On the Importance of Mortality

[FreeTheSlaves]

Out of curiosity, is it actual death that you find unfun? In other words, if "bogus mechanics" and "massive damage dumps" resulted in, say, a "comatose" state instead, would that be different. I ask because I am trying to determine if you issue is with death or uncertainty.

The death results in 2 very not fun consequences. Either a level loss that primarily punishes me - the player, or the permanent removal of my character that I have invested time and energy in, and become attached to.

Being comatose results in a play experience that remove me from contributor to spectator, i.e. it sucks. I do not like 3E mechanics like fear, confusion, nausea, 3.0 hold etc... And suffering from being comatose would only be better than death in that it is temporary condition.

In short, I have issues with the consequences of character death and the uncertainty that skill and careful play is no guarantee to avoid death.

 

[Fenes]

I stopped playing with people who had to have the threat of character death to play their characters fearing death long ago. In my experience, character death threats led to metagaming, and min-maxing, and to an alltogether worse gaming experience.

 

[Reynard]

I had this happen recently as player, in fact: I had an idea in mind for how my character was going to dramatically end her adventuring career, essentially by leaving a long and tearful suicide note before taking her own life once the party had got back to town, in remorse for some rather world-changing things she had done in the field (long story). Only problem was, she died before getting back to town...and as she was intending to kill herself anyway, it made no sense to do anything other than decline resurrection...

Well, suicide is different. A player is welcome to commit suicide with his or her character any time (though if the reasons are spurious I think that the player would have to find another table). but in general, I do not allow "I am going to die a heroic death at X point and time" because, quite frankly, no one gets to choose the place and time. In addition, I prefer stories to rise organically out of play, not be imposed on play.

 

[Reynard]

In short, I have issues with the consequences of character death and the uncertainty that skill and careful play is no guarantee to avoid death.

There are no garauntees in life, even our fantasy lives.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

There are no garauntees in life, even our fantasy lives.

If you decide to guarantee no guarantees in your game, then more power to you.

We on the other hand play otherwise.

 

[Jack7]

I think it all comes down to heroism.

You can't really be a hero if you are immortal or free of the threat of death, because then you are really free of all real threats. Any meaningful ones anyway.

If you and your friends cannot be killed then you can never really become heroes, at best you can be mere gods.

Mortality, and the willingness to risk that mortality against things greater than yourself, is an indispensable component of heroism. Both mortality and morality are fundamental aspects of the true hero.

If a hero is immortal and immoral then he is no real hero at all, he is merely a cartoon character.

You can be a mortal hero without being killed of course, but a hero only truly becomes immortal through his death, and more often than not through a death that is a sacrifice to something greater than himself for the good of others.

One cannot gain heroism merely through the accumulation of power. And the power to escape the threat of death cannot create a hero.

 

[FireLance]

There are no garauntees in life, even our fantasy lives.

Why am I wasting time and effort on fantasy, then?

 

[Varianor Abroad]

If you and your friends cannot be killed then you can never really become heroes, at best you can be mere gods.

Is the sentence less powerful or more if you remove the word "mere"?

For many, this is better than being a hero. Therein we find the conundrum posed.

 

[FireLance]

I think it all comes down to heroism.

This is probably the key difference in the way we look at this issue: I don't see D&D as a training ground for heroism. In D&D, I'm pretending to be a hero, in much the same way that an actor in a blockbuster action movie pretends to be one. The character in a movie, book, or game may be considered heroic because as far as he is concerned, he is running a real risk of death, even if the actor, author or player portraying that the character knows that he is going to survive in the end.

In a way, the life or death of a character is a low-stakes gamble. The player is neither physically nor monetarily worse off, unlike sports, where you run the risk of injury, or gambling, where you run the risk of losing money. For many groups, the real downside of death is the hassle that arises from creating a new character and introducing him into the game. It is thus a gamble with very little upside and a significant downside, so I do not find it surprising that many groups would seek to eliminate it entirely.

 

[jdrakeh]

Mortal Combat

In any given combat, there should be a threat of death.

I don't agree with this, personally. I think there should be a threat of death in combats that matter (i.e., combats that are central to a given adventure) but I've seen the above attitude used to justify the death of a supposed hero at the hands of a peasant with a broken stick in systems (including D&D) that employ critical hits -- and, really, if a peasant with a broken stick can hand your ass to you ever, you weren't much of a hero to begin with. You were a joke and pretending otherwise is pointless.

In a game where the PCs are supposedly heroes, unheroic death should never be on the table. That said, let's not confuse this with death by low-level creature. That's fine. Getting killed while fighting goblins is heroic because it's something that normal folks don't do as a general rule. Getting killed by the local bully in a pub fight intended to serve merely as a set-up for adventure because of blind luck is not heroic (at all) and should never happen. It's not a matter of lethal versus non-lethal, but heroic versus unheroic.

If you're running a game that is supposed to be heroic, then it had better be heroic. Telling your players that X is a game of heroism and adventure, then running it like it was Papers & Paychecks will drive away players just as fast as a non-genre appropriate level of lethality in combat will.

Random Death

Even outside of combat, adventuring is dangerous business. The environments into which adventurers go to seek out fame and fortune are often hostile, even when not teeming with monsters. A fall from a high cliff or down a chasm can end a character's life as easily as a sword in the ribs, or even more so. The spores, molds and fungi (the ones that aren't actually "monsters") that grow in the underdark can kill just by being there. And of course there are traps, from swinging scythe blades to poison needles to spiked pits. The existence of these kinds of dangers force players to use at least some of their resources to guard against them, if the consequences of failing to do so are made clear.

That I have no problem with, though it's worth pointing out that this kind of death is hardly random -- the DM chooses when PCs come into contact with potential lethal threats of the stated nature. If by "random" you mean that these threats deal a random amount of damage that may or may not kill characters. . . well, so do sword blows. I think you'd be better off calling this kind of death "Death by Environment" rather than "Random Death".

What Mortality Provides

Character death shouldn't be punitive -- it should be a natural consequence of the many elements that encompass play: player choice, uncertainty, the rules and the DM. It only "teaches" insofar as after it occurs, or nearly occurs, it should inform the players' future actions. DMs should never "decide" to kill PCs because doing so cheapens death as a consequence -- if it is inevitable, the only behavior it fosters is the players getting up and leaving the DM's table (as well it should). Nor should players be given control over their own mortality in a narrative context ("I want to die heroicly on the High Clerists Tower") for much the same reason.

I agree with all but the last sentence. There is an entire successful sub-industry of RPGs devoted to giving players the kind of narrative control which you seem to think can only succeed in driving players away from the table. Multiple companies and several RPG products seem to suggest that the reality is quite a bit different. There is an established market for games that give players a large degree of narrative control including (and, perhaps, especially) the right to narrate their own character's death.

The Impermanence of Death
Typically, death in D&D is a temporary condition. How temporary, which is less a function of the rules than it is a function of DM choice, informs the degree to which character mortality achieves or fails to achieve its intended function. If death is essentially permanent because the processes by which characters are returned to life are impossible for characters to use, character mortality is extremely powerful. However, under these circumstances, a sense of fatalism can result that eclipses the benefits of the recognition of the character's mortality. Equally problematic is ressurrection that is too easy. If returning from the dead is cheap, abundant and/or without consequence, mortality becomes "time out" at worst.

I agree with all of the above cited commentary with the caveat that, sometimes, a "time out" isn't a bad thing and, indeed, may be preferable depending upon the sub-genre of Fantasy being emulated.