D&D General Your Character Died! Who's Fault Was It?

Oh no! Your character died! Who do you blame?

  • I blame myself. I took a risk and it didn't pay off.

    Votes: 34 48.6%
  • Another PC. The fighter didn't cover me! The cleric didn't heal me! The bard was...a bard!

    Votes: 3 4.3%
  • I blame the dice! My plan was --perfect-- until I rolled that 2.

    Votes: 19 27.1%
  • It's the DM's fault! The trap/encounter/adventure wasn't balanced, we didn't get to rest, etc.

    Votes: 7 10.0%
  • I blame the rules! Arrows/exhaustion/fireballs/disease shouldn't be fatal!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I don't understand the question. Characters can die?

    Votes: 7 10.0%


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Most often, Fate (the dice). I don't build characters to game the system and I play them as if they were actual living, breathing, folk (I often even build intentionally flawed characters, because people are flawed). So I usually don't blame the DM or myself. I let situations play out as Fate dictates.
 

Most often, Fate (the dice). I don't build characters to game the system and I play them as if they were actual living, breathing, folk (I often even build intentionally flawed characters, because people are flawed). So I usually don't blame the DM or myself. I let situations play out as Fate dictates.
The Child D GIF by Disney+
 


Last time I had a character die in a D&D-like game it was to not only not leaving an island but doing boat-work in the abandoned village where we knew there was an ancient red dragon and we were level 6 or something like that. TPK. Player hubris -- we didn't think it would notice us.

Which worked wonderfully since we were playing a Theros (Ancient Greek expy) game and the DM had planned at some point we'd have to visit the underworld as champions of the gods, he just shuffled things around so we went a bit more directly but were afforded a (divinely deniable) way to escape besides swimming through the river and becoming Returned without memories or personality. Though there was a permanent debuff that since we were in our underworld bodies and attuned to the underworld that raise dead and the rest wouldn't work on us ever again.
 




I guess in some cases what kills a PC might be the player's decision to sit at that table, with that GM.
Honestly, it isn't even worth talking about "killer GMs" because they are anomalies that make the game worse. I don't think it is productive to have discussions around the exceptions and extremes.
 

Honestly, it isn't even worth talking about "killer GMs" because they are anomalies that make the game worse. I don't think it is productive to have discussions around the exceptions and extremes.
I've never played with a killer GM, but I think different people will have different ideas of just how anomalous killer GMs are, and how many PCs a given GM needs to have die in their game before that GM qualifies.
 

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