I DM multiple campaigns, and all my players are, understandably, very averse to their characters dying. In a big way, it's a good thing, since it raises the stakes. On the other hand, some of my players are being cautious to the point where they nope out on quests, or else they get upset when a fight starts going badly. They won't accept or tolerate risk in the game.
Looking at DnD more broadly, perma-death is very rare, in my experience. For example, **SPOILER ALERT!**
Critical Role has had over 130 episodes, and not many permanent deaths.
A character death is like Bambi's mom dying. We don't want Bambi's mom to die! Not in our story! Without that death, though, what's that movie about?
I'm wondering what stories people on here have about PC death. Has it added drama to your campaigns or has it just ruined the game?
Stories, opinions and any other input would be great. Thanks everyone! Happy holidays!
There were two deaths in the super-cautious group. They went exploring and got into a very tough fight. They found a way to resurrect the PCs. One of the players had messaged me during the session begging for a way to bring her character back.
I get why they're worried after that. It's also a campaign where the characters are on the run trying to join a rebellion, so there aren't many safe places. To clarify, that's the game they wanted: two of the players got the group together with this story mind.
Makes it really hard to seed information in the world if they just avoid anything suspicious or dangerous :(
I'm playing ToA with the extra meatgrinder options. I am on character 6.
Generally I run games though, and death happens. I pull no punches, and when my players do something stupid, they pay. That said, I never put them in a unbalanced situation. I make sure they always have the tools needed to overcome any obstacle. I make sure that if there is a death, I take the time to talk it out with them afterwards, and give them info that will help them become stronger and smarter players later.
Anyway, I set the expectation when i get a group together, or add someone to my group, that they know, they will possibly die at some point. I will not seek to kill them, but they are entering a world of sword and sorcery, a dangerous world filled with traps and pitfalls. If death is not on the table, then there are no real stakes. I also make them fill out a questionnaire when making a character, to help them flesh out their character, and help me know what to expect, with one of the questions being "how do you see your character dying? This helps them accept death when it happens.
Back to playing ToA (where death is 110% perm, there are no ifs ands or buts about that fact). One of the characters I lost, has been one of my favorite characters I've ever played. Thats part of the game.... and many years ago, I had a DM that refused to ever kill a PC. We tested this, making wizards that had 3 Con, no AC, no saving throws. Miraculously, they never got attacked, hit, nor damaged, even though they did things like teleport into enemy strongholds solo. It was boring. It wasn't fun. I no longer play with that DM, and haven't for 10+ years.
Every group has their own expectations, but I will say, Critical Role and streams like it have done a lot of good for D&D/Tabletopping, but some of the expectations they have set to newer players has proven to be a bit toxic. As DMs we just have to work with our groups to make sure the expectations are set, and use our downtime between games to discuss important matters to the group.
One thing you might look into if players aren't taking hooks for "being too dangerous" is throw them hooks that seem fine, but get far worse than expected. That orphanage that is being muscled by some thugs? Turns out the thugs are slaves to illithids, and if the party bails, the children will become slaves too. If they keep ignoring it, make more and more people drones, til the party doesn't know who to trust. Have everyone arrested, and let them break out, but have your best player become a drone too which happened when they were separated. Now you have a member of the party you can send secret messages to to get them to push the party into more questionable choices. Have fun with it, but make it so even the choice of not acting has consequences.
That is one of my goals as DM, I present 3 hooks for them to deal with. The ones they don't pick will have consequences they deal with down the road. I gave them an option of "investigate a sickness spreading" "orphans going missing" and "investigate a derelict ship." They picked the ship. So the next week (about a month later in game) their options were "Townsfolk seem to be acting weird, and not themselves" "sludge monsters are appearing more and more in the sewers" and something else that doesn't matter to the point I'm making. The sickness was a viral form of doppelgänger, that basically killed you then became you, all working for a Great Old One. A month later, since they hadn't dealt with that issue, they now were going to have to deal with doppelgängers. The orphans going missing, were being sacrificed by the new orphanage owner, to create oblex, as part of a ritual that would end up summoning a pestilence on the world. Had they not gone to the ship and dealt with the undead/corruption there, I planned on having shades from the Shadowfell start an incursion into the world the party was in.
So my table generally knows, Inaction is a fail condition, and what they do it stem the tide til they find a solution (in that game, the solution was to keep fixing what they could til they summoned the BBEG via hints they found, and killed it before it could get a solid foothold in this reality, thus breaking all its plans)
My DM murdered half my party attacking a drow house controlled by Grazz't and killed an important NPC when he forgot that she had full cover and let something kill her, which almost ruined the campaign; since the cleric was a DMPC who refused to prepare raise dead.
I have been on both sides of the fence. I have played in multiple campaigns, with multiple DM's, and have lost chars. I have also DM'ed and killed a good chunk of the party in one encounter. If you play enough, and play by the rules, in a challenging game, characters will die.
You mentioned lack of character deaths on a certain popular YouTube show, which I will not name to avoid spoilers. I think, unfortunately, that the show is a bad example to people otherwise new to D&D for that reason, among many others. I suspect that the players would not have a problem if their characters died -- they have played many years of D&D and in older editions when death was far easier than it is in 5E, and they know that characters dying is a part of D&D and has always been. However, the show has fans, and the fans do NOT want their favorite character to die. One of these shows had a character die in the opening sequence, planned between the DM and the players, and the audience flipped out -- in the opening episode, before they even had a chance to get attached. 20, 30, 100 episodes later, well -- just how free is the DM to kill characters, when he or she knows that there are thousands of fans out there who will go off their rockers if one of the PCs gets killed now. Every PC is a favorite of many. It's like a TV show - they can't kill off popular characters because the audience won't tolerate it. And I don't blame the D&D shows for doing this, but, they provide a bad example to the would-be players watching, who think that it is normal to go 120 sessions of D&D without a single character death.
There were two deaths in the super-cautious group. They went exploring and got into a very tough fight. They found a way to resurrect the PCs. One of the players had messaged me during the session begging for a way to bring her character back.
See here is the thing. If they resurrected the characters then the characters didn't really "die." Oh, I know they died statistically. But in the sense of "PC Death" -- death means "I can't play this PC anymore." With a rez, they can keep playing the PC. I would have thought the fact that they died and were resurrected, made them realize that even death is not necessarily the end, and take more risks, rather than less. If you had told me instead, that they died and had to make up new characters, then I could maybe see this reaction.
I think however, that we can only give you the same advice we give on every thread. Talk with your players. You and they need to have an honest conversation about the lethality level of the campaign. If you are unwilling to run a "safe" campaign (I would be unwilling as well), then they need to understand this. I was very clear with my players -- I won't be "trying" to kill their characters but if things go south and one or more characters die by the rolls, they can die. They agreed to this ground rule... did your players also?
One thing often recommended is to let things go south in the world if the players refuse to act. They don't go into the shrine of the evil cult that is turning people into thralls, so the entire town becomes enthralled and turned into a zombie army that goes out and starts pillaging other places. Next time they try to find a nearby town, it's all thralls instead. They don't go into the goblin mine to stop the goblin raids, so the next time they go to that town, it's empty -- everyone's a slave in the mines now. Things keep getting worse in the world because the PCs fail to act.
But the problem with that method, is that the players who don't want character death really, deep down, don't want negative consequences. If you give them negative but non-death consequences, they will just hate that too. So before trying any of that, you should speak with them and find out what they want from the game.
And if they really, truly, want non-lethal gameplay, IMO, you should play a game other than D&D. There are games out there in which character death is rare and generally considered off the table -- such as Champions.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Critical Role has had over 130 episodes, and not many permanent deaths.
Matt doesn't roll in the open, so we strictly speaking don't know if and how much he fudges/used to fudge. The main thing I want to point out though is that Vox Machina/the Critical Nine are large parties. Seven PCs (eight at first) and an occasional guest PC is a beefy party. The challenges are beefed up accordingly as well, but it still makes a difference: more characters to spread damage out over, more characters to attempt healing or at least stabilizing, more characters that can try a Hail Mary when something goes wrong, more characters still able to contribute if one goes down or gets Dominated or whatever. A 3-4 PC party is much more likely to have character deaths (or an outright TPK) than one with 7-8 PCs, even if CRs are adjusted accordingly.
Sure I've had character deaths in my campaigns, or lost characters of my own. Sometimes it made the campaign better, sometimes it made it worse, sometimes it was just one of those things that happen. It can depend on so many circumstances. Sometimes players decide to do something risky and have a handful of really bad rolls in a row. Sometimes they act like heroes and unfortunately die like heroes. Most DMs will try to make the best of it in either case though, and no DM I ever met doesn't at least try to avoid things going south fast. I've DMed for kids as well and I made really certain I could avoid character deaths in that campaign, but in general I try to set up most encounters so character death is possible but not very likely and I think my players understand and expect this.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Most of that was due to me trying to understand what makes a character “sturdy”...like, “high AC” doesn’t mean you’re safe from “save” spells...or the low HP pool of spellcasting classes...
My sorcerer was too reckless for his own good (that actually played into their Divine Soul heritage quite well...they were pretty overconfident & arrogant). He got stabbed through the chest by a bone devil.
Then we did Tomb of Annihilation...and the deaths kept coming. Lost a Horizon Walker Ranger dwarf to an witch that froze him dead...my Archfey Warlock was compelled by my patron to select cards from a Deck of Many Things (he would have been rich AND powerful...terrible shame).
Eventually, my dwarf Zealot Barbarian came along...and “hard to kill” is pretty much their biggest feature. Made it through until the end of the campaign.
I'm wondering what stories people on here have about PC death. Has it added drama to your campaigns or has it just ruined the game?
Stories, opinions and any other input would be great. Thanks everyone! Happy holidays!
This is in regards to content that has spanned 40 years.
Without the threat of death, more than 50% of my content loses weight.
Without actually killing the characters, the threat of death loses 100% of its weight.
I ruin my PCs early and often. Sometimes the dice are not in their favor. Sometimes they do stupid shit, raising the risk from 15% to 80%. Sometimes they don't take the hints and don't run as they should. My main philosophy on such things is as follows:
I present obstacles. You (speaking to the players) may overcome these obstacles in numerous ways. Among the many other options, if you choose to overcome the obstacles in a manner that puts your life at risk - your life is now at risk. Thus begins my 1st bullet point and the cycle repeats.
----
It is not always my job to be kind and fair. It's my job to be consistent. Granted, my players are those that have been with me for 25+ years, so they know to come to the table with 2-3 other characters on the backburner. Regardless, even if you were new to my table, you'd learn quickly (from me or the other players), that I have no qualms about killin' a PC.
This has nothing to do with a power trip, total control, muahahaha, evil DM stuff. I say yes to my players all the time. It's their world, their story, and about them and how they want to do it. In those 40 years, I can count on one hand how many times I've pushed them into a corner where their only option to overcome said obstacle was risking life and limb. There's always another way - including saying NO - which I allow.
At some point however, the game stagnates and adventures must happen. At some point, you must confront the boss! It's not a boss fight if death isn't a very real thing. Regardless of world/setting, my boss fights lean into Dark Souls more than Sonic. You ain't hittin' crates and getting loot in my games.
It's a balancing act. Death should be a possibility, but if you're running a campaign with a high kill rate you risk your players not really investing in their PCs. Characters just become meat for the grinder, and each death is shrugged off and mostly forgotten by the time the replacement is rolled up.
I have had few enough permadeaths that I can remember each one (not counting a couple one-shots that were intentionally deadly and involved each of us losing multiple characters). That's the sweet spot for me - death is real enough to affect your decisions and choices, but not so common that it loses its full impact.
My adventuring party is actually called the Haunted Heroes because of two things, first that we've encountered many ghosts, ghouls, and other haunted things, and second because we're "haunted" with death and at least one party member has died every single session. The first three or so sessions, we were low level and had no means of revival, so it was permadeath. Now, there is one party member who has permanently died and been revived/reincarnated four times. The result is that we now kinda just laugh at death because we're so used to it.
When I was a PC, I had a friend, and we both like to cast thunderwave. One campaign, I accidentally Thunderwaved our bard into my friend's Thunderwave...
I think it really depends on what kind of game you are running. From what you described rebellion against a higher authority, a death should not be a surprise. If they are heroes chosen by fate to save fillinblank then more leniency towers towards living should be applied.
For me running and playing though is if a person is really attached to their character don't trivialize the death. Maybe have a scene where the party can reminisce over their fallen comrade, or the dying character can have a last speech. Getting stabbed by a goblin or breath weapon by a dragon and just having everyone move on from a character you are attached to sucks.
I dont think i am alone in having tons of character ideas and not getting a chance or having time to play them. So I am usually fine with my character dying since it means I get to play another character I have ready.
I can be a little sad if the chacter dies quite early in the game and I dont get to try the class out and play the character.
I had two characters die during one ToA campaign. One character fell into some lava and instantly died and one was during a TPK down in the tomb.
My Paladin got killed by a demon lord using a Talisman of Ultimate Evil. Pretty crazy death. The party made some sacrifices to a mysterious power and got me reincarnated as a bugbear, which was funny.
I've played quite a few characters now. That's the only one of mine that's died.
As a DM, I did have a Rogue die early on in a campaign.
I’ve had four characters of mine die, two of them in one meat-grinder of a campaign, and the other two in a different meat-grinder. It was pretty harrowing at the time, but I’ve played in so many games since then that the anguish has long since subsided.
I've not yet had a character of mine die, but I played in a 1-11 campaign that ended up having 4 PC deaths. Two were the same player, one was because a player had to leave the campaign but was very dramatic and we didn't know it would happen, and one was after another player left. We all knew going in that the possibility of death was very likely because it was a sort of eldritch horror, monster hunting and making allies sort of campaign.
The first death, the one of the first player who had to leave, was genuinely the dramatic start to the whole campaign. It took us from the early side quest stages to investigating a spy troupe framing another PC's father for murder. The next two were the two characters of the same player who really just liked making characters that made stupid choices (and we were all fine with this despite the intended tone of the campaign, and they were fine with having their characters die painfully because of their choices). Those two deaths did bring the party closer each time, and made us more cautious but mostly just more willing to help each other and make sure we don't let each other get killed. The PC death after another player left was the only one that didn't make much of a mark on the campaign as it was just a way of getting that PC off the table for the rest of the adventure :]
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:)
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I DM multiple campaigns, and all my players are, understandably, very averse to their characters dying. In a big way, it's a good thing, since it raises the stakes. On the other hand, some of my players are being cautious to the point where they nope out on quests, or else they get upset when a fight starts going badly. They won't accept or tolerate risk in the game.
Looking at DnD more broadly, perma-death is very rare, in my experience. For example, **SPOILER ALERT!**
Critical Role has had over 130 episodes, and not many permanent deaths.
A character death is like Bambi's mom dying. We don't want Bambi's mom to die! Not in our story! Without that death, though, what's that movie about?
I'm wondering what stories people on here have about PC death. Has it added drama to your campaigns or has it just ruined the game?
Stories, opinions and any other input would be great. Thanks everyone! Happy holidays!
I
There were two deaths in the super-cautious group. They went exploring and got into a very tough fight. They found a way to resurrect the PCs. One of the players had messaged me during the session begging for a way to bring her character back.
I get why they're worried after that. It's also a campaign where the characters are on the run trying to join a rebellion, so there aren't many safe places. To clarify, that's the game they wanted: two of the players got the group together with this story mind.
Makes it really hard to seed information in the world if they just avoid anything suspicious or dangerous :(
I'm playing ToA with the extra meatgrinder options. I am on character 6.
Generally I run games though, and death happens. I pull no punches, and when my players do something stupid, they pay. That said, I never put them in a unbalanced situation. I make sure they always have the tools needed to overcome any obstacle. I make sure that if there is a death, I take the time to talk it out with them afterwards, and give them info that will help them become stronger and smarter players later.
Anyway, I set the expectation when i get a group together, or add someone to my group, that they know, they will possibly die at some point. I will not seek to kill them, but they are entering a world of sword and sorcery, a dangerous world filled with traps and pitfalls. If death is not on the table, then there are no real stakes. I also make them fill out a questionnaire when making a character, to help them flesh out their character, and help me know what to expect, with one of the questions being "how do you see your character dying? This helps them accept death when it happens.
Back to playing ToA (where death is 110% perm, there are no ifs ands or buts about that fact). One of the characters I lost, has been one of my favorite characters I've ever played. Thats part of the game.... and many years ago, I had a DM that refused to ever kill a PC. We tested this, making wizards that had 3 Con, no AC, no saving throws. Miraculously, they never got attacked, hit, nor damaged, even though they did things like teleport into enemy strongholds solo. It was boring. It wasn't fun. I no longer play with that DM, and haven't for 10+ years.
Every group has their own expectations, but I will say, Critical Role and streams like it have done a lot of good for D&D/Tabletopping, but some of the expectations they have set to newer players has proven to be a bit toxic. As DMs we just have to work with our groups to make sure the expectations are set, and use our downtime between games to discuss important matters to the group.
One thing you might look into if players aren't taking hooks for "being too dangerous" is throw them hooks that seem fine, but get far worse than expected. That orphanage that is being muscled by some thugs? Turns out the thugs are slaves to illithids, and if the party bails, the children will become slaves too. If they keep ignoring it, make more and more people drones, til the party doesn't know who to trust. Have everyone arrested, and let them break out, but have your best player become a drone too which happened when they were separated. Now you have a member of the party you can send secret messages to to get them to push the party into more questionable choices. Have fun with it, but make it so even the choice of not acting has consequences.
That is one of my goals as DM, I present 3 hooks for them to deal with. The ones they don't pick will have consequences they deal with down the road. I gave them an option of "investigate a sickness spreading" "orphans going missing" and "investigate a derelict ship." They picked the ship. So the next week (about a month later in game) their options were "Townsfolk seem to be acting weird, and not themselves" "sludge monsters are appearing more and more in the sewers" and something else that doesn't matter to the point I'm making. The sickness was a viral form of doppelgänger, that basically killed you then became you, all working for a Great Old One. A month later, since they hadn't dealt with that issue, they now were going to have to deal with doppelgängers. The orphans going missing, were being sacrificed by the new orphanage owner, to create oblex, as part of a ritual that would end up summoning a pestilence on the world. Had they not gone to the ship and dealt with the undead/corruption there, I planned on having shades from the Shadowfell start an incursion into the world the party was in.
So my table generally knows, Inaction is a fail condition, and what they do it stem the tide til they find a solution (in that game, the solution was to keep fixing what they could til they summoned the BBEG via hints they found, and killed it before it could get a solid foothold in this reality, thus breaking all its plans)
My DM murdered half my party attacking a drow house controlled by Grazz't and killed an important NPC when he forgot that she had full cover and let something kill her, which almost ruined the campaign; since the cleric was a DMPC who refused to prepare raise dead.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
I have been on both sides of the fence. I have played in multiple campaigns, with multiple DM's, and have lost chars. I have also DM'ed and killed a good chunk of the party in one encounter. If you play enough, and play by the rules, in a challenging game, characters will die.
You mentioned lack of character deaths on a certain popular YouTube show, which I will not name to avoid spoilers. I think, unfortunately, that the show is a bad example to people otherwise new to D&D for that reason, among many others. I suspect that the players would not have a problem if their characters died -- they have played many years of D&D and in older editions when death was far easier than it is in 5E, and they know that characters dying is a part of D&D and has always been. However, the show has fans, and the fans do NOT want their favorite character to die. One of these shows had a character die in the opening sequence, planned between the DM and the players, and the audience flipped out -- in the opening episode, before they even had a chance to get attached. 20, 30, 100 episodes later, well -- just how free is the DM to kill characters, when he or she knows that there are thousands of fans out there who will go off their rockers if one of the PCs gets killed now. Every PC is a favorite of many. It's like a TV show - they can't kill off popular characters because the audience won't tolerate it. And I don't blame the D&D shows for doing this, but, they provide a bad example to the would-be players watching, who think that it is normal to go 120 sessions of D&D without a single character death.
See here is the thing. If they resurrected the characters then the characters didn't really "die." Oh, I know they died statistically. But in the sense of "PC Death" -- death means "I can't play this PC anymore." With a rez, they can keep playing the PC. I would have thought the fact that they died and were resurrected, made them realize that even death is not necessarily the end, and take more risks, rather than less. If you had told me instead, that they died and had to make up new characters, then I could maybe see this reaction.
I think however, that we can only give you the same advice we give on every thread. Talk with your players. You and they need to have an honest conversation about the lethality level of the campaign. If you are unwilling to run a "safe" campaign (I would be unwilling as well), then they need to understand this. I was very clear with my players -- I won't be "trying" to kill their characters but if things go south and one or more characters die by the rolls, they can die. They agreed to this ground rule... did your players also?
One thing often recommended is to let things go south in the world if the players refuse to act. They don't go into the shrine of the evil cult that is turning people into thralls, so the entire town becomes enthralled and turned into a zombie army that goes out and starts pillaging other places. Next time they try to find a nearby town, it's all thralls instead. They don't go into the goblin mine to stop the goblin raids, so the next time they go to that town, it's empty -- everyone's a slave in the mines now. Things keep getting worse in the world because the PCs fail to act.
But the problem with that method, is that the players who don't want character death really, deep down, don't want negative consequences. If you give them negative but non-death consequences, they will just hate that too. So before trying any of that, you should speak with them and find out what they want from the game.
And if they really, truly, want non-lethal gameplay, IMO, you should play a game other than D&D. There are games out there in which character death is rare and generally considered off the table -- such as Champions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Matt doesn't roll in the open, so we strictly speaking don't know if and how much he fudges/used to fudge. The main thing I want to point out though is that Vox Machina/the Critical Nine are large parties. Seven PCs (eight at first) and an occasional guest PC is a beefy party. The challenges are beefed up accordingly as well, but it still makes a difference: more characters to spread damage out over, more characters to attempt healing or at least stabilizing, more characters that can try a Hail Mary when something goes wrong, more characters still able to contribute if one goes down or gets Dominated or whatever. A 3-4 PC party is much more likely to have character deaths (or an outright TPK) than one with 7-8 PCs, even if CRs are adjusted accordingly.
Sure I've had character deaths in my campaigns, or lost characters of my own. Sometimes it made the campaign better, sometimes it made it worse, sometimes it was just one of those things that happen. It can depend on so many circumstances. Sometimes players decide to do something risky and have a handful of really bad rolls in a row. Sometimes they act like heroes and unfortunately die like heroes. Most DMs will try to make the best of it in either case though, and no DM I ever met doesn't at least try to avoid things going south fast. I've DMed for kids as well and I made really certain I could avoid character deaths in that campaign, but in general I try to set up most encounters so character death is possible but not very likely and I think my players understand and expect this.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Early on, I had a LOT of dead characters.
Most of that was due to me trying to understand what makes a character “sturdy”...like, “high AC” doesn’t mean you’re safe from “save” spells...or the low HP pool of spellcasting classes...
My sorcerer was too reckless for his own good (that actually played into their Divine Soul heritage quite well...they were pretty overconfident & arrogant). He got stabbed through the chest by a bone devil.
Then we did Tomb of Annihilation...and the deaths kept coming. Lost a Horizon Walker Ranger dwarf to an witch that froze him dead...my Archfey Warlock was compelled by my patron to select cards from a Deck of Many Things (he would have been rich AND powerful...terrible shame).
Eventually, my dwarf Zealot Barbarian came along...and “hard to kill” is pretty much their biggest feature. Made it through until the end of the campaign.
This is in regards to content that has spanned 40 years.
I ruin my PCs early and often. Sometimes the dice are not in their favor. Sometimes they do stupid shit, raising the risk from 15% to 80%. Sometimes they don't take the hints and don't run as they should. My main philosophy on such things is as follows:
I present obstacles. You (speaking to the players) may overcome these obstacles in numerous ways. Among the many other options, if you choose to overcome the obstacles in a manner that puts your life at risk - your life is now at risk. Thus begins my 1st bullet point and the cycle repeats.
----
It is not always my job to be kind and fair. It's my job to be consistent. Granted, my players are those that have been with me for 25+ years, so they know to come to the table with 2-3 other characters on the backburner. Regardless, even if you were new to my table, you'd learn quickly (from me or the other players), that I have no qualms about killin' a PC.
This has nothing to do with a power trip, total control, muahahaha, evil DM stuff. I say yes to my players all the time. It's their world, their story, and about them and how they want to do it. In those 40 years, I can count on one hand how many times I've pushed them into a corner where their only option to overcome said obstacle was risking life and limb. There's always another way - including saying NO - which I allow.
At some point however, the game stagnates and adventures must happen. At some point, you must confront the boss! It's not a boss fight if death isn't a very real thing. Regardless of world/setting, my boss fights lean into Dark Souls more than Sonic. You ain't hittin' crates and getting loot in my games.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Reduced to zero? All the time. Died, once or twice simply because the party tends to go out of their way to at least stabilize fallen party members.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
It's a balancing act. Death should be a possibility, but if you're running a campaign with a high kill rate you risk your players not really investing in their PCs. Characters just become meat for the grinder, and each death is shrugged off and mostly forgotten by the time the replacement is rolled up.
I have had few enough permadeaths that I can remember each one (not counting a couple one-shots that were intentionally deadly and involved each of us losing multiple characters). That's the sweet spot for me - death is real enough to affect your decisions and choices, but not so common that it loses its full impact.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
My adventuring party is actually called the Haunted Heroes because of two things, first that we've encountered many ghosts, ghouls, and other haunted things, and second because we're "haunted" with death and at least one party member has died every single session. The first three or so sessions, we were low level and had no means of revival, so it was permadeath. Now, there is one party member who has permanently died and been revived/reincarnated four times. The result is that we now kinda just laugh at death because we're so used to it.
When I was a PC, I had a friend, and we both like to cast thunderwave. One campaign, I accidentally Thunderwaved our bard into my friend's Thunderwave...
I think it really depends on what kind of game you are running. From what you described rebellion against a higher authority, a death should not be a surprise. If they are heroes chosen by fate to save fillinblank then more leniency towers towards living should be applied.
For me running and playing though is if a person is really attached to their character don't trivialize the death. Maybe have a scene where the party can reminisce over their fallen comrade, or the dying character can have a last speech. Getting stabbed by a goblin or breath weapon by a dragon and just having everyone move on from a character you are attached to sucks.
I dont think i am alone in having tons of character ideas and not getting a chance or having time to play them. So I am usually fine with my character dying since it means I get to play another character I have ready.
I can be a little sad if the chacter dies quite early in the game and I dont get to try the class out and play the character.
I had two characters die during one ToA campaign. One character fell into some lava and instantly died and one was during a TPK down in the tomb.
My Paladin got killed by a demon lord using a Talisman of Ultimate Evil. Pretty crazy death. The party made some sacrifices to a mysterious power and got me reincarnated as a bugbear, which was funny.
I've played quite a few characters now. That's the only one of mine that's died.
As a DM, I did have a Rogue die early on in a campaign.
I’ve had four characters of mine die, two of them in one meat-grinder of a campaign, and the other two in a different meat-grinder. It was pretty harrowing at the time, but I’ve played in so many games since then that the anguish has long since subsided.
I've not yet had a character of mine die, but I played in a 1-11 campaign that ended up having 4 PC deaths. Two were the same player, one was because a player had to leave the campaign but was very dramatic and we didn't know it would happen, and one was after another player left. We all knew going in that the possibility of death was very likely because it was a sort of eldritch horror, monster hunting and making allies sort of campaign.
The first death, the one of the first player who had to leave, was genuinely the dramatic start to the whole campaign. It took us from the early side quest stages to investigating a spy troupe framing another PC's father for murder. The next two were the two characters of the same player who really just liked making characters that made stupid choices (and we were all fine with this despite the intended tone of the campaign, and they were fine with having their characters die painfully because of their choices). Those two deaths did bring the party closer each time, and made us more cautious but mostly just more willing to help each other and make sure we don't let each other get killed. The PC death after another player left was the only one that didn't make much of a mark on the campaign as it was just a way of getting that PC off the table for the rest of the adventure :]
:)