Conflicted feelings with one of the players dying

[Maxiboy]

Hey friends.

I've been DMing my first campaign for almost a couple of months now - my party of 5 just leveled up from 4 to 5 (milestones) the other night after fighting their first dragon... and we didn't have the best time.

Long story short, the party found out about the dragon from an advertisement of sorts, as if it was a tourist attraction. They took up the legend as a quest to go see if they could find anything or not, even after being told how stupid of an idea it was by guards and townspeople. After a long walk, journey into the same cave shown on the flyer, and venturing down into a deep labyrinth, they luckily didn't stumble upon the dragon, but actually one of it's young. It knew about the legend revolving around it's mother and luckily let the adventurers go with a warning. Though, one of the players just had to push their luck and try to befriend the dragon, going so far as to use magic which made it frustrated, resulting in it chasing the party back to town and wrecking havoc as the party hid away in fear.

2 of them, paladin and warlock, eventually got out from hiding to help their good friend (wizard NPC) defend his home from the dragon, and they actually held up very well. Unfortunately, the rest of the party stayed away on the other side of town, trying to think of a plan instead of helping their friends, even with me hinting at them that the town they've been helping the past few weeks is being destroyed. After an hour of battle, the wizard and warlock were unconscious as the paladin fended off and eventually defeated the dragon by himself, with the townspeople and guards finally rushing over to celebrate and help the fallen. The warlock actually ended up dying (the paladin had no more hit points to distribute), all while the rest of the party ended up choosing to run away. The fight actually went on longer than intended because of this, so right as it ended, everyone was quick to get ready to leave and we didn't have time that session to expand on what just happened; it kinda left on a sort of cliffhanger.

The dragon was a Red Dragon Wyrmling (CR 4) and I tried my best to keep it realistic while also giving every chance I could to every member to help in any way they could. The warlock player was pretty upset, and while they're not exactly mad at anyone in particular, he doesn't know if he's interested in playing anymore, even though in my campaign I make it clear that everyones' character eventually gets a second chance if they somehow do pass.

I don't know how to feel about it, is it my fault that I didn't make it easy enough or let them go through with it, or was it the rest of the party who chickened out? Maybe it's no ones fault and this is just how things are, and I'm worrying too much about it?
I was curious about how other DMs or even players have felt about this from past games. :smallsmile:

[Cyberpunk Eevee]

Characters die. If the player is newer to the game, it hurts more, but they may very well come back amped up and excited about a new character concept.

Give them a chance to digest, then talk with the player privately/directly and ask them how they want to move forward. If you're the kind to give characters a second chance(story fitting: the party has helped the village many times, and the village has a single scroll of true res meant to revive a deceased hero. Since the warlock died fighting to save the town, the village feels beholden to res them).

If you aren't (dead is dead), then ask the player what they would like to do moving forward.

[OldTrees1]

As a DM I too feel the victories and the defeats of the party. It is rare for a PC to die at my table but when it happens I feel conflicted about it for awhile.

Channel those negative emotions of regret into constructive outlets. How can you improve the game further?
While at the same time recognizing the regret is mostly irrational and the guilty feeling is mostly undeserved.

[Galithar]

If it was my character that died I would have been upset that the rest of the party held back. The full party with an addition of an NPC wizard (even if it was an extremely weak one) should have had little to no issue with a CR 4 creature if everyone participated in the combat.

I honestly would retcon the Warlock as having stabilized at 0 HP instead of failing his last death save and dying. My reason for the retcon is that I let a character death stand if it was caused by THAT players action. This one was half his action (standing against the Dragon) but that was what out him in the situation, not what killed him. The other half was that only one other party member assisted. The other party members are the true root of his death. 5 level 4's and an NPC should have stomped a CR 4 Dragon. The actual force that confronted him was only 2 of the 5. But the hesitation of the party put him in what very easily could have ended with both him and the Paladin (and NPC) all dead. The Paladin managed to pull a win out despite being outmatched.

Now lots of people will disagree with retconning a death, but my important distinction is that it was the inaction of the party that got him killed. If you don't like giving him an instant retcon, allow the paladin to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check to stabilize him. It sounds like the Paladin had a turn while he was still alive anyways and could have saved him if he had any points of Lay on Hands left. He could have attempted this stabilization in that turn, and it sounds like he didn't make that roll. If he has a Healer's Kit he can expend a use to do it without the check.

[Chronic]

I completely disagree with you, the rest of the party cannot be held responsible for his death. At the end of the day everyone make their own decision, and the warlock choose to stay and fight. It's not nice from the other players sure, but hey it's their skin after all, if they don't want to risk it, they have a right not to. About letting him live, retconing is not a good idée, because it sucks in term of storytelling. Good thing you don't have to do it, you left on a cliffhanger and you never know who has a scroll of rez, or where a high level priest might be wandering. I mean technically a simple revivify should do the trick.
Now SHOULD you allow the warlock to live is another matter entirely. I cannot give you a definitive answer, but I would say that if after taking sometime to think the player want to live, rez him, if he's a cool person it's not worth losing a player over such matter.
Oh and by the way I hope the one who caused the ire of the dragon actually fought it after, otherwise he's a massive douche.

[Maxiboy]

Characters die. If the player is newer to the game, it hurts more, but they may very well come back amped up and excited about a new character concept.

Give them a chance to digest, then talk with the player privately/directly and ask them how they want to move forward. If you're the kind to give characters a second chance(story fitting: the party has helped the village many times, and the village has a single scroll of true res meant to revive a deceased hero. Since the warlock died fighting to save the town, the village feels beholden to res them).

If you aren't (dead is dead), then ask the player what they would like to do moving forward.

I agree, which is why I tried my best to keep the fight/situation realistic. I'm honestly a little glad that the player is upset, because it means they're emotionally attached to the character and game at this point, while now knowing that there's a possibility for death as well. We talked in private for awhile after the session due to it being left on a cliffhanger like I mentioned, and we are definitely going to go more into detail on the events that happen afterwards (like the town recovering from the damage and showing remorse while putting him to rest.) Promised I wouldn't make it something we would just shrug off. :smallsmile:


As a DM I too feel the victories and the defeats of the party. It is rare for a PC to die at my table but when it happens I feel conflicted about it for awhile.

Channel those negative emotions of regret into constructive outlets. How can you improve the game further?
While at the same time recognizing the regret is mostly irrational and the guilty feeling is mostly undeserved.

I'd like to think that I'm nearly on the same level as sorrow as the player. Their character was one of my favorites but this session was kinda a lesson of showing everyone how truly difficult encounters can be, and while I didn't expect them all to take it like this, I hope the other players will reflect on this in the future. Like I said, the player knows they will have some sort of chance in the future to come back as their character, one way or another.
Actually... they had just made friends with a depressed detective a couple of sessions before, and encouraged him to seek religion, before he suddenly disappeared from town the next day. Perhaps in the future he could return, but as a changed cleric, and return the favor. :smallwink:



If it was my character that died I would have been upset that the rest of the party held back. The full party with an addition of an NPC wizard (even if it was an extremely weak one) should have had little to no issue with a CR 4 creature if everyone participated in the combat.

I honestly would retcon the Warlock as having stabilized at 0 HP instead of failing his last death save and dying. My reason for the retcon is that I let a character death stand if it was caused by THAT players action. This one was half his action (standing against the Dragon) but that was what out him in the situation, not what killed him. The other half was that only one other party member assisted. The other party members are the true root of his death. 5 level 4's and an NPC should have stomped a CR 4 Dragon. The actual force that confronted him was only 2 of the 5. But the hesitation of the party put him in what very easily could have ended with both him and the Paladin (and NPC) all dead. The Paladin managed to pull a win out despite being outmatched.

Now lots of people will disagree with retconning a death, but my important distinction is that it was the inaction of the party that got him killed. If you don't like giving him an instant retcon, allow the paladin to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check to stabilize him. It sounds like the Paladin had a turn while he was still alive anyways and could have saved him if he had any points of Lay on Hands left. He could have attempted this stabilization in that turn, and it sounds like he didn't make that roll. If he has a Healer's Kit he can expend a use to do it without the check.

I was tempted to let him fudge his rolls while unconscious, but like I said I think it would serve as a good lesson for everyone since I wasn't exactly doing anything to influence it myself, in fact the dragon didn't touch him at all while he was rolling to see if he was going to die or not. I do agree that it was majorly the rest of the party's fault for not sticking around, but at same time, I suppose you could say they were just doing what they thought was the best, even if it was kinda selfish. I would be upset if it was my character too, though.
Also, I may have not worded it very clearly but the cleric did want to help but sadly no longer had any points with his Lay on Hands due to an encounter from earlier that day, not to mention he used all his spell slots on the dragon since he was mostly fighting it by himself. :smallfrown:



I completely disagree with you, the rest of the party cannot be held responsible for his death. At the end of the day everyone make their own decision, and the warlock choose to stay and fight. It's not nice from the other players sure, but hey it's their skin after all, if they don't want to risk it, they have a right not to. About letting him live, retconing is not a good idée, because it sucks in term of storytelling. Good thing you don't have to do it, you left on a cliffhanger and you never know who has a scroll of rez, or where a high level priest might be wandering. I mean technically a simple revivify should do the trick.
Now SHOULD you allow the warlock to live is another matter entirely. I cannot give you a definitive answer, but I would say that if after taking sometime to think the player want to live, rez him, if he's a cool person it's not worth losing a player over such matter.
Oh and by the way I hope the one who caused the ire of the dragon actually fought it after, otherwise he's a massive douche.

Good point. I wouldn't say that the party exactly did anything evil or something made them "lose" the encounter/game, but I can totally understand why the warlock is upset and I do sympathize with them. While the cliffhanger wasn't exactly intentional, maybe it'll give the players time to think about what happened and how they can do better to stick together in the future so they don't lose another friend like that (or, if anything, it'll show the warlock to not put so much trust into them.) Like I mentioned above, we are going in depth story-wise next session with the events that follow. I think the detective-now-cleric character would be a neat character that could help, maybe reviving the character as a reward for helping him in the past... or maybe with a new quest. :smallsmile:

(One of the only reasons why I'm concerned about the other plays is because yes, one of them who didn't fight was the one who led the dragon to the town hahah)

[swamp_slug]

It sounds like you played fairly, gave the players warnings and despite all that the players chose to continue so I think the death is fair and wouldn't retcon it away. Instead I would play into it. You finished on a cliff-hanger and as others have said the town may have a cleric who knows Raise Dead, or a scroll of it to give as a reward. Alternatively, as it was the Warlock who died you could have their patron revive them.

What I would do in such a situation would be to have the dead character's player sit the next session out so the rest of the party feel their absence. I would then either run a short one-on-one session with dead character's player or have a long conversation with them discussing what happens. The basic idea would be that their patron is not done with them yet and resurrects them to complete a specific objective. Depending on the patron this may come with a cost, which could just be a story hook, or could physically alter the character somehow such as taking on qualities associated with their patron (cosmetic) or actually changing race to align with their patron (Fiend=Tiefling, Fey=Eladrin etc.). In the all cases (especially the latter) make sure the player is happy for this to happen.
The session afterwards, the player returns, as does his character although at least a day, maybe a week of in game time should have passed.

Regardless of how you decide to handle the PC's death there are likely to be hard feelings at the table; let the players play these out in character at the table but make sure that they stay at the table. You may want to schedule some extra time after the game (maybe finish early) to clear the air and make sure that in character grievences don't spill out into the real world.

I think the final point to add is that through the actions of the players you now have an interesting dynamic to a potential antagonist. You may have already planned on having the mother dragon attack the town at some point and now she has a real reason to do so, and possibly earlier than originally planned. Furthermore, any attack on the town by the dragon is likely to be seen as it getting revenge, and may blow back onto the party as the townspeople accuse them of antagonising and killing the wyrmling.

[Yakk]

Long story short, the party found out about the dragon from an advertisement of sorts, as if it was a tourist attraction. They took up the legend as a quest to go see if they could find anything or not, even after being told how stupid of an idea it was by guards and townspeople. After a long walk, journey into the same cave shown on the flyer, and venturing down into a deep labyrinth, they luckily didn't stumble upon the dragon, but actually one of it's young. It knew about the legend revolving around it's mother and luckily let the adventurers go with a warning. Though, one of the players just had to push their luck and try to befriend the dragon, going so far as to use magic which made it frustrated, resulting in it chasing the party back to town and wrecking havoc as the party hid away in fear.
So, they ran into the Dragon's **kid**, and it treated them like annoying brats, shrugging off everything they could do to it.

They have been informed, in a completely clear way, that the Dragon Mom is WAY OUT OF THEIR LEAGUE.

2 of them, paladin and warlock, eventually got out from hiding to help their good friend (wizard NPC) defend his home from the dragon, and they actually held up very well. Unfortunately, the rest of the party stayed away on the other side of town, trying to think of a plan instead of helping their friends, even with me hinting at them that the town they've been helping the past few weeks is being destroyed. After an hour of battle, the wizard and warlock were unconscious as the paladin fended off and eventually defeated the dragon by himself, with the townspeople and guards finally rushing over to celebrate and help the fallen. The warlock actually ended up dying (the paladin had no more hit points to distribute), all while the rest of the party ended up choosing to run away. The fight actually went on longer than intended because of this, so right as it ended, everyone was quick to get ready to leave and we didn't have time that session to expand on what just happened; it kinda left on a sort of cliffhanger.
This makes no sense. After how you described how powerful the Dragon's kid was, they should have been nearly zero help against the Mother. Engaging in direct combat should have been suicide, and stupid suicide at at that.

The dragon was a Red Dragon Wyrmling (CR 4)
What the hell? You just described the kid brushing off the PCs and how it was way out of their league and it was a legend. And you mechanically use a freshly hatched dragon in combat?!

I don't know if it is how you are communicating it to us, but how you are describing communicating it to the players is incoherent and confusing.

and I tried my best to keep it realistic while also giving every chance I could to every member to help in any way they could. The warlock player was pretty upset, and while they're not exactly mad at anyone in particular, he doesn't know if he's interested in playing anymore, even though in my campaign I make it clear that everyones' character eventually gets a second chance if they somehow do pass.

I don't know how to feel about it, is it my fault that I didn't make it easy enough or let them go through with it, or was it the rest of the party who chickened out? Maybe it's no ones fault and this is just how things are, and I'm worrying too much about it?
Look, if you are going to frame something as utterly impossible and out of the player's league, you should follow through. What you did made no in-world sense that I can see, and the players who chickened out where doing the right thing, given what you communicated earlier.

The PCs should have tried to evacuate the town, not actually tried to fight the dragon. At best, they could try to delay the dragon for 6 seconds apiece or otherwise distract it as the rest of the town fled, and that would be a suicide mission.

As a DM, your job is to project a coherent narrative. What you seem to have done is decided (a) the players aren't going to beat the dragon's kid, and (b) the players are supposed to defeat the kid's parent, for reasons beyond my understanding. And when they went against (a), you admonished them, and when they went against (b), you blamed the ones who followed your hints and felt sorry for the one who didn't and whose character died.

[ProsecutorGodot]

This is giving me HotDQ vibes. A reasonably intelligent party knows that the dragon is out of their league and makes efforts to avoid it when confronted with this knowledge. The party that has it in their head that they're "plot relevant" and won't be killed will be lucky to survive. The ones who fled are "cowards" but they're alive and if your PC had such trouble with the dragons that means all the guards and townsfolk were as well.

Do not retcon player deaths, and while I'm at it, don't allow them a freebie just because there room is open on a cliffhanger. As far as I'm concerned saying "it's not a retcon, you didn't officially reveal his death, boom cleric is here to save him" is even worse.

Character death is one of the best learning tools in DND, as painful as it is. It's still a problem at my own table that our DM is still averse to killing us. In our avernus campaign our paladin died 3 times before it finally stuck. The player has learned since then, this lesson has even carried into other campaigns.

I'm not trying to be cynical here but feeling bad about it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

Edit: as an aside, your town wasn't acting very realistic here imo. Your guards, unless I'm mistaken, sat and watched the party and wizard defend the town and only intervened after it was dead. Those guards should be relieved of duty, they should have been doing their job.

[Maxiboy]

It sounds like you played fairly, gave the players warnings and despite all that the players chose to continue so I think the death is fair and wouldn't retcon it away. Instead I would play into it. You finished on a cliff-hanger and as others have said the town may have a cleric who knows Raise Dead, or a scroll of it to give as a reward. Alternatively, as it was the Warlock who died you could have their patron revive them.

What I would do in such a situation would be to have the dead character's player sit the next session out so the rest of the party feel their absence. I would then either run a short one-on-one session with dead character's player or have a long conversation with them discussing what happens. The basic idea would be that their patron is not done with them yet and resurrects them to complete a specific objective. Depending on the patron this may come with a cost, which could just be a story hook, or could physically alter the character somehow such as taking on qualities associated with their patron (cosmetic) or actually changing race to align with their patron (Fiend=Tiefling, Fey=Eladrin etc.). In the all cases (especially the latter) make sure the player is happy for this to happen.
The session afterwards, the player returns, as does his character although at least a day, maybe a week of in game time should have passed.

Regardless of how you decide to handle the PC's death there are likely to be hard feelings at the table; let the players play these out in character at the table but make sure that they stay at the table. You may want to schedule some extra time after the game (maybe finish early) to clear the air and make sure that in character grievences don't spill out into the real world.

I think the final point to add is that through the actions of the players you now have an interesting dynamic to a potential antagonist. You may have already planned on having the mother dragon attack the town at some point and now she has a real reason to do so, and possibly earlier than originally planned. Furthermore, any attack on the town by the dragon is likely to be seen as it getting revenge, and may blow back onto the party as the townspeople accuse them of antagonising and killing the wyrmling.

Very cool ideas! I'm going to make sure its quite a bit before he gets another chance, if any (unless the players' get creative or learn more about certain spells) just so everyone has time to let it sink in and have it be meaningful. I definitely plan for it to leave a bigger impact than left before the cliffhanger, and I'm excited to see how everyone reacts and tries to avenge or maybe even revive their friend (or maybe not, who knows) in the upcoming sessions, some of the players were regretful afterwards so we will have to see. I think having a private session would be a nice idea for sure. :smallsmile:



So, they ran into the Dragon's **kid**, and it treated them like annoying brats, shrugging off everything they could do to it.

They have been informed, in a completely clear way, that the Dragon Mom is WAY OUT OF THEIR LEAGUE.

This makes no sense. After how you described how powerful the Dragon's kid was, they should have been nearly zero help against the Mother. Engaging in direct combat should have been suicide, and stupid suicide at at that.

What the hell? You just described the kid brushing off the PCs and how it was way out of their league and it was a legend. And you mechanically use a freshly hatched dragon in combat?!

I don't know if it is how you are communicating it to us, but how you are describing communicating it to the players is incoherent and confusing.

Look, if you are going to frame something as utterly impossible and out of the player's league, you should follow through. What you did made no in-world sense that I can see, and the players who chickened out where doing the right thing, given what you communicated earlier.

The PCs should have tried to evacuate the town, not actually tried to fight the dragon. At best, they could try to delay the dragon for 6 seconds apiece or otherwise distract it as the rest of the town fled, and that would be a suicide mission.

As a DM, your job is to project a coherent narrative. What you seem to have done is decided (a) the players aren't going to beat the dragon's kid, and (b) the players are supposed to defeat the kid's parent, for reasons beyond my understanding. And when they went against (a), you admonished them, and when they went against (b), you blamed the ones who followed your hints and felt sorry for the one who didn't and whose character died.

Sorry for the confusion, the young dragon isn't exactly freshly hatched or anything but I used the red dragon wyrmling statblock (CR 4) to make it easier - the players clearly knew it was really cocky but inexperienced, and a lot smaller than your usual dragon. The dragon mom was not seen or encountered anywhere in this session, only it's said young was there and was the one who followed them back to town.

Like I said in my last post, I don't exactly think the party did anything wrong when it comes to their own safety, in fact it was hinted at many times that going to the dragon in the first place, even though with appropriate CR, was not a smart idea - not to mention pushing their luck to get him to talk with them more. My campaign is flexible when it comes to player choice, I think it could still be neat if they all ran away, and I still have respect for those who choose to and is why I let them. I hinted more that their all their friends were in trouble and less of that the town was, and only am trying to know if I should learn from this or not when it comes player death in the future and if it's justified for the other player for being upset. Thank you for the criticism. :smallsmile:



This is giving me HotDQ vibes. A reasonably intelligent party knows that the dragon is out of their league and makes efforts to avoid it when confronted with this knowledge. The party that has it in their head that they're "plot relevant" and won't be killed will be lucky to survive. The ones who fled are "cowards" but they're alive and if your PC had such trouble with the dragons that means all the guards and townsfolk were as well.

Do not retcon player deaths, and while I'm at it, don't allow them a freebie just because there room is open on a cliffhanger. As far as I'm concerned saying "it's not a retcon, you didn't officially reveal his death, boom cleric is here to save him" is even worse.

Character death is one of the best learning tools in DND, as painful as it is. It's still a problem at my own table that our DM is still averse to killing us. In our avernus campaign our paladin died 3 times before it finally stuck. The player has learned since then, this lesson has even carried into other campaigns.

I'm not trying to be cynical here but feeling bad about it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

Edit: as an aside, your town wasn't acting very realistic here imo. Your guards, unless I'm mistaken, sat and watched the party and wizard defend the town and only intervened after it was dead. Those guards should be relieved of duty, they should have been doing their job.

The cleric idea was just one I threw in, either way the NPCs that have worked with the party so far, like the wizard, have kinda leveled up with the party just to balance things out. If the party somehow did get on his really good side, it'd be a bit until he got a revival spell or the general knowledge on how to help.
Some of the players at my table are new, so before the campaign started I let everyone know that if they don't intentionally die or suicide, that there will a second chance in the future, it's just up to the party to find it if they come across it. The player had the choice to run away but maybe the other party could take a lesson from this and maybe have it as another goal, like I mentioned in my reply to swamp_slug. I want death in the game to mean something and even affect the players and story as it progresses, so if something does happen, it'll be awhile until something has the chance to pop up, or at least come with a cost. :smallwink:

(also I agree, I didn't do the best job with the guards - to give more context, the party's main focus is finding why a rival town is causing chaos, and when the detective mysteriously went missing, so did the majority of the town's guards. During the battle, the remaining guards protected the townspeople and moreso defended the rest of the town, knowing how much the party helped in the past... but I assumed the battle was going to go a lot quicker before they could truly help. Thank you for the feedback, I'll keep this mind in future session.) :smallsmile:

[Veldrenor]

EDIT: ninja'd.


Death sucks. There's no getting around that. On the one hand, D&D is a game. Games need win conditions and lose conditions, otherwise they're no longer games. And character death is the lose condition. Retconning the death would cheapen the experience, and it also sets a precedent. You retconned to save the character this time, will you do it with the next character who dies? What about the one after that? Eventually the players will take dumber and dumber risks because, hey, you'd never let them die. D&D needs character death, or at least the threat of character death.

On the other hand, people get attached to their characters and to the characters of their fellows. It doesn't matter that the character's not real, people have still formed an attachment to it like it's a real person. And when that character dies, it hurts, we mourn. On top of that, since D&D is a game the point is to have fun and it's no fun when the character you're attached to dies.

So, what to do. As some have suggested, you can have some in-game intervention. The cleric that the party encouraged comes back and reses the warlock (a reward to the party for their previous good deed). Maybe the town has a res scroll or the like, bringing back the warlock as a reward for their bravery in defending the town. Maybe the warlock's patron brings them back, but there's a cost or a quest associated with it. Or maybe there's no immediate solution but a solution nonetheless: someone in town tells the party some legend about a magic spring/cave/being/etc that could bring back the warlock, setting the party on a quest to revive their fallen comrade.

Or, sometimes dead is dead. The warlock died and there's no bringing them back. But character death can be a major teaching moment for the party, depending on how you spin it. Play up how alone the warlock and the paladin were against overwhelming odds, and how heroic and brave they were to risk their lives for the town. The town tells stories about the paladin and the warlock, builds a memorial for the warlock, rewards the paladin. Maybe the town names a new holiday in honor of the warlock's sacrifice. Maybe townsfolk start wondering why their home was targeted by the wyrmling's wrath, and worry that such a thing could happen again.

The rest of the party wasn't wrong to hide, they shouldn't be punished for it (unless the town finds out that they're responsible for bringing the wyrmling down upon it). Staying safe and alive are perfectly fine things to do. But people cheer and remember and reward heroes, not the people who kept their heads down when trouble came a-calling.

[ad_hoc]

It sounds like you need to have a session 0 talk and discuss what you're all expecting out of the game.

When I play D&D I expect the characters to form a party who are all helping each other out.

If someone has a different idea of how things are going to be then we need to discuss it.

It also doesn't make for a fun game to have half the group not contributing to the main action.

[denthor]

Dragons understand a lost battle it could have run.

But not your fault someone died.

[Addaran]

Not your fault. You gave plenty of warning and the group split in the end.


It sounds like you need to have a session 0 talk and discuss what you're all expecting out of the game.

When I play D&D I expect the characters to form a party who are all helping each other out.

If someone has a different idea of how things are going to be then we need to discuss it.

It also doesn't make for a fun game to have half the group not contributing to the main action.

To be fair, 3 out of the 5 decided it was not worth it and ran away. As a group, the majority decided to not fight. Else you have one dumb player who decide to start fights and the 4 others are "obligated" to join in.

[ad_hoc]

Not your fault. You gave plenty of warning and the group split in the end.



To be fair, 3 out of the 5 decided it was not worth it and ran away. As a group, the majority decided to not fight. Else you have one dumb player who decide to start fights and the 4 others are "obligated" to join in.

Oh I read that differently in the OP.

There is a lot of text there, hard for me to understand what was actually happening I guess.

[Kalashak]

I can’t really blame the warlock for feeling like this. I’m not a new player, but if someone in my party caused a bad situation by being dumb, refused to help because they were “coming up with a plan”, then ran away I would probably be reconsidering playing with that group.

[Tawmis]

I don't know how to feel about it, is it my fault that I didn't make it easy enough or let them go through with it, or was it the rest of the party who chickened out? Maybe it's no ones fault and this is just how things are, and I'm worrying too much about it? I was curious about how other DMs or even players have felt about this from past games. :smallsmile:

The downside is the rest of the party didn't help (unless it's a character flaw that they're cowards of some kind), that goes against being heroes.
I would - for sure - make it so word gets around how these "would be heroes" ran and hid (make their reputation get tarnished; get paid less for jobs; people charge them more for abandoning the town for merchandise, etc), until they fix their reputation by doing heroic things. You can even make it so a bard in the town witnessed it all; and is now singing songs and telling tales of their cowardice (except for the Paladin and Warlock) - this creates a situation of how to deal with the bard (and the bard keeps popping up where they do; intentionally following them because he's making money, hand over fist, with their stories)

That said - I try to DM a game, that feels like a story. So, I do try to avoid character deaths (unless they do something foolish).
There are fights that will be difficult, even as a story telling perspective, such as fighting (any form of) dragon, that to maintain the creature's reputation, death may come for them.

That said, there may be an easy fix here.

The character who perished is a Warlock; which means (not sure if they have a backstory all crafted up) that they may have ties to some form of demon.
Give the player the option that his soul went to Hell, where his demonic pact demon captured his soul; informed him, he has an important mission for him - and that he's sending his soul back to his body - this time - but fail him again, and his soul will be shredded to pieces (preventing any form of reincarnation if he perishes again, unless he proves himself to his demonic bond).

Not sure how RP heavy the party is; but imagine the Paladin learning, "Wait... a demon sent your soul back to your body? We may need to have a talk..."

EDIT: I see someone suggested the same above for the demonic patron bit!

[ProsecutorGodot]

The downside is the rest of the party didn't help (unless it's a character flaw that they're cowards of some kind), that goes against being heroes.
I would - for sure - make it so word gets around how these "would be heroes" ran and hid...

The would be heroes were advised by the town that they led this dragon to that going into the cave would be a huge mistake. They went anyway and ended up luring a dangerous creature that they were told not to mess with in the first place into town.

None of them are heroes, you don't get a medal for fighting a fire you started. These are adventurers, a nuisance to modern society.

[Chronic]

This is giving me HotDQ vibes. A reasonably intelligent party knows that the dragon is out of their league and makes efforts to avoid it when confronted with this knowledge. The party that has it in their head that they're "plot relevant" and won't be killed will be lucky to survive. The ones who fled are "cowards" but they're alive and if your PC had such trouble with the dragons that means all the guards and townsfolk were as well.

Do not retcon player deaths, and while I'm at it, don't allow them a freebie just because there room is open on a cliffhanger. As far as I'm concerned saying "it's not a retcon, you didn't officially reveal his death, boom cleric is here to save him" is even worse.

Character death is one of the best learning tools in DND, as painful as it is. It's still a problem at my own table that our DM is still averse to killing us. In our avernus campaign our paladin died 3 times before it finally stuck. The player has learned since then, this lesson has even carried into other campaigns.

I'm not trying to be cynical here but feeling bad about it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

Edit: as an aside, your town wasn't acting very realistic here imo. Your guards, unless I'm mistaken, sat and watched the party and wizard defend the town and only intervened after it was dead. Those guards should be relieved of duty, they should have been doing their job.

While i think what you are saying is valid, this is also a styke of play and might not be for every group out there. Apparently the one who died is a "new" player and died doing the good thing while the other pc who caused the situation in the first place refused to help. I could understand if he choose not to continue to play with this group(especially if they aren't friends irl). Being abandoned by half your group isn't exactly a fun experience.

[ProsecutorGodot]

While i think what you are saying is valid, this is also a styke of play and might not be for every group out there. Apparently the one who died is a "new" player and died doing the good thing while the other pc who caused the situation in the first place refused to help. I could understand if he choose not to continue to play with this group(especially if they aren't friends irl). Being abandoned by half your group isn't exactly a fun experience.

I'm speaking from experience here, my first experience with DND 5e was Hoard of the Dragon Queen run by a DM with only slightly more experience than me. We ran into Greenest thinking we were relevant people, heroic backstory in hand.

We made it 4 hours into the night before dying at the church... except for one player who fled, the more experienced player in the group. The rest of us stood our ground over the dying fighter in a futile effort to survive. Were we upset? Yes. Did it put a strain on the table? A bit, but we were adults and when we got over it we all came out with lessons learned. That character who survived is out in the world somewhere and I was able to bring my dead character back for his true run at being the hero years later for a different campaign. Nobody that was in that group has made the mistake of running head first into danger believing that they're guaranteed success and glory since.

That said, this situation is a bit different. We ran into Greenest trying to save it from a danger that was already present. This party brought the danger directly to the town (I'm personally wondering who attempted magic against the Wyrmling, they would bare the brunt of the blame) and is somehow receiving praise for saving the town... from their own mess.

If I were running this (don't take this as me telling anyone what they should do) this party would be more or less vilified in this town, lucky that the only apparent casualty (at least that we can confirm through OP's telling) is one of their own. Take that lesson of making such a blunder to do better, perhaps come back later in the future when you've wisened up and actually fix what you've done, because you've got to realize that this will only be worse for the town now that the dragon's child is dead... The full grown dragon is going to wreak havoc on that town, and the party is to blame.

[Trask]

Sounds like a suitably heroic end, I wouldn't be mad about it.

If this Warlock player is upset, its understandable since hes new but he needs to learn that D&D characters are not immortal or invulnerable. Death exists in this game. There are plenty of ways to cheat it, of course. For example a poster above suggesting that the town church have a single scroll of Raise Dead, and decide to use it on the warlock to honor him.

But the problem goes farther than just that if hes actually upset, because he could easily just die later on without a way to bring him back. Characters die in D&D, thats how it is. I think if he has a chance to really stew that over he'll be reasonable about it, its just a game after all and this is a part of that game.

By the way, I must say that I think from what you described, you played the scenario admirably and stuck to realistic consequences, which is good. You didnt try to force the other characters to act heroic or berate them for running and hiding, you just let react to the scenario in the way that they wanted. Thats at the heart of good D&D imo. And thats also why I heavily disagree with everyone above who insinuates that the other players are in any way at fault here. They are playing the game just the same as the warlock is, they just chose not to be selfless (or perhaps foolish) in this instance.

[SirGraystone]

Have the town craft a statue of the brave hero who gave his life to save the town.

[da newt]

To me it sounds like you DM-ed very fairly.

The party heard about a legendary dragon that was way out of their league and they went looking for it, one of the PCs picked a fight with it's child, the party ran back to town with the little dragon chasing them, 3 of them hid while 2 fought the little dragon resulting in damage to the town, 1 PC and the little dragon being killed, right?

Realistically, how do you suppose Big Bad Mamma Dragon is going to respond to the murder of her child? If the party is very lucky they may survive by fleeing while the town is wiped off the map ...

If you do decide to give the dead PC a second chance maybe Reincarnation is more fitting - the new race will be a
lasting reminder to all that there are consequences (along with the material cost).

Maybe a lead post analysis will be beneficial for the party - "So lets rehash that last encounter to see what we can learn from it ..."

[ProsecutorGodot]

Have the town craft a statue of the brave hero who gave his life to save the town.

With a placard underneath that reminds everyone that he was also one of the people who brought the disaster in the first place, are we meant to gloss over this? It's kind of a big deal if we're expecting a realistic gameworld here.

[Yakk]

With a placard underneath that reminds everyone that he was also one of the people who brought the disaster in the first place, are we meant to gloss over this? It's kind of a big deal if we're expecting a realistic gameworld here.
No, next to nobody mentions that on statues in the real world.

[ProsecutorGodot]

No, next to nobody mentions that on statues in the real world.

They also don't make statues for people who bring deadly creatures into the town and die fixing the issue they made. You've got a town full of loonies if they're going to ignore that this warlock died fixing a problem he brought into town, against their advice.

[Tawmis]

The would be heroes were advised by the town that they led this dragon to that going into the cave would be a huge mistake. They went anyway and ended up luring a dangerous creature that they were told not to mess with in the first place into town.

None of them are heroes, you don't get a medal for fighting a fire you started. These are adventurers, a nuisance to modern society.

They're also young adventurers; bound to mistakes, especially early in their career.

[Yakk]

They also don't make statues for people who bring deadly creatures into the town and die fixing the issue they made. You've got a town full of loonies if they're going to ignore that this warlock died fixing a problem he brought into town, against their advice.
No, people feel good about people who solve problems, and don't give a **** who caused them or didn't prevent them.

(This is the classic political calculus; spending 1$ to prevent 10$ in damage hurts your chances, while spending 30$ to fix that 10$ in damage makes you a hero.)

[CapnWildefyr]

Hmmm, well I guess I am wondering: How important is that town to the campaign? One more lesson about consequences for the players would be when mommy dragon comes back like Smaug and crisps the place and everyone in it. But if you need the town, then here's another question: What, exactly, was the last game action? Was it the player failing the last death save? If technically you never finished roleplaying, you could possibly rule that "I forgot something - your paladin should make an int check. If he makes it, even though you as a player missed it, he would have been smart enough to just stop the warlock's bleeding." Lesson learned. The flip side of that -- if for example the paladin didn't hack the dragon corpse to bits for trophies -- is that your dragon maybe gets up and flies off. Maybe he made his death save too. You already nerfed him, stats-wise, so maybe he had 1 hp left or maybe he borrowed a ring of regeneration from Mom. And why contort things like this? If you need the town to be there, and the baby dragon gets away, then instead of mommy deep-frying the town and eating everyone with a barrel of chianti and some fried onions, she might blame the baby and kick him out of the lair as an incompetent jerk (especially if she thinks he let someone steal something like that ring he borrowed or whatever). He can't return until he brings whatever it was back. Then you keep the town as your base, and the players get an ongoing nemesis.

Having said all of that: I like my characters, or else I wouldn't play them. But at some point you realize that the character is just something that lets you play the game, and it's the game that's fun. Getting killed by a dragon while saving a town ain't a bad way to go out.

[saucerhead]

...the dragon's child is dead... The full grown dragon is going to wreak havoc on that town, and the party is to blame.

Bingo. The Dragon won't just shrug off the loss of a child.

[ProsecutorGodot]

No, people feel good about people who solve problems, and don't give a **** who caused them or didn't prevent them.

(This is the classic political calculus; spending 1$ to prevent 10$ in damage hurts your chances, while spending 30$ to fix that 10$ in damage makes you a hero.)

So, hypothetically, if my friend and I roll up to a town and find out through the grapevine that a "really dangerous" (read, content to live alone away from the town) fire elemental lives in a cave down the road and we want to go kill it, despite the townsfolk and guards saying that this is a foolish idea (likely backed by the knowledge that this fire elemental has lived in this cave for many years, content to stay out of the town's affairs so long as they respect its privacy) that I should (and would) be lauded as a hero if my friend and I piss it off, lead it back to the town causing numerous casualties among which includes my close friend so long as when everything is said and done the fire elemental is dead and the town is only mostly burnt down?

I don't buy it. I sincerely doubt these people would react positively if they witnessed, first hand, a group of two "heroes" go off and do the thing that you warned them not to do and cause damages to your town as a consequence.


They're also young adventurers; bound to mistakes, especially early in their career.
Exactly, this is a pretty big mistake and shouldn't be treated as a victory. They can make it right in the future (that would even be a pretty cool plot element) but killing this wyrmling has only made the problem worse.

A character death is regrettable, but in this case it can add that emotional string to help these players realize that there will be consequences for this route of action. That is, unless you undo the characters death, praise them as heroes and the mother dragon isn't upset at all that the child has been killed. Just put it down in the books as that time we went on that zany adventure that they told us not to and almost burned our wizard friends tower (and attached town) down, suffering zero long term consequences as a result of our mistake.

[Tawmis]

Exactly, this is a pretty big mistake and shouldn't be treated as a victory. They can make it right in the future (that would even be a pretty cool plot element) but killing this wyrmling has only made the problem worse.
A character death is regrettable, but in this case it can add that emotional string to help these players realize that there will be consequences for this route of action. That is, unless you undo the characters death, praise them as heroes and the mother dragon isn't upset at all that the child has been killed. Just put it down in the books as that time we went on that zany adventure that they told us not to and almost burned our wizard friends tower (and attached town) down, suffering zero long term consequences as a result of our mistake.

Throwing out resurrecting the character one way or another - as a DM, I would take this opportunity, as yes, Mother Dearest wanting revenge.
But she knows who stood and fought and killed her youngling - maybe she doesn't destroy the town - just gets information from them and learns the ones responsible are not in the town - they're adventurers!

So you create this adversary for the party of an adult (or older?) dragon hunting down the party.

Because Mother Dearest doesn't need to immediately know her youngling died. It could be YEARS before she finds out (in game terms), giving the characters chances to level - so that when the encounter happens - they're a proper level.