once pcs touch the dice they have chosen to place their fate in the roll. so, if you roll something happens. on theo other hand i tend to make consequences as clear as it is possible (it is dragon's lair and you are toast if you go there). that would probably be 1 but not deadly if you choose so.

I always play in 1, and I let the system dictate the lethality of the game. Playing 7th Sea RAW is highly unlikely the PCs will die, anyway.

I voted 1. You earn the right to be the hero, if it's handed to you it's worthless.

That said, when I'm playing with my son or other new players, I tend to go easy on them.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;787540I 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.

Im much the same, though at the 2 range.

I usually let things play out as they will. But. If I see something that is totally out of wack vs whats going on. I might nudge it back to something more sane. But I am also not the players safety net. This they know all too well.

I prefer to roll with it and see where things go.

I do though dislike instadeath without any warning or possibility to avoid or react against.

An Intellect Devourer you can fight, resist, raise dead if you can, etc.

1.

Very Phantasy Star Online tagline, "You are not the only Hero."

And further superheroes never made any sense to me. You're not special, the universe is big, you will die and be forgotten eventually — go forth and make meaning with that. Have fun!

Quote from: ostap bender;787576once pcs touch the dice they have chosen to place their fate in the roll. so, if you roll something happens. on theo other hand i tend to make consequences as clear as it is possible (it is dragon's lair and you are toast if you go there). that would probably be 1 but not deadly if you choose so.

Go this way as well.
Once you roll dice you have to accept the concequence. If you don;t want to do that don;t rol dice

I am a 1. Shit can happen anytime.

This doesn't mean that surviving is a random occurrence. The players are free to go where they wish and to stir up more trouble then they can handle. There are plenty of clues to be found by the prudent minded player that can give them a hint about when they may be diving into the deep end of the pool.  

Information about such trouble is available and if the players march into it headfirst without any intelligence on the matter then sometimes they will learn the hard way.

I am of the opinion that being a hero means doing what needs to be done even at great personal risk. If the risk is lowered or eliminated simply on the premise that the PCs ARE heroes, then they are robbed of the opportunity to live up to their title.

I think you should allow plenty of PC advantages. Then, if characters kick the bucket, so be it.  For example, in our BFRPG game, characters get max hp's every time they level (death occurs at 0). We also have a modified recovery rule (you recover hp's=lvl+ConMod/Hour; spells also come back fast, too)  Characters also get a session pool of three d6's that they can use to add to any roll. (If they save the d6's, they get a session XP bonus of 10% per die.)

So, max hp's, quick recovery, possible dice roll perks (or more rapid XP gain). But if you die, you die. I roll in the open.

Sometimes your character gets offed.  You then cheerfully roll up a new one and see how they do.

I voted '1' because I do let the dice fall as they may and if characters die then so be it.

But that doesn't tell the whole story, for two reasons.

Firstly - assuming we're talking about D&D here - I play in a setting where death is not the end. So even though characters might die to a single unlucky roll of the dice that doesn't mean that they're out of the campaign. In almost every case the character can be raised if the player wants to continue playing them (that's usually the case, but occasionally a player will want a change of character and will prefer to roll up a new one instead).

In fact I can't remember the last time a character died and wasn't able to be raised. Sure it might mean going back to town or even going to the city to the high temple, but a raise is always readily available if they want it. I don't artificially ration out raise dead spells or make them only work at the whim of the gods or make the party go on a side-quest or any of the other things I've heard about to try to make raising less common and death more "meaningful".

If I want death to be final and meaningful I'll play a game more suited to that - like Warhammer or Call of Cthulhu.

Secondly, I'm fair to the players. While I don't fudge things to keep them alive I also don't take glee in killing them and I don't spring insurmountable danger on them without warning. Yes, if they take on more than they can handle there will be deaths (and there may be deaths anyway if they're unlucky) but I will make sure that if they're heading towards taking on more than they can handle there will be ample warning that this is the case.

So although I voted a "1", my games probably have a lower turnover of new characters than many people who voted "3" or "5". Character death happens reasonably frequently. Players having to create new characters because of this practically never happens.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;787629Character death happens reasonably frequently. Players having to create new characters because of this practically never happens.

I wouldn't call that 'lethal' then... it's not much different than dying in WOW and having to make a 'corpse run'. It's not '1'.
If I know, going into a battle, that even if I die I stand a very good chance of getting rezzed and seeing the sun tomorrow... nope, not feeling the danger there. No real consequence. Just a bit of inconvenience.

This is an example of a game I was in that I would call a '1'.

Cyberpunk game, First session, party meets in a bar and gets the plot. We head out onto the street. GM rolls to see if there is an encounter, a booster gang is passing. GM rolls to see how dangerous they are, they are very dangerous.

The booster Gang open fire, and kill us all before we can react.

All done totally by the rules, no fudging.


If you would have run the session differently, you should not have voted 1.

Quote from: Nexus;7875081 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?

This scale makes no sense to me, in that there can be very little distinction between a 1 and a 10. Two examples here:

1) I run a dramatic horror campaign emulating high-body-count horror stories, where there are very frequent times for appropriate death. If a death was inappropriate, I as GM would for sure not allow the PC to die - but in practice I have PCs die very frequently. This is a 10 that is barely distinguishable from a 1.

2) I run a game where the world background is such that the PCs rarely face permanent death, but if they do, then I always allow it. For example, an Amber campaign where none of the enemies want to face an Amberite death curse. This is technically a 1 because they live and die by their actions, but there is very little difference from a 10.

Quote from: jhkim;7876781) I run a dramatic horror campaign emulating high-body-count horror stories, where there are very frequent times for appropriate death. If a death was inappropriate, I as GM would for sure not allow the PC to die - but in practice I have PCs die very frequently. This is a 10 that is barely distinguishable from a 1.

I'm curious. What death could possibly be inappropriate in a high body count horror game? Could you provide a few examples.

Quote from: Simlasa;787673I wouldn't call that 'lethal' then... it's not much different than dying in WOW and having to make a 'corpse run'.

I'll have to take your word for that - I don't do MMOs.

QuoteIt's not '1'.

That was kind of my point and why I gave the explanation. The number scale is about how much you intervene to stop characters dying, not what the consequences of character death are.

For me, the consequences of character death are very different in different games and settings. I always DM on a '1', regardless of the game, and the difference in lethality is based on the game and setting.

In D&D (I usually run it in Mystara which is very high magic) raising the dead is commonplace and death isn't usually permanent.

In something like Runequest or Rolemaster where raising the dead is still there but less commonplace, death is just as common but is more often permanent.

In games like Call of Cthulhu or Eldritch Skies or Mage the Ascension or Ars Magica, death is always permanent, and varies in frequency.

In games like Mutants and Masterminds or Feng Shui, death is theoretically always permanent but is vanishingly rare because the game mechanics mean that characters are usually merely knocked unconscious if they lose a fight rather than dying.

But whichever system and setting I'm running, I don't fudge things to keep the players alive - so it's still a "1". It's just that a "1" has different consequences depending on the game.

QuoteIf I know, going into a battle, that even if I die I stand a very good chance of getting rezzed and seeing the sun tomorrow... nope, not feeling the danger there. No real consequence. Just a bit of inconvenience.

Actually, the tension is still there - it's just transferred. You're not worried about death in and of itself any more than you're worried about falling unconscious (although it is more of a pain to heal). But you are still worried about the party not being able to recover your body for it to be raised, which can be a real danger - and at low level in particular it can mean that the party might not be able to afford the higher level resurrection spell necessary to get you back.

But as I said, I play different games that have different feels to them. When I want high danger and high stakes I play a game that has that. When I don't want those things I play a different game that has lower danger and stakes. Variety is the spice of life, and there's no right or wrong way to play.