Player so afraid PC will die that she's not having fun

[Tigerbunny]

For the record, I want the players to become true heroes. I want this badly--for me, heroism is the bread and butter of fantasy RPGs. I just don't want it to be easy; I want the journey to be fraught with danger. I want the path of the hero to be a challenging one, both physically and morally. I want them to choose the heroic path even though it is the harder road to take. I don't want them to abandon self-preservation, but neither do I want them to assume that they will never take significant risks to achieve their goals. Heroes make personal sacrifices for the greater good--the FDNY firefighters who unhesitantly rushed into the WTC knowing full well it could collapse at any moment are true heroes; Conan the Barbarian, cleaver of a thousand enemies, is not. To me heroism is a state of mind, a choice to do the right thing even though it is unpopular or dangerous; heroism has nothing to do with having the ability to lay down an arse-whupping. Those fights will (and do) happen in my campaign, but it is the character who bravely stands up to the powerful necromancer and says "No, your evil stops here"--even though that foe could end him--that is the true hero. Those are the type of heroes that I want to see, and they are what I have tried (and failed, through my mistakes) to encourage.

Regarding TPKs, first let me say that allowing TPKs is a gaming style choice that I embrace. I will not save a party from their own stupidity, and nobody has script immunity in my games. Sometimes ignoble deaths occur, thems the breaks, and I won't lose any sleep over it. The PCs are inhabitants of a world, and that world has rules that it operates on, and sometimes fate, or karma, or bad die rolls, or whatever, will end a character. That said, I am not above flubbing die rolls when I've obviously messed up an EL, and I even un-TPKed the party once when it became obvious that I had made a crucial mistake that would have made a difference to the outcome.

It's good that you know where you stand on these things, ForceUser and can state it clearly. Do your players all understand this about you and your game? Do they all agree with you about it? Or is this something you feel is just the way it should be and have imposed on your game because you're the DM....?

When you have conflicts within a gaming group, more often than not it's because people have some unexamined assumptions about 'the way things are (or should be)'. When one of those people is the DM, often they just get to make their assumptions the laws of the universe, and then wonder why their players aren't playing along or aren't having fun.

Maybe your players don't have the same definition of 'heroes' that you do. Maybe they don't want to be heroes at all... I've certainly known players who didn't. Get those assumptions - on both sides of the screen - out in the open. There is no game if the players and the DM can't agree on what it is that they're doing together. It is NOT the responsibility of the players to 'get it' and conform to the DM's vision, nor is it appropriate for a DM to take it upon himself to 'teach them a lesson' if they're not cooperating.

Frankly, it's disappointed to see how much of the advice in this thread has been various flavors of 'how to bully, manipulate, or otherwise trick players into DOING IT RIGHT.'

Best,

Mark

 

[Anabstercorian]

Like in that DnD-related Vin Diesel interview, where the host says he sees a couple of figures emerging from the mist, and all he had was a rusty short sword. Vin would ask all these tactical questions to evaluate the situation, when he suddenly asked "what kind of creatures?". "Two orcs". "TWO ORCS??? I throw away my sword and fight them bare-handed!"

That sounds like a really interesting interview. Is it on the internet anywhere?

 

[Undead Lincoln]

People have mentioned ease of resurrection as a way to mitigate the fear of death. Another possibility I have been trying out is permanent injuries instead of death. If the character is not completely blown away by an attack (ex. fails their fort save against disintegrate with single digit hit points), they survive. However they have some sort of a permanent injury that will stay with their character. They might end up with a limp that cuts their speed by 5 feet, lose a finger, get a nasty scar that makes disguise and some diplomacy difficuly, etc.

This keeps characters afraid of "death" but means that they don't end up being unable to play their characters. This keeps the fear minimal. If you decide to use this rule, make it clear you are not cranking up the difficulty of encounters, and announce it to the PCs. Also make sure the first few injuries are minor and not dirrectly related to character concepts (ex. do not take out the archer's eyes, instead give him a scar or a limp).

 

[John Morrow]

I agree. Do you think that what I have outlined above is meeting them halfway, or should I do more?

I think you are doing the right thing but should make it clear that you are providing a stupid move safety net. If you notice that the characters are about to do something stupid, always tell them, "You know, this will probably..."

For the record, I want the players to become true heroes. I want this badly--for me, heroism is the bread and butter of fantasy RPGs. I just don't want it to be easy; I want the journey to be fraught with danger. I want the path of the hero to be a challenging one, both physically and morally. I want them to choose the heroic path even though it is the harder road to take. I don't want them to abandon self-preservation, but neither do I want them to assume that they will never take significant risks to achieve their goals. Heroes make personal sacrifices for the greater good--the FDNY firefighters who unhesitantly rushed into the WTC knowing full well it could collapse at any moment are true heroes; Conan the Barbarian, cleaver of a thousand enemies, is not. To me heroism is a state of mind, a choice to do the right thing even though it is unpopular or dangerous; heroism has nothing to do with having the ability to lay down an arse-whupping.

You need to bear in mind that there are a lot of D&D players out there who would rather play Conan than an FDNY firefighter. The vast majority of real people (and thus the vast majority of D&D players) are not real life heroes who live a life of danger. They are pretending to be heroes in the safety of their own home. If you make the heroic experience too real for them, then all of the though processes and emotions that keep them from being real world heroes who live a life of danger can creep in and cause problems, especially if they become really emotionally attached to their characters.

I'd also suggest looking at the volume of danger faced by an FDNY firefighter vs. the danger faced by Conan. Nobody can endure the thousands of enemies faced by Conan if each enemy poses the sort of life-and-death struggle faced by FDNY firefighters on 9/11. And I'd argue that heroism is also cheapened by repetition.

Just as 9/11 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for 9/11 firefighters, the really heroic situations in your campaign should be rare and important. If you want to treat the characters like FDNY firefighters rather than Conan, then make most of their encounters comparable to the trivial small fires and false alarms that FDNY firefighters normally encounter and save the 9/11 experience for the climax of your adventure.

Those fights will (and do) happen in my campaign, but it is the character who bravely stands up to the powerful necromancer and says "No, your evil stops here"--even though that foe could end him--that is the true hero. Those are the type of heroes that I want to see, and they are what I have tried (and failed, through my mistakes) to encourage.

And that's fine if that's the climax to your campaign because whether the PCs win or die, the game is over. It's not necessarily fine if that happens once a week, every week. Especially if your players are emotionally attached to their characters. It's like telling FDNY firefighters, "You'll be having a 9/11 scale event once a week for the next 3 years." How many are up to that? How many of their families, who are emotionally attached to them, are up to that? Yes, characters aren't real, but the emotional attachment that players feel toward them can be very real.

Regarding TPKs, first let me say that allowing TPKs is a gaming style choice that I embrace. I will not save a party from their own stupidity, and nobody has script immunity in my games. Sometimes ignoble deaths occur, thems the breaks, and I won't lose any sleep over it.

And what if your players do lose sleep over it?

The PCs are inhabitants of a world, and that world has rules that it operates on, and sometimes fate, or karma, or bad die rolls, or whatever, will end a character. That said, I am not above flubbing die rolls when I've obviously messed up an EL, and I even un-TPKed the party once when it became obvious that I had made a crucial mistake that would have made a difference to the outcome.

The way to allow realism and high-risk activity is to make the characters competent enough to survive high-risk activities with a minimum of risk -- an approach you seem to be rejecting. Characters in books and movies have script immunity. In real life, plenty of heroes die. Several hundred FDNY firefighters did on 9/11, as a matter of fact. A lot of people don't want to know what it feels like to be an FDNY firefighter in the South Tower as he realizes that the building is starting to collapse and he's going to die. Heroism or not, it wasn't a fun first-person experience, nor was it fun for the families and friends of those firefighters who died because of their emotional attachment to them. And a player who is emotionally attached to their character also might not have a lot of fun losing their character that way, even if the emotional experience is significantly less intense. It's that "Jesus, Grandpa! Why are you reading me this thing?" moment.

And in real life, those who do face life-or-death risks every day do everything they can to stack the odds in their favor. Think about those forces designed for high-risk deployments -- SWAT teams, SEALs, Special Forces, etc. All of them are a lot more like Conan than FDNY firefighters.

Finally, I'd argue that if you aren't really all that emotionally attached to your character and can casually accept their death if things don't work out, you aren't really capturing the heroic experience, either. As you pointed out, heroism requires "personal sacrifice" and pushing a character that doesn't mean all that much to you through a meatgrinder isn't all that heroic to me, either.

 

[Rel]

And what if your players do lose sleep over it?

Then I'd say they're in the wrong game.

I'm not rejecting the validity of a game where the PC's have near immunity to ignoble deaths due to stupidity or bad dice rolls. But I wouldn't want to play in one. I wouldn't want to run one. And it sounds like ForceUser doesn't want to run one either.

As always, Trust is the foundation on which this game (and all relationships) must be built. So you say to the players, "Look, I'm not out to get your characters. I WANT you to succeed. But that success is meaningless without challenge and challenge, in a game like this, means the chance of death sometimes. I'm not fudging the dice against you and I'm trying not to give the enemy any tactical advantages that they shouldn't have under the circumstances. But beyond that you'll just have to trust me that I'm not gleefully rubbing my hands together in anticipation of killing your character. If that sounds like a game you can enjoy then we can start playing. If that sounds like a game you can't enjoy then we're done playing. If you think there is some kind of middle ground then I'm willing to talk about it."

For what it's worth, I think I'd enjoy playing in one of your games, Force User.

 

[Orius]

I have a tendency to make encounters that are meaningful to the plot more difficult than necessary, and when I forget to be mindful of this tendency players can suffer from overly difficult foes. This tendency is a habit I've developed over the years to compensate for the brilliant tactical maneuvers and excellent teamwork my old school friends commit on a regular basis; with them I tend to tune up the CR and/or EL of encounters, because they are often not sufficiently challenged by level-appropriate foes. My new group, of course, is the complete opposite, and those who have suggested that I ramp down the CRs and ELs of encounters are absolutely right, and going forward I intend to adopt this strategy until they become more comfortable with the rules. Thanks for that tip.

Sounds like a good idea. You have to remember that newbies don't know the tactical options available to them, and haven't fought enough monster to get a feel for what they can handle. Most of them too, have only read what's in the PHB. OTOH, experienced players know how to take cover, take extensive trap sweeps of dungeons, and have played enough characters and played in enough campaigns that they understand the various strengths and weaknesses of different character builds. Furthermore, experienced players are also more like to have DMed in the past as well, so they know what the game is like on both sides of the proverbial screen. Experienced players can defeat encounters that would wipe out newbies easily.

Indeed. I allowed my completely new group to be led astray by a veteran player who happened to be roleplaying his character appropriately. He was playing a fighter with an 8 Wisdom and suggested a frontal assault on an orc lair that they knew to be inhabited by a whole clan of orcs. The three newbies assumed that the experienced player wouldn't lead them astray, and with some trepidation on their parts they unhappily marched off to their deaths. In retrospect, I absolutely should have suggested to the player of the wisest character that the plan seemed foolhardy, and I regret not playing with kid gloves in that instance.

I'd say in this situation not to worry too much about "appropriate roleplaying". It would be different in a group of experienced players, since whoever's playing a cleric or wizard (presumably with high Int or Wis scores) could offer advice to counter the foolhardy fighter's plan. The problem here is newer player are more likely to metagame than roleplay due to their inexperience, so naturally they followed the fighter's lead. In a sitation like this let some metagaming occur, but not too much. You don't want the experienced player to tell them every trick he's learned about fighting orcs, but it's also important for him to help you show the newbies how to play as well.

Since then, I have taken to a variety of methods of guiding the newer players along--I drop helpful hints through NPCs, I give them Int or Wis checks regarding some courses of action, and in combat I flat-out explain to them what would be the best tactical solutions for a given situation, and why. While doing so, however, I still have a tendency to throw an occasional messy fight at them, or allow them to walk into one. For the most part, however, they destroy their opponents even as they fearfully shrink from them.

Sounds good. Guide them a little bit, but show them that sometimes the unexpected can happen in the game. It's not a problem is the unexpected isn't there to overpower and kill them outright.

Finally, I agree that the PC-killing jokes ended up being counter-productive, and I no longer say them. Instead, I try to be encouraging without giving away the farm. I think I will take up the suggestion to lower CRs on the whole for a while, to help them build up some confidence. I will also include fewer do-or die scenarios.

That's good. Experienced players have both played and DMed enough to know there are killer DMs out there, and have been the targets of and engaged in plenty of fun rat bastard DMing. We laugh it off. For newer players, you have to let them know that the DM is really supposed to be neutral; even though he sets up challenges for the PCs to overcome, it's not his place to make them heroes. The players have to take the initiative on their own. And sometimes challenging them can mean threatening them with death. Let them learn, even if you have to tell them, that they can die, but not because you're trying to "win", but because heroes need to overcome great dangers to be worthy of the name hero in the first place.

 

[Orius]

In other words, I'll meticulously check each and every door for locked status, traps, pitfalls, pratfalls, strange noises, puffs of wind, odd temperatures, etc.

After doing this and finding absolutely nothing at each of the first 15 doors and wasting upwards of 1/2 an hour of the other players' time, I'll just open the next one.

Guess which one was trapped.

Heh, I had a player do something like that in one of my dungeons. The party was somewhat careful, checking for traps at doors and so on, as typical for a normal D&D game. Now this player somehow had an uncanny knack for searching for secret doors in just the right spots, he payed attention to clues that I'd drop here and there, and he could sort of figure out where the party should go in the dungeons. The funny thing is, is that after the party would be searching for trap for like a half hour or so, he'd figure out where they were supposed to go, rush ahead, and end up springing a trap. There were something like 4 traps in that dungeon, and he sprung 3 of them. As the DM, I naturally thought it was funny. Those were certainly the most effective traps I had placed in a dungeon in the longest time.

 

[Ozmar]

A couple ideas...

Great thread. Lots of good ideas here. I particularly like the ones that suggest that you put them through a meat-grinder until they become desensitized.

But assuming that you want to run the game with less PC deaths, here's a couple ideas.

1. Debilitating Injury: This was Undead Lincoln's idea, but I really like it. How could this work? What about this: The first three deaths will result in minor (but permanent) injuries. These would be scars, limps, missing digits, chronic pain, spell-discolored hair, or some kind of psychological twitch. None of these would have any game-mechanical effects, but they would add flavor to the character. The next two deaths will result in major injuries that will be detrimental, but not crippling: losing one hand, losing one eye, losing one foot, losing one ear, chronic debilitating coughs, periodic temporary flashbacks, etc... These would have permanent ability drain, or perhaps some penalty to certain skills (-2 to spot checks, for example). These wounds could be healed by magic (regeneration, for example) but would otherwise be permanent. Then the 6th death will result in a crippling injury. The character would be blinded, crippled, driven insane, or magically weakened. Again, magic would cure this injury, but it might be a good idea to consider retirement. Because the 7th death is for real. Of course, after that, there is the possibility of resurrection (and level loss).

I quite like this idea and may try it out in my game. I have a lot of PC death and I've always been bothered about the lack of cool wounds in D&D.

2. This second idea is my own. Its just something I've been thinking about for DMs with players who don't like to fear that their characters will die. Play as normal, but when a PC dies, then rule that the player takes on the role of DM for 10-15 minutes. Ask them to decide what happens next. Give them complete autonomous input to direct to flow of the game. Ask them what they think should happen. Do they hover at death's door and make a miraculous escape? Are they visited by higher-planar beings who restore them to live with a mission after the battle? Are they rescued by the timely intervention of nearby friendly high-level NPCs? Do they linger on and come back to life as an undead creature? Let the players decide their own fate. If you do this, you might gain some insight into the type of game they want to play in.

If I were asked to do this as a player, I am not sure what I'd do. I would probably let the dice fall where they lay and make a new character. But then I might try to come up with an escape for my character. Its hard to say, b/c I appreciate the possibility of death in a game (makes achievement possible) but I also believe in never giving up as a player - no matter how desperate your chances, I always try to find a way out. If given carte blanch to direct my character's fate, I am not sure if I would want to do it.

But your players (who worry about their character's lives) might actually enjoy it. Who knows?

If anyone has any other ideas, lets here them.

Ozmar the Thinking

 

[John Morrow]

Then I'd say they're in the wrong game.

I'm not rejecting the validity of a game where the PC's have near immunity to ignoble deaths due to stupidity or bad dice rolls. But I wouldn't want to play in one. I wouldn't want to run one. And it sounds like ForceUser doesn't want to run one either.

And that may very well be the choice. Run that sort of game or find a different group of players.

It might help to ask if the players ever had this feeling in other games and, if not, why not? If the reason is that they never felt their characters could die in those other games but do now, they may simply be unable to accept any level of risk of death, regardless of the justification. If the players will only be comfortable with a zero-risk game, then ForceUser can either run a zero-risk game, the players can learn to cope with risk, or they can both find different people to role-play with.

For what it's worth, I think I'd enjoy playing in one of your games, Force User.

For the record, I probably would, too, so long as the games are relentless. But clearly his players are having a problem.

 

[Terath Ninir]

This tendency is a habit I've developed over the years to compensate for the brilliant tactical maneuvers and excellent teamwork my old school friends commit on a regular basis; with them I tend to tune up the CR and/or EL of encounters, because they are often not sufficiently challenged by level-appropriate foes.

I can understand that tendancy. My first 3e group (where I was a player) had two players, plus the DM played an NPC cleric. We were going through the "official" adventures, and we walked all over everything. (The first ogre I met almost kicked my ass, but I didn't understand how much damage a great axe could do on a crit. Yowza!) But we're all seasoned veteran powergamers.

Since then, I have taken to a variety of methods of guiding the newer players along--I drop helpful hints through NPCs, I give them Int or Wis checks regarding some courses of action, and in combat I flat-out explain to them what would be the best tactical solutions for a given situation, and why.

I agree. Do you think that what I have outlined above is meeting them halfway, or should I do more?

I see why you had the TPK now and I can see why you made the error. I think you're doing what you need to do to prevent future problems. It doesn't seem to be repairing the damage already done, though. It's definitely a good thing to do with newbies, though.

For the record, I want the players to become true heroes. I want this badly--for me, heroism is the bread and butter of fantasy RPGs. I just don't want it to be easy; I want the journey to be fraught with danger.

That's cool. I think you need to spell out to this group exactly what the danger is and what they can do about it, though. Maybe a few really easy battles thrown in here and there might sooth their nerves a bit?

Regarding TPKs, first let me say that allowing TPKs is a gaming style choice that I embrace.

Just keep in mind that you seem to have a group that doesn't like that so much. I wouldn't like it either. However, if you keep making the concessions you already have, I don't think it will really be an issue. If they have a better grasp of how you run things and what to expect, they should be able to avoid a TPK.

Glad we're helping.