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Should D&D Have an Alternate Death Mechanic?
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3621114" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>Anyone would. What boggles my mind is that people can assume that "no death" = "low-risk."</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 3621114, member: 2067"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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