Why D&D Characters Need to Die
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- Episode #171. Professor Dungeonmaster on why a deadlier game of D&D is a lot more fun.
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Music:
"Fury of the Dragon's Breath" by Peter Crowley
Bandcamp : petercrowley.ba...
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"I have a large gate, its wide open and it leads to a character graveyard" - now thats funny, i like that. 👌
Just like my ex-wife.
If that reflects on you as a GM than people like you are the reason for the stereotype of GM's vs. the players, attitudes like that make players feel like the game is them vs. you rather than everyone crafting a story together, they will want to hide information from you, min max characters, and plot every way to break your campaign inside and out, because to them YOU are the villain, not the BBEG.
@@jadivods Never had the problem. Just need to know your group and set expectations.
That is cool.
Instead of saying “How do you want to do this?”
Say, “How do you want me to kill your character”
Sweet. That will surely motivate players.
@@Tubalcain422 Some players like a more brutal game. It doesn't have to be DM versus player so much as just a more dangerous game with the expectation of almost certain death. Good examples of entire RPGs built around this concept would be Call of Cthulu and old school Paranoia. The latter made up for the fact you would definitely die multiple times per session by using clones with copied memories.
Oh, I heard a great story about a young kid who lost his first character. As soon as the character died, he took his character sheet, added "Junior" to the character's name, and declared, "I am here to avenge my father!", and the game kept going. I'd say cut the PC's level if this is done, but it eliminates the need to roll up a new character.
When a player dies in combat, I let them take over as one of the monsters!
hmmm, gonna try that next time :)
That's brilliant!
That's a good way to get the players pissed off at each other IRL.
That has happened on several occasions and it kinda expanded my player knowledge. It's fun to turn the tables and be actively working against my former companions.
That’s fun!
GM's can pour their heart and soul into a campaign, even a pre-made one. Spend weeks creating NPC's, Dungeons, Encounters, Monsters and Magic Items and "The Players" can easily destroy it all in 5 minutes with a shit eating grin on thier face but...DON'T YOU DARE KILL MY "CHARACTER" I TOOK A WHOLE 30 MINUTES TO ROLL UP.
Lol. That's true. +100xp for you. I've never heard it put that way before.
Very, very, well said.
It's too bad more people don't think this way!
@@cavanoleary thanks man. Notifications are a little random on the UA-cams.
Games with no stakes are boring. A majority of players are whiney prima donnas with no grit in real life and especially no grit in a game. I'm not about the GM vs. Players mentality but I am about putting together a reasonable level of stakes. In a world with magic and monsters there has to be a "status quo" per say that exits to balance the power levels of all the interacting parties. Yes the PC exist to unbalance that effect but only at their current power level. There's always a bigger fish so don't get cocky. Push the wrong NPC and they gonna kill you.
If it takes you more than ten minutes (five minutes if experienced) to make a new character, then you are not allowed to play at my table.
Rolling in the open really took away a lot of pressure to kill characters. Players that can see all of the good rolls and the bad rolls know that it’s not you against them and it’s just the luck of the dice. Everyone knows it’s fair.
Yep.
Yes, I always roll in the open and I have some level of mistrust for DM/GM's that don't.
If they're actually afraid they're going to kill a character when they don't want to for whatever reason, then they need to become a better DM.
I say that because in this case, there're more things that could be done than simply "you take (x) damage, below 0? u ded."
Le the chips (dice in this case) fall where they may!
Exactly.
I often roll in the open, but sometimes hide the rolls to fudge the dice to avert TPK when reasonable (I still kill off individual characters, thus spawning side quests). But better ways of continuing the play despite TPK would enable me to roll everything in the open
@@jenschristensen1774 One thing you could do is have the attackers strike the final blows to "subdue" the PCs.
They could then be captured and attempt a daring escape/rescue depending on how things play out.
Or if they were very overpowered by the enemies they get the crap kicked out of them and all of their stuff is taken.
They're beat up and have nothing.
"If you can't lose games are boring."
ob fidem
Dungeon Craft
I concur.
You can't lose jigsaw puzzles (even if you give up you can still try again later) and they're fun.
@@ΧαρίλαοςΧατζηγιακουμής 👍
@@ΧαρίλαοςΧατζηγιακουμής Then I have never lost to a Rubik's Cube.
This is such a stupid sentiment. Nowadays there are very few games that you can actually "lose" yet they're still fun.
@@gazelle_diamond9768 It's all a matter of preference, I suppose?
I feel vindicated. It was so much more epic for me to DM a session where a PC died and collapsed an evil mansion full of slavers on top of him Samson style than to just say "uhhhh you narrowly escape at the last moment."
THAT is an EPIC death and the player should be rewarded +5000xp for their new character!
That's kind of the issue, though. Some players are just too spoiled, but for some it's not so much whether their character dies but HOW their character dies. We already live in a world where death is (at least seemingly) random and arbitrary. Getting taken down by a random trap or mook is kind of underwhelming if you came expecting to play a fantasy hero. I know very few players that would object to going out like Boromir or Theoden, though.
If we lived in a world with dangerous magics, traps, goblin hordes, beholders, dragons, liches, etc, the death rate of the world among everyday people would be MUCH HIGHER than our actual world.
Those worlds by default design are supposed to be monumentally hazardous.
Want an example?
Almost every single alternative plane is presented as another world that's seriously hostile and dangerous to the prime/central game plane.
As I have said before. I do not go out of my way to kill player characters. But if they do dumb stuff..well..play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I’m fortunate my players rarely do dumb or derailing stuff, I only play with close friends and family usually. We had one guy in our old Pathfinder group who tried to beat the DM rather than enemy and the challenges, but we politely encouraged him to modify his play style or seek a different group with a more adversarial bent.
The risk of death is why going into a dungeon is exciting. If people realize they are immortal, they start to find excitement in power fantasy instead of taking calculated risks.
But the excitement in power fantasy in such a fashion would be short-lived, as it would get boring to play on easy mode the ENTIRE time. If it's a short game or series of games, i can see it not getting boring, but if it's a moderately sized campaign, it would become boring as hell to be superheroes. It would lose its charm quickly
@@robinmohamedally7587
That sort of fantasy does appeal to adult children with giant egos and a desire to reshape the world in their image.
@@dnaseb9214 ohhh CHRIST, and there's too many of them on the table top scene, these days. There always was, but it seems more prevalent than ever. It's taking me years to find good people
@@robinmohamedally7587
I am so happy I have friends and family members who arent like that so I can play with them.
@@dnaseb9214 i envy you so much
It's so tiresome that everyone has to make a disclaimer before they are allowed to give their opinion. It shouldn't be necessary to point out that "the things I'm about to say are my opinion and it's possible for you to have a different opinion" *sigh*
5e community is very fragile and prone to raging
Sorry. I got a LOT of hate on that last video. Tabaxi fans came after me and some girl called me "gross" on Twitter.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 😂
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 You should ignore any and all criticism received via twitter
Different platforms have different powers of influence. To each their own.
All three of those characters mentioned from popular fiction did not end up dying. They had a near death experience or were close to others that died. It gave the illusion of risk without having to create a new character. Just some thoughts.
Very true. A similar problem I tend to notice is the illusion of cost - in cases when reckless behaviour of certain characters goes unpunished. Like wow, there is a one in a million chance of something working, but it does work precisely when it needs to. Or, when mistakes *are* made, it's always possible to correct them
I'd like to see more characters that end up doing something completely irreversible and learning to live with it
@@nem0men_901 I agree. I think a good mechanic is if a character drops to 0 HP's you should have some sort of lasting issue. I love the idea of having lasting repercussions from actions that don't have to do with combat as well. Social issues from when the thief was caught pick pocketing. Jail time, ostracized from the tavern he was caught pick pocketing in, etc. The mage that cast fireball in the middle of a street that burned down the local temple now people really hate that person, etc. or maybe the local authoraties want that person hanged for putting the whole town in jeopardy. Any chance to RP, ;)
@@AgranakStudios I've been thinking of preparing a jail arc in case my players get arrested. And knowing those lovely murder hobos, at some point they will)
Something like The Forsworn Conspiracy quest in Skyrim
@@nem0men_901 The Foresword Conspiracy quest is a great one and a great structure for a D&D campaign. It is something that could be developed and kept in your back pocket.....especially if you have a group of murder hobos. lol.
@@AgranakStudios I played one game like that, I wasn't really fun though. Crippling dissabilities in a combat heavey campaign is no really fun when the DM is fan of hard combats. Basically it's sucks to be te party tank, and what do you do with a archer with one arm missing or a monk without one leg? They retire and become npcs.
If the campaigns really gives you the chance to ignore combats or to find another solutions I think I can be a nice system, in a normal combat focused campaign really no.
Thanks to you, my games have improved tremendously! I'm 17 and have been DMing for about a year, in my earlier D&D 5e campaigns I wouldn't let my players die until the end of the campaign (I know it was ridiculous), which resulted in a boring game with no suspense or any real danger since they had a massive amount of HP and could outlive any opponent AND my frequent die fudging to save my players from death even though they made terrible decisions. I have switched to a more grimdark/rules-light and deadly game and my players LOVE IT and are incredibly engaged due to the fact that they can die at any moment. I am truly grateful for your advice. Thank you, Professor! Keep up the great work!
Thanks so much! It means a lot when someone takes the time to write a long post like this. Keep spreading the word!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Will do Professor. Thank you again!
I would include casters.
Many sword & sorcery settings have casters (though they're not common at all), BUT, many of those settings impress the idea that people that use magic tend to be ill intended powermongers.
Use casters, but impress the idea that most casters are either dangerous people, or become dangerous people through the perversion of magic.
Try some OSR systems if you really want rules light and gritty. I would highly recommend Swords & Wizardry by Frog God Games. The PDF is free, the whole thing is about 150 pages, it takes 10 minutes to roll up a character, and it's deadly even at higher levels. The wargaming style combat system is really clunky but nobody really uses it so there's a bunch of easy to use alternatives out there. I recently finished up a 6 month long megadungeon run that only used the one book. I was able to keep it fresh by reskinning monsters (thanks PDM) and using some of the tools from Sly Flourish's Lazy Dungeon Master.
@@thehydra4007 I'm currently playing in a swords & sorcery game, specifically Crypts & Things. Last night's session was a melee tournament where the rules were "No polearms, no archery, no treachery." Magic wasn't even mentioned because it is assumed that a spell cast in the arena would cause the crowd to go completely nuts.
My motto for D&D is "Live by the dice, Die by the dice." If my characters die, I'll be sad as I put work into them and I wanted to see them grow and change and their goals fulfilled, but I will enjoy the game no less if I fail my death saves or get obliterated by an red dragon.
How else will you get them to learn to enjoy building new character sheets?
Imagine not expecting the possibility of death in a world filled with goblin tribes, dangerous magics, life hunting undead, thieves guilds, what are essentially super powered villains, numerous other planes filled with hostile beings, and ALLLLLLLL of those monsters that occupy ALLLLLL of those monster compendiums.
Its a world far more dangerous than our own, which really puts how brave and rare adventurers are into perspective.
"Live by the dice, die by the dice" Im stealing this as my mantra as DM
@@insertnamehere8121 Right! It's supposed to be an action-adventure game, not an episode of the teletubbies. The only participation trophies the PCs get, should be the scars left over from the dragon's breath weapon. Everything else needs to be earned, fair and square, to have real value.
It is how my group has played for decades. We even forced a DM to roll in view of everyone as we suspected him of consistently fudging dice rolls which was ruining the random nature of the game.
Some of the most memorable parts of the D&D games I have played are the heroic or idiotic deaths that myself or my friends faced. I enjoy the prospect of dying because it makes decisions more purposeful
I made it where I couldn't die and it was one of the most hilarious things ever. I mean technically I could but it was hard since I combined two aspects that should have never been allowed in a single game. Aspect of Heracles which gave me ridiculous strength bonus and a once a day revive ability, and a cursed ring that gave me the powers of a minor lich but I had to kill a person of a playable race each day or my stats would be permanently halved. He tried to put me in a situation where I couldn't do that, a 3 day train ride to the next city where our party was the only passengers. I looked at him and smiled and said "jokes on you, I'm a member of a playable race" and I blew my brains out at the dinner table while everyone was eating.
"Trivial Pursuit without a board is no longer a pursuit". I guess it's just trivial then.
That is a bold opening.
I completely Agree.
Thanks!
It's only bold in 2021. In 1987 it would be pussy. Still, good on him, of course.
@@jfuite That's just how it is for everything, humor may of died in 2017 but cool things died long before that.
" *Burn them all* "
-The Mad King
@@jfuite "haha. New Life soft, old Life hard"
I bow to your infinite wisdom. You truly are beyond mere mortals like us.
I wish Professor Dungeon Craft didn't need to apologize for his views. I love your videos and opinions!
I started playing D&D in 1979 back when 1st ed D&D just had come out and I still remember my first charater was killied in the first session, rather brutally. Our DM threw a Dragon Turtle at us at 1st level. Was a TPK. Then following up over the next few years of playing in the groups I played in if you had a character make it to 5th level you were considered high level. The sad thing is in all of those games, it became hard to even invest in the characters because constant death was a regular thing. My only real memories for over a decade of early play was this teh DM vs playeer attitude and story really didn't matter. Unfortuneatly I carried that attitude into the RPGA and I eventurally was banned from running adventures at a local con because I tended to be exceptionally brutal to the players and they did not appreciate that. I have not changed over the years to where I focus on the story development of the characters and seeing where they go and trying to create greeat stories. Yes, I feel there should be a sense of tension but looking back as being know as the TPK Queen really should not have been a badge of honor. I did nto start having consistant groups of players until I changed.
Ahh, the Gygaxian model of DMing. Never cared for that and did not like his style of play or how many emulated that style as well, keeping PC to low levels.
Me, the Gygaxian DM: _"Ok, so you're level one, and I stand before you, a mighty greater deity. Roll initiative. I got a 50."_
That's not Gygaxian D&D. If you read how the guy ran his games, you'd know that yes the games were dangerous but usually the players did them selves in, through recklessness, greed and stupidity.
Also the correct reaction to a god showing up is prostrating your self and praying to it, maybe sacrificing an animal to it. The god probably is just there to talk to you and give a prophecy.
Combat was not the goal of early D&D, gold and power was, combat was a tool to get it. We forgot that. Each GP was a point of XP, and was earned once you got back to safety.
Started playing around 1986 with Basic D&D (Red BECMI set) back in middle school. At least your first character died in combat, my first character (a 1st-level fighter in chainmail) died before even getting into his first fight when a lightning bolt struck near the party as we tried crossing a swamp in the rain on the way to the dungeon. Spent about 3 hours (3 class periods) trying to make my first character deciding race, class, and starting equipment and he lasted about 15 minutes into the adventure when we played at lunch.
From my experience in the early Basic Edition, it wasn't the DM being an asshole that killed characters. I liked to play Thieves, but by Gawd was it difficult to survive to level 5or 6 when you finally started getting good at stuff. Poison and traps were particularly deadly in tjose esrly editions. Most poisons were basical!y" Make your Saving Throw or die!" Finding and disarming traps were another souce of fatality because until you got to about 6th level a thief was very squishy. And lastly there was Falling damage. With all those hazards, a DM didn't need to put any real effort into killing characters.
While I'm on the subject of thieves and squishiness, let us not forget Gary Gygax's gift to greedy players everythere...the Mimic. I still have a nervous tic when I think about those abominations.😉
The roleplaying of anger and revenge you get from the rest of the party is great when a big bad unexpectedly kills the party's charming rogue
Theres ways to make a character's death meaningful later on as well. Die to a skeleton? Well later on a necromancer revives the old player character and uses them as their their thrall, now you have to face your old character and they've become much more powerful.
" *Why you should kill more characters* " 😄
That intro is gold.
I could hear the collective head popping.
Brilliant! I cut my teeth on AD&D back in the late 90's. It took us two years of playing every Friday night for 6-10 hours just to get to level 6. We lost a lot of party members along the way and not a one of my group would have traded the hard road we traveled for the "easy" route. When we gained in level, we knew we earned it and it was done so from overcoming traps, fighting foes, and solving riddles. And always, always, we knew that death was never far off for any of us, should we make a bad decision.
The first character I ever killed was when they were about level 3. They were scouting some orc caves and were seen. The orcs run inside. “Well, they know we’re here now,” one player says.
So what do they do? They go into the tunnels. They proceed to go in without a torch (thinking they’d be spotted, so they aren’t entirely dumb). But two of them don’t have dark vision (so maybe they are).
Orcs set an ambush and proceed to overwhelm the party. Orc leader captures them and decides instead of killing them, he’ll simply enlist them to eliminate a nearby young dragon that has been making their life hell. He figures they either kill the dragon and win, or they die in the attempt and win.
But, he says, so they know he’s serious, they need to sacrifice something as a cost for disturbing their nice orc cave of misdeeds. The sacrifice? One of their lives. The orc makes them pick who is going to die.
Maybe the players thought he was bluffing. Well, they figured out quickly he wasn’t when two orcs held the chosen character by the arms and the chief proceeded to lop off the character’s head in front of the entire party.
Audible gasps came from the players.
It was incredibly bad form by most DM “standards”. But the players instantly knew the stakes were very real in this world and talked about that moment for the rest of the campaign.
What I liked about 1e is that when you were knocked out, even if your buddy gets over to you and heals, you can’t just get up and fight as if nothing happened and even have to return to town to rest.
Yeah and if you weren’t brought back until after dropping to -6 or below you sustained some permanent injury, scarring, or loss of some member
Which is a really neat concept to me. Stories could come of that like “remember that time those Kobolds nearly slaughtered me and I ended up losing an eye?”
I agree that death is really an interesting possibility. It makes for better drama.
In one campaign we had:
A character bleeding so profusely that we had to rush them to a stationary magic item to be saved, and for a turn everybody ignored the enemy and cast all their buffs on one character to carry the wounded guy to safety.
We had one character fail their save against an ice explosion so that another character decided to jump between them and the blast and take max damage to save the other character. And the guy who got in between almost died instantly, and only a lucky die roll saved them.
We had another character take such a hit from a "white walker" (Winterwight) that they almost died instantly, drank a potion and then got hit by the monster again for drinking in battle and then died. And there was a tiny adventure to get the resources to resurrect them.
Those were all the same character, mine! I can't even recount what happened to all the other characters in that campaign, it was so crazy. The danger of death really made the stakes higher and created tension because we wanted the characters to live to the end. We even had a funeral for a bard who sacrificed her life against a centaur demon-priest, and right after the touching words of one character, the others diced for her cloak, because it was magic.
If a group wants less death, I suggest instead permanent debilitations. That way there is still consequences and get too many then its time to retire that PC.
I agree. That's on the chart!
If a group wants less death they can always learn from their mistakes and get better.
@@jimboxx7 I mean death as a theme. Some might want less carnage, and instead have a pc walk away from all the danger when they have had enough.
Something like that is in different rpg systems. Exalted, for one, lets you seriously cripple your character when his health gets burned through instead of having him die on the spot.
@@kogorun haha yeah. Only so many times a pc can get stabbed by goblins before going, screw this I'm opening a bar.
Death of a character is an opening for role-playing. The character dies, the party has to recover and deal with the death and eventually replace the party member. It gives the players the opportunity to work together and help the fallen player create something a little bit better than they had before. If it was an EPIC death, the players don't mind that their character died. If it was a funny death, the players don't mind that their character died. It is all how the player experiences the death that will determine if it creates a problem for your group. If the player is incredibly vested in the character, it certainly is within the realms of possibility for a resurrection to occur, but that requires the party to decide that needs to happen. There are SO many RP opportunities with character death.
I agree!
I also never liked the death rules in this edition.
The solution I found is somewhere between this more "Hardcore" table that you just came up with and normal vanilla 5E.
It is a rule called *Lingering Open Wounds* and I got it from a guy named Giffyglyph that wrote a very nice supplement to 5E called "Darker Dungeons". Basically the idea is that when a player drops to 0HP he does the vanilla saving throws, however, once he has been healed up, he gets a wound that gives him one level of exhaustion, which is permanent until the wound has been treated, and even while treated, there is a possibility while fighting that the wound will "Reopen", causing the exhaustion again.
Oh, and to top it off, these wounds are cumulative, so if the player drops 3 times and is healed 3 times before a Long Rest, he will have 3 levels of exhaustion.
The supplement I mention also has some modifications to rests which I find amazing. You might be interested in checking them out.
Rolemaster has already these great rules.
@@mathieuvart Very interesting! I had no knowledge of this RPG system. Might steal some other things from it. Thanks!
Dc 15 death saves could work well too, like in Tomb of Annihilation. The survival rate goes from 60% to 25%
My problem is I am dming middle school girls... killed a pc and I was rewarded with a crying jag.... easy to say but you try being held hostage to the waterworks of four budding emotional terrorists....
I can see that--although it hasn't been my experience. I DMed for my daughter's Girl Scout troop and they were pretty tough.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 good for them! I do agree the mortality factor ups the excitement. The only real issue I have is the sudden cessation of a character specific storyline. I try to create a long running arc. My daughter is set on a course with a Dragon Cult trying to raise a dracolich first slain by her assassinated father and something equally epic ( at least in the William Shatner sense) for the other players. Kind of a let down when you croak from a random encounter on the way. I think I get the tears because I have given them lots of reason to be emotionally invested which I want but it does create a dilemma.
It might not be as dramatic for adults and young adults, but if I had a characters with a prospective long term arc get smooshed in an anti-climax to die for I'd probably be way, way sad.
Dungeon Craft Did they get a merit badge at the end of the session? Because that would be the best Girl Scout Troop ever!
That glimmer in his eye, that joyful smirk. "Why you should kill more characters!"
*DUN DUN*
*DUN DUN*
"The Blue Elf is about to die"
Cheers to anyone that gets this reference
Yellow Valkyrie shot the food.
Green Wizard needs food badly!
HUGE Gauntlet fan here. Elf was green, Valkyrie was blue, and Wizard was yellow. Warrior was red.
@@asthmatickobold7844
Am I misremembering in thinking that the game allowed for multi-player of the same character (ex: Elf) and created a color alternative of that character ?
@@insertnamehere8121 Nope. Gauntlet II allowed you to be whichever character so you can have a Blue or Yellow Elf.
It's nice to see someone advocating for high lethality while also recognizing the issues for a party member if their character dies - I've found so many people over the years who really push the "start a brand new character from scratch" mentality. Back in 3rd we ended up with some really mixed level parties because of stuff like that, and saw that even 3 levels made the weaker characters really lag (and were of course that much more susceptible to dying again and again). That's probably the biggest worry regarding mixed level parties: how is challenge handled? Things that can challenge and be fun for the adventurers that never died will be very dangerous to those that did, but things appropriate for those who died end up being pushovers for the rest of the party. Initially, 1 level sounds not so bad (certainly a MUCH better compromise than most others), but even that feels easy to snowball as that character has much less margin for error than their comrades, and if they die again now they're 2 levels behind, then 3, etc.
As a DM, how do you handle those situations? At what point do you intervene with something so that the player(s) still have fun?
When a whole party dies, things end up being much easier (we had a very memorable TPK in 4e when we were trying out the new PH3 classes and everyone - DM included - discovered that undead with damaging auras were hella bad news hahaha; but when everyone died at the same time, we just rolled up the group as a whole).
I will admit to being a little on the strange side when it comes to death in these games - I try to make fights interesting but unlikely to wipe unless the party makes a mistake/goes in blind, and I will try to avoid killing blows where narratively possible (and otherwise give narrative deaths to characters), but at the same time I always play with no resurrection magic of any kind (I feel the existence of rez spells ruins drama on the grand scale and so if it exists at all it will simply be as a mention of something taboo with a huge cost associated) so if something does stick, there is no coming back.
Do your players ever feel that the sudden appearance of a replacement character feels narratively breaking/Deus-Ex-Machina-like? What are your thoughts on bringing in a same-level character as replacement (so as to the keep the party in-tact) but the "penalty" is non-crunch loss of a character the player has bonded with and (likely) was really enjoying?
The answer is its a terrible idea to force players to start at a lower level. Essentially you are 100% right its not fun breaks the flow of the game and never should have been a rule. Same for exp based leveling in my opinion milestones work better hands down and it keeps the party all at the same level thus challenges can be crafted easier and be made balanced.
@@user-dd9dh9kw5c Funny enough I think it was in the 4e DMG that we saw the idea of leveling at milestones rather than individual battle EXP before. We've done both traditional exp+leveling per battle, exp per battle but level up after rest, and then level up based on (narrative) milestones - so complete a quest/section of events and then level.
Experience (and rolling treasure) after battle certainly is fun, so I totally see why others really like that. My group did find itself drifting toward the more narrative leveling as it meant less book keeping and we got more interested in the story aspect than the crunch aspect. We also really liked how 4e gave rules/guidelines for getting exp from non-combat encounters (the Skill Challenge is a really great idea, though was just slightly clunky on release so we streamlined it a little).
Rolling in the open is so much more suspenseful and exciting. It's been one of the awesome parts of playing on Roll20 this past year; having the electronic rolls all in the open.
I'm very flattered that you made part of this video in direct response to my comment about your last video. You even tried to directly address some of the points I brought up. It's good to know there's a true dialog between you and your audience. This is sadly kind of rare in a day and age where people would rather spew their opinions with their fingers in their ears.
Extra points for using Chuck Jones' "What's Opera Doc?"
"With my sword and magic helmet!"
*shows a picture of Food Fight*
Me: I AIN'T LAUGHIN'.
"Your spear and magic helmet?"
Love it! this is what made D&D exciting for me back in the day.
When we created a new party or new characters we always made at least 2. Then they had to be approved by the dm, (who wants two mages or two bards etc in their group).
Our characters died so often that after a year or two our dm started doing character creation nights when we'd put on a movie or listen to music and just make a few characters, that way if there was a tpk he could open up his file folder and hand each of us (7 players total) one of the characters we'd made previously. He actually had one folder that had complete parties in it for just that occasion.
If our current character died and we didn't have a backup previously made, we were stuck sitting at the "kiddie" table rolling up a new character and left out of the game, sometimes for the hours it took to have a fully fleshed out PC ready. Not only did we have to roll up and equip said character we also had to write a minimum 1 page background on who the character was, family, history etc. Then we had to level up said character before we were allowed back at the game table. and the new character started 2 levels lower then the one that died. And if that character managed to be above 5th level would we be able to get a magic weapon and armor, any other magical items the dead PC had were lost ("sent back to the family of the dearly departed") which did however work out if we had done a decent job on or characters history, because months later, after a player death the dm would come back to us and say "hey you remember Cabal Fireheart, your thief who was turned inside out by a demon and died? well his Nephew has just come of age, and he was given your +2 leather armor, if you want to roll him up as a character." Anyway Love the Video!
I might not always agree with you as a DM, but I certainly do think you’re the ultimate dad of the D&D community.
Starting out, we played every Saturday morning. If you died, you had to stay after to roll a new character for the next Saturday, for the rest of the session you would play the monsters against the other players. It was over a month before I ever got to finish a session and bring the same character to the next game. Fist character was a Human fighter, lasted 15 minutes. In almost two years of play my highest level was four. So, so much fun. No risk, no reward.
So we have a lot of things in commom (and i am 26 years old) with state of dnd. And this specific topic for me is very rewarding, listening to your opnion about these things, that i personaly think its too easy for players, that is death saving throws and resting.
I started using some house rules too, throwing at the table.
Fisrt short rest is 8 hours and long rest is 1 week (7 days). Also coming with lvl up, playes must be training to gain bonuses in class specifc way.
2nd is the real character hp is the value they gain in the 1st level, a barbarian with +3 in con will have 15hp for example. If at this value start decreasing, his charcter is currently being at serious risk of death. And if the charcters is surprised or dont have the ways to defending himself, like receiving a sneak atk, the dmg is going direct on his base HP, even if the barbarian have 100hp, the dmg is going on his 15hp potentialy instant killing him. I use that rule most for narrative purpose, to just have the chance to narrate a instant death againts a character with tons of hp and resistances. My players liked a lot, and make more sense in very rare cases!
There is some rules about healing and diseases too, but i wont boring people with random stuff.
Nice video! Greetings from Brasil 🇧🇷
The first one is in the DMG as gritty realism
@@anthonynorman7545 yeah a lot of people know that, right 😅😅😅
I really like this rule. I've also seen a variant where on a crit you don't add extra damage, but roll base damage against this 'base HP'. Makes combat way more dangerous.
I really liked how poisons and disease worked in 3rd edition. They did damage against your attributes rather than hp. In this way, a strong enough poison could kill even a 20th level barbarian. Disease had lower damage (usually from a flat 1 to 1d3) but the effects lasted until cured, and got worse each day/week.
@@krinkrin5982 this rule sounds more menacing! Its a two sided coin, players can get advantage with too.
Yeah i like this differents uses for poisons, venoms, infections and diseases in table. I really go into a campaign with these types of elements, but in somehow, different ways to the players get rid off, etc.
For me its better describing without the player know waths happened, using the symptons in the next days or weeks. They also become more prepared, bringing some potions to cure a bunch of them, but, there always one or another that they cannot discovered haha :)
@@diadetreinamento I don't mind the players using them. It speeds up combat alot, and sometimes that's what you want. If you don't want the players to use it, throw in a monster that is immune to critical hits, like undead.
As for poisons, I don't mind players using them either. It means they are clever and resourceful. Besides, obtaining a sample of poison or disease and delivering it without getting it into your system can be more difficult than fighting the monster head on if you
want to make it that way.
When Dark Sun came out in 1991 or so, it had the Character Tree rule, where you have three characters. We also used that in other campaigns. One idea was to let you switch out characters to be your primary character. I remember once I had been leveling up a wizard in the background, got to level 5. I decided to play him for the first time, and he died to a fireball, missed his save, and died in the first 10 minutes of the session. I went back to playing my original primary character. ;)
My group had a dwarf character that rolled a NAT 1 on a DEX save against an explosion, then proceeded to roll 2 more NAT 1's on his death saves. Twas legendary 😂
Fantastic video. The threat of death greatly improves play because it makes players think tactically. In 5e RAW, due to the lack of any real threat to the players, there is no need for tactics at all. Players just fling open each door and start conducting hp subtraction problems. If things go "badly" they have to heal during the fight. Having an actual threat makes them stop and think about how they will approach an encounter. It also makes gathering intelligence on the enemy via scouting or magic very important. This adds a lot of depth to the game and leads to great stories .
There are two extremes at one end there is the meatgrinder campaign of games like paranoia where the players are useless mooks and dying multiple times in a single session is expected and part of the fun, and at the other end of the spectrum are games like exulted where the PCs are literal gods and a character death is a rare event.
I prefer somewhere in the middle , where the PCs are extraordinary individuals and the death of a character is not super-common and only happens if the player is an idiot. Death is a potential consequence of not playing smart, but it is not so common that the players don't bother becoming investing a character with a name and a personality, in D&D campaigns like this the game devolves into a skirmish scale tabletop wargame where the characters are mere disposable units for a game and the role-playing aspect of the game disappears. (paranoia offsets this by being a tongue in cheek game intended for one-shots, and having a section on the character sheet to denote which clone the player is up to)
Absolutely
The amount of comments on this video talking about how quickly DM's kill off their player characters without giving them a chance to grow is astounding. Because to me that sounds like a recipe of losing all of your players
I always tell my players that the first 2-3 sessions are the "tutorial" sessions: we get to know each other, experiment with each other's style, etc. I will only throw challenges their way they can beat and I'm not trying to actively kill them. I'll tell them that the only way they can die is if they do something stupid.
Once the "tutorial" is over however, they will have left the safety of the "starting village" and find out just how cruel the world can get. Enemies WILL go in for the kill. Monsters WILL drag the unconscious party member to their lair to be eaten. If you piss off people with power an influence, you WILL get a bounty on your head. The challenges they face will require careful planning and cool heads, otherwise people are going to die.
I always make this clear to each and every one of my players, and they've never complained so far.
Also, about rolling dice in the open: I very frequently fudge rolls to create dramatic tension (e. g. the rogue has a personal vendetta against the BBEG but the wizard would kill them if they didn't make the saving throw. Magically, the BBEG has just rolled a nat 20 on that dex save. Funny how the world works sometimes. Oh look, it's the rogue's turn!), so I would be very much opposed to the idea.
I've been saying this for decades. Don't fudge your dice, see character death as a sacrifice on the altar of necessary tension and risk. Your imagination isn't finite, you can make another cool character.
Also, for me dying or losing is far easier to take when I am enjoying the game. If I'm in a boggy, poorly realized game it irritates me that the game portion has killed me while the story portion was nothing good.
I think die fudges are jusitifable when a character would die for something innocuous but you preserve them from the inch of death for a more meaningful one later-- especially if the player has shown to be apt and attentive otherwise and fortune wasn't on their other side. I say keep it real most of the time so you're more believable when a good time comes.
This of course doesn't apply to a character who would be fitting to see squished or killed unceremoniously, like a character who's comical by their nature.
Above all, read the table.
Great video Professor.
Someone once made a similar death video on UA-cam - can’t remember who. They had a great idea that you get one final action upon character death to make that death more heroic. When you die, you die, but you will go down swinging. Maybe it’s a desperate final attack (at advantage or auto crit), or they manage to close a door or lift a gate allowing the party to escape just as they get cut down and collapse. Never tried it, but PDM’s chart with the heroic speech result reminded me of it.
i've had that idea
Most D&D today is like Harry Potter.
Except for the dude playing Cedric
I literally just found your channel through the talking through TSR video that got uploaded to UA-cam. I as a teenager DM definitely agree with you on a lot of these points. I’ve been running massive damage lingering injuries and raising or lowering the death saves based on the level the world and even the floor of the dungeon, and Me and my players(majority teenagers but I also run for my dad and his friends) are having an insane amount of fun with the prevalent death in my world, definitely a subscribe and like.
RiP Joking - 2017.
Must have rolled pretty low
He will be missed.
f
Also: RIP Sense of Humor - 2017
@@Honkbs Millennials. This was a subtle dig that Professor Dungeon Master was making in his video.
Here for the Dirk the Daring thumbnail. That poor guy lost me SO many quarters back in the day.
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LOVE the new background wall! Great video. Thank you for sharing your ideas and experiences with us all.
I feel like an emphasis on "killing a character" is the worst sentiment to get into for dms. As it initiates dm vs player mentality. (full note I have only ever dmd one-shots and are primarily a player.)
We've had players die in our party before and had the players introduce new characters. However it's been a while now, like 8 months since we've had a true party death and from what I can tell the only player who isn't bothered about there character dying is the veteran who started with 3.5 as opposed to 5 and they have 50+ characters who I'm sure are all as broken as each other, so I don't know I don't think it's a matter of threat but honestly more up to the player to make a threat.
My current character a druid tiefling was only supposed to be temporary however since they've lasted so long now I will be so sad if they die. But if my characters kept dropping like flies like yeah it's unrealistic bit I would stop caring about them, like why bother when they'll probably die to. But this could be because of how one sees dnd, some want a semi-realistic tone like that of game of thrones. But I play with the mindset of more of a hobbit or adventure time kind of view, because I think it fits a game where you can literally do anything much better.
Tldr: I think player death and threat is more up to players than dms, its the dms job to give a challenge yeah but it's up to the players to make a character they actually care about.
For players, it's usually about their characters. For GMs it's usually about the world. As a GM, I don't like killing PCs. Players take all that time crafting and improving their characters to be all they can be. However, what I absolutely LURV to do is make players wish I killed their characters. I make them care about the world I made, then take some of that world away from them by eschewing "balance" and making adventures harder than they normally are. PCs don't have to fail by dying; they can fail by not accomplishing a task. This can sometimes result in a valued NPC death, the villain being one step closer to domination, or PCs losing favor with NPCs who were once friends. Don't think so extremely binary about stories, there a universe of middle-ground (pun intended) to play with. Not everything has to die to make something tragic. That's just overkill.
I wholeheartedly agree and I hope no new DMs watch this video. playing the game hardcore isn't for new players anyway, there's a reason why there's a lot more people playing 5th edition than played earlier editions. if your players aren't yet fully familiar with the mechanics of the system, going for a punishing death system is just a recipe for making them lose interest
@@commandercaptain4664 wow that's a great point!
I think if you have a conversation up front with the players about how risk works in the game, you can avoid dm vs player misunderstandings. It shouldn't be DM vs Player, but it's Players trying to beat the DM's *Scenario*. The DM is a mostly neutral referee, who set up the scenario (presumably as a set of fair challenges), and then runs it impartially, which is completely fair. The DM is rooting for the players, but doesn't go easy on them. If the players beat the scenario through good play, and they know it was run fair and square, then it's more exciting and memorable.
I cripple my players, from stat debuffs due to mental stress or physical injury, they roll for the penalty. You get injured at -5 then -10 hp.
If you get to -15, you die. You also make death saves below zero hp.
I understand if you made a character, you don't like it being killed. I was new to d&d in 5e. I died 6 times in a dark souls difficulty campaign, which taught me to enjoy worldly threats. It taught me to not treat the npcs like a means to an end as well. Making a character in 5e is simple, but emotionally investing (or self inserting) in a character is dangerous in any rpg.
If a DM cannot make his world as he envisions, i.e. not kill a player for jumping down a 50ft drop or challenge them with a dire consequence, it becomes stale.
All I have to say is, when I spared my players via dice fudging and gave them freebies in power, my whole game became too stale to me, it's on indefinite hiatus.
Players always have fun with a good lenient DM. But not all DMs enjoy it forever, DMs are just as entitled to fun as the player. The DM should notify the player what they're getting in to. The player shouldn't expect all DMs to let them project themselves into their world as gods, even if they're level 20 or homebrew epic levels. A challenge should be presented, they should be given a choice on facing the toughest ones, and there should be a consequence.
I hate to use it as an example, but critical role does character death right, narratively, with the core rules.
Though, it all depends on the experience your looking for, but just like a player grows, some DMs want to grow and evolve. Spice things up. That's why the "Forever DM" has negative connotation in 5e, because players get nearly all the fun, in some cases.
Every game should have character death though. If there's a low chance of survival because you made a horrible decision, you either die, salvage the situation, or a player next to you saves you. It's a healthy experience.
People behaving like character death is the end, really don't understand you're roleplaying a character, you are not the character. Also, after at least 6 months, a 5e character sheet should take 60ish minutes to complete. Just don't get too emotionally invested.
Tl;dr don't emotionally invest in a character, it ends horribly for everyone. The DM & player also sign an intangible social contract before playing, as the DM will advertise the difficulty of the game, thus if you want in, you best be prepared. It's fine to have a power-fantasy, but that is the quickest path to DM burn out in campaigns.
There are fates far worse than death. I remember one game where the former party was wiped by a powerful necromancer. The players asked if they could play relatives or next of kin of the former party members who were out for revenge and I was cool with it. But in a rather foreseeable twist, their former characters were reanimated as undead and forced into servitude of the necromancer. So not only was the new party fighting for revenge, but also to kill their former loved ones in order to free them from a life of eternal servitude and suffering.
Spear and Magic Helmet, when animation was truly great.. and funny
Really like the chart! I used to think of a similar thing: for every death save that you pass successfully, you have to roll on the Injures table that is present in the DMG, and also roll a save, always for every death save succeded, to see if you get also a mental scar, always looking at the table in the dmg.
I thinked also that i could combine it with the rule that makes healing use healing kits, and gritty realism healing, that makes short rest 8 hours and long rest 7 days. So there is the choice between staying healthy as much as possibile, but loosing precious time, and trying to keep up but more battered, and also risking nasty wounds and mental scars.
You're missing two iconic things from OSR D&D in your review: coup de grace and PC funerals!
Coup de grace- automatic hit, automatic death save fail. 3 goblins or zombies surround a downed PC, and they will be dead before they can roll!
PC funerals - great opportunity for RP (especially giving Clerics something to do besides cast spells) and handing out inspiration to survivors.
I actually wrote some death mechanics that I really want feedback on, I wanted to achieve a compromise between the system as written and something that's a but less forgiving, while also not complicating it too much and this is what I came up with:
*Exhaustion*
Exhaustion is simply more common in my games, and therefore only carries a penalty of -1 to all rolls for every level of exhaustion. A character die at their 6th level of exhaustion as normal.
Exhaustion also has two conditions that’s called severe wound and mortal wound. A severe wound sets their exhaustion to at least and doesn’t allow it to recover from 2 exhaustion (meaning they have -2 to all rolls). A mortal wound sets their exhaustion to at least and doesn’t allow them to recover from 4 exhaustion (meaning they have -4 to all rolls). A character can never have both at the same time, if they somehow would, then they have a mortal wound only and these doesn’t stack with each other either, even if the player suffers multiple wounds for RP purposes. Both of these conditions can be recovered through a use of greater restoration. These wounds are used in the section about death, dying and recovery.
If the player want they can try asking for an alternative more specific and creative wound they’ve come up with themselves, than just the generic ones as I’ve described here.
*Death, Dying and Recovery*
Dying happens when a character falls to or below 0 hit points. What happens depends on how many times this happens to a player, since it has three stages now:
*Stage 1:* A character that falls dying without a wound condition are not unconscious but are forced prone and can still move or take actions (such as casting a spell, drinking a potion or even attacking). However for every action they make in this state (including movement), they suffer +1 exhaustion. For every round a player spends in this state except the first, they must make a death saving throw or progress to the next stage. They take 1 level of exhaustion regardless if they succeed or not. When a character recovers from this state they suffer the severe wound condition and are no longer forced to be prone.
*Stage 2:* A dying character that fails a death saving throw while in stage 1 or a character that falls dying and also have the condition “severe wound”, will instead fall unconscious until the next long rest and suffer a mortal wound when they recover. Every round on their turn after they fall into this state, they make death saving throws and if they fail any of these, they die. Regardless if they succeed or not, they still take 1 level of exhaustion.
*Stage 3:* A character who falls dying and also has the moral wound condition die outright.
*Attacks:* When characters are dying, attacks work a bit differently. *Entering dying:* If the enemy critically hit a character that makes their HP fall to or below 0, they skip a phase, meaning that a previously “healthy” character falls unconscious, or a character with a wound dies outright (no saving throw). *When dying:* A character that suffers regular attacks automatically progress to the next stage. A character that suffers a critical hit dies outright (no saving throw).
*HP Minimums:* Be mindful also of the damage, if the damage falls below maximum negative as cited in the core rulebook, the character also dies.
*Critical dice:* On death savings throws these doesn’t apply. I want to balance this after the phase system, not having a character suddenly die on phase 1 because they rolled a 1 or suddenly recover when rolling 20.
*Other notes:* It’s important to note that the effects of wounds don’t come into play before the players have recovered from these states, meaning that a previously healthy character that would have gone into phase 1 and then progress to phase 2, doesn’t have the severe wound yet since they never recovered. The wounds come up only after they’ve been restored back to 1 hp from either of the phases. The idea is to give a sense of adrenaline, that allows them to ignore the wound for a time and wounds not being obvious at the heat of battle as well as for balance reasons.
*Motivation*
Without this rule it can feel as if a character can just recover too easily from near death experiences and are almost immortal. While this can seem like a harsh rule for immature players, it’s still a more favorable compromise from the suggested “die immediately on 0 hit points” that I’ve heard. This rule makes dying more dramatic, gives players clear setbacks when dying, raises the stakes and adds a feeling of danger and risk of combat and ultimately makes their victories feel more earned and their failures carries greater meaning.
It’s worth also noting that just like the regular rules, a character must fail 3 saves to die this way, giving a lot of leeway for characters to still recover.
Allowing players to take actions and move during the 1st phase is meant to allow players to still be part of the game. The more severe outcomes as they move through the phases means that the stakes keep rising.
The wounds mechanic is meant to allow players to have a permanency to wounds. While Greater Restoration for recovery might seem a bit like a cop out, it allows players with successful characters to "reset their failures" and get additional chances. A suggestion is to make the healers that would use this spell require proof of player's being worthy of healing and forbid them from cleric spell lost or make the component they need for it near impossible to acquire. Maybe the gods themselves require proof of heroism from the players? It's not difficult to believe that gods might not want to work as healer bringers all the time either, feeling like they're twisting the balance of the world for careless adventurers for no good reason. Maybe the spell can only be cast during certain times during the year and so on. Even if you make it hard to allow them to make use of Greater Restoration, it will present a hope for recovery.
Another spin could be that it might remove the debuff to exhaustion but it doesn't remove the actual wound, meaning that PCs only have 3 chances maximum throughout their careers. One could also change the debuff of exhaustion of only affecting saving throws to make the debuff less severe.
I also wrote some example stories that I came up with utilizing this feature:
*Story 1*
Erebor the wizard with his party are fighting against a group of gnolls in a clearing. Everybody are healthy but disoriented and out maneuvered, and he is in danger. He takes a stab to the chest from one of the gnolls, the damage is enough to make him fall below 0 hit points and he ends up falling prone due to the excruciating pain. When his turn comes up, he doesn’t have any exhaustion yet so he decides to cast a sleep spell to allow his allies to help him and then crawl away from danger, giving him two levels of exhaustion. Despite many gnolls falling asleep, the rest of his party are still too busy with the remaining gnolls to help him so he doesn’t receive aid until his next turn comes up, he decides to not do anything in order to conserve his strength, hoping that his allies will help him the next round. Since this is his second turn in this state, he makes a death saving throw at -2 penalty from his exhaustion. He’s unlucky and fails the roll. This means that he falls unconscious and cannot do any more actions, even if he wanted. Now the party is very pressed for time as Erebor’s life hangs in the balance and decides to help him recover. The cleric Mindrell runs up to him, suffers an attack of opportunity (but survives), and takes out a down, she chants words of magic that restores his hit points above 1 and the down disappears in a blinding flash of light, but he doesn’t wake up. He’s breathing though so at least he’s safe. Thankfully he doesn’t get hit anymore during the remaining combat and next he wakes up at a camp surrounded by his worried team mates. He asks: “What happened to me?” and Mindrell responds: “You were dying, it doesn’t look good.” He tugs the cover to one side to reveal that his arm is disfigured. Mindrell says: “We did everything we could.”. He feels terrible and wonders if he can go on. No! He must go on! Despite his mortal wound he decides to continue adventuring. He memorizes different spells that aren’t as reliant on him rolling well, he decides to be more careful from now on and his party members make a greater effort to protect him. Eventually when they finally make it back to town, he rests for a week and seeks out a healer. One of the high priests who’s heard about his bravery in face of adversity takes pity on him and decides to cast greater restoration to restore his body if he’s willing to help them with a minor problem. He agrees and his wounds disappear. This time he will not be so careless.
*Story 2*
A party of high leveled adventurers are fighting against another group of powerful adventures in a dungeon, and they’re equally matched. During the course of the battle, the bard Roland goes below 0 hp and falls prone, but before his turn can come up again the enemy wizard casts fear on them. When his turn comes up he’s haunted by the frightening specter and he begins to frantically crawl away from the battle, leaving a trail of blood behind him, this makes him suffer 1 exhaustion. He then throws his death saving throw at -1 penalty and succeeds, making him suffer 1 exhaustion instead of falling unconscious. The enemy combatants are formidable and the party are too busy to help. When next Roland’s turn comes up, still under the influence of the spell, he keeps crawling, suffering another point of exhaustion, he now throws the death save at -3 and luckily (or unluckily) he succeeds again suffering another point of exhaustion. However he has crawled too far from the battle now and his comrade, the druid Davon have to dash to reach him. Next time Roland’s turn comes up, he gets to do a wisdom saving throw at -4 from being outside of sight of the phantasm (but at disadvantage from the DM for being in such a critical condition) and Roland fails, once again he crawls further away from his desperate allies and suffer yet another point of exhaustion. Being at 5 exhaustion now, it doesn’t matter whenever he saves or not on his death saving throw, but he throws it anyway at -5 penalty for fun. With no surprise, he fails and falls unconscious. But with 6 levels of exhaustion, he loses his strength and collapses on the hard rock floor. Davon witnesses Roland stop and finally manages to catch up with him, but when he turns Roland over to attempt to heal him, his face turns white. Roland’s face is twisted in a stare of horror and he’s dead! Several emotions go through Davon as he remembers the times Roland had shown such courage, only to die like this. He curses the wizard and decides to rejoin the battle with renewed purpose, he will avenge Roland!
*Story 3*
Gondrir the paladin is fighting in the front lines against Lizardfolk. He has taken a lot of damage throughout his adventure. Suddenly his comrade goes down, it’s the rogue Alamir. He already suffered a severe wound before and falls unconscious. Gondrir knows that he must reach Alamir on his next turn or risk losing Alamir, however Gondrir’s turn hasn’t come up yet, first his opponent must strike, but he’s unlucky and it hits. Gondrir goes down as well. He’s hasn’t suffered any wounds yet but must save Alamir. When Gondrir’s turn comes up, the Lizardfolk he was fighting has gone elsewhere and Gondrir decides to crawl over to Alamir to use Lay on Hands on him, hoping that he can survive the next round. He just makes it and casts the ability, saving Alamir. Gondrir suffers 2 levels of exhaustion. However, before his next turn comes up, one of the lizardfolk returns to Gondrir and stabs him. It’s a critical hit! The last sight Gondrir has is the blinding light of his ability as his eyes roll over and darkness falls. The party just about manages to fight off the Lizardfolk. When they look over the bodies they see Alamir is unconscious but alive, but Gondrir is dead with his hand upon Alamir’s chest. The party recognizes what happened and grieve as they pick up the corpse of Gondrir and bury him by the wayside. A mount of rocks with a simple sword sticking out to remember the sacrifice of a selfless hero.
*Story 4*
The fighter Ishtar is fighting together with his comrades a group of goblins. Everybody are healthy and confident, but suddenly the goblins let loose a large boulder that hurdles toward the party. Most of them dodge or aren’t in the area of effect but Ishtar is unlucky and suffers a lot of damage very suddenly, he takes so much damage that he falls below 0 hit points and collapses. However thanks to him cleverly buying a healing potion earlier, he grabs it from his belt and gulps it down once his turn comes up, allowing him to stand back up again. Despite him only spending 1 point of exhaustion, he still suffers 2 levels from his wound. While he might be tired, he’s not out of the game yet! Eventually the party manages to drive the goblins off. After the battle he notices that his ribs are crushed and he’s definitively not feeling well. He reflects on this and decides to interrupt the quest to head back to an inn in order to rest for a week. Disconcertingly however, his wound is too severe to heal this way. Ishtar then find an archdruid, Ishar explains what happened, and the druid takes a look at the wound but refuses to heal it. Instead he recommends Ishtar to retire, citing Ishtar’s lack of renown, unwillingness to suffer setbacks and apparent cowardice in the face of adversity.
I have played many characters, remember most, some quite fondly.
It's the ones that died, however, that live eternal in my recollection and retelling.
Well said as always, Doctor Dan.
Also, hurt feelings are something to weeded out from the emotional inventory of children. Live, laugh, and exile as necessary.
@Jett Lucas Hayes , agreed. That's why a good death makes for a great story.
My Favorite Moments of the Games
1. When all my weapons were destroyed in a combat with Cthulhu and it went from "Defeat the Monster to Save The Girl" to "Distract the Monster and Save the Girl".
2. When our team was ambushed by the equivalent of Firefly Ravagers. I was going to sacrifice myself to save Colonies, and I honestly thought I was going to die. The Sacrifice made ti worth while.
3. When we had another mass combat against pirates and we were on the ropes until a crit role on strategy roll allowed us to bring in reinforcements. But we were really in a bad way, 2 of our pilots were unconscious in their ships and we were going to be overwhelmed. I was able to use my talents and improve a strategy roll to very favorable terms. A good vombo of good luck and good ability use.
Point is, Danger makes the game fun.
I love the critical hit chart and the back-up character idea! They solve problems that have been in the back of my mind for some time. Thanks also for telling off the Nebbish Inquisition. I don't want to broad-brush a whole generation, but it does seem quite a few of these younger folks' utopia involves a scolding finger, wagging in a face for all eternity.
Thanks for commenting. Check out my campaign The Reviled Society to see what my players have created with me: ua-cam.com/video/95zr1mmx4vM/v-deo.html
I much agree with this! I'd like to say though that gritty, limited healing can get tedious, rather than enforce the air of danger.
In my first campaign, we used such rules, and it worked nicely; I killed my first PC just before level 5 in the act 1 finale. That felt very fitting. However, as we now are in level 10, it's clear that it becomes more number-tracking than enforcing the air of danger (for us).
So for my second campaign which we are two sessions into, I adopted the standard rules for health, but I make sure that my encounters are tougher. Four out of six characters nearly died in the first combat, and one of the others were at 1 HP.
For me, if I don't have to think about balancing based on homebrew, I can rather focus on making the challenges at hand deadlier, and make sure the characters know that the world is dangerous.
Edit: I like the theme of the table. Might make something in the spirit of this because unless people actually fail death saves, there's barely any tension. However, intelligent enemies can change the balance! An intelligent enemy might just deliver a coup de grace on a dying character, putting it at two fails on a hit.
Have been binging your content recently and completely agree. Personally I have players have a number of deaths saves equal to their constitution modifier. Having constitution penalties after resurrection is also great to add tension.
So... does the constitution modifier only increase the amount of failed saves needed to die? Or do they also more successes to stabilize? Very curious.
@@StabYourBrain personally just number of total death saves per long rest with a minimum of 1. So with a con modifier of +3 you have three death saves that day. I like this rule because it stops players constantly bouncing from unconscious with spells like healing word. Hoped this helps
Hello,
As someone who commented on your last video I wanted to say thank you for addressing the comments that me and others made regarding the last video. I appreciate you took the time to don your +1 vest to address it rather then just buckle down. If I am to be honest while I understand that the furry bit was a joke the reason I commented on it was because it didn't come off as one or feel that way. That being said I do understand that, just like everything else, humor is subjective and can also misinterpreted, which is why I do appreciate that you did take the time to address it (The bit about hyperbole and jokes dying in 2017 literally made me laugh out loud). You where clear and concise about feeling on the matter and I can respect that, again thank you for addressing. "Play the game you like" and at the end of the day that is all that matters.
In regard to this video I like the point you made about the road of trials and do agree a lot about death being to easy to overcome. I really like the idea you have about the 20 chart and might use something like it in my games moving forward. I also like the idea of having a backup available just in case of a PC death that way the dying player has something to do and just have to sit there and I might do this as well. I look forward to seeing your next video and what further ideas you have.
Thank you
I had to get permission from Joking before killing it.
Hi Professor! I agree with you about 5e's Death Save rules being both really neat and flawed at the same time. I have a simpler solution for a Grimdark option: instead of needing to pass / fail three death saves, ANY failed death save is death.
Also, characters who fall unconscious and then are revived come back with a point of Exhaustion each time. And they stack until the character has rested unless removed with a Greater Restoration spell.
Since the Exhaustion points would start stacking a lot quicker by this method, I would consider allowing a Short rest to remove 1 Exhaustion point and a long rest to remove all of them. YMMV.
One system that has a wonderful way of dealing with this is Low Fantasy Gaming.
When you go to 0 hit points, you're unconscious. Magical Healing on someone at 0 HP takes 1d3 minutes, so there is no bringing someone up during combat.
Afterwards, when you check on them, they roll a Constitution check; a failure indicates death, a success indicates survival with a subsequent roll on the Injuries chart. Could be shattered ribs, broken or amputated limbs, etc. Or it could just be a sexy scar.
But going down in combat meant you were down, and you didn't know that character's fate until you won the battle or escaped and checked on the body. It worked wonderfully from a mechanics standpoint, and those Constitution checks were scary as heck. Rolling your friend over after a boss fight and not knowing, either in-person or in-character, whether they were already dead.
Gotta love LFG.
@@coda821 For sure!
It's like a perfect symbiosis between Warhammer Roleplay and D&D/Pathfinder.
My group and I absolutely love it.
@@GreyHunter88 Yeah. If I get to run it, I'll use the generic classes, from Unearthed Arcana. What setting do you use?
@@coda821 I've mostly played it in the Pathfinder setting. I find that Paizo writes really cool adventure paths, but they are long and bloated, with a ton of encounters meant only to provide the requisite treasure and experience.
Using LFG, I can preserve the theme and story while cutting out the vast majority of redundant battles and boring Cloak of Resistance +1 drops. We get to experience all the drama in one-quarter the time.
@@GreyHunter88 Sweet. I'm brainstorming some setting ideas. Thinking about basing one on the new Blueholme OSR.
About killing PCs in my opinion many playgroups seem to forget that reanimation and the afterlife are a thing.
Nowdays i love to explain it to my players like "we're in kind of a Dragon Ball world because after death you're in the afterlife and once the rest of the players manage to get you back you will be revived, unless you like to change your character" also i like to inspire my players to create multiple characters to switch in down times. Therefore they got already leveled up characters to replace dead ones and help the group to... get the body back, go on a quest for a scroll of resurrection or walk the damn gates of hell to bring their friend back to life.
It's crazy how many people out of nowhere swap their whole meaning about the "playerdeath" thing, once they realise it's not the end but the beginning of something new... i don't know why i have to explain it like that but it seems to fit the zeitgeist.
Yeah, I'm the guy that rolled thirteen 1 for 20ish rolls in a session and I'm known to be unlucky with dice rolls. I don't mind if my character dies because of stupid decisions I've made, but I particularly hate when something big depends on one die roll especially save or die or save or suck.
We nearly had a TPK the other day when my party got hit with a banshee. 3 out of 4 PCs failed their save and were reduced to 0hp. Sure it's bad luck, but if you go into a dungeon, you're risking your life. I'm totally cool with that (got my backup character ready: Bongo Catspaw, the tabaxi monk). The other side of the continuum was a DM who would only kill PCs in discussion with the player -prearranged death, and I'm not cool with that. When I was leaving that campaign, he asked me how my character would like to go. I suggested throwing an unbalanced encounter at us and seeing how the dice fall. That's kind of how I'd like all my encounters to go! Anyway, different strokes for different folks!
@@dsan05 and as with most things, the reasonable path should be in the middle. If your characters do stupid things or plan poorly, yeah things should follow through and they should suffer the consequences but one dice roll should not decide if your character dies or live or if you do not play for the next 45 min to 1h because you failed a saving throw (looking at you 2nd edition). It's just not fun.
@@maximeclermont6339 true true! I started with basic/expert, and moved onto AD&D 1e and then had a 30 odd year break, so I'm missing the 2E reference, but I'm guessing you talking about poison saves?
@@dsan05 Anything that made you save vs Death really.
@@krinkrin5982 I remember Black Dougal from the Basic boxed set with examples of play... alas... he didn't make it... failed his remove trap roll.
An optional "gritty method" of doing Hit Points for D&D 5e:
Give the Character a full Hit Die for their 0 Level training and then have them roll for 1st Level at the start. The CON bonus is added to the ROLL for Hit Points at each new level, but you can never gain more hit points than the max you could roll on your HIT DIE. ie: if the fighter rolls a 1 but has a +2 CON bonus, he gets 3 HP. If he rolls a 10 then that 10 is what he gets because it is his Hit Die maximum.
When Hit Points reach 0 or less (see below), the Character MUST make a CON save to even remain conscious and act (with DISADVANTAGE too) ON EVERY COMBAT ROUND. Any damage which reduces the Character's Hit Points below zero is recorded as a negative-sum. IE: If damage reduces Leonard's HP to -4, then that damage total is recorded as a "-4." The Character DIES when any negative damage exceeds his CON (no saves). A Character loses 1 Hit Point per COMBAT ROUND that they are below zero from shock and trauma unless a party member performs a HEALER'S Proficiency check and expends one use of a healer's kit to stabilize them. Stabilized Characters do NOT lose anymore HP BUT are still dying and must receive treatment in CON - the negative damage hours or die!
Crit tables really add to the tension of the game and makes the game more deadly. Pretty much everything PDM preaches
Thanks, Erik!
What I did for my Dark Sun campaign, is to first make it so characters had to spend hit dice to replenish abilities/hps/spells/etc... short rest became a generic rest (e.g. spend hit dice) and long rest became R&R (e.g. recover hit dice)... you had a chance to recover hit dice while "in town", progressively getting higher odds the longer you spent resting & relaxing in a safe/comfortable environment. As a side benefit, you could spend unused hit dice in various side ventures that happened off screen (i.e. things that only really affected your character, rather than the group... such as building a business, earning coin, researching a new tech, etc...).
As for death and dying, I kept that pretty simple, any time you were reduced to zero hit points... you lost a hit die and acquired a wound of some sort. I'd let the players be creative here, using the wound as a way to help flesh out a character or give them an interesting scar. Wounds required significant magical healing or downtime to heal (e.g. return the lost hit die), the type of damage and severity of the blow, determined the length and/or amount of healing required (i.e. level of magic necessary). This also nicely dealt with the word of healing nonsense, you didn't want to jump right back into the action after taking a wound, because you're very vulnerable to another one. Finally, if a character ever reached zero hit dice, they were dead. Basically, hit points represent luck and skill, when that reaches zero, the character's luck runs out and they take actual physical injury. Hit dice represent mental and physical fortitude, just like in real life, every so often you need a break, to recharge the ole' batteries; before jumping back on that grind. Hits on "downed" characters, count as crits and therefore a greater wound (-2 HD and even more difficult requirements to recover from).
This system worked great, because the players actually had to weigh the pros and cons of tactical withdrawl, as opposed to pushing on and risking serious injury and death as they continue to get whittled down over the course of an excursion/adventure. It also leads to interesting story arcs... villians can retreat and regroup if the players are too cautious, even counter-attacking while the players are recovering or growing reinforcements or setting traps.
My problem is my adventures are deadly, but my instinct is always to pull punches on the deaths, which I need to work on stopping.
Yeah one of his ideas is to make combat with humans more common and only use monsters as big bads which make them more special. Also make you think when slaughtering bandits that have families to feed and give up omce theyve lost.
Play a super deadly low level one shot game with each player having two or three characters and kill them with impunity. It will get you over that fear of killing them and be fun.
I second simo. Do a deadly one shot, everyone knows there will be death. Death becomes fun for everyone
As much as I love death tables (and really any table), I know a lot of people feel like it slows the game down and adds complexity.
I think a maybe simpler more lethal option would be that healing via a spell can add a death saving throw success (instead of returning you to consciousness) and that only a medicine check can remove a single death saving throw failure. Also, this is the only way to remove death saving throw failure. So if you drop unconscious and suffer 2 death saving throw failures and then (though a combination of rolls and healing) you get 3 death saving throw successes you are back in the fight... but if you drop again, you start at 2 death saving throw failures.
Even if the character can get 'patched up' enough to be back in the fight they still need 'real medicine' to fully recover. If you really want to create fear of death, failed medicine checks can add a death saving throw failure.
This also makes medicine a more important skill to have which is nice.
Actually, I think you'll find that zoomers are quite adept at humor... they just tied it to memetics. Jokes have punchlines and are funnier when they don't kick down. As I said in the previous video's comment, I actually agree with the "people want dangerous games" thought process, I just don't understand how it's tied to "edgy humor." This isn't to chew you out, just expressing my contrasting view. Hope these comments find you well.
The issue with dying in D&D is a first level spell available to almost everyone, namely Healing Word in combination with the lack of a meaningful penalty. Other systems have fine tuned this mechanic a bit more, a particular one I like is from Pathfinder 2e, where recovery checks become harder and harder and dying as a whole has major ramifications.
When you reach 0 hit points you gain the "Dying [value]" affliction. This starts at Dying 1 and can go to 4 (where you permanently die). Each turn you can take a Recovery check, which equals 10 + Dying value. On a success lower Dying by 1, on a failure increase it by 1. At Dying 0, you stabilize and remain unconscious. So far this mostly mirrors D&D5e, except the difficulty increases with each failure.
The thing what I like is that you gain the Wounded affliction afterwards. This starts at 1 and increases by 1 each time you stabilize. But, the next time you gain the Dying affliction, you increase it's value with the value of the Wounded affliction. so let's say you went unconscious twice before in the fight, the third time you go down you instantly start at Dying 3. Which means you have a DC 13 saving throw to make, or it is bye bye and roll up a new character.
While not quite as deadly as the professor's solution, it does succeed at making dying scary again and totally disables Death scamming like everyone and their mother does in 5e.
Be careful what you say Professor anthropomorphic animals are people too! Don't get cancelled you are one of my favorite old school you tubers.
PCs I've killed in my current campaign:
Irvent Ironmane, Dwarf Fighter: Shot in chest by city guard
Fel Dren, Half-Elf Rogue: Skewered by babau, resurrected afterwards
Resh, Half-Orc Monk: Mauled by dire bear
Searos Wyrmwood, Human Hexblade: Melted by black dragon
Boshkingii, Lizardfolk Barbarian, killed by own party after convinced to turn on them by naga he thought was a god
Darras ibn Harunn, Half-Orc Swordsage: Mauled by skeletal leopards
Inaar "Forest" Ginaan, Elf Cleric: Poisoned by violet mushroom
Bob, Halfling Fighter: Eaten by cornugon
Argyros, Warforged Cleric: Melted by cornugon's fireball
The main problem you will run into with permanent injuries is that instead of promoting character growth you promote character rotation.
Had a long running campaign where the DM used permanent injuries, one time dealing 4 members of the party a permanent -6 CON. Magic items were also very rare and almost never made for our characters just what we found the enemies happened to be using.
Here is the problem: I was playing my old dwarven fighter, missing an eye from a Yuan-Ti Malison and with a elven curse of -6 CON and magic items I started with, less since half were consumables. LVL 11 with nonmagical hammer, mithral plate (started with) and a couple greater healing potions.
Another PC dies (I think it was disguised suicide) and walks in with new character without the -6 CON his previous had and new level appropriate swag gear, a Paladin with a +2 sword, +1 plate and an amulet that made his CON 19.
Basically instead of making the old timers in the party be these rugged badasses the penalties just make them these limping lame warriors. Carried by the new guys that didn't earn nothing. The opposite of what you wanted to promote by your starting speech. Penalties you accrue just make players want to switch characters and sure you can blame the player but I can tell you no player will like it when the new party member walks in and is instantly the strongest in the party without earning anything.
I stuck with my dwarf until the end but by then I was the lamest fighter, I dealt more damage in 1 round than I had in HP, a true glass cannon despite originally having 18 CON. The main sacrifice however was the story. It essentially became my dwarf's story if anything as other PCs had a life expectancy and ended up dying rotating parties so many times none of the OCs remained (the dwarf was my second character). Why were these rando's doing this? Who cares. Long term plots? Stopped midway by deaths.
You can run a game like this but then these "permanent" injuries need to be able to be undone like having an archfey repay the party with healing or a powerful wizard offer a magical crystal eye to replace your lost one. These should also come with benefits for the PC for sticking it out, like the crystal eye being able to see in darkness giving them darkvision or be able to cast detect magic. ETC.
It's what I do in my game and although death isn't common it isn't unheard off either. More importantly old time PCs are much stronger than new ones keeping players engaged in their current character rather than immediatly think up of a new one.
I agree. If I saw my dream characters crumbling down I'd stop caring about them too and just ditch them for new, swaggier characters. I don't blame the players you played with. At least you got to keep your poor Dwarf who was falling apart at the hinges.
I went through a brief period where I would use a judges screen and roll everything behind it but as cool as it felt like being "a real DM" now, even though I'd been one for abouta decade by then. The trouble was it did feel to some players like a small doubt on strings of really good/bad rolls (like a series of mathmatical improbabilities)so I wentback to rolking in the open. But it also made me soon goback to completely open, discarding the screen too. It was a little tricky at first remembering to use my old methods of hiding my notes but was still worth it. And yeah, definitely agree that without the threat of defeat or losing a character (in novels, etc too) its hard to become as engrossed in the adventure. That's why Inwas always impressed by Superman/Superboy writers who made me still feel hooked into the tales.
The DM is too lucky rolling natural 20s...
Wil Wheaton: "Hey, can I see those dice for a second?" *The dice curse upon Wheaton manifests ever so slightly as he grins.* "I promise to give them back."
Professor Dungeonmaster, and other readers - first, sorry for the long post but it will be worth your attention (as food for thought if nothing else).
Second, Professor, a suggestion for your chart if I may - where the CHA score is reduced I would have it instead be that the Persuasion (Seduction and other applicable) checks suffer a -1 penalty instead, but Intimidation checks gain a +1 bonus, because of the scaring? A CHA score is also a force of personality and personal charm, not just looks, so it stands to reason that scaring wont necessarily affect those unless for example, it is related to a Seduction check or where looks are a necessary part of the check. Since seducing now falls under Persuasion in 5e, thus the proposed change. This could also confer more benefit(s) and/or respect in a warlike society like for example, the orcish one.
Also, why not have the death save chart be changed by applying the following, since you are a fan of Warhammer? In the first part of my comment I provide a system of where the hit lands and in the second I just briefly touch upon how this could affect the death save roll.
Upon rolling a d20 to hit a result of (on the die, not the final score):
[2-4]: hits (one of) the attacked creature’s head(s)/neck(s)
[5-7]: hits (one of) the attacked creature’s right arm(s)
[8-10]: hits (one of) the attacked creature’s left arm(s)
[11-13]: hits the attacked creature’s torso/main area/groin
[14-16]: hits (one of) the attacked creature’s left leg(s)
[17-19]: hits (one of) the attacked creature’s right leg(s)
A nat 1 is, of course, a miss and a nat 20 allows the attacker to choose where to hit, while also providing the bonuses that a nat20 attack roll result confers. One could adjust the chart of course to provide a greater chance to hit certain locations, but I think that should not be done often.
This provides a neat mechanic to give out attack visualizations for extra flavor and it’s quick, especially once it is in memory. And this of course translates into what the death save chart could have as its results, as not all hit locations are made equal. One could argue that it slows the game (somewhat) as you have to maybe look up on the death save chart for each individual body part, but that could also be in one main chart (it need not be a d20) that gives different results for the same number, based on the location that was hit. I purposefully left this part vague to leave it to yours and the other reader’s own imaginations on how this death save chart could be done.
So, what do you think about this? :) Thanks for your time/attention.
Boy, he comes out swinging, doesn't he? I almost did a spit take on my coffee when he defined joke!
Yup.
This idea is pretty similar to the Lingering Injury table found in the Dungeon Master's Guide. In fact, the injury table says you can roll on it not just when the character reaches 0HP, but also when they receive a critical hit or fail a death saving throw by 5 or more. I intend to implement something similar in my next campaign.
Instead of rolling death savings throws i think I'd prefer rolling hit die. When you take damage and go in the negatives you keep rolling hit die+con to heal yourself pack to zero hp. If a roll was enough to return you to zero the die isn't consumed. If you run out of hit die you die at the start of your next turn if no one saves you.
That means at low and high levels characters are unkillable.
At low lvls one hit die +CON should easily bring you to positive considering the low damage done, and if the dice isn't consumed then you can just keep going. At high level you have so many hit die it will take a PC a stupid ammount of time to die, not mention you need to bring a measly lvl 5 PC to like -40 to reliably kill them.
Unless I'm missing something. I like the idea but it needs some refinement.
@@snakept69 if your at -10hp with a +2 con. You roll a 4 on your hit die bringing you to -4hp. You lost the hit die and now you roll your second die. You roll a 3, your back up to 0 and you get to keep the second die. Your stil unconscious and every hit is a crit till a party member revives you. Low damage like fighting a spider should hopefully never kill you unless you already spent your hit die on a short rest. Then your team just has 1 turn to stabilize you.
Now that you mention it though I do like the idea of removing the +con so using hit die during short rests stay more efficient.
@@snakept69 also not sure if I made it clear? When you are taken to -hp on someone's turn, you keep rolling at the end of the turn till you're back to zero or run out of hit die. It's not a single die roll per turn
I think this could work, if you limit resting as well, to make those dice a more precious resource.
I love this chart! I definitely have issue with a character being knocked to 0 hp multiple times in a combat popping up each time with no repercussions. Showing this to the players at the outset of a campaign would definitely give them pause regarding the dreaded 0 hp threshold. My only changes would be:
1- Expand the "Bleeding out" category (rolls from 4-11). The drama of the death saves and the scramble to rescue the fallen comrade should be given more of a chance to occur.
2- Give some permanent effect to the "bleeding out" category. So you didn't bleed out. Congratulations! However that severed artery resulted in 1d4 permanent hp loss.
4- I would shrink the instant death category to a Natural 1 (the dramatic speech death to rolls of 2-3). Instant death sucks, but adding to the drama of a high stakes Natural 1 is awesome.
That's so 2020.
I usually roll a die before the session, with a size appropriate to the party size. I assign a number to every player and that decides who dies.
Lol. Good one.
Can anyone volunteer as tribute?
Brutal
I see jokes are alive after all.
🤣
I've actually been working on my own set of houserules for a more "grim and gritty" sort of d&d focusing more on themes of horror and dark fantasy. Right now, I'm using this;
1) Start with the grim and gritty optional rule from the dmg. Short rests are now 8 hours. Long rests require a week resting/carousing in town. It's important to pair this with a story that takes place at a slower pace, but I find that's appropriate for this sort of fantasy anyway. It's going to be a lot harder for players to fight through a whole dungeon in a day or two like this.
2) Characters do not go unconscious at 0hp, nor do they begin making automatic death saves. Instead, at 0 hp, characters are now "vulnerable" and are only able to use their movement OR take an action on their turn. Bonus actions are unaffected.
3) Instead of death saves, players transform those boxes into "Mortal Wounds". I'm still making my specific table for this, but it'll likely look like a typical crippling injury table, with most injuries either giving you disadvantage on a certain kind of check or disabling a hand, etc. Mortal wounds are usually temporary, and you heal one at the end of a long rest in town. Lesser restoration can heal a temporary mortal wound. Any time a player would take damage while at 0 hp, they instead tick 1 mortal wound box and roll on the associated table.
4) Characters who take 3 mortal wounds are now on death's door. At the beginning of their next turn, they will die, either from shock, bleeding out, or something worse. If, however, they can be stabilized or healed before then, they will recover, but one of their mortal wounds will be made permanent. Only greater restoration can heal a permanent mortal wound.
5) A critical hit, in addition to its other affects, bypasses hp and automatically inflicts a temporary mortal wound.
In some ways, this makes player characters, especially at low level, more durable. It also creates a grey area between hale and hearty and nearly dead, which I like. It also makes injuries that your character will have to work with much more likely in the short term and a possibility in the long-term.
When a player character dies, I give their allies advantage on attacks for the remainder of the encounter to avenge them.
That is an interesting idea, similar to the inverse of monster moral.
Also, if using moral for monsters you could add that as a monster option for an excellent moral role.
I love this idea.
I categorically refuse to kill characters, unless the death is a purposefully meaningful part of the story arc. My reason is that in my campaigns as an adult we spend a TON of time in character creation, and I carefully weave player characters deep in the story. We have one-on-one sessions where a 'lifepath' is rolled up and worked on together, and I make sure multiple hooks are present in each background to link the character to the main story. Some are used out of the gate to set the stage and tie the party together, most are left to add interest, surprise, drama, and instant engagement later in the game.
To wrap back to my initial comment, I would almost never kill characters because I have purposefully built an unfolding story that the party intentionally is an integral part of. One can't simply 'whip up' a replacement character to jump back in to the game. I have personally invested too much into every character at the table to simply throw that away on a whim or random die roll.
I can respect that some people want or need games that have the edge and suspense of dying. For me, however, I play to cooperatively tell an epic story arc and have never found character death a necessary or desirable component to my games. Quite the opposite, in my campaign style character death would be anathema.
Another amusing anecdote. My longest ongoing campaign as a DM is a one-on-one with my best friend. Some of my absolute best gaming moments have been with his character in this world we shaped together. As a noob DM his paladin actually died to the evil spellcaster boss I created for the end of the very first session. I made one of my first "fudge the dice" decisions as a DM that ending the game and dungeon with a fireball that way was not fun and I cut the damage dealt to keep the PCs in the fight. The dividends that decision paid off cannot be measured.
The beauty of D&D - play the game you want to play with the people you want to play with.
lol, that sounds awful. Go act in a play, instead, theatre kid. Or write a novel.
I love these Videos. I'm returning to DMing after a gap of 40 years and this sage advice is so very useful. Yes to the risk of death!
I am so glad you did this video. Yeah, I am old and old school I guess. I like your solutions presented for scenarios in which characters face death. I haven't made the jump fully into DMing or playing 5th edition for some time now because of the rules based on resting and full recuperation of lost hit points. Spells like healing word have also made players nonchalant about damage, resulting in more reckless forays into danger. I have a 3" binder called the graveyard of 1-3 level characters, with a few 4-5 in there as well, which are a comedy of errors on my part. *never get attached to a mage until 4th level LOL* We used to use our minds as much as brawn and power builds to create exciting adventures. 5E is a very good system, don't get me wrong, but a greater attachment can be found in characters who face and overcome challenges clinging to their mortality. Thank you once more for saying what myself and so many experienced players and DM's have discussed for years now.
"Characters should die!" he says, and then pulls out a number of examples who just don't die regardless of what insane adventures they take part in =D
Guess it comes down to what ratio of origin stories vs stories where batman is already batman you like. And if you ever get to continue campaings after you left the zero phase behind. Most campaings seem to end around the time you reach hero.
When players play purely for progression the game gets boring fast. I think computers make a better gm for the Progression and Power Gamer types because the computer doesnt get bored of endless combat with no personal conflict, and the computer is immune to whining.
Isn't that the point? Those characters earned their place in the pantheon of heroes by not dying when others would have. If there's no chance that you're going to die, then surviving is not an accomplishment, and you haven't actually done anything heroic.
@@JCPRuckus And that's the kind of character I prefer to play: one that doesn't die when others would have =D
Well... I don't mind a slight chance of dying (and don't require consent for it), but I like it to be a rare occurance. There's plenty of interesting challanges other than trying not to die out there for that feeling of accomplishments. Dying is generally one of the most boring consequences of faliure.
@@MatsJPB - Yes, and if there is little to no chance of dying, then others would not have died either. So we're still back at the fact that you are no longer playing a hero.
If there is not a serious chance of character death, then you are not playing a role playing *game.* You are just writing collaborative fan fiction about a bunch of OCs.
Which is fine if that's what you want to do. But it seems like the RPG equivalent of handing out participation trophies to me. And I don't see the appeal.
@@JCPRuckus No, NPC might well have died =) Besides, I don't agree with your definition of "hero" in the context.
I count Conan as a hero for example.
After playing a while, most of us had 2 or 3 characters and switched from one to another when we wanted to try something different. These characters could also be brought in when the one we were playing died. The world in which our characters lived had a lot of magic, and most of them had access to someone who owed them a favour or two allowing someone in the party to get a message to them and have them show up in a day or so after the death of their predecessor.
Although there were exceptions, in our games the opponents were rarely weak, and were often over powered. Our DMs, including myself made a point of throwing in these over powered opponents, and the players had to decide whether they would fight, negotiate, or seek to escape. Sometimes the players surprised the DM, and sometimes the DM surprised the players. All opponents who actually presented a deadly threat had some sort of flaw or other opening the pcs could figure out if they considered all of their options. Some of those weaknesses were very difficult to determine, but were always within the capabilities of the pcs to handle if they thought carefully.
In cases where characters did very stupid things or just didn't think, they could die very quickly. I had one player in our group who attacked an enemy with the transposer ability to reflect all damage back onto the attacker. When the first attack or two were reflected back on the character, he decided to immobilize the enemy and slash his throat. The character dropped dead on the spot. The same player once cast a large fireball in a small hallway, and burned himself to a crisp. As a player, I had made a couple similar mistakes, with the same result.
A few thoughts on death in RPGs...
1. "One dead man is a tragedy, a million dead men is a statistic." The old-school "bring a binder full of characters to the game" is just as bad if not worse than there being no risk of death. Not many people watch a Friday the 13th movie because they care about the characters Jason Voorhees kills.
2. I think a lot of the mentality has to do with the time spent and emotional investment in a character. It's no fun to spend two hours making a character and get killed in the first ten minutes of gameplay. If I'm playing a wargame and my army gets wiped out, I can run the exact same army list again next game, but if my character dies in an RPG and I try to play my character's hitherto-unmentioned identical twin, I'm at minimum going to get dirty looks from the GM and other players.
3. Related to this, the risk of death isn't the only risk a character can face - I've heard of GMs who try to avoid killing characters because "If they die, they can't suffer any more". While making Return of the Jedi, someone told George Lucas he needed to kill Luke Skywalker at the end because the trilogy wouldn't be meaningful if he didn't. He replied, "I don't like that and I don't believe that". Some of my personal favourite media are ones where nobody dies.
4. One quip I heard once: "The evil GM gives the PCs fights they can't win and should avoid. The Killer GM gives the PCs fights they can't win and can't avoid."
Great video! I love the dying mechanic of West End Games’s Star Wars. You roll 2D6; and the first round you have to roll 12 or less. The second round 11 or less and so on. This makes it really exciting when someone is dying and the other characters must try to save their mate.
Great game in general, that Star Wars game. 😊
That is excellent
I know this probably isn't an absolute, and as you say, it's your opinion on the subject; but why is it that the only way I ever see to add "tension" or "difficulty" to a game or to make it possible to "lose" is character death?
So many videos about why killing characters is good, why it increases risk, etc... but why always killing characters?
There are many ways to make a game hard as hell or terrifying without killing player characters.
Make stupid decisions have tangible effects on the narrative: cripple a character so they need to figure out a workaround or alter their character build going forward, lose or destroy valuable/magical/essential loot, have the BBEG *WIN* because the characters were haggling with shopkeepers and chasing chickens, add psychological elements to the narrative that make the characters paranoid, curse your characters so feats, skills, and stats wither at random until the curse gets removed.
Even make getting *close* to death a huge risk, like (and I hate to do this) MM does. Revival spells don't just _work,_ they're hard to pull off, so actively try to *avoid* dying.
Having to roll up a new character every few sessions because you keep dying can be A) Disheartening, and B) Kill any desire a player has to engage with the game beyond "hit everything hard enough it dies before I do."
If you want to play a narrative, a character is integral to it, and when you get invested in a character and their thread in the overarching plot, their death snaps you out of that narrative in order to force you to create a new one, who has nothing at all to do with the narrative up to that point.
Character death can be useful, even fun, but to deliberately increase the risk of it as a method of difficulty inflation is, to my mind, lazy.
Like games that try emulating Souls-like difficulty by just making average enemies stupid powerful. It doesn't add tension, it's just an irritant.
If I wanted to die repeatedly for minor mistakes, I'd just play Dark Souls. Or Mario.
The end of a difficult campaign should come with the realization that *_you survived._* Not that you reincarnated seven times to get there.
Our party had our 2nd 3/4-TPK this week (both were much like what you described, a PC going to negatives, the party moving to save but then succumbing as odds pile against them; the latter group, 2 of the 4 that died were built for "heroic last stand" style of PCs, just didn't quite pull it off)... Dice are harsh sometimes (and the GM open rolls Hits and open rolls potential PC death damages). We liked the PCs, the GM liked the PCs, but we enjoyed and understood the deaths (plenty of talk about resting, or falling back, etc). The only concern that came up was how to weave the new 4 PCs would come in to play as the Adventure Path is set on a remote island (we're actually trying at natives/monster races stepping in to help the colonists vs colonists/replacement colonists on supply runs). This is Pathfinder 1e, but much the same mechanics (based off of DnD 3.5 afterall).
I like Warhammer, but rolling on the chart is a time sink. I wish they just had a generic injury penalty so that we can save the charts for after combat and thus give the doctor something fun to roll for.
I know WFRP usually uses incremental modifiers, +- 5,10,20 etc., but in the case of suffering an injury, maybe use the CoC penalty die to reflect an injury until combat is over and you get to the Dr to find out how bad it is?
One of the things I remember with very mixed feelings is the “when you die you have to come back at 1st level”. You ended up with party’s with a 1st level, a 3rd level and two 5th level character. The person who was playing the 1st level was then relegated as an observer for several sessions until he levelled up. Coming back one level lower is a good idea.
0:56 yes!
5:43 currently play Esoteric Enterprises if dmg rolls over hp refer to chart for permanent injuries and or death with a neat 'dead man walking' mechanic. Have not seen it anywhere else and knowing its there my players are quite aware of their mortality.
Thanks for watching! I have to check that out.
I love this channel I keep getting reminded of some of the best and worst moments of my rpg days.
My favorite character I ever made has died so many times I lost track. The very reason why she kept coming back is the same reason why she is and always will be my favorite character. She is based off my wife. This was a multi DM shared world game.
I was extremely lucky in life to marry a beautiful and smart Filipina. She is a perfect 4’11” and nearly fluent in English. It was the small differences in words that makes the way she talks charming as hell. So I made a barbarian Trition 4’11” gave her a short fish out of water backstory of not fully being able to speak and understand common. Taking things literally, and confusing a few words. Within the first hour of the game everyone at the table just kept asking her questions for my best response in my wife’s words. She died, in hour three of the first game.
I sighed and moved on to a new character. At the end of this adventure a divine favor was earned by restoring a temple. The players had a level one character raised from the dead to make sure I brought her back the next week.
As she advanced she would stare too long at a magic painting of the Abyss and becoming “less sane” (DMs words)
Her mind got controlled by an Orc cleric the experience making her “slightly crazy” (DMs words)
She would die several more times as she had lost all fear or understanding of what suicidal actions were. By that time we had a few players that had raise dead, and other spells. My only request was never ever cast greater restoration on her.
Less sane, slightly crazy, and with no fear of death she would claw her way up to level twenty (my only character to reach that) she ate the hearts of every dragon she faced, including the ancient white she killed gaining her the dragon slayer title. She swore that consuming their hearts gave her resistance to their breath attacks. She faced Acererak, and the Tarrasque who she fought from inside its stomach. She had five total magic items by level twenty including her favorite a comb that lengthen her hair.
After a year in the world the player base had grown big enough that most people had multiple characters, and we conducted a census. I had the only Trition. I had apparently made it an untouchable race, to this day I credit my Wife, number one, and all the DMs who weren’t afraid to “ruin” my character with madness and death.