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Potential Player to DM: "What Is Your Mortality Rate?"
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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 235297" data-attributes="member: 172"><p>In my campaigns, character death isn't exaclty <em>frequent</em>. In fact, in my current campaign, there has never been a permanent character death -- and out of 9 or so PCs at various times, only two characters killed and raised.</p><p></p><p>But a little death goes a long ways. If your players ever get to the point that they can say to themselves "the DM won't kill us...", well then, you have just sucked a lot of the tension out of combats and other situations that are supposed to be dangerous.</p><p></p><p>The D&D HP mechanic tends to minimize the threat that an idle encounter will actually kill anyone; deaths tend to occur in big knock-out battles. And players tend to respect opponents who have killed characters. But the players won't dismiss combats so idly so long as they know you will let the dice fall where they may.</p><p></p><p>I tweak D&D combat so it is mildly less deadly at low levels, but is more deadly over the life of the campaign. I don't even want players to enter combat without considering the risk to the characters. Games without risk are boring, IMO.</p><p></p><p>Character continuity is one concern you should have in mind when deciding how lethal to make combats. But so is the mood of the campaign. You make it too easy to get away with risks, the game feels less challenging and daunting, IMO.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Psion, post: 235297, member: 172"] In my campaigns, character death isn't exaclty [i]frequent[/i]. In fact, in my current campaign, there has never been a permanent character death -- and out of 9 or so PCs at various times, only two characters killed and raised. But a little death goes a long ways. If your players ever get to the point that they can say to themselves "the DM won't kill us...", well then, you have just sucked a lot of the tension out of combats and other situations that are supposed to be dangerous. The D&D HP mechanic tends to minimize the threat that an idle encounter will actually kill anyone; deaths tend to occur in big knock-out battles. And players tend to respect opponents who have killed characters. But the players won't dismiss combats so idly so long as they know you will let the dice fall where they may. I tweak D&D combat so it is mildly less deadly at low levels, but is more deadly over the life of the campaign. I don't even want players to enter combat without considering the risk to the characters. Games without risk are boring, IMO. Character continuity is one concern you should have in mind when deciding how lethal to make combats. But so is the mood of the campaign. You make it too easy to get away with risks, the game feels less challenging and daunting, IMO. [/QUOTE]
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