Tag: Death

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Somewhere Between Living and Dying

Normally there’s no real grey area when it comes to the distinction between living and dying in D&D. If you’ve got 1 or more hit points you’re living. If your hit points are between 0 and your negative bloodied value you’re dying. As long as you’re living then you can act on your turn whether you’ve got 1 hit point or 100 hit points. But when you reach 0 hit points or lower you fall down and start bleeding out.

In some cases taking excessive damage may kill you, dead-dead outright, but most of the time you’ve got a fighting chance of waking up. If you’ve got a leader in the party or an ally with a decent score in Heal, then you’ll likely be back in the action by the time your next turn comes around. Most of the time falling unconscious isn’t even a big concern. After all, the way that 4e is designed makes it practically impossible for PCs to die.

However, there will be those rare occasions when the leader can’t help you and the other PCs are in so much trouble that they can’t take the actions necessary to use their Heal skill on you. These are the rounds when all you can do is roll that death save and hope that you get a 20. Being in this situation sucks! What’s even worse is if you spend multiple rounds in a row making death saves and not getting that elusive 20. I’ve played in a few games where the rest of the PCs can’t or won’t help their wounded comrade and that player does nothing but make death save on their turn. This is not fun.

After this happened in a recent encounter where a player was sidelined for over an hour we decided to introduce a new house rule that would minimize this kind of player exclusion from happening again. The proposal was to create a new state somewhere between living and dying.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2011: The Importance of Trust and Honesty in D&D

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Without honesty there is chaos. I used this as a heading in the original article and the more I think about that line the more I believe that it’s the absolute truth.

When you play D&D at home it’s usually with a group of very close-knit buddies. This dynamic usually means that there are no problems or issues regarding trust and honesty. There are no strangers at this gaming table and it’s unlikely you’d want to cheat your friends. But when it comes to public play, some gamers (a few bad apples, as it were) will try to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain, possibly at the expense of playing honestly.

I want to be clear that the overwhelming majority of my public-play experiences have been very positive. I’ve only ever had a couple of instances where players were caught, or even suspected of, cheating or intentionally being dishonest. However, I think that in some public-play situations, especially when there are newer players at the table, the desire to push the boundaries of trust are more prevalent.

During some D&D Encounters sessions players will try to gain an advantage by intentionally bending or breaking the rules. Where this is most problematic is among newer players that don’t have character builder and make PCs the old fashioned way. The carelessness with which some players throw together a character infuriates me. They add modifiers across the board because they don’t know or don’t understand when they apply or not. They’ll take more powers than they’re supposed to or use encounter or daily powers even after they’re expended. Even after I’ve politely given them the benefit of the doubt, explained that they’ve made an error somewhere and that they should correct it before the next game, they still use the flawed sheets.

I’ve finally had to crack down on bad character creation. I implemented a new rule that if you make your character without character builder you have to leave it with me between sessions so I can review it. In most cases I just recreate the PC in character builder to validate the numbers are right. At first I found lots of problems on every character sheet, but now that the group knows I’m checking they’ve become more diligent about accuracy.

What bothers me most is that some players (again, a very select few) didn’t feel that honesty was required until they realized they were less likely to get away with it. You always want to believe that people will do the right thing. In a gaming situation, especially with new players, you hope that they’re honest and will follow the rules of the game and of the unwritten social contract. All it takes is one or two bad instances to sully everyone’s view of D&D. So let’s all do our part to play honestly and encourage fair play in our games moving forward; because without honesty there is chaos.

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Editorial

Death’s Impact in D&D

Is the fact that characters can come back from the dead a good or bad thing for the game of D&D? From a player perspective nothing sucks more than spending countless hours building up and developing a character only to have him get killed permanently. The creators of the game understand that the fun ends when the PC dies so they introduced mechanics to bring dead characters back to life.

Sometimes these mechanics are as simple as the DM waving his magic wands and the character is suddenly back in the game (which is pretty much how it works in most public-play scenarios like D&D Encounters and LFR). Sometimes the mechanic is a little bit more difficult, but not out of reach. In these cases the PCs spend the appropriate resources to have the dead character returned to life, and depending on the power-level of the campaign the PCs may even have the power to do this without any outside assistance. And then there’s the situation when an entire campaign arc revolves around getting a fallen hero resurrected. It might be a quest to get the necessary material components for a ritual or the search for an item or artifact capable of such powerful magic. The point is that death is rarely final in D&D.

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Editorial

The Importance of Trust and Honesty in D&D

I think that the vast majority of people who play D&D take for granted just how important trust and honesty are to the game. In order for everything to work we have to assume that everyone playing is honest and trustworthy. Of course, we don’t come right out and ask this of the other players; you merely accept it as fact. If players cheat or abuse the trust we’ve given them in good faith, then the system won’t work and the gaming experience will be tarnished.

Just this past weekend I was playing a Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) adventure at my FLGS and something happened that really highlighted the importance of trust in D&D. It was an unusual situation, and the more I thought about it the more I realized that perhaps it’s time to discuss just how vital trust and honesty are in D&D.

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DM Resources Editorial

Death and Resurrection

Resurrection is a part of most fantasy games. Resurrection sits very comfortably next to fireballs and disintegration spells in the magic toolbox, but the player’s access to resurrection has a huge impact on more then the way that they die, it will have an impact on the tone of the entire game world.

Some of your fellow gamers may have had close and devastating experiences with death in their family or community. The topic of loss of life should always be discussed with respect for the fallen and for the survivors who carry their legacy. This article addresses death as it takes place in role playing games and is not intended to be a statement on the value of life.

Consider the treatment of death as the starting point for the flavor of a campaign setting. You should consider it the first decision you make about the world your PCs inhabit, even before you address issues like the number of continents or the role the gods play. Knowing and understanding the value of life in your campaign will dictate how PCs interact with their world.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: Should Players Suffer When PCs Die?

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

The was probably one of our most controversial articles. My intent was to discuss how you handle player death in 4e D&D. Do you do what’s best for the PCs, in-character, or do you do what’s best for the players, out-of-character. In the situation I describe below there was good reasons on both sides of this argument, but in the end we as players decided that we had to do what was best for the players out-of-game even though it was probably not what the PCs would do in-game.

I think part of what made this article so controversial was that the player death happened during an LFR (Living Forgotten Realms) game at my FLGS. The RPGA has very defined boundaries regarding what a DM can and cannot do. So in my article I might seem like I’m really giving the DM the gears, but that was certainly not my intent. I merely tried to point out that a creative party may come up with options that were unexpected by the author of the adventure or the DM. But in the end it comes down to the DM’s call.

I think most of the people who commented on the original article, including the DM from the actual table where all of this happened, agreed that if this situation happened at a home game it would be easier to show some latitude. But because it was an RGPA-sanctioned game the DM’s hands were pretty much tied.

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Editorial

Should Players Suffer When PCs Die?

Death. Until this week, I’d never witnessed the death of a PC. It can have serious short-term and long-term ramifications on your campaign. In a world without easily accessible magic to raise a dead PC, death is final. Your guy dies and it’s time to create a new PC. But in most D&D campaigns magic is readily available (for a price) and you can revive a fallen comrade easily enough. Chances are if a PC dies as part of a long-term campaign you’ll bring him back from the dead, but what about a one-off game?

In a recent Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) game I played at my friendly local gaming shop I sat down with six complete strangers to play a level 4-7 adventure. During the first combat encounter one of the PCs was killed. Dead, dead. We had to decide what was more important, making the best in-game, role-playing choice or making the best out-of-game, real life choice.

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