D&D 5E Not dying?

[MiraMels]

I do not kill a player's character without their explicit permission. This is something that make clear to players before we set out to play. I cannot abide the pace of survival-oriented play, and this encourages my players to play harder in combat.
The fact that the players can fail a combat encounter without losing their characters gives me the freedom to create more challenging scenarios. It also forces me to come up with more interesting stakes to combat encounters than "win this combat or your character dies".


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[uzirath]

Regular defeat without death sounds like you have players who are wise enough to retreat to avoid such a fate. If only such players were more common.

Yeah, I've been lucky to have great players over the years. On occasion, however, we've had new players join who didn't quite get it. They would rapidly escalate situations until deaths (or other major consequences) became likely. One was coached by the other players and toned it down. The other was promoted to player emeritus.

 

[S'mon]

IMCs probably about 1 PC perma-death per 25 sessions I'd say.

 

[S'mon]

I prefer to adjudicate morale as the DM. Players would not appreciate me saying when they lose morale, why should an abstract rule set do so for NPCs?

Because NPCs don't complain, and a 2d6 check models group dynamics well I think. PC groups do fail morale and flee too (mine did on Sunday) and there is nothing wrong with adjudicating morale diceless, but rolling also works when there seems uncertainty.

 

[Illithidbix]

Mostly I'm a carebear DM and if the story is more focused on the characters and their story rather than.
In this case it is less whether they win fights or not, but the consequences of how they choose to do so.


If it's a shorter one off or a minicampaign, then I care far less.


That being said the last campaign I ran, which was mostly entirely new players; the "prologue" featured the entire party (who were all 0 level characters who were teenagers from a goat herding village) being killed by a wight in a tomb.

This then led them to being resurrected with visions of being great heroes in the past and now with class levels.

One of the players was initially a little put out, because she thought I had just brutally killed off her character.

That campaign *did* feature a death, a pvp one, when the paladin executed the Sorcerer over the ethical treatment of bandit prisoners.

 

[Waterbizkit]

I'm going to sidestep this tangent on morale and running away and also try to keep my response a bit concise since this topic seems to come up with some frequency.

Like many I don't intentionally try to kill characters in my game, but I do absolutely nothing to prevent them either. This has nothing to do with the idea some have put forward that without risk of death there's no challenge, because you can certainly challenge and threaten PCs without killing them. The reason I won't pull any punches and let the group collectively decide what "actually" happened to a character or simply handwave the death away as others would is this: I'm at the the table to tell stories.

See, my contention is that every story does not have or need a heroic ending. If the character is fated to stand victorious over the villain, that's what will happen because the game play will bear that out. However the characters fate may be to take a spear to the throat and die choking on their own blood in some filthy cave the goblins call home. Or perhaps the virtuous Paladin sees some poor drunk getting rolled in an alley and intervene only to have his throat slit by some nameless thug... dying alone in the dark in some alley that reeks of piss.

I see it as my job at the table to tell all of those stories, not just the one that sees the heroes winning the day or suffering some sort of story related setback for their failures. Those are certainly options as well, they're just not the only ones you'll find at my table.

 

[Dausuul]

The remaining player would love to have his PC die on a daily basis but he's an old hand

This matches my experience: New or casual players get super invested in their PCs and upset if they die. Veterans are accustomed to having PCs come and go, and usually have half a dozen new character ideas they want to try out, so they have no problem with PC death.

My group consists of veterans, so they're quite prepared to have their characters meet a bloody demise. Honestly, it's more of a hassle for me than it is for them; I'm the one who has to work the new character into the ongoing story.

In general, I try to manage combat so the PCs can dance along the edge of death without falling over. But there's a limit to how far you can go with that. Sometimes the dice decree that a character dies - particularly if you roll in the open - and when that happens, you have to be willing to let it happen, or all sense of risk and excitement vanishes.

 

[robus]

In general, I try to manage combat so the PCs can dance along the edge of death without falling over. But there's a limit to how far you can go with that. Sometimes the dice decree that a character dies - particularly if you roll in the open - and when that happens, you have to be willing to let it happen, or all sense of risk and excitement vanishes.

Sounds like you're doing a great job providing an interesting challenge to your players. Of course, that's as long as not every encounter is a balance between life and death. That would be exhausting!

 

[Ratskinner]

In our group it really varies from GM to GM. Personally, I lean on "How much of a pain is it to roll up a replacement?" to guide my visciousness. However, one the other guys is running a Boot Hill Cowboys and Cthulu game. Hilariously, to my mind, two of the PCs were featured in a prophecy/dream from some Aztec gods. Both died before we even got to the temple complex. I love poking at the NPCs about that.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Because NPCs don't complain, and a 2d6 check models group dynamics well I think. PC groups do fail morale and flee too (mine did on Sunday) and there is nothing wrong with adjudicating morale diceless, but rolling also works when there seems uncertainty.

Then don't play my game. As a DM the NPCs are in my domain of control. I will endeavor to adjudicate as fairly and true to the story as I can. I may even use tables and morale modifiers. But the final situation is mine to tell.