My character died am I wrong to be frustrated?

[Stupidfy]

Hello, I need some advice regarding an incident that happened with the campaign I'm in.

For some background, my character is a level 1 barbarian who grew up a slave, and his goal is to free his race from slavery.

We are travelling somewhere with the help of some NPC's, when it comes to my attention that the leader is dealing with a particularly shady character. This character is trading members of my race into slavery with a portion of the funds going to the leader of the NPC group. Our party is in the leader's room with said shady character gloating about this operation. In response, my barbarian rages and attacks the slave trader. This is met with a swift combat in which the lead NPC can attack 3 times, and does so to my character every turn until he is dead (My character only turns to attack the leader after the slave trader has run away, and I'm still under fire). On the last turn, my character is dropped to 0 hp on the first attack. Following this, the NPC attacks with his other 2 attacks and then a 4th with the aid of a pet causing me to instantly die with no saves/healing. No other party member was attacked until I was dead.

I was particularly attached to this character and so I know that my emotions are swaying me a bit, however I wanted to get the objective opinion from others to see if I was in the wrong to initiate combat (felt like what my character would do). I started creating a new character, but I'm having a lot of trouble. I feel as though I can't play a character that's too emotional/driven which is makes me want to drop out completely.

[Corpsecandle717]

All in all it sounds like a good PC death. You entered into a situation where you didn't know all the specifics (levels, abilities etc) and stuck with your character's values and goals and it just turned out he was over-matched. It's understandable to get attached to a character, but you always need to recognize that the ultimate penalty for the this game is that your character may perish. To me, this game wouldn't be as fun if that risk wasn't there. Doesn't take the sting out of their death though.

[Jerrykhor]

Sounds like the NPC is way out of your CR league. Even for Level 1s, Barbs are pretty tough when raging. To drop you in one hit would take a pretty big chunk of damage. And 3 attacks... I'd really like to see that NPC's statblock.

Did the DM hinted in any way that the NPC was rather powerful? What weapon was he using? How did the DM describe the attack?

[Kharneth]

Your DM killed you by goading your character into an encounter that he had no chance to stand up to and then instead of letting you lay unconscious he had the guy continue to attack you. And all while your party did nothing? That's pretty lame of them.

If I kept playing I'd remake the Barbarian since he died at level 1.

[Merudo]

Did you try to negotiate with the lead NPC when it became clear you were outmatched? Anyone with three attacks a round is either level 5+ and dual wielding / using Polearm Mastery, or level 11+. That's no joke for a level 1, even a Barbarian.

Seems to me the two groups were about evenly matched. Given you used to be friendly to the NPCs maybe they would have been willing to let you go?


And all while your party did nothing? That's pretty lame of them.


I think the party helped him. It's just that the lead NPC focused on taking down the barbarian first - which is actually good tactics.

[DMThac0]

You're right to be frustrated, losing a character sucks no matter the circumstances.

However, it seems more like your question is "I feel what the DM did was unfair, am I missing something?"

It's hard to really say if the situation was handled poorly or not. In the scenario you've presented, you brought this on to yourself by jumping into the deep end without looking for rocks. Could the DM have resolved it in other ways, yes, did he need to, no. It really is a matter of how the DM felt the NPC would react to the situation, sometimes a creature/NPC will kill a player with no remorse, sometimes they'll take prisoners.

I feel a conversation with your DM, not a finger pointing session, but a genuine conversation about rationale and motivation may be in order.

[NaughtyTiger]

My experience

PC In character - I am going to murder-hobo this guy.
DM Out of game - Are you suuuuuure?
PC In character - Yeah, he offended me.
DM In game - As you put your hand on your blade, you notice his scars, suggesting that he is a veteran of combat.
DM Out of game - Are you suuuuuuure?
PC In character - I rolled a 17 for initiative!!! Shi ne!
....

New players put a loooot of effort into the PC before the new session.
New players are often rash and stubborn.

The DM should make a couple of tries to dissuade then from a blatantly bad idea. Especially at level 1-2...
The DM should show mercy (drop you, but not kill you outright) the first time so you learn not to poke the bear.

New players should not be murder hobos.
...

If the DM didn't give you hints, then yeah, you can be frustrated.
But you need to get over it, build a new/same character, and be a little cautious until level 6.

[Spriteless]

Your feelings aren't wrong, its what you do with them that can be good or bad. I suggest you talk with your DM about it. Maybe the solution is a brief retcon, in which the NPC slaver beats your dude to unconsiousness to show dominance, or in which your character decides to retreat and regroup once he realizes he can't win (but still never make a deal with a slaver, ugg!). Maybe the solution is to roll up your character's slightly more patient brother, who will wait for the guy to be alone to assassinate him.

On the other hand, maybe if dealing with slavers is necessary for the campaign the DM has, maybe he's not running the game you are interested in playing. In Dark Sun you'd have to conquer every city individually to stop slavery, which would be cool, but it wouldn't be something a 1st level character could do yet.

Also, what was the rest of the party doing? Just saying "We're not with him >_>" or helping or what? They could have chosen a side, either to help you, or stop you without killing you. "So sorry, boss, you know how his kind is, we'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

Also, 3 attacks/round from one guy? Man, a 1st level dude's only chance against a 5th or 11th level dude is by out numbering him. (I know, player monster transparancy isn't a thing in 5th edition.) This guy was a mid to late campaign boss, not a first level encounter.

[Unoriginal]

We are travelling somewhere with the help of some NPC's, when it comes to my attention that the leader is dealing with a particularly shady character. This character is trading members of my race into slavery with a portion of the funds going to the leader of the NPC group. Our party is in the leader's room with said shady character gloating about this operation. In response, my barbarian rages and attacks the slave trader. This is met with a swift combat in which the lead NPC can attack 3 times, and does so to my character every turn until he is dead (My character only turns to attack the leader after the slave trader has run away, and I'm still under fire). On the last turn, my character is dropped to 0 hp on the first attack. Following this, the NPC attacks with his other 2 attacks and then a 4th with the aid of a pet causing me to instantly die with no saves/healing. No other party member was attacked until I was dead.

So, as a beginner adventurer, you attacked someone's business partner, and this someone killed you and made sure you were dead. Honestly it seems pretty logical to me.

That your teammates didn't help you was the nail on your coffin, however. They could have done *something* to save your character or stop the fight.



I was particularly attached to this character and so I know that my emotions are swaying me a bit, however I wanted to get the objective opinion from others to see if I was in the wrong to initiate combat (felt like what my character would do).

Well, you initiated a fight in front of the slaver's ally, with other allies nearby. I wouldn't say you were wrong to make your character act like that, but it was suicidal.

What did you expect would happen?




I started creating a new character, but I'm having a lot of trouble. I feel as though I can't play a character that's too emotional/driven which is makes me want to drop out completely.


Your problem wasn't that your character was too emotional/driven, your problem was that your character was suicidaly incapable of resisting killing the slaver later. You could have reacted strongly without doing that.

Or you could have had your teammates that'd help you.

Did you talk with the DM about that?


Sounds like the NPC is way out of your CR league. Even for Level 1s, Barbs are pretty tough when raging. To drop you in one hit would take a pretty big chunk of damage.


The NPC didn't drop the Barbarian in one hit, OP said it took several turns.



And 3 attacks... I'd really like to see that NPC's statblock.

Even the CR 2 Bandit Captain NPC has three attacks. Could also be a Veteran.



Did the DM hinted in any way that the NPC was rather powerful?

Well, he was the leader of a bunch of NPCs. I know it doesn't necessarily indicates he's a badass, but at the very least it was to be expected the other NPCs would come to his help

[Stupidfy]

Sounds like the NPC is way out of your CR league. Even for Level 1s, Barbs are pretty tough when raging. To drop you in one hit would take a pretty big chunk of damage. And 3 attacks... I'd really like to see that NPC's statblock.

Did the DM hinted in any way that the NPC was rather powerful? What weapon was he using? How did the DM describe the attack?

The Npc was a Bandit Captain with a Ferret pet. We were loosely led to believe these were pirates, however they were ferrying us to a location and were quite friendly up until this point. We even did quite a bit of labor for them during the journey.

[Unoriginal]

The Npc was a Bandit Captain with a Ferret pet. We were loosely led to believe these were pirates, however they were ferrying us to a location and were quite friendly up until this point. We even did quite a bit of labor for them during the journey.

Well, while friendly and helpful, pirates aren't exactly people of high morals. Honest question, what did you think would happen when you attacked a business partner of them?



Anyone with three attacks a round is either level 5+ and optimized with a feat like Polearm Mastery, or level 11+. That's no joke for a level 1, even a Barbarian.



Also, 3 attacks/round from one guy? Man, a 1st level dude's only chance against a 5th or 11th level dude is by out numbering him. (I know, player monster transparancy isn't a thing in 5th edition.) This guy was a mid to late campaign boss, not a first level encounter.



Bandit Captain
Challenge: 2

Actions
Multiattack: The captain makes three melee attacks: two with its scimitar and one with its dagger

[Friv]

So, as a beginner adventurer, you attacked someone's business partner, and this someone killed you and made sure you were dead. Honestly it seems pretty logical to me.

That your teammates didn't help you was the nail on your coffin, however. They could have done *something* to save your character or stop the fight.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like the rest of the party got involved - the statement was that the bad guy didn't attack the other PCs until the barbarian was dead.

So, the chain of events here appears to be:

1. The barbarian's stated goal at character creation is to free his race from slavery.
2. The party is working with some shady NPCs to cross a desert.
3. The shady NPCs turn out to be selling members of the barbarian's race into slavery.
4. The shady NPC leader gloats about this to the barbarian's face.
5. The barbarian loses his cool and goes after the slave trader.
6. The slave trader takes a hit or two and runs, while the NPC leader focus-attacks the barbarian. The rest of the party is presumably busy fighting minions, because there were minions present and the OP doesn't mention having to fight them himself.
7. With the barbarian weakened by earlier hits, the NPC leader hits him, taking him out, and then continued hitting him once he was down to burn through his death saves, ending with his ferret pet taking a final attack to kill him. This prevented the rest of the party from getting over and saving him.

Now, without more details, there could be a lot of reasons for what happened. The fact that it was specifically the barbarian's race that was being sold into slavery suggests that the GM expected this to turn into a fight, or at least a serious dilemma. The fact that the battle overall seems to have lasted a while suggests that it was meant to be more or less CR-appropriate. It sounds like the only real issue is that final chain of hits.

My guess would be that the GM was playing the battle tactically, in a "die fall where they may" style - having rolled well enough to drop the most dangerous foe, you keep hitting them to keep anyone else from getting them back on their feet. The player was expecting a more lenient style - death is possible, but having fallen, he expected the enemy to turn his attention to the next threat.

The answer, as usual, is communication. Talk privately with the GM. Explain that you weren't expecting that style of combat, and that you were frustrated by what felt like an unwinnable scenario. Don't blame the GM for what happened. See how they respond.

[WilliamHuggins]

You are in the wrong no matter what, because you initiated a combat emotionally (doesnt matter if it was your emotions or your characters emotions, playing an unwise character or a character with an emotional baggage should have its downsides in addition to its benefits) when you had no idea if you had a chance or not.

What is left to decide is whether your DM is a **** or not, did you have any idea about the power of the NPC? Did they have a lot of people under their command/answering them? Were they in control of some kind of organization or a group? Did they seem knowledgeable about topics you PCs were not? These usually are the good giveaways of an NPC power, if your DM gave these clues to you and you did not understand or chose to ignore them, he is not a ****. If he did not he might be a **** but that stilldoes not make him wrong. When you are level 1 you are at the mercy of anyone breathing on your general direction so you got to suck up and start planing to get your way more subtly. For example you could have roleplayed your characters emotions by showing signs of a rage he is doing his utmost to control, and you could later persuade your party to ambush the slaver outside where no one would be aware.

I had a semi similar thing happen to me once, the party I am DMing for ran into a CR25 Vampire Lord who were dining with his beloved CR20 or something drow high priestess when they were around lvl 10, Vampire Lord acted amiable being amused by their antics but my group were gritting their teeth as they were put under the fear aura of the Vampire Lord for a little bit when he "accidentally" forgot to turn it off (clue1), they grudgingly accepted Vampire Lords offer of help about their main quest in exchange for them to kill some creatures that were disturbing him near a portal to Feywild, so they went close to the portal and ran into a group of Lycanthropes who thinking of ways to get rid of the Vampire, and after talking with the Lycanthropes they were supposed to kill, the party started arguing about whether they should kill the Lycanthropes or should help them kill the Vampire, they received the information that Lycannthropes were confident they culd kill the Drow Priestess but they were scared ****less from the Vampire(clue2) (Werewolf leader were CR12 or something while its henchmen were around CR2-3), and lastsly they decided to ask the funky Imp they have been traveling with during the whole underground ruin journey and the imp answered that, during his time of exploring the ruins while invisible, the only creature that could see him were the vampire (clue3), one of the players got the clues and argued against fighting the Vampire while other two were so emotional from their early moment with the fear aura they outvoted him to attack the Vampire Lord, long story short the Vampire slaughtered the Lycanthropes, toyed with the party by mind controlling a few of them, then gave the party the choice of picking one amongst them to be killed by the Vampire Lord and he would let the rest of them go unharmed and he would even let them take the body of the dead one (though he was going to raise it as undead before letting them take it), they argued for a while one of them wishing to sacrifice himself, other one wishing to die all together in glory while the one who voted to not attack were just waiting to run away using its Cape of Mountebank (Dimension Door), then they realized they culd put the scrawniest of them inside their bag of holding and teleport two of them away with the cape and managed to get away, and it was their luck that those two items were looted a few hours ago.

[Stupidfy]

I'm going to elaborate more, I tried to be as vague as possible because I don't want the DM to see this and take it the wrong way (I actually think that they are a great DM and friend). This is a world where magic will get you arrested, so none of our party members opted for classes that use it, however two of the npc fighting did have magic. One was a healer and the other used Misty Step along with some type of blind spell. The Slave Trader kept the slaves in a necklace she was wearing, my PC could see/hear/sense? the slaves as she gloated. The party did in fact help in the encounter, however were not able to defeat the lead npc before my permadeath on turn 2 (all 8 attacks hit and rolled near max damage per the DM, I don't peak at the DM's rolls). In the end the party was able to steal the necklace. They fled out a nearby window into the ocean, presumably near land as hours earlier in game time we saw buildings on the shore. We were told the party made it to the shore with a level of exhaustion on each member. However, after the session the DM said we were in the middle of the ocean still and will each have to make 4 saving throws to make it to shore as we are half a mile away.

Multiple members of our party were upset at how the situation was handled (some vocal), and felt it was targeting/punishment. I also get the feeling the DM didn't read my backstory, because I made it very clear how against slavery my character was. He was written to be very nice and goofy, however his flaw was blind rage at the sight of mistreating his people.

The DM's response to the party's general unhappiness was that it's how the scenario would have played out realistically. I understand this for the most part, but I feel that my player was punished heavily for something he had to do via his story. I do not think I was in the "right" to attack the slave trader, however that's what my character would have done, all he really knows is violence (He was sold into slavery at an arena forced to fight very Conan style).

The experience as a whole has hurt my new character creation because of the setting (no magic or jailed) and obvious enforcement of stern ideals. I haven't responded to the DM, however in his responses to the party he made it clear that this is how the scenario will play out 10/10 times. Leading me to believe if I play a character that uses magic, I will 100% be taken out of the campaign.

Also, we had no indication of these NPC's power levels. Other than the fact that we knew the Leader was in fact a leader of some maybe pirates, and had a collection of blunderbusses (that my character was unaware of) we had no clue about weapons/magic.

And after reading the replies, I understand that death is/should be a possibility every combat. It was simply in the way I was insta-killed that feels bad.

[Adigail]

I'm going to elaborate more, I tried to be as vague as possible because I don't want the DM to see this and take it the wrong way (I actually think that they are a great DM and friend). This is a world where magic will get you arrested, so none of our party members opted for classes that use it, however two of the npc fighting did have magic. One was a healer and the other used Misty Step along with some type of blind spell. The Slave Trader kept the slaves in a necklace she was wearing, my PC could see/hear/sense? the slaves as she gloated. The party did in fact help in the encounter, however were not able to defeat the lead npc before my permadeath on turn 2 (all 8 attacks hit and rolled near max damage per the DM, I don't peak at the DM's rolls). In the end the party was able to steal the necklace. They fled out a nearby window into the ocean, presumably near land as hours earlier in game time we saw buildings on the shore. We were told the party made it to the shore with a level of exhaustion on each member. However, after the session the DM said we were in the middle of the ocean still and will each have to make 4 saving throws to make it to shore as we are half a mile away.

Multiple members of our party were upset at how the situation was handled (some vocal), and felt it was targeting/punishment. I also get the feeling the DM didn't read my backstory, because I made it very clear how against slavery my character was. He was written to be very nice and goofy, however his flaw was blind rage at the sight of mistreating his people.

The DM's response to the party's general unhappiness was that it's how the scenario would have played out realistically. I understand this for the most part, but I feel that my player was punished heavily for something he had to do via his story. I do not think I was in the "right" to attack the slave trader, however that's what my character would have done, all he really knows is violence (He was sold into slavery at an arena forced to fight very Conan style).

The experience as a whole has hurt my new character creation because of the setting (no magic or jailed) and obvious enforcement of stern ideals. I haven't responded to the DM, however in his responses to the party he made it clear that this is how the scenario will play out 10/10 times. Leading me to believe if I play a character that uses magic, I will 100% be taken out of the campaign.

Also, we had no indication of these NPC's power levels. Other than the fact that we knew the Leader was in fact a leader of some maybe pirates, and had a collection of blunderbusses (that my character was unaware of) we had no clue about weapons/magic.

And after reading the replies, I understand that death is/should be a possibility every combat. It was simply in the way I was insta-killed that feels bad.

I am one of the other party members, and I can vouche for this. The DM is a friend and a great DM but has trouble separating a punishment and a consequence. We were lead to the captain's quarters, then told we needed to be discreet about the slaves. All of our party members are aligned as good. One of our party members said he was not a part of this and was blinded by the woman who wore the necklace. This is what initiated combat. We were not able to leave the quarters as more and more crew members filed in and we are affronted by other crew members basically on all sides. All NPC's were high level and somehow switched from being ferriers to pirates during this interaction. If my character had not decided to ask if there was a window and jump out, it would have 100% been a party wipe. (Also, I had to use a spell slot to do this instead of being able to throw a dagger through it). We were told we needed to conceal the fact that we use magic, but then have to use magic per the DM's instructions when things don't go his way. There were also very clear indications that the DM was mad when his NPC's would roll low to hit.

The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.

Just because a party member does something stupid, doesn't incentivize a party wipe. Should we have had consequences? Absolutely. But, nothing really justifies this. It made no sense from beginning to end with what happened in the story. Sorry, it just was a bad experience on my part and I recommend for any DM to learn the difference between a challenge and consequence and unfairness and punishment.

[WilliamHuggins]

Another thing about DnD is that it is a game not a real life simulator, you cannot create some type of characters and expect the game to work, for example we see this with some players who create characters so hard to convince into going to adventure that DM has to do back flips to to get them to do stuff, you are supposed to create a character who either wants to go adventuring or is forced to go into adventuring because of their backstory.

This is a similar case, you cant just create a character whose flaw is "I go into rage whenever I see something related to slavery.". What if your DMs homebrew world had a nation of slavers or a nation where slavery is encouraged because of its economy? What if adventure took you to such nation? Were you going to attack any moderately wealthy member of the society as they would be owning slaves and slave markets would be everywhere.

Roleplaying characters should have aims and and your character had an aim, but you decided that your character would throw it all away and go into a suicidal combat for the sake of a momentary anger.

Edit: Ok, reading the last message from your party member, even though what I wrote above is still relevant for your future Dnd play, your DM seems to be a nutjob, so all I could say is get rid of him. All you needed to say was the weird **** your DM did in that last message ( a weasel for last death saing throw? really?) and we would all be on your side.

[dmteeter]

You are not wrong to be upset that your character died that sucks.
However its 100% your own fault you died.

You are a level one barbarian max hit points of 15(point buy) or 17(rolled stats)
You attacked a slave trader who was apparently powerful enough to be successful at what is a very dangerous career.
In front of his partner a Bandit/Pirate leader.

That was just plain and simple a bad call on your part. Your DM sounds reasonable enough though. If you had done the same thing in a game with most of the DM's i've played with it probably would have ended with a TPK....

[ad_hoc]

Level 1 is the very beginning of the apprentice tier.

It is a common mistake to both construct a background where the character is more powerful than where they start and also to play the character as though they are powerful.

Learn to walk first. The satisfaction of leveling up is that your character can then deal with situations like this head on. That is a big difference between tier 1 and 2.

[Stupidfy]

Level 1 is the very beginning of the apprentice tier.

It is a common mistake to both construct a background where the character is more powerful than where they start and also to play the character as though they are powerful.

Learn to walk first. The satisfaction of leveling up is that your character can then deal with situations like this head on. That is a big difference between tier 1 and 2.

I think this is where I went wrong the most. My backstory was of a in his prime gladiator whom did not know defeat, and I played him as such. Also upon reflection and these comments, I believe I should have toned down the "rage" aspect of my character. This was my first barbarian and I played him very much as though it's 0 or 100. He had no levels of rage, simply none or blind.

Thank you all for commenting and helping out.

[DMThac0]

Even with understanding our views and coming to terms with what has happened I still believe that a conversation with your DM may still reward you with better games in the future.

Your troubles with the way the situation played out can be mulled over by the DM, he may or may not feel that he could tone down his approach. You can express your understanding and revelations from said mistake. There might be a compromise where you don't have to roll up a character. Then again, it could simply be a way for everyone to air grievances and move forward with some sort of closure.

[Stupidfy]

Even with understanding our views and coming to terms with what has happened I still believe that a conversation with your DM may still reward you with better games in the future.

Your troubles with the way the situation played out can be mulled over by the DM, he may or may not feel that he could tone down his approach. You can express your understanding and revelations from said mistake. There might be a compromise where you don't have to roll up a character. Then again, it could simply be a way for everyone to air grievances and move forward with some sort of closure.

I spoke to him about retconning it a tad for my character to have lived, albeit barely. He has refused the notion and instead my PC will be paraded in town on a pike. I've decided to respectfully leave the campaign.

[Osrogue]

No. I got frustrated reading that. It’s a cooperative game. Shoving you all into an unwinnable fight because you didn’t stick to the script wasn’t fair to anyone.

Next, ask what kind of campaign you’re playing.

In some, if you don’t make tactically smart decisions, you’ll probably die. That kind of campaign favors tactical play. I wouldn’t roleplaying a character as impulsive or dumb here, because I like putting RP first and they wouldn’t last long.

I’m playing in one where we’ve been literally blown up by one our members on several occasions, entirely in character. We got to laugh it off afterwards, since so far, it hasn’t killed us. It’s a campaign that focuses heavily on role-playing and player choice.

In some campaigns, you can play unintelligently and not be instantly murdered for it. So playing a character that flies off the handle and murders anyone who practices slavery can work in the right kind of game.

[Sigreid]

It's not wrong to be upset about loss of a character. But honestly, what you did was pretty dumb and the DM wasn't wrong to do your character in. You would have done better to make note of the slaver and hit him when you were sure you had all the cards. Heck, it could have even done more good as you could potentially found out where is current stock is and liberated them.

You were impulsive, irrational and unwise and paid the price.

[brainface]

The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.

Wait, it was a normal-sized weasel? Not even a giant ferret? Something with like a half-inch wide mouth is dealing the death blow to a dwarven barbarian?


I spoke to him about retconning it a tad for my character to have lived, albeit barely. He has refused the notion and instead my PC will be paraded in town on a pike. I've decided to respectfully leave the campaign.

I would probably actually barbarian rage at that point honestly. Your times better off spent reading a book or something, you don't owe anyone your humiliation for entertainment. I mean, humiliating your character isn't the same as humiliating you, but sometimes it really kind of is.

[tchntm43]

I think that, based on how you designed the character, it would have been out of character for him not to react that way.

So here is a question? Did you create your character's back-story on your own and not reveal it to the DM until after the adventure was prepared? I can't imagine character creation being done this way (unless it's a premade adventure the DM purchased or downloaded, or you are doing the D&D Adventurers League thing at a store and have a different DM every adventure). Or did the DM knowingly allow you to make a character that has an impulsive tendency to respond to slavery this way, and then go ahead and create an adventure with an unwinnable battle where your character was bound by character traits to respond in that way, and then maliciously kill the character in an overboard way?

Based on what you said in followup posts, it sure sounds like the latter. I think you're right to leave the campaign. I'd look for a DM who is interested in helping you develop a character with interesting backstory and personality traits over the course of the game rather than one that has a strange tendency to give the OK to certain characters and then punish them mercilessly for it. If you can find a another DM to player with, I'd just try to create the same character again there, as long as the DM is okay with that. You sound like the kind of player I'd want in my game, honestly. I'd rather have a player who can play into his character's personality as you did over one that is just interesting in maximizing his "build". I believe it's the responsibility of the DM to look at the characters who are in the party, their personalities, histories, and equipment, and design the adventure to complement those things.

[Friv]

I am one of the other party members, and I can vouche for this. The DM is a friend and a great DM but has trouble separating a punishment and a consequence. We were lead to the captain's quarters, then told we needed to be discreet about the slaves. All of our party members are aligned as good. One of our party members said he was not a part of this and was blinded by the woman who wore the necklace. This is what initiated combat. We were not able to leave the quarters as more and more crew members filed in and we are affronted by other crew members basically on all sides. All NPC's were high level and somehow switched from being ferriers to pirates during this interaction. If my character had not decided to ask if there was a window and jump out, it would have 100% been a party wipe. (Also, I had to use a spell slot to do this instead of being able to throw a dagger through it). We were told we needed to conceal the fact that we use magic, but then have to use magic per the DM's instructions when things don't go his way. There were also very clear indications that the DM was mad when his NPC's would roll low to hit.

The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.

Just because a party member does something stupid, doesn't incentivize a party wipe. Should we have had consequences? Absolutely. But, nothing really justifies this. It made no sense from beginning to end with what happened in the story. Sorry, it just was a bad experience on my part and I recommend for any DM to learn the difference between a challenge and consequence and unfairness and punishment.

Okay, I would like to revise my statements above.

Your DM is bad at DMing, and you are right to be upset. From the more fleshed-out discussions, you were obviously meant to be forced into a complicated moral dilemma where you had to follow the orders of bad people, and when the party objected to this the DM decided to teach them a lesson by murdering everyone.

That is garbage. Walking away was 100% the correct decision.

[Stupidfy]

Wait, it was a normal-sized weasel? Not even a giant ferret? Something with like a half-inch wide mouth is dealing the death blow to a dwarven barbarian?



I would probably actually barbarian rage at that point honestly. Your times better off spent reading a book or something, you don't owe anyone your humiliation for entertainment. I mean, humiliating your character isn't the same as humiliating you, but sometimes it really kind of is.

Yea, regular ferret/weasel. I think the best thing I could have done is just walk away.

Either I'm a bad player, he's a bad DM, a combo of both, or we're both decent and just can't agree on it lol.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Echoing everyone else's sentiments that your DM did, in fact, do wrong, I'd be especially annoyed at his claim at being 'realistic'.

He killed you with a non-magical pet ferret.

And the only reason that even happened is very, very clearly that he, the DM, wanted you, the character, to die.

Realism my butt.

[Adigail]

I spoke to him about retconning it a tad for my character to have lived, albeit barely. He has refused the notion and instead my PC will be paraded in town on a pike. I've decided to respectfully leave the campaign.


Because somehow holding on to a dead and bleeding dwarf in the captain's quarters so that he can post him on a spike makes more sense than throwing the dead body out the very open window next to him and being done with a dwarf he knew nothing about.

I'm done too. That's ridiculous.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Because somehow holding on to a dead and bleeding dwarf in the captain's quarters so that he can post him on a spike makes more sense than throwing the dead body out the very open window next to him and being done with a dwarf he knew nothing about.

I'm done too. That's ridiculous.
Man, that part, too. I thought he was secretly a pirate captain. Wasn't that the point of the whole stupid meeting?

Nothing keeps that secret better than parading the corpse of a stranger around town on a pike. How the hell does he explain this?

Just imagine it in the real world. The mafia offs some guy, then decides to walk around the streets with his corpse up on a pole. NOPE, NOTHING SUSPICIOUS HERE!

[sithlordnergal]

It isn't wrong that you are frustrated...however you brought it on yourself. As you said, the group was negotiating up until you raged and attacked. I find it perfectly reasonable to attack the man who started the combat. You kind of took a blind leap into a fight, which is never a good idea. I'd suggest next time you play, make a character that has those massive, moral issues...but give them more of a fuse.

Now, I would not have gone for the full kill like your dm did, I would have simply knocked you out and moved on. Plus after seeing subsequent posts, it did seem malicious to have the ferret kill you when you had just said you had another death save to use.

Would the dm have accepted a surrender from the rest of the party?

[Mystral]

Nothing, just your average psycho DM that needs to win the game.

Best of luck finding a decent one.

[Schopy]

... I actually think that they are a great DM and friend...


I am one of the other party members, and I can vouche for this. The DM is a friend and a great DM but has trouble separating a punishment and a consequence....
<snip>
We were told we needed to conceal the fact that we use magic, but then have to use magic per the DM's instructions when things don't go his way. There were also very clear indications that the DM was mad when his NPC's would roll low to hit.

The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious...

Wait, what? So, what does this DM normally do, that he would deserve such high praise?

I also think the first mistake was made at char creation. Did the DM tell you, that there will be lots of slavery in the campaign?

With the slaver gloating about the dwarf slaves, it feels like the DM wanted that fight to happen. It would be very interesting to read his side of the whole incident and what he thought would happen. ☺

[Adigail]

Wait, what? So, what does this DM normally do, that he would deserve such high praise?

I also think the first mistake was made at char creation. Did the DM tell you, that there will be lots of slavery in the campaign?

With the slaver gloating about the dwarf slaves, it feels like the DM wanted that fight to happen. It would be very interesting to read his side of the whole incident and what he thought would happen. ☺

I just don't want it to come off as bashing this DM because he is a friend. BUT, even more clarification- the DM actually gave us a list of questions we must answer for our backstory which is why all of our characters have a very thorough and thought out past. He told us ahead of time of the slave trade which is why the dwarf chose to play this character as a way to save his race from this after having been a slave himself.

It just feels like he set us up to fail; we were lambs to the slaughter.

[Stupidfy]

Wait, what? So, what does this DM normally do, that he would deserve such high praise?

I also think the first mistake was made at char creation. Did the DM tell you, that there will be lots of slavery in the campaign?

With the slaver gloating about the dwarf slaves, it feels like the DM wanted that fight to happen. It would be very interesting to read his side of the whole incident and what he thought would happen. ☺

He's very invested into his stories and tells them very well (sometimes at the expense of forcing us to do what he thinks should happen but I get that). He told me that Dwarves were known to have lost a great war and some were kept as slaves to the Humans who won. But, I specifically asked if making a Dwarf would cause issues and he said I probably wouldn't have to worry about it. So that's when I wrote my backstory as a Dwarf that was taken as a slave by humans for an arena. We also knew that the continent/country we were sailing to was not a Human majority. So I thought it safe to level up/gain power on this other area, and then lead back into my homeland freeing as many of my people as possible.

He even had us answer 6 questions about our characters pre-campaign:
1. Born -- Small Village in Mountains called Gunnarsgrunn
2. Parents -- Scrom and Moira, Father and Mother dead
3. Life Before -- Sold into slavery for a gladiator's arena
4. Reason for Leaving -- Fought my way to top and earned my freedom.
5. Left Behind -- A human woman supported me during my time in the arena, and I left her behind.
6. Wants -- I want to help as many of my people as possible. A new land provides new possibility.

Ultimately what led to me leaving is the fact that I would've been forced to fit his dynamic in some way or another and couldn't see a way past it.

[terodil]

Well, the cookie has already been chewed and washed down at this point, but I do wonder at some of the replies in this thread. Doesn't it occur to anybody to wonder why stuff happened the way it did? Why is this situation not taken as an opportunity for all to find common ground, especially since there seems to already be some common basis and mutual respect? Outright leaving is an escalation and seems like an ultima ratio, not prima ratio, to me.

There's a lot of vindictiveness in how things appear to have gone down, which leads me to believe that the DM had some reason to do what he did. I'd also wager it's something from outside of the game. Is everything okay in the group, or does the DM somehow feel isolated or otherwise slighted? You say he is very invested in his stories and gave you a questionnaire to prepare; do you think you put in enough effort, or does he think you're disrespecting his efforts? The entire situation just feels so off (keywords ferret and head-on-a-pike) that I think looking at the game itself will necessarily fall short at explaining and handling it. It just seems too improbable and pointless for a DM to alienate his players and to sabotage his own game like this just for giggles.

[Stupidfy]

Well, the cookie has already been chewed and washed down at this point, but I do wonder at some of the replies in this thread. Doesn't it occur to anybody to wonder why stuff happened the way it did? Why is this situation not taken as an opportunity for all to find common ground, especially since there seems to already be some common basis and mutual respect? Outright leaving is an escalation and seems like an ultima ratio, not prima ratio, to me.

There's a lot of vindictiveness in how things appear to have gone down, which leads me to believe that the DM had some reason to do what he did. I'd also wager it's something from outside of the game. Is everything okay in the group, or does the DM somehow feel isolated or otherwise slighted? You say he is very invested in his stories and gave you a questionnaire to prepare; do you think you put in enough effort, or does he think you're disrespecting his efforts? The entire situation just feels so off (keywords ferret and head-on-a-pike) that I think looking at the game itself will necessarily fall short at explaining and handling it. It just seems too improbable and pointless for a DM to alienate his players and to sabotage his own game like this just for giggles.

I don't really think he meant to do any of this. I believe he felt I was out of line attacking his NPC and retaliated. I did attempt to find a common ground too, but the "pike" incident threw that away. I'm still gonna be friends with him, I just think we obviously differ on what we think D&D is/how it should be played. He very much thinks of everything as a part of his story, but I'm there for mine.

[LurkerShep]

I don't normally talk here, I much prefer to lurk, but I feel that I have to say your friend IS playing D&D wrong. The DM isn't there to force you to play his story the way they "should" happen, he's there to put you in a world and help things happen as you all get the ball rolling. If I'm not misunderstanding you the fact he'll just as easily force you to play the way he wants but is steadfast in not retconning a death in a probably TPK incident is totally asinine and shows his bias that he makes the rules and you have to follow them, fun be damned. It's the group's story, not only his, and telling a story greatly does not a great DM make.

[terodil]

It feels a bit like gazing into my crystal ball here so take anything I say with a large grain of salt...


I don't really think he meant to do any of this. I believe he felt I was out of line attacking his NPC and retaliated. I did attempt to find a common ground too, but the "pike" incident threw that away.

Well, with respect, trying to retcon what happened into an almost-but-not-quite-death is trying to fix the symptom, not the cause of the problem. That can't work. Maybe he thought you were out-of-line, but imo that wouldn't warrant such vindictiveness unless there was something else going on between you as people, not as player-GM. I really can't diagnose what, though, I can just suggest looking into this because I have the feeling that


I'm still gonna be friends with him,

is going to be on the line if the cause of your spat (which is not the barbarian raging) is not addressed.


I just think we obviously differ on what we think D&D is/how it should be played. He very much thinks of everything as a part of his story, but I'm there for mine.

... shouldn't you all be there for your (plural) story? Freudian slip?

[Poobah]

There's a few ways to look at this.

My emotional gut reaction is this: your DM is an absolute tool, douche whatever pejorative we want to throw, like "holy **** what a **** move" because they deliberately designed what amounts to a trap for your character which is actively malicious and trying to screw you just for lulz.

If I step back from that though I need to consider my assumptions, which are based on the types of role-playing games I enjoy, in particular the genres of games. Now if I look at the setting you and the other poster from your group have described and what your DM is wanting these pirates to do with your character's body in this setting... well he's clearly going for somewhere in the vicinity of "gritty realism" "crapsack world" and "grimdark" with some potential added in masocore difficulty. And that is not a game I would want to play or go anywhere near. If it were a video game I'd be all over that: sign me up for more roguelikes, soulslikes, kaizo mario levels and all that... but I'm looking for a fundamentally different experience when I play ultra punishing brutally difficult video games to when I sit down to do some role playing. Hell I don't even read books in settings that dark and nasty unless they have some great humour to balance out the depressingness of it all. Then also I need to remember to apply Hanlon's razor "never attribute to malice that which can reasonably be explained by stupidity" where stupidity can mean anything in the vein of general incompetence or negligence - most of the time people aren't out to get you they're just wrapped up in their own crap and don't even pay attention to the impact they have on others' lives, for example is the guy who cuts you up in traffic isn't sitting in his car twirling his moustache thinking how wonderful it is to have ruined someone else's day in a small way, he's just a bad driver who didn't even see you.

With that in mind I think there're three options: if what the setting was like and how difficult the game was going to be was declared up front and you all opted in to it, signed the waivers etc. then I think the DM is doing their job correctly. Like lessons can (and should) still be learned because you've come out of it feeling really bad and that sucks

If it wasn't... then we get into the issue of communication and expectations and incompetence in those areas which I feel like is the root of so many problems in all circles of life and could be discussed pretty infinitely so I'll won't be too verbose but if this is the issue then IMO yes your DM messed up but communication is a two-way street so while I don't think you're in the wrong and your frustration is 100% understandable there's room to say that the DM isn't totally guilty either.

In these two cases I'd have to go back to and reconsider my knee-jerk emotional response and say that ok maybe I can't automatically brand your DM a malicious prick or anything, maybe he was just doing his job right giving you the game you signed up for or maybe I have to roll it back and just say that a lot of incorrect assumptions were made, there were severe failings of communication and that's really bad but maybe we can balance the blame out. Maybe you all need to learn to talk to each other more clearly about what you want to get out of the game, what sorts of things you enjoy doing and see if those pieces line up or not, or if some kinda compromise can be found. Maybe you can try and take a lesson (and this isn't blaming you, just offering some potential ways you could ensure you don't end up in that kinda situation again) that in the future you should ask what sort of genre or difficulty of campaign you're gonna be playing with and say that you really enjoy being invested in your character and think that permadeath should be <one of: not in the game/final boss or end of season risk only/extremely rare/etc.> it seems that like me you're kinda more into a high fantasy or heroic fantasy/sword and sorcery type world, communicate early and often about what you like and find fun and want to get out if a game.

That said I do think as the guy running the game and making the calls and the one with all the power he is in a position of responsibility so he has more fault for failing to actively communicate with you, if that's the case, especially as someone who seems very dedicated to his world and his style he needs to be very upfront about that, because at least to me that is not the default of the D&D setting. Like if he continues to be bad at communicating he's either gonna need to be really lucky and just trip and fall in to a bunch of players who love that style or he's gonna end up feeling really sad that he can't find any players for his games or end up nursing some kinda resentment that people keep leaving - see above with regards to misaligned assumptions and general incompetence a communication. I think way too many people go around IRL with horrible communication skills, carrying around a ton of assumptions and as a result end up hurting other people and ultimately hurting themselves.

Now there's a third option here too, and that's if he deceived you in some way about what sort of game it'd be (rather than simply failing to communicate it well) then I totally go back to saying you basically got screwed by a jerk and like why are you even friends with someone who thinks it's fun to non-consensually mess with a friend? Additionally and this is where I'd swing the balance of fault firmly towards him and away from you and back to thinking that my gut reaction was right is that from reading your follow-up posts it seems like he's more interested in his commitment to his setting and way of doing things than your fun/comfort/enjoyment. To me that's a pretty big red flag because he's basically saying his enjoyment is more important than yours and especially from the way you describe this kinda adversarial relationship between players and DM I think you're totally right and making a good sensible call to just maturely step away.

Honestly the more I read your further posts the more I think that at the very least he's a bad DM, who wants to be writing a novel not interacting and creating a collaborative experience with other people.

Quick edit, what a first post, also wow this forum censors! That's odd to me but again it's an assumption - my default speech patterns are quite swear prone, but that might make some people and clearly whoever set up this forum kinda uncomfortable so I should moderate my language, both because if half my words are asterisks or "beeped out" it's kinda hard to tell what I'm beeping saying and because I want to be respectful.

[terodil]

A thought just occurred to me: What are the chances that the reason he has Mr. Boss-Pirate parade your head around town is that he wants you to bump head-first (sorry) into the resident high-level priest who just so happens to feel extraordinarily altruistic and resurrects you? It'd be a bit twisted, but I could just imagine some of my friends pulling off something like that...

[Stupidfy]

Honestly the more I read your further posts the more I think that at the very least he's a bad DM, who wants to be writing a novel not interacting and creating a collaborative experience with other people.


Firstly, thank you for such a well thought out post, and I wanted to touch on this last line. He was a English major so this kind of makes sense lol. I've officially stepped away and honestly I feel better about it.

I know it's difficult and probably frustrating to not know every perspective for an accurate judgment , but that's why I tried to keep it simple at the start.

[Stupidfy]

A thought just occurred to me: What are the chances that the reason he has Mr. Boss-Pirate parade your head around town is that he wants you to bump head-first (sorry) into the resident high-level priest who just so happens to feel extraordinarily altruistic and resurrects you? It'd be a bit twisted, but I could just imagine some of my friends pulling off something like that...

I specifically asked if there was any chance I could play my PC again. He said no, and then gave the pike explanation. So that's when I gave my resignation. He said I'm welcome back if I want to play again. That's where we left it.

[JackPhoenix]

Note: there was no need to get the ferret involved. Attacks against unconscious characters are automatic critical hit, and critical hits counts as two failed death saves. You were dead after the second attack.

[1Pirate]

The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.

Had the weasel previously been in combat or had its initiative been rolled? If not, that was straight up malicious on the DM's part. Don't feel uncomfortable leaving(and if any of the other players didn't like how it went down, they shouldn't feel uncomfortable leaving either). Don't bring it up again and it should be easy enough to remain friends.

[Merudo]

The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.


I think it would be wrong *not* to feel frustrated.

Basically, you roleplayed your character in a way that made plenty of sense, but for some unfathomable reason angered the DM. Instead of communicating, the DM retaliated by straight up murdering your PC.

[Cwyll]

Frustration is fair; the ferret attack especially was a btchslap.
No reason that you couldn't have been stabilised and sold into slavery yourself (going by how you describe the lead up).
Could have been an interesting tweaked story line coming from all of that...

Think you signed up to participate in a pre-written novel rather than a player driven campaign...

[Unoriginal]

All those "the DM is running his novel" comments are baseless.

Having an enemy gloat about the awful things they were doing to OP's character's species was not a nice moment, but having enemies in position of power is supposed to suck.

That the Barbarian got killed when he decided to attack was the outcome one should have expected. The other still managed to escape along with the magic item keeping the slaves imprisoned, so the Barbarian's action still lead to accomplishing what he wanted.

OP could literally have waited a few minutes for the slaver to not be next to their ally and the outcome would probably have been very different.

Not liking the DM's style? That's more than fine, and it can be a good reason to leave. But I see nothing that suggest the DM cheated or railroaded here.

Unless you do think that the pirate leader's damage rolls weren't what the DM said they were.

[MaxWilson]

Wait, what? So, what does this DM normally do, that he would deserve such high praise?


He's very invested into his stories and tells them very well (sometimes at the expense of forcing us to do what he thinks [I]should happen but I get that). He told me that Dwarves were known to have lost a great war and some were kept as slaves to the Humans who won. But, I specifically asked if making a Dwarf would cause issues and he said I probably wouldn't have to worry about it. So that's when I wrote my backstory as a Dwarf that was taken as a slave by humans for an arena. We also knew that the continent/country we were sailing to was not a Human majority. So I thought it safe to level up/gain power on this other area, and then lead back into my homeland freeing as many of my people as possible.

He even had us answer 6 questions about our characters pre-campaign:
1. Born -- Small Village in Mountains called Gunnarsgrunn
2. Parents -- Scrom and Moira, Father and Mother dead
3. Life Before -- Sold into slavery for a gladiator's arena
4. Reason for Leaving -- Fought my way to top and earned my freedom.
5. Left Behind -- A human woman supported me during my time in the arena, and I left her behind.
6. Wants -- I want to help as many of my people as possible. A new land provides new possibility.

Ultimately what led to me leaving is the fact that I would've been forced to fit his dynamic in some way or another and couldn't see a way past it.

Those aren't signs of being a great DM. In context those are signs of being a bad DM. Two points:

(1) A good DM isn't invested in "his stories," he's interested in YOUR STORIES. The ones the players generate through play. He tries his best to give you interesting problems to deal with but isn't invested in any particular outcome. If he's forcing you to do what he wants you to do... he should just write a novel instead.

(2) It's fine to run a campaign where challenge is high, character deaths is common and turnover is high... but it's wrong to set players up with the wrong expectations in that campaign by having them answer a bunch of personal questions about where you were born, who your parents are, etc. In that kind of campaign you should have new PCs create a couple of "hooks" or relationships which tie them directly to the story, but let other details about the character be defined during play as it becomes appropriate. Encouraging players to invest emotionally in characters up front doesn't fit that style of campaign.

The fact that you are feeling forced to fit his dynamic is unsurprising, because that's how bad DMs make you feel. I'm not saying it's never right to leave even a good DM's table (sometimes what you want and what they want just don't match up) but this guy isn't even a good DM.

[CantigThimble]

I would be much less sympathetic with you if you had started the fight. If players start fights with dangerous and powerful people, they should plan for the possibility that they're seriously outmatched and expect death as a possibility.

However, based on what Adigail said, one of your party just said that they weren't interested and then the NPCs initiated combat. That's not consequences for actions, that's hard railroading.

[Unoriginal]

I would be much less sympathetic with you if you had started the fight. If players start fights with dangerous and powerful people, they should plan for the possibility that they're seriously outmatched and expect death as a possibility.

However, based on what Adigail said, one of your party just said that they weren't interested and then the NPCs initiated combat. That's not consequences for actions, that's hard railroading.

What are you talking about? OP was very clear the Barbarian started the fight.

[CantigThimble]

One of our party members said he was not a part of this and was blinded by the woman who wore the necklace. This is what initiated combat.

This is what I'm talking about.

[Unoriginal]

This is what I'm talking about.

Seem I misread this post, then. Thank you for pointing this out.


I'm not quite sure what "saying he was not a part of this" meant in context (strongly saying slavery is wrong? Saying he's quitting?), and why OP said he started the fight, tbh.

[CantigThimble]

Seem I misread this post, then. Thank you for pointing this out.


I'm not quite sure what "saying he was not a part of this" meant in context (strongly saying slavery is wrong? Saying he's quitting?), and why OP said he started the fight, tbh.

I don't think the OP was trying to be deceptive or anything, he was just (understandably) focused on his own character's role in events. He didn't really discuss how the rest of the party was involved in the OP.

[Damon_Tor]

The Npc was a Bandit Captain with a Ferret pet. We were loosely led to believe these were pirates, however they were ferrying us to a location and were quite friendly up until this point. We even did quite a bit of labor for them during the journey.


Sounds like the NPC is way out of your CR league. Even for Level 1s, Barbs are pretty tough when raging. To drop you in one hit would take a pretty big chunk of damage. And 3 attacks... I'd really like to see that NPC's statblock.

A "Bandit Captain" is CR 2, so in theory a match for a party of 4 level 2 PCs. Solo against a level 1 PC, yeah, it's going to be a bit of a slaughter. It would have around 65 Hitpoints, and as long as he's just fending off 1 attack per turn, he'll have an effective AC of 17 because of his ability to parry. And yes, it can make 3 melee attacks per turn.

But all that said, if the party was smart about how they handled the situation, it's absolutely possible for them to have succeeded. It's not like this is a dragon we're talking about here. The tactical issue here is that the barbarian just lept stupidly into combat. Wait until night, sneak into his room, kill him in his sleep. Free the slaves somehow, start an uprising. There are a million creative, tactical ways to handle this, but the player just wanted to brute force it. Maybe that's in character: maybe he deliberately wrote his character as an idiot. "It's what my character would do" is a poor excuse, because you, the PC, made the character.

To be clear, I don't think the DM handled this well, at all. But on the other hand, it sounds to me like the PC was playing his character as "Chaotic Stupid". You don't help your people by throwing yourself over a cliff for them. It sounds to me like the DM was trying to introduce a STORY to you, a story he intended to have play out over a moderate period of time, and the player was trying to skip to the end.

[mephnick]

Man, so much of this comes down to intent because I can see myself having this exact scenario play out...handled a bit better, maybe.

Introduce strong enemy early in the campaign to set up the story? Do it all the time.
Have strong enemy lord their power over people weaker than them to build contempt from the players? Classic.
Don't pull punches when players attack powerful enemies without scouting them out first? Yep, hope you had an escape plan.
Kill downed characters if it makes sense for the monster? I consider it my job as a neutral referee.

But everyone at my table understands my play style before the first session and none of this comes as a surprise. I think a good DM chooses something about a character and pushes it a little to see what the player actually cares about.

Oh? You hate slavers? Well...what about this guy? It would be bad to kill him, but you hate slavers..what do you do?
You're a former thief trying to live a better life? What about this opportunity? It's just sitting there..
You hate Drow? This Drow says he can help you. It would make your mission much less dangerous. Do you trust him? What do you do?

[guachi]

In and of itself, a 1st level PC dying is nothing out of the ordinary. Even in 5e.

You were under no magical compulsion or forced combat. You were facing an NPC who had a successful slave business. If he could have easily been taken down by a mere level 1 PC, it would have happened already. Even so, a CR 2 enemy isn't something ridiculous. A CR 2 enemy is roughly equivalent to a 5th level PC (and you can see the similarities in the Bandit Captain stats. Two main hand attacks and one off-hand attack is like two-weapon fighting. He also has a feature similar to Defensive Duelist Feat)

You attack the mob boss in his home, expect to die. You could have played your PC such that he was gripping his chair tightly but under control, his rage about to spill forth. Maybe even like in a Western where people draw their guns but no one fires. Scenes like that happen all the time in movies and TV shows where the villain gloats in front of the heroes who later come back to defeat the villain.

But you didn't.

[guachi]

I think a good DM chooses something about a character and pushes it a little to see what the player actually cares about.

A lot snipped but I'll keep the heart of your post.


Player had a backstory about being a slave and the DM provides a story opportunity around that. The villain was CR 2 and could have provided a nice level 1-3 series of adventures. Instead, the PC flies off the handle and gets himself killed. I'd be frustrated as a DM if a player did that.

[Tanarii]

I hearby call this court of the Internet together. *bangs gavel* :smallamused:


Player had a backstory about being a slave and the DM provides a story opportunity around that. The villain was CR 2 and could have provided a nice level 1-3 series of adventures. Instead, the PC flies off the handle and gets himself killed. I'd be frustrated as a DM if a player did that.General speaking, I'd be inclined to agree. Certainly that was my first impression. You face the (pretty obvious) consequences for your actions. If you fly off the handle and attack someone in the midst of allies, you're going down.

But there some major DM red flags. Like:


The major part that got me was the dwarf was on the ground and the captain, knowing there were other party members trying to kill him (including one DIRECTLY behind him) still made two death blows to the dwarf. The party member (dwarf) then made a remark about "thank God I have that last death roll" that's when the DM turned and said "the weasel then comes off the captain and bites you." It felt very intentional and very malicious. ALL party members are very upset, not just this one.


He's very invested into his stories and tells them very well (sometimes at the expense of forcing us to do what he thinks should happen but I get that).
This is a DM that players already describe as what's pretty clearly a railroading/controlling storyteller in the first place.

Then in the specific, one that intentionally killed a downed PC with a (normal) ferret, after it was jokingly pointed out that one more hit would kill the PC. That's actively malicious.

[Keravath]

A lot snipped but I'll keep the heart of your post.


Player had a backstory about being a slave and the DM provides a story opportunity around that. The villain was CR 2 and could have provided a nice level 1-3 series of adventures. Instead, the PC flies off the handle and gets himself killed. I'd be frustrated as a DM if a player did that.

I disagree. Given the detailed character backstory and the fact that the NPCs started the combat by casting blindness on one of the PCs because they wouldn't go along with being pirates and slave traders ... I'd say that the situation developed pretty much as expected.

Perhaps the DM expected the characters to stand there and bend over, go along with the slave traders, become a bit evil ... but you know what? None of the characters were written that way, they were all good aligned. They took passage on a boat with some shady characters since they could get where the needed to go relatively quickly. They didn't know they were pirates and certainly not slave traders.

Enter a barbarian with a specific backstory AS a slave. Whose goal is to prevent slavery of his compatriots. The DM then has a slave trader on board the ship, working with the captain, with a bunch of dwarf slaves in thrall ... they then bring the characters in and apparently try to force them to join up. All I can say is "What the <expletive deleted> was the DM thinking?" Honestly, if these folks play in character there is only ONE outcome here ... especially after the NPCs initiate combat by casting blindness.

Add to that, this is supposedly low magic campaign where the PCs are penalized if they take any form of magic and then throw a couple of NPC magic users into the mix.

In my opinion, bad DM is bad. Yes the PCs decided to attack, and yes it would be a difficult fight and yes someone might likely die. BUT the DM initiated combat AND the DM set up a situation in which these specific characters if role played based on the information he had been provided were NOT going to bend over, were not going to join up with the pirates.

However, that isn't all ..
- the captain focuses all his attacks on the barbarian who attacked after a party member was blinded and for very good, in character reasons.
- then when the DM thinks the character might not be dead he has a pet ferret go and bite hit to make sure he is dead (I don't even know if that is in the rules or whether a pet ferret could administer a coup de grace .. just dumb .. might as well have the NPC attack again next turn). Clearly, this wasn't the NPC taking these actions, it was a control freak DM taking out his frustration on a PC when the encounter didn't go as he had imagined.
- add to this the comment that the barbarians head would be paraded around on a pike (!?) ... give me a break ... if the captain cared at all he would just dump the head overboard. Not only that, I don't really understand how the party could get away jumping out a porthole and trying to swim away. This vindictive captain should have brought the ship around and filled them with arrows and left them for the sharks (except that the NPC wasn't vindictive ... it was the DM who wanted to salvage something so he let them go ... but still parades the head on a pike (!?)).

I've played with some DMs like this one (at least based on the comments in this thread). Sometimes the DM can be very colourful and descriptive and when the campaign follows his script it can be fun but they are a control freak and do not respond well to the players making the story happen due to their characters and how they respond to the environment. In this case, the DM appears to have gotten personally angry and taken out that frustration on the character who took the first swing when he was trying to force the party to cave in ... despite that fact that would have been completely out of character for some or all of this particular party.

Honestly, the best DM sets the scene, places and roleplays the NPCs with their motives and goals .. and then allows the PCs to interact as their characters would respond to the NPCs and the situation ... not how the DM wants them to respond. The campaign grows organically from the interaction and everyone has more fun. I've DMed campaigns that didn't turn out remotely like I had originally envisaged. Characters choose to follow up on something I didn't initially think of ... so the campaign unfolds spontaneously until the end of the session at which point I can fill in some more details in whichever direction the campaign is now headed.

That said, there will be situations in which the PCs would be over their head to engage in combat ... but it will generally be well telegraphed and I wouldn't put in such an NPC so closely attached to a combat trigger in a character background unless I was fully prepared for the likely conflict. This DM didn't seem to expect that outcome or think it was reasonable ... even though it was pretty much in character. The ex-slave barbarian character was never going to agree to work with a bunch of pirates/slavers especially after learning they had a bunch of dwarf slaves in their possession. Barbarians are usually not that bright and their actions are often governed by rage (at least if you read the fluff) ... so although a smart barbarian could possibly have decided to postpone action at this point in time ... after the NPCs blinded one of his party members and bragged about their dwarf slaves in front of the barbarian dwarf ex-slave ... the choice of actions was honestly quite predictable.

[guachi]

If the PC's background is such that he can be goaded at first level to basically commit suicide by a standard movie trope then the problem is the PC. Make a better character.

It's possible that the DM was a railroading DM but the PC killed himself before we got to that point.

[Tanarii]

It's possible that the DM was a railroading DM but the PC killed himself before we got to that point.
You seem to have missed that thw DM was apparently railroading and goading the entire party before the player even got to that point.

[ATHATH]

Note for future reference: Once you were down, it should have only taken two hits made by attackers within 5 ft. of you to kill you.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#toc_55:


If damage reduces you to 0 Hit Points and fails to kill you, you fall Unconscious (see Conditions ). This unconsciousness ends if you regain any Hit Points.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Conditions#toc_15:


Unconscious
An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
The creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone.
The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity Saving Throws.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#toc_56:


Damage at 0 Hit Points: If you take any damage while you have 0 Hit Points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer Instant Death.


As for killing your character while he's down... Normally, I'd say that that was at least justifiable by saying that it was a good tactical decision. HOWEVER, magic is outlawed in your campaign and none of your party members appeared to be mid-combat healers, so someone healing the Barbarian (letting him get up again after being dropped to 0) mid-combat shouldn't have been something that the pirate captain needed to account for (after determining if your party had any mid-combat healers, of course).

Furthermore, unless other (emotional) factors were in play, the captain should have opted to go for nonlethal damage over lethal damage. You could have made an excellent slave for his slave trader buddy, and, IIRC, you take no direct penalties for attempting to deal nonlethal damage over lethal damage in 5e.

[Mordaedil]

I am also really confused why this slaver decided to kill this dwarf rather than get another slave. And using his ferret familiar to deliver the final blow seems... Malicious at best.

Parading the corpse through town also seems, like wait what? That's done entirely to spite the player, not some kind of logical outcome. There's gotta be a smarter way to do things as a DM.

[Finback]

I spoke to him about retconning it a tad for my character to have lived, albeit barely. He has refused the notion and instead my PC will be paraded in town on a pike. I've decided to respectfully leave the campaign.

I think that's fair. I think a good compromise would be, the slaver captain brings you back, to be sold as a slave (A Fate Worse Than Death). Then you can easily have a story arc be your allies rescuing you, perhaps you working from the inside to incentivise your fellow slaves to rise up.

[Finback]

A thought just occurred to me: What are the chances that the reason he has Mr. Boss-Pirate parade your head around town is that he wants you to bump head-first (sorry) into the resident high-level priest who just so happens to feel extraordinarily altruistic and resurrects you? It'd be a bit twisted, but I could just imagine some of my friends pulling off something like that...

So, speaking as a DM, if I had something like that planned? I'd be telling my player *something will come of this*. Setting up a PC's death that will have narrative ramifications should be discussed with that player. If the goal is to have the PC's spirit resurrected as part of some larger plot device, fine, but make them aware that this is part of the story. Shelob "killing" Frodo leads to him being brought *into* Mordor by the orcs, and gives Samwise the impetus to go after him and have development. If your DM wanted your dwarf to "die", so the others will be inspired to help end the slave trade, and have him resurrected by a priest who's working on the inside to take down the system, then he should simply say "there is a reason, please roll with me for now".

But honestly, it sounds like this is not the case here.

So, if you go ever choose to go back? Beast ranger, with a dire weasel, and Favoured Enemy - Pirates.

[MThurston]

One: Its never the players fault if they play it by their back story.

Two: If a DM attacks downed characters to kill characters outright......I wouldn't play with them.

Three: You still need to find away to work inside your background. If you know you can't beat them, then you will have to wait and plan something when you are able to beat them.

[ruy343]

On the last turn, my character is dropped to 0 hp on the first attack. Following this, the NPC attacks with his other 2 attacks and then a 4th with the aid of a pet causing me to instantly die with no saves/healing. No other party member was attacked until I was dead.


I think that it's a bit odd for the NPC to actually finish off your character when other threats were present - especially if he's the slaving type. Perhaps your DM wanted to create a sense of threat for future combats to teach you that characters actually can die, or perhaps no one was pressuring the NPC, so he had the time to finish you off, and felt that you were enough of a threat to warrant that response.

When I DM, I typically don't have an enemy try to actively attack an already-downed character unless either A) The creature is just looking for a bite to eat, has killed a party member, and wants to drag it off to its lair or B) they're a villain (like Strahd or Acererak), who's hungry for blood/souls,and I want the party to know just how seriously to take this guy (and how trivial of a threat that the villain thinks they are).

Attacking downed players is good for building dramatic tension if done properly. From what we read (which is only your side of things), it sounds like your DM wanted to play "optimally", and wasn't as concerned with the NPC's behavior (he would leave him unconscious because he could be used later) or message he was trying to send.

Were I in the DM's shoes, I would have had the bandit captain barter for his life, holding a knife to the neck of their downed comrade, forcing the players to make a decision. The captain backs out slowly (I would actually act this out with my own body as I go into the adjoining room), while the character's player rolls the death saving throws every six seconds, and the players are left to make a choice...

[MThurston]

I think that it's a bit odd for the NPC to actually finish off your character when other threats were present - especially if he's the slaving type. Perhaps your DM wanted to create a sense of threat for future combats to teach you that characters actually can die, or perhaps no one was pressuring the NPC, so he had the time to finish you off, and felt that you were enough of a threat to warrant that response.

When I DM, I typically don't have an enemy try to actively attack an already-downed character unless either A) The creature is just looking for a bite to eat, has killed a party member, and wants to drag it off to its lair or B) they're a villain (like Strahd or Acererak), who's hungry for blood/souls,and I want the party to know just how seriously to take this guy (and how trivial of a threat that the villain thinks they are).

Attacking downed players is good for building dramatic tension if done properly. From what we read (which is only your side of things), it sounds like your DM wanted to play "optimally", and wasn't as concerned with the NPC's behavior (he would leave him unconscious because he could be used later) or message he was trying to send.

Were I in the DM's shoes, I would have had the bandit captain barter for his life, holding a knife to the neck of their downed comrade, forcing the players to make a decision. The captain backs out slowly (I would actually act this out with my own body as I go into the adjoining room), while the character's player rolls the death saving throws every six seconds, and the players are left to make a choice...

Very good view on this. Bad form on your DM.

[MagneticKitty]

Remake the character but switch your race to revenant from ua. Fixed.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Did the DM KNOW your backstory? If so then I agree that this was an unfair scenario. Your character was bated into attacking a group of high-level NPCs. What did the DM expect you to do? Ignore the situation which directly relates to your personality. From what it sounds like is that the DM meant for you to die and put you in a fatal situation. I don't blame your DM too much but situations like that aren't so fun sometimes.

[mephnick]

Did the DM KNOW your backstory? If so then I agree that this was an unfair scenario. Your character was bated into attacking a group of high-level NPCs. What did the DM expect you to do?

Probably what I expect most people to do: Realize attacking right now might be suicide and plot their revenge for later when the situation is more favourable/profitable.

OR:

Be ok that your character's story ends with them dying fighting for their cause...which is better than the "eaten by wolves" epitaph on most D&D character's gravestones.

I'm not saying the DM isn't at fault for the way he handled it, but this idea that OP was forced to kill his own character!?! is probably BS.

[MaxWilson]

Were I in the DM's shoes, I would have had the bandit captain barter for his life, holding a knife to the neck of their downed comrade, forcing the players to make a decision. The captain backs out slowly (I would actually act this out with my own body as I go into the adjoining room), while the character's player rolls the death saving throws every six seconds, and the players are left to make a choice...

This only works if you change the 5E rules on death saves. You can't ready a multiattack, so by strict 5E rules, this tactic is just an invitation for a PC to let you make your attack (-2 death saves) and then cast Healing Word to completely negate your attack AND get the PC back up to positive HP all in one bonus action. The threat is therefore ineffective, under vanilla PHB rules.

But if you change the death rules to something like "each failed death save costs you 20% of your HP, rounded up, and you die when you reach -100% of your max HP; a successful death save or receiving magical healing stabilizes you" then this threat can be effective to some extent since you're threatening an auto-crit and Healing Word will heal far less damage than your auto-crit will inflict. Even better if you also rewrite the rules for readied actions so that Multiattack still works.

Both of these changes are good ideas for their own sake already, but the fact that they allow hostage-taking in this scenario is a nice bonus.


Probably what I expect most people to do: Realize attacking right now might be suicide and plot their revenge for later when the situation is more favourable/profitable.

Part of the problem here seems to be a mismatch between backstory (a gladiator who's already fought his way to the top) and reality (he's still a first-level PC).

[Tanarii]

Probably what I expect most people to do: Realize attacking right now might be suicide and plot their revenge for later when the situation is more favourable/profitable.This remark doesn't resemble most D&D players. Committing suicide-by-axe-attack the moment a more powerful enemy taunts them is definitely more their métier. :smallamused:

Although to be fair, sometimes that's the DMs fault for not telegraphing. And sometimes it's other DMs fault for training them to think no matter what, every encounter will be level appropriate and winnable.


Be ok that your character's story ends with them dying fighting for their cause...which is better than the "eaten by wolves" epitaph on most D&D character's gravestones.Seriously. I've gleefully sent characters into certain death to die heroically (or villainously as the case may be) many times. Just so long as it didn't happen in a way that made me feel stupid.

Otoh Death By (not giant) Ferret Bite would certainly make me feel like my heroic attempt to die fighting slavers was stupid.

[guachi]

One: Its never the players fault if they play it by their back story.

Wrong.

If the player's back story is used as motivation to grief other players, it's the player's fault. If the player's back story is used as justification to not help the other PCs, for example, it's the player's fault. The player controls his PC. He can come up with a justification to not grief other players or not commit suicide or help his fellow PCs out.

This lame excuse is the equivalent of "I was just following orders".


Two: If a DM attacks downed characters to kill characters outright......I wouldn't play with them.

Maybe the DM was just playing the NPCs by their back story.

[Malifice]

Anyone with three attacks a round is either level 5+ and dual wielding / using Polearm Mastery, or level 11+.

Or a NPC like a Gladiator or Champion and not a NPC built like a levelled PC (which are rare; even nonexistent in core rules save for an individual DM statting one out).

I expect NPCs to not have levels at all. For the most part that's accurate.

And it was a **** move by the DM. You should have been knocked unconscious and not killed.

That said, would killing this guy have stopped the Slave trade? It seems like you werent thinking much about the consequences of your actions.

[Mordaedil]

I'm not saying the DM isn't at fault for the way he handled it, but this idea that OP was forced to kill his own character!?! is probably BS.
Yes, it's BS. But it's BS on the behalf of the DM's side of things. He had a lot of options for that fight or that entire scenario that other people have outlined, that didn't involve killing the character.

Sometimes players act out of character and do something that stupid that you could not have planned for as a DM. But in this scenario, it almost seemed like everything was set up to antagonise and test the players.

Look at it in a different perspective, if he had decided to overlook the dwarf slaves right in front of him, can you be sure the DM wouldn't later dock him for ignoring their plight? You can't be sure in this situation. It's just a stupid player trap.

[MThurston]

Wrong.

If the player's back story is used as motivation to grief other players, it's the player's fault. If the player's back story is used as justification to not help the other PCs, for example, it's the player's fault. The player controls his PC. He can come up with a justification to not grief other players or not commit suicide or help his fellow PCs out.

This lame excuse is the equivalent of "I was just following orders".



Maybe the DM was just playing the NPCs by their back story.


SMH.

Most people have a backstory. They should feel that when a DM enters into it the player should bite.

So there should never be a problem with taking bites to your back story.

DM: You think you see your long lost sister's face in the crowd.

Player: Cool, I go sell my loot.

A DM should never attack downed players while the group is still standing. (Unless a dumb animal is trying to eat and even if the animal had 8 attacks, I would only attack once per turn to give the party a chance to save them.)

With this situation, making the PCs slaves would have been better. You don't just attack PCs to kill them.

Not a game I am willing to play.

Let me give you an example.

Your fighter goes down. Each hit while you are down equals 2 failed saves. (I believe this is correct) So an enemy wizard could launch 3 MMs, hitting the fighter twice and someone else once.

Wash and repeat and your whole party is dead.

There is a difference in playing enemies smart and outright abusing the group.

So much roleplaying was lost by not capturing the group or some of the group.

[terodil]

Most people have a backstory. They should feel that when a DM enters into it the player should bite.

So there should never be a problem with taking bites to your back story.

There's one half-phrase that I'm desperately missing in this post and others that express the same opinion: within reason.

A backstory does not absolve you, as the player, from responsibility for your actions, nor does it protect you from having to face the consequences for them, if you decide to play it out against all warnings that that little thing called 'common sense' is yelling at you. Besides, a backstory that consists of a single big red button with no failsafe is a bad backstory.

(This is just a comment on the 'a player can never be wrong and should never face consequences if his/her character acts according to his/her backstory'. I'm not getting into the debate of the OP's situation again, everything has been said there IMO.)

[Galithar]

There's one half-phrase that I'm desperately missing in this post and others that express the same opinion: within reason.

A backstory does not absolve you, as the player, from responsibility for your actions, nor does it protect you from having to face the consequences for them, if you decide to play it out against all warnings that that little thing called 'common sense' is yelling at you. Besides, a backstory that consists of a single big red button with no failsafe is a bad backstory.

(This is just a comment on the 'a player can never be wrong and should never face consequences if his/her character acts according to his/her backstory'. I'm not getting into the debate of the OP's situation again, everything has been said there IMO.)

I agree and disagree. I agree with the concepts, and I think I'm only on disagreement with your wording. I don't think a character following their background can ever be 'wrong' but they absolutely should have consequences.

My example is I have a player who had made themselves a 'raised by wolves' style ranger beast master. She was just arrested when she had her animal companion carry the severed leg of a human into a major city. It was from a bandit and I allowed her to get off with a slap in the wrist after explaining herself, with a warning from the guard that this kind of behavior isn't tolerated in civilized places, even if the leg was attached to someone who attacked you first. Self-defense doesn't justify dismemberment. (Unless you are a sufficiently Powerful Noble that can get away with making a show of things like that)

[MThurston]

There's one half-phrase that I'm desperately missing in this post and others that express the same opinion: within reason.

A backstory does not absolve you, as the player, from responsibility for your actions, nor does it protect you from having to face the consequences for them, if you decide to play it out against all warnings that that little thing called 'common sense' is yelling at you. Besides, a backstory that consists of a single big red button with no failsafe is a bad backstory.

(This is just a comment on the 'a player can never be wrong and should never face consequences if his/her character acts according to his/her backstory'. I'm not getting into the debate of the OP's situation again, everything has been said there IMO.)

It is the job of the DM for put plot hooks. My issue is not with having a powerful foe. My issue is assassinating a character for no reason.

Again, I would have not come back to the table. Any DM that does this has issues. A slaver would never kill when thry can sell.

[terodil]

It is the job of the DM for put plot hooks. My issue is not with having a powerful foe. My issue is assassinating a character for no reason. [...] Any DM that does this has issues. A slaver would never kill when thry can sell.

Plot hooks are an invitation to engage, not to fly off the handle. Again, engage within reason. If a player throws all reason out of the window because 'it says so on my character sheet', then that's the point where things have already gone wrong. An experienced and confident DM could and would have salvaged the situation but let's not forget it was the player first who 'had issues', the DM second, although I don't really see much point in playing the blame game here. Regrettable errors were made on all sides that lead to the implosion of a potentially great campaign.

Also, just for the sake of preventing unfortunate incidents in the future, it's a completely unwarranted assumption that slavers would never employ deadly force, especially when attacked.

@Galithar: I believe we are in agreement with only semantic issues slightly muddying the waters ('wrong', 'player vs. PC'). I agree with how that tasty crunchy leg was handled. Then again, having a fluffy wolf carry a treat around is slightly different from trying to axe a slaver in the face, right? ;)

[MThurston]

Plot hooks are an invitation to engage, not to fly off the handle. Again, engage within reason. If a player throws all reason out of the window because 'it says so on my character sheet', then that's the point where things have already gone wrong. An experienced and confident DM could and would have salvaged the situation but let's not forget it was the player first who 'had issues', the DM second.

Also, just for the record, it's a completely unwarranted assumption that slavers would never employ deadly force, especially when attacked.

@Galithar: I believe we are in agreement with only slightly semantic issues muddying the waters ('wrong', 'player vs. PC'). I agree with how that tasty crunchy leg was handled. Then again, having a fluffy wolf carry a treat around is slightly different from trying to axe a slaver in the face, right? ;)

This right here is the issue.

Oh, I am sorry. Did I over react to my backstory. So the punishment is death.

Again, attacking the character so they lose their character while the party is still up is lame.

Not a DM I am willing to play with.

Again, it sounds like the DM has issues. Maybe you do also.

The story should never be bigger than the players. And every attempt should be made to not kill the players for silly reasons.

Ie, the group has really bad rolls and they all are knocked down.

Do you kill all of them?

No, they wake up captured. Sold or held ransom.

Sometimes the story after a failure is the best drama.

Now again, my issue is with attacking a down PC. Not that he died.

Sounds like the NPC died, so wasting those attacks on a down PC was stupid. All it did was cause issues with the PCs that lived.

They now know that the DM will attack down PCs.

Not someone I want to be my DM.

[Galithar]

Oh yes, they're different which is why she was allowed to be released. Though it's still in poor form to kill this character for going after the slaver. The DM knew the backstory and this NPC blatantly taunted him. Consequences sure, but as keeps getting said in regards to the player, within reason applies to the DM as well.

Threaten him, restrain him, throw him overboard, enslave him. All of these are good. Kill him... With a weasel. Really?

[terodil]

This right here is the issue. Oh, I am sorry. Did I over react to my backstory. So the punishment is death. [...]

Look, what kind of story are you cooperatively telling at your table if the players know that they can fly off the handle with absolute impunity because they can just point at the GM and say s/he 'has issues' if one of them dies? Our core disagreement is obviously at the point of what killing a PC 'for silly reasons' means. It's a rather fuzzy phrase and I think you'd do well to refrain from gratuitous ad-hominems until you clarify your position further. I certainly believe there are situations that can very quickly lead to a PC kill, and possibly even a TPK. It's not a good idea for a level 1 adventuring party to make a beeline for the ancient dragon's lair, even if their backstories say they're all dragon hunters, just because the DM had it circle overhead to create a sense of foreboding. Sure, any reasonable DM would give them several warnings and shots before the bow but at some point, the PCs make their own beds and have to lie in it.

[terodil]

Though it's still in poor form to kill this character for going after the slaver. The DM knew the backstory and this NPC blatantly taunted him. Consequences sure, but as keeps getting said in regards to the player, within reason applies to the DM as well. Threaten him, restrain him, throw him overboard, enslave him. All of these are good. Kill him... With a weasel. Really?

Oh I completely agree and my earlier posts in this thread already made my position clear, i.e. it was the weasel that pushed me from 'the DM was right, albeit too harsh' into 'the DM did this for out-of-game reasons and it's a symptom of something bigger' camp.

I'm just taking exception at the position that PC death is basically excluded from the list of potential consequences of even the most irrational PC actions.

[Mordaedil]

The DM puts everything in the story into the game. If he puts a slave in front of the player, there's probably a reason for it. He could always have never pointed out the slaves. Or just not had slaves. He could have made them pirates that were more interested in loot and booty. But he put the slaves in there. Possibly well aware of the type of reaction he'd get from his players. That means it is his responsibility.

I would have frankly been like "oh, is this my cue?" if it happened in my game. If they were an appropriate challenge, this would have been an opportunity. Heck, the DM controls that too! The fact that the DM decided to put powerful pirates in a room with a player with a backstory that can't handle seeing slavery to show him slavery, that's beyond doubt tempting bait. There's at least three other ways he could have handled it and he chose the most antagonistic method.

There's really no excuse for this situation. That doesn't mean that flying off the handle because "backstory" is always going to fly either, there's within reason and if you ask me, this player was well within reason to act as he did, given what we've been told. Surely the DM has a third(OP and a second player have given theirs) point of view, but we're not privvy to that.

But this is why I am always in heavy favor of DM vetting backstory, carefully reading them and actually work with their players to create their character and flesh them out before play. D&D isn't played like in the old days where you didn't need to think of a name until you reached level 4, you can invest into them at level 1 now and expect them to go out in a blaze of glory later.

[MThurston]

Look, what kind of story are you cooperatively telling at your table if the players know that they can fly off the handle with absolute impunity because they can just point at the GM and say s/he 'has issues' if one of them dies? Our core disagreement is obviously at the point of what killing a PC 'for silly reasons' means. It's a rather fuzzy phrase and I think you'd do well to refrain from gratuitous ad-hominems until you clarify your position further. I certainly believe there are situations that can very quickly lead to a PC kill, and possibly even a TPK. It's not a good idea for a level 1 adventuring party to make a beeline for the ancient dragon's lair, even if their backstories say they're all dragon hunters, just because the DM had it circle overhead to create a sense of foreboding. Sure, any reasonable DM would give them several warnings and shots before the bow but at some point, the PCs make their own beds and have to lie in it.

It's not flying off the handle.

Attacking a princess that has a pet bird in a cage is flying off the handle.

[MThurston]

Look, what kind of story are you cooperatively telling at your table if the players know that they can fly off the handle with absolute impunity because they can just point at the GM and say s/he 'has issues' if one of them dies? Our core disagreement is obviously at the point of what killing a PC 'for silly reasons' means. It's a rather fuzzy phrase and I think you'd do well to refrain from gratuitous ad-hominems until you clarify your position further. I certainly believe there are situations that can very quickly lead to a PC kill, and possibly even a TPK. It's not a good idea for a level 1 adventuring party to make a beeline for the ancient dragon's lair, even if their backstories say they're all dragon hunters, just because the DM had it circle overhead to create a sense of foreboding. Sure, any reasonable DM would give them several warnings and shots before the bow but at some point, the PCs make their own beds and have to lie in it.

Don't let this guy be your DM. He does not get it.

[Unoriginal]

It's not flying off the handle.

Attacking a princess that has a pet bird in a cage is flying off the handle.

How is attacking a bad guy out of anger when you're surrounded by their allies not flying off the handle?

[MThurston]

Let me give some insight to my way of DMing.

Harn Master 3. Very Game of Thrones feel to the game.

Player 1: I yell the Duke to go **** himself.

Me: The Duke motions for his men to arrest Player 1.

Player 1: Are you guys going to help me?

Other players: Nope!

Player 1 is arrested and put in the stocks for a week. The party leaves him and comes back in a week.

He could have been put to death but I was nice.

I would never kill a character in D&D by hitting them while they are down.

Would piss everyone off at the table.

The only time I would do this is If it was a fight to the death in a challenge and only if the opponant was evil.

[terodil]

Don't let this guy be your DM. He does not get it.
Seriously?

*sigh*

[Unoriginal]

Let me give some insight to my way of DMing.

Harn Master 3. Very Game of Thrones feel to the game.

Player 1: I yell the Duke to go **** himself.

Me: The Duke motions for his men to arrest Player 1.

Player 1: Are you guys going to help me?

Other players: Nope!

Player 1 is arrested and put in the stocks for a week. The party leaves him and comes back in a week.

He could have been put to death but I was nice.

If you were actually going for a GoT feel, the character would have had to be put to death for insulting the duke, otherwise the duke would have lost all credibility as a ruler and arbiter of the legal system.

Arguably an heavy public punishment could have been substituted for death, but a week of stocks is almost trivial in comparison.




I would never kill a character in D&D by hitting them while they are down.

Would piss everyone off at the table.

The only time I would do this is If it was a fight to the death in a challenge and only if the opponant was evil.

... so you're literally saying that your bad guys will never kill the characters? Evil knights who had their allies killed and their plan foiled, demons, necromancers, giants in berserk rage, none of them will put an end to the characters if given a chance?

[MThurston]

If you were actually going for a GoT feel, the character would have had to be put to death for insulting the duke, otherwise the duke would have lost all credibility as a ruler and arbiter of the legal system.

Arguably an heavy public punishment could have been substituted for death, but a week of stocks is almost trivial in comparison.




... so you're literally saying that your bad guys will never kill the characters? Evil knights who had their allies killed and their plan foiled, demons, necromancers, giants in berserk rage, none of them will put an end to the characters if given a chance?

Did not say that. The end game is the end game.

This slaves group was not the end game. And if they are slavers they wouldn't kill people, they would make them slaves.

[MThurston]

If you were actually going for a GoT feel, the character would have had to be put to death for insulting the duke, otherwise the duke would have lost all credibility as a ruler and arbiter of the legal system.

Arguably an heavy public punishment could have been substituted for death, but a week of stocks is almost trivial in comparison.




... so you're literally saying that your bad guys will never kill the characters? Evil knights who had their allies killed and their plan foiled, demons, necromancers, giants in berserk rage, none of them will put an end to the characters if given a chance?

Dont like killing off people who play the game for the first time. If he would have done it again, then he would have been killed.

Being in the stocks getting rotten food thrown at you and beaten up by the guards, did it's job.

[Pelle]

I would never kill a character in D&D by hitting them while they are down.
[...]
The only time I would do this is If it was a fight to the death in a challenge and only if the opponant was evil.

Isn't this a little hypocritical? If it is well established that the Mad Duke burns anyone alive who insults him in person, the player makes an informed choice to risk that. I wouldn't have trouble with killing the character in such a situation. But this requires having players who also want a game with stakes and meaingful consequences. If the character gets away too easily, the game becomes boring to me, but it's ok that some people wants a more 'fun' game.

In the OP, the player isn't wrong to act suicidally according to the backstory, but it's a little stupid if the player didn't want to risk the characters' life. Complain about being put in an unfun no-win situation, not for being killed.

[MThurston]

Isn't this a little hypocritical? If it is well established that the Mad Duke burns anyone alive who insults him in person, the player makes an informed choice to risk that. I wouldn't have trouble with killing the character in such a situation. But this requires having players who also want a game with stakes and meaingful consequences. If the character gets away too easily, the game becomes boring to me, but it's ok that some people wants a more 'fun' game.

In the OP, the player isn't wrong to act suicidally according to the backstory, but it's a little stupid if the player didn't want to risk the characters' life. Complain about being put in an unfun no-win situation, not for being killed.

I'll even give more to my view. His character was put to 0 HPs and then rolled a 2 and then rolled a 1 for a death save. His character is dead.

I have no issue with this. He started the fight.

Having the bad guy attack him to make him dead is another thing. Silly.

[Keravath]

Plot hooks are an invitation to engage, not to fly off the handle. Again, engage within reason. If a player throws all reason out of the window because 'it says so on my character sheet', then that's the point where things have already gone wrong. An experienced and confident DM could and would have salvaged the situation but let's not forget it was the player first who 'had issues', the DM second, although I don't really see much point in playing the blame game here. Regrettable errors were made on all sides that lead to the implosion of a potentially great campaign.

Also, just for the sake of preventing unfortunate incidents in the future, it's a completely unwarranted assumption that slavers would never employ deadly force, especially when attacked.

@Galithar: I believe we are in agreement with only semantic issues slightly muddying the waters ('wrong', 'player vs. PC'). I agree with how that tasty crunchy leg was handled. Then again, having a fluffy wolf carry a treat around is slightly different from trying to axe a slaver in the face, right? ;)

A lot of your assumption about "reasonable" action depends on exactly what was known by the character at the time.

1) If the DM had told them that a fight was clearly unwinnable then the player might have reconsidered what was the best course of action. From what I can tell this didn't happen.

2) The situation as has been described in this thread: the party is brought to the cabin of the captain of the ship occupied by at least the captain, the slaver, some sort of support spell caster and maybe a minion or two. The party is apparently confronted with the fact that these are slavers and then they try to force the party to join ... (plot point doesn't make any sense to me but whatever ... the PCs had only booked passage on the ship).

3) One of the other PCs outright refuses to join and a caster (which are rare AND outlawed ... none of the PCs are casters) .. casts blindness on the party member. Presumably this is prelude to an attack? Maybe the PCs are killed and their bodies dumped overboard or enslaved?

4) Ok. You are in a tense stand off in the captains office on a slaver ship where your party has just been attacked. They appear to be trying to force you to join or at least do something you don't agree with. Do you just give up? Ok slap us in irons and turn us into slaves? One of the PCs has already said no to their proposal and been blinded. I don't know any D&D character who won't at least go down fighting.

5) Enter the OP of the thread. His character is a barbarian who hates slavery. The slaver has imprisoned dwarfs, from the sounds of it from the PCs tribe. My guess is that the DMs plot line was that the PCs were supposed to join the slavers, infiltrate and then free the slaves. The plot line may have been designed specifically for the barbarian PC. The problem is that with the actions taken by the NPCs in initiating combat when one of the other PCs said no ... it precipitated a combat that the DM didn't want in the first place.

6) Barbarian is faced with the following situation ... slaver has barbarian slaves (in a collar around his neck .. right there). Combat has already been initiated by the NPCs. It seems unlikely that the players can simply change their mind and say ... "ok we will be good little slavers hehe" ... the whole join and infiltrate plot line was blown when one of the other PCs said no and the DM tried to force it. What is the likely next action of the pirates? PC is likely to think that they will either continue combat, subdue the party and sell them as slaves, or kill them, take their stuff and dump the bodies overboard. In ANY of these scenarios ... I don't know a single D&D player who is not likely to attack. (It would take a huge leap and suspension of disbelief to get this plot back on track and away from combat after the DM escalated in an attempt to force the players into his plot line).

7) Barbarian attacks (not unreasonable given the PC background and the combat that has been forced by the DM actions with the NPCs)... combat ensues. Opponent is probably too tough though somehow everyone except the barbarian escapes.

8) DM is pissed off because the plot line he had decided was going to happen ... didn't ... and decides to take out that anger on the barbarian who attacked AFTER the DM initiated combat with the blindness spell. The NPC slaver captain focuses on the barbarian until they are dead ... DM doesn't even understand the rules on taking damage after hitting 0 hit points so he creates a pet ferret that adds insult to injury and deals the death blow. Bandit Captain's don't typically come with death ferrets. The pet action was just vindictive. Finishing off the PC in this circumstance (1st level, good slave possibility, no healing on the PC side) was also just vindictive and possibly out of character for the NPC especially after the pirates had initiated combat.

9) The comment out of game when the OP approached the DM about retconning it a bit and saying that the pirate was going to parade the head around town? Pure vindictiveness ... nothing else since it is completely out of character and a meaningless action. In fact, why would a covert pirate bring attention to himself by parading the head of a first level newb around town ... they aren't even famous.

Anyway ... my take ... the DM totally screwed up his planned story line and then blamed the player for the events that were precipitated by the NPC actions in the first place. He then took out his anger and irritation on the PC by having the NPC kill off the character. The DM basically broke the trust that needs to exist between the DM and the players ... the DM got personally hooked on his planned storyline and didn't just adjudicate the results of the interactions with between the NPCs and the PCs.

Personally, I wouldn't play at that DMs table assuming that my interpretation of the information in the thread is remotely correct.

[MThurston]

A lot of your assumption about "reasonable" action depends on exactly what was known by the character at the time.

1) If the DM had told them that a fight was clearly unwinnable then the player might have reconsidered what was the best course of action. From what I can tell this didn't happen.

2) The situation as has been described in this thread: the party is brought to the cabin of the captain of the ship occupied by at least the captain, the slaver, some sort of support spell caster and maybe a minion or two. The party is apparently confronted with the fact that these are slavers and then they try to force the party to join ... (plot point doesn't make any sense to me but whatever ... the PCs had only booked passage on the ship).

3) One of the other PCs outright refuses to join and a caster (which are rare AND outlawed ... none of the PCs are casters) .. casts blindness on the party member. Presumably this is prelude to an attack? Maybe the PCs are killed and their bodies dumped overboard or enslaved?

4) Ok. You are in a tense stand off in the captains office on a slaver ship where your party has just been attacked. They appear to be trying to force you to join or at least do something you don't agree with. Do you just give up? Ok slap us in irons and turn us into slaves? One of the PCs has already said no to their proposal and been blinded. I don't know any D&D character who won't at least go down fighting.

5) Enter the OP of the thread. His character is a barbarian who hates slavery. The slaver has imprisoned dwarfs, from the sounds of it from the PCs tribe. My guess is that the DMs plot line was that the PCs were supposed to join the slavers, infiltrate and then free the slaves. The plot line may have been designed specifically for the barbarian PC. The problem is that with the actions taken by the NPCs in initiating combat when one of the other PCs said no ... it precipitated a combat that the DM didn't want in the first place.

6) Barbarian is faced with the following situation ... slaver has barbarian slaves (in a collar around his neck .. right there). Combat has already been initiated by the NPCs. It seems unlikely that the players can simply change their mind and say ... "ok we will be good little slavers hehe" ... the whole join and infiltrate plot line was blown when one of the other PCs said no and the DM tried to force it. What is the likely next action of the pirates? PC is likely to think that they will either continue combat, subdue the party and sell them as slaves, or kill them, take their stuff and dump the bodies overboard. In ANY of these scenarios ... I don't know a single D&D player who is not likely to attack. (It would take a huge leap and suspension of disbelief to get this plot back on track and away from combat after the DM escalated in an attempt to force the players into his plot line).

7) Barbarian attacks (not unreasonable given the PC background and the combat that has been forced by the DM actions with the NPCs)... combat ensues. Opponent is probably too tough though somehow everyone except the barbarian escapes.

8) DM is pissed off because the plot line he had decided was going to happen ... didn't ... and decides to take out that anger on the barbarian who attacked AFTER the DM initiated combat with the blindness spell. The NPC slaver captain focuses on the barbarian until they are dead ... DM doesn't even understand the rules on taking damage after hitting 0 hit points so he creates a pet ferret that adds insult to injury and deals the death blow. Bandit Captain's don't typically come with death ferrets. The pet action was just vindictive. Finishing off the PC in this circumstance (1st level, good slave possibility, no healing on the PC side) was also just vindictive and possibly out of character for the NPC especially after the pirates had initiated combat.

9) The comment out of game when the OP approached the DM about retconning it a bit and saying that the pirate was going to parade the head around town? Pure vindictiveness ... nothing else since it is completely out of character and a meaningless action. In fact, why would a covert pirate bring attention to himself by parading the head of a first level newb around town ... they aren't even famous.

Anyway ... my take ... the DM totally screwed up his planned story line and then blamed the player for the events that were precipitated by the NPC actions in the first place. He then took out his anger and irritation on the PC by having the NPC kill off the character. The DM basically broke the trust that needs to exist between the DM and the players ... the DM got personally hooked on his planned storyline and didn't just adjudicate the results of the interactions with between the NPCs and the PCs.

Personally, I wouldn't play at that DMs table assuming that my interpretation of the information in the thread is remotely correct.

A DM knowingly killed a character.

I could care less why he did it.

I would never play at their table again.

[terodil]

A lot of your assumption about "reasonable" action depends on exactly what was known by the character at the time.

I agree with this and everything else you wrote after that (so I'm not sure why you quoted my post in its entirety). Your analysis is spot-on, though I personally still believe that there's more going on outside of what's happening at the table: even with everything you said, the vindictiveness apparent in some details (i.e. death-by-ferret, parading the head around town) cannot, imo, be sufficiently explained by what we currently know.


A DM knowingly killed a character. I could care less why he did it.

I had decided not to engage with you any further after you aborted any semblance of discussion we had in order to peddle petty insults instead, but nevertheless I am grateful for you to have poured your contentious view into such an extreme statement (assuming that by 'I could care less', you mean that you couldn't care less). A player who does not accept the possibility of his/her character dying under any circumstances, if only those bordering on inevitability borne from intentional or extremely reckless behaviour, would not be welcome at my table. In this, I guess, we agree.

[MThurston]

[QUOTE=terodil;23456416]I agree with this and everything else you wrote after that (so I'm not sure why you quoted my post in its entirety). Your analysis is spot-on, though I personally still believe that there's more going on outside of what's happening at the table: even with everything you said, the vindictiveness apparent in some details (i.e. death-by-ferret, parading the head around town) cannot, imo, be sufficiently explained by what we currently know.



I had decided not to engage with you any further after you aborted any semblance of discussion we had in order to peddle petty insults instead, but nevertheless I am grateful for you to have poured your contentious view into such an extreme statement (assuming that by 'I could care less', you mean that you couldn't care less). A player who does not accept the possibility of his/her character dying under any circumstances, if only those bordering on inevitability borne from intentional or extremely reckless behaviour, would not be welcome at my table. In this, I guess, we agree.[/QUOTEe]

I love debating elitest!

So you think it is perfectly acceptable for a DM to attack downed PCs every chance they get?

Or is there a gentlemen's agreement that one should refrain from such action?

It is a silly DM that would attack a PC this way. For some reason the DM was mad at this player and wanted to make a statement.

I wouldn't play with a DM that does this type of thing and the poster has every right to be upset with the DMs actions.

Telling me the PC brought it on himself isn't a good response. Telling me that you reap what you sow is also not a good responce.

The PC failing their Death Saves is one thing. Attacking a downed player while other targets are up is simply being a bad DM.

[CantigThimble]

As a DM I have killed a character who was down once. The party was in a fight with a large group of elven guards. The fighter went down and the guards shifted focus to the other PCs. The bard cast healing word and the fighter got back up, and proceeded to decapitate the captain of the guards before they brought him down again. When he went down the second time they didn't stop stabbing.

That honestly got me to reconsider my views on whether people actually should move focus away from downed enemies if magic is in play. Historically, a downed enemy was no longer a threat, even if he was still alive he was too badly injured to really be a threat. In D&D a downed enemy can be just as much of a danger to your life as he was before he went down in a moment's notice if there's a spellcaster anywhere within 30 feet. If healing magic is at all common, coup de grace-ing is just good tactics.

[Snowbluff]

I think the party helped him. It's just that the lead NPC focused on taking down the barbarian first - which is actually good tactics.

This is very bad tactics. Unless you're totally unconscious, HP damage doesn't matter. Barbarians are the most resilient to HP damage, ergo targeting them is a waste of time and you're better off killing the wizards, monks, sorcerers, and rogues of the party.

[terodil]

I love debating elitest!
Huh?


So you think it is perfectly acceptable for a DM to attack downed PCs every chance they get?
Your strawman is shedding all over the floor, has pigeons nesting in its hat and a fire starting at its feet.

Good day, sir/madam.

[GloatingSwine]

Plot hooks are an invitation to engage, not to fly off the handle. Again, engage within reason. If a player throws all reason out of the window because 'it says so on my character sheet', then that's the point where things have already gone wrong.

The player is playing a barbarian, a class so dedicated to throwing reason out the window and flying off the handle that it is their defining class feature, and you put a situation in front of them with a clear antagonist based on a firmly held goal in their backstory.

What do you think is going to be the outcome of that situation.

A good GM has sound expectations about what players are going to do in a given situation, and if you put this situation in front of players who have chosen this as part of their background, the only expectation is "a fight happens"..

[MThurston]

Huh?


Your strawman is shedding all over the floor, has pigeons nesting in its hat and a fire starting at its feet.

Good day, sir/madam.

No straw man. Just not going to play with a DM that gets mad and wants to end characters for it.

[MThurston]

The player is playing a barbarian, a class so dedicated to throwing reason out the window and flying off the handle that it is their defining class feature, and you put a situation in front of them with a clear antagonist based on a firmly held goal in their backstory.

What do you think is going to be the outcome of that situation.

A good GM has sound expectations about what players are going to do in a given situation, and if you put this situation in front of players who have chosen this as part of their background, the only expectation is "a fight happens"..

100% agree

[Unoriginal]

So you think it is perfectly acceptable for a DM to attack downed PCs every chance they get?

Or is there a gentlemen's agreement that one should refrain from such action?

The *DM* isn't attacking anyone. The NPCs are.

If you can't accept that some NPCs are terrible people or just want to make sure you're dead, then you're just playing in a world where everyone agreed to not be too naughty while fighting.

Some NPCs won't attack downed PCs. Others would.



What do you think is going to be the outcome of that situation.

What did the player thing would be the outcome of that situation?

[MaxWilson]

I would never kill a character in D&D by hitting them while they are down.

...The only time I would do this is If it was a fight to the death in a challenge and only if the opponant was evil.

Remark:

If killing is reserved for evil creatures at your table, there are interesting consequences. Either:

(1) the PCs are evil; or

(2) the players leave lots of unconscious-but-not-dead foes behind them, to potentially become grudging allies some day or recurring nemeses. In this variant there is more reason for PCs to eschew spells and ranged attacks, because only melee attacks can be nonlethal.

If your campaign is #2, that sounds interesting. I wouldn't want to run that kind of game every time but it has some interesting upsides.

[GloatingSwine]

What did the player thing would be the outcome of that situation?

It's fairly clear what the player thought. "We are being put in a position where we are intended to have a fight". Because that's what a player is going to think when presented with that situation.

And if the GM intends the players to have a fight it's reasonable that he expects them to survive it unless things go horribly sideways in the hands of RNGesus.

This GM is, it sounds, not particularly reasonable.


As for NPC coups de grace, it should be somewhat reserved. NPCs are not player characters, they shouldn't be played like player characters, they're there to be part of the players' story.

An NPC going for a coup de grace on a PC should be a rare and special event, something they'll only do if they have a really compelling reason to do it that has come from their interactions with that PC.

[ruy343]

As a DM I have killed a character who was down once. The party was in a fight with a large group of elven guards. The fighter went down and the guards shifted focus to the other PCs. The bard cast healing word and the fighter got back up, and proceeded to decapitate the captain of the guards before they brought him down again. When he went down the second time they didn't stop stabbing.

That honestly got me to reconsider my views on whether people actually should move focus away from downed enemies if magic is in play. Historically, a downed enemy was no longer a threat, even if he was still alive he was too badly injured to really be a threat. In D&D a downed enemy can be just as much of a danger to your life as he was before he went down in a moment's notice if there's a spellcaster anywhere within 30 feet. If healing magic is at all common, coup de grace-ing is just good tactics.

I feel that this comment provided a useful perspective that should be followed up on. I personally hadn't considered what the NPCs would think about the existence of the Healing Word spell, but now that I have, I would also think that some would aim to kill if it became evident that their opponents had access to such magic.

That may not be what happened in this case, but it made me reconsider how I approach my games...

[Cynthaer]

It's fairly clear what the player thought. "We are being put in a position where we are intended to have a fight". Because that's what a player is going to think when presented with that situation.

And if the GM intends the players to have a fight it's reasonable that he expects them to survive it unless things go horribly sideways in the hands of RNGesus.

This GM is, it sounds, not particularly reasonable.

As for NPC coups de grace, it should be somewhat reserved. NPCs are not player characters, they shouldn't be played like player characters, they're there to be part of the players' story.

An NPC going for a coup de grace on a PC should be a rare and special event, something they'll only do if they have a really compelling reason to do it that has come from their interactions with that PC.

One other thing I'd add is that even if you're running a 100% combat-as-war sort of campaign — a fact that you should make very clear to your players, by the way — playing enemies with optimal deadly tactics is wildly inappropriate for level 1 PCs, who are notorious for being very easy to kill even accidentally.

If you're going to play a game where enemies specifically try to kill the players and the DM shows no mercy, I can't imagine starting it at anything less than level 3. Saying that low-level characters should know they're weak and behave appropriately is reasonable up to a point, but level 1 characters are so disproportionately killable that it's just bad gameplay to go full force against them.

[MThurston]

A DM needs players. Taking away death savas to kill characters should be done sparingly.

The outcome of repeatedly doing the above will make players not want to play your game.

Role-playing is a pastime to have fun. Not to be worried that the DM is going to kill off your characters at any given time.

There is a game for this kind of DM and that game is Paranoia.

[mephnick]

Role-playing is a pastime to have fun.

Not to be worried that the DM is going to kill off your characters at any given time.

Some of us played at a time where that was considered part of the "fun".

I should probably delete my X-COM saves now that I know getting killed isn't fun.

[Cynthaer]

Some of us played at a time where that was considered part of the "fun".

I should probably delete my X-COM saves now that I know getting killed isn't fun.

I think that's a bit unfair; MThurston did say that there are games (like Paranoia) where that is part of the fun.

Anyway, it's come up around here before, but character death in early D&D editions (or XCOM) is simply very different from character death in 5e.

In early D&D (at least according to the fond reminiscences people write), it was expected that characters would die quickly and often. People talk about coming to the table with 20 character sheets pre-rolled and ready to go. Nobody bothered writing a detailed backstory or characterization in advance for such fragile game pieces; it was only after they had survived long enough to be worth noting that they would warrant such luxuries.

Modern D&D is built on the base assumption that you will create an actual character even at level 1, complete with personality, ideals, flaws, bonds, and background—and that this character will survive through the end of the campaign (even if they may change greatly along the way). That doesn't mean the game assumes death is impossible, but it does assume death is a very unusual and unexpected occurrence, and represents a major change for the story and the players.

Can you play 5e as a meat grinder? Sure, and there are a few modules that are notable for being extremely deadly. But that's an exception, and players correctly expect a more standard approach unless told otherwise.

EDIT: To put it another way, it's not a matter of early D&D being a different time so much as a different game. We could sit down and play some 1e or whatever right now, and burning through characters would be just as much fun as it was a few decades ago. Conversely, you could play 5e in the 80's and it still wouldn't support that kind of gameplay by default.

[Erloas]

I don't think PC death should be out of the question, but it shouldn't be a goal of the DM/NPCs unless it was decided up front in a session 0 sort of thing.

It would have been different if the weasel had been an active combatant up to that point and had a specific reason to, but this was clearly a "I wiffed the NPCs last attacks, what else can I do?" sort of thing.
Even in a grim-dark setting, killing one player well before the other party members are taken care of isn't a sound tactic, especially since the NPC/PCs should know that magic is very limited, so he isn't likely to get healed.
Making sure one character is completely dead and then letting the rest of the party escape is nothing but vindictive DMing.

[Finback]

Some of us played at a time where that was considered part of the "fun".

I should probably delete my X-COM saves now that I know getting killed isn't fun.

That... doesn't follow, logically. If you have saves, that implies you were afraid of a game-state where you lost, and you wanted to pick up where you were up to. D&D, where people can invest a lot of emotional energy into their players, doesn't have save states. X-Com DOES. Unless you're saying you play X-Com from the start every time, because losing is a valid option. If you ever lost a battle in X-Com, then reloaded, then you did the exact OPPOSITE of what you're espousing.

[Galithar]

That... doesn't follow, logically. If you have saves, that implies you were afraid of a game-state where you lost, and you wanted to pick up where you were up to. D&D, where people can invest a lot of emotional energy into their players, doesn't have save states. X-Com DOES. Unless you're saying you play X-Com from the start every time, because losing is a valid option. If you ever lost a battle in X-Com, then reloaded, then you did the exact OPPOSITE of what you're espousing.

Xcom is often played Iron Man mode. Which operates like D&D. You can walk away and load the game up later, aka come back for next week's session, but all decisions are final (constant overwriting auto save)

[MaxWilson]

That... doesn't follow, logically. If you have saves, that implies you were afraid of a game-state where you lost, and you wanted to pick up where you were up to.

Or just that you don't have the time to play through the whole game in one sitting, or that you want to guard against computer accidents.

I mean, people save regularly when they're writing a paper, but it's not because they're afraid of "losing".


D&D, where people can invest a lot of emotional energy into their players, doesn't have save states.

It can if you want it to. There are various techniques to implement it so that it doesn't encourage save scumming or break immersion. E.g. charge a karma point and have the players wake up in cold sweat--it's yesterday, and that TPK was "just" a prophetic dream. Among other things, it gives DMs a chance to see how hard it is to TPK the party accidentally (quite hard--at Deadly x3 to x4 PCs have about a 50/50 chance to win even without doing anything clever, and even at x5 to x6 they still win sometimes, and of course if they use strong spells and tactics they should win almost all of the time).

But yeah, most D&D games don't have save states.


X-Com DOES. Unless you're saying you play X-Com from the start every time, because losing is a valid option. If you ever lost a battle in X-Com, then reloaded, then you did the exact OPPOSITE of what you're espousing.

I don't play Iron Man XCOM myself but some people do. Maybe Mephnick is one of them.

[Snowbluff]

Even in a grim-dark setting, killing one player well before the other party members are taken care of isn't a sound tactic, especially since the NPC/PCs should know that magic is very limited, so he isn't likely to get healed.
Making sure one character is completely dead and then letting the rest of the party escape is nothing but vindictive DMing.

Yeah it's bad tactics. An unconscious person doesn't get actions. The still conscious enemy does. If they do heal him, healing is so bad in this game that it's usually only another hit to KO the guy again.

[MadBear]

I might somewhat on board with a DM only sparingly taking away deaths saves, if it wasn't for a few important details.

1. Characters can be brought back with something as trivial as a bonus action, and most worst case scenarios with an action
2. Enemies aren't automatons, and know this.
3. Enemies that are smart, and cruel wouldn't give a cleric a chance to just small wave away knocking a character out.

Now, to each their own, and far be it for me to tell another person what to expect from the game. But, I've been apart of many tables both as a player and as a DM. And never, ever, has there been this code that "DM's shouldn't try to kill downed characters". It depends on the scenario, and what the enemies know. If it's a horde of zombies, they're probably going to feast on the dead PC's flesh, because that's what zombies do. An owlbear protecting it's young, is less likely to do this, rather then attack those that still pose a threat. If there a group of intelligent creatures, they might take a downed character hostage, they might kill the first character that goes down, and then demand surrender to show they are serious.

So, it's probably a good thing MThurston that we don't play in the same groups, because our expectations are severely different. Because in my area, if a DM let it be known there was no risk of death, and enemies purposefully stupid, players would leave and find a more interesting group.

[Finback]

Xcom is often played Iron Man mode. Which operates like D&D. You can walk away and load the game up later, aka come back for next week's session, but all decisions are final (constant overwriting auto save)

Someone did just point out to me, there is a newer XCom game, than the one I'm thinking of..

[Mordaedil]

I don't think there is any problem with DM's killing characters, sometimes that is just part of the game. I just don't feel this was particularly warranted or relevant to the scenario here. A slave would be better and parading the corpse around town is just vindictive against the player. I think there is a time and place for these kinds of things, it isn't like it is entirely unwarranted for any game, but context matters.

Slavers, would recognize a good prisoner when they saw one and would want to enslave this barbarian rather than outright kill him.

Slavers, would not know this dwarf was anyone special, given that they are level 1 and would have no good reason to parade him around town.

Also the god-damn ferret.

I don't see why people are playing devil's advocate for this, these were bad decisions on the DM's behalf.

[Waazraath]

This is a DM that players already describe as what's pretty clearly a railroading/controlling storyteller in the first place.

Then in the specific, one that intentionally killed a downed PC with a (normal) ferret, after it was jokingly pointed out that one more hit would kill the PC. That's actively malicious.

This sums it all up quite nicely.

Dammit, as a DM, you're there to facilitate the fun. Having a player write large backstories, you should known them. Having a backstory that says "character is immensly triggered by X", and then presenting X in a situation where being triggered by it leads to certain death, is either incompetence (not reading / knowing said backstories) or bad intent. Either way sucks. The other players feeling the situation as unfair and uncomfortable as well settles it.

The player's reaction was to be expected, and could, should have been planned for (other than "killing PC dead"). And this kind of moral dillemma stuff shouldn't be overdone in the game anyways, 9 out of 10 times it just takes away the fun. You need to have a group that has actively chosen that play style (session 0), and a very compentent DM.

[Reynaert]

... presenting X in a situation where being triggered by it leads to certain death ...

AIUI, the situation only lead to certain death because the DM went out of their way to target the specific PC, ignoring all others, until they were sure he was dead dead.

[RazorChain]

I was particularly attached to this character and so I know that my emotions are swaying me a bit, however I wanted to get the objective opinion from others to see if I was in the wrong to initiate combat (felt like what my character would do). I started creating a new character, but I'm having a lot of trouble. I feel as though I can't play a character that's too emotional/driven which is makes me want to drop out completely.

You got put down like the rapid dog you were.

Most players just don't get it! They are escalating a situation to the max with an intention of murder.

How about threatening the slave trader or just maybe biding your time

[Waazraath]

AIUI, the situation only lead to certain death because the DM went out of their way to target the specific PC, ignoring all others, until they were sure he was dead dead.

Yeah. Makes it even worse.

[Mordaedil]

You got put down like the rapid dog you were.

Most players just don't get it! They are escalating a situation to the max with an intention of murder.

How about threatening the slave trader or just maybe biding your time

Why can't we all just sit down and discuss our disagreements on the treatment of slaves and slavery. Excuse me while I have this dwarf slave act as my chair and this dwarf as my footstool as I sit myself down and pour myself a cup of tea made from the tears of dwarves and the we can calmly discuss our disagreements on slavery and why you are wrong to want to free these beasts and why are you hacking away at my skull, sigh, this just illustrates my point that dwarves lack the necessary decorum for proper civility and discourse and now that you are dead, finally we can focus on the important aspects of civilized society, hey why are you running away, I'm just discussing my fairly well-formulated educated opinions, looks like you've got some growing up to do.

[Finback]

You got put down like the rapid dog you were.

Most players just don't get it! They are escalating a situation to the max with an intention of murder.

How about threatening the slave trader or just maybe biding your time

Barbarians are not noted for "biding their time". It's kind of in the name/job description. When one of your basic features for a class is "get so angry you become an unstoppable whirlwind of rage and property damage", becoming the next Machiavelli doesn't really appear on the radar.

The issue is more so that the DM allowed escalation in such a way that detracts from the narrative building. Had the DM had the slavers subdue and *enslave* the dwarf, putting them with the other dwarven slaves that triggered his rage, that would be constructive narrative building. It would allow for planned slave rebellions from inside the system, subterfuge, other PCs to try to use infiltration by charming guards, etc. But nope, we get "I KILL YOU" with the added insult of having an extra attack out of nowhere from a *WEASEL*. And when asked if, "hey, can you have me unconscious and maybe turned into a slave", the totally illegal-slave-trading pirate decides to forgo any attempts to hide this from any law in the town, and walk through town with the head of the dwarf held high on a pike. Did we mention that PCs aren't allowed to have magic, because magic is illegal? But the pirates, who use magic, are fine with having everyone know about their business, which would probably include magic users. There's whole levels of illogicality going on there within the "world". Might as well say they have a parade of siege weaponry with "death to all gods" painted on them, for all the response that would apparently engender.

There's not even an attempt to salvage the narrative to continue. Just a flat out giant middle finger to that player, instead of any attempts to *try* to find a way to create an enjoyable situation. That's the most horrible thing about all this -that the DM is this person's friend. I'm surprised they didn't take the dwarf's character sheet, poop on it then set fire to it.

[Waazraath]

The issue is more so that the DM allowed escalation in such a way that detracts from the narrative building. Had the DM had the slavers subdue and *enslave* the dwarf, putting them with the other dwarven slaves that triggered his rage, that would be constructive narrative building. It would allow for planned slave rebellions from inside the system, subterfuge, other PCs to try to use infiltration by charming guards, etc. But nope, we get "I KILL YOU" with the added insult of having an extra attack out of nowhere from a *WEASEL*. And when asked if, "hey, can you have me unconscious and maybe turned into a slave", the totally illegal-slave-trading pirate decides to forgo any attempts to hide this from any law in the town, and walk through town with the head of the dwarf held high on a pike.

+ (bloody*) 1.

*for the minimal required characters, that is.

[SpanielBear]

Why can't we all just sit down and discuss our disagreements on the treatment of slaves and slavery. Excuse me while I have this dwarf slave act as my chair and this dwarf as my footstool as I sit myself down and pour myself a cup of tea made from the tears of dwarves and the we can calmly discuss our disagreements on slavery and why you are wrong to want to free these beasts and why are you hacking away at my skull, sigh, this just illustrates my point that dwarves lack the necessary decorum for proper civility and discourse and now that you are dead, finally we can focus on the important aspects of civilized society, hey why are you running away, I'm just discussing my fairly well-formulated educated opinions, looks like you've got some growing up to do.

While I appreciate and agree with the more general point you’re making, can I just say that this sounds like a really fun BBEG. Someone you could really grow to *hate*.

Thing is though, it’s generally a bad idea to introduce this kind of character a) within the first few sessions of a game, and especially b) without strong telegraphing to the players that “this guy is out of your league”.

That’s the main problem I think. I quite agree that there should be consequences for player decisions, including death if things go really badly. But the players decisions should be informed.

As in, attacking what was presented as a pirate captain and a couple of mooks shouldn’t suddenly be revealed to be Captain Edward Teach, his arcane first mate Salty Saruman and Scamp the Dreaded murder weasel.

[MThurston]

I might somewhat on board with a DM only sparingly taking away deaths saves, if it wasn't for a few important details.

1. Characters can be brought back with something as trivial as a bonus action, and most worst case scenarios with an action
2. Enemies aren't automatons, and know this.
3. Enemies that are smart, and cruel wouldn't give a cleric a chance to just small wave away knocking a character out.

Now, to each their own, and far be it for me to tell another person what to expect from the game. But, I've been apart of many tables both as a player and as a DM. And never, ever, has there been this code that "DM's shouldn't try to kill downed characters". It depends on the scenario, and what the enemies know. If it's a horde of zombies, they're probably going to feast on the dead PC's flesh, because that's what zombies do. An owlbear protecting it's young, is less likely to do this, rather then attack those that still pose a threat. If there a group of intelligent creatures, they might take a downed character hostage, they might kill the first character that goes down, and then demand surrender to show they are serious.

So, it's probably a good thing MThurston that we don't play in the same groups, because our expectations are severely different. Because in my area, if a DM let it be known there was no risk of death, and enemies purposefully stupid, players would leave and find a more interesting group.

SMH.

I have never played in a none death game, ever.

I also have been lucky enough to never have a DM coup de grace a player character.

I have had a few characters die in games. One in rolemaster with a crazy attack roll. Its part of the game.

With that, I have never seen a DM purposely kill a character and for no good reason.

I have said this more than once. Failing death saves is one thing. Killing a PC while other targets are available is bad DMing.

I do however see the point of a zombie, but in this case, that was not it.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Probably what I expect most people to do: Realize attacking right now might be suicide and plot their revenge for later when the situation is more favourable/profitable.

OR:

Be ok that your character's story ends with them died fighting for their cause...which is better than the "eaten by wolves" epitaph on most D&D character's gravestones.

I'm not saying the DM isn't at fault for the way he handled it, but this idea that OP was forced to kill his own character!?! is probably BS.

You are right but the DM should at least have a plan for if things result in combat because combat was not an unlikly option. That way it would not be a TPK or near TPK.

[MadBear]

I have said this more than once. Failing death saves is one thing. Killing a PC while other targets are available is bad DMing.

Except it isn't. In a world where magic pulls someone from down, to 100% back into the fight, there is very good reason for the NPC's to want to finish off a PC. Now, there were some ways that the rules could have been written to dissuade this, things like:

1. If you drop to 0 HP you can't get back into the fight as you need a moment to recuperate
2. You come back into the fight but with a level of exhaustion

But those are less fun, which is why the rules don't do that. But that does mean, that a PC whose knocked down, is a mild inconvenience for the healer to bring back into the fight. So if the bandit captain is aware that stabbing the downed character will prevent them from standing back up a second later, and killing him, he'd definitely do it.

Now, if you and your group don't like that, that's fine. But it isn't bad DMing. It's wanting enemies to act realistically. Like I said, not all enemies would do this. Heck, in the case of the OP, I'd probably have one of the captain say something like "Drop your weapons if you don't wanna see your friends entrails strewn across this room", and have some held actions to kill the PC if they didn't listen. That'd be more in line with ruthless slavers who could use a good new slave, while putting the PC's death at the hands of their friends if they didn't listen.

[Tanarii]

Thing is though, it’s generally a bad idea to introduce this kind of character a) within the first few sessions of a game, and especially b) without strong telegraphing to the players that “this guy is out of your league”.I dunno, the posters made it pretty clear that the DM was using strong telegraphing that they were out of their league ... while pushing them over the edge anyway.

[Daghoulish]

Except it isn't. In a world where magic pulls someone from down, to 100% back into the fight, there is very good reason for the NPC's to want to finish off a PC.

-

But it isn't bad DMing. It's wanting enemies to act realistically.

Normally I might agree with this, however if you read OP's post you might have noticed this is an extremely low magic setting. To the point that magic is heavily regulated and the magic users in the party had to hide there ability's. The captain didn't know they could use magic and had no reason to believe they could. Making it an impossibility to use magic to pull someone back into the fight. This means that logically the captain should have moved onto the next target to make sure they couldn't stab him or any of his employees. Trying to state that in THIS world that the OP was playing in that making sure to kill enemies before downing everyone makes no sense.

That's even before going into the fact these are slavers and would probably relish the chance to break such an aggressive slave and the ferret being a big middle finger to the player. Adding to the fact that slavers are going to parade his head on a pike around town for ??? reasons says that this wasn't a "realism" feature of combat but an insult to the player for trying to go off the rails/play his character to their backstory.

[SpanielBear]

...One of our party members said he was not a part of this and was blinded by the woman who wore the necklace. This is what initiated combat. We were not able to leave the quarters as more and more crew members filed in and we are affronted by other crew members basically on all sides. *All NPC's were high level and somehow switched from being ferriers to pirates during this interaction*. If my character had not decided to ask if there was a window and jump out, it would have 100% been a party wipe....

Edited for brevity, emphasis mine. I’d say it doesn’t sound like the scenario was being presented as a level-inappropriate encounter. Npcs who until that point had been described as civilians turned into high-CR attackers when combat began, as I understand it. Why would any player be prepared for that, or play anticipating it without meta-gaming?

And to be clear, I don’t the DM is obliged to say that they were pirates. Having supposed friendlies turn hostile is a good dramatic trope. But turning them into multi-attacking combat monsters with wizard support? Against a level one party? That seems unnecessary.

[Cynthaer]

I do however see the point of a zombie, but in this case, that was not it.

That's the thing; I feel like some people are arguing against a strawman position of "no deaths ever, no, not even then, the DM should always have all enemies use the weakest possible tactics at all times to ensure nobody accidentally dies".

In any 5e game, I think it's a great idea to have a zombie horde converge on any character who hits 0 HP. It's an awesome way to make them really feel like zombies and ramp up the tension—suddenly the party has to really worry about not letting anybody drop to 0, which is exactly what you would want them to do in a zombie attack.

Two things, though.

The first is that you should really let your players know this in some way, such as having an NPC say, "Don't let them take you down! They won't let up until you're dead and eaten!" This isn't a "players' rights" argument; it's a tip to make your scenario more powerful and resonant as a DM!

The second is that this specifically deadly tactic should be used judiciously as a DM. Here, I think most of us are actually in agreement: It's interesting if different monsters use different tactics. We only disagree on the specifics—I would have enemies target downed players only very rarely, to make those specific enemies really stand out.

Even if you prefer a deadlier game, I don't think it's good gameplay to have every intelligent enemy aim for "kill a PC outright" as their main tactical goal, but to each their own. (I think 4e would be a far better choice than 5e if you really want to test your tactics against the DM's, but hey.)

In any case, as others have noted many times, fighting against slavers, who are defined almost entirely by their tendency to take captives, is possibly the last scenario in which I would expect enemies to optimize their tactics for PC death.

[CantigThimble]

So, I see two strawman positions:
1) DMs should always be expected to go well out of their way to keep PCs from dying because if they don't then they're just encouraging their players to make backstory-less murderhobos.

2) DMs should try as hard as they can to kill players every time they go down because otherwise there's no real risk in the game and therefore no tension.

If you actually hold one of those positions then speak up, but otherwise I'm going to assume that no one actually does and all the views people really have are somewhere inbetween those extremes.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to run a game where some enemies will spend an attack or two finishing off downed characters, either because they're particularly vicious, hungry or because they're afraid that that downed characters will be brought back into the fight with healing magic. I think that having at least 3 turns to help a downed ally is a luxury, not a right. Every time someone goes down it should be a serious concern and players shouldn't be able to safely plan for someone to go down and then get healed before it matters.

However, metagaming to make sure that the party has no chance to help a downed ally before they die should be avoided. The only concern of the DM should be the motivations of the NPCs and monsters he's controlling. If it makes the most sense for those monsters or NPCs to finish off the PC, then that should be what happens. They shouldn't pull punches because its a PC, nor should they double down because its a PC, both of those are metagaming.

[MadBear]

Normally I might agree with this, however if you read OP's post you might have noticed this is an extremely low magic setting. To the point that magic is heavily regulated and the magic users in the party had to hide there ability's. The captain didn't know they could use magic and had no reason to believe they could. Making it an impossibility to use magic to pull someone back into the fight. This means that logically the captain should have moved onto the next target to make sure they couldn't stab him or any of his employees. Trying to state that in THIS world that the OP was playing in that making sure to kill enemies before downing everyone makes no sense.

That's even before going into the fact these are slavers and would probably relish the chance to break such an aggressive slave and the ferret being a big middle finger to the player. Adding to the fact that slavers are going to parade his head on a pike around town for ??? reasons says that this wasn't a "realism" feature of combat but an insult to the player for trying to go off the rails/play his character to their backstory.

So my initial reply was just to MThurston, and not to the OP in general. In fact, you'll notice that I go on to say:

" Heck, in the case of the OP, I'd probably have one of the captain say something like "Drop your weapons if you don't wanna see your friends entrails strewn across this room", and have some held actions to kill the PC if they didn't listen. That'd be more in line with ruthless slavers who could use a good new slave, while putting the PC's death at the hands of their friends if they didn't listen."

[MThurston]

Except it isn't. In a world where magic pulls someone from down, to 100% back into the fight, there is very good reason for the NPC's to want to finish off a PC. Now, there were some ways that the rules could have been written to dissuade this, things like:

1. If you drop to 0 HP you can't get back into the fight as you need a moment to recuperate
2. You come back into the fight but with a level of exhaustion

But those are less fun, which is why the rules don't do that. But that does mean, that a PC whose knocked down, is a mild inconvenience for the healer to bring back into the fight. So if the bandit captain is aware that stabbing the downed character will prevent them from standing back up a second later, and killing him, he'd definitely do it.

Now, if you and your group don't like that, that's fine. But it isn't bad DMing. It's wanting enemies to act realistically. Like I said, not all enemies would do this. Heck, in the case of the OP, I'd probably have one of the captain say something like "Drop your weapons if you don't wanna see your friends entrails strewn across this room", and have some held actions to kill the PC if they didn't listen. That'd be more in line with ruthless slavers who could use a good new slave, while putting the PC's death at the hands of their friends if they didn't listen.

This is an example of bad DMing.

If you believe that as a DM you need to win fights at all costs, then you do not need to be running games.

How about attacking the guys that brings these PCs back up?

Once they are down, no one is getting back up!

This shouldn't have to be taught to DMs.

1. The game should be fun for all. Not just you and your best friend.

2. The story should touch everyone's background to have them involved.

3. Make the game challenging and make the players think.

4. Try to undo the parties plans when possible to make it more dramatic. Ie, the guard you bribed is not on watch and you have to sneak into the castle.

5. Do your best to not kill PCs without a dramatic death. Ie, your platemail fighter gets knocked off of a ship by a spell. Have them make a Dex save to stay on the ship.

At that time tell the group he went into the water. Make the fighter make some saves that mean nothing. Then after the fight the group hear the fighter yelling for help. His foot is caught in some netting and he is hanging above the water.

The PC is out of the fight and they didn't lose their character.

Now if that was a Giant Squid eating your fighter, that would be an epic death.

6. Remember as a DM you are not invested in the PCs as much as they are. So do your best to not abuse them when possible.

7. Never kill a character because you don't like the person playing or the choice they made in the game.

8. Don't be mad when you spend 12 hours of your time making a hook for the group and they don't take the bait.

[mephnick]

Modern D&D is built on the base assumption that you will create an actual character even at level 1, complete with personality, ideals, flaws, bonds, and background—and that this character will survive through the end of the campaign (even if they may change greatly along the way).

Man, you're going to have to cite that. When I read the description of 5e it says stuff like "deadly dungeons and horrible monsters" and nothing about "the DM will guarantee you get to tell your story to the conclusion you choose."

I think people have been watching too much Critical Role if they think that's how D&D is assumed to work.

[Cynthaer]

Modern D&D is built on the base assumption that you will create an actual character even at level 1, complete with personality, ideals, flaws, bonds, and background—and that this character will survive through the end of the campaign (even if they may change greatly along the way). That doesn't mean the game assumes death is impossible, but it does assume death is a very unusual and unexpected occurrence, and represents a major change for the story and the players.


Man, you're going to have to cite that. When I read the description of 5e it says stuff like "deadly dungeons and horrible monsters" and nothing about "the DM will guarantee you get to tell your story to the conclusion you choose."

I think people have been watching too much Critical Role if they think that's how D&D is assumed to work.

I feel like you've grossly mischaracterized what I said about death. I said:

(A) 5e's design assumes that the character the player creates at level 1 will already be a complete character.

(B) 5e's design also assumes that this character will survive through the end of the campaign. This perhaps could be more precisely worded as "assumes that the player will play this character for the duration of the campaign", since death followed by resurrection (often with a sidequest to pay for that resurrection) is a reasonably common occurrence.

(C) This base assumption includes the likely occurrence that the players' characters will change greatly over the course of the campaign.

(D) The design assumes outright PC death is uncommon and will have a significant impact on the campaign and the players when it happens (but it is not something to be avoided at all costs).

In my full post, you can see I was specifically contrasting with the approach to death taken by early D&D editions, where the base assumption was that individual PCs were cheap and expendable, and permanent death was common.

I don't believe I said anything that can reasonably be interpreted to mean "the DM will guarantee you get to tell your story to the conclusion you choose".

(Also, as always, you can and should approach your own games with whatever you like best. If you want a brutal 5e game where everybody rolls up to the table with 20 pregenerated character sheets using 3d6 rolled in order, and none of them have names because you don't expect them to last more than 2 rooms in the dungeon? Go nuts! If everybody's having fun, there's no wrong way to play D&D or any other game. But that is clearly not the core design assumption​ of the game, nor the most common way people play it.)

[tchntm43]

I think it's clear from the replies that people who play this game want different things out of it. It's important for the DM (and this is something explicitly stated in the DMG) to understand what the players want out of the game and create a campaign that meets those needs. The DM is akin to the host of the party. If the party sucks and nobody is happy, it is usually (but not always) the host's failure.

There are certainly play styles where the circumstance of a new character dying permanently can work. But the reward for the player (in terms of enjoyment) have to match what they put into the game. This kind of play style, as others have said, fits a campaign where characters don't have back stories. You just roll for your stats and go dungeon delving until you die. There's nothing wrong with playing that way if you want.

On the other hand, if the DM requires the players to create extensive histories and personalities, the player rightly expects a return for that investment. Being killed off in the first adventure effectively wastes a large amount of time for that person. Imagine that you are brand new to the game, and the DM has asked you to write a 1-page character history (typed), and then the character dies in the first adventure. Do you think that person would be inclined to play this game again (even with a different DM)? From what we've been told the DM did make a hefty requirement on each member of the group.

The goal is for people to enjoy playing this game and to want to keep playing. The DM can't be "right" if the DM's actions cause the player group to not want to play D&D anymore. Remember that the DM is not on equal footing with the players; the DM is the host. If the DM is not able or willing to make sure that the player group is having a good time with the game, then the DM should consider being a player, not a DM. This is true even if it means the DM is having less fun than the DM would be if the players were making the decisions the DM wanted them to make to progress the story ideally. The DM should prioritize player fun over DM fun. DMing isn't for everyone. It's a big responsibility.

[Cynthaer]

On the other hand, if the DM requires the players to create extensive histories and personalities, the player rightly expects a return for that investment. Being killed off in the first adventure effectively wastes a large amount of time for that person. Imagine that you are brand new to the game, and the DM has asked you to write a 1-page character history (typed), and then the character dies in the first adventure. Do you think that person would be inclined to play this game again (even with a different DM)? From what we've been told the DM did make a hefty requirement on each member of the group.

That's a very good point. I've mostly been talking about the generic assumptions that the average DM and player would have, based on the design decisions of 5e in general.

But in this case, it's not really hypothetical—the DM specifically asked the players to create backstories and fleshed-out characters. That's the explicit signal for the kind of game the 5e design assumes: Each player has ~1 character for the whole campaign, and if a character does die, it's a huge deal.

If the DM had started the game with, "have a backstory if you want, I guess, I don't really care", and then the OP was upset because their character died, then I'd 100% be telling them that their DM clearly wants a meatgrinder and now they can know to expect that. That's not what happened here.

By all appearances, this DM isn't running a "high lethality" game; they just didn't like that a player reacted in a way they didn't intend and so punished the player by killing the character. No matter what kind of game you're running, that's just bad DMing.

[mephnick]

I'm going to ignore the "assumes" thing because we definitely will never agree that's the case, but yes I agree that DMs shouldn't ask for a huge backstory and then kill a character in the first session unless that's been specifically stated as a likely outcome. It's OK to require deep characters and kill them off, (the players can put an hour into a character background for their possibly years long game they don't have to do any work for....)but that has to be overtly stated.

I don't like long backstories and prefer relatively blank slate characters that reveal themselves throughout the game by the choices they make. I did miss the part about the complex backstory that was asked of OP.

[Cynthaer]

I'm going to ignore the "assumes" thing because we definitely will never agree that's the case, but yes I agree that DMs shouldn't ask for a huge backstory and then kill a character in the first session unless that's been specifically stated as a likely outcome. It's OK to require deep characters and kill them off, (the players can put an hour into a character background for their possibly years long game they don't have to do any work for....)but that has to be overtly stated.

Fair enough, and I don't want to keep harping on a minor point of disagreement. That said, let me try one last time to make my case in a slightly different way:

In the AD&D Player's Handbook, there is almost no space devoted to fleshing out a player character. There's about half a page describing the different alignments, and one paragraph on "personifying" your character (of which only one sentence actually matters), which I will reproduce here in its entirety:


By determining abilities, race, class, alignment, and hit points you have created your character. Next you must name him or her, and possibly give some family background (and name a next of kin as heir to the possessions of the character if he or she should meet an untimely death) to personify the character. Having done all that, your Dungeon Master will introduce your character to the campaign setting. In all likelihood, whether the locale is a village, town, or city, your character will have to acquaint himself or herself with the territory.

Contrast that with the 5e Player's Handbook, which has 4 pages on "Character Details" followed by 18 pages (!) of background suggestions, complete with unique tables for personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws for each one. 5e also encourages players to actually engage with the background system by giving it a little bit of mechanical impact in the form of proficiencies, languages, starting gear, and usually a ribbon feature with some light narrative weight.

Basically, all I'm saying is that this increased emphasis on character personalities and backgrounds (they're not even labeled "optional" like feats are) tells us how the designers expect 5e to generally be played. And that way is with a focus on the few unique characters the players create, rather than a stream of expendable characters with little background.

If you still disagree, then so be it. In the end, everybody's tables are going to approach it slightly differently.

[Tanarii]

Nothing in the 5e fleshing of personalit, which takes about 5-10 extra minutes after maybe 5-10 min of mechanical decisions, has any implications regarding character survivability.

[CantigThimble]

If you believe that as a DM you need to win fights at all costs, then you do not need to be running games.

One very important point: When I am DMing, I am not trying to beat the players at all costs. However, I will very often be roleplaying people who DO want to beat the players at all costs. As the DM, I will create these NPCs with their own weaknesses and the possibility that they can be defeated by the players. But then, I will try to separate my goals as DM and just try to make decisions for those NPCs that are true to who they are and the siuation they find themselves in.

If there is an NPC who has the motivation and the will to kill your character, don't give him the opportunity.

(I'm not sure if you disagree with this or not based on what you wrote, but I felt it was worth stating regardless.)

[Cynthaer]

Nothing in the 5e fleshing of personalit, which takes about 5-10 extra minutes after maybe 5-10 min of mechanical decisions, has any implications regarding character survivability.

On general principle, would you at least agree that the more fleshed out a character is, the more attached to them a player is likely to be, and the less they feel like an expendable pawn?

(I'm not trying to move any goalposts; I'm just curious where we agree and disagree.)

[MadBear]

This is an example of bad DMing.

If you believe that as a DM you need to win fights at all costs, then you do not need to be running games.

How about attacking the guys that brings these PCs back up?

Once they are down, no one is getting back up!


As someone else already said, I as the DM am not trying to win at all costs. That doesn't even make sense, since there's no "winning" in D&D. However, I do play my NPC's like they have goals and agendas that they are committed to achieving. Which means when it comes to a fight, they themselves will try to win it at all costs.

What you're saying makes sense depending on the situation at hand. If the whole party is beaten up, then the BBEG might try to knock down multiple people rather then put one out for good. But if the healer is looking like they're at 100% health, the NPC knows that's a foolish choice. So if their goal requires them killing off the PC's they're going to attempt to do that.

So I'm sorry, but no, this isn't an example of bad dming. It does however show off an attitude on your part of "my way is right, anyone who disagrees is wrong". Because you'll notice that despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with how you'd run it, if that makes your group happy, good for you and your group.


This shouldn't have to be taught to DMs.

1. The game should be fun for all. Not just you and your best friend.

2. The story should touch everyone's background to have them involved.

3. Make the game challenging and make the players think.

4. Try to undo the parties plans when possible to make it more dramatic. Ie, the guard you bribed is not on watch and you have to sneak into the castle.

5. Do your best to not kill PCs without a dramatic death. Ie, your platemail fighter gets knocked off of a ship by a spell. Have them make a Dex save to stay on the ship.

At that time tell the group he went into the water. Make the fighter make some saves that mean nothing. Then after the fight the group hear the fighter yelling for help. His foot is caught in some netting and he is hanging above the water.

The PC is out of the fight and they didn't lose their character.

Now if that was a Giant Squid eating your fighter, that would be an epic death.

6. Remember as a DM you are not invested in the PCs as much as they are. So do your best to not abuse them when possible.

7. Never kill a character because you don't like the person playing or the choice they made in the game.

8. Don't be mad when you spend 12 hours of your time making a hook for the group and they don't take the bait.

Funnily enough, we almost completely agree on what you wrote. we just break on #5, and even then I mostly agree.

1. Agreed. The game should be made to be as fun as possible for everyone in the group. Your style of play, would be boring and bad for my group. But I'm not saying your way of doing it is bad, just not a good fit for all the groups I've ever played with.

2. agreed

3. agreed

4. agreed. (although, letting their cool ideas succeed sometimes is really fun as well.)

5. disagree on some parts, and agree on others. In my games, you'd have to be making some awful decisions to die from a random encounter, or side encounter. In my games, if you do make bad choice after bad choice, then it's possible you don't get a heroic death. In those scenarios, the players had ample warning though, so even when it does happen, they accept it as being their fault.

6. agreed, for example, I completely agree parading a PC's dead corpse around is a jerk move.

7. completely agree (assuming by choice they made, you're talking about punishing them for picking an ability that you don't like).

8. Mostly agree. You can be mad, you just don't get to be mad at them, because 12 hours is a lot of wasted time. Also, as a general PC rule, if the DM's throwing out a bunch of plot hooks, and you take none of them, you don't get to be angry if the session ends early, because you DM has nothing created for you to do.

[Tanarii]

On general principle, would you at least agree that the more fleshed out a character is, the more attached to them a player is likely to be, and the less they feel like an expendable pawn?

(I'm not trying to move any goalposts; I'm just curious where we agree and disagree.)I think its a scale. And 5e has enough that your PC is unlikely to be considered a disposable game piece, while not having so much as (for most reasonable people) to cause any extreme distress.

Of course, many players who are most inclined to play characters as No-personality game-pieces are also those who take "losing" the most poorly, and are most likely to over-react to character death.

Nothing certain of course, by IMX theres a correlation at both extremes.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I think we can all agree that a lame death that a player had little chance of stopping should be improbable, at the very least. So long as they had a reasonable and transparent chance of changing the outcome, it's fine. It starts to get more and more acceptable the higher the general lethality of the game is, as well, though this goes back to that transparency thing; a player should know that they are in a highly lethal game that won't be pulling punches, and shouldn't be learning this the hard way. Especially if they're new to the hobby.

Roleplaying your villains and their actions is also a good thing, and it adds a lot to the verisimilitude of the game. It just shouldn't step on the toes of the above, because the game's ultimately not about them or their enjoyment. So a clever assassin going for the kill makes loads of sense, but should only ever be unleashed on players that have some way to either prevent, mitigate, or fully reverse death in the first place or have already accepted that this is de rigueur.

[Skylivedk]

Except it isn't. In a world where magic pulls someone from down, to 100% back into the fight, there is very good reason for the NPC's to want to finish off a PC. Now, there were some ways that the rules could have been written to dissuade this, things like:

1. If you drop to 0 HP you can't get back into the fight as you need a moment to recuperate
2. You come back into the fight but with a level of exhaustion .

We play with #2. Why don't you play with one or both of them? Yo-yo healing is frankly ridiculous. If it also leads to more permanent deaths you've kept a bad rule to empower worse consequences.

You seem to acknowledge some emotional backlash was at play with the parading a head part. Try with a session 0 next time.




8. Mostly agree. You can be mad, you just don't get to be mad at them, because 12 hours is a lot of wasted time. Also, as a general PC rule, if the DM's throwing out a bunch of plot hooks, and you take none of them, you don't get to be angry if the session ends early, because you DM has nothing created for you to do.

For this scenario, I've usually a character background relevant event ready... Plus, especially for low levels, I have sandbox options. It quickly became necessary with my group since they tend to play the heroes nobody asks for and fewer deserves.

[MadBear]

We play with #2. Why don't you play with one or both of them? Yo-yo healing is frankly ridiculous. If it also leads to more permanent deaths you've kept a bad rule to empower worse consequences.

You seem to acknowledge some emotional backlash was at play with the parading a head part. Try with a session 0 next time.



For this scenario, I've usually a character background relevant event ready... Plus, especially for low levels, I have sandbox options. It quickly became necessary with my group since they tend to play the heroes nobody asks for and fewer deserves.

I think you may be confusing my reply with a few others. I don't use either rule, because my players and I all find a world where an intelligent and evil enemy will stab you in the chest to put you down fun. It ramps up tension, and makes you consider the consequences of what you're doing. I was merely pointing out that if you don't want to attack downed PC's, you should figure out a way to stop yo-yo healing, because the people I know at least find it dumb.

Also, the whole head parading thing was in reference to the original OP, who was upset that their DM paraded their head around on a pike. The groups I play in have been playing for over a decade at this point, so we haven't really needed a session 0 (although we have had mini session 0's when a new players joins).

[MThurston]

One very important point: When I am DMing, I am not trying to beat the players at all costs. However, I will very often be roleplaying people who DO want to beat the players at all costs. As the DM, I will create these NPCs with their own weaknesses and the possibility that they can be defeated by the players. But then, I will try to separate my goals as DM and just try to make decisions for those NPCs that are true to who they are and the siuation they find themselves in.

If there is an NPC who has the motivation and the will to kill your character, don't give him the opportunity.

(I'm not sure if you disagree with this or not based on what you wrote, but I felt it was worth stating regardless.)

This is totally acceptable but it should have weight and not a random encounter with some slavers.

End game is were that should be.

And let's not be thinking that a party member going off by themselves is a good idea.

[MThurston]

5. disagree on some parts, and agree on others. In my games, you'd have to be making some awful decisions to die from a random encounter, or side encounter. In my games, if you do make bad choice after bad choice, then it's possible you don't get a heroic death. In those scenarios, the players had ample warning though, so even when it does happen, they accept it as being their fault.

Just to add some clarity.

I'm not talking letting them live through 3 death saves.

If the party fails to heal or stabilize, then that is their fault.

Death by failed saves is always acceptable.

[kivzirrum]

This is totally acceptable but it should have weight and not a random encounter with some slavers.

End game is were that should be.

And let's not be thinking that a party member going off by themselves is a good idea.

So do I understand this correctly: are you saying that the only time an encounter should have a chance of being genuinely lethal is at the very end of the planned campaign? I'm just curious; I've been reading this thread but not commenting because I don't want to step into the line of fire, so to speak. :smalltongue:

[CantigThimble]

This is totally acceptable but it should have weight and not a random encounter with some slavers.

End game is were that should be.

And let's not be thinking that a party member going off by themselves is a good idea.

I 100% disagree with you here. Plot armor is absolute BS. Bad tactics, bad decisions, and bad luck can kill anyone any day of the week and its up to the players to make sure that doesn't happen, not the DM.

I don't know about you, but if a villain in one of my games gets hit by hard in an unexpected way and the PCs have him dead to rights, then it is stupid to have him miraculously escape to preserve the plot. He should die and the game should be played from from that point. I apply the same standard to PCs. If they're in a spot that should kill them, then they die and the game has to go on from there.

[MThurston]

So do I understand this correctly: are you saying that the only time an encounter should have a chance of being genuinely lethal is at the very end of the planned campaign? I'm just curious; I've been reading this thread but not commenting because I don't want to step into the line of fire, so to speak. :smalltongue:

Ah, that is a loaded question. Can a bear kill your character if you put yourself in that situation? Yes.

I as a DM am not going to have that bandit stab you until you don't have a death save.

[MThurston]

I 100% disagree with you here. Plot armor is absolute BS. Bad tactics, bad decisions, and bad luck can kill anyone any day of the week and its up to the players to make sure that doesn't happen, not the DM.

I don't know about you, but if a villain in one of my games gets hit by hard in an unexpected way and the PCs have him dead to rights, then it is stupid to have him miraculously escape to preserve the plot. He should die and the game should be played from from that point. I apply the same standard to PCs. If they're in a spot that should kill them, then they die and the game has to go on from there.

Game doesn't go on if your PCs all die.

It's way you are a DM and the ability to change things. The town guard showing up and the villains all eacape. The party is saved but now the villains plan succeeds.

[CantigThimble]

Game doesn't go on if your PCs all die.

It's way you are a DM and the ability to change things. The town guard showing up and the villains all eacape. The party is saved but now the villains plan succeeds.

If all the PCs die then the game ends and a new one begins.
If all the PCs CAN'T die then the game lacks real tension and becomes boring.

I don't think we're going to come to an agreement here. I think our tastes in games are irreconcilable in this regard.

[tchntm43]

If all the PCs die then the game ends and a new one begins.

In theory this happens. But if the players are relatively new and have been waiting for a month for the DM to prepare the adventure and they've invested considerable time into character creation and this happens too early, it's more likely that the players just won't want to play again at all.

[MThurston]

If all the PCs die then the game ends and a new one begins.
If all the PCs CAN'T die then the game lacks real tension and becomes boring.

I don't think we're going to come to an agreement here. I think our tastes in games are irreconcilable in this regard.

Again you miss the point.

Not sure your group will be very happy if they play 4 campaigns with you and they never get to finish it because you believe that a TPK keeps the integrity of your game intact.

Capture, enslaved, saved by someone, God intervention, imprisoned are all tools in the DMs bag.

Not using them is silly, it is also silly to keep doing it for a bad group.

And some continue to not get it. I don't think anyone here is saying PC can't die.

Having a PC fall to their death is stupid. Having them fall x feet and landing on a bolder is punishment enough.

But let's have one of your PCs die for the integrity of your game! Silly.

Again, big fight any time in the game leads to a PC failing 3 Death Saved. Acceptable.

Having the party still fighting and the slaver take the Death Saved from the PC, bad DMing.

And let's be 100% honest here.

PCs are a special kind of being. They are the only ones that can go below 0 HPs and get back up.

So it's medagaming by the DM to continue to hit them while they are down.

And I would never attack a PC while down unless it was the only option. Alligator, zombie, ooze.

Taking Death Saves from PCs is a **** move.

[CantigThimble]

In theory this happens. But if the players are relatively new and have been waiting for a month for the DM to prepare the adventure and they've invested considerable time into character creation and this happens too early, it's more likely that the players just won't want to play again at all.

There is some amount of nuance and regard for circumstance that I am not including in what I've said in this thread, but my overall position on this is that while I am willing to play with kid-gloves I will only do so with the expectation that they will come off at some point.

Also, you'd be surprised. Many new players I've played with won't get off-put by character death but rather double down on playing to survive and succeed.

@MThurston

When I run the game NPCs have death saves too. They just always fail them. (everyone bleeds out in 3 rounds) Coup de gracing should have nothing to do with metagaming, I've been consistent on that.

You're making a LOT of assumptions about how my games go based on jack and squat that you know about me and my players. I'm just going to boil it down to this: My players LIKE my games. They want to DM them and they're disappointed if I don't have time to do so. Their enjoyment of my games has only INCREASED the more I've focused on the lethality of the world.

And this isn't just on my side of the screen either, I've played in games and lost beloved characters to stupid things because of my mistakes and the dice. I've also played in games where something always made it possible to survive or be saved at the last second because the DM didn't want us to die. Even though it hurts to lose a character I like, I still prefer when they can die easily, because that means that every act of risk taking and heroism they performed before they died actually mattered. Because the stakes were real.

[Pelle]

Again you miss the point.

Not sure your group will be very happy if they play 4 campaigns with you and they never get to finish it because you believe that a TPK keeps the integrity of your game intact.


You seem to be playing in a very specific way, which probably affects your opinion. Not everyone are playing Big Epic Quests, where the BBEG has to be defeated at level 20. Many campaigns are are simply finished when everyone just decides it's time to start a new game for whatever reason. In these games, "never get to finish it" is meaningless.



Basically, all I'm saying is that this increased emphasis on character personalities and backgrounds (they're not even labeled "optional" like feats are) tells us how the designers expect 5e to generally be played. And that way is with a focus on the few unique characters the players create, rather than a stream of expendable characters with little background.


To me, playing a game with fleshed out characters, with backgrounds integrated well into the setting, lends itself well to a game with lethal consequences for bad player decisions. Then characters can assess the risks and make bold and stupid moves, and if they die it actually feels meaningful. If foolish character actions don't really matter, that cheapens the whole experience, so it feels pointless to spend time on making a unique character.

[MThurston]

You seem to be playing in a very specific way, which probably affects your opinion. Not everyone are playing Big Epic Quests, where the BBEG has to be defeated at level 20. Many campaigns are are simply finished when everyone just decides it's time to start a new game for whatever reason. In these games, "never get to finish it" is meaningless.


Any game should have a theme. Big or small.

Playing to just play for a month is boring to me. I want a story and be part of that story.

[tchntm43]

There is some amount of nuance and regard for circumstance that I am not including in what I've said in this thread, but my overall position on this is that while I am willing to play with kid-gloves I will only do so with the expectation that they will come off at some point.

Also, you'd be surprised. Many new players I've played with won't get off-put by character death but rather double down on playing to survive and succeed.

I guess it depends a lot on your play group as far as that goes. 3 out of 4 of my players will likely quit if/when their characters die. It took a lot of arm-twisting to convince them to play in the first place (and from my perspective, I've been waiting 5 years to play). This is a family group, and I've pretty much exhausted my options as far as who I have available. My goal is to keep them in the game, because if they quit, it means I don't get to play anymore either. At the start, most of them had only had experience playing common board games (Monopoly and Scrabble). I weaned them in by getting them to try other board games (Catan, then Talisman, and then Pandemic... the ones who I think are going to be hard to keep in the game are only willing to play Catan of those three now).

[kivzirrum]

Ah, that is a loaded question. Can a bear kill your character if you put yourself in that situation? Yes.

I as a DM am not going to have that bandit stab you until you don't have a death save.

Thank you for clarifying!

[CantigThimble]

Any game should have a theme. Big or small.

Playing to just play for a month is boring to me. I want a story and be part of that story.

And I think the best stories are told by the spur of the moment decisions and their consequences, not by plot summaries that were written before the game begins. Some good stories are multi-chapter epics and some good stories are short. Most importantly of all, I think its worth risking the story being bad to let unexpected things happen.

But like I said earlier, I don't think we're going to agree on this. I don't think you're wrong to like the kind of games you like, I just think that if the two of us were in the same session 0 we would quickly realize that we should be in different groups.


I guess it depends a lot on your play group as far as that goes. 3 out of 4 of my players will likely quit if/when their characters die. It took a lot of arm-twisting to convince them to play in the first place (and from my perspective, I've been waiting 5 years to play). This is a family group, and I've pretty much exhausted my options as far as who I have available. My goal is to keep them in the game, because if they quit, it means I don't get to play anymore either. At the start, most of them had only had experience playing common board games (Monopoly and Scrabble). I weaned them in by getting them to try other board games (Catan, then Talisman, and then Pandemic... the ones who I think are going to be hard to keep in the game are only willing to play Catan of those three now).

I can definitely sympathize with that. I used to do things like that, but ultimately I decided that it was too much trouble and not enough fun to play D&D with groups like that. Instead, I have a collection of various board games that work for different kinds of people and try to pick games that fit the players. (Incidentally, other games I've found that work for groups like this are Dixit, Love Letter and Splendor if you're looking for more)

[MThurston]

You seem to be playing in a very specific way, which probably affects your opinion. Not everyone are playing Big Epic Quests, where the BBEG has to be defeated at level 20. Many campaigns are are simply finished when everyone just decides it's time to start a new game for whatever reason. In these games, "never get to finish it" is meaningless.



To me, playing a game with fleshed out characters, with backgrounds integrated well into the setting, lends itself well to a game with lethal consequences for bad player decisions. Then characters can assess the risks and make bold and stupid moves, and if they die it actually feels meaningful. If foolish character actions don't really matter, that cheapens the whole experience, so it feels pointless to spend time on making a unique character.


And I think the best stories are told by the spur of the moment decisions and their consequences, not by plot summaries that were written before the game begins. Some good stories are multi-chapter epics and some good stories are short. Most importantly of all, I think its worth risking the story being bad to let unexpected things happen.

But like I said earlier, I don't think we're going to agree on this. I don't think you're wrong to like the kind of games you like, I just think that if the two of us were in the same session 0 we would quickly realize that we should be in different groups.



Ah, I believe that you are wrong in this. I think if we are both players, we'd be just fine.

A good DM will hopefully make the game enjoyable for all.

For example, I had a buddy that was going to be moving away. I gave him a good out in an epic way.

I have also let people kill off a character they were not enjoying to start a new one.

I however have not attacked a downed PC to make them lose a character.

As I said before and I'll give an example.

Week 1: Mikes PC goes down and the DM targets him.

Week 2: Sarah's PC goes down and the DM targets her.

Week 3: Brads PC goes down and the DM targets him.

I am out. I put to much I to my character to have to worry about going down.

5e would not give you a death save I'd they wanted peoole making new characters all the time. They wanted to create drama to make people have value in their character and other PC characters.

[Tanarii]

But like I said earlier, I don't think we're going to agree on this. I don't think you're wrong to like the kind of games you like, I just think that if the two of us were in the same session 0 we would quickly realize that we should be in different groups.
When you're saying that high lethality games where decisions can have lethal consequences works for you as a player and for your players as a DM, but no judgement on others, and the response you're repeatedly getting is that you're doing it wrong, it's probably time to stop engaging with the troll.

[Resileaf]

I personally agree to the thought that PC death should be dramatic and add to the story rather than happening randomly. I mean this as individual character deaths, not TPKs, although I'm lucky I've never caused a TPK in my games (although I got close to accidently doing it once by having an encounter with two liches. Turns out that double chain lightning can and will TPK a group when the liches have special abilities that empower all their damage spells to deal cold damage, then ramps up that damage by three levels. I stealthily manually lowered the damage because I had screwed up.), I did have one character death, on the final round, of the final battle against the final boss, of the final game session. This death was suitably dramatic and I have no regrets for having it happen.

The one described in the OP is neither dramatic, nor adds to the story.

[Sigreid]

Ah, I believe that you are wrong in this. I think if we are both players, we'd be just fine.

A good DM will hopefully make the game enjoyable for all.

For example, I had a buddy that was going to be moving away. I gave him a good out in an epic way.

I have also let people kill off a character they were not enjoying to start a new one.

I however have not attacked a downed PC to make them lose a character.

As I said before and I'll give an example.

Week 1: Mikes PC goes down and the DM targets him.

Week 2: Sarah's PC goes down and the DM targets her.

Week 3: Brads PC goes down and the DM targets him.

I am out. I put to much I to my character to have to worry about going down.

5e would not give you a death save I'd they wanted peoole making new characters all the time. They wanted to create drama to make people have value in their character and other PC characters.

As a player, if my efforts cant get me killed, my wins and survives don't really mean anything. It's not a game where I'm risking meaningfully for my rewards at that point.

Just what is right for me.

[MThurston]

As a player, if my efforts cant get me killed, my wins and survives don't really mean anything. It's not a game where I'm risking meaningfully for my rewards at that point.

Just what is right for me.

Again, you skim over thinking that no death is acceptable.

This post is about DMs targeting downed PCs for no good reason.

The party having healers doesn't change the above.

[Sigreid]

Again, you skim over thinking that no death is acceptable.

This post is about DMs targeting downed PCs for no good reason.

The party having healers doesn't change the above.

I read the OP. What I got out of it was a player unilaterally picking a fight in the heat of the moment and dying because of it. That is exactly the kind of consequence to my decisions I desire.

[Resileaf]

I read the OP. What I got out of it was a player unilaterally picking a fight in the heat of the moment and dying because of it. That is exactly the kind of consequence to my decisions I desire.

And future posts revealed that the OP did not pick the fight, but that it started when the NPCs initiated by casting blindness on one of the PCs.

[MThurston]

I read the OP. What I got out of it was a player unilaterally picking a fight in the heat of the moment and dying because of it. That is exactly the kind of consequence to my decisions I desire.

Once again you missed the point.

If the PC had died to failed death saves, it is what it is.

It's the fact that a ****ty DM took the Death Saved away by attacking a downed PC.

[Sigreid]

And future posts revealed that the OP did not pick the fight, but that it started when the NPCs initiated by casting blindness on one of the PCs.

I did miss that in my skimming, yes. I still would not care to play on a game where character death was reserved for a moment dramatically appropriate to the story.

[Resileaf]

I did miss that in my skimming, yes. I still would not care to play on a game where character death was reserved for a moment dramatically appropriate to the story.

Which isn't a bad way to play. Plenty of people enjoy hardcore campaigns where the smallest mistake will make you a stain on someone else's sword. But those kind of campaigns do need to be clearly labeled ahead of time, and require the right mindset, if not the right characters. The OP obviously wasn't expecting such a game, and I think the GM wasn't either, as very much everything posted in this thread makes me suspect that the GM killed the character out of frustration for his carefully-laid story being ruined.

[MThurston]

I did miss that in my skimming, yes. I still would not care to play on a game where character death was reserved for a moment dramatically appropriate to the story.

Questions if you are a DM.

1. Character fails a climbing check on the side of a mountain. Kill them, make another save? If failed the second save, kill them, have them land on a bolder?

2. Character goes down in a fight. Let them get their Death Saves until someone helps them, attack downed PCs?

3. Character swings from one ship to another. Failed athletics check. They fall in the water and must make a swim check, they fall to the deck of either ship? If they fell into the water and fail another athletics check, do you send them to the bottom or let them tread water but take 1d× of damage to simulate drowning?

My answers.
1. Give them another save, if failed they will land on a bolder at 0 hps with death saves. The party will have to save them.

2. Unless it's a zombie or hungry beast, I will not attack them.

I will threaten to if it's a bad guy and they needs to escape.

3. I will roll a d3. 1: Ship 1, 2: Water, 3: Ship 2. Character will roll to see how many feet up thry fell from. No damage if they hit the water.

If they fell into the water they must make an athletics check. If failed roll 2d4 from taking on water. If they roll a 1 they take 4d4. 20 gets them to the side of a ship. Repeat tests until they get to a ship.

None of these are killing PCs easily but they are taking damage that will keep the drama high.

[Sigreid]

Which isn't a bad way to play. Plenty of people enjoy hardcore campaigns where the smallest mistake will make you a stain on someone else's sword. But those kind of campaigns do need to be clearly labeled ahead of time, and require the right mindset, if not the right characters. The OP obviously wasn't expecting such a game, and I think the GM wasn't either, as very much everything posted in this thread makes me suspect that the GM killed the character out of frustration for his carefully-laid story being ruined.

Agreed that players and DMs need to both be clear on the kind of game they are playing. While when I DM I usually sandbox, I have on occasion asked my party if I planned something would they be willing to just go with it.

I also know when I, as a player, get the feeling I'm just a character in the story the DM is telling himself, unless I signed on for that up front, I will become disruptive.

[Sigreid]

Questions if you are a DM.

1. Character fails a climbing check on the side of a mountain. Kill them, make another save? If failed the second save, kill them, have them land on a bolder?

2. Character goes down in a fight. Let them get their Death Saves until someone helps them, attack downed PCs?

3. Character swings from one ship to another. Failed athletics check. They fall in the water and must make a swim check, they fall to the deck of either ship? If they fell into the water and fail another athletics check, do you send them to the bottom or let them tread water but take 1d× of damage to simulate drowning?

My answers.
1. Give them another save, if failed they will land on a bolder at 0 hps with death saves. The party will have to save them.

2. Unless it's a zombie or hungry beast, I will not attack them.

I will threaten to if it's a bad guy and they needs to escape.

3. I will roll a d3. 1: Ship 1, 2: Water, 3: Ship 2. Character will roll to see how many feet up thry fell from. No damage if they hit the water.

If they fell into the water they must make an athletics check. If failed roll 2d4 from taking on water. If they roll a 1 they take 4d4. 20 gets them to the side of a ship. Repeat tests until they get to a ship.

None of these are killing PCs easily but they are taking damage that will keep the drama high.

This popped up as I was posting.

1. There's no roll for the climb unless failing is a big deal. I'd be inclined to let any party member below them try to catch them on the way down at the cost of increasing their risk of falling.

2. Depends on the opponent and how busy they are. If they are pressed, move to the next target. If they have breathing room, elattacks left over, and are angry or brutal, attack.

3. Would probably look at how close to success they were but landing in the water is likely.

[CantigThimble]

Ah, I believe that you are wrong in this. I think if we are both players, we'd be just fine.

A good DM will hopefully make the game enjoyable for all.

For example, I had a buddy that was going to be moving away. I gave him a good out in an epic way.

I have also let people kill off a character they were not enjoying to start a new one.

I however have not attacked a downed PC to make them lose a character.

As I have said on multiple occasions: I, the DM am not attacking or targeting anyone. I have created many NPCs withtheir own motivations, some of them, when put in some circumstances, will want to make sure that their enemies are dead and will take the time to finish them off.

I also create NPCs who are merciful and will take pains to make sure their enrmies don't die whenever possible. Other NPCs won't care one way or the other as long as they make it out alive, and if it seems like a downed enemy not being dead is a threat to their life then they'll fiish them but otherwise let alone.

I consider good DMing to be creating all these types of people in the world and then playing them true to their motivations, no matter whether it produces the results that feel 'dramatic enough' or anything like that. The reason why I consider that to be good DMing is because I clearly remember instances where NPCs acted out of character to fit the whims of the DM and how terrible that was for the game afterwards.

And just in case you are, for some reason, under the impression that I support the DM in the OP: I don't. He very clearly suspended any reasonable motivations for the NPCs in his game to fulfill a personal OOC grudge against a player. That's metagaming, it's bad.


Questions if you are a DM.

1. Character fails a climbing check on the side of a mountain. Kill them, make another save? If failed the second save, kill them, have them land on a bolder?

2. Character goes down in a fight. Let them get their Death Saves until someone helps them, attack downed PCs?

3. Character swings from one ship to another. Failed athletics check. They fall in the water and must make a swim check, they fall to the deck of either ship? If they fell into the water and fail another athletics check, do you send them to the bottom or let them tread water but take 1d× of damage to simulate drowning?

1. I have never had a group of players who would think about climbing something dangerous without failsafes. They tie themselves together, or to pitons etc. If I had a party that didn't I would probably give them a friendly OOC reminder that there are good reasons that mountaineers take precautions. If they tried anyway I would make sure they were aware how dangerous it was. The exact nature of the climbing check and the cost of failure would depend on a lot on the circumstances, which I don't have. But death would definitely be a possibility with no safety equipment.

2. As I said earler, depends on the NPCs and the situation. Some would attack them, some would ignore them some would stabilize them.

3. Depends of circumstances (How far apart the boats were, where they were swinging from etc.) but hitting the water is definitely possible. I would certainly allow them to try to tread water, though how well that went would depend on the weather, what area of sea or lake they were in and what kind of armor they're wearing. They wouldn't start drowning unless they failed to tread water.

[MThurston]

As I have said on multiple occasions: I, the DM am not attacking or targeting anyone. I have created many NPCs withtheir own motivations, some of them, when put in some circumstances, will want to make sure that their enemies are dead and will take the time to finish them off.

I also create NPCs who are merciful and will take pains to make sure their enrmies don't die whenever possible. Other NPCs won't care one way or the other as long as they make it out alive, and if it seems like a downed enemy not being dead is a threat to their life then they'll fiish them but otherwise let alone.

I consider good DMing to be creating all these types of people in the world and then playing them true to their motivations, no matter whether it produces the results that feel 'dramatic enough' or anything like that. The reason why I consider that to be good DMing is because I clearly remember instances where NPCs acted out of character to fit the whims of the DM and how terrible that was for the game afterwards.

And just in case you are, for some reason, under the impression that I support the DM in the OP: I don't. He very clearly suspended any reasonable motivations for the NPCs in his game to fulfill a personal OOC grudge against a player. That's metagaming, it's bad.


You are the one targeting the downed PCs. Its your action saying they attack downed players. You can't hide behind that.

[Erloas]

The thing about "player deaths keep things tense" depends entirely on how often and in what ways they are dying. If it happens to much it means just as little as if it never happens. If you're rerolling a new character every 2 sessions then you probably don't really care what happens to said PC, just like the DM doesn't really care that one of his many NPCs gets taken down.

Just like in a show like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead, if someone shows up and gets like 4 scenes on camera and then they die no one really cares, but when you take a character that has been around a while, that we have some attachment to, we care a lot when they die. We also care a lot when they only almost die and instead make it through. You have to be invested in the character for the death to matter, but equally so you have to know that dying or surviving are both possibilities.

[Sigreid]

The thing about "player deaths keep things tense" depends entirely on how often and in what ways they are dying. If it happens to much it means just as little as if it never happens. If you're rerolling a new character every 2 sessions then you probably don't really care what happens to said PC, just like the DM doesn't really care that one of his many NPCs gets taken down.

Just like in a show like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead, if someone shows up and gets like 4 scenes on camera and then they die no one really cares, but when you take a character that has been around a while, that we have some attachment to, we care a lot when they die. We also care a lot when they only almost die and instead make it through. You have to be invested in the character for the death to matter, but equally so you have to know that dying or surviving are both possibilities.

I wouldn't put it as player deaths keep things tense but rather when the players pick their course of action they are picking their risk and going for it. Diminish that risk and I think you're robbing the players of their accomplishment. It's not about killing or not killing the characters. A DM that wants to kill them can every time. It's about the players knowing that they are in control of their own fate, so to speak.

[Finback]

Questions if you are a DM.

1. Character fails a climbing check on the side of a mountain. Kill them, make another save? If failed the second save, kill them, have them land on a bolder?

2. Character goes down in a fight. Let them get their Death Saves until someone helps them, attack downed PCs?

3. Character swings from one ship to another. Failed athletics check. They fall in the water and must make a swim check, they fall to the deck of either ship? If they fell into the water and fail another athletics check, do you send them to the bottom or let them tread water but take 1d× of damage to simulate drowning?



1. How BADLY do they fail it? If it's only a bit, I'll have them slip, take some falling damage, but land on a ledge. The others can work to rescue them. If it's a bad fail, I'll have them fall, land, break a limb and face a penalty (eg exhaustion levels) until they can rest up properly. If it's like DC30 and they rolled a 2? I might have them die. Of course, other PCs can react. Maybe one of them has a spell or something. But if not, yeah, especially if I've been setting this up as a serious mountain climb up a sheer face. If it's like, a 45 degree slope and they were walking up? That's not fatal.

2. Yep, death saves - you have allies for a reason, and it teaches them to use their spell slots wisely. I *might* attack a downed PC, if the narrative warrants it. Did the bard just insult the adult red dragon's parentage several times, using Vicious Mockery? Damn right, the dragon is going to use their insides to make a paint they will use to write on a wagon, that will be set on fire and rolled into the bard's home town. Is it a soldier who might realise that that cleric over there could heal the fighter, and none of his allies are fighting the cleric? He might swap over. A kobold, in the throes of bloodlust and the chance to prove themselves a warrior to the clan? They just might.

3. If they fell in the water, I'd consider their situation - an unarmoured monk? I won't make them make a check at all, unless, say, they have actively said "My PC is afraid of water and has never learnt to swim". A paladin in full plate? Yeah, make that check there, Arthur Curry. The paladin might go down, so they get a chance to shed armour - don't forget, PCs can hold their breath for a certain amount of time based off their Con mod.

[CantigThimble]

You are the one targeting the downed PCs. Its your action saying they attack downed players. You can't hide behind that.

The point of what I was saying is that I, as the DM, am not 'out to get' the players or anything silly like that. If I was, I could just have something 10 levels above the party attack them or do the classic rocks fall everybody dies. The DM has unlimited brute force, he doesn't need to be sneaky. But my goal is not for my players to die (If you can believe that), my goal is to tell an interesting story. In service of that I create a world with a variety of NPCs with a variety of motivations and set the players in the middle of it. The players act as they see fit, I try to have the NPCs act as true to their motivations as possible, no exceptions.

If you want to call me out for putting merciless bastards who will stab you while you're down in the world then fair enough, I did put them there. I think a world with merciless bastards is better for storytelling than one without them. I don't hide that fact from my players and at that point it's up to them to do everything they can not to end up at those NPCs' mercy.

I don't play 'DM vs Players' because that's stupid. I don't set my players up for failure. But I don't set them up to survive until they reach level 20 either. I let them take the actions they want to and attempt to impartially provide the consequences for those actions that make the most sense given the scenario.

[Jerrykhor]

The point of what I was saying is that I, as the DM, am not 'out to get' the players or anything silly like that. If I was, I could just have something 10 levels above the party attack them or do the classic rocks fall everybody dies. The DM has unlimited brute force, he doesn't need to be sneaky. But my goal is not for my players to die (If you can believe that), my goal is to tell an interesting story. In service of that I create a world with a variety of NPCs with a variety of motivations and set the players in the middle of it. The players act as they see fit, I try to have the NPCs act as true to their motivations as possible, no exceptions.

If you want to call me out for putting merciless bastards who will stab you while you're down in the world then fair enough, I did put them there. I think a world with merciless bastards is better for storytelling than one without them. I don't hide that fact from my players and at that point it's up to them to do everything they can not to end up at those NPCs' mercy.

I don't play 'DM vs Players' because that's stupid. I don't set my players up for failure. But I don't set them up to survive until they reach level 20 either. I let them take the actions they want to and attempt to impartially provide the consequences for those actions that make the most sense given the scenario.

Its not the merciless bastards we players are angry about, its the bastards who hit downed PCs exactly 3 times, not more, not less. Precisely 3 times. Sometimes with the help of a pet ferret. I dunno about you, but if thats not metagaming, then what is?

[Unoriginal]

You are the one targeting the downed PCs. Its your action saying they attack downed players. You can't hide behind that.

This is like arguing that if a NPC is a slaver in the game, the DM is a slaver because they're the one controlling NPCs.


Its not the merciless bastards we players are angry about, its the bastards who hit downed PCs exactly 3 times, not more, not less. Precisely 3 times. Sometimes with the help of a pet ferret. I dunno about you, but if thats not metagaming, then what is?

The PC should have been dead by the second strike, though.

[SpanielBear]

Could have been 3 attacks but only one hit.

Otherwise you’re right. But if the DM was looking to correct a mistake; tell the player that. Don’t pull a stealth ferret and neglect to clarify the rules.

[CantigThimble]

Its not the merciless bastards we players are angry about, its the bastards who hit downed PCs exactly 3 times, not more, not less. Precisely 3 times. Sometimes with the help of a pet ferret. I dunno about you, but if thats not metagaming, then what is?

Firstly, I never once said that I thought the DM in the OP was good DM or that how he played was right. I was arguing against the position that NPCs shouldn't coup de grace players at all.

Secondly, stabbing someone exactly 3 times because they have 3 death saves is metagaming. Stabbing someone until they stop breathing is not metagaming. However, because of the way the rules of the game work, those two things look identical in practice.

(And Unoriginal is correct that you actually only need to stab someone twice to kill them, but that's beside my point about metagaming.)

[MThurston]

I would hope that as friends playing a game we don't abuse each other.

Having my rogue be coup de Grace while the enemy is being attacked by the fighter is a **** move.

But again, I am not saying PCs should never die.

[CantigThimble]

I would hope that as friends playing a game we don't abuse each other.

Having my rogue be coup de Grace while the enemy is being attacked by the fighter is a **** move.

But again, I am not saying PCs should never die.

Sigh, look, I've been over this several times already but:
It is evident from our discussion that you and I enjoy different things about D&D. Our games operate on different principles. Both of us seem to have functional gaming groups that enjoy those different styles, but if one of us was in the other's group, chances are we wouldn't enjoy it, so we're better off playing in our own groups with different syles that cater to our particular tastes. I'll play in groups where coup de gracing is a real possibility and you aren't guaranteed any buffer zone to be saved, you play in groups that are the opposite. That's fine.

However, when you call my friends and I bad DMs or claim that we're abusing eachother by playing the way we do I take serious exception to that. We're friends, playing a game we all enjoy and you are making baseless accusations because the way we play doesn't suit your tastes.

[MadBear]

Gotta love that MThurston's argument essentially boils down to "If you don't play D&D the way I find fun, you're bad at D&D".

[MThurston]

Gotta love that MThurston's argument essentially boils down to "If you don't play D&D the way I find fun, you're bad at D&D".

Must not have read any responce.

A bad DM kills off PCs because they are mad. Which in this case is the truth.

I see that some people in here think it is perfectly ok to have four PCs within 5 feet of them and have the NPC putt their attacks into the downed 5th PC is perfectly acceptable.

Because death is part of the game.

As I said, if PCs are dieing every week, then that isn't a game I'm down for unless it's Paranoia.

[n00b]

I see that some people in here think it is perfectly ok to have four PCs within 5 feet of them and have the NPC putt their attacks into the downed 5th PC is perfectly acceptable.

I expect an NPC to use the same tactics I would. Just this week our party was in an encounter and the Fighter in the group went down. I believe the NPC in this scenario was out of attacks so it made no difference in the outcome. The Divine Soul Sorcerer cast Healing Word when his turn came up and the next round the Fighter rolled a crit to take the NPC down. If the NPC had any attacks left I would have fully expected it to finish off the Fighter. That's just good strategy. And also if the NPC doesn't finish off a PC it can give the appearance of favoritism. If you die it doesn't make the DM bad, or you, it's just part of the game. No reason for anyone to get their feelings hurt. One less challenge is that much closer to victory, which the NPC is trying to achieve.

[MThurston]

I expect an NPC to use the same tactics I would. Just this week our party was in an encounter and the Fighter in the group went down. I believe the NPC in this scenario was out of attacks so it made no difference in the outcome. The Divine Soul Sorcerer cast Healing Word when his turn came up and the next round the Fighter rolled a crit to take the NPC down. If the NPC had any attacks left I would have fully expected it to finish off the Fighter. That's just good strategy. And also if the NPC doesn't finish off a PC it can give the appearance of favoritism. If you die it doesn't make the DM bad, or you, it's just part of the game. No reason for anyone to get their feelings hurt. One less challenge is that much closer to victory, which the NPC is trying to achieve.

So you attack downed NPCs while other NPCs are swinging at you?

NPCs don't win by attacking down Pcs. They normally die because they didnt hit the guys still standing.

[Resileaf]

So you attack downed NPCs while other NPCs are swinging at you?

NPCs don't win by attacking down Pcs. They normally die because they didnt hit the guys still standing.

Well here's the thing, the NPC would not have died if the downed fighter was dead, because the fighter wouldn't have been healed and stood back up to chop off his head. In a setting where magic healing is a thing, there is no reason not to finish off a downed opponent in case magic heals them back to full. In the case where the PC is dead, the NPCs only have four other people to fight instead of 5, and they haven't just lost one of their own.
Besides, if the NPC has no one else in range to attack, why would he just stop hitting?

That is not to say every NPC should attack downed PCs, of course. It would be smart as well to demand the surrender of the PCs, or you finish off their friend.

[CantigThimble]

So you attack downed NPCs while other NPCs are swinging at you?

NPCs don't win by attacking down Pcs. They normally die because they didnt hit the guys still standing.

Tell you what, try including a faction of enemies where priests with healing word or mass healing word are common. How many times do you think your players will have to deal with downed enemies popping back up to attack them from behind before they start factoring coup de grace into their tactics whenever possible?

Any time I've included enemies who ever get back up after they've been downed, players IMMEDIATELY go to scorch-and-burn tactics the very next fight.

[GorogIrongut]

For me it simply comes down to realism. As a DM, I treat all my npc's as if they were PC's. That means they get Death Saving Throws. It means they have motivations. It means that they have access to all of the shiny stuff that the PC's do. In my head, they have just as much desire to survive and thrive as the player characters do. This means that they will finish off players who have been downed. It means that they will play the way they feel is appropriate to accomplish their own ends.

As a DM, it's my job to telegraph their abilities and their motives so as to not surprise my players too badly (just the right amount of surprise). But if my players are being thick, then they will get smacked between the eyes by something harsh (up to and including TPK and player death).

For me, it's the difference between playing a video game, where everything is safe. You just start at your last save point. You explore and you do. You may or may not die, but there are no significant consequences. It's a world created for you to interact with. It bows to your every whim.

I personally, hate video games. They're not realistic. I want my fictional entertainment to have the same reality and consequences as every day life.

This is why as a DM, I create a sandbox world. The players never get railroaded down a specific path. They are free to and have walked straight into a Death Knight at level 3. Sometimes it ends up badly. Sometimes they escape by the skin of their teeth. Sometimes they pull out the impossible win (see the Death Knight).

Because it's real. Because there are consequences, it makes my players appreciate what happens more. What happened wasn't handed to them. They had to earn it. And they still talk about it. Because it was a sincere accomplishment.

The same goes for their deaths. By adding a level of reality to it, they feel the weight of the death more. If it was a tragic sacrifice, then it feels more tragic. If it was heroic, then they feel the glory of it. If it was a stupid death, then it gets used as an example of what not do. Because they made the decisions that led to that death. As the DM, I hold no responsibility. I gave them the details that would have allowed them to avoid the trouble multiple, multiple times and they chose to ignore them.


As for the OP, I choose not to comment because the DM isn't here to defend himself. From what little he has conveyed it seems like both he and the DM did some very silly things. But it could just be the player shading the story to seem favourable to them. *shrugs*

[MThurston]

Well here's the thing, the NPC would not have died if the downed fighter was dead, because the fighter wouldn't have been healed and stood back up to chop off his head. In a setting where magic healing is a thing, there is no reason not to finish off a downed opponent in case magic heals them back to full. In the case where the PC is dead, the NPCs only have four other people to fight instead of 5, and they haven't just lost one of their own.
Besides, if the NPC has no one else in range to attack, why would he just stop hitting?

That is not to say every NPC should attack downed PCs, of course. It would be smart as well to demand the surrender of the PCs, or you finish off their friend.

Which is medagaming by the DM. The NPCs have never fought PCs to know they get death saves.

[Resileaf]

Which is medagaming by the DM. The NPCs have never fought PCs to know they get death saves.

Um... If a guy falls over uncounscious but is still breathing, you're gonna know he's still alive. Doesn't take any metagaming to know that.

[MThurston]

SMH. We are not talking about video games. No one is saying PCs can't die.

Just that it's ****ty to go after downed players while other targets are available.

And as a player, hitting downed enemies while other enemies are swinging on you is stupid.

[Resileaf]

SMH. We are talk g about video games. No one is saying PCs can't die.

Just that it's ****ty to go after downed players while other targets are available.

And as a player, hitting downed enemies while other enemies are swinging on you is stupid.

It all depends on context. With the situation the OP described, yes, it was a **** move to kill him. The GM killed him out of spite and frustration. In other contexts, it's understandable and expected that two fighting parties will ensure the deaths of opponents who are downed to prevent them from being healed back to fighting capabilities.

Same for players. Is it really stupid to finish off a downed enemy when there is a cleric nearby able to heal him back to full health? Do you want to finish off the dangerous barbarian, or do you want to hurt the less deadly rogue, only for the barbarian to stand back up from a timely healing spell, flanking you with the rogue?

[Unoriginal]

SMH. We are talk g about video games.

No, we're talking about D&D 5e.



Just that it's ****ty to go after downed players while other targets are available.

In your mind. It's not an universal truth, and even if it was, some antagonists are ****ty people.



And as a player, hitting downed enemies while other enemies are swinging on you is stupid.

Your loss when they get back up and start hitting you again, then.

[CantigThimble]

You haven't said that PCs should never die, but you have said several times that they should only die in dramatically appropriate moments and ways.

The effect of that is 90% of the time, PCs can't die.

[DMThac0]

MThurston: Do you believe that NPCs can/should use the same tactics that the players do?

[Erloas]

I think it is worth looking at what the NPCs would *actually* know and how that would impact how the react. Have they been fighting a lot a "PC caliber" enemies? Sure they might know healing is possible, they might even have a potion of healing on them, but do they actually run into clerics other than in the local church? Sure the bandit leader might know healing is possible, but he also knows the barbarian laying bleeding out in front of him isn't going to sneak off to the local church and get healed in the next 20 seconds. He has probably fought a number of other bandits, harrased a lot of level 3 experts and a bunch of commoners on the roads, and maybe killed a few guards in his day. But does that mean he *knows* the party has a healer and the barbarian is likely to get up and back into the fight right away? Maybe just being between the downed barbarian and someone that might be able to help him would be more than enough to know that he could minimize the fact that someone might be able to heal.

If you're going to go with "the NPC knows all this metagame stuff" you had better have a good reason for them to know that. Like either some scouting on the players or quite a few levels to represent their world experience.

[Galithar]

Or just having seen the cleric cast a spell of any kind. If I know magic can heal, and you use magic, I'm going to assume you can heal. This goes quadruply so if I recognize it as magic a cleric would use (Spritual Weapon, sacred flame, Toll the Dead)

[SpanielBear]

Or just having seen the cleric cast a spell of any kind. If I know magic can heal, and you use magic, I'm going to assume you can heal. This goes quadruply so if I recognize it as magic a cleric would use (Spritual Weapon, sacred flame, Toll the Dead)

"I say! This fellow in heavy armour chanted some mumbo jumbo, and fire fell from the sky and burnt Toby to a crisp!"

…

"I'd better do something about that."

…

"But fiiiirst I'll make sure this prone fellow bleeding from several holes is put out of his misery."



Which is to say, context is king. Sometimes the presence of a cleric means make sure the wounded don't come back. Other times, it means "Scrag the healer!".

I don't mean to single you out, your point is pretty valid IMO. I liked the anecdote a few pages ago about the elven guards- if the enemy see you heal, and if in so doing you cause them further pain, heck yeah they're going to make sure you stay down! But maybe not every enemy needs to be played to the hilt- and you don't need to do it every time to make the players feel threatened. So long as they are uncertain, they're gonna take it seriously. And you can manage combats accordingly.

I also definitely don't want to go round saying anyone's fun is wrong. If it works at your table, that's all that needs to be said. However:

- It seems there is general agreement that the kind of game, including its lethality, is something that should be agreed on at session 0.
- Threats are to be expected, but overwhelming ones should at least be slightly telegraphed.
- If you kill a PC, read the room. If they look like they feel bad about it, maybe don't nail their corpse to the front of a carnival float.
- No murder weasels.

Everything else does not pertain to the OP's case, and this thread is just getting tetchy.

[Teaguethebean]

Why didn't the slavers take the character as a slave or maybe the whole party as slaves wouldn't that make more sense?

[Sigreid]

Why didn't the slavers take the character as a slave or maybe the whole party as slaves wouldn't that make more sense?

Would depend on how much trouble you think they will ultimately be. I'm sure the Romans would have killed Spartacus if they had any inkling the trouble he'd cause them.

[MeeposFire]

Would depend on how much trouble you think they will ultimately be. I'm sure the Romans would have killed Spartacus if they had any inkling the trouble he'd cause them.

Perhaps or did a better job breaking him but since we know that these NPCs do not have the ability to see the future they will be basing their choice on this potential slave the same way they do every slave.

Anyway why are we arguing about MThurston's position on this? His position is far more extreme than what we really need to argue. For instance I would say looking at all the facts that I would not approve of how this DM handled this (for one it feels pretty vindictive) but even so I would not agree with the position that I cannot kill a PC unless it is at the most dramatic moments. I am ok with a PC dying at anytime whether or not it involves death saves. Things happen and PCs die at times but with that said I try to consider all sorts of factors on how my NPCs act in a fight and how they go after down characters or not.

IN this situation if I was going to play up the slaver angle knowing I have a PC barbarian with an anti slavery back story I would go in thinking I was going to provoke a response (seriously this set up is pretty standard for this sort of thing I would have thought the DM was trying to get a fight started here) and plan for it. In this case I would have the slaver enslave all that fight and just like Max said I would consider ransoming the barb with the party making a choice. There are a lot of potential interesting plots here but the DM ignored them and more importantly went out of the way to cause this to be an issue (parade the body on a pike seemingly specifically to make sure there was no chance of making this work?).

But yea we should really be discussing the actual topic on hand rather than MThurston's position which I think is so extreme it muddles the discussion getting us off track arguing his specific views on death rather than whether this specific scenario of death was a mistake.

[terodil]

But yea we should really be discussing the actual topic on hand rather than MThurston's position which I think is so extreme it muddles the discussion getting us off track arguing his specific views on death rather than whether this specific scenario of death was a mistake.
Agreed, though funnily enough, I don't really think there has been anybody in this thread that disagreed with the general opinion of 'could and should have been handled better'.

As for the word 'mistake' -- with respect (and this is not addressed at you, MeeposFire! Neither is this comment directed at this thread specifically.), I find this forum to be extremely vindictive of players and especially DMs who do not play perfectly. On the one hand, reading threads here provides a wealth of insight and valuable tips on how to become better; on the other hand, I can see how doing so would discourage new DMs and players from even trying and gaining their own experience. Advice here often boils down to 'terrible DM, leave the table immediately' or 'kick the player out of the group asap', rather than 'this is why it's problematic, here's how everyone can learn from this and move on'. Most problematic behaviour is not, I believe, born from malice or intent, but from ignorance and misunderstanding, and we should at least try to fix that and to help people grow into great players and GMs before resorting to the big red button, which just means you give up on them and any potential they may have, burn all bridges, and salt the fields.

[Unoriginal]

Agreed, though funnily enough, I don't really think there has been anybody in this thread that disagreed with the general opinion of 'could and should have been handled better'.

As for the word 'mistake' -- with respect (and this is not addressed at you, MeeposFire! Neither is this comment directed at this thread specifically.), I find this forum to be extremely vindictive of players and especially DMs who do not play perfectly. On the one hand, reading threads here provides a wealth of insight and valuable tips on how to become better; on the other hand, I can see how doing so would discourage new DMs and players from even trying and gaining their own experience. Advice here often boils down to 'terrible DM, leave the table immediately' or 'kick the player out of the group asap', rather than 'this is why it's problematic, here's how everyone can learn from this and move on'. Most problematic behaviour is not, I believe, born from malice or intent, but from ignorance and misunderstanding, and we should at least try to fix that and to help people grow into great players and GMs before resorting to the big red button, which just means you give up on them and any potential they may have, burn all bridges, and salt the fields.

The first advice I give in situations like this is trying to talk things out with the DM and the group.

However, if it doesn't work, yes, either removing yourself or the person causing the problem from the game is the only solution.

Misunderstandings can be solved through communication. If you have a problem (as in, an actual problem, not a minor inconvenience that's not really affecting how much you enjoy the game) that cannot be solved by talking, it means the person is doing it on purpose (which doesn't make it malicious, but it doesn't change the fact they're still doing it after you've expressed it was a problem for you), and then leaving is the best choice.

We may sound vindicative, but we've seen this ol' song and dance a million time before, and probably sung and danced it ourselves a lot along the way.

[CantigThimble]

The first advice I give in situations like this is trying to talk things out with the DM and the group.

However, if it doesn't work, yes, either removing yourself or the person causing the problem from the game is the only solution.

Misunderstandings can be solved through communication. If you have a problem (as in, an actual problem, not a minor inconvenience that's not really affecting how much you enjoy the game) that cannot be solved by talking, it means the person is doing it on purpose (which doesn't make it malicious, but it doesn't change the fact they're still doing it after you've expressed it was a problem for you), and then leaving is the best choice.

We may sound vindicative, but we've seen this ol' song and dance a million time before, and probably sung and danced it ourselves a lot along the way.

Yeah, talking to someone like a reasonable adult about a problem is an incredibly effective solution to a wide variety of issues. It even works on a lot of people who aren't adults. However, if you try that and it doesn't help, then there's really very little recourse other than separating yourself from the problem.

You may not get your ideal solution by talking to them, but you should at least be able to get them to understand why you're frustrated and to try to do something about it. But if open communication fails to accomplish anything then there's nothing else to be done.

[Tanarii]

Misunderstandings can be solved through communication. If you have a problem (as in, an actual problem, not a minor inconvenience that's not really affecting how much you enjoy the game) that cannot be solved by talking, it means the person is doing it on purpose (which doesn't make it malicious, but it doesn't change the fact they're still doing it after you've expressed it was a problem for you), and then leaving is the best choice.
Good distinction on "doing it purpose" vs malice, especially since to many people the former implies the latter. Neither thinking one is in the right nor failing to care about the affect of ones actions on another person is necessary malicious. It's often more callousness. Maliciousness requires active intent to harm.

But at a certain point, you just have to put attitudes like "suck it up, buttercup" on the balance scale with the original problem, and decide if the cons outweigh the pros. For example, no one should feel forced to play in an old-school meat-grinder. They should want to, for the challenge.

Of course, in the OP+followups situation, it does come across as a DM that has active intent to harm. Not just callousness.