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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8942286" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Nobody loses when they create a good story. I find better stories emerge, at least with more open-world, sandboxy campaigns, when character death is on the table. But I get your point. You need to be on the same page as your players. In my current campaign. We lean into it. First, I asked if they wanted to play in a massive, sandboxy, very deadly mega-dungeon setting.Second, the first session was a funnel of level-0 characters. Each player had 4 characters. The first encounter, and the only planned encounter in the 3+ year campaign was very deadly. They PCs were part of a large caravan, either paying "passengers/merchants" or those being paid to guard. It was carnage. Luckily there were lots of NPCs which helped most of the PCs survive due to a large number of targets. Third, when we started the campaign, we were still playing in person. On the wall behind the DMs chair was a Obiturary list with lots of space for writing the names of the fallen and how they died. Fourth, taking inspiration from The Glass Cannon Podcast's first campaign, I had a light-hearted adversarial DMing style in terms of comments I would make during combats, etc. I don't have to telegraph encounters much, because expectations were set from the first session of play. It is up to the players to have their PCs to do the work to determine the level of threat an area or enemy may pose.Yes, it resulted in a different style of campaign from my prior two 5e campaigns. But it is refreshing. I don't believe that the players care less about their PCs. In fact, having characters that survive to high levels are more precious for having survived against the odds being stacked against them.Yes, they have been a lot more careful, especially at low levels. The five-minute adventuring day really only seems to be a problem when you expect a certain number of combats per game or have a story-driven game that expects certain things to be accomplished in a given session. Combats are dangerous, draining experiences to be planned for and recuperated from. I don't see a problem with that. Whether they fight and retreat to safety to recuperate, or continue on, depends on where they are, who they are facing, and what their objectives are. I find the fact that they can run into very deadly encounters greatly enhances the social and exploration pillars of play. Much more time is spent on planning, reconnaissance, gathering intel, research, creating networks, etc. Turns out that the campaign has not turned out to be quite so deadly as advertised. With the 5e rules and veteran, strategic players, the PCs can prove quite resilient. As they reached higher levels they can really enjoy being able to defeat enemies that were once quite terrifying. It creates a sense of accomplishment.</blockquote>

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