D&D 5E [+] Questions for zero character death players and DMs…

[DND_Reborn]

Well, I know players have sat around yelling at their dice. Heck, one guy even took his lighter and started to burn a d20 after say, "Stupid dice, never roll right!" (TRUE STORY!)

 

[Medic]

No one feels the need to assign responsibility for sacrificed pawns. All I'm saying.

A player who deliberately gives up a pawn to gamble on furthering a strategic objective is accountable for its loss, in much the same way that a player who loses a pawn due to a tactical blunder is still accountable for its loss. But, I believe that this is supposed to be analogous, so I'll bite this hook.

Unless your DM really has it out for you (which, in that case, you have greater problems than the potential death of a character) you have either deliberately placed your character in a situation where they are at risk of dying with the understanding that accomplishing your objective requires such a gambit, or managed to blunder your way into a predicament where they will die.

 

[tetrasodium]

But no one sits around yelling at the player that it's their fault.

As a gm it's never good for me to be the one pointing out what they could have done. Usually simply pointing out that there's always something and throwing it to the group to brainstorm between players generates a bunch of stuff I considered and stuff I didn't up till 5e's death saves and mediocre buff/debuff where deaths are usually straight up executions when the player to player discussions got very thin

 

[Oofta]

Well, as I said, I don't technically run a truly "no death" campaign. If you want your character dead, awesome, it'll happen sooner or later, I don't even need to do anything special as DM. You as a player will find a way.

More importantly, there are two sets of criteria I have for character deaths, which I've mentioned before, though kind of in passing. One is that I don't do random, permanent, irrevocable death--if any of the three conditions doesn't apply, then that's a cool story opportunity and I'll run with it. If you want your character dead, that's not random, that's intentional, so that's not random, short and sweet. Or, perhaps your character does die to Random Kobold #6, but then wakes up an hour later, with a splitting headache and a strange word in a language you don't know spilling, unbidden, from your lips. Spoopy! ...and more importantly, going somewhere. (I've no idea where, I don't even know what the word is, we'll have to find out!) Or, you're dead and you're going to stay that way, but your friends can save you. Maybe you'll have to help them from the Other Side, adventuring through the lands of the dead to earn the right to escape just as they are adventuring to give you the chance to escape.

The other, as I mentioned more recently, is that I do this as a gesture of goodwill toward my players. I don't like being exploited. Players who rely upon this, who treat it as an excuse to do stupid, nonsensical things with the paper-thin excuse "but but but you said you wouldn't kill my character!!!!" are going to find that I am not nearly so welcoming for that type of shenanigans. You do something that should get your character killed, relying on the fact that I "won't actually kill" your character? We will have a Conversation. If that conversation goes well, and this sort of behavior doesn't resurface, awesome, we've come to an understanding and I can let bygones be bygones. If it does not go well, or this sort of behavior recurs, then I will likely ask you to depart. Exploitative behavior is not welcome at my table, though I strive very hard to have an extremely open mind about what players can attempt (as the saying goes, "open but not vacant.")

Also, to be clear, I know this post was satirical. But it was also an opportunity to say something, hopefully a useful something.

I never said I wanted my elven characters to die. A PC dying is boring, 99% of the time. Even if they want to die a heroic death (i.e. so they can go to Valhalla), it can be more interesting for them to survive and live with what they've done.

But I accept the curse for what it is. My PCs rarely die*, I could count the number that have on one hand and maybe even have a finger left. Unless they're elven ... or even half elven although that one did hit 3rd level before they died. I think I've almost made a couple of DMs cry because they felt so bad and then they give me a strange look when I just laughed and told them it was fated all along.

As far as not dying, like I said way up top I run a very low lethality game but it's never really off the table and I don't take the narrative player decides route. It usually requires stupidity and/or taking a significant risk with the odds of death having been made clear. I'll even pause the game with a bit of metagame explanation if I think it's possible I've been unclear to get a "Are you sure you want to do that?" Unless of course a player wants their PC to die for some reason.

EDIT: P.S. I'm being dead serious, every elf I ever play dies before they get to 3rd level. Last one? Last combat of the first game, a crit by a CR 2 monster (I forget what it was) took him out. One before that? Rolled sequential 1s on death saves.

*The last non-elf to die, and the only 5E PC to die other than elves, was a halfling in AL at an interactive. They decided a Mouth of Grolantor was a cool thing to have charge into our group including my level 2 PC and then choose the "attack everyone" instead of randomly rolling and automatically did max damage instead of average or rolling. One of the few times I've been (moderately) upset about a PC death. Because it was just an asinine thing to do.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This reminds me of a scene from the Teen Titans show...

#Robin falls off a building#
#Slade grabs Robin's hand to keep him from falling off#

Robin: Why did you save me??
Slade: Because I'm not through with you yet!

 

[Charlaquin]

This reminds me of a scene from the Teen Titans show...

#Robin falls off a building#
#Slade grabs Robin's hand to keep him from falling off#

Robin: Why did you save me??
Slade: Because I'm not through with you yet!

What a great show though!

 

[FrozenNorth]

And, it should not be understated: absolutely none of those decisions were “playing wrong” or worthy of “punishment.” It’s not about slapping players on the wrists for making the wrong choices, it’s about playing to make decisions and find out what happens as a result. All of this strikes me as excellent gameplay that, unfortunately, ultimately resulted in failure. But important thing is not that the PCs failed, but that everyone got an exciting, memorable story out of it. And according to the DMG, that is the goal of play.

True. The decision to split in this case meant that they had fewer eyes to unravel the mystery. In another situation, keeping people with the king would absolutely have been the right call.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean… You just described the decisions that lead to this death. You were fighting a solo, you were slightly above 25% HP, you thought that was enough to take a hit, and you made the calculated risk of standing your ground, despite the possibility of a critical hit. Now, maybe you miscalculated the risk (as did the DM, apparently) but it was still the avoidable result of your decisions, not a totally random event.

Sure, and as I keep saying, that is a perfectly fine and valid way to play. I just don’t think it’s fair to say that unexpected character deaths have no place in narrative focused games. They may have no place in your games, but there are other narrative focused games where it does have a place.

So, what you describe here is punishment by random chance (unintentional punishment) for playing by the assumptions of the character’s class.

When my rogue nearly died to a behir, it was his own fault, it was absurdly in character, and I was ready to follow the story where it lead, and was considering new PCs should he not be brought back.

But when another rogue I played years ago died in one critical hit at level 2 from an ooze type monster, the only decision that lead to it was the choice to adventure, and take the mine job. It was a random death.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, although when aligning the players’ mental states with those of their characters is a goal (certain not a given in D&D, but fairly common in my experience and certainly something I enjoy in my own games), those out of game consequences can actually be put to good use as well.

Can be, but... I don't recommend it.

Back when I followed such things, there was a sub-school of nordic larp that used a "three day rule", which can be summarized as: "Any physical harm that you cause to another player that doesn't send them to the hospital, and largely heals in three days or less is fair game." So, if you want to grab another player and actually bang their head against the table, that's okay, just to long as you don't actually break their nose. If they are limping for two days after you session, that's okay. And so on.

I find this irresponsible.

Causing trauma to the player, rather than the character, in service to the game is... not cool. That stops being a game, in the sense that it is no longer "play".

 

[Charlaquin]

So, what you describe here is punishment by random chance (unintentional punishment) for playing by the assumptions of the character’s class.

That’s not a punishment. Punishment is retributive. Retribution is a response to wrongdoing. No wrong was done. What it is, is an outcome, and one that involved an element of chance, as well as a decision.

When my rogue nearly died to a behir, it was his own fault, it was absurdly in character, and I was ready to follow the story where it lead, and was considering new PCs should he not be brought back.

But when another rogue I played years ago died in one critical hit at level 2 from an ooze type monster, the only decision that lead to it was the choice to adventure, and take the mine job. It was a random death.

And the decision to fight the ooze. Which may well have been the best decision! I don’t know the circumstances. But a critical hit, while random, is something you know is possible. Choosing to fight something you know has a 5% possibility of killing your character in one hit is a calculated risk. And if you choose to take that risk and your character does die, that’s not a punishment, it’s just the risk not panning out. You might as well call losing money a punishment for playing blackjack wrong.