D&D General What does D&D look like without Death on the Table?

[Neonchameleon]

"More worried about their weapon." That's horrible! But it does tell us a little about what happens (to stories) when the main characters 1) have hit points and 2) can be re-rolled/resurrected.

Also when the main characters have a lot of their power tied up in their equipment. A fighter with a +5 Vorpal longsword probably does twice as much damage per round as that same fighter using someone else's backup +1 sword, and losing it is effectively a permanent debuff. They will therefore fight against it as if they were fighting against being crippled and forced to retire because ... they almost are. If they die at least they don't have to live with the humiliation of letting everyone else down.

Meanwhile if you take a more Fate-like approach where a sword just lets you hit things unless it's got an aspect and in general one sword is as good as another while aspected swords (like Cloud's Buster Sword) are personal then people only fight for The Sword Of My Father and other such aspects - and even then frequently accept defeat.

Also if you add consequences of the sort D&D doesn't have, like breaking an arm in combat (or even amputations) then losing your sword isn't the next worst possible mechanical consequence to losing your life.

 

[Umbran]

Contrived.

So... like the subject matter that spawned it, in other words?

You realize that the writers of the various fantasy and science fiction stories we love don't roll dice to randomly determine whether their heroes live or die, right? The plotlines of novels and TV shows and movies are chosen.

 

[Umbran]

I mean, if that's the metric, Michael Bay is owed a truckload of Oscars.

An Oscar is a sign of "What the Motion Picture Academy wants to highlight" which may or may not be directly related to "good", no?

 

[Haffrung]

So... like the subject matter that spawned it, in other words?

You realize that the writers of the various fantasy and science fiction stories we love don't roll dice to randomly determine whether their heroes live or die, right? The plotlines of novels and TV shows and movies are chosen.

D&D was not originally created to emulate the plots of novels, movies, and TV shows. And the degree to which adventures today emulate those stories is a matter of personal preference.

 

[Reynard]

An Oscar is a sign of "What the Motion Picture Academy wants to highlight" which may or may not be directly related to "good", no?

Sure, but "popular" doesn't actually have much of a relation to "good" either. But this has gone on longer than intended. I just think Ready Player One is bad 80s nostalgia porn without much actual substance..

 

[nevin]

You misunderstand. I'm referring to what the various 300+ page rulebooks in D&D bring to the table rather than to what the DM and players bring to the table independently of the D&D rules.

I will accept that older editions had some domain management aspects (that were nerfed into non-existence by 3.0) - but if you are building a kingdom and installing a king this isn't because of something D&D has brought to the table. It's something you as a group have brought and could happen just as easily in almost any unfocused fantasy RPG system of about the

Fair enough, but what D&D originally brought to the table was an open ended game with a DM so you could do anything you wanted to try even if the rules didn't cover it. The industry is slowly strangling that Idea by trying to make money and create a rule book for everything, and by creating a new system every decade or so to force the sell of new books. How many people would play monopoly if they had relearn the rules every 10 years? D&D was always for people that wanted something beside a board game with a rule for every situation. Look at pathfinder it's become so tactical that many groups just ditch roleplaying entirely and play a board game where they kill stuff, because the tactical game is the entire focus of the system. I'd argue that's why it's not growing much. It doesn't offer as much as other systems because of that focus.

I think the biggest threat to the Roleplaying industry right now is the idea that the DM is just a moderator of the rules instead of the architect and ultimate master of the game. The first is pointless because a video game can do it. The second gives you ultimate flexibilty to do anything you want. But the first generates more books to sell because then you need a rule for everything.

A system with a rule for everything is just a computer game in a book without the cool graphics.

 

[Neonchameleon]

D&D was not originally created to emulate the plots of novels, movies, and TV shows. And the degree to which adventures today emulate those stories is a matter of personal preference.

D&D was originally created as a hacked tabletop wargame using pawn play where your character was your model in the wargame. It's gone a long way from there.

 

[Reynard]

D&D was not originally created to emulate the plots of novels, movies, and TV shows. And the degree to which adventures today emulate those stories is a matter of personal preference.

It wasn't? Weird that Gygax included that expansive Appendix N, then...

 

[nevin]

D&D was originally created as a hacked tabletop wargame using pawn play where your character was your model in the wargame. It's gone a long way from there.

no Gygax started gaming as a wargamer. He and Jeff Perren came up with the Chainmail system. He realized he wanted more than a board game. Then he created D&D and left the chainmail elements in there so he wouldn't lose the few hardcore followers he had. Almost nobody played the game with those chainmail style rules. In fact most games were totally in the theatre of the mind till the fighting started and even when we used miniatures it was just to help us visualize things. We didn't have battle maps , we just made it up as we went along and when the dragon showed up we put our miniatures on the table as markers for where we were.

 

[Umbran]

So, for me: high death rates → low character investment; low death rates → high character investment.

...

So, for me: high death rates → emphasis on avoiding death; low death rates → emphasis on role-playing

So, someone is bound to say "avoiding death is role-playing!"

And, technically, that's correct. It is, however, a pretty narrow role-playing space. It has a focus on tactics, and tends to leave characters and players not looking at areas of the character other than their tactics to avoid death.

Given that, I generally agree with what's said here - if you have a low death rate, your players have more time and attention to spend on things other than not-dying.