Level Up (A5E) Removing Pointless Death (+)

[GMMichael]

So, at any point before you drop (this can be after you get hit but before you know how much damage you take), you choose to concede. What this means is you still lose the fight but you maintain narrative control of what happens.

At first I thought, "well, yeah. Every group of PCs can just choose to give up a fight." But then I caught the "maintain narrative control" part, which is confusing. Do the PCs become the GM at that point? Do both sides need to agree on the final outcome? Or do the PCs get to make suggestions about what happens which, I would think, should have been the case all along?

But the point is that anytime you have a character die in the first few rounds of combat, the combats typically take a nose dive and the party faces TPK because they are missing a crucial element. I've seen it a dozen times in the past 30 years.

It's pretty embarrassing then, when your character dies and the party still wins!

I kill every group of characters I run for, regardless of system, regardless of the players' skill. It's likely because I run fast paced games with lots of combat.

Regardless of system and regardless of player skill leaves one culprit. I don't think adding rules, i.e. more system, is going to solve this.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

At first I thought, "well, yeah. Every group of PCs can just choose to give up a fight." But then I caught the "maintain narrative control" part, which is confusing. Do the PCs become the GM at that point? Do both sides need to agree on the final outcome? Or do the PCs get to make suggestions about what happens which, I would think, should have been the case all along?

It’s a dialogue between the DM and the player.

The thing to remember is even if you concede and maintain control of the narrative you still lose.

Let’s say you are fighting ghouls and the stakes are character death. Meaning the ghouls will take an extra action to do a killing blow when you drop to 0. They do this so they can eat you even if the rest of the party escape and they do it because they are smart enough to know the party has access to healing.

Maintaining narrative control might be saying,

I concede. I choose that my character is unconscious and the Ghoul is either too distracted to do a killing blow or that it thinks I’m dead or that the blow that dropped me, sent my flying and rolling down into a ditch out of sight of the combat. The advantage to this concession is you don’t automatically die. The downside is your allies can’t heal you and you are out of the fight.

The player may suggest this or the dm might suggest it. If everyone is on board with the concession, that’s how the narrative plays out.

 

[Distracted DM]

Hated the idea of altering, how it's altered, or the final outcome?

Because as much as one can work on point 2 to improve point 3, nothing can be done on point 1.

They hated the idea of changing it. They want to keep things as they are. Their individual d20+dex rolls. As the GM I just see all the flaws in the system, and look at how it could be done better :'D

 

[Retreater]

Regardless of system and regardless of player skill leaves one culprit. I don't think adding rules, i.e. more system, is going to solve this.

Well, yeah, it's me. I'm trying to figure out how to not kill all the characters.

If I roll in the open, I can't fudge die rolls.
If I roll behind the screen, they suspect I'm cheating.
If I make silly tactical mistakes on purpose, that also looks like cheating.
If I don't build the encounters challenging enough, they get bored or not everyone gets a chance to participate. So there's a very delicate balance needed.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Well, yeah, it's me. I'm trying to figure out how to not kill all the characters.

If I roll in the open, I can't fudge die rolls.
If I roll behind the screen, they suspect I'm cheating.
If I make silly tactical mistakes on purpose, that also looks like cheating.
If I don't build the encounters challenging enough, they get bored or not everyone gets a chance to participate. So there's a very delicate balance needed.

Do they get opportunities to retreat? I have a DM who TPKs groups and we are super careful about who and how we engage enemies and are ready to retreat if things are going poorly.

Does your group even have a chance to realize things are going badly? Knowing when to retreat is a tricky balance

 

[Retreater]

Do they get opportunities to retreat? I have a DM who TPKs groups and we are super careful about who and how we engage enemies and are ready to retreat if things are going poorly.

Does your group even have a chance to realize things are going badly? Knowing when to retreat is a tricky balance

Typically, no. Things usually turn bad so quickly that they don't realize the danger until it's too late.
And that's usually because of the swingy-ness. One session they do fine against 5 skeletons. The next session, they're dropped in a single round. So I don't even know how to telegraph the danger to them. Like, is this an easy fight or a hard one?

 

[lichmaster]

If I roll in the open, I can't fudge die rolls.
If I roll behind the screen, they suspect I'm cheating.

No, you're DMing. Dice are there to provide some level of unpredictability, not to completely condition the game

If I make silly tactical mistakes on purpose, that also looks like cheating.

No, you're DMing. Most monsters are not tactical geniuses. Most monsters won't even fight to the death. Sure they'll use their abilities to their best judgement, but that can fail too.

 

[lichmaster]

Typically, no. Things usually turn bad so quickly that they don't realize the danger until it's too late.
And that's usually because of the swingy-ness. One session they do fine against 5 skeletons. The next session, they're dropped in a single round. So I don't even know how to telegraph the danger to them. Like, is this an easy fight or a hard one?

Swinginess is a major problem of 5E in particular IMO, and monster design, constrained to deal enough damage to end a fight in 3 rounds it the main culprit.

That said, IMO telegraphing danger is one of the main responsibilities as a DM. Not easy to do, especially when some players are too cocky, but eventually one learns.

However, there are some tricks you can use to gradually increase the difficulty of a fight so that you respond to the intended challenge (which may or may not correspond to what's currently happening):

• change the number of opponents during a fight. If it was supposed to be hard and it's being too easy, have some reinforcements arrive, introduce some other complication or just silently increase their HP. Or, if it's the opposite situation, have some monsters flee, or drop dead even if they're not at 0 hp
• change the damage they inflict. Ditch the d10s for 2d4 or something similar. Large dice are the fuel of swinginess, esp when crits eventually happen.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

There's no matter of "get good, bro." I kill every group of characters I run for, regardless of system, regardless of the players' skill. It's likely because I run fast paced games with lots of combat.

And usually it's decided within two rounds. Not much time to run before it gets really bad.

I’m sensing a pattern here!