This is sort of a spin off from the recent discussions of the AD and D 5e Intellect Devourer. Opinions are divided to say the least. The creature's potential quick lethality is major sticking point with some seeing it as an exciting challenge and others are a potential campaign wrecker as it could offer sudden death/disability to PCs without much warning and consider that unfair or at least not very fun. Many of those that hold the opposing view feel that's the risks of playing the game for the player and leading the life of an adventurer for the character. And you can always make a new character.

I find myself in the middle. The thrill of adventure and role playing demands some risks, but I don't feel my characters are totally expendable. There's a spectrum of opinion but I found myself wondering so I decided to try a poll on PC death, play lethality and assumed Script Immunity.

So on a scale of 1 to 10 with

1 being: PCs have no Script Immunity. They live and die by their abilities, actions and the dice.

10 being: Player Characters are the same as protagonists in a movie, novel or other work of fiction and can only die or be incapacitated at the appropriate (how ever you would define it) moments in the course of the game to avoid trivial or anti climactic deaths.

Where does your preference fall?

I've voted 4. My default is on the gritty side, but i'm not a fan of arbitrary death every session. That disturbs the flow of the campaign if you're playing a long-term game (for 1 shots then i vote 1 - anything's on the table).

So, hard challenges with a grittier slant, but with a get-out if you play smart and hard. The occasional encounter where defeat and retreat are the only get-out you've got is still a get-out and therefore fine.

For D&D and similar games, (3). I avoid encounters without providing an alternate route (and if it is "run to live another day"), PCs can develop awesome abilities that can potentially get them out of jail for free, and they have greater potential to circumvent many troubles with a bit of foresight and planning than the majority of the setting inhabitants, but when the chips fall they do fall as they do fall.
Woe to those who have neither worked around the too powerful/scary opposition, nor have the tools to deal with the results.

Other games of mine may hover up or down that scale. A gritty Call of Cthulhu one-shot calls for a different classification than a heroic Marvel Super Heroes game.

Eh I voted right in the middle. The players are the heroes, but there must be a chance of peril, REAL peril, or else there's no tension. On the other hand, if a friend says: "I really do not like character death under any circumstances" I make a compromise and have them detail what sorts of stakes that they'd like to handle instead. But that's a rare exception.

In games with Fate Points, however (Dark Heresy and WFRP), my answer would be more like 3, though.

I went with a 5, but for me it really depends on several factors -- are we doing a one shot or planning a campaign, how new is the person to gaming, what system are we running, how nasty is the threat that killed them (would it be a lame death), how amaze-balls was the die roll that killed them, did they do anything "wrong" (unnecessarily risky, etc) to lead to the would-be kill shot, etc, etc, etc.

I voted a 1 for my home campaigns. I let the players do whatever they want, but it's a jungle out there and shit happens.

I went for 3, but that is my personal preference as a player. As a GM I am honestly pretty cool with what the group finds comfortable. Really for me the most important thing is to have a clear sense of this expectation going in, then I am fine going with whatever. But if I do find it more enjoyable when the players are cool with some gritty death.

I went with a 4, for the same reasons everyone else gives. I like there to be risk and a chance of death but I don't want a dead PC every other game night either, or cheap one-shot kills. I've seen that in campaigns and it's no fun.

I voted in the middle, but really this is depending on the game.  In nWoD and OSR I expect to die.  In Scion and FATE I expect to kick ass and take names like a god.  It depends on the setting and game that is being played.

I sorted myself at three.

All in all, I let the dice fall as they may and like my combats challenging to harrowing. I have been known to run a lethal game and TPK is the usual way my campaigns have ended so far


There are a few things that bump me up from a straight 1, though.

Enemies that outstrip the PCs in power are a distinct possibility, though I also run mostly level tailored encounters. Learning DMing in 3rd edition might be a big part of that and it is something I intent to move further away from.

Also, I'm actually bothered by PCs deaths and particularly TPKs. A dead PC eliminates a lot of dangling plot hooks from a campaign, that have to slowly build up again.

A TPK has only once not been a campaign stopper and that was only because a few players and thus PCs wheren't at the table that day.

So, in case of a TPK, all the work I put into preparing that campaign, this wealth of NPCs that have developed, the old enemies biding their time for a triumphant return?

All gone.

My ideal solution is that the players learn better tactics and caution with their PCs, but I've never seen that happen.


I'm also of a "PCs are special from level 1" mindset, just not "Protected from Death" or "Heroes of Prophecy" level special.


I think I'll start my next campaign with a very clear statement that there will be deadly things, I'm not DMing a heroic game and hirelings are very much an option. Surrender, parley and fleeing are at times encouraged.

On average I tend to run things in the 4-6 range, because I prefer games where death is a possibility (though not a high probability) but the actual degree of danger varies with the game and the setting. FREX

• OD&D was 1 or 2. Pretty deadly per the rules. TPKs are always possible and occurred more than once. And the highest PC after years of play was level 6 or 7 fighter. Pretty grim and deadly.

• Runequest is closer to 2 or 3. Shit gets lethal and until characters hit Rune level their chance of Resurrection or Divine Intervention is fairly low i.e. < 20%.

• Call of Cthulhu has much less combat so while not actually as deadly as Runequest, loss of character due to death or insanity probably ranks it around 3-5. One time scenarios like those in Blood Brothers II, would be even lower maybe a 2, since the characters aren't intended for repeated play and fatalities are in keeping with the source material of most scenarios.

• Next we get to games with metagame bennies like Star Wars D6 or Honor+Intrigue. I'll use H+I as an example since that is what we are currently playing. Honor+Intrigue includes Fortune Points that allow characters to avoid death via a typical swashbuckler trope like being knocked unconsious by a bloody grazing wound to the head or being left for dead on the battlefield. So far we haven't succeeded in killing any PCs after 100 or so sessions. However, without Fortune points most if not all the PCs would have died at one or more points in play. So maybe call that a 5-7+ including bennies.

• Finally a game like Star Trek we played like the TV series. Main characters never died. It was almost totally off the table really. If they did die they either got brought back to life or we found out it wasn't really them - alien shapeshifter or what have you. Lack of lethality = 10.

While three is a cool number, I voted five. If I had to do it all over again, I just might vote three.

I voted '6', though special snowflake probably applies.

I tend to play Burning Wheel, where cumulative moderate wounds can't kill you (but a critical hit will probably kill an uninjured combatant), but they leave you crippled for months, with no real way to speed up healing. So that sounds maybe 3ish.

On the other hand, I don't tend to kill characters when I have them at my disposal (e.g. when they've been captured), I don't especially like losing all the campaign capital that's been built up when we can instead explore the depths of their misery (like cutting off hands). Also, because injuries are such a burden, combat tends not to be the central focus of play. So that bumps me up a few.

Lately I've been getting back into the old school approach, but even so, PC death unrelated to strategic or tactical player choices just strikes me as wasteful.

By 'choice' I don't mean the choice to do the thing the game is all about, like 'adventuring' or 'dungeon crawling', but accepting some localized additional risk like a dangerous shortcut, or pushing their luck when they're aware their resources are low.

So meeting an unknown creature that's likely going to kill a random party member before the PCs have any chance of assessing its capabilities, that's off the table.  (That doesn't seem much more engaging than having them die of dysentery on the way to the dungeon.)

If, on the other hand, the players have some vague idea of the danger posed by an Intellect Devourer, either what it does or just that there's a threat of instant death, then instant death is certainly on the table.

I voted 1... because that's where I'm at at the moment. For years I Played with a group where no one EVER died... so with my new group I'm relishing every death, just loving that things feel dangerous again. We've had a number of TPKs and they always fill me with joy and laughter.
The novelty might wear off eventually... I might decide I want to get into a character long term... but I might not. So far I'm really happy making new ones and trying them on for several sessions... I've played all sorts of things I otherwise would avoid because I know in a few weeks I'm likely to move on to something else.
It feels like breaking off an old tired relationship and enjoying the freedom of being single again.

I admit to being the '8' vote.  I'm a staunch partisan of the Tasha Yar Rule: PCs in a long-term campaign shouldn't cash out because of a random encounter or a mook orc's critical hit.

Incapacitated, though, that's another ball of wax.