Weak Deaths

[the Jester]

It's only boring if you lack the imagination to create situations where dying is not the only source of failure.

That's pretty insulting to be honest. Smacks of one-true-wayism. I would appreciate it if you could accept that not everyone shares your tastes and that not everyone whose tastes differ from yours is lacking in imagination.

A game without character death bores me to tears, even if I can experience other setbacks. Running a game without the possibility of character death bores me to tears, and I use all kinds of other setbacks, from eliminating body parts to social setbacks to captivity and jail time.

I'm going to go further- if you take out the possibility of pcs having their gear destroyed, you're hitting my BORING button again. Same with taking out the possibility of social consequences for failure, or having their stuff stolen, or their business interests attacked, or any other form of stuff that might happen in-game. If an adventure requires that pcs risk their lives but there is no risk of pc death, then I feel cheated as both a player and a dm.

YMMV and it doesn't make you a chud gamer with no imagination.

 

[Haltherrion]

So does anyone else do this? Have you ever witnessed a weak death?

In general, they die, they die for me but we don't tend to have too many deaths, weak or otherwise. Our definitin of 'weak' is different though. If you are climbing a cliff high enought to kill you and are relying on a skill check and fail it, well, you knew the risks, you made the roll. Don't want your high level character to die by a fall? Don't put yourself in that situation.

As a side note, we've recently switched to 4E which in general makes the characters more durable, especially at lower level which honestly, I prefer. However, thanks to a misreading of the DM screen, I did misinterprete the falling rules to be as I always thought they should be, which is more lethal and we've let that stand as a house rule since we have precedence.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Scenario: You're playing an 18th level character you've run since first level for over 3 years in real time. He's the leader of the party, and the hope of middle-earth. He's defeated dragons and hordes of undead. His magic weapons are legendary. This character is really part of YOU. You've played with him every week for THREE years.

Your party is on their way to the island fortress of the Demon King for the final epic battle. It's gonna be awesome. The entire campaign has led up to this. You have to swim across a river to reach the castle. You roll a 1 on your swim check. You get another chance, and roll a 2. One more chance, roll another 1. You are swept away and drown. Your character is dead. You miss the final epic battle, because you had a bad stroke of luck, and the greatest hero the world has ever seen drowned in rather unheroic fashion.

You're totally fine with that?

I'd like to think I'd be smarter than to put my treasured 18th level character in any danger of drowning so unheroically (I can't take 10 on my Swim check? I don't have Boots of Water Walking? Wings of Flying? A frickin' Potion of Water Breathing? Ooooookaaaaaay...) but let's assume I find myself in a situation where the rules essentially boil down to: if I roll 1, 2, 1, in that order, my character dies.

Well, then that's the game. I've weighed the risks and made my choices, and now it's time to experience the consequences. Otherwise, why am I rolling dice in the first place? If I really don't want to have any chance of drowning, there's no need for a die roll, I can just announce that my character swims across the river and emerges safely on the other side. To me that sounds like less of a game and more just telling a story, but if you think the game should be all about killing bad guys and not swimming across rivers, then go ahead and save the dice-rolling for the bad guys and gloss over the river-crossing.

So to answer your question...yes, I'm totally fine with that. It is, at the end of the day, why I haven't gotten bored with D&D after playing it for over 30 years. Because I never know, when I make a new character, whether he has some great, heroic destiny in his future, or will turn out to be just another would-be hero who didn't quite make it (or never even came close). And sometimes, the stories about the ones who failed are more memorable than the ones who succeeded.

 

[Haltherrion]

Scenario: You're playing an 18th level character you've run since first level for over 3 years in real time. He's the leader of the party, and the hope of middle-earth. He's defeated dragons and hordes of undead. His magic weapons are legendary. This character is really part of YOU. You've played with him every week for THREE years.

Your party is on their way to the island fortress of the Demon King for the final epic battle. It's gonna be awesome. The entire campaign has led up to this. You have to swim across a river to reach the castle. You roll a 1 on your swim check. You get another chance, and roll a 2. One more chance, roll another 1. You are swept away and drown. Your character is dead. You miss the final epic battle, because you had a bad stroke of luck, and the greatest hero the world has ever seen drowned in rather unheroic fashion.

You're totally fine with that?

As a ref, I wouldn't make a climatic battle dependent on skill checks. In this particular case, I'd be wondering why the 18th level party couldn't find a way to cross the water that doesn't put players at risk of drowning. Walk on water, water breathing (okay, those 2 might reasonably be not available even to a high level group), fly (not likely an 18th level group would forgo this).

On skill checks, everyone knows the chances, you want to take the risk and fail, well, at least you'll have a story that will last the rest of your life.

Side note- in all the D&D systems I recall, it takes an awefully long time to drown...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or to put it another way, why do you think they call it a die roll?

 

[Doctor DM]

People are making some good points, and I have to say I'm kinda surprised at how adamant so many people are about having so called "weak" deaths.A question to everyone though, which was in the OP:Have you witnessed a "weak" death? Have you actually been killed by a failed skill check like climb or swim? Or done it to someone as a DM?

 

[Haltherrion]

My point about Superman is that even Superman is tired of being Superman.

Superman is a horrible analogy. Basically he is so bogus, nothing interesting happens until Kryptonite comes into play which exists only to... de-bogus him.

Despite the many variations, D&D at least provides an in-game challenge to players of all levels without resorting to taking away their powers.

 

[Haltherrion]

People are making some good points, and I have to say I'm kinda surprised at how adamant so many people are about having so called "weak" deaths.A question to everyone though, which was in the OP:Have you witnessed a "weak" death? Have you actually been killed by a failed skill check like climb or swim? Or done it to someone as a DM?

Your post begs the question... did you lose a PC to a 'weak death'? If so, spit it out, we want to hear what it was

In my sister post to this thread I mentioned the death of a rogue that I liked. Honestly, I thought that was a pretty weak death- the ref decided we should have watched our backs more and made my character pay the price for not doing so. At the time, I was annoyed but as the years go by, it has become one of the more memorable aspects of the campaign and certainly helped cement his 'skull head hounds' as a truely feared foe.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Superman is a horrible analogy. Basically he is so bogus, nothing interesting happens until Kryptonite comes into play which exists only to... de-bogus him.

Or "red sun energy" or magic or a couple of other things that have popped up over he decades.

 

[Doctor DM]

Your post begs the question... did you lose a PC to a 'weak death'? If so, spit it out, we want to hear what it was

Haha, yeah it kind of seem that way huh? Lol no actually, I've NEVER seen one that I can recall, that's why I ask. Me personally, as well as some other DMs I know, will save the character from the death. You fall off the mountain? Well you don't die, but you take a TON of damage, and almost all your potions are broken. I'm just curious if anyone has been in the posistion. I guess the purpose of my original question was to see how often this happens. I clearly see now that a ton of people are totally fine with a "weak" death, and they give good reason why. So that's answered: People don't mind death from a failed climb or swim check or whatever. But: how often does it actually happen? Who as a DM does it? Just curious.Really I'm not particularly passionate about the topic or anything, but I am in the "no weak death" camp, and this is a pretty good conversation.And I'm NOT against character deaths. I really like the "Sweet Death" thread.And finally, the drowning 18th level example would clearly never happen, it's pretty ridiculous, I was just using an exaggerated example to illustrate what I mean.