Death as the teaching tool in TTRPGs

Browsing twitterverse again and have come upon this tidbit of information regarding another system's death rules:I understand the need to drive home ''Player Urgency'' and ''Consequence of actions'' but I feel like death is an overused trope to drive home those ideas...especially when the ''heroes'' who you've hyped up in your character sheets died because of pointless and asinine reasons like tripping and falling off a very high set of stairs, or not checking EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY FOR THE HIDDEN TIAMAT. lol.

Isn't there any other way players can be penalized harshly for their mistakes while not using the ever easy ''BAM YOUR DEAD! ROLL A NEW CHARACTER SHEET!''?

What are your thoughts on this not just in D&D but in TTRPGS, in general? Is death really the ONLY way to teach people? When can you say that a PC death is pointless or is warranted? discuss...

It really depends on the system and the tone you're going for. Smallville for example explicitly also doesn't have death as a consequence of combat. Instead, you just "leave the scene". You can decide that you're dead. But the system doesn't do it for you. For some types of games, like DCC, death needs to be on the table but for many, it doesn't.

Yea, that twitter-sentiment is pretty much how I feel about character death: Character death should mean something.

If the only thing that happens is the players lol and roll up a "Totally-not-Bob the Adventurer" version of Bob the Adventure? That's just not dramatic or interesting to me, it's completely empty of meaning.

Which isn't to say that I'm gonna fudge rolls all the time, and nerf appropriate consequences to character choices/actions. I take pride in my system mastery, and playing/rolling out in the open, toward establishing player trust. So I don't like to do those things either. But I won't "coup de grace" a downed PC on a "random encounter", or I might have the enemy use less than optimal tactics if a series of bad/good rolls have sent things in an unexpected direction.

But if a character still dies, and it's not during some pivotal, plot-critical encounter? THAT is gonna become the story, and it's gonna alter and shape the future story, and it will ideally lead to some change or evolution of one or more PCs.

The implication that the GM needs to "teach" the players by killing characters is an adversarial view on rpg gaming that makes me cringe.

That… is an interesting sentence 🤔

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If your players are not into … well… dying… I think one of the easiest "D&D-like options" is to just Deus the hell of the machine and get the PCs out of there! (If you’re feeling evil, you can use the old XP penalty and level them down 😈)

So they escape, somehow, and life goes on with just a couple of burned villages, loud crying orphans starving on the streets, a growing army of undead happily slaughtering everyone they find and maybe very angry NPCs that think the PCs are unworthy their amazing quests with magic items on top! (There is always the "oops you have been captured and will be sacrificed because this season's fashion is a dagger to the heart!)

That is, they get to live but hey! there is a price they don’t want to pay (which incidentally drives the plot further)

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Note, if your party is evil, just release the hippies, spread the love and watch your devil worshiping orc assassin cry for his mother!

A lot more people seem to trivialize NOT DYING than dying per se... it sounds like they are being too reductionist about it. You can be injured, be out of action, lose gear, lose social standing, get arrested, get enslaved, get marooned. All kind of bad stuff. You just don’t die from

''if I can’t get sepsis from shaving and die the game has no sense of danger or risk.''

That's what the people who are against nondeath in-game systems sound like...

Unless it's a hyper-simulationist game, or one where a meat grinder is expected and desired from the get-go, I'm on board with making player death meaningful. That's something to keep in mind about the 13th Age approach. Pelgrane Press is firmly in the "fiction emulation" rather than "reality simulation" mode of games. In almost all heroic fiction, heroes die in blazes of glory, sacrifice, or from happy old age.

I spent many, many years in the "PC death needs to be meaningful" camp, and to this day love the way Fate handles it -- the GM and PC just have to agree that it's time to go when the character is Taken Out that final time. I ran an Iron Edda Accelerated game last year that was absolutely epic, and resulted in a TPK in the last session, during the final battle. In various ways, every PC found means to sacrifice themselves for the cause, and it was something to behold in how it all came together. (TPKs almost never happen in Fate games.)

Anyway, as a couple of folks have suggested, there are actually plenty of games where it makes perfect sense for instant, random, and potentially very messy death to be on the line at all times. OSR games, Neo OSR stuff like Morg Borg, DCC "funnels," some horror games... hardcore survival games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Twilight 2000... the stakes are what they are: very high. Stand by to make a new PC.

Just points to the importance of session 0 and talking together about expectations.

I think I'm in the minority regarding character death, and I'm prefacing this by saying it only refers to MY character, not others I'm playing with or while I act as a DM.

While TTRPGs are a story creation tool, they're still games, and games should have fail states. If I get some bad rolls, or do something ridiculous, my character is dead, and that happens sometimes. It gives the characters' actions a sense of risk, and makes me feel suspense at what could happen. That, and I always have another character is be happy to play, and character death means I might be able to roll up something new, discovering a while new character's personality.

Now that I've said that, it really sucks to have something happen that isn't under your control, like the classic "rocks fall, everyone does" scenario. Or an enemy with a strong save-or-die mechanic that my character had no chance against. If my character is going to die, I want it to be due to my decisions as a player, not based on a single, disconnected die roll.

Point taken, but this overlooks that fact that there a umpteen fail states that have nothing to do with death... and that many games (and folks, me often among them) posit that most of those other fail states are far more interesting. Losing relationships, limbs, stats, treasure, levels, opportunities, your family, your one chance at redemption... juicy.

As a player - I think I’m with SS on this, maybe more so, as I also don’t mind random gratuitous death - I don’t really care if it’s a meaningful death. Or rather, sometimes the instant and unexpected snuffing out of a hero is the meaning, y’know? It drives me crazy when DMs hold back. Are there other ways to mess up a character, sure, but murder is good too. The classics never go out of style.

As a DM - I’m starting to learn that many players don’t feel as I do.

I totally get the appeal -- it's part of why I like OSR games. It's just not my default outlook -- horses for courses and all that.

My opinion on this is also drastically different whether I am a player or the GM. As a player, I want everything on the table, especially random and pointless death. I take more of a simulation approach to TTRPG as a player. I am less focused on the story as a whole and more in touch with my own character's thoughts and behavior. Because of this, I want things to feel real and real life is a chaotic mess that makes no sense. I choose TTRPG so that anything is possible. If this includes dying from infection after stubbing my toe or falling into a endless deep pit with no warning, so be it. Live by the dice, by the dice.

As a GM I take the opposite approach. I am not one character living their life in a fictional world, I am a god pulling the strings of a fictional world. This makes me more connected to the story instead of any individual character, which in turn makes meaningless death something to be avoided at all costs. Every character that appears should play a part. Having a meaningless death feels like a wasted opportunity when I am the one in charge.

I was chatting yesterday on the discord about how I've been struggling with GMing D&D 5e. This post further highlights why. I feel like a system like D&D was made for consequences to be real and to have death lurking around every corner. It may no longer be the case, but it is hard to shake perception of D&D from my mind. I have a hard time reconciliating that view of the system with my GM style that is focused on story first. That is probably why I love playing D&D but am not interested in running it again, while 7th Sea has long been on my list of games I want to run at some point.

Skeptical_stun, I'm right there with you in enjoying that playstyle. I like both styles to be honest, but in D&D I prefer death to be on the table.

If people are interested in learning more about why some people love this style and how great stories can come out of it, Timothy Weston wrote a great but short blog post that resonates with my feelings on the matter. It also dispels some of the myths of this playstyle.

But, I'm not interested in convincing anybody about how they "should" play. Totally fine however you and your group plays RPGs. Like Harrigan said, it comes down to your table and communicating clearly about the style in Session Zero.

That reminds me of that one game of Paranoia …
the one where you die 5 times and the GM has instruction to just kill someone at certain adventure checkpoints…

I'm of the same opinion as Adam on this. A random meaningless death IS meaningful in its own way. Adventuring is a dangerous profession and death is a very real possibility that can come up any time.

In a game of Starfinder I played, I had three PCs die inglorious death on a random asteroid (in one session). One was pulled into a pool of acid, one was killed by large space-bats, and one was killed by rolling two natural 1s on a laser grid trap. It had meaning, as one of these was part of a set of three brothers, one was the lover of an NPC (who became that player's new PC), and one was the guardian of a few goblins the party had adopted. Their deaths meant something in the game, even if they weren't particularly heroic deaths.

As a player, I don't mind death being on the table. I will use any trick I can think of to avoid it...but I think it is fair game

In my opinion, the 7th Sea stance actually takes away players agency. I would argue that players are the one who decide whether or not the death of a character is meaningless. For example, a brick fell off a tall roof on top of one character, killing him instantly, could be a meaningless death but another PC who witnessed his friend die will now be very careful in towns and around old buildings and possibly develop resentment towards gods.

Most of the systems make it very difficult to actually kill a PC providing a safety net of sorts (death saves, resurrection spells, points to replace death with injury etc.). So, making a character effectively immortal unless they are fighting a villain seems very restrictive to me.

With my in-person group, when I am the GM (which is like 95% of the time), I act as a fan of the players’ characters. I want them to do well, have fun, and enjoy telling a story. Part of that story sometimes involves their characters dying. I don’t go out of my way to kill them, but I don’t stop them from dying if they do something stupid (I’m talking to you ‘flip!) or an NPC gets a lucky hit. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and when it does it’s usually the whole lot of them at one time.

As a player, I’m totally fine with the idea of my character possibly dying - even if it’s a mundane, non-heroic death. Roll up another and continue the story.

I think one thing to not lose sight of is that 7th Sea isn't D&D -- it's high-flying, swashbuckling action, and is trying to emulate a pretty specific mood and vibe. One where bricks don't fall off rooftops and kill protagonists unless it's important to the story. It's just a game telling RPG stories in a different way.

Yeah, I don't think MagnificentFly and szemely's objections actually apply to the 13th Age approach, either. I mean, if I'm a 13th Age GM, I'm trying to give my PCs a rip-roaring time where death means something. That said, if my PCs are being completely cavalier and downright foolhardy, death should still be on the table. In other words, I don't think the 13th Age approach takes away player agency; instead, it requires player buy-in that they'll play their characters as if they don't have plot armor. This means that they should take heroic action most of the time, but that doesn't mean foolhardy action. The "you won't die unless by a villain" schtick means that PCs don't need to turtle up, call the cops to solve their problems, etc. They should be the heroes. I like that.

In a board game you have little emotional attachment to your monopoly shoe-character, so the only fail state is losing, which really only means you stop playing for now.

A TTRPG is more complex than a boardgame, of course, but many of them are little more than combat and adventure simulators. In those games, death is the only consequence of importance. If you fail at the only thing you're doing in the game that means you've died.

However, as you play longer and grow attached to the fictional world, your PC gains additional things to lose. No one likely cares if their level one fighter dies in the first d&d session. And maybe they don't care if their level 14 wizard dies six months in if they've just gone from dungeon the dungeon collecting treasure. But give them a family, have them build ties to the NPCs and community around them, and death ceases to become the worst thing that could happen.

This leads to non-tactical games. If the focus of the games is on relationships and personal drama, death has no place on the table, as it is a short circuit of the true drama. It's the boring way out.

*scratches cheek*
After playing in 7th Sea one shots and a campaigns even some short games on Gamer's Plane death is a real things in certain situations and to me it makes sense, but they're not the worse. Drowning at sea, gun shots after a while will kill you they only do dramatic wounds and you don't have a lot of those, fight to the death with a villian? Well if you don't die and he does, you mark corruption, the more non heroish things you do (killing people that have surrendered) as a continuation has a cost, you can see it on the sheet, when you're hit the threshold you turn in your PC, the GM now runs him as a villian with their own agenda.

That said there's the flip side the unknown happens but if you purposely grab a tiger's tail it's going to hurt. I get the idea no one like's a GM who does wandering damage but if you do a series of foolish things... You should be surprised that things sometimes don't always pan out just fine for the hero or heroes. *shrugs*

I can understand people expecting character death as an adventurer's career is meant to be risky, otherwise every farmer would hang up their pitchfork and go adventuring instead... Though, it seems death is the only risk games give any attention to. Every combat encounter, every trap, every environmental hazard is one way for a PC to die. There are rules which pertains to characters dying, and eventually being brought back to life. Maiming? Loosing limbs? Not so much... Well, I guess there's also curses...

I am a huge fan of games that include tables for permanent injuries. Yeah, it might suck being stuck with a pegleg or having no depth perception for the rest of the campaign because you lost an eye, but it presents an interesting challenge and a lot of roleplay potential.

I bring up the podcast Sounds Like Crowes a lot (because it is soooo good), but it highlights how well Savage Worlds handles injuries and emotional trauma. By the end of the campaign, those characters carried the weight of their journey with them mentally and phsyically. The 5e DMG has a Lingering Injuries table. I wish it were used more often. I think it adds a lot to the game.

Me as well. It's why I like games like The Black Hack, Into the Odd, and a whole bunch of Free League games with crit tables. Grist for the RPG mill...

I'm in the same boat with Griff and Harrigan. It's probably in the way we learned how to play but maybe that's just a coincidence. When I started playing Death was always on the line, as the Sicilian said. The group I played with alternated meat-grinder dungeons with urban and wilderness adventures that weren't so tough. We, as a group of players, always knew that the characters we nurtured up to be high enough level to attempt a dungeon might not survive. It sucked when our characters died but that was just the price of admission to those games. That sort of gameplay style stuck with me ever since and I tend to gravitate towards games that reflect that. Maybe it's just an attempt to recapture the 'glory days' of my gaming past but it shapes the way I play and run any roleplaying system I get involved with. Games where death is a remote and nearly impossible result I tend to shy away from playing.
TTRPGs have moved way beyond the meat-grinder stage of play and I feel that's definitely for the better. I don't really wish to return to those days but that era informs my preference of gameplay and the types of games I enjoy playing and running. When I run D&D it's usually a low-level campaign or I use the E6 variant rules. In other games I tend to run them grittier than the standard setting; Shadowrun especially, but that includes most other games including Star Trek...
There's no right or wrong way to run or play or even design games as long as everyone is on the same page and is having fun.

I've had it in a DnD game I run on here and it got to the point of one of the characters being down making death saves. I quickly paused the game to check in how the players wanted things to be handled, did they want there to be a risk of their characters dying or not. The decision was made and we moved on with everyone being happy where we stood on the matter (that character did end up dying but that is now a plot point motivating at least one of the other characters).

On the flip side of this is the Alien campaign I'm running at the moment where I put it front and centre that characters will most likely die and the players should be ok with that. Again, the players confirmed they were ok with it and we moved on with the game.

For me it's definitely something that needs to be discussed and definitely has a place in some games. The PC's should know and appreciate that their actions will have consequences up to and (if it fits the tone of the game) including death. In games like DnD after a certain point death is an inconvenience at best but in others like WFRP or Alien it's a serious consideration that ANY time you get into combat one or more of the party could not be walking away from it.