The ethics of ... death

[Ahnehnois]

"Death" isn't a problem; finding yourself spending your evening watching your friends play D&D is a problem, though. That's no fun - watching an RPG being played is often an interminable experience.

For me, then, it's about effects which remove a player from play. Those I try to avoid.

I don't agree; not completely at least. In general, people play D&D to actually play, but watching once in a while can be enjoyable, and sometimes people need a little while to cool down after losing a character. As someone who frequently intercuts between PCs doing separate things, I can say that occasional player inactivity does work. I do try to minimize player down time though.

Instant death effects are poor game design.

Characters that can't die at a particular time are poor game design.

 

[Jacob Marley]

What do you think of "zap, you're dead" powers, spells and weapons? Acceptable? Tolerable? Problems?

Personally, I rather enjoy having SoD effects available to me. They help contribute to the particular feel that I like to get out of playing D&D. However, the frequency of use by many adventure designers, coupled with a 'gotcha' style of play, I think, has given the mechanic a terribly bad name.

Using the aforementioned bodak, one of the best uses I have seen revolved around a group of adventurers in the Shield Lands. One of the companions had fallen and, unfortunately, was buried in an area corrupted by Taint. He arose as a bodak and wandered the Shield Lands killing innocents. The party began to hear rumors of a faceless death roaming the countryside and, after realizing they were the root cause of this creature's existence, set out to right this wrong. Knowing the capabilities of the bodak, that it could instant kill any one of them on a failed save, in conjunction with the coupling narrative, provided the perfect amount of tension for those game sessions. In my experience, no other mechanic has helped deliver that same feeling.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

In the games that I've run and played in, I don't find character death to be a problem.

Making players sit out of the game for a long period of time can be a problem (as mentioned by [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], above), but that isn't necessarily a result of character death.

 

[Hussar]

/snip.

Characters that can't die at a particular time are poor game design.

How does that make sense?

Then again, any PC with more HP than a creature does damage cannot die at that particular time. Is that bad game design?

The problem with SoD is that it completely breaks the math of the game. A monster does X damage per round. You can calculate that and plan for it. SoD is so swingy that it cannot be accounted for. Like I said, a creature that causes 20 saving throws is guaranteed to kill (or close enough to guarantees) one PC.

How do you account for that? What xp value do you give that creature?

Put it another way. Would you accept a monster that does a PC's HP+11 on any given hit? Because that's exactly what SoD is. If it hits, you die. If you fail that save, you die. Yet, in 40 years of D&D, I have yet to see the HP+11 monster and there's a very good reason for that. It's poor game design. It doesn't fit with existing mechanics.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I don't like save-or-die spells because they don't fit with hit point mechanics. If hit points are just ablative plot armor, which is the only interpretation of them that makes sense to me, then why should one type of spell bypass them while another doesn't? I'd be happier with Death Magic: Target takes 50 hp damage, if resulting hitpoints are at or below zero, then he instantly dies. Than Death Magic: Target saves or dies.

The best solution I've found to not having players just sitting there is that each player takes two characters. If one dies or is incapacitated, or even if the players just split the party, the player still gets to be involved. The main objection I've heard to this is that it's detrimental to immersion, but I'm a method-actor immersion-first type of player and it's never been an issue for me.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Well, technically, a big monster (ogre or troll) against a 1st level character can do death in one hit. Especially if you go back to basic, before negative HP existed.

The possibility of instant death was always a part of D&D until recently. The difference lies primarily in how well players accept the death of a character. You ever played in a game where there was no point in writing up a backstory until at least 3rd level? That's old school, that is.

But I digress.

 

[Imaro]

How does that make sense?

Then again, any PC with more HP than a creature does damage cannot die at that particular time. Is that bad game design?

The problem with SoD is that it completely breaks the math of the game. A monster does X damage per round. You can calculate that and plan for it. SoD is so swingy that it cannot be accounted for. Like I said, a creature that causes 20 saving throws is guaranteed to kill (or close enough to guarantees) one PC.

How do you account for that? What xp value do you give that creature?

Put it another way. Would you accept a monster that does a PC's HP+11 on any given hit? Because that's exactly what SoD is. If it hits, you die. If you fail that save, you die. Yet, in 40 years of D&D, I have yet to see the HP+11 monster and there's a very good reason for that. It's poor game design. It doesn't fit with existing mechanics.

Maybe because with SoD... HP+11 is kinda redundant... Just saying...

EDIT: Seriously though, you keep throwing around the words "poor game design" but there are plenty of people playing games with SoD effects that enjoy them and are having fun, I enjoy DCC rpg myself and it has it's fair share of SoD effects, traps, etc. in the adventures... so maybe instead of trying to proclaim SoD as objectively poor game design you should just claim it's not a fun game design for you and your players.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Then again, any PC with more HP than a creature does damage cannot die at that particular time. Is that bad game design?

To a significant extent, yes. One can argue, for example, that a cat shouldn't be able to kill a wizard in one hit. It's a cat. However, a reasonably strong person using a decent weapon most certainly should (though it shouldn't be a likely outcome in most cases).

It's particularly bad when you have CdG situations where the attacking character can't kill the helpless defender; those can get ridiculous under the core rules.

The problem with SoD is that it completely breaks the math of the game. A monster does X damage per round. You can calculate that and plan for it. SoD is so swingy that it cannot be accounted for.

That's the good part! I don't think any participants in an rpg should be able to "plan for" the damage they will deal or take. Battles that only involve ablating hit points and nonlethal minutiae quickly become rote. Unpredictability is a good thing. "The math" shouldn't be a zero sum game that can be predicted or analyzed to that extent. That's what makes the various instant death effects so nice; they throw a wrench in a dysfunctional system without us having to rewrite the game completely.

How do you account for that? What xp value do you give that creature?

Whatever value you give will be just as arbitrary as all XP values (or CRs or whatever).

Would you accept a monster that does a PC's HP+11 on any given hit?

Yeah. I throw them in on occasion. Particularly with 3e crit modifiers, even under the core hp rules, a raging, power attacking barbarian with a good weapon can realistically do that at quite high levels, as can a variety of other damage-optimized characters and exceptionally strong monsters. (Though it would be more appropriate to look at dealing PC's hp + 11 in one round rather than one hit; that happens with some regularity for creatures/characters with large numbers of attacks).

 

[Umbran]

"Death" isn't a problem; finding yourself spending your evening watching your friends play D&D is a problem, though.

Some folks get kind of attached to characters. For them, character death itself can be rather more problematic than sitting on their thumbs for a while. As Ahnehnois suggested, these folks may well not really be in a mood to continue after a death in any event.

And yeah, at least seven people will pipe up with variations of, "they knew death was a risk, and if they can't take that, they have a problem." These people lack sensitivity, and forget that you can, in fact, get attached to things that should normally be inconsequential, or that you know may be gone soon - like, say, a pet mouse. You know darned well you'll outlive it by decades, but it hurts when it goes regardless.

 

[Imaro]

Some folks get kind of attached to characters. For them, character death itself can be rather more problematic than sitting on their thumbs for a while. As Ahnehnois suggested, these folks may well not really be in a mood to continue after a death in any event.

And yeah, at least seven people will pipe up with variations of, "they knew death was a risk, and if they can't take that, they have a problem." These people lack sensitivity, and forget that you can, in fact, get attached to things that should normally be inconsequential, or that you know may be gone soon - like, say, a pet mouse. You know darned well you'll outlive it by decades, but it hurts when it goes regardless.

Yeah but ways to come back from the dead are pretty plentiful in D&D so unless there is a TPK... why is death such a big deal for these people? If they are attached to the character then set up a way to be resurrected or raised before you go off to adventure, and if you're high enough level then someone in your party may even be able to raise ore resurrect you.