On the Importance of Mortality

[Raven Crowking]

Far be it from my to mention that the victory conditions in chess are non-negotiable and the victory conditions in D&D are.

(Aside: I wonder if/how much Quest Cards will change this dynamic?)

My point was that, just because D&D is "always a bunch of people sitting around a table rolling dice and talking about the imaginary things their imaginary friends did" it doesn't follow that it has so little value that how it is played is unimportant to the participants.

BTW, I would be very interested in a discussion (perhaps in another thread) of methods by which various groups "reset" the "balance mechanics" in 3.x to alter the occurance rate of PC deaths.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't see where you're going with this... but okay.

In my current campaign the PC's can fail under virtually any and all circumstances, they famously suffering a humiliating defeat and significant material loss while shopping one session. But said failure(s) will not result in the permanent removal from play of their preferred PC unless they want it to.

Are you saying that there is no chance of redress for that humiliating defeat or material loss?

RC

 

[Reynard]

But said failure(s) will not result in the permanent removal from play of their preferred PC unless they want it to.

I have had PCs that I liked plenty, who has "stories" I wanted to tell, that were killed and not raised. I don't think my diappointment, irritation or depression lasted longer than it took to reach for three six sided dice out of my dice bag and a new character sheet.

 

[Fenes]

BTW, I would be very interested in a discussion (perhaps in another thread) of methods by which various groups "reset" the "balance mechanics" in 3.x to alter the occurance rate of PC deaths.
RC

From what I remember, banning Raise Dead (and similar) spells is the most common way to make the game more deadly, especially at higher levels. Alternatively, playing at levels where characters do not have the ressources to pay for raise dead, or access to it, works as well.

(I banned the spells for campaign reasons. If past a certain point resurection or true resurrection is the logical outcome to just about every death of a PC or important NPC a number of plots start to become impossible. But since I loathe character death, it was a given that once Raise Dead was out, character death would join it in the trash bin).

 

[Mallus]

(Aside: I wonder if/how much Quest Cards will change this dynamic?)

I haven't kept up with the Quest Card chatter, so I can't tell if they're simple to-do lists intended to keep PC's "on-track" or a kind of explicit narrative stake-setting mechanism, or a bit of both.

My point was that, just because D&D is "always a bunch of people sitting around a table rolling dice and talking about the imaginary things their imaginary friends did" it doesn't follow that it has so little value that how it is played is unimportant to the participants.

OK. But "how D&D is played" varies widely (and you know that). So much so in fact, that some people consider PC death an absolute requirement for becoming invested in the game while for others find it a hindrance.

 

[Fenes]

I have had PCs that I liked plenty, who has "stories" I wanted to tell, that were killed and not raised. I don't think my diappointment, irritation or depression lasted longer than it took to reach for three six sided dice out of my dice bag and a new character sheet.

And I won't ever play a game where PC death could force me to stop playing the character I want to play. I want to have fun, and that means playing what character I want.

 

[Mallus]

Are you saying that there is no chance of redress for that humiliating defeat or material loss?

Actually, no, I mis-posted. Redress for that particular incident is right around the corner...

But, to answer your general question (again): there exists in my campaign events which cannot be undone/done over.

 

[Jack7]

And, of course, acting as a hero has a plethora of different definitions. Achilles, to some, is a hero. So is Hercules. So is Beowulf. So are St. George, Milton's Lucifer, Arjuna, Joan of Arc, Mad Max, Gandhi, Drizzt, Batman, et al. Depending on whose opinion you're seeking and which perspective you're using, there's a lot of variety to the concept.

That's true enough. One man's hero is another man's Drizzt, but I'm not saying that even the biggest of jerks can't have some heroic attributes. Generally speaking though, most people know a hero when they see one, and they know that most folks can be heroic to some extent or another, and that even the greatest of heroes has his flaws. So I never said there was only one hero, only that it is an ideal it is worth working towards.

By the way I like Milton's Lucifer and Homer's Achilles. I wouldn't want either as friends, and can't say I would really consider either heroic, but both certainly have heroic virtues of their own. Drizzt I can live without. But that's just me.

Actually, as far as I know, the game as originally construed was about taking one of your wargaming units and turning it into a character and giving it a voice and killing things and taking their stuff.

Or it could also be about dice and hit points. Or class and race. Or gold and iron. But there is often a difference between means and intent. And what something is built out of, and what it is built for.

And if you take D&D to the end, it's always a bunch of people sitting around a table rolling dice and talking about the imaginary things their imaginary friends did. Once you hold that element firmly in mind, it's a little difficult to take seriously the argument that whether someone's imaginary friend died or not is a bona-fide route to heroism or even anything close to it.

I agree. And I would never say that the imagination is a thing of supreme importance in and of itself. It is what men do that set them apart, not what they imagine. Anyone can imagine just about anything, but if that's all you got, you ain't got a lot. However nothing important in ourselves becomes real until first we determine it will be so. And a person sitting around imaging that he will be heroic is probably (though it is no guarantee in real life that he will be) better than sitting around imagining he will be cowardly or riskless or spend his life all in dreams of what he could have been had the die roll gone some other way. Heroism is certainly a better goal to shoot for than the opposite and probably why the character classes in the game are all adventurous (which originally meant inclined towards hazard) and daring, and why one plays Rogues and Rangers and Wizards, instead of accountants and gardeners and librarians. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but most folks just don't see the point of the bother of playing Tom the Tax Attorney. Unless Tom the Tax Attorney is a secret identity for Doc Savage. Then that might be a game worth playing.

So yeah, a teenage fantasy of playing a heroic character can't go anywhere in and of itself. But if it spurs a dream towards real manhood in real people then that's better than no dream at all. And every reality starts somewhere. Even if that reality is just a fantasy of what has yet to happen. But might with a little work.

 

[Mallus]

I have had PCs that I liked plenty, who has "stories" I wanted to tell, that were killed and not raised.

I should probably mention that my position in this thread reflects my preferences as DM, more than as a player.

I don't think my diappointment, irritation or depression lasted longer than it took to reach for three six sided dice out of my dice bag and a new character sheet.

If a player wishes to continue playing character (x), I simply don't see the benefit in forcing them to play character (x+1).

(BTW, no one in this thread is discussing players reacting badly or immaturely to PC death. Why start now?)

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

For my games, consequences in game are important, character death is optional.

It really boils down to what the people in the group as a whole want. For my Everstone game, 2 of the 3 players are not only fine with death being an outcome, but they actively rejected the option for some sort of Raise Dead mechanism. I told them, "By default, the game world doesn't have a mechanism for coming back from the dead, unless you're counting something like a zombie. Which is different, since it's an animated corpse, not really the dead come back to life. I've got a couple of different options for how this could be done, but I'm not going to bother with it if you guys aren't into it."

They said no, they were perfectly happy with perma-death. *shrug*

My wife on the other hand doesn't like it. I run games for her, so death is just off the table. Her characters can get messed up pretty badly, but she doesn't have to worry about death due to a crappy toss of the dice.

Me? I don't generally bother getting too attached to my characters. I've only once (last year) played in a game that had a mechanism for coming back from the dead. In every other game I've been in as a player for the last 20 years, you could die and death was permanent. Even in last year's game, Raise Dead/Ressurection/whatever spell wasn't actually in the game. Every DM automatically houserules those spells out.

So there's no reason to be attached to the character. I have fun playing them, but since they can get yanked from me at any time.... *shrug*

I do dislike having to make new characters. It does take time, and after a while it's hard to come up with a character that's not just "Bob, v2". That's one of the reasons why I avoid certain games, or flat out won't play when certain people run games. The more often I have to make a character, the less attached I am to the game/gameworld. Past a certain point, I'm spending enough time not playing the game (and making a new character instead) that I might as well just skip making the character and just hang out.