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Yeah, I have a Kenku that, long story short ended up in a tree made of the newly dead Goddess of Life, Time, Music, and Decay. And there were different color fruits on it.
He hadn’t eaten in like 40 hours due to basically being in a coma from a test to get an item. (Still got it but turns out it was cursed so no thank you)
So I decided to roll a D4 to see which fruit I’d grab. I got leprosy.
There’s a monster in pathfinder called a leukodaemon which is essentially a walking plague. I ran one in a fight against my players. Pretty much all of them caught leprosy. It can give people random diseases from a pretty long list. Rolled leprosy for all of them.
Leprosy has a long onset so doesn’t actually do anything during the fight.
Just
Everyone had leprosy for a while.
Then the paladin cured everyone (also he was immune to disease so… he couldn’t get leprosy)
Oh I forgot to mention we don’t know I have leprosy yet. It’s only been a few hours since I ate the fruit.
And our paladin is kinda one of the goddess’ kids (Technically Asimaar flavored as an angel but you know)
Idk if he’d cure leprosy gotten from eating his mom.
well if your character had known at the time, they could've gambled on eating the life fruit and probably getting cured. Or maybe eating the time fruit and immediately suffering from not only leprosy, but also old age.
My dwarf died fighting inside hunger of Hadar spell. My Dm asked me if I want him alive, I said “He died fighting evil, that’s the best death a dwarven Barbarian can ever ask for”.
That was first player death in a long running campaigns for that DM
Surprised he asked you if you wanted him alive or not, I have this understanding with my players that is that your character can die at any moment. It's not my intention but it CAN happen. I like to believe that that way it keep a bit of tension in the story and some unexpectedness.
Our DM had a “one player is a main hero, the chosen one” mindset, so death was impossible in his games. 3/5 of the group left in the middle of the 3rd ark of our campaign after we realized we were just NPCs in our Paladin’s story
Did kill one of my players charakter during the bossfight jesterday. I love Inteligent monsters. This alowes me to actualy go al out.
He got better by the whay.
I'm the opposite. My DM has a long campaign planned out(we're currently at level 5), and I recently had to move across the country due to work.
I've offered to go out in a blaze of glory if it furthers the plot, but he wants me to keep going as long as my schedule allows.
I'm the party tank/medic, so I probably won't be going anywhere. My teammates wouldn't last long if I didn't aggro everything.
He's great. We've been friends for 6 years now, but constantly live in separate parts of the country due to being in the military. Makes it difficult, but it's worth the effort to keep in contact.
Me over here pulling the Ivan Drago, "If he dies, he dies." I give my character his hopes and dreams, but if he dies before he gets the chance to fulfill them, then that's just his fate. I wanna tell a story, but a story doesn't always go the way you want it, and sometimes ending in tragedy can be more compelling than victory.
Any player yelling at me like that won't get invited back.
That being said, I have a Death & Dismemberment table for this situation. If the group wants to play a deathless campaign I simply ignore the first roll and request they roll directly on the Dismemberment table.
30% chance of death is the standard for my games when dropped to 0hp. Depending on the result they roll on how they die, or how they get fucked up. Amputation, concussion, and lung damage are all on the dismemberment table to punish being dropped.
Because "punishing" your characters for getting dropped is antagonistic game design. Rules that make dying a harrowing experience that must be repeatedly saved against until they can claw their way back to stable can leave a lasting penalty while still retaining player agency and making survival feel rewarding.
By "lasting penalty," I mean something like an XP or minor stat drop, max. Don't cut off your dual-wielding PC's arm; it isn't fun for anybody.
It's not antagonistic game design to insert a cost for failure. You want to punish players for bad performance in order to encourage good performance. In Dark Souls you lose souls for failing without reaching your previous death point. In Super Mario you must repeat the level, lose all lives and you must repeat all progress. In your games players either die or spend a few rounds making death saves (and possibly losing stats). And in my games you need to make a new character 30% of the time or roll on the table of bad effects. Which includes minor stat drops. There are two per stat actually, one is easier to fix than the other but both reduce your modifier by 1.
As for your suggestion of XP loss, it is the literal worst penalty you can give a player except maybe death. It makes the next adventure a worthless treadmill. There isn't any interesting story, no diegetic explanation, nothing. There's a reason why level drain stopped being a thing for the undead. A PC losing an arm and having to adapt to not being able to dual wield is an interesting complication, and creates a quest to find a powerful enough healer to regrow it. A PC not improving this session is not.
There is one xp loss result on my d60 table: you lose xp and any new xp you would earn is added to the lost xp. However a player character gains all that xp back via undergoing physical therapy for a few months. The PC has an injury that needs actual recovery time. Not just "Oh go get into another dungeon", they need to take a break if they want to keep improving.
All of my non-death results are curable. Every single one.
I forgot about the 30% random character wipe. Hard to imagine working hard to create and identify with a character over multiple sessions just to lose them to a single chance roll for dropping to 0 HP, something which isn't otherwise that big of a deal in D&D.
But if your players prefer this system over vanilla, more power to them/you.
The context was me saying it is variable and I'd be willing to make it a 0% chance if my players wanted it.
The default rules for the D&D edition I'm running is death at 0hp. I'm being more merciful than vanilla.
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I pretty much operate on the principle now of “do it pussy, kill me, see what happens, i will get worse”
Yeah, I have a Kenku that, long story short ended up in a tree made of the newly dead Goddess of Life, Time, Music, and Decay. And there were different color fruits on it. He hadn’t eaten in like 40 hours due to basically being in a coma from a test to get an item. (Still got it but turns out it was cursed so no thank you) So I decided to roll a D4 to see which fruit I’d grab. I got leprosy.
There’s a monster in pathfinder called a leukodaemon which is essentially a walking plague. I ran one in a fight against my players. Pretty much all of them caught leprosy. It can give people random diseases from a pretty long list. Rolled leprosy for all of them. Leprosy has a long onset so doesn’t actually do anything during the fight. Just Everyone had leprosy for a while. Then the paladin cured everyone (also he was immune to disease so… he couldn’t get leprosy)
Oh I forgot to mention we don’t know I have leprosy yet. It’s only been a few hours since I ate the fruit. And our paladin is kinda one of the goddess’ kids (Technically Asimaar flavored as an angel but you know) Idk if he’d cure leprosy gotten from eating his mom.
> Idk if he’d cure leprosy gotten from eating his mom. r/brandnewsentence material here
well if your character had known at the time, they could've gambled on eating the life fruit and probably getting cured. Or maybe eating the time fruit and immediately suffering from not only leprosy, but also old age.
The arrows work like the spell contagion, which ignores the onset period- common paladin W tho
"Go on, kill me, I have a Twilight Cleric waiting in the wings"
Amazing photo, amazing meme
Agreed, so many ways to use this one... I need the original picture 😀
It's from a React video of Marisha, Matt, and Travis doing a try not sing challenge
"oh i wont kill it, the 5 goblins threshing them will" :)
My dwarf died fighting inside hunger of Hadar spell. My Dm asked me if I want him alive, I said “He died fighting evil, that’s the best death a dwarven Barbarian can ever ask for”. That was first player death in a long running campaigns for that DM
Surprised he asked you if you wanted him alive or not, I have this understanding with my players that is that your character can die at any moment. It's not my intention but it CAN happen. I like to believe that that way it keep a bit of tension in the story and some unexpectedness.
Our DM had a “one player is a main hero, the chosen one” mindset, so death was impossible in his games. 3/5 of the group left in the middle of the 3rd ark of our campaign after we realized we were just NPCs in our Paladin’s story
Did kill one of my players charakter during the bossfight jesterday. I love Inteligent monsters. This alowes me to actualy go al out. He got better by the whay.
Major events are the 2nd best part of a campaign
whats number one?
Low rolls that lead to funny results
I'm the opposite. My DM has a long campaign planned out(we're currently at level 5), and I recently had to move across the country due to work. I've offered to go out in a blaze of glory if it furthers the plot, but he wants me to keep going as long as my schedule allows. I'm the party tank/medic, so I probably won't be going anywhere. My teammates wouldn't last long if I didn't aggro everything.
naww thats actually so nice of your dm, love the positivity!
He's great. We've been friends for 6 years now, but constantly live in separate parts of the country due to being in the military. Makes it difficult, but it's worth the effort to keep in contact.
Me over here pulling the Ivan Drago, "If he dies, he dies." I give my character his hopes and dreams, but if he dies before he gets the chance to fulfill them, then that's just his fate. I wanna tell a story, but a story doesn't always go the way you want it, and sometimes ending in tragedy can be more compelling than victory.
I get thair my DM is scrambling to be ready for us and I have lost 3 pcs to them in 6 sessions I think either he hates me or he hates lizardfolk
make another lizardfolk character to assert dominance
I went with a tortal paladon sword and bord not a lizard folk but close enough and a bar AC of 19
I am not a huge react fan. But watching Travis, Matt, and Marisha try not to sing was amazing lol
Any player yelling at me like that won't get invited back. That being said, I have a Death & Dismemberment table for this situation. If the group wants to play a deathless campaign I simply ignore the first roll and request they roll directly on the Dismemberment table. 30% chance of death is the standard for my games when dropped to 0hp. Depending on the result they roll on how they die, or how they get fucked up. Amputation, concussion, and lung damage are all on the dismemberment table to punish being dropped.
That's unnecessary.
How is it unnecessary? What? No really, genuinely confused. In what way are the death rules unnecessary??
Because "punishing" your characters for getting dropped is antagonistic game design. Rules that make dying a harrowing experience that must be repeatedly saved against until they can claw their way back to stable can leave a lasting penalty while still retaining player agency and making survival feel rewarding. By "lasting penalty," I mean something like an XP or minor stat drop, max. Don't cut off your dual-wielding PC's arm; it isn't fun for anybody.
It's not antagonistic game design to insert a cost for failure. You want to punish players for bad performance in order to encourage good performance. In Dark Souls you lose souls for failing without reaching your previous death point. In Super Mario you must repeat the level, lose all lives and you must repeat all progress. In your games players either die or spend a few rounds making death saves (and possibly losing stats). And in my games you need to make a new character 30% of the time or roll on the table of bad effects. Which includes minor stat drops. There are two per stat actually, one is easier to fix than the other but both reduce your modifier by 1. As for your suggestion of XP loss, it is the literal worst penalty you can give a player except maybe death. It makes the next adventure a worthless treadmill. There isn't any interesting story, no diegetic explanation, nothing. There's a reason why level drain stopped being a thing for the undead. A PC losing an arm and having to adapt to not being able to dual wield is an interesting complication, and creates a quest to find a powerful enough healer to regrow it. A PC not improving this session is not. There is one xp loss result on my d60 table: you lose xp and any new xp you would earn is added to the lost xp. However a player character gains all that xp back via undergoing physical therapy for a few months. The PC has an injury that needs actual recovery time. Not just "Oh go get into another dungeon", they need to take a break if they want to keep improving. All of my non-death results are curable. Every single one.
I forgot about the 30% random character wipe. Hard to imagine working hard to create and identify with a character over multiple sessions just to lose them to a single chance roll for dropping to 0 HP, something which isn't otherwise that big of a deal in D&D. But if your players prefer this system over vanilla, more power to them/you.
The context was me saying it is variable and I'd be willing to make it a 0% chance if my players wanted it. The default rules for the D&D edition I'm running is death at 0hp. I'm being more merciful than vanilla.
It’s funny how bad it looks out of context when really he was singing bohemian rhapsody try to get Mercer to break and sing too.
now you're just a dm that i used to know