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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8477842" data-attributes="member: 20564">Drop the &quot;railroad through a plot&quot; and I'm with you.&nbsp; Combat-unto-death-as-challenge-resolution is a common theme in D&amp;D regardless if it's a railroad, a sandbox, a hexcrawl, or something else.I say if you take any random group of D&amp;D DMs of reasonable size, 80%+ have expectations that defeat-in-combat to advance is on the table with some regularly.&nbsp; It's not the only goal for combat, as a matter of fact combats are usually more interesting when there are different goals.&nbsp; And it's not the only resolution - a side could retreat, be captured, surrender, etc.&nbsp; But &quot;kill the undead to get the macguffin&quot; or something similar can show up even in the portfolios of DMs who try those, and much more often for DMs who don't.&nbsp; With the notable exception of Witchlight, all of the official adventures expect this a good chunk of the time.&nbsp; And that Witchlight can be run without combat is rare enough to be notable.On the other hand I'm running the teen superhero game Masks: A New Generation and there isn't any mechanical support for character death, with the exception of The Doomed playbook, which is around a character like Raven from Teen Titans who has a lingering doom coming for them in the future.&nbsp; Even the conditions which one could think of as &quot;HP&quot; if you squint hard enough are things like &quot;Angry&quot; and &quot;Insecure&quot; and are RP guides as well as adjusting down the chance of success of some Moves in order to make the mechanical choices that are in line with the character more appealing without dictating anything.Each game has real stakes for the characters.&nbsp; For ones like D&amp;D where lethal combat is common, I like those stakes preserved as opposed to the DM taking them away by protecting the characters with plot armor, so that I can have a sense of accomplishment for succeeding as opposed to being handed it.&nbsp; As a player in D&amp;D games I have asked multiple DMs to increase the challenge of combat because it wasn't challenging and that made it boring, while still taking up a good chunk of session time.&nbsp; As a DM of D&amp;D games I've had plenty of characters go unconcious and death was close.&nbsp; But in my current campaign (1.5 years) and my last completed campaign (4.5 years), there were no deaths in combat.&nbsp; Not that there couldn't be, if the players were foolish or if luck was particularly against them, but because they were successful in preventing them.&nbsp; Which makes me cheer - that's the line I enjoy DMing D&amp;D at: fear of death, but because of how played no actual death.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Blue, post: 8477842, member: 20564"] Drop the "railroad through a plot" and I'm with you. Combat-unto-death-as-challenge-resolution is a common theme in D&D regardless if it's a railroad, a sandbox, a hexcrawl, or something else. I say if you take any random group of D&D DMs of reasonable size, 80%+ have expectations that defeat-in-combat to advance is on the table with some regularly. It's not the only goal for combat, as a matter of fact combats are usually more interesting when there are different goals. And it's not the only resolution - a side could retreat, be captured, surrender, etc. But "kill the undead to get the macguffin" or something similar can show up even in the portfolios of DMs who try those, and much more often for DMs who don't. With the notable exception of Witchlight, all of the official adventures expect this a good chunk of the time. And that Witchlight can be run without combat is rare enough to be notable. On the other hand I'm running the teen superhero game Masks: A New Generation and there isn't any mechanical support for character death, with the exception of The Doomed playbook, which is around a character like Raven from Teen Titans who has a lingering doom coming for them in the future. Even the conditions which one could think of as "HP" if you squint hard enough are things like "Angry" and "Insecure" and are RP guides as well as adjusting down the chance of success of some Moves in order to make the mechanical choices that are in line with the character more appealing without dictating anything. Each game has real stakes for the characters. For ones like D&D where lethal combat is common, I like those stakes preserved as opposed to the DM taking them away by protecting the characters with plot armor, so that I can have a sense of accomplishment for succeeding as opposed to being handed it. As a player in D&D games I have asked multiple DMs to increase the challenge of combat because it wasn't challenging and that made it boring, while still taking up a good chunk of session time. As a DM of D&D games I've had plenty of characters go unconcious and death was close. But in my current campaign (1.5 years) and my last completed campaign (4.5 years), there were no deaths in combat. Not that there couldn't be, if the players were foolish or if luck was particularly against them, but because they were successful in preventing them. Which makes me cheer - that's the line I enjoy DMing D&D at: fear of death, but because of how played no actual death. [/QUOTE]

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