Poll: Dying in Table-Top RPGs

[Saelune]

Im planning a big event for my next DnD session (should have been today, but no one told me it was cancelled, so I have time to prepare more) and its going to be potentially quite deadly.

I personally do not DM to kill usually, but to give my players the grounds for their story. So I try to not kill my players, but they tend to want greater risk and challenge...until they die anyways.

Im curious what other people feel about dying and the risk of it in table-top RPGs, such as DnD, but really all are fine.

Do you like games/DMs who make the risk of death quite real? Do you prefer that they try to keep you alive? How do you feel when its your character that kicks the bucket?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

No I hate DMs that let the character die. Now I know death violence, yadda yadda. But I've had nothing but bad experiences from DMs who play 'by the book' and let the dice speak for themselves. I played Gamma World once, and rolled a fantastic crazy hobo with a trashcan lid for a shield, and a broken whiskey bottle for a weapon. And he his charisma was so high, and his persuasion so incredible(and I mean I rolled triple Persuasion specialty and got trip charisma bonus) that I could try to convince enemies to hurt themselves instead of attacking the party.

Room 2, monster #3. Giant Lava Badger. Fires a fireball, bounces off a mirror and hits my hobo directly in the back of the head. Double critical damage, I explode. 2+ hours of character building, died in the first 10mins. Asked if I could just be critically injured. Nope. DM wanted me to spend another 2 hours making a new character while the party went on without me.

If I recall correctly 2 other players had their characters die in the first dungeon and had to reroll characters. And this was our first, and as it turned out, last Gamma World experience.


Now, to play devils advocate to myself, I DM a Deathwatch d20. My friend had rolled a character while he was out of town(a White Scars Librarian) and one the first mission he and the team drop-podded into an Ork camp to disable anti-air guns to enable an Imperial Guard mass landing.
Poor Mr. StormSeer tried to cast some sort of bemusement spell to lower the Ork accuracy to basically impossible(I think it was they had to role 5 or lower on a d100 to hit) and he pushed his powers to try to encapsulate the entire camp. Critical mishap, rolled triple failures on 3d100 with a failure percentage of over 50 on each. Rolled on the chart. Double Critical Mishap. The Librarian exploded into a warp rift, taking all but the jump pack equipped Marine with him(who managed to jump pack away at the cost of a leg), and a Nurgle Daemon Prince came out. And it was so funny I just let it play through to see what would happen, then at the end just declared the whole thing a Vision the StormSeer had suffered before the Mission and disabled that psychic ability for the duration of the mission.

 

[Redryhno]

If there's no risk and you're just going with story, then why the hell are you playing DnD? There's so many other systems that are about creating a story and characters with death being allowed to be an optional thing(Storyteller system games, Everway, Fiasco, WUSHU, etc), that playing DnD for the story is like playing CK2 for the sex "scenes"...especially since most of those systems are free.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well dont play much but last session we did play bout 18 months ago my character did die. DM was pretty generous but when you roll 5 1s in a row there is not much you can do and the other characters didnt get much higher when rolling to save me so I basically got beaten down and bled out near instantly.

Was a little annoying as I had wrote out a 2500 word story on my characters background but then realised I had severly gimped my character by allocating my points wrong (had never played before) so I asked the DM if I could change them not re-roll just change where I had allocated them before we even started the campaign (and used that character at all) and they said no which kinda annoyed me tbh as it would have only taken a few secs.

So basically I had a really gimped character further hampered by the fact the DM always made it brilliant sunshine (my character was dark elf) except at night (we never had night combat). So while they were pretty generous when the inevitable happened I was more annoyed by the fact they had insisted I write a decent backstory for why a dark elf would be there and then they seemed pretty keen to kill me off. Honestly though if they had let me re allocate my stats to something more suitable after I had read up on my character and fleshed out the story more I would have been fine with me dying.

In short I always like the risk of death in it I dont want to know I am going to survive no matter what but equally I dont want the DM to push toward such an outcome or if they are going to make death a highly likely outcome dont insist your players have to write a friggin mini essay on their characters backstory only to kill em off 3 sessions in.

Made a new character now but everyone seemed to lose interest after I died and it took a really big effort for us to meet up once a week.

 

[Saelune]

If there's no risk and you're just going with story, then why the hell are you playing DnD? There's so many other systems that are about creating a story and characters with death being allowed to be an optional thing(Storyteller system games, Everway, Fiasco, WUSHU, etc), that playing DnD for the story is like playing CK2 for the sex "scenes"...especially since most of those systems are free.

Cause DnD is a game rule set about playing in fantasy worlds with conflict and role playing.

And DnD death IS optional. Everything in it is optional. Thats why we're playing a physical tabletop game instead of a video game, where the rules are whatever we want them to be.

As Silentpony pointed out, it can really suck to work so hard to make an interesting character to just have them die and be gone forever. I personally try to cater to my players, which is part of why I am even doing this event which is very dangerous and might kill many players, cause they expressed wanting more challenge and combat. However they also might regret getting what they want when its them who dies. I do have side quests readied up if they die and want to be resurrected/healed, but they also just might be big babies about it and want to quit instead of letting the survivors bring them back.

This is why I even asked this question, to see how others might feel. Not every person wants the same thing from the same game. Id prefer everyone have a good time, whether that involves epic battles to the death, or maybe preferring I fudge the roles or throw in a few Deus Ex moments so their beloved characters can continue going on adventures.

I dont want to kill their characters off if they are not ok with it, but I dont want to baby their characters if there not ok with that either. Im just trying to figure out what the best balance is.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

If characters keep putting themselves in ever more precarious positions, eventually they're going to die from it. That said, getting knocked out and captured is a storytelling staple.

I'm the opposite of the "spends 2.5 hours making a character with 500 words of backstory" crowd. I'm the guy who doesn't figure out how a character reacts to a situation until it happens and doesn't know anything about their backstory until a few sessions in. And I've voluntarily walked my characters into the embrace of death because they didn't know what I knew.

Your player want more challenge and combat. That includes a risk of death, so give them that risk. If they aren't high enough level for resurrection to be viable or they wipe in a way that "captured by the baddies" isn't viable, then so be it. They literally asked for it.

EDIT: In short, be prepared to have a frank out of character discussion with your players about what they want if this goes south.

 

[Towowo]

I think it comes with the territory in D&D. Lets face it D&D is a combat system, the players are constantly at risk at dying every time they enter combat. If you remove any sort of consequences for losing then that game isn't much fun(for me at least can't speak for everyone else), without risk you remove the potential for good drama.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Now my Gamma World example is a little on the extreme dickish side(although it did happen, I must stress that. This really did occur) and I'm not inherently against characters dying. It just stops the session dead when someone is character-less, and there's still 5 hours left to the night. Especially if its a higher level party. What, is Frank just out of the group now? Get the fuck out, we'll contact you about game night in 8 weeks when we start a new campaign?

Maybe have each player have multiple characters ready to go, so that if Frank's incredible charasmatic hobo dies, he's not left spending 2 hours re-rolling everything. And I should point out my hobo didn't have an intricate backstory to him. He didn't have a story at all. Those hours were literally spent rolling the character out, checking stats, abilities, powers, understanding what X, Y and Z do, getting starting equipment, etc... making a d20/d100 character is not a 5min process that can be done in one toilet sitting.

Its just a dick move to let a player's character die, and then just leave them hanging for the rest of the night. Either have more characters ready to go, or...I dunno, let them be an NPC or something. Maybe they can be a villain who's actively working against the characters or something. Give them something to do, because inviting the dudes over for a session just for Frank to die to poor dice rolling in the first of nine hours and then expecting him to just hang our for eight more hours is a real Richard Relocation.

 

[Redryhno]

If there's no risk and you're just going with story, then why the hell are you playing DnD? There's so many other systems that are about creating a story and characters with death being allowed to be an optional thing(Storyteller system games, Everway, Fiasco, WUSHU, etc), that playing DnD for the story is like playing CK2 for the sex "scenes"...especially since most of those systems are free.

Cause DnD is a game rule set about playing in fantasy worlds with conflict and role playing.

And DnD death IS optional. Everything in it is optional. Thats why we're playing a physical tabletop game instead of a video game, where the rules are whatever we want them to be.

As Silentpony pointed out, it can really suck to work so hard to make an interesting character to just have them die and be gone forever. I personally try to cater to my players, which is part of why I am even doing this event which is very dangerous and might kill many players, cause they expressed wanting more challenge and combat. However they also might regret getting what they want when its them who dies. I do have side quests readied up if they die and want to be resurrected/healed, but they also just might be big babies about it and want to quit instead of letting the survivors bring them back.

This is why I even asked this question, to see how others might feel. Not every person wants the same thing from the same game. Id prefer everyone have a good time, whether that involves epic battles to the death, or maybe preferring I fudge the roles or throw in a few Deus Ex moments so their beloved characters can continue going on adventures.

I dont want to kill their characters off if they are not ok with it, but I dont want to baby their characters if there not ok with that either. Im just trying to figure out what the best balance is.

DnD is a system with loot and monster tables, everything else from setting to theme is up to the players(Ravenloft turns it into survival horror, Spelljammer sci-fi, Dark Sun turns it into screaming bloody murder at the sheer insanity of it all, etc.). And the last three editions have shifted it to a much more combat and tactical focused game(at least in terms of the game books and what they heavily encourage). Bottom line, you don't need DnD if you want fantasy roleplaying and conflict. You just need imagination and telling your players that you're in a fantasy-styled world with the campaign.

You can easily just use so many other systems if you want it to be purely about story and characters. Not to mention "death" in RPGs are often just an end to a character's story(which should be the ultimate "goal" of any character), whether it be a Paladin falling from grace and turning into the Grandmaster of Assassins, a once-terrible Rogue rising to be appointed by Lawful Good god of choice as the advisor of a just and holy kingdom, the mage that believed the sentient ring could make him fly without ever trying it out, or just the adventurer that grew tired/old/weary/mutilated and retiring.


"Death" should be something that exists and is very much apparent, doesn't have to be there at all times, but it should be something to keep your players a little bit scared of opening the jewelry box. If there's no tension, there's not a huge point if you're trying to tell a story together. You're just screwing around being differing levels of OP(possibly)-self-inserts together. Which is fine, I suppose, just seems to be wasting opportunities since you could just be screwing around in an MMO together, there's RPG servers and guilds in so many of those as it is.


And the best balance is whatever what works for your group honestly. I just think that if you're going to be playing DnD solely for story and character, there's better systems and games that allow better story-, intrigue-, and socially-focused campaigns.

Ask your group yourself if you want answers, alot easier and much more accurate than asking the internet. I thought this was just a more "what do you prefer" thread given the circumstances. And answered accordingly.


EDIT: Personally I like characters dying and "dying" and then showing up in future campaigns if for nothing other than nods to the players if you play together for any significant amount of time.

So basically I had a really gimped character further hampered by the fact the DM always made it brilliant sunshine (my character was dark elf) except at night (we never had night combat). So while they were pretty generous when the inevitable happened I was more annoyed by the fact they had insisted I write a decent backstory for why a dark elf would be there and then they seemed pretty keen to kill me off. Honestly though if they had let me re allocate my stats to something more suitable after I had read up on my character and fleshed out the story more I would have been fine with me dying.

In short I always like the risk of death in it I dont want to know I am going to survive no matter what but equally I dont want the DM to push toward such an outcome or if they are going to make death a highly likely outcome dont insist your players have to write a friggin mini essay on their characters backstory only to kill em off 3 sessions in.

Made a new character now but everyone seemed to lose interest after I died and it took a really big effort for us to meet up once a week.

Honestly it was probably just multiple ways to dissuade you from playing the character without telling you "NO", dark elves in DnD have a bit of a bad habit of ap'ing Drizzt hard no matter how they go about it and it is sorta annoying to run into it.

Still sucks that it went about that way for you(lying and screwing with characters is something that needs to stay between characters and obstacles, not between players and DM), but it was probably equal parts scared of you running off and not wanting another copy of a character originally intended to be dead by the third book he appeared in as background fluff.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

If a character's got to die, both myself as a GM, and games I'm a player in, usually let you have one last dramatic slow mo moment, complete with a song of your choice playing as you fall, flashbacks of your past in play. Inspires the other party members to fight that much harder to avenge you too.

 

[FalloutJack]

Hasn't happened to me yet, but when it does, I go down fighting. That's all there is to it. Never make it easy for them.

 

[Saelune]

If there's no risk and you're just going with story, then why the hell are you playing DnD? There's so many other systems that are about creating a story and characters with death being allowed to be an optional thing(Storyteller system games, Everway, Fiasco, WUSHU, etc), that playing DnD for the story is like playing CK2 for the sex "scenes"...especially since most of those systems are free.

Cause DnD is a game rule set about playing in fantasy worlds with conflict and role playing.

And DnD death IS optional. Everything in it is optional. Thats why we're playing a physical tabletop game instead of a video game, where the rules are whatever we want them to be.

As Silentpony pointed out, it can really suck to work so hard to make an interesting character to just have them die and be gone forever. I personally try to cater to my players, which is part of why I am even doing this event which is very dangerous and might kill many players, cause they expressed wanting more challenge and combat. However they also might regret getting what they want when its them who dies. I do have side quests readied up if they die and want to be resurrected/healed, but they also just might be big babies about it and want to quit instead of letting the survivors bring them back.

This is why I even asked this question, to see how others might feel. Not every person wants the same thing from the same game. Id prefer everyone have a good time, whether that involves epic battles to the death, or maybe preferring I fudge the roles or throw in a few Deus Ex moments so their beloved characters can continue going on adventures.

I dont want to kill their characters off if they are not ok with it, but I dont want to baby their characters if there not ok with that either. Im just trying to figure out what the best balance is.

DnD is a system with loot and monster tables, everything else from setting to theme is up to the players(Ravenloft turns it into survival horror, Spelljammer sci-fi, Dark Sun turns it into screaming bloody murder at the sheer insanity of it all, etc.). And the last three editions have shifted it to a much more combat and tactical focused game(at least in terms of the game books and what they heavily encourage). Bottom line, you don't need DnD if you want fantasy roleplaying and conflict. You just need imagination and telling your players that you're in a fantasy-styled world with the campaign.

You can easily just use so many other systems if you want it to be purely about story and characters. Not to mention "death" in RPGs are often just an end to a character's story(which should be the ultimate "goal" of any character), whether it be a Paladin falling from grace and turning into the Grandmaster of Assassins, a once-terrible Rogue rising to be appointed by Lawful Good god of choice as the advisor of a just and holy kingdom, the mage that believed the sentient ring could make him fly without ever trying it out, or just the adventurer that grew tired/old/weary/mutilated and retiring.


"Death" should be something that exists and is very much apparent, doesn't have to be there at all times, but it should be something to keep your players a little bit scared of opening the jewelry box. If there's no tension, there's not a huge point if you're trying to tell a story together. You're just screwing around being differing levels of OP(possibly)-self-inserts together. Which is fine, I suppose, just seems to be wasting opportunities since you could just be screwing around in an MMO together, there's RPG servers and guilds in so many of those as it is.


And the best balance is whatever what works for your group honestly. I just think that if you're going to be playing DnD solely for story and character, there's better systems and games that allow better story-, intrigue-, and socially-focused campaigns.

Ask your group yourself if you want answers, alot easier and much more accurate than asking the internet. I thought this was just a more "what do you prefer" thread given the circumstances. And answered accordingly.


EDIT: Personally I like characters dying and "dying" and then showing up in future campaigns if for nothing other than nods to the players if you play together for any significant amount of time.

So basically I had a really gimped character further hampered by the fact the DM always made it brilliant sunshine (my character was dark elf) except at night (we never had night combat). So while they were pretty generous when the inevitable happened I was more annoyed by the fact they had insisted I write a decent backstory for why a dark elf would be there and then they seemed pretty keen to kill me off. Honestly though if they had let me re allocate my stats to something more suitable after I had read up on my character and fleshed out the story more I would have been fine with me dying.

In short I always like the risk of death in it I dont want to know I am going to survive no matter what but equally I dont want the DM to push toward such an outcome or if they are going to make death a highly likely outcome dont insist your players have to write a friggin mini essay on their characters backstory only to kill em off 3 sessions in.

Made a new character now but everyone seemed to lose interest after I died and it took a really big effort for us to meet up once a week.

Honestly it was probably just multiple ways to dissuade you from playing the character without telling you "NO", dark elves in DnD have a bit of a bad habit of ap'ing Drizzt hard no matter how they go about it and it is sorta annoying to run into it.

Still sucks that it went about that way for you(lying and screwing with characters is something that needs to stay between characters and obstacles, not between players and DM), but it was probably equal parts scared of you running off and not wanting another copy of a character originally intended to be dead by the third book he appeared in as background fluff.

DnD isnt just combat though. Its roleplay and its also non-combat challenges. The skills can attest to that. And there is combat in my games, maybe not as much as some, but its there. You seem to think we're just talking going thy and verily.

And I mean, how many stories have you enjoyed, like say, Harry Potter, where you knew Harry, Ron, and Hermoine were going to make it the whole way through? Sure, characters died, but if Harry Potter was a DnD game, those would have been the 3 players.

And not everyone wants to die anyways. I mean, if I was DMing a game with people who prefer combat,, challenge, and death, Id surely deliver. I just think there is too much "should" from you and others in what is supposed to be a system meant for people to do what they want. Thats the whole point, and it only becomes more so with each edition. Hell, its been made apparent to me that 5e is intentionally vague on tons of rules to allow player interpretation even more.

The rules are guidelines for fun, whatever that may be for each party.

Would also add, this specific game initially started with 3 characters who's setup was tailor made for them, with the intention of personal side quests, so I am loathe to kill off say, my brother's character before I did the quest where he discovers his past, since I worked hard on it.

And it would feel unfair to have the later players who dont have so custom a plot to be fodder and basically play favorites just because they were mid-game pickups.

 

[Summerstorm]

Death in roleplaying games? I as a player DEMAND to be able to die. I hate it when a DM/gamemaster tries hard to keep me somehow alive, while still somehow trying to kill my character (One of my DM's is a bit weird that way). Also i would like, of course, to get a fitting death for my char - hate being denied that - fuck the rules for that.

One the other side. Usually i fudge rolls which would result in undignified death for the characters in my group, but also hold no punches in epic showdowns.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

My Pathfinder GM has been very open with us with regard to player deaths. He isn't going to set up encounters to try and kill us, but if we do something dumb like fishing for Reef Claws, or try to take a sample from a gelatinous cube, that's on us. He also isn't fudging dice rolls (well not noticeably, at least) which is nice.

In four sessions, we've had at least 3 party members at negative hit points at various points, due to either bad rolls or player stupidity (the gelatinous cube thing). Nobody has died yet, but if we keep doing stuff like that, it can't be too far away, and I'm ok with that.

 

[Kae]

I think it's one of the DM's best tools, especially if you somehow manage to twist it into a reward when it has been earned by the player, for example not one thing has felt better for me than the time my somewhat coward cold and calculating Warlock died, because in an uncharacteristic move for him he gave his life to save everyone else, and it was grand, dramatic and sad, but it made sense despite playing a cunningly evil character, it was a character that interacted a lot with the paladins, that very slowly had shown growth and had lots of slight character growth, and it felt earned and made perfect sense when the DM had the gods forgive his soul and basically allowed him to become a Demi-God of knowledge, because even though he wasn't playable anymore he had not only an ending but the best possible ending for a character that became evil for knowledge and turned his way around becoming compassionate and kind, though still a huge asshole.

But it also felt bad and deserved when a supposedly good-hearted rogue sold his friends for eternal youth and his reward was getting turned into a statue, it made perfect thematic sense and he deserved it, and though anticlimactic I think the fact that nobody ever knew what happened to him was a fantastic touch, he got what he wanted, just not how he wanted it.

In any case it's a really good tool for a DM, just give space for creativity and sometimes when a character's death is all but inevitable it's good to throw the player's a bone by letting their characters die like badasses, like the paladin who stayed behind to fight an undead horde and fought valiantly non-stop and without rest for 3 days and 3 nights until he finally succumbed to the cold grasp of death, I mean not all death scenario's deserve something like that but try to get creative and give the death flavour, don't let it be just you rolled low and you died, try to give it meaning and drama and the players are more likely to accept it, even the ones that get really sad when their character dies are able to accept it with a better attitude than they normally would.

 

[Kyrian007]

As a GM I don't try and kill my players. But I do want to challenge them. Its no fun for them if there's no challenge, no failure state, no danger. And that means characters die, plain and simple. As a GM, I'll fudge a roll here and there if some dumb b.s. that wouldn't really be happening or doesn't make sense would have killed a character. But if an enemy unleashes a devastating attack and I critical... I'll just make it sound as awesome as I can. "Dude, that shot would have taken out anyone. That hit would have crushed a Beholder."

 

[Recusant]

Looking at all of these statements of "if there's no risk of death, there's no tension, and thus no point" makes me wonder how many of you would happily take up snake juggling. Not every game is about constant life-or-death combat, and if you're playing a character, rather than a collection of numbers, I'm kind of baffled as to how you don't see that. Adrenaline and novelty can't sustain themselves forever; a constant looming threat of death grows boring fairly quickly.

That's not to say it should never be present, or even rarely so (unless you're playing something like Teenagers From Outer Space, or a campaign with a similar tone), but to assume that any other risk is not with noting is just silly. If you can't understand why, let me know; I've got a box of cobras I'm not using.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I never got to play as much D&D and I would have liked, but I only had one character die. Part of me thinks the DM deliberately wanted my character dead because I got super lucky during character creation and rolled very high on my stats(18, 17,18,17,16,15) and he thought my character was OP. Well that's the luck of the roll. Pretty sure that enemy had "just enough" HP to live long enough to get a successful poison attack on me, and of course it had to be lethal poison. On our first adventure.

 

[Satinavian]

D&D is about combat. Yes, you can do other things with it and yes, it has a (very lackluster) skill system attached to it, but most of the rules are about combat, most of the abilities are about combat, the incredibly huge monster sollection is about combat ... the origin in tabletop minituare wargaming is clearly to see.

The majority of other RPGs are significantly less about combat. And are usually better at certain other things. That is why i choose D&D exclusively for groups which want a lot of tactical combat in their RPG experience



Now, D&D has had the problem with dying for a long time. And dozens of ways to resurrect/rewive/reincarnate/animate dead party members exist for a reason. It is not really a big issue there.



Personally i don't like lots of PC deaths in my games. The preferred way to accomplish that is by having smaller challanges/risks, ways to loose without being dead and less fighting. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be what your group wants.

 

[Saelune]

D&D is about combat. Yes, you can do other things with it and yes, it has a (very lackluster) skill system attached to it, but most of the rules are about combat, most of the abilities are about combat, the incredibly huge monster sollection is about combat ... the origin in tabletop minituare wargaming is clearly to see.

The majority of other RPGs are significantly less about combat. And are usually better at certain other things. That is why i choose D&D exclusively for groups which want a lot of tactical combat in their RPG experience



Now, D&D has had the problem with dying for a long time. And dozens of ways to resurrect/rewive/reincarnate/animate dead party members exist for a reason. It is not really a big issue there.



Personally i don't like lots of PC deaths in my games. The preferred way to accomplish that is by having smaller challanges/risks, ways to loose without being dead and less fighting. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be what your group wants.

I want...your and other's opinion on how they feel when they die in a table-top RPG. Not really a discussion on whether or not DnD is meant more for combat or not.