Honest DM Feedback to die or not to die

[Whit]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

[Man_Over_Game]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.
I have 3 solutions I regularly use:


They get a freebie revive, like a holy cleric who offers their services. I'll only do this because I messed up on a previous encounter. Generally, though, if I made an encounter too hard, and they survived, they get an awesome magic item instead, so it's bad if they have to rely on a free revive.
They get a rebuild towards something of my choosing. I'll offer this as an option to mix up the narrative. I might also require certain personality traits to match. If a player likes their character, and is just going to replace them with something similar, I'll try to resort to this. Like swapping from a Totem Barbarian to a Zealot one, or changing over several Bard levels for the Undying/Great Old One Warlock patron.
They work for the revive themselves. This is on them, and this is the only method I don't consider as a part of my plot. I do not lower any rewards, nor do I change their characters, when they work towards investments like this.

[JackPhoenix]

If they die, they die.
If the enemy wants to capture them, they'll try to stabilize them. The PCs may die anyway, if they fail their death saves before that happens. That's pretty much only relevant in the event of TPK, as if other PCs won the battle, they'll try to help other teammates.
There's no "mysterious person" with access to level 5+ spells, hundreds of GP worth of diamonds and a motivation to waste it on random corpses.

[Sigreid]

Most of the time dead is dead. On rare occasions if the death was because I made a mistake they can get a reprieve.

[MThurston]

I do my best to not kill them until it's something important.

So you have a random encounter and by bad dice rolling a character goes down.

I will not send attacks into the downed party member unless it's a dumb beast that wants to eat and no other party member attacks it.

If we are in an important plot point and it happens l, then it is for the story. The characters can use the rules to preserve and try to have them revived.

Being captured is part of the game. The pirates will take slaves. The natives on the other hand may eat them.

[DMThac0]

I let my players kill themselves. I will give them every chance to survive an encounter without a death, I leave it up to them to make the choices. I play the monsters, traps, environment, etc. in as much of an objective manner as I can, however I err on the side of the players when/if necessary. I've had 2 players die in my Saturday group and both times it was based on their actions, and the dice.

In one instance a player chose to walk through a portal knowing nothing about it, they found themselves stuck neck deep in stone as they were teleported to the Plane of Earth and missed a safe pocket by a mere fraction. This was not part of any story progression, it should never have happened, it was completely unexpected, but players do some odd things and I had to roll with it. In the end I tied it into a character story arc and gave the player a choice to come back to life but at a cost, or roll up a new character. The player chose to live and is now indebted to a diety. (it actually helped the player grow too, as now he's looking at becoming a Paladin in service of the diety)

The other time a player died was part of a major story arc and it was just an unfortunate series of dice rolls. I really don't like that kind of death, I'll allow it if it happens but I'm not a fan. In this situation I was able to tie the death into the on going story and create a "captured but unconscious" scenario. The entire party was defeated, the big bad took them all and returned the dead character to life. It created a fun little twist to what they were expecting, since a TPK was what they had all been anticipating. The next session had them all bound and being questioned, coerced, and otherwise learning more about the big bad through their personal interactions. This dead character found themselves confused as to how a bad person would return them to life rather than kill them and move on.

However, if either of those situations were merely the players making poor choices, given every opportunity to avoid death, yet they still chose to do the blatantly deadly action...then they're dead...I tried to save/warn them.

[Trask]

Dead is dead. They roll up a new character unless the party can secure a ressurection.

Sometimes outlandish things can work. I once had a player who was a fighter champion with a javelin of lightning and he died in a way that his body wasnt damaged in any way, so the party asked if they could use the javelin as a sort of defibrilator, shocking his heart back into activity. I made it a medicine check and it was successful, and the fighter was revived with 5 levels of exhaustion and a permanently reduced wisdom score to account for assumed brain damage from being dead for a few minutes.

But he was alive, and actually survived that entire campaign. They later on restored his mental faculties with a greater restoration spell.

I probably wouldnt make it so easy if they tried to do it again, was an on the spot ruling in favor of a cool idea.

In the future I would probably have there be a minimum constitution score required for it to even have a chance of working, and I would also give it a chance of consuming the magic on the weapon.

[MeeposFire]

I find that it is a group thing some really want you to kill them and get upset if you won't and others get upset when characters die outside of gross stupidity or something epic.

generally speaking though I allow death to happen. Keeps the game where I think myself and my players generally like it. Sometimes when I have an idea that I like better than straight death and there is a plausible way of keeping a character alive I could have it happen though it does not happen often.

There was one time in 3e where a party got surpised by a bodak and all but one person failed their fort save and died in the first round. I ended up retconning that one as nobody, not me or the players were happy with how that event turned out. It was not exciting, suspenseful, or interesting. I tend to avoid those sort of situations now because of that.

[Tvtyrant]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

I have a specific houserule that players don't die from dropping to 0, they just rolls a d6 and gain that many exhaustion levels and are unconscious until they take a long rest.

[Crushgrip]

I have 3 solutions I regularly use:


They get a freebie revive, like a holy cleric who offers their services. I'll only do this because I messed up on a previous encounter. Generally, though, if I made an encounter too hard, and they survived, they get an awesome magic item instead, so it's bad if they have to rely on a free revive.
They get a rebuild towards something of my choosing. I'll offer this as an option to mix up the narrative. I might also require certain personality traits to match. If a player likes their character, and is just going to replace them with something similar, I'll try to resort to this. Like swapping from a Totem Barbarian to a Zealot one, or changing over several Bard levels for the Undying/Great Old One Warlock patron.
They work for the revive themselves. This is on them, and this is the only method I don't consider as a part of my plot. I do not lower any rewards, nor do I change their characters, when they work towards investments like this.


I tend to use something similar to this. Death is always a real possibility in my games. Without it, in my opinion, I feel that it somewhat cheapens the experience...if the players never have the fear of their character dying then I have found that they tend to try to do whatever they want and it is less enjoyable for me as a DM. If you want to look for a source that allows for death but with a "cost" you may look at how The Curse of Strahd handles death for lower level characters.

In CoS, when a character of level 5 or below dies, the demiplane brings the character back to life but with an Infinite Madness characteristic from the DMG.

[ImproperJustice]

I think it depends a great deal on the players.

I have had some young players, or those who are more “fragile” get really attached to a character so I work to help them survive if possible.

Then I have some players that just want “a good death”, and we totally work to make that happend.

Then we have a player that literally thrives on failure, so we just let the dice fall where they may and that’s good for him.

[guachi]

I've killed 3 PCs in 5e so far. All were raised by NPCs and, thankfully for the players, didn't require a lot of work to get that Raise Dead (one PC) or Wish (the other two).

If I were ever in a situation where the PC was dead and there was no way of raising him I'd require the generation of a new PC.

[MaxWilson]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

It depends on the campaign. In the past, I have used all of the following:

(1a) Start over: Roll up a new first-level character.

(1b) Start over (extra random): Roll up a new character of level 1d3.

(2) Divine Intervention: Allow the players the option of a karmic intervention from mysterious extra-dimensional entities (i.e. the players). History will be rewritten in some form so that the PC isn't actually dead, but the DM gets a karma point to balance the scales by e.g. doing the same thing for a bad guy, or arranging some other unfortunate coincidence like an old enemy learning the PCs' current whereabouts.

(3) Activate the backup: This PC is dead, but another PC from your character tree coincidentally shows up within a few minutes so the player can continue to play. (Due to how character trees work, this alternate PC is probably fairly close to the original PC's level unless you die frequently. This is because every time time an onscreen PC gains a level, an offscreen PC of equal or lower level from your character tree gets to go up a level too.)

Also, you sort of mention this but I want to be explicit: losing doesn't always equal death. When a PC is reduced to zero HP and the other PCs aren't around, I have done all the following, depending:

(A) Death: PC dies and gets eaten. See above for death options 1-3.

(B) Equipment loss/second chance: PC wakes up naked on an altar, bound and naked. He can potentially get free but he's lost all of his equipment including spell books. (Can potentially recover them eventually but no guarantees.)

(C) Scene change: PC is out of play and will probably die unless the other PCs come along and save them.

Would consider doing

(D) The Cavalry is here: Saved or resurrected by NPCs who want or need you to do a job for them.

if it made sense in the situation but I can't remember any specific times when I used this.

[Thrudd]

Characters in D&D can die, that's why there's rules that tell you when and how they die. If they die, they die. The only time an NPC would raise them is if they have access to the body and there is an established reason why they would do so. The other players can try to have the character raised (if they can't do it themselves).
If your character dies and there's no prospect for them to get raised any time soon, then you make a new character (or in certain situations maybe take over playing an NPC for a while).

[Porcupinata]

If they die, they die. The player can make a new character (at the same level as the rest of the party).

The rest of the party can, of course, get the old character raised. I won't put in a "mysterious stranger" like the OP suggests, but if they want to take the body back to a major temple and pay for a raise then that's normally a pretty straightforward proposition. I won't put obstacles in their way or force them to jump through hoops and do stupid "sidequests" or anything.

Theoretically that's an in-character decision made by the rest of the party, but they will usually ask the player of the dead character out-of-character whether they prefer to have their character raised or play a new character. In my experience, it's about 50/50.

[Theodoric]

When they're dead, they're dead until revived, which is going to cost them (and if they're out of spell slots or diamonds, though luck). I find that capturing a PC is something a DM should decide when he knocks him/her down to 0 HP, not after they bled out.

Mind, dead doesn't come at all quickly in 5e. PCs are very survivable unless you really set out to kill them. I don't have random priests walking around bringing people from the dead in my setting, but then I haven't really felt the need to so far.

[Lance Tankmen]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

1) They die, If its 1-4 I say if your party takes out a loan in 10 days they can revive you. IF the party wants to, ooooooor new character half XP

2) if Capture makes sense, like drow or goblins/kobolds and they pass death saves.

3) NOPE unless they wrote some massive plot armor into their back stories, like deal with a devil or angel father etc. And again they'd have to of written a damn good backstory without knowledge of the reward of reviving.

[some guy]

Dead is dead. If the enemy defeats the party, they might stabilize the party or they might eat them.
In my newest campaign the group was first narrowly defeated by goblins. The goblins were interested in live sacrifices so stabilized the ones they could (one character failed their death saves, and died anyway). The party encountered a group of zombies in a later session and was defeated, one pc was able to flee (with 2 hp left), the rest of the party was left dying and were eaten by zombies.

When a pc dies, I try to get that player back in the game as fast as possible with no regards to logic or immersion. The new pc might be a shoddily bound captive of the next encounter, they might be found chilling in the next room or a door might just materialize from which the new pc emerges. They might take over a npc or hireling if they want to mull over character creation, else the party meets the new pc as fast as possible.

[Darkstar952]

How I handle PC death depends a lot on the situation, if it is due to a mistake I have made as DM I will be much more lenient probably making a revive fairly trivial. If on the other hand it is due to stupid actions from the player then dead is dead, Player will roll up a new character to be introduced, other PC's can choose to pursue a revive for the dead PC or not at their discretion.

[Unoriginal]

I'm also of the if they die, they die school.


Sometime enemies will want to capture them, and sometime there will be something that prevents their death in a coincidental manner (ex: when fighting a vampire and with a PC on their last death save, their Paladin NPC allies showing up as reinforcement as they agreed to beforehand).

But if the death saves are failed, the character is dead. Resurrection magic exist in the world, it depends of many factors if the PCs can get one for their buddy.

[MoiMagnus]

It depends.

1) Who's fault it is?
- The player itself => Prefer Death
- Another player => Prefer Life
- Randomness => It depends

2) Is the player "ready" to accept the death of his character?
- No, he will lose all motivation => Prefer Life
- Yes, he even have another char acter ready => Prefer Death
- Not sure => It depends

3) What kind of campaign are you playing?
- Realistic & Immersive => Prefer Death
- Heroic & Cinematographic => Prefer Life
- Technical & Munchkins => Death if it was an avoidable death, Life if it wasn't avoidable
- Note sure => It depends

Lastly, if you consider that the character "should die", but think that the player will not appreciate his character death, consider building with him a relative of the dead character, coming to avenge the death of his brother/son/husband/apprentice/... and continue its quest.

It allows to the player to play a character which:
+ Has approximately the same set of skills and statistics, in a way justified in the universe
+ Have part of the background in common, and is easy to add to the team
+ Has a common motivation with the player (avenge the death of the previous character)

[Glorthindel]

Always kill.

I absolutely despise contrived ways of keeping a character alive that should by all rights have died. In my opinion it cheapens the experience because the players come to learn that they don't have to try to succeed, because you wont make their faliures stick.

This means no divine intervention unless there is an absolutely solid reason why a diety should care about this one particular person amoungst their millions of more devote followers (note: there is no reason). It means no capture unless it is in the enemies interests to do so (if they are notably slavers, or if they intend to question the character, and even then, you only need one character to question, not the whole party); in particular if the party themselves are known for not taking captives, why would the people they were trying to murder spare them, when it is far safer to put them down and remove the threat.

[Laserlight]

I've had one DM tell us to roll death saves in secret, and if you don't feel it's a dramatically appropriate time to die, you can fudge your rolls accordingly.

I've had campaigns where the PCs were a random collection of strangers, and if one died, he died and you'd recruit someone else.

I've had (and prefer) campaigns where the PCs were built as a group with connections to each other; each character specifies whether he wants to be revived or not, and we've gone out of our way to make sure someone who could rez us would be willing to do so.

I've also had a campaign or two where the DM seemed to like having bodies be unrecoverable--fell into lava, eaten by ooze, that sort of thing. Back in AD&D days, that was par for the course. In 5e, I would consider that Bad DMing.

[Demonslayer666]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

The options available depend on the situation. Did other party members survive so can they get a rez, or did the whole party get wiped? If wiped out, would the monsters kill them or leave them to die? If they kill them, there's not much that can save the party (I don't like to use deus ex machina). But I get a read from the players to see what I should do to keep it fun.

The first thing I do is discuss with that player what they would like to see happen. If they are really attached to that character, they may want to continue playing that character. If they can simply afford a rez, bam, done. If they can't, I will make them quest for it.

They are free to make a new character, if that's what they want to do, I just work it into the story.

[jjordan]

It's situational and it's based on discussions with the player in the context of the story. The basic options, as I see them, are:

Deliberate Resurrection
Party/Friends facilitate a return.
Conventional resurrection
Complications may ensue:

Memory loss
Skill losses
Traumatic Stress (at night, during stressful situations, etc...)
Physical disability (stat reduction, lingering wound)

Unconventional resurrection
Character put into a new body/vessel

Non-Biological

Mechanical (I list this as an option, but I never use it)
Non-biological golem
Object (E.G. Bob the Skull?)
Biological

Existing humanoid body
This can be a fun one. Where did the body come from? Was some still using it? Are they sharing the body? Can the other intelligence assist the PC? Is the other intelligence fighting for control of the body? Trying to kick the PC out?
Non-humanoid body
Dog, Cat, etc…
Still in there with them? That’s kind of mean. But funny.
Constructed body

Biological Golem
Modified Living Creature
Did someone take an existing creature and modify it? Give it digits capable of manipulating objects? A mouth capable of speech?
Spontaneous Resurrection
Outside agency facilitates a return.


Conventional warlock with a patron
A bargain has been agreed to by both sides, patron saves the life of the character in return for service, character is now a warlock and can only take new levels as a warlock.

Possessed warlock 1
A being or beings has taken up residence in the body of the character and are co-existing with the character (who is now a warlock and may only take levels as a warlock).
May be trying to take over the body as per demonic possession in the DMG
May be working with or assisting the character

Possessed warlock 2
An entirely different intelligence as replaced the character and is now inhabiting the character's body.

Ghost

A fun option but you have to work out the parameters. I tend to go with a semi-sorcerous interpretation where the PC is incorporeal, invisible, and inaudible. They can use their hit points as spell points in order to interact with the world and the party.
Revenant
Create a new Character

[mephnick]

I'm very old school. If the random encounter goblins beat your Passive Perception and you get ambushed while camping and die before you can make a roll...that's what happens.

This is all well established to everyone before the game starts and I encourage people to leave if they don't like that playstyle. I tell them don't hang on and hope I'll change my mind when it happens because 20 years of experience has taught me I won't.

[Unoriginal]

I'm very old school. If the random encounter goblins beat your Passive Perception and you get ambushed while camping and die before you can make a roll...that's what happens.

This is all well established to everyone before the game starts and I encourage people to leave if they don't like that playstyle. I tell them don't hang on and hope I'll change my mind when it happens because 20 years of experience has taught me I won't.

Amen.

Honestly I don't see the point of playing in a D&D campaign where the DM won't let PCs die, or let them stay dead. I mean, sure, there are possibilities for people to come back, but possible doesn't mean guaranteed.

I hate plot armor as much as I hate railroading. It may suck that a beloved PC dies, but so what? The chance that it happens is what make surviving great.

[mephnick]

I hate plot armor as much as I hate railroading. It may suck that a beloved PC dies, but so what? The chance that it happens is what make surviving great.

Agreed. I also hate this weirdly pervasive, idea that the story gets ruined because a caharcter died. I've had soooo many campaigns actually flourish after a death. Either it drives the party towards a new goal or the new character becomes a favorite or the emotion shifts.

It's the same problem I have with fudging rolls. The DM has no idea what will be best for the campaign and cheating to guide it a certain way is pretty arrogant. IMO.

[Samayu]

Generally dead is dead. Particularly with veteran players. But...

Late last year, halfway through session 1 of a new campaign someone died. We let him change the name on the character sheet and his twin brother joined us at the next opportunity. Even though I think the guy made a mistake that led to his death, it's just so much work coming up with a new backstory sometimes, and when you don't even get a chance to play it... we'll give him a break.

This weekend I was on session 3 of a campaign with players who were new to the game. Five level 3 characters against seven orcs and an ogre. The paladin and druid dropped and the other three were dangerously low on HP. I was rolling hot, and the team was rolling a lot of misses. The party managed to wipe them out. The paladin was at 2/2 on death saves and made the last one. The druid was also at 2/2, but failed the last roll. After the combat was over I handwaved that failure to a success. It was mostly due to bad luck on their part, and they were all new to D&D. And I don't think I'll do that again for them, since they're gaining experience. Hopefully they'll be more survivable next time, and I heard them say "next time we'll bring backup characters." :-)

[Nhorianscum]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

My take...

Dead is dead. There is no excitement in combat or exploration without the present and relevant risk of death.

That said PC death should always be interactive and involved for the player up to the last death save or the instadeath threshold.

That said I may run deadly-4x deadly encounters all the time. PC death rarely comes up. Most enemies operate under a heuristic focused on their wants/needs/abilities/fears/personal survival rather than just "kill the party".

[sithlordnergal]

I take a more hands off approach to player death. If a player dies, they die, and can only come back if the other players bring the dead one back. This could mean casting Raise Dead themselves, paying someone else to do it, or going into someone's debt.

If the players choose to not do that, I let the player with the dead character build a new character that is about one or two levels behind the party. Nothing too harsh, and with a difference that can eventually be made up.

[KorvinStarmast]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC Yes
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Done that too

Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life? I have had any number of players brought back to life by a druid casting reincarnate on them (based on a favor that the party will do for the druid) so that they have to come back as something random/different. In one case, the reincarnate turned the player in to a small dragon (that was AD&D 1e, and it took us a while to figure out how to make that work ...).

Also watched the party very cleverly apply gentle repose and revivify so that I didn't have to do anything. :smallwink: But that takes two spell slots and the party cleric needs to be mentally ready for that.

[Unoriginal]

Monsters really shouldn't always be run like robots programmed to do nothing but kill PCs and to fight until killed.

Some will be like that, due to being constructs/controlled/berserk/fanatical/desperate to win at all cost/don't actually have a reason to fear dying (like summons), but most should retreat & regroup if given the chance when they see they're getting beaten.

I'm writing something on this subject, among others.

[Bjarkmundur]

Killing a loved PC is one of my biggest fears.

I should probably get over it, but it's hard.

[Yuroch Kern]

Dm’s. How do you honestly handle characters that die.
Do you let them die and they create new PC
Are they now captured so they aren’t “dead”
Does a mysterious person bring that one person to life?

Please tell. Perhaps you have used all of above or something else.

Tricky. I've used versions of all of that, but realistically, I try to think even farther ahead when I run. During character creation, I attempt to get a feel of what the player might be thinking of making before they settle on the primary concept. Then I try to always imagine what would happen if an encounter goes bad, how I would insert another character if there is no Raise available or they retire or are captured and truly unable to turn it around. Its treating your campaign like a chess game, admittedly, but it is the most dynamic way I've used those options presented.

[Brawnspear]

In most of my games, resurrection magic is rare. In my current world, I have established that there are things out there that are exceptionally dangerous and won't hesitate to kill the players. I have had 3 perma deaths so far in this campaign.

1. Low level monk scouting far away from the party comes triggers what was effectively a boss encounter after the requisite "Are you sure you want to do that". Monk is killed and eaten by a giant ravenous gnoll.

2. Group is ambushed by Hobgoblins that were known to have arcane scrying support in the Deadlands. I admittedly overtuned the encounter a bit and gave the option to capture instead of kill. One player opted for death because he felt his character would go down fighting. In this same encounter the hobgoblin captain threatened to execute a fallen party member if the remaining 2 upright wouldn't surrender. They refused and he carried out his threat (sorry Finn) More on that later.

3. Finn is newly reformed and aiding the party in a combat against a horrifying ooblex that consumed him and the party wizard. Finn falls unconscious and is slammed to death inside of the monstrous memory collector. Finn's death cleanses the dungeon and he turns into a giant lily-white tree with the story of all the ooblex's victims inscribed on his trunk.

Tree I hear you say? How is Finn back after being executed? Well there is one caveat to my horrible death clause. If you are a servant to a powerful unknowable being and are bearing something that is known to transfer their power you may get to come back!

Half of the party are acolyte's of an Archfey and are out actively doing her work. They have a neverending bag of seeds that they use to extend her influence by planting trees and the like. If they die while they have the seed pouches on them, the pouches empty and the character is changed into something closer akin to the Archfey's design and become half plant in other thematic and mechanical ways. We've had Finn change from a lore bard to glamour bard. Keth Changed from a fey pact warlock to a divine soul with druid spells and his orcish skin is greener than ever. And our Iron Chef totem barbarian became a barky goliath battlerager with a thorny hide to match.

This magic only works once however and after you've been returned once, the best she can do for you on the next death is to bring you back to the grove where you will serve as best you can.

So I suppose my system is "death is real, but....." in that there are ways around it, but they are far from costless and do not happen without reason.

[jjordan]

My take...

Dead is dead. There is no excitement in combat or exploration without the present and relevant risk of death.

That said PC death should always be interactive and involved for the player up to the last death save or the instadeath threshold.

That said I may run deadly-4x deadly encounters all the time. PC death rarely comes up. Most enemies operate under a heuristic focused on their wants/needs/abilities/fears/personal survival rather than just "kill the party".That sounds like you've got a process for determining/tracking morale/motivation.

[Tanarii]

They're dead. The local large town has a level 9 cleric willing to raise dead characters if the party can get the body back there in time. Also there are plenty of level 9 PC characters that can do it.

The biggest problem is getting a body back there in time. I've even had players organize PC & henchmen groups organized specifically to recover bodies in the event of a TPK. Most PCs have henchmen, and if adventuring nearby enough leave instructions on how long to wait for their return before recruiting a recovery party. Further away adventuring locations are considered more dangerous, for obvious reasons.

[Ronnocius]

Agreed. I also hate this weirdly pervasive, idea that the story gets ruined because a caharcter died. I've had soooo many campaigns actually flourish after a death. Either it drives the party towards a new goal or the new character becomes a favorite or the emotion shifts.

It's the same problem I have with fudging rolls. The DM has no idea what will be best for the campaign and cheating to guide it a certain way is pretty arrogant. IMO.

100% agree with this, especially regarding fudged rolls. If a DM is fudging rolls "to improve the story" he is really just using his power to do what he wants. I understand that sometimes something unfortunate happens but there are other ways to avoid that (retcon, have villain be resurrected if he was slain and there is a justifiable reason, have the player characters be captured, etc)

In regards to character death, I typically let the dice fall where they may. In a recent session a player should have died, but multiple players mistakenly thought that he was stabilized*. I didn't want to argue about it and it was obvious nobody wanted the character die so I had him fall unconscious with the caveat of being permanently disfigured.

An exception to this would be TPKs which I've found to be boring, unless it was extreme foolish recklessness.

*the case in question is that if an enemy attacks an unconscious character within 5 ft and hit, the hit is automatically a critical hit which inflicts two failed death saves. If I am in the wrong and this is not the case please let me know

[patchyman]

I was rolling hot, and the team was rolling a lot of misses. The party managed to wipe them out. The paladin was at 2/2 on death saves and made the last one. The druid was also at 2/2, but failed the last roll. After the combat was over I handwaved that failure to a success. It was mostly due to bad luck on their part, and they were all new to D&D. And I don't think I'll do that again for them, since they're gaining experience. Hopefully they'll be more survivable next time, and I heard them say "next time we'll bring backup characters." :-)

I generally abide by dead is dead, but I fudged once in a similar situation. Eight year old player, goes down to giant rats, rolls a critical failure on a death save after the combat is over and while the celestial warlock is on the way over to stabilize him. I let the criticsl failure count as a simple failure.