Should D&D Have an Alternate Death Mechanic?

[PapersAndPaychecks]

*shrug*

It's your game, do what works for you. Personally, I'd find that a long series of low-risk victories would get dull fast.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd find that a long series of low-risk victories would get dull fast.

Anyone would. What boggles my mind is that people can assume that "no death" = "low-risk."

It does remove a single element of risk in favor of greater character consistency. Often, this just means that all the other elements of risk are all the more virulent for it. Characters might not die, but if they get knocked out, they wake up in the arms of the enemy, they fail their missions, they loose face with their organizations, the ones paying them, their towns, their races, their alignments. With longer-lasting characters, they can have more enduring motives that can be set up for many potent "succeed or fail" moments where they have a lot of time and effort as players and characters invested in the character's success.

Death is one form of risk, but as thousands of years of dramatic and creative arts have shown, it's just one form of risk, and sometimes it's not even the scariest thing to risk. A life is a price to pay for a nation, for an ideal, for a message. With rare death, the PC's get to see the actual destruction of their nations, of their ideals, of their messages. Most people would much rather die in defense of their homeland than to survive but see it run over with goblins and their old friends turned into zombies.

In fact, check out what happened to the Order of the Stick. They're high enough level that death is largely a speedbump for them, yet their failure to defend the gates is leading a powerful evil closer and closer to being released.

And that's just one overly-specific example. There's more than one way to put a sense of urgency in the PC's and the players. Death is one way, but it's not the only way, and if you're looking more for character consistency, it can be a very bad way.

 

[maddman75]

*shrug*

It's your game, do what works for you. Personally, I'd find that a long series of low-risk victories would get dull fast.

Again, you are still making the assumption that no permanent death == low risk. You can not kill player characters and still have a high risk game.

In my current D&D game I'm running Forge of Fury (minor spoilers). I changed the hook so that Blasingdell was a quiet little village with a lot of friendly characters that the party instantly took a liking too. They also discovered that they have been sacrificing one villager a month to Ulfe and his orcs. The group decided to put a stop to this and assaulted his lair.

Now, I'm not going to go killing PCs. Not because I'm a soft-hearted namby-pamby wimp, but because I find it uninteresting. That means that the whole flow of the game is disrupted, one player sitting out most of a session while he generates a new character and then I have to find some artificial way to introduce him into the group midgame, or have him sit out even more. I don't find that acceptable.

But it doesn't mean there's no risk to them assaulting the dungeon. For one, now that they've fought back, Ulfe will assume they came from the village and send his orcs to punish them. The villagers told them the last time they fought back the orcs burned half the village down and murdered several children as punishment, and they have every reason to believe they'll do so again. And if a PC is defeated but not grabbed by his friends, I can have the orcs capture him, and his friends will have to come get him. There was one scene where a couple of characters nearly fell into a deep chasm with a river at the bottom. By the rules they should be dead if they did fall, but I'd find it more interesting to have them captured by the dragon who lairs below, or some other foul creature. Or have something else interesting happen.

I'm still kicking rules ideas around. I'm thinking of some kind of hero points or something.

At higher level, I've thought that the whole 'revolving door of death' deal could be fixed by changing flavor text. Simply rule that when someone goes below -10, they are mortally wounded. They are unconscious, or might (well after battle and some rest) be considered Disabled, but they are certainly not going to adventure. This would would take months of natural healing to fix, and curative and even Heal spells cannot help the character. They would need Cure Mortal Wound or Heal Mortal Wound (raise dead and resurrection, renamed). From the ordeal the character still loses a level. Only a True Resurrection can bring a person back from the dead.

This also opens up the possibility of the Boromir Rule. A Mortally Wounded character can make a heroic last stand, able to act normally as if they were at full HP. This lasts until they run out of hp again, or there are no more enemies to fight. At this point, they collapse and die.

 

[Mortellan]

All I know is my players consider item theft or destruction worse than death, getting rather riled moreso than if they hit -10hp. That to me tells me death in D&D is broken.

 

[maddman75]

All I know is my players consider item theft or destruction worse than death, getting rather riled moreso than if they hit -10hp. That to me tells me death in D&D is broken.

Ha - I've noticed the same thing. Power attack a character, and he takes it as a normal part of combat. Try and sunder his magic sword, and they'll be screaming for blood.

 

[Mortellan]

Ha - I've noticed the same thing. Power attack a character, and he takes it as a normal part of combat. Try and sunder his magic sword, and they'll be screaming for blood.

Yup, and unlike rez spells, I'm sure it takes a lot longer and costs a hell of alot more to fix a sundered sword and make it magical again (unless you are liberal with Wish spells).

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Most (if not all) of my characters have a background, friends and family.

I hate it when that all goes away with one die roll (oh, look - I rolled a one on a save-or-die).

In a fight I at least feel that it takes two or three die rolls (attack, crit confirm and damage) for the gaming gods to say they are against me that day.

I like the save-or-dying aspect. Still a threat, but at least a PC (dare I say "a Hero"?) of the story isn't taken out by a single unlucky roll. What's the point of all the past history - the threat to the PCs friends, family (and whatever else they feel is important) if the PC bites it from a lucky roll of a mook?

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

All I know is my players consider item theft or destruction worse than death, getting rather riled moreso than if they hit -10hp. That to me tells me death in D&D is broken.

Yeah.

The old mechanic was, you can't get ressurected more times than your original CON score, and you have to pass a roll each time or die permanently. I find that has much to recommend it.

 

[maddman75]

Yeah.

The old mechanic was, you can't get ressurected more times than your original CON score, and you have to pass a roll each time or die permanently. I find that has much to recommend it.

It is better than default 3e, which will have characters going to get brought back from the dead more often than they need to buy more arrows.

I still find it highly disruptive to game flow, and would rather have a less invasive and disruptive consequence for failure.

 

[shilsen]

Dammit, Kamikaze Midget and maddman75 - you're supposed to warn a guy before you post and make his point so clearly and eloquently that you make everything he typed up and posted earlier on the thread redundant.

Darn you two to heck!