight was not against monster, but against the DM on a rule interpretation. At the end the Wizard win and became a god. reference movie The Matrix.

4ed. WoW. Frankly it’s a video game that shape the game play. you can’t die in Wow. You can only fail or run out ressources,

5ed dying is no more a concern, the real concern is to play fully his character concept. reference Critical role show, Harry Potter Saga.

NeoLethal
Lethality make some come back. OSR, new game like ShadowDark push on lethality like a new fresh experience. You don’t die in shame, you die like in a show, Reference movie : Suicide Squad, The mission.

Funny that you reference Critical Role when Matt has killed off multiple PCs and come close to TPKs on occasion.

Admittedly most were raised, but that's always been an option and its not automatic in his game.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Reading the OP, one thing that also needs to be mentioned and Im sure it has been by now:

The monsters where also quick to die. That save or die? Worked on them as well, not just the heroes.

As for 5E, more hp, more saves, easier access to being raised (and successfully). Sleeping fixes 90% of issues.

AD&D was rougher even if you house ruled things like -10 HP is dead.

Had my 5E group play some 2E and all but one loved it. "I feel like what I do matters" when he realized he could outright kill a monster without getting into a war of HP attrition.

(BTB play Shadowdark. Easier 5E with old school feel).

 

[Krachek]

Funny that you reference Critical Role when Matt has killed off multiple PCs and come close to TPKs on occasion.

Admittedly most were raised, but that's always been an option and its not automatic in his game.

I don’t follow CR at all, but I knew there been some PCs death. It spread like an important new, a kind of national drama!
Dying is less view like a failure, but a part of a bigger show.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Yeah. That would suck. I have dice older than most of the people I game with.

Every time I play with the 2 yutes in my weekend game, I think about that every time I roll certain dice. Some older than them, some twice as old. Some older...

 

[Voadam]

It is a lot easier for an individual to die in older D&D thanks to the 5e general lack of save or die effects and the existence of death saves and healing word in 5e.

So far in my 5e DMing the majority of PC deaths have been from TPKs where the party only recognized how outclassed they were when it was a couple rounds too late to escape (vampires can be really nasty against certain PC builds) or when massive spikes of area of effect damage came into play.

I can't think of a PC death in my 5e games where it was just one PC who died.

In contrast I can think of a number in my AD&D games, though no TPKs.

 

[Lanefan]

That was mostly my experience too, at least in 2e. Mages were always very careful with stuff like fireball or lightning bolt, mostly due to the HP many PCs had. A 5th level mage launching a lightning bolt carelessly into the 5th level bard PC with no constitution bonus stood a chance of killing them.

Let's just say our mages haven't always been that careful, in part because Wisdom is often their dump stat and in part because they sometimes just don't realize where someone is (e.g. invisible PC thief sneaking around behind the lines when PC magey decides to put a fireball back there).

And even when they are careful, we still make them roll to aim their spells (it's usually pretty easy unless they're trying for something really fine-tuned) and yes, you can miss badly or even fumble with a spell just like you can with any other aimed thing.

 

[Clint_L]

Funny that you reference Critical Role when Matt has killed off multiple PCs and come close to TPKs on occasion.

Admittedly most were raised, but that's always been an option and its not automatic in his game.

Matt Mercer has a lot of old school DM in how he runs his games. PC death is fairly frequent (the recent campaign came very close to a TPK not that long ago) and when players are raised it is a big deal in the plot - raising Laudna from the dead become its own story, he ruthlessly killed an unconscious Mollymauk, and there was no saving Vax'ildan back in the day. He's also hardcore about things like resource management - you will track those arrows and he doesn't care if you are level 20, you are still gonna track every copper spent on an ale.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, there's always that risk when taking a less-difficult game and cranking up the difficulty as opposed to taking a more difficult one and reducing the difficulty. There's a whole psychological phenomenon at work there.

While not a disagreement, just a note: when cranking up the lethality. There are ways to make a game more difficult without making them notably more lethal.

 

[Andvari]

Wights are affected by silver weapons.

That's actually pretty funny, because the wight's monster category is "enchanted", even though it shouldn't count as enchanted due to being vulnerable to silver. Lycanthropes are also listed as enchanted creatures, even though the spell description specifically mentions a werewolf as an example of a non-enchanted creature.