EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
That can be fun. But, as others have said, that can also kill the game dead. TPKs are serious business, and can destroy any enthusiasm the players might have had for playing. It can be difficult or even impossible to rekindle the flame of enthusiasm once utterly doused by disappointment.There are a number of really thoughtful and creative post above.
However, I would let them suffer the consequences of their actions, and get ready to rollup new characters for the next session...
That's a pretty blatant non sequitur though? You're conflating "how does the system math work" with "what do DMs choose to do." The two are entirely orthogonal things. It may be the case that the rules make it hard to die (though frankly that is exactly the opposite of my experience), and it may be the case that DMs are reluctant to create situations where death is a likely consequence, but those two things are not related to one another. One is about how the designers wrote the rules, the other is about DM psychology (and maybe player psychology too).OT: The fact that a number of people are trying to find ways for the PCs to avoid death, just substantiates the point that I've made in another thread, that it is hard to die in 5E... (because in this case - DMs feel obligated to find a way to save the PCs)
I don't run 5e myself. I run Dungeon World. But I also run a game where my players know that random, irreversible permadeath doesn't happen. Unlike what a lot of people (seemingly including you) would say in response to that, this does not mean my campaign has no stakes. I, personally, find that removing death from the table actually enhances the stakes, as my players take very seriously that everything they do can affect the world and have ripple out consequences; they know that the people and places they're attached to are not inviolable; they know that they will be tested, not so much in "can you roll big enough numbers to rescue the President," but in "can you make a decision you can live with?" That's so much more juicy and weighty than death!