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

[Voranzovin]

Another thing I appreciate about deathless games is that they let you take the kid gloves off. When I DM conventional games, I always sweat over the difficulty of encounters, because while death is explicitly on the table, I don't want it to be a frequent occurrence. This tends to lead to fudging, and other DM behaviors that are (in my view) undesirable. I'm much more free to throw challenging encounters at the players when a failure doesn't mean they lose their character.

While there are certainly interesting narrative things that can come from death--even if random--I think there are others that are very difficult to get at in a game where failure usually means death. In real life, we fail all the time, and the consequences of our failures are not usually deadly. Fiction is full of characters who fail, and then have to overcome the consiquences of that failure, for good reason. There is something powerful in the archetype of the hero who gets knocked down, loses something important to them, then spits out the blood and comes back for round 2, and that's not something you normally see a lot of in Dnd without the DM putting their thumb on the scales a little too much for my liking.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It’s absolutely comparable. It’s not the same - a pawn in chess doesn’t have the time, effort, or creative energy put into it than a D&D character often does. But it’s absolutely comparable, as both are perfectly normal (albeit undesirable) outcomes of play in their respective games.

Loosing a pawn specifically is an expectation. That's why the word pawn is used to mean a throw away means to an end. A lot of people don't consider their characters to be throw away means to an end and look very side-eye when a DM starts implying they are or quickly starts a spiel about how it's actually your fault.

 

[Charlaquin]

Loosing a pawn specifically is an expectation. That's why the word pawn is used to mean a throw away means to an end. A lot of people don't consider their characters to be throw away means to an end and look very side-eye when a DM starts implying they are or quickly starts a spiel about how it's actually your fault.

Yes, D&D character death is different from pieces and pawns being captured in Chess, but again, they are comparable in that neither are punishments for playing “wrong,” both are normal (if undesirable) outcomes of gameplay that you play in part to avoid.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No one is avoiding losing any pawns at all in chess. Sacrificing a pawn is a common common tactic. This is not a good analogy that seems to just be here to downplay character death.

 

[Charlaquin]

No one is avoiding losing any pawns at all in chess. Sacrificing a pawn is a common common tactic. This is not a good analogy that seems to just be here to downplay character death.

Sacrificing a pawn is a tactical decision, yes, but you don’t just throw them away for no benefit if you can help it. Leaving a pawn undefended is typically a blunder. The comparison is to counter your assertion that character death is a punishment. It’s not. It’s a normal part of gameplay.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Normal gameplay where you then get chastised that the pawn's sacrifice were your fault and not because Chess God made a miscalculation and gave your opponent five queens or it turns out that 5% of the time pawns can jump five squares and eliminate any piece.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

The pawn disconnect is to me that losing a pawn is expected and does not put you in a Game Over state. Losing g your King does, so that's a closer approximation of losing a character.

 

[Charlaquin]

Normal gameplay where you then get chastised that the pawn's sacrifice were your fault and not because Chess God made a miscalculation and gave your opponent five queens or it turns out that 5% of the time pawns can jump five squares and eliminate any piece.

Nobody is chastising anybody. Your hypervigilance against being “punished for playing wrong” is truly bizarre.

 

[Charlaquin]

The pawn disconnect is to me that losing a pawn is expected and does not put you in a Game Over state. Losing g your King does, so that's a closer approximation of losing a character.

Character death in D&D is also expected and doesn’t put you in a game over state though.

 

[tetrasodium]

A critical hit is, by definition, a random event. My decisions were absolutely correct if not for the random event. That's literally what's being talked about here.


Okay, but the converse is happening a lot here too. That unexpected character deaths are absolutely required.

No a critical hit is a completely predictable event. it happens any time an attacker rolls a 20 on the d20. The fact that it's predictable was why it was scary to be low on health in older editions to the point that a player needed to be taking steps to protect themselves or remove themselves from a dangerous situation before they were down to about 1 hit's worth of health & be gone before they were anywhere near 1hp. Death saves now prevent that creating a lot of problematic results in gameplay & encounter design.