I’m not concerned with preventing individual character deaths so much as preventing TPK’s. Years back, early in my group’s Pathfinder career, we were well into an adventure path, over two years of play and level 13, when the DM rolled a way overtuned challenge on the random encounter table. The party was slaughtered before he had time to realize the danger and throw on the brakes. Although we were having a good time with the campaign, so much had transpired including specific character-related plot developments that the consensus was we simply couldn’t continue on with a comparable level of investment and quality of play. The premature end to a years long campaign due to rolling the wrong entry on a random encounter chart is, I assure you, incredibly unfun.
There’s been some assertion that attempts to meter character deaths to be meaningful manifests as characters acting as if they are invincible, going so far as to claim that it results in characters openly taunting their opponents or making incredibly reckless choices because the DM will never let them die. Of all the people advocating against ungratifying deaths, not a single person has indicated that they or their players behave in this manner. There is a far cry between not wanting to die to a random encounter due to a swack of bad rolls (or in my case not wanting an entire campaign to end due to these factors) and being a goddamn assclown acting in mean-spirited contravention of the spirit of gracious, cooperative gameplay expected from any team member participating in a team-based activity.
I want it mostly to be a sim of a fantasy adventure novel, where deaths are well timed and serve the narrative.
But how do you know when a death serves the narrative or not? What is the criteria for this? (Again, these are genuine questions, not rhetorical.)
For me, a "New Style" player and DM, the criteria involve whether the fight or scenario has a sense of greater meaning and an element of heroism or importance. Vision dying in a losing battle against Thanos that spurs the party onward? Yeah, that's satisfying. Vision dying on the way back from Sokovia after getting hit by a drunk driver? Not satisfying. Yes, motor vehicle accidents are dangerous and common, but it still feels senseless when it happens. Personally, I'm not looking for that brand of realism in my games. Now, if Vision were forewarned that leaving Sokovia would be dangerous and he chose to drive anyway and then got hit by a drunk driver - or if the Avengers learned afterward that the drunk driver was hired by HYDRA? That's satisfying, because it feels like there's something bigger at play and his choice to go anyway meant something.
To be honest, I think another distinction between the two styles of play being discussed in this thread is the attitude toward death. It's not that New Style players are scared of it and don't want it - a lot of us actually want it to be more important. When it happens, we want it to change the entire dynamic. We want it to be a watershed moment. The notion that any old adventurer can pick up where the dead PC left off is deeply unappealing to me because it feels like it lessens the importance of the original character's contribution and actually minimizes my sense of risk. If the worst that can happen is I have to roll up a new character and the party dynamic and in-game universe won't bat an eye, then there's no incentive for me to get invested in the game world or my character. It isn't the kind of immersion I'm looking for.
In closing, I will say that my DM is pretty old school and I've definitely lost characters at his hand. I've also killed PCs in my campaign. The moment of those deaths was anything but fun, but they sure made for some great D&D.
I'm honestly puzzled here by what you mean by "random nonsense" and the DM just rolling dice and then kills a character no matter what. I don't see anyone advocating for that (again, based on my understanding of what you're writing).
If a group of 2nd level characters encounter a band of hobgoblins as a random encounter on the way somewhere...are you saying the characters shouldn't die? That the random dice rolls (which are foundational to the game) in that encounter should be overridden if it's going to result in a character dying? What if the party has a terrible first round and chooses to not try and negotiate? What if the DM just happens to roll extraordinarily well for initiative, attack, and damage rolls? I'm asking sincerely here, not being rhetorical, because I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
I suppose it would be disappointing if a character were to die in that unplanned encounter, but I still fall back on what seems to be true: adventuring life is extremely dangerous and can be lethal. The foundational choice to go after danger itself could be interpreted as saying even the random encounters aren't all that random, and have some meaning.
It's a two way street, after all. I think most DMs have had campaigns/sessions where the planned Big Bad is captured or killed far more quickly than anticipated, because of dice rolls. (It's certainly happened to me!) The Story IS affected but that's the fun: there's now an unanticipated power vacuum - who or what fills it? What does it mean for the characters to have this sudden success? And so on.
Combat generally always carries at least some risk of death. If something is trying to kill you, it shouldn't generally have no chance of succeeding. Having a monster walk into inevitable death for no gain is simply playing that monster poorly.
"Random nonsense" is when a DM simply announces to the party that a character dies from some completely unavoidable, completely unforeseeable, usually utterly contrived happenstance. "You fall into a two hundred foot pit trap in the middle of the road and die. Go reroll." "You fall into an illusion-veiled acid pit right inside the merchant's front door and die. Go reroll." "A fire giant erupts from the earth in front of you, grabs you, and bites your torso off. You died, go reroll." The sort of thing that happens when a DM thinks that character death should be celebrated as the best part of D&D and that random unavoidable instant kills are Just Part Of The Fun.
A death should, ideally, always have been preventable in some way. The players can fail to prevent it, but a DM should strive to make sure the party walks away from that death knowing what they could have done to prevent it. Arbitrary "I rolled really well and so Alice gets shot in the eye and dies from an ambush you weren't allowed to avoid or see coming because I wanted an ambush fight" instagibs feel like DM nut shots, because they are DM nut shots. It's the DM deciding someone dies regardless of what that someone or any of that someone's friends do or say, because they feel like they haven't killed a player lately and they're in the mood to do so. It's putting Tomb of Horrors-level autokill garbage in regular games without the player's buy-in because a DM feels like That's How D&D Should Be.
No. No, it is not, and if you want to make it that way you need to make sure everybody's clear on the idea that characters don't matter and there will be an endless revolving door of Legendary Heroes. Which, frankly, makes the game more of a foregone conclusion than any amount of so-called "coddling" could in my eyes. After all, if the BBEG is up against a literally infinite supply of Legendary Heroes thast simply replace each other endlessly, without any rhyme or reason, any time he manages to kill one, how could he possibly win? How could the BBEG's plans ever actually work if the entire world is nothing but a sea of disposable-yet-infinite Legendary Heroes dead-set on opposing him?
... The notion that any old adventurer can pick up where the dead PC left off is deeply unappealing to me because it feels like it lessens the importance of the original character's contribution and actually minimizes my sense of risk. If the worst that can happen is I have to roll up a new character and the party dynamic and in-game universe won't bat an eye, then there's no incentive for me to get invested in the game world or my character. It isn't the kind of immersion I'm looking for.
...
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well said, Theology. The sort of "you can die at any moment from literally anything but we'll get you rerolled and right back into the game with your new guy behind the next closed door" thing the Old Guard type have going on is just not fun. What a perfect way to cheapen everybody involved and make death feel like no real concern at all. Why care - about dying, about anybody's characters, about the game - when you just roll some random yaybo to pick up where your previous random yaybo left off with absolutely no impact to the game whatsoever?
Character death is absolutely not fun and should be avoided whenever possible, except maybe at the climax of a campaign. This is what I like and this is how me and my friends play, but that does not mean your way is wrong for you and your group.
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I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
The sort of "you can die at any moment from literally anything but we'll get you rerolled and right back into the game with your new guy behind the next closed door" thing the Old Guard type have going on is just not fun.
I do not think this is a fair comment--it would be more accurate to say "is just not fun to me" (something I would generally agree with). But that does not mean there is anything wrong per se with an old school Tomb of Horrors dungeon crawler with high degrees of difficult to avoid death and rapid rerolls of characters shoehorned into the party. It's the age-old diachodemy of D&D, present and causing conflict since the very first days when Gygax and Arneson made the game--is D&D a game about mechanics where you also tell a story, or is it a game about story where you also have mechanics? Both options are fine, just like both Skyrim (story-heavy, mechanics secondary) and Doom (mechanics/meat-grinder heavy, story basically slapped on as an afterthought) are both perfectly fine ways to enjoy video games.
I personally prefer DMing a more Skyrim styled game for a long-term campaign (though a meat grinder one-shot can be fun; there's less story commitment when the game is relatively small in scope), something where players feel under constant threat of death, but still have the tools the need to survive so long as they remember to actually use the tools available to them. But I would never say a meat grinder can't be fun and would never hold that style of gameplay against others--it just is my preference that style of gameplay be limited to one-shots rather than multi-year endeavors.
I think the perception that these kinds of meat grinders can't be fun probably comes less from the mechanics or storytelling, and more from the kind of DM attracted to this type of gameplay. It is one thing to be deadly to your players; it is another thing to be antagonistic. Antagonistic DMs have a level of malice to them--they want the players to die simply because they want the players to die. Simply making a meat grinder is not the problem; it is when you run the meat grinder in the kind of unempathetic, hostile manner in a way that shows thinly-veiled contempt for others that can create an issue. But, again, that speaks more to the fact that the DM is DMing not to play, but rather to troll, than it does to the impossibility of enjoying that type of game.
Also, just to address another pet peeve--I think the "New Guard"/"Old Guard" labels need to go. As noted, these two playstyles have always existed in the game--there are plenty of folks who could be considered "Old Guard" who play like "New Guard" players and vice versa. I think a better set of labels would be "Gygax Camp" and "Arenson Camp" players. Gygax, whose history was in wargames, very much was focused on the mechanical aspects of the game and had a more meat grinder approach. Arneson (the first DM) was more of a story person--the first ever D&D session did not even focus on combat, and was designed around roleplaying and a puzzle.
Just some thoughts on the subject with no particular point -
I think Critical Role might be one of the most well known examples of what people might consider the 'New' way of playing DnD. It is very story driven, with characters that not only the players are invested in, but thousands of viewers are to a very high degree. These are professional actors telling the closest thing to an improvised 'movie' you can get. They have deep backstories and a massive arc planned.
Even though it happened years ago, I'll try to avoid spoilers but it's not entirely possible, so if you haven't seen it yet and want to, skip this part:
There was a big character death that shocked a lot of people in the second campaign. The player was visibly shaken. The DM made the active decision to kill the character because he thought it was what would happen in the moment. The DM struck a killing blow after the character was down. It was a deliberate choice that didn't have to be made. The players weren't being especially stupid. It wasn't an especially meaningful moment in the story.
It only became meaningful because of the meaning the character had to other characters, the players, and the viewers. And oddly enough, it led to the player making what I consider their best character ever to replace the one lost. It lead to a great and dramatic story. Maybe one that was far better than the one the DM would have made otherwise. I can't know for sure. But that one random character death was actually good for the campaign. Even one as 'new style' and story driven as Critical Role.
So there is a case to be made for random death, even in the most story driven game (for lack of a better term). It doesn't always work out that well. In fact, in probably seldom does. But it can result in some great things in any style game.
But there are a lot of reasons not to invite random death too. Most players aren't thrilled when their character dies. They had a plan for them. Not necessarily a story written out in advance. They just had aspirations. They wanted to see the build they envisioned play out at higher levels. They wanted to reveal their backstory to the other characters. They wanted to pursue a love interest, or avenge their father, or buy a castle. These aren't scripted moments like a movie. They are just goals a player has for the character they worked hard on. And that's worth something.
Losing a character early means losing out on all of those things. They lose the chance to see the character's arc play out. The game is still random and improvised. They don't know what the story is going to be. But they knew there was going to be A story for them, and now there isn't. They know they won't get to try that build this time. They know they won't get to have a satisfying confrontation with their rival. And so on.
And there is just a mechanical, logistical problem with character death for the DM too. You might have to scrap a lot of plans, or even a whole game entirely. If the party wipes at level 3, you have a decision to make. Do you try to run the same adventure again with the new party, or throw it out? Do your players even want to play again? Even just one character death might mean leaving a player out of the game for one or more sessions. Especially if their party wants to try to resurrect them, but aren't close to being able to. It might derail the whole story as they set off to find a powerful healer. That can be very interesting and entertaining for everyone sometimes. It might make for a better story. But other times it might just be a hassle for everyone and leave players out. All of these DM-side problems can be overcome of course, but they are still worth considering as a nuisance.
I've lost my fair share of characters over the years. Some were impactful, meaningful deaths. Some weren't. Most of them hurt a bit because of the lost potential. A fun character concept that I would never get to fully explore, and I wouldn't want to repeat with a clone. Sometimes the death made the story better. Sometimes it was just a waste. Sometimes it ended games, which is the worst.
There are a lot of stakes to be had outside of death. A lot of dangers and tragedy to fill a world with. A lot of things to lose or win. A lot of consequences. Taking LotR as an example again, only one main character stays dead, out of a very large party. You could imagine that if it was a DnD game, everyone would consider his death a meaningful one, saving other PCs and redeeming himself in the process. (And then that player returned with a new character - his last one's brother with barely changed name! haha).
But LotR is still full of very high stakes. The world is without a doubt quite dangerous. If the heroes fail, they lose whole kingdoms of people, they lose their loved ones, and they even lose their own soul. There's a lot of dramatic struggle there. Things that a random spider eating one of them wasn't going to do better. Random encounters and death from bad rolls might help create a sense of a dangerous world where an adventurers life is cheap, but that's just one style of fantasy a group might want.
I don't really have a point, other than talking out some of the pros and cons that every style of play might run across. I've played the old Basic DnD and run through 3 characters in one night. There are some that I still regret not getting to see their full potential. I also still remember a character I played in 2nd edition for years that died to a run of bad rolls but still meant something to the game. And I've played a 5e game in the last year that ended in a TPK at level 1 which wasn't satisfying for the players or the DM. I don't think there is any one right answer or way to play concerning PC death. I don't think a firm stance either way is always going to work. It's just something everyone has to feel out each game.
... The notion that any old adventurer can pick up where the dead PC left off is deeply unappealing to me because it feels like it lessens the importance of the original character's contribution and actually minimizes my sense of risk. If the worst that can happen is I have to roll up a new character and the party dynamic and in-game universe won't bat an eye, then there's no incentive for me to get invested in the game world or my character. It isn't the kind of immersion I'm looking for.
...
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well said, Theology. The sort of "you can die at any moment from literally anything but we'll get you rerolled and right back into the game with your new guy behind the next closed door" thing the Old Guard type have going on is just not fun. What a perfect way to cheapen everybody involved and make death feel like no real concern at all. Why care - about dying, about anybody's characters, about the game - when you just roll some random yaybo to pick up where your previous random yaybo left off with absolutely no impact to the game whatsoever?
I'm going to, as gently as I can, comment that what you deem as Old Guard being not fun is true for you. This thread and other posts are proof that a near-ever present threat of real death for the character is fun for some folks.
Without quoting your entire other post (thank you for that specific response), I did want to say on that, at least, we are in complete agreement. That just feels like terrible, ego-driven DMing and I can't imagine it being fun for anyone.
But your point above...just no. I can't agree with that at all, for a number of reasons. I think the character's death is only cheapened if everyone involved treats it that way; if everyone involved just shrugs and says, welp, get to rollin'. (And in that case, they probably don't care if it's cheaply considered.) But a character can die and, sooner or later be "replaced" (in terms of the number of characters involved) without it treating the death as inconsequential. This has everything to do with the players and DM and nothing to do with how much time passes before the new character is introduced: is there satisfying role play being done regarding the death? Does the DM allow the death to have in-game consequences and ripples?
And since directness/bluntness seems to be the order: I can't give the argument that "character death results in player downtime which isn't fun, therefore character death should ONLY happen in narratively meaningful and satisfying ways" any kind of weight or seriousness. Because this is a matter that should be settled during a session zero or when a new player joins the group: expectations, tone, and what could happen in the occurrence of a character death should all be clearly communicated and agreed upon.
In D&D, sometimes characters die. Unless you're going to run a game which blatantly has no mortal stakes, everyone at the table should understand that and understand that, depending on the circumstances, character death may mean some time when that player isn't able to directly participate. That's not fun for anyone, but it's often unavoidable. What can be avoided is the DM or other players treating the actual player as PNG; maybe they can run a valued NPC for a bit, or even some monsters, or they can begin working on their next character - taking the same time and effort to think about how to integrate the new character into an ongoing campaign as they did to a new one.
Lastly, I think we are again at a significant divide, in terms of the impact of a character dying. And - I mean this sincerely and not sarcastically - forgive me, but this is just a game, after all. If a made up character dies....it's not the end of the world, imagined or otherwise. You still have all the memories of playing the character, all the experiences of what they did in the game. All of that is there, not cheapened or erased. Perhaps it's a measure of how differently we play the game that you view character death as this monumental, potentially game-changing (no pun intended!) event and for me it's more...well, it's sad and not always preferred but it happens, so what's next?
I guess the kind of immersion I want from the game isn't a type that makes me (or my characters) feel irreplaceable or so unique that the game might not literally be able to continue without them. I prefer a kind of immersion where I/my character have agency and impact...but there's also the reality of the world around us going on regardless, that odd (and, to me, more akin to reality) balance or tension between being a small, insignificant carbon-based organism looking up at the incomprehensibly large universe and being a sentient creature that can make a difference in the lives and world immediately around me.
Just some thoughts on the subject with no particular point -
I think Critical Role might be one of the most well known examples of what people might consider the 'New' way of playing DnD. It is very story driven, with characters that not only the players are invested in, but thousands of viewers are to a very high degree. These are professional actors telling the closest thing to an improvised 'movie' you can get. They have deep backstories and a massive arc planned.
Even though it happened years ago, I'll try to avoid spoilers but it's not entirely possible, so if you haven't seen it yet and want to, skip this part:
There was a big character death that shocked a lot of people in the second campaign. The player was visibly shaken. The DM made the active decision to kill the character because he thought it was what would happen in the moment. The DM struck a killing blow after the character was down. It was a deliberate choice that didn't have to be made. The players weren't being especially stupid. It wasn't an especially meaningful moment in the story.
It only became meaningful because of the meaning the character had to other characters, the players, and the viewers. And oddly enough, it led to the player making what I consider their best character ever to replace the one lost. It lead to a great and dramatic story. Maybe one that was far better than the one the DM would have made otherwise. I can't know for sure. But that one random character death was actually good for the campaign. Even one as 'new style' and story driven as Critical Role.
I'm not a huge fan of Critical Role for a number of reasons, but I agree that this example is in some ways the ideal one of how to handle character death. This was probably not a random encounter but Mercer for sure didn't seem to plan for it to be as consequential as it turned out to be. He DMed it very well, down to running the villain intelligently and as cruelly as it would've acted.
The death of the character, despite being replaced very quickly, was incredibly consequential for the campaign and players - but none of that had been planned ahead of time. I can't believe that Mercer had somehow anticipated or prepared for a character death in order to introduce the mystery antagonist the way he did.
And the death mattered NOT because that set of villains ultimately meant something to the grand sweep of the campaign (they didn't) but because both the players and the DM were nimble and - ahem - game enough to make it so. (I personally felt like the players got a bit maudlin when burying the character, but potato, poh-tah-toh.) Everyone involved did some wonderful creative pivots when the character died - a fairly random and meaningless death at the time - and were able to transform it into something much larger and meaningful. That's some really great D&D playing right there.
Taking the training wheels off of the bike does allow the bike to remain fun for all ages. People who need training wheels will still have them available when needed.
And that is why so many people get so heated about this "debate". Because one half of the debate almost universally taunts, belittles, denigrates and dismisses the other half of the debate with comments like "people who need training wheels." Because one side of the debate thinks not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character is somehow superior to actually caring, and people respond to that with justifiable hostility.
To answer your answer to me, Xukuri: It's less about knowing the character was an irreplaceable part of the cosmos, and saying "THE GAME CANNOT CONITNUE WITHOUT MY CREATION", but more that sense Theology said of how the revolving door of fresh snapkicks makes it feel like none of the individual characters matter. The rest of the party treats all those characters exactly the same way, the rest of the world treats the party the exact same way no matter who's in it. The "characters" simply don't feel like characters, they're just whichever bunch of mechanics you decided to run out and give a spin now..
Characters can die at any time. Those deaths should mean something. They should affect people. They should leave their mark. The "Deaths" in Old School Meat Grinder Murderthons mean nothing. They're pointless, in every sense of the word. They have no weight an impact, and because of that there's no reason to bother with them. Like I said, the campaign becomes a foregone conclusion because the BBEG cannot possibly kill enough PCs to get through the endless ranks of snapkicked Replacement Goldfish. Even a TPK just means the next party picks up in town and carries on. The end of the game is as certain as the sunrise, and it becomes just utterly disengaging. Why play at all when the characters don't matter and the plot is a foregone conclusion?
The problem is: actual PC death is generally not fun (one real PC death per campaign can add valuable angst, but that's not usefully increased by multiple deaths). However, the feeling that your character might die, and you're overcoming the odds, is fun.
Of course, you can't really have one without the other without the DM playing tricks, because if there's a real risk, well, eventually the dice are going to go against the PCs and someone's gonna die.
I've lost my fair share of characters over the years…Most of them hurt a bit because of the lost potential. A fun character concept that I would never get to fully explore, and I wouldn't want to repeat with a clone. Sometimes the death made the story better. Sometimes it was just a waste. Sometimes it ended games, which is the worst.
As far as individual character death goes, this is the crux of it for me. I like to be finished with a character rather than lose one. It’s really only problematic is the first five levels, before revivify and the other return-to-life spells are available. Other than that, barring odd circumstances like having one of my cleric’s corpses completely destroyed in a pool of lava, when a character dies I get the chance to say, yes please, bring me back or nah, it’s ok, I’m gonna move on to a backup character. I still think about some of my dead characters: what could they have become?
First, I agree that Wren's post above isn't helpful or constructive. It adds nothing to the discussion, and it's certainly not the kind of response I hoped to elicit with the original post.
Next:
To answer your answer to me, Xukuri: It's less about knowing the character was an irreplaceable part of the cosmos, and saying "THE GAME CANNOT CONITNUE WITHOUT MY CREATION", but more that sense Theology said of how the revolving door of fresh snapkicks makes it feel like none of the individual characters matter. The rest of the party treats all those characters exactly the same way, the rest of the world treats the party the exact same way no matter who's in it. The "characters" simply don't feel like characters, they're just whichever bunch of mechanics you decided to run out and give a spin now..
I understand what you're saying - but I still think this is ultimately a failure (if I can use that strong of a word) of the players and DM to roleplay the death in a way that communicates impact. One campaign being deadlier than another isn't the problem; it's how the deaths are handled. And - again - we're back to session zero stuff, communicating tone, expectations, and all that stuff.
And again, the way Critical Role handled a player character's death seems, in many ways, to be ideal. It absolutely mattered and also wasn't foreordained or inescapable.
Characters can die at any time. Those deaths should mean something. They should affect people. They should leave their mark. The "Deaths" in Old School Meat Grinder Murderthons mean nothing. They're pointless, in every sense of the word. They have no weight an impact, and because of that there's no reason to bother with them. Like I said, the campaign becomes a foregone conclusion because the BBEG cannot possibly kill enough PCs to get through the endless ranks of snapkicked Replacement Goldfish. Even a TPK just means the next party picks up in town and carries on. The end of the game is as certain as the sunrise, and it becomes just utterly disengaging. Why play at all when the characters don't matter and the plot is a foregone conclusion?
I don't agree with these characterizations, based on my own experiences of playing 1E when it was the only edition that was available. The tone of our games and the impact of character deaths were nothing like you describe above.
That said: I'm absolutely sure what you describe happened, and still happens. And some people find it fun! Which is OK. They're not wanting the immersive, affirming experience from the game that you and others are. I don't think they view the game as pointless at all - they're just getting their enjoyment from a different style of play. They're process oriented in their own way - but instead of being focused on the "softer" (meaning harder to quantify) RPing aspects of the game, they're focused on the strategic and tactical aspects. For them, the point isn't about running fleshed out, detailed characters but understanding and mastering the mechanics of the game to defeat the challenges the DM provides.
Now, for me, that's a bit soulless and empty (I think we agree on that) - but that's just for me. Conversely, I personally don't find the level of RPing and time spent in non-combat activities that's on display in Critical Role appealing, either - it often just feels like actorly wankery to me, rather than fun.
FWIW, I hate that you've had a lot of unpleasant exchanges or interactions with folks who prefer an old school play style and refuse to acknowledge the equal value and validity to your play style and appreciate what you've written in this thread.
And that is why so many people get so heated about this "debate". Because one half of the debate almost universally taunts, belittles, denigrates and dismisses the other half of the debate with comments like "people who need training wheels." Because one side of the debate thinks not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character is somehow superior to actually caring, and people respond to that with justifiable hostility.
To answer your answer to me, Xukuri: It's less about knowing the character was an irreplaceable part of the cosmos, and saying "THE GAME CANNOT CONITNUE WITHOUT MY CREATION", but more that sense Theology said of how the revolving door of fresh snapkicks makes it feel like none of the individual characters matter. The rest of the party treats all those characters exactly the same way, the rest of the world treats the party the exact same way no matter who's in it. The "characters" simply don't feel like characters, they're just whichever bunch of mechanics you decided to run out and give a spin now..
Characters can die at any time. Those deaths should mean something. They should affect people. They should leave their mark. The "Deaths" in Old School Meat Grinder Murderthons mean nothing. They're pointless, in every sense of the word. They have no weight an impact, and because of that there's no reason to bother with them. Like I said, the campaign becomes a foregone conclusion because the BBEG cannot possibly kill enough PCs to get through the endless ranks of snapkicked Replacement Goldfish. Even a TPK just means the next party picks up in town and carries on. The end of the game is as certain as the sunrise, and it becomes just utterly disengaging. Why play at all when the characters don't matter and the plot is a foregone conclusion?
If one is going to complain about their side being referred to as "needing training wheels," then they probably shouldn't refer to the other side as "not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character," just saying.
My characters are like my children and it is because I care for them that I don't try to keep them locked up where everything is covered in NERF. Fantasy is full of stories where overprotective parents try to prevent their children from experiencing the world.
And that is why so many people get so heated about this "debate". Because one half of the debate almost universally taunts, belittles, denigrates and dismisses the other half of the debate with comments like "people who need training wheels." Because one side of the debate thinks not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character is somehow superior to actually caring, and people respond to that with justifiable hostility.
To answer your answer to me, Xukuri: It's less about knowing the character was an irreplaceable part of the cosmos, and saying "THE GAME CANNOT CONITNUE WITHOUT MY CREATION", but more that sense Theology said of how the revolving door of fresh snapkicks makes it feel like none of the individual characters matter. The rest of the party treats all those characters exactly the same way, the rest of the world treats the party the exact same way no matter who's in it. The "characters" simply don't feel like characters, they're just whichever bunch of mechanics you decided to run out and give a spin now..
Characters can die at any time. Those deaths should mean something. They should affect people. They should leave their mark. The "Deaths" in Old School Meat Grinder Murderthons mean nothing. They're pointless, in every sense of the word. They have no weight an impact, and because of that there's no reason to bother with them. Like I said, the campaign becomes a foregone conclusion because the BBEG cannot possibly kill enough PCs to get through the endless ranks of snapkicked Replacement Goldfish. Even a TPK just means the next party picks up in town and carries on. The end of the game is as certain as the sunrise, and it becomes just utterly disengaging. Why play at all when the characters don't matter and the plot is a foregone conclusion?
If one is going to complain about their side being referred to as "needing training wheels," then they probably shouldn't refer to the other side as "not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character," just saying.
My characters are like my children and it is because I care for them that I don't try to keep them locked up where everything is covered in NERF. Fantasy is full of stories where overprotective parents try to prevent their children from experiencing the world.
It is not your place, Wren, to dictate what the right way to play D&D is--which is exactly what you are doing when you are using phrases like "training wheels" and "covered in NERF" to laugh off other folks' playstyle as childish. Just as it was wrong for Yurei to say that the meat grinder style of playing is "not fun" it is wrong of you to be so dismissive of the other side of the conversation.
Here is the simple reality, understood by the vast majority of players - different groups and different players have different priorities. Some might like a meat grinder; some might want to focus on a story. Just as we should not mock people who play video games on "Story" difficulty rather than "Hardcore" difficulty, because they want to experience the world rather than slam their head against the wall, there is no need to mock others who play the game on a different "difficulty setting than you." It comes off as unempathetic and as gatekeeping and is why these conversations tend to go nowhere productive.
Character death is absolutely not fun and should be avoided whenever possible, except maybe at the climax of a campaign. This is what I like and this is how me and my friends play, but that does not mean your way is wrong for you and your group.
Considering D&D is rife with resurrection magic, liches, extraplanar pacts, and direct intervention of the gods, there is very little justification for permanent character death outside of the players and DM agreeing that such a thing fits their brand of fun. Like you, I don't enjoy killing PCs or losing characters, and the way my groups play allows for some kind of resurrection for anyone who dies - either in-game or in the campaign's epilogue - if the player wants it. That's good enough for me. Character death hurts, but it can also become an amazing storytelling device if you and your table is into that.
The problem is: actual PC death is generally not fun (one real PC death per campaign can add valuable angst, but that's not usefully increased by multiple deaths). However, the feeling that your character might die, and you're overcoming the odds, is fun.
Of course, you can't really have one without the other without the DM playing tricks, because if there's a real risk, well, eventually the dice are going to go against the PCs and someone's gonna die.
This is a fantastic summation. I agree that character death is generally not fun but the sense of danger being "real" and overcoming it is.
Clearly you haven't been keeping up with mainstream pop culture in the last decade or so. ;)
Why? Because you count the set up and planned character deaths in a show. An actor signed up for five episodes...and "wow" in Episode Five they "stay behind" for "no reason" to fight a building on fire..and a cross beam falls and kills the character. Or the actor wants to leave the show then they "trip for no reason" so the zombies can eat them. Yea..wow...character death. It is NOT random character death.
Well said, Theology. The sort of "you can die at any moment from literally anything but we'll get you rerolled and right back into the game with your new guy behind the next closed door" thing the Old Guard type have going on is just not fun. What a perfect way to cheapen everybody involved and make death feel like no real concern at all. Why care - about dying, about anybody's characters, about the game - when you just roll some random yaybo to pick up where your previous random yaybo left off with absolutely no impact to the game whatsoever?
How is this any different then a character that just survives everything automatically? Why even have combat and roll at all? When the whole game will be "well it does not matter how much damage your character takes as they are immortal". Character has 20 hit points, takes 20 damage, and nothing happens. Why even waste the time with combat? Why even play the game if your character will just automatically do whatever task is in front of them?
A lot of the things in the game fall under the vague "no fun" tent. It's no fun to have a character get attacked, it's no fun for a character to take damage, it's no fun for a character to be effected by a spell. But if you remove everything "not fun" from the game it's not a game. Some would say it's "no fun" to fall into a pit trap full of water and be attacked by an octopus monster. But if you do think that, what do you even want as a combat encounter?
And if the game story is not effected by character deaths, well that is on the DM and the players.
I am of the story depth character crew and I don't WANT to deal with a character death, but realize it's possible. In our group, members have died twice, requiring resurrections. The first, we were provided a scroll prior to the encounter (DM felt it MAY have been a bit overtuned and it was lol) so when the character died from an AOE effect the big bag had, the others were able to bring me back. The time I spent in limbo, and the source of the scroll turned my character from agnostic to following a God in our DM's homebrew world.
The second was our fighter, who went down under a series of 3 crits over 4 attacks. It was brutal and highly unexpected. We used an item we already had to preserve the body and carried it in a bag of holding (after dislocating a shoulder to fit it in) for a week until we reached a town where we could purchase (at HUGE cost) a resurrection. UGH. His character has changed a fair bit since that event as well.
We don't "allow" character deaths in early game (to 3-ish) unless the players have done something stupid enough to deserve it. I and the other 2 DM's in our group (we cycle running our campaigns to not wear out a DM) have all fudged a couple rolls early on, or used moron monster tactics to rebalance an encounter going really poorly for no valid reasons other than bad rolls. We let it get scary, but might do 8 damage instead of the rolled 12 to keep a PC on their feet for this round. As above, we provide methods of fixing a death if it's applicable. We only intervene on player behalf in random or staged encounters, so when getting ready for a "boss" fight or encounter, all safety measures go OFF. Oddly only one such encounter got truly shaky, with 2 members down and the remaining pair in single digits at the fight's end. A few quick potions force-fed and we were out of immediate peril.
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I’m not concerned with preventing individual character deaths so much as preventing TPK’s. Years back, early in my group’s Pathfinder career, we were well into an adventure path, over two years of play and level 13, when the DM rolled a way overtuned challenge on the random encounter table. The party was slaughtered before he had time to realize the danger and throw on the brakes. Although we were having a good time with the campaign, so much had transpired including specific character-related plot developments that the consensus was we simply couldn’t continue on with a comparable level of investment and quality of play. The premature end to a years long campaign due to rolling the wrong entry on a random encounter chart is, I assure you, incredibly unfun.
There’s been some assertion that attempts to meter character deaths to be meaningful manifests as characters acting as if they are invincible, going so far as to claim that it results in characters openly taunting their opponents or making incredibly reckless choices because the DM will never let them die. Of all the people advocating against ungratifying deaths, not a single person has indicated that they or their players behave in this manner. There is a far cry between not wanting to die to a random encounter due to a swack of bad rolls (or in my case not wanting an entire campaign to end due to these factors) and being a goddamn assclown acting in mean-spirited contravention of the spirit of gracious, cooperative gameplay expected from any team member participating in a team-based activity.
For me, a "New Style" player and DM, the criteria involve whether the fight or scenario has a sense of greater meaning and an element of heroism or importance. Vision dying in a losing battle against Thanos that spurs the party onward? Yeah, that's satisfying. Vision dying on the way back from Sokovia after getting hit by a drunk driver? Not satisfying. Yes, motor vehicle accidents are dangerous and common, but it still feels senseless when it happens. Personally, I'm not looking for that brand of realism in my games. Now, if Vision were forewarned that leaving Sokovia would be dangerous and he chose to drive anyway and then got hit by a drunk driver - or if the Avengers learned afterward that the drunk driver was hired by HYDRA? That's satisfying, because it feels like there's something bigger at play and his choice to go anyway meant something.
To be honest, I think another distinction between the two styles of play being discussed in this thread is the attitude toward death. It's not that New Style players are scared of it and don't want it - a lot of us actually want it to be more important. When it happens, we want it to change the entire dynamic. We want it to be a watershed moment. The notion that any old adventurer can pick up where the dead PC left off is deeply unappealing to me because it feels like it lessens the importance of the original character's contribution and actually minimizes my sense of risk. If the worst that can happen is I have to roll up a new character and the party dynamic and in-game universe won't bat an eye, then there's no incentive for me to get invested in the game world or my character. It isn't the kind of immersion I'm looking for.
In closing, I will say that my DM is pretty old school and I've definitely lost characters at his hand. I've also killed PCs in my campaign. The moment of those deaths was anything but fun, but they sure made for some great D&D.
Combat generally always carries at least some risk of death. If something is trying to kill you, it shouldn't generally have no chance of succeeding. Having a monster walk into inevitable death for no gain is simply playing that monster poorly.
"Random nonsense" is when a DM simply announces to the party that a character dies from some completely unavoidable, completely unforeseeable, usually utterly contrived happenstance. "You fall into a two hundred foot pit trap in the middle of the road and die. Go reroll." "You fall into an illusion-veiled acid pit right inside the merchant's front door and die. Go reroll." "A fire giant erupts from the earth in front of you, grabs you, and bites your torso off. You died, go reroll." The sort of thing that happens when a DM thinks that character death should be celebrated as the best part of D&D and that random unavoidable instant kills are Just Part Of The Fun.
A death should, ideally, always have been preventable in some way. The players can fail to prevent it, but a DM should strive to make sure the party walks away from that death knowing what they could have done to prevent it. Arbitrary "I rolled really well and so Alice gets shot in the eye and dies from an ambush you weren't allowed to avoid or see coming because I wanted an ambush fight" instagibs feel like DM nut shots, because they are DM nut shots. It's the DM deciding someone dies regardless of what that someone or any of that someone's friends do or say, because they feel like they haven't killed a player lately and they're in the mood to do so. It's putting Tomb of Horrors-level autokill garbage in regular games without the player's buy-in because a DM feels like That's How D&D Should Be.
No. No, it is not, and if you want to make it that way you need to make sure everybody's clear on the idea that characters don't matter and there will be an endless revolving door of Legendary Heroes. Which, frankly, makes the game more of a foregone conclusion than any amount of so-called "coddling" could in my eyes. After all, if the BBEG is up against a literally infinite supply of Legendary Heroes thast simply replace each other endlessly, without any rhyme or reason, any time he manages to kill one, how could he possibly win? How could the BBEG's plans ever actually work if the entire world is nothing but a sea of disposable-yet-infinite Legendary Heroes dead-set on opposing him?
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Exactly.
Exactly.
Well said, Theology. The sort of "you can die at any moment from literally anything but we'll get you rerolled and right back into the game with your new guy behind the next closed door" thing the Old Guard type have going on is just not fun. What a perfect way to cheapen everybody involved and make death feel like no real concern at all. Why care - about dying, about anybody's characters, about the game - when you just roll some random yaybo to pick up where your previous random yaybo left off with absolutely no impact to the game whatsoever?
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Character death is absolutely not fun and should be avoided whenever possible, except maybe at the climax of a campaign. This is what I like and this is how me and my friends play, but that does not mean your way is wrong for you and your group.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
I do not think this is a fair comment--it would be more accurate to say "is just not fun to me" (something I would generally agree with). But that does not mean there is anything wrong per se with an old school Tomb of Horrors dungeon crawler with high degrees of difficult to avoid death and rapid rerolls of characters shoehorned into the party. It's the age-old diachodemy of D&D, present and causing conflict since the very first days when Gygax and Arneson made the game--is D&D a game about mechanics where you also tell a story, or is it a game about story where you also have mechanics? Both options are fine, just like both Skyrim (story-heavy, mechanics secondary) and Doom (mechanics/meat-grinder heavy, story basically slapped on as an afterthought) are both perfectly fine ways to enjoy video games.
I personally prefer DMing a more Skyrim styled game for a long-term campaign (though a meat grinder one-shot can be fun; there's less story commitment when the game is relatively small in scope), something where players feel under constant threat of death, but still have the tools the need to survive so long as they remember to actually use the tools available to them. But I would never say a meat grinder can't be fun and would never hold that style of gameplay against others--it just is my preference that style of gameplay be limited to one-shots rather than multi-year endeavors.
I think the perception that these kinds of meat grinders can't be fun probably comes less from the mechanics or storytelling, and more from the kind of DM attracted to this type of gameplay. It is one thing to be deadly to your players; it is another thing to be antagonistic. Antagonistic DMs have a level of malice to them--they want the players to die simply because they want the players to die. Simply making a meat grinder is not the problem; it is when you run the meat grinder in the kind of unempathetic, hostile manner in a way that shows thinly-veiled contempt for others that can create an issue. But, again, that speaks more to the fact that the DM is DMing not to play, but rather to troll, than it does to the impossibility of enjoying that type of game.
Also, just to address another pet peeve--I think the "New Guard"/"Old Guard" labels need to go. As noted, these two playstyles have always existed in the game--there are plenty of folks who could be considered "Old Guard" who play like "New Guard" players and vice versa. I think a better set of labels would be "Gygax Camp" and "Arenson Camp" players. Gygax, whose history was in wargames, very much was focused on the mechanical aspects of the game and had a more meat grinder approach. Arneson (the first DM) was more of a story person--the first ever D&D session did not even focus on combat, and was designed around roleplaying and a puzzle.
Just some thoughts on the subject with no particular point -
I think Critical Role might be one of the most well known examples of what people might consider the 'New' way of playing DnD. It is very story driven, with characters that not only the players are invested in, but thousands of viewers are to a very high degree. These are professional actors telling the closest thing to an improvised 'movie' you can get. They have deep backstories and a massive arc planned.
Even though it happened years ago, I'll try to avoid spoilers but it's not entirely possible, so if you haven't seen it yet and want to, skip this part:
There was a big character death that shocked a lot of people in the second campaign. The player was visibly shaken. The DM made the active decision to kill the character because he thought it was what would happen in the moment. The DM struck a killing blow after the character was down. It was a deliberate choice that didn't have to be made. The players weren't being especially stupid. It wasn't an especially meaningful moment in the story.
It only became meaningful because of the meaning the character had to other characters, the players, and the viewers. And oddly enough, it led to the player making what I consider their best character ever to replace the one lost. It lead to a great and dramatic story. Maybe one that was far better than the one the DM would have made otherwise. I can't know for sure. But that one random character death was actually good for the campaign. Even one as 'new style' and story driven as Critical Role.
So there is a case to be made for random death, even in the most story driven game (for lack of a better term). It doesn't always work out that well. In fact, in probably seldom does. But it can result in some great things in any style game.
But there are a lot of reasons not to invite random death too. Most players aren't thrilled when their character dies. They had a plan for them. Not necessarily a story written out in advance. They just had aspirations. They wanted to see the build they envisioned play out at higher levels. They wanted to reveal their backstory to the other characters. They wanted to pursue a love interest, or avenge their father, or buy a castle. These aren't scripted moments like a movie. They are just goals a player has for the character they worked hard on. And that's worth something.
Losing a character early means losing out on all of those things. They lose the chance to see the character's arc play out. The game is still random and improvised. They don't know what the story is going to be. But they knew there was going to be A story for them, and now there isn't. They know they won't get to try that build this time. They know they won't get to have a satisfying confrontation with their rival. And so on.
And there is just a mechanical, logistical problem with character death for the DM too. You might have to scrap a lot of plans, or even a whole game entirely. If the party wipes at level 3, you have a decision to make. Do you try to run the same adventure again with the new party, or throw it out? Do your players even want to play again? Even just one character death might mean leaving a player out of the game for one or more sessions. Especially if their party wants to try to resurrect them, but aren't close to being able to. It might derail the whole story as they set off to find a powerful healer. That can be very interesting and entertaining for everyone sometimes. It might make for a better story. But other times it might just be a hassle for everyone and leave players out. All of these DM-side problems can be overcome of course, but they are still worth considering as a nuisance.
I've lost my fair share of characters over the years. Some were impactful, meaningful deaths. Some weren't. Most of them hurt a bit because of the lost potential. A fun character concept that I would never get to fully explore, and I wouldn't want to repeat with a clone. Sometimes the death made the story better. Sometimes it was just a waste. Sometimes it ended games, which is the worst.
There are a lot of stakes to be had outside of death. A lot of dangers and tragedy to fill a world with. A lot of things to lose or win. A lot of consequences. Taking LotR as an example again, only one main character stays dead, out of a very large party. You could imagine that if it was a DnD game, everyone would consider his death a meaningful one, saving other PCs and redeeming himself in the process. (And then that player returned with a new character - his last one's brother with barely changed name! haha).
But LotR is still full of very high stakes. The world is without a doubt quite dangerous. If the heroes fail, they lose whole kingdoms of people, they lose their loved ones, and they even lose their own soul. There's a lot of dramatic struggle there. Things that a random spider eating one of them wasn't going to do better. Random encounters and death from bad rolls might help create a sense of a dangerous world where an adventurers life is cheap, but that's just one style of fantasy a group might want.
I don't really have a point, other than talking out some of the pros and cons that every style of play might run across. I've played the old Basic DnD and run through 3 characters in one night. There are some that I still regret not getting to see their full potential. I also still remember a character I played in 2nd edition for years that died to a run of bad rolls but still meant something to the game. And I've played a 5e game in the last year that ended in a TPK at level 1 which wasn't satisfying for the players or the DM. I don't think there is any one right answer or way to play concerning PC death. I don't think a firm stance either way is always going to work. It's just something everyone has to feel out each game.
I'm going to, as gently as I can, comment that what you deem as Old Guard being not fun is true for you. This thread and other posts are proof that a near-ever present threat of real death for the character is fun for some folks.
Without quoting your entire other post (thank you for that specific response), I did want to say on that, at least, we are in complete agreement. That just feels like terrible, ego-driven DMing and I can't imagine it being fun for anyone.
But your point above...just no. I can't agree with that at all, for a number of reasons. I think the character's death is only cheapened if everyone involved treats it that way; if everyone involved just shrugs and says, welp, get to rollin'. (And in that case, they probably don't care if it's cheaply considered.) But a character can die and, sooner or later be "replaced" (in terms of the number of characters involved) without it treating the death as inconsequential. This has everything to do with the players and DM and nothing to do with how much time passes before the new character is introduced: is there satisfying role play being done regarding the death? Does the DM allow the death to have in-game consequences and ripples?
And since directness/bluntness seems to be the order: I can't give the argument that "character death results in player downtime which isn't fun, therefore character death should ONLY happen in narratively meaningful and satisfying ways" any kind of weight or seriousness. Because this is a matter that should be settled during a session zero or when a new player joins the group: expectations, tone, and what could happen in the occurrence of a character death should all be clearly communicated and agreed upon.
In D&D, sometimes characters die. Unless you're going to run a game which blatantly has no mortal stakes, everyone at the table should understand that and understand that, depending on the circumstances, character death may mean some time when that player isn't able to directly participate. That's not fun for anyone, but it's often unavoidable. What can be avoided is the DM or other players treating the actual player as PNG; maybe they can run a valued NPC for a bit, or even some monsters, or they can begin working on their next character - taking the same time and effort to think about how to integrate the new character into an ongoing campaign as they did to a new one.
Lastly, I think we are again at a significant divide, in terms of the impact of a character dying. And - I mean this sincerely and not sarcastically - forgive me, but this is just a game, after all. If a made up character dies....it's not the end of the world, imagined or otherwise. You still have all the memories of playing the character, all the experiences of what they did in the game. All of that is there, not cheapened or erased. Perhaps it's a measure of how differently we play the game that you view character death as this monumental, potentially game-changing (no pun intended!) event and for me it's more...well, it's sad and not always preferred but it happens, so what's next?
I guess the kind of immersion I want from the game isn't a type that makes me (or my characters) feel irreplaceable or so unique that the game might not literally be able to continue without them. I prefer a kind of immersion where I/my character have agency and impact...but there's also the reality of the world around us going on regardless, that odd (and, to me, more akin to reality) balance or tension between being a small, insignificant carbon-based organism looking up at the incomprehensibly large universe and being a sentient creature that can make a difference in the lives and world immediately around me.
I'm not a huge fan of Critical Role for a number of reasons, but I agree that this example is in some ways the ideal one of how to handle character death. This was probably not a random encounter but Mercer for sure didn't seem to plan for it to be as consequential as it turned out to be. He DMed it very well, down to running the villain intelligently and as cruelly as it would've acted.
The death of the character, despite being replaced very quickly, was incredibly consequential for the campaign and players - but none of that had been planned ahead of time. I can't believe that Mercer had somehow anticipated or prepared for a character death in order to introduce the mystery antagonist the way he did.
And the death mattered NOT because that set of villains ultimately meant something to the grand sweep of the campaign (they didn't) but because both the players and the DM were nimble and - ahem - game enough to make it so. (I personally felt like the players got a bit maudlin when burying the character, but potato, poh-tah-toh.) Everyone involved did some wonderful creative pivots when the character died - a fairly random and meaningless death at the time - and were able to transform it into something much larger and meaningful. That's some really great D&D playing right there.
Taking the training wheels off of the bike does allow the bike to remain fun for all ages. People who need training wheels will still have them available when needed.
And that is why so many people get so heated about this "debate". Because one half of the debate almost universally taunts, belittles, denigrates and dismisses the other half of the debate with comments like "people who need training wheels." Because one side of the debate thinks not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character is somehow superior to actually caring, and people respond to that with justifiable hostility.
To answer your answer to me, Xukuri: It's less about knowing the character was an irreplaceable part of the cosmos, and saying "THE GAME CANNOT CONITNUE WITHOUT MY CREATION", but more that sense Theology said of how the revolving door of fresh snapkicks makes it feel like none of the individual characters matter. The rest of the party treats all those characters exactly the same way, the rest of the world treats the party the exact same way no matter who's in it. The "characters" simply don't feel like characters, they're just whichever bunch of mechanics you decided to run out and give a spin now..
Characters can die at any time. Those deaths should mean something. They should affect people. They should leave their mark. The "Deaths" in Old School Meat Grinder Murderthons mean nothing. They're pointless, in every sense of the word. They have no weight an impact, and because of that there's no reason to bother with them. Like I said, the campaign becomes a foregone conclusion because the BBEG cannot possibly kill enough PCs to get through the endless ranks of snapkicked Replacement Goldfish. Even a TPK just means the next party picks up in town and carries on. The end of the game is as certain as the sunrise, and it becomes just utterly disengaging. Why play at all when the characters don't matter and the plot is a foregone conclusion?
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The problem is: actual PC death is generally not fun (one real PC death per campaign can add valuable angst, but that's not usefully increased by multiple deaths). However, the feeling that your character might die, and you're overcoming the odds, is fun.
Of course, you can't really have one without the other without the DM playing tricks, because if there's a real risk, well, eventually the dice are going to go against the PCs and someone's gonna die.
As far as individual character death goes, this is the crux of it for me. I like to be finished with a character rather than lose one. It’s really only problematic is the first five levels, before revivify and the other return-to-life spells are available. Other than that, barring odd circumstances like having one of my cleric’s corpses completely destroyed in a pool of lava, when a character dies I get the chance to say, yes please, bring me back or nah, it’s ok, I’m gonna move on to a backup character. I still think about some of my dead characters: what could they have become?
First, I agree that Wren's post above isn't helpful or constructive. It adds nothing to the discussion, and it's certainly not the kind of response I hoped to elicit with the original post.
Next:
I understand what you're saying - but I still think this is ultimately a failure (if I can use that strong of a word) of the players and DM to roleplay the death in a way that communicates impact. One campaign being deadlier than another isn't the problem; it's how the deaths are handled. And - again - we're back to session zero stuff, communicating tone, expectations, and all that stuff.
And again, the way Critical Role handled a player character's death seems, in many ways, to be ideal. It absolutely mattered and also wasn't foreordained or inescapable.
I don't agree with these characterizations, based on my own experiences of playing 1E when it was the only edition that was available. The tone of our games and the impact of character deaths were nothing like you describe above.
That said: I'm absolutely sure what you describe happened, and still happens. And some people find it fun! Which is OK. They're not wanting the immersive, affirming experience from the game that you and others are. I don't think they view the game as pointless at all - they're just getting their enjoyment from a different style of play. They're process oriented in their own way - but instead of being focused on the "softer" (meaning harder to quantify) RPing aspects of the game, they're focused on the strategic and tactical aspects. For them, the point isn't about running fleshed out, detailed characters but understanding and mastering the mechanics of the game to defeat the challenges the DM provides.
Now, for me, that's a bit soulless and empty (I think we agree on that) - but that's just for me. Conversely, I personally don't find the level of RPing and time spent in non-combat activities that's on display in Critical Role appealing, either - it often just feels like actorly wankery to me, rather than fun.
FWIW, I hate that you've had a lot of unpleasant exchanges or interactions with folks who prefer an old school play style and refuse to acknowledge the equal value and validity to your play style and appreciate what you've written in this thread.
If one is going to complain about their side being referred to as "needing training wheels," then they probably shouldn't refer to the other side as "not giving a single fat Frogmorton **** about one's character," just saying.
My characters are like my children and it is because I care for them that I don't try to keep them locked up where everything is covered in NERF. Fantasy is full of stories where overprotective parents try to prevent their children from experiencing the world.
It is not your place, Wren, to dictate what the right way to play D&D is--which is exactly what you are doing when you are using phrases like "training wheels" and "covered in NERF" to laugh off other folks' playstyle as childish. Just as it was wrong for Yurei to say that the meat grinder style of playing is "not fun" it is wrong of you to be so dismissive of the other side of the conversation.
Here is the simple reality, understood by the vast majority of players - different groups and different players have different priorities. Some might like a meat grinder; some might want to focus on a story. Just as we should not mock people who play video games on "Story" difficulty rather than "Hardcore" difficulty, because they want to experience the world rather than slam their head against the wall, there is no need to mock others who play the game on a different "difficulty setting than you." It comes off as unempathetic and as gatekeeping and is why these conversations tend to go nowhere productive.
Considering D&D is rife with resurrection magic, liches, extraplanar pacts, and direct intervention of the gods, there is very little justification for permanent character death outside of the players and DM agreeing that such a thing fits their brand of fun. Like you, I don't enjoy killing PCs or losing characters, and the way my groups play allows for some kind of resurrection for anyone who dies - either in-game or in the campaign's epilogue - if the player wants it. That's good enough for me. Character death hurts, but it can also become an amazing storytelling device if you and your table is into that.
This is a fantastic summation. I agree that character death is generally not fun but the sense of danger being "real" and overcoming it is.
Why? Because you count the set up and planned character deaths in a show. An actor signed up for five episodes...and "wow" in Episode Five they "stay behind" for "no reason" to fight a building on fire..and a cross beam falls and kills the character. Or the actor wants to leave the show then they "trip for no reason" so the zombies can eat them. Yea..wow...character death. It is NOT random character death.
I am of the story depth character crew and I don't WANT to deal with a character death, but realize it's possible. In our group, members have died twice, requiring resurrections. The first, we were provided a scroll prior to the encounter (DM felt it MAY have been a bit overtuned and it was lol) so when the character died from an AOE effect the big bag had, the others were able to bring me back. The time I spent in limbo, and the source of the scroll turned my character from agnostic to following a God in our DM's homebrew world.
The second was our fighter, who went down under a series of 3 crits over 4 attacks. It was brutal and highly unexpected. We used an item we already had to preserve the body and carried it in a bag of holding (after dislocating a shoulder to fit it in) for a week until we reached a town where we could purchase (at HUGE cost) a resurrection. UGH. His character has changed a fair bit since that event as well.
We don't "allow" character deaths in early game (to 3-ish) unless the players have done something stupid enough to deserve it. I and the other 2 DM's in our group (we cycle running our campaigns to not wear out a DM) have all fudged a couple rolls early on, or used moron monster tactics to rebalance an encounter going really poorly for no valid reasons other than bad rolls. We let it get scary, but might do 8 damage instead of the rolled 12 to keep a PC on their feet for this round. As above, we provide methods of fixing a death if it's applicable. We only intervene on player behalf in random or staged encounters, so when getting ready for a "boss" fight or encounter, all safety measures go OFF. Oddly only one such encounter got truly shaky, with 2 members down and the remaining pair in single digits at the fight's end. A few quick potions force-fed and we were out of immediate peril.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.