Players don’t have to die for their to be stakes in DND

[bhoolbela92]

So there’s been a lot of discussion about wether or not the low tier fights in the published materials are overtuned and a lot of talk in general about when it’s appropriate to kill PCs.

One thing I’d like to point out is that, there are ways of making your PCs realize they’ve failed without killing them.

One example of this for me is a WDH campaign I was a part of. Our DM tuned down the encounters a bit and despite us almost getting killed by some sturges at the start, we rarely feared dying in combat. But we still failed, like, a lot.

He had a home brew element of the game that involved rescuing the son of a dead PC (he was killed in a “cutscene” because his player wanted to leave the group because he was too busy). And there were a lot of times where we could literally see him being dragged down the hallway, but (and this was part of a combat sequence) we just couldn’t get to him before he teleportation circled out of there. And then when we finally did find him, it was too late. They’d tortured him so bad that, (through the influence of my warlock’s patron, who my warlock hated and wanted to be free of) he became an evil possessed demon child.

Watching the kid we were trying to save turn on us after we told him his father was dead, that felt like failure, even if it wasn’t a combat death. Because we knew, there were absolutely times we could have saved him. I remember one time where we were so close that I felt truly drained and a bit bummed that we hadn’t gotten to him.

I recognize the idea that combat deaths raise the stakes for combat, but I’d also like to offer up the idea that, narratively speaking, there are many ways to slap your players with failure that don’t involve killing them.

[Corran]

Only problem is if a player starts suspecting that. Then you might start seeing increasingly daring or stupid things being done by that player's character, either in order to test that suspicion, or just to test the limits. Or you might not. Knowing that you cannot fail can make a campaign boring for some people as you imply, same as knowing you wont get killed can make combat a waste of time for some people. It all depends on the people in question and on how they want to play. Though these things specifically is not something you'll want to discuss with the players as a DM, cause I doubt knowing you are going to win will be as sweet as enjoying it when it (inevitably) happens.

[Yakk]

I don't know if that is right. I mean, I get that lesser stakes, or even just pretending that there are lives in the line can raise tension, but unless an actual player dies, people don't take the dice seriously.

Sure, the dead player causes complications; you have to clean up the dice, character sheets, clothing you are wearing.

But the look on the other player's faces when they realize "this game is real" and "why is the door locked" and "I don't want to die" makes the work required to dig the grave, frame someone else, and hold captive the witnesses worthwhile.

[MoiMagnus]

I fully agree with OP that having PCs that don't die (either by luck, or by design) does not prevent to have high stakes.

Total failure doesn't require death. And stakes don't require a possibility for total failure either. Anything which is a relative failure is enough, as long as it is something players care about.

And that here all the point: player most of the time care about their character, making character death one of the easiest way to have an effect on something players care about.
(Players not caring any more about their characters can be a consequence of the DM very badly handling character death. Be careful when handling character death, as you can kill your stakes too.)

But once your players are immersed enough in the universe, you won't be missing things your players care about, so you don't need to rely on PC death any more. IMO, potential failure at the personal motivations of the PCs is better at building stakes than death ... if the PCs have motivations stronger than just "tag along and see what's happening in the plot".

Especially for RPGs that start low stakes, it's totally fine to have a set of things that are assumed "safe" (no character death, no loosing equipments, ...) to put the players in confidence and low-stress environment. You should be able to find other sources of stakes latter on.

Note however that if death is not an option, you will need to work on your encounter design to have resolutions others than "one side is completely eliminated". IMO, building stakes without character death is more difficult as a DM, but leads to much more satisfying gaming sessions.

[cutlery]

Combat is mostly pointless without character death as a real possibility.

Just skip it.

[stoutstien]

Combat is mostly pointless without character death as a real possibility.

Just skip it.

OTOH combat where character death is the only risk is also pointless. Striking the balance of factors is something each table has to do individually. Once you find that range that works for a group you have to figure out how to stat there. Managing tension is the hardest part of Dming.

[MoiMagnus]

Combat is mostly pointless without character death as a real possibility.

No character death doesn't mean the whole team cannot end up unconscious on the floor after a disastrous fight, waking up powerless in a prison somewhere.

Alternatively if the fight drags and the PCs take too much time to win, the enemy could just run away with the loot.

[Ajustusdaniel]

Combat is mostly pointless without character death as a real possibility.

Just skip it.

Categorically disagree- as someone who regularly runs combat where character death is a real possibility. It's only meaningless if the only goal the players go into the combat with is 'to survive.' I've also run or played in sparring matches, duels to the first blood or to the yield, and fights against enemies who primarily sought to rob, escape, or capture PCs. As long as victory and defeat are distinguishable and achievable states, and one is preferable to the other, combat has a point.

(Well, I guess if everyone in the party agrees that defeat is preferable to victory, they might consider combat pointless and elect to surrender instead).

[SiCK_Boy]

There's no black or white, all or nothing rule, in regards to creating intense stakes for your players and how character death (through fights or other means) as a possibility contributes to this.

Using an NPC death as a way to create tension or an emotional moment, as suggested by the OP, will work, but only if your players and their characters have been able to really invest and bond with that character in the first place. If you start your campaign in a village and, right at the beginning of the first session, as the players gather into the local tavern, you describe a goblin tribe descending upon the village and starting to massacre everyone, you may get your players to act (mostly to protect themselves once the goblins enter the tavern), but they won't really care about those imaginary villagers in a visceral sense. That would hold true even if you describe the goblins committing all kinds of atrocities, or targeting all of the PCs family members living in that village (in fact, starting with too much atrocities may even turn off some players). On the other hand, a similar scene happening after 10 or 20 sessions (say with a gang of Ogres instead of Goblins, by then) would have your players jump to the rescue of the local armorsmith they've made numerous purchases from, and risk neck and limbs to save the tavern maid who's been building a love affair with one of the PCs.

As for character death in combat (and the threat thereof), it will once again vary greatly for each player. I am a player that enjoys combat as its own tactical minigame within the greater game of D&D. Even if I know that the rules and mechanics of D&D 5e make it extremely difficult for a DM to kill a PC, even in a deadly encounter (calculated using the rules in the DMG), I still enjoy combat as a way to see if we can win as efficiently as possible. I'll still be angry with myself when I realize I moved to the wrong spot and put myself in a situation where a subsequent attack is not as efficient, or when I see I could have set up a potential Attack of Opportunity. Other players just love rolling dice and seeing how much damage they can inflict in a single turn. But character death does have to play a part in combat, and again, it's usually something that needs to be built up to: you'll see players sometime becoming cocky or take unreasonsable risks if they start thinking there is no way the DM will be able to kill them (or that the DM would never throw a deadly x 10 encounter at them); in those situations, death is a way to impress upon the players that there are real stakes. One challenge as a DM is to have it be a single death rather than a TPK; that's especially hard in D&D 5e, where monsters killing a single players and running away with the body is almost impossible to accomplish without magic / teleport. Often, by the time the players realize they are overmatched, they can't really run away. The DM thus has to be creative: maybe have the PC arrive on the scene of a fight between a powerful NPC (someone the players already know the relative strength of, compared to their PC) and have the monster kill that NPC right away. But even then, some players will still assume they're more special and won't care. Another way to achieve a similar sense of loss could involve the destruction of a particular item (again difficult to achieve with the current ruleset, except by using monsters such as Rust Monster).

In the end, character death should only ever be used (and hopefully only happen - although there may be good fate miscalculations on the DM or player's part that result in accidental death) in a fashion that makes sense within the story and the game world. It should never be something a DM does just to "punish" a player. The DM should be aware (and the players as well, to a certain extent) that the game is not designed to have character death be a significant threat to players in most combats. If a group wants to play with only deadly or more encounters, they can do so, but that would have to be part of the session 0 discussion. If the DM feels the players need that threat to keep themselves motivated through combat during the game, then he should have a discussion with them. Otherwise, the DM should clearly telegraph the stakes of an encounter, give outs to the players if the encounter is designed as a deadly++ threat (or even worse, is designed as unwinnable); if the players have enough awareness of the stakes, they'll be able to make conscious decisions, take a level of risk they're comfortable with, and maybe even decide that sacrificing their PC is worth it if the cause is good.

One of the big frustration wth the way encounters are presented in a lot of WotC modules, especially the early levels, is that those encounters are often way too deadly with little purpose. It just feels like the designers often did not test out their encounters themselves, or have forgotten what it's like to be a lvl 1 PC. As an example, the initial Goblin Ambush encounter in The Lost Mine of Phandelver is a known deadly encounter (for 4 PCs). The adventure itself acknowledges this, and suggests that the DM let the players survive by having them just fall unconscious and the goblins simply loot them. As nice as it is to give a way to new DMs and PCs to avoid the finality of losing that fight, it makes absolutely no sense, both rules-wise (because of death saving throws, you could certainly have PCs die if the whole party falls) and especially within the fiction of the gameworld. Why would the goblins not kill the players? If they really don't want to kill them, why not capture them like they did with Sildar and Gundren? Has anyone ever seen a party of players deliberatly let a group of unconscious goblins live through and wake up naked 4 hours later? I guess you could always have a random patrol pass by just as the players are getting downed, but then you're teaching your players to expect deus ex machina to save them any time they face a difficult challenge... But then, even if you have all the PCs really die, what do you accomplish as a DM: you end up (assuming you want to continue the campaign after this initial catastrophe) with a new group of PC that has no connection to Gundren (the primary motivation for PC in 3/4 of the adventure) and may very well want to skip the entire first chapter (because why would they even go in the surrounding lands and happen upon Cragmaw Hideout). As a teaching, first time encounter, this one isn't much a success in my book. It teaches a few rules (about surprise), it tells the players that the world is dangerous, and it gives them a chance to maybe start interacting with monsters (if they don't kill all the goblins), but then it teaches all kind of wrong lessons (like don't worry if you lose the fight, the DM won't really kill you).

We could go over each module one by one and find similar set up (fighting an Adult Blue Dragon in Hoard of the Dragon Queen? That ice killer in Rime of the Frostmaiden?). These things may work for an experienced group of players who does sign up for a deadly campaign (think: playing the hard mode, permadeath mode in a videogame); but for most groups, the DM is left praying the dice fall in his player's favor, having to dumb down his monsters (having the goblins spread all their arrows instead of focus-firing one PC after another, having the goblins move into melee combat when they could stay hidden and pop up to snipe at the players with their arrows using their bonus hide action, etc.), or come up with deus ex machina solutions if things go bad. All that criticism, to go back to the main topic, to say that a key thing in relation to character death is game world immersion, having it happen (or increase the risk of it happening) at key moments in the story, and giving solid consideration to all key strategic factors when designing your encounters (type and number of monsters, but the terrain, the tactics the monsters will use, the "goals" of each faction in the encounter, etc.).

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Maybe it’s the setting, but I run a Pokémon game and I’ve not had trouble finding meaningful consequences without killing anything. Maiming the players’ Pokémon or putting them in the hospital for a few in-game days (...which I guess in a non-Pokémon game would equate to having their favorite weapon break or losing the help of a friendly NPC) inconveniences the PCs without being lethal.

Mind, I also don’t recommend completely avoiding death, as there are some occasions where mere injury isn’t appropriate. But if they weren’t invested in that character to begin with the death isn’t going to hit them like it should anyway.

[noob]

Easy way to set stakes in a pokemon world: if you do not win the tournament and place too low you might not even be admitted back the next year and waiting a year might as well mean that specific adventure was lost.
Likewise in dnd: if you did not beat all your opponents fast enough they do awful things like sacrificing a child or bullying an innocent soul eating lich or whatever made the bad people be bad people you had reasons to punch to death.

[Cybren]

Absolutely zero of your players should die during roleplay. Wow.

[stoutstien]

Absolutely zero of your players should die during roleplay. Wow.

When exactly do you consider the point when the players are not roleplaying their PC?

[Cybren]

When exactly do you consider the point when the players are not roleplaying their PC?

I mean ideally they aren't dying outside of roleplay either.

[stoutstien]

I mean ideally they aren't dying outside of roleplay either.

Hehe. Now that's a high stake game.

[LibraryOgre]

Only problem is if a player starts suspecting that. Then you might start seeing increasingly daring or stupid things being done by that player's character, either in order to test that suspicion, or just to test the limits. Or you might not. Knowing that you cannot fail can make a campaign boring for some people as you imply, same as knowing you wont get killed can make combat a waste of time for some people. It all depends on the people in question and on how they want to play. Though these things specifically is not something you'll want to discuss with the players as a DM, cause I doubt knowing you are going to win will be as sweet as enjoying it when it (inevitably) happens.

Reminds me of this Full Frontal Nerdity

[fbelanger]

In thirty years I don’t have see any death or even the smallest injury for Players around me!

[Spiderswims]

I recognize the idea that combat deaths raise the stakes for combat, but I’d also like to offer up the idea that, narratively speaking, there are many ways to slap your players with failure that don’t involve killing their characters.

This is really only true if your players care about role playing or the game plot, story and alternative reality. Many players don't: They "fail" in some way, and just don't care. Oh we did not save the princess, oh well, can we fight something now GM?

Really character death is the only meaningful thing to many players.

[Darzil]

I find the best type of character death is the one in which the player (or players) are complicit.

We had a recent TPK (in another system) where there was the dawning realisation (stretched out over some minutes) as they realised how thoroughly they'd sealed their own fate.

Death through random dice is no where near as effective as death through player overreach.

In my characters I have to say that I have more memory of those who died meaningful (or my mistake) deaths than those that survived.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I had a really high stakes combat recently. The only one at risk was the NPC hostage--the enemies weren't going to do a single point of HP damage to anyone but her if it came down to a fight. But if she died[1], the party would be kicked out of town, they'd fail that mission, plus other bad things would happen to people they cared about. Possibility of player character death? 0. Literally. Stakes? Very high.

It didn't come down to a fight, because the enemy offered some information in exchange for being allowed to leave. But it was a seriously close thing, and letting them go meant letting some really nasty pieces of work who'd pissed the party off go.

Another time, I had a high-stakes fight because the enemy had dominated their pet NPC. Both players and characters had every motivation to fight there--I've never seen players so spitting mad. It was beautiful.

When players are engaged in the world, character death ceases to be the only major motivating factor. If the only tool you have is threatening the characters with death due to being mechanically overpowered by the enemies, you've missed the key (to me) part of the game. Getting inside characters in a fictional world and treating them as if they're real. You might as well be playing chess, just abstract gameboard pieces and tallying wins and losses.

I've killed a total of 2 characters over 14 groups and nearly 40 people I've played with over the last 6 years. One was his own darn fault (trying to solo a Dire Yeti at level 2, despite being given every opportunity to turn around and walk away is a bad idea), the other failed like 3 saving throws in a row and got crit Extract Brain'd by a mindflayer. Plus was stupid enough to block the doorway so his party couldn't really help him. Yet there have been significant stakes throughout. Some concrete, some abstract. All of them tied to the characters and to the world.

[1] Death Saves are on for all "named" NPCs in my campaigns.

[Sigreid]

Yep, there are other kinds of stakes and ways for the players to lose.

It's pretty hard to feel like the hero risking it all if you don't know death is a real possibility and sometimes probability.

[MoiMagnus]

Many players don't: They "fail" in some way, and just don't care. Oh we did not save the princess, oh well, can we fight something now GM? Really character death is the only meaningful thing to many players.

I've not encountered a lot of players that cared about they character dying, but didn't care about
(1) Losing potential rewards they want (namely XP and loot), or rewards they previously won ("you fall unconscious, when you wake up they took all your magical objects"). This also include temporary losses ("you will need to track them and get clever to get back your stuff").
(2) Suffering permanent or semi-permanent damages with mechanical consequences (like losing a limb)

I mean, some players don't care at all about those, but they also tend to not care if their character die (and have John Smith the 7th ready to take the place of John Smith the 6th). If anything, if your table as a policy of "rerolls get the same level as existing characters", they might even enjoy their character dying so that they can build a new one.

[Moreover, if you reach high level, death is just another kind of "being unconscious until healed by the adequate spell"]

[noob]

Some dnd 5e gms gives no magical loot.
So if you could not get above level 1 due to repeated death then death is no longer a stake at all: you literally lose only the effort to increase the counter on your Bertrand from Bertrand the fifth to Bertrand the sixth.

[Sorinth]

Typically character death should be an RP/Story thing. Your character should only die if you are doing something heroic like sacrificing yourself to buy time for others to escape, etc... On the whole your PCs are supposed to "win" and defeat the bad guys. There are of course adventure/campaign styles where this isn't true and truthfully 5e isn't a good edition to run that type of game without homebrewing things.

There does need to be some aspect of verisimilitude where your characters can die, but the idea that death needs to be hanging over the PCs every action in order to create tension sounds to me like either the DM doesn't know how to create actual tension or the players aren't invested in the story.

[Corran]

Reminds me of this Full Frontal Nerdity

Heh. Yep, the level of lethality surely determines the tone of the game. Too lethal might prevent you from playing your character as heroic (silly antics included) as you'd like or as often as you'd like. Too much in the other direction, and you may start feeling that the decision making element is missing. Either way, it might be important to have a good idea about the lethality of a game/campaign you are joining, but that's something that the DM needs to communicate very subtly and with care (perhaps the safest option is to find out during play even). The game can be easy or hard mode, but you have to at least think that your are succeeding or failing because of your choices, otherwise they dont really matter. The OP's claim is misleading. Success and failure dont have to translate to character survival or death. In fact it can be a lot better if the stakes are even higher than that (or better, if the motivation does not only come from live-or-die). But that's not a good enough reason to remove character death out of the equation. It's just a necessity for when you do remove character death out of the equation for other reasons (such as because of campaign tone). For that to work, the pc's must work with the DM closely in order to find something, which if the DM threats, then that automatically raises the stakes high enough for them to care. That's not something easy to be doing on a regular basis, because it can easily get repetitive enough. You must also match very closely the pc's personalities and/or backgrounds with what's going to be happening around the pc's, which is very limiting for either the DM or for the player. I think that most of the time, the issue being discussed actually starts from that last thing. Connecting a story to the pc's is an easy way to make them play that story (so that you wont have to go to uncharted waters and improvise mid session; which I'll grant, it can seem scary). But doing so, that means that the pc's cannot really die, cause that will make things awkward. But you still need to challenge the pc's, and if character death is out of the equation, then your have to ''raise the stakes''. Every time.

[Gtdead]

It really depends on the players.

Unless there is some agreement between the players that they want to roleplay heavily, how do you stop them from picking fights for the simplest thing if they are impossible to die? And if the players are used to npc death, how are they going to care about failing to save the farmer's son from the orcs?

This is a design dilemma that is present in almost every rpg game, from pnp to videogames. Granted, the majority of people want to just roleplay while a small minority cares about the complexities of combat. However it's proven time and again that no player wants to feel that they are on training wheels. Which is why videogame developers moved from naming the difficulty settings as "easy, normal, hard" to stuff like "story mode, balanced mode, unfair mode", so no one feels left out.

Combat is essential. It's the most important part of the experience. You can affect the social pillar more by finetuning the frequency and lethality of combat than creating elaborate narrative hooks that the players may or may not care about.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Stakes requires consequences and chance. While I don't believe death is or should be the only type, taking that away undermines a lot of things in a combat-oriented game like D&D. I had a friend DM for a group just a few months ago that took this route by making the players functionally immortal and had every reason to regret it as the players took more and more ridiculous actions. They completely removed any and all sources of tension, then whined that there was nothing to do. Like you're suggesting, he tried adding NPC's they might care about and- oh, they decided it would be better to harm all the NPC's themselves since the players were immortal and the other people weren't, therefore they were a burden and it was just easier that way. It fell apart in four sessions and I'm surprised it took that long.

You might be able to get away with it in another game system, but something like 70-80% of D&D rules is all combat mechanics. They should include the obvious consequences that would follow combat, else I'd say you'd be better off choosing a more RP-heavy game.

[Asisreo1]

I run the rule that if you die in the game you die in real life. Hopefully the police don't catch on.

Anyways, its all a player-by-player circumstance.

If the player is very fond of the family he created from his background, he'll want to protect it. If the player values their spellbook, they'll miss it when its gone. If the player values their home town, the threat of it getting raided may be enough.

What you don't want to do, however, is overdo it. Otherwise, they may think that you'll always target whatever they like and they'll try to disassociate with the game more.

Instead, reward the players with enhancements of what they value so the rare moments you threaten them feels more important.

Give their struggling baker mother a super nice restaurant using the funds the players earned through adventuring. Use their ever increasing fame to boost the restaurant's popularity. Have their noble contacts sponsor the mother's cooking and even commission cakes for higher nobility. Then, when things are reaching a climax, have the mother be kidnapped by the BBEG. The player character may not be in immediate danger of death, but the player may be even more motivated to succeed.

[noob]

I run the rule that if you die in the game you die in real life. Hopefully the police don't catch on.

Anyways, its all a player-by-player circumstance.

If the player is very fond of the family he created from his background, he'll want to protect it. If the player values their spellbook, they'll miss it when its gone. If the player values their home town, the threat of it getting raided may be enough.

What you don't want to do, however, is overdo it. Otherwise, they may think that you'll always target whatever they like and they'll try to disassociate with the game more.

Instead, reward the players with enhancements of what they value so the rare moments you threaten them feels more important.

Give their struggling baker mother a super nice restaurant using the funds the players earned through adventuring. Use their ever increasing fame to boost the restaurant's popularity. Have their noble contacts sponsor the mother's cooking and even commission cakes for higher nobility. Then, when things are reaching a climax, have the mother be kidnapped by the BBEG. The player character may not be in immediate danger of death, but the player may be even more motivated to succeed.

The problem is that a smart bbeg would have a reliable way to cause the death of the kidnapped npc when they are incapacitated or captured or killed and would store the npc in a divination protected place in another dimension.

[MoiMagnus]

The problem is that a smart bbeg would have a reliable way to cause the death of the kidnapped npc when they are incapacitated or captured or killed and would store the npc in a divination protected place in another dimension.

Obviously, if you want to have classical hero adventures with good guys saving captured friend and families from the bad guys in heroic actions, you also need to have in front of your PCs classical villains that are going through potentially unnecessary complex, suboptimal and fragile plans (like having crucial hostages tied in the back of the room of the final fight).

The "kind of reality" the campaign takes place in will change the ways you have to proceed as a DM.