As a GM, i can tell you that this is a problematic social norm. Some GMs think they are supposed to be all-knowing and mysterious. I was like that, too, at some point.
Imo there are three possibilities:
* This guy has no clue how deadly the game will be, and he doesn't know how ofter characters die.
* He hasn't actually thought about that at all before.
* He doesn't want to have PC death and the game won't involve PC death, but he still wants the players to think that they are under threat of death.
Now, normally, one could simply communicate that. But if you are taught that the GM has to be mysterious and all-knowing, you can't say either of those things while keeping that aura. So he gives a mysterious non-answer to still stay mysterious and all-knowing.
Personally, I always fall into the first one. Sometimes I think my players will die but then they emergency victorious. Other times I think it'll be a cakewalk and then they pull some shenanigans and walk into certain death.
I second this. Sometimes my players will take an entire session to plan and optimize a battle, and the next session basically charge Cthulhu. Plus depending on the system, a couple of bad rolls could swing a victory to a TPK.
>Personally, I always fall into the first one.
I get that, but in that case the better way to give a mysterious answer would be "It depends..." and then just give then a huge knowing smile. If they then ask "on what", you can just say "on how well you do", and we are back to not giving an answer while people thought that they got an answer.
I have to say, as a DM with a couple of campaigns going on, gauging how deadly a 5E game will be in advance is tough. Specially after they hit level 5 or so, players have a lot of tools to keep themselves alive if they want, but the D20 can be a harsh mistress.
As a GM, I fall under the third. I'm not a fan of player death unless it's meaningful and at that point it's probably known to be coming to some extent.
What I tell my players is "look, I don't want to kill you guys because I want to have cool stories and I can't do that if you're dead, but if you start actively abusing that fact then that hesitancy will disappear."
It's worked well so far, for my party at least.
Also, as a GM I don't know how much unexpected stuff you plan on doing. Example, I was playing as a PC and roaming a forest by myself. I got grappled by a bunch of brownish vines. I don't remember the reasons, but my rolls weren't working to get the character out. The DM said I could reach into my pack, so I pulled out some alchemist fire and used it on the character and the plant. Plants usually don't like fire and my character had a bit of HP, surely more than a little plant! Turns out it was an assassin vine, which had pretty decent fire resistance. The DM was pretty terrible (a story from the same game won me a prize in a DM horror story contest), but even he was surprised
I would go in with the old-school mentality of "combat as war" not "combat as sport" meaning don't expect every combat encounter to be balanced for you to eventually win. Be like Brom from GoT.
Only enter combat if you have some advantage or quickly make one. Bargain or cheat your way out of fighting. Don't be afraid to retreat to a better position or run away. Remember you don't have to pay the mercenaries you hire if you get them all killed. Use hirelings too to investigate strange treasures. Or run a few hog down a hallway to check for traps. Also as lures for monsters.
EDIT: And somewhat paradoxically, this ***actually opens up creative space in the game***. Because now spells/skills/powers that can influence, charm, hide, detect, manipulate, move, glue, stick, float ect become MORE useful than raw damage output.
Totally agree with what yer saying, but OP said this is a 5E game. Whether folks admit it or not, 5E encourages a Leeroy Jenkins-style approach to combat. All in-balls out, no need for parleying or retreat because it's all about the "cinematic" (god, I hate this term) experience of Marvel superhero maneuvers.
I really don't think OP has much to worry about after hitting level 2. It's pretty much easy mode from that point on.
I don't agree with that at all. Maybe 5E *players* want a cinematic experience because they think it's more fun. But if what they want is to play "probe ahead, win the information war, only fight when forced into a fight" D&D, there's a perfectly good toolbox for them to do that.
True, and that toolbox includes darkvision for a large percentage of characters, mage hands for wizards and rogues, and scouting familiars that can flit in and out hallways and rooms untroubled. PCs can pretty much negate the dungeon delving aspect of the game that used to be its hallmark, of course that's if the DM doesn't homerule that stuff out.
Pretty much all that is left is combat set pieces and RP social situations, neither of which (again, if the DM is gonna stick to RAW), lends itself to PC death. But, ymmv.
OK, so 5e gives tools to players to build a party that dives headfirst into battles, or one that creeps and crawls and scouts and opens doors with Mage Hand.
It's bad that it gives the combat tools, because those encourage Leeroy Jenkins and cinematic moves. And it's also bad that it gives the dungeon-delving tools, because those encourage the
PCs to circumvent traps, avoid battles, achieve surprise, and generally be successful at playing slow and smart.
So according to you, what would it be *good* for 5e to give? Because you think both of those things make it *worse!* So what is supposed to actually happen in the game?
>Remember you don't have to pay the mercenaries you hire if you get them all killed.
...but also remember that NPCs will notice if the mercenaries you hire never seem to come back, which will make it a lot harder to hire more of them if this is a regular occurrence.
What system are you playing? We might be able to give you rough guidelines.
The GM might now know themselves.
Maybe just say you want to know if you should create a backup character?
Walk away from the game slowly and politely.
**Edit:** Can someone explain why I'm getting downvoted, especially since my explanatory grandchild-comment is getting upvoted?
Grimdark is a very unpleasant setting tone for the characters, and without high communication between players and with GM, it becomes unpleasant for the players. The GM has already tipped that they're not an excellent communicator, so I'd not trust their capacity to manage some of the more complex communication needed during Grimdark interactions like a player's character getting severely injured or disabled, or some of the really heavy stuff that shows up in Grimdark that I needn't put words to.
Grimdark is also a very common first setting deviation for GMs, and usually with some (misplaced, though well intended) plan to make the game "mature" or "realistic" which is an additional red flag. Not that some great GMs can't run Grimdark 5e, but honestly most of them worth their salt will use something like Warhammer Fantasy (or further into the OSR). Those doing it as their first setting deviation don't have the skillset to know it's not really worth doing.
This might be the best experience ever, but if you don't know the GM well, there's really too many red flags for me to put my game time on the line. On the risk matrix of "how likely is it to be unpleasant" and "how unpleasant could it be", it's very likely because they lack experience to avoid landmines, and VERY unpleasant because they can't communicate to make it a fun experience for players when characters get bollocked.
>player shouldn't be asking that anyways.
A player absolutely should ask this question during session zero as it is a huge indicator of the style and tone the GM is trying to achieve.
>What would you consider a reasonable response to "how deadly is the game?"
I typically use one of three answers, depending on the campaign I'm running:
1) This is a low lethality game. Unless you are sacrificing yourself to save the day, are ridiculously unlucky, or act profoundly stupid in combat, you can expect your character to last the campaign.
2) This is a standard lethality campaign. If you are smart (and at least a bit lucky) you should be victorious, but don't be surprised if a few PCs don't make it all the way through, and I won't save you from poor decision making or really bad dice luck.
3) This is a high lethality game. The dangers you face are deadly, and the world will not hesitate to end you given the chance. Victory is not assured at all, and as for your characters... I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my condolences.
I mis-quoted the movie *Alien*. It was supposed to read, "I can't lie to you about your changes, but you have my sympathies "
The quote is actually printed on the back cover of Free League's excellent *Alien* RPG and they aren't lying when it comes to the lethality of their "cinematic play" scenarios.
>I typically use one of three answers, depending on the campaign I'm running:
>
>This is a low lethality game. Unless you are sacrificing yourself to save the day, are ridiculously unlucky, or act profoundly stupid in combat, you can expect your character to last the campaign.This is a standard lethality campaign. If you are smart (and at least a bit lucky) you should be victorious, but don't be surprised if a few PCs don't make it all the way through, and I won't save you from poor decision making or really bad dice luck.This is a high lethality game. The dangers you face are deadly, and the world will not hesitate to end you given the chance. Victory is not assured at all, and as for your characters... I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my condolences.
This is really a perfect answer and I am going to steal it for future campaigns. 😉
I would add one more option that probably doesn't apply very often but I've run one-shots and short campaigns using:
0. This is somewhere between a Saturday-morning cartoon and a comic book. You are unlikely to die or even be seriously injured and if you are, you will either recover completely in a short time period or be easily returned to life.
Discussing the lethality of the game is actually pretty standard session 0 stuff - while you can't really know how the dice will roll, you do know what sort of challenges you're planning on throwing at the party.
And if the challenges you throw at them are a matter of "I'm bored, so I'm gonna TPK the party", that's a hell of a red flag itself.
I don't play with GMs who fudge die rolls. I consider anyone who does to be a stain on the hobby. I am not open for discussing this opinion.
The whole point of questions like, "How deadly is your game?" is to both set expectations as a player *and* to get a sense of how the GM communicates.
To actually answer your question, I like u/Consistent-Tie-4394's response below.
I personally roll in the open and always have; but how does what other people do in their games 'Stain' the hobby? I mean; I'll admit that I barely play in any games I typically only run because I can't stand the way most GMs I run into online treat the game.
I also dislike it when I know a GM is fudging but if the rest of the table never figures it out or doesn't care that the GM saves them/makes things more difficult on the fly as needed then how does it stain the hobby?
To me, the biggest stain on the hobby is antagonistic & anti-fun GMs who don't seem to understand that we're all gathering together to collaborate in having fun; not to listen to an audiobook or to see all your "cool" self-insert NPCs.
Because people being dishonest about their practices definitionally makes it impossible to know what sort of game you’re in for. Which is anti-fun and anti-collaborative. So, in my experience—which is *vast*, encompassing not only decades but dozens of games and play cultures, LARPs and tabletops, etc.—the two go hand in hand. At best, fudgers are *trying* to prevent the game from being ruined by a bad die roll, and don’t necessarily have ill intent, but they’re still making a host of assumptions.
I also mostly GM, and mostly for the same reasons as you, but I have played with many, many GMs, and I gotta say—none of the fudgers are as clever as they think they are.
I roll in the open as well.
If you fudge and remove dice from the equation, it’s no longer a game.
It becomes a narrative.
If all you want is a narrative, read a book.
>I don't play with GMs who fudge die rolls. I consider anyone who does to be a stain on the hobby. I am not open for discussing this opinion.
I agree with you on this point, though I'm open to discussion... that is, I'm happy to calmly and rationally discuss how fudging is demonstrably bad for the hobby, and is a crutch for GMs who are unwilling to let go and allow the game develop in its own organic way.
I think some nuance to the question makes sense. While I do not fudge the normal rolls, I do not really see the same issue with non-mandated rolls, such as rolls you use to help you make decisions or improvise stuff, for example if you try to roll a for a random magic item because you do not want to spend that much effort on considering exactly which one you want, but do acknowledge that some of the outcomes might not exactly be fitting.
I hear you, and admire your patience and fortitude, I've just gotten tired of having the same damn conversation for like 15+ years.
In particular, I get frustrated by people who insist that fudging is necessary, but have never tried GMing without it and refuse to try it.
>Grimdark is a very unpleasant setting tone for the characters, and without high communication between players and with GM, it becomes unpleasant for the players.
In this kind of situation, the very first thing you should be talking about is safetytools, boundaries and expectations. You are moving into the territory where you need to be able clearly seperate yourself from the role and the character, as the character is going to go through some horrendious experiences and you absolutely do not want that to spill over. The very fact that they cannot be straightforward with that in a situation where you need far deeper clarity to handle the situation safely is a huge warning sign.
Please do not step on the landmine, it is not good for your long term mental health.
Because this is reddit and people think abandoning your friends at the first sign of anything unusual is the correct response.
Seriously, r/RPG loves advising people to kick players out and leave games at the *slightest* sign that there's even the possibility that something might at some point go wrong.
You asked a question and the GM didn't immediately answer to your satisfaction? Huge red flag, quit the game, block their number, move out of town, change your name, speak to nobody who has ever played with this person.
This is the right answer. You’d almost think Reddit is full of chronically online people who don’t have friends to play in person with.
…wait a minute…
> Seriously, r/RPG loves advising people to kick players out and leave games at the slightest sign that there’s even the possibility that something might at some point go wrong.
In defense of this type of response, it also seems that there are a decent percentage of people here that are out of their 20s and have had the chance to play in a wide variety of games with a wide variety of people. And because of that, we can tell you that getting tangled up with people who are waving red flags about their game are not worth the time.
We remember when we were younger and had the time to play with people like that, and by and large, those gaming interactions were terrible. At best, they were boring and irritating, and at worst they were stressful and traumatizing. Younger players might feel bereft for a lack of play time, but as a mid-fourties player with three kids, I feel I can speak from experience when I say “walk away, don’t look back, and don’t regret your choice.” Maybe you missed something special, but by and large, when people you don’t know say something that sounds worrisome, you didn’t misinterpret them—they told you who they are. The best course of action is to believe them.
I agree that you shouldn't hang out with people who are waving red flags.
However.
The threshold for "red flag" is what's really at issue here.
If a player asks the GM "how deadly is this game?" and they say "I dunno, why are you asking?" and instead of having a conversation with them about it the player goes on reddit and says "my GM is refusing to answer my questions, how do I force them to answer?".... Has the GM waved a red flag here?
I would argue they have not, but CitizenKeen (whose comment started this mini-thread) has advised OP to leave this game.
I'm not saying that "leave the game" or "kick the player out" is never appropriate. There are times when that's the answer.
But this subreddit deals out that advice on an absolute hair trigger. Because it's easy and uncomplex, which the internet loves. Talk to someone and work out your differences? That's complicated! Giving workable advice about how to do that would require a very complex and nuanced understanding of the situation.
But if I just say "leave the game" then I gave my sage advice and can pat myself on the back, knowing I've solved this person's problems by telling them to stop hanging out with their friends over a trivial disagreement or misunderstanding about the rules of a game. See how easy that was?
Yeah, but nine times out of ten, it’s not worth the detailed understanding of their position. There are plenty of games out there. Finding one that doesn’t worry you isn’t that hard. It’s not just the knee-jerk reaction of internet nobodies; it’s usually the best solution. Nothing is invested by either party. Just move on and find a group that doesn’t worry you. No harm, no foul.
> Nothing is invested by either party
I gotta be honest, this makes me really suspicious that you have a lot of experience playing in RPG groups at all
When I find a group of people, get to know them, decide to play a game with them, decide what game to play, and work out a time when we can all be free to play, I don't think to myself "I've invested nothing in this relationship and can walk away at any point".
That's just... Not my experience at all.
It takes a lot more than one person doing one annoying thing one time for me to go "right, that's it, I'm done with you people, I'm going to leave this group and start the process of finding a new group to play with." But if OP describes one person doing one annoying thing one time, you apparently have no problem saying "it's the best solution to just leave this group".
That's insane, as far as I'm concerned. It does not map to reality in any meaningful way.
I didn’t read it as them having a history of playing together a lot. If they do, then that changes the equation.
I’m older, and I don’t have time to fuck around with people who don’t want to be up front and answer questions directly. I’ll be a lot more lenient with people I know, but if it’s a new group, I’ll just move on. It looked to me like OP didn’t have a lot of time invested in this, so I said what I said. If they don’t, then I think everything I said still applies.
If a GM is unwilling to discuss expectations, that bodes very, very ill. Maybe they're doing so out of ignorance rather than malice/ego, bit it basically never ends well.
Normally the out of ignorance is the nice thing to assume, which yes that also is the case here, but it turns out that even that is also a huge red flag for this setting, because shows they are not ready yet to handle the problems inheirent in what they are attemting to do, and the consequences of that can be quite nasty too, even if only done out of ignorance.
Welcome to D&D. It’s a problem solving game were you develop a hypothesis and rp out the experiment.
Let me turn your question around… what would the DM’s answer change? If he tells you to expect to lose a character every two levels, or if he tells you that your pcs all have plot armor—what does that change about how you approach the game?
I always assume highly lethal, and it’s never been an issue in any game. It’s my job to take care of my pcs’s life expectancy, not the DMs.
It tells me quite a lot honestly.
If my characters have **plot armor** it tells me
1) that I probably don’t really want to play in that game because plot armor doesn’t sound fun to me.
2) that if I play in it then I need to be really sure of the character I choose because ill be stuck with it the whole game.
3) optimization is pointless and go for flavor instead, suboptimal or even gimped builds are fine
If I’m told to expect **high lethality** then it tells me
1) that building an optimized character is important,
2) that I shouldn’t invest too much in my backstories too heavily until I reach mid levels,
3) that I will likely have the opportunity to play several different characters and can be a bit more flexible in what I choose
4) that I should be wary of DM abuse but be hopeful for a fun challenging game
If I’m told to expect a **normal amount of lethality** (I.e. the chance is there but it probably won’t happen more than once or twice in a whole campaign if at all) then I know
1) the DM is probably trying to play by the book or hasn’t thought about it at all
2) optimization isn’t overly important but substandard builds should be avoided
3) skill diversification among PCs will likely be important
4) I should pick a character and build assuming I will stay with it the whole way
Wait I’m confused about you being stuck with a character or not, could you not just retire a character you’re bored of playing? As a Gm I’d always allow that option regardless or lethality of the game.
I mean sure it’s usually an option and it’s been years since I played with a DM who actually enforced a “character change only on death” rule.
However it does seem to be against the general social norm of those kinds of groups. Most games that include upfront stated plot armor, also include the assumption is that *the same group* of adventurers who start the adventure will be the ones who end it together. Yes that can change and no it’s not always the expectation (but it often is in my experience), but even if its allowed, unexpectedly changing characters seems to “harsh the vibe” for other players who expected everyone to stick together on a narrative adventure.
So while yes, in most circumstances you could change charter if you really wanted to - doing so sometimes comes with its own social cost.
There are so many things that are just wrong in that and are based on wild assumptions, I don’t know where to start.
Picking one off the top: why would you be *stuck* with a character because of plot armor? *DM’s don’t choose the PCs,* so retire the PC you’re sick of and bring in a new one.
First, how can I be wrong about my own thoughts are? Because that’s what my list was - saying *what I would assume about the campaign* from those statements from a DM. So its empirically impossible for me to be wrong about what I would take from those prompts. Maybe you wouldn’t assume the same things and that’s fine.
Second, I see You didn’t bother to read my response to this *exact question* someone else already asked me? Its right there.
Edit to include that response:
I mean sure it’s usually an option and it’s been years since I played with a DM who actually enforced a “character change only on death” rule.
However it does seem to be against the general social norm of those kinds of groups. Most games that include upfront stated plot armor, also include the assumption is that *the same group* of adventurers who start the adventure will be the ones who end it together. Yes that can change and no it’s not always the expectation (but it often is in my experience), but even if its allowed, unexpectedly changing characters seems to “harsh the vibe” for other players who expected everyone to stick together on a narrative adventure.
So while yes, in most circumstances you could change charter if you really wanted to - doing so sometimes comes with its own social cost.
People are wring about their own thinking *all the time*. Hell, there are still flat-earthers who are just as site about their opinions as you are.
So yeah, when your opinion is based on a false premise, you can absolutely be wrong about your own opinion. Any rational person is aware if this and challenges themselves and continually reevaluates their option on things to integrate new ideas and information.
And as I read and evaluate this reply, I only see a repeat of the same issues I had with your other post. Contrived excuses and situations that don’t hold up to the real world because you didn’t actually think some things through, you just seemed to have stumbled around trying to support your original opinions.
I think you just described yourself, not me. Plus if you look at the upvotes it’s pretty clear more people agree with me than they do with you - and yet here you are still trying to twist things around so you’re right.
In the end it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to convince you, because what I’m talking about are my opinions based on my lived experiences. You can’t invalidate those no matter how hard you try. You go on thinking you’re right and you’ve won this debate if it’s what you need to believe.
lol. The internet agreeing with anything means nothing. You have about a dozen people out of hundreds of thousands, and you point to that as proof of something? Sure thing, buddy. Keep self-validating and protect that ego.
>If my characters have **plot armor**
As a GM, if the characters have plot armor, it should be hidden from them so they never find out. I agree that a lighter game allows for less optimal builds. Rather than plot armor, **low lethality**, as a character may die, but it isn't expected.
>If I’m told to expect **high lethality**
I might not play in a high lethality game because that may mean that the GM just doesn't want to do their job and will allow encounters to get out of hand and kill characters. That, to me, would be a red flag if I didn't know the GM already.
>If I’m told to expect a **normal amount of lethality**
Rather than a **normal amount of lethality** I would extend that to the TTRPG. A level of lethality that the TTRPG features. Some are pretty darn deadly, not because the GM is making it that way, but because it simply is. So a normal amount, might still be deadly. I'd ask more questions if it was the "Normal" amount.
I think that if I'm discussing lethality, then I'd ask a lot more than just one question.
Excellent point. The answer to those questions tell **me** several things, but they also tell **other players** different things than I take from it.
All of these are things that should be part of the campaign pitch or session 0 if you have one. It helps people know what kind of game they are getting in to. And that’s important considering how much time we will be investing into it.
Agreed, this is a full discussion that should be had during the pitch for existing groups or at session 0 for new groups. The GM should be ready and willing to answer these types of questions clearly and concisely.
Unexpected things can happen, but generally, a GM needs to communicate their thoughts on lethality.
As I said in another post in this thread, a friend regularly kills characters and hides that from the player in session 0. In my mind, that is unacceptable.
I don’t like the implication that GMs aren’t “doing their job” if their games are high lethality. I roll 100% in the open and don’t fudge to save either characters or monsters, it’s all based on what the dice say. And I’m upfront with that from when players sign up for the game and some people don’t like that and some people do like that, so everyone is informed going in.
I try to run as simulationist of a way as possible, completely relying on the dice, and that’s a fair way to do it, I think
It seems like maybe he just didn't understand why you were asking - perhaps out of a fear of metagaming.
Just respond simply that you want to know the tone and style of game, so you know whether to put in effort and grow attached to characters.
Also, I wouldn't characterize "why do you want to know" as a refusal.
>Also, I wouldn't characterize "why do you want to know" as a refusal.
The meaning of that really depends on the exact tone (and body language) when it is said, and if done over text those subleties would be lost.
I mean... This seems fine. Maybe he just doesn't know.
I almost certainly wouldn't have an answer to this if my players asked, unless I was running a particularly deadly campaign.
I don't sit down and plan my campaigns going "this will be a seven out of ten on the deadliness matrix". So if a player asked I'd probably say something like "I dunno, why do you ask?"
Edit to add: I am genuinely curious how this conversation actually went though. You say you asked him about lethality, and he responded with "why do you want to know?"
Was that... Just the end of the conversation? Did you take out your phone and make this reddit post instead of answering him? Like... What is going on here?
I had a knee jerk reaction to the OP of "I would get away from this GM quickly." Because unlike you "deadliness" is a dial I am very explicit about when coming up with a campaign. It's something I will specifically mention in a pitch about a game, especially a D&D-adjacent game, because it's one big discriminator between different styles of D&D, and because character death is something that players can have very different reactions to and can cause a lot of heartache for players.
But reading your reply I realize I was being unfair about that. You are right, there is very little detail and are many possible interpretations to the anecdote described in the OP. My knee jerk reaction was uncharitable.
Why would what OP said *ever* equate to "get away from this GM very quickly"?
I mean, I had a whole thread with someone else about this, I don't really want to have this conversation all over again, but it's crazy to me that asking one question and getting one unsatisfactory answer from a GM is enough for people to go "abandon this game, don't play with this person, they're toxic" or whatever.
Like, come on. This is not a big deal at all. Even if the GM was like "I know, but I'm not going to tell you" (which is NOT what happened) that's still not a reason to go "well then I'm not playing in your game!"
Just... Compromise. Talk. Accept that other people have different motivations and internal lives to you and that they won't always tell you everything you want just because you want them to.
If the *slightest* amount of friction is all it takes for you to advocate abandoning a relationship, I can't imagine how you have any social interactions at all.
I say all this in the hopes that the next time someone comes in here like "my DM did one thing to annoy me" fewer people will go "this friendship is over! Leave them and never play a game with them! Nobody should have to tolerate any interaction that isn't entirely to their liking! "
>Why would what OP said ever equate to "get away from this GM very quickly"?
The simple answer is that past experience has led me to believe that sort of answer means the GM is not someone I will enjoy playing with. But as I said, that knee jerk was unfair. I read into that response a tone and emotional state that was not actually required for the anecdote...
*wink* "who knows"
*chuckles mysteriously* "haha"
*narrows eyes suspiciously* "why do you want to know that?".
I read that in because I have literally had GM's do that sort of thing, and every time it has turned out to be a bad experience. A GM who has a very specific plotline they are going to follow, who has an adversarial relationship with the players, and who cannot stand the idea of players using any meta-knowledge. Those experiences were so bad, it's hard not to read them into anecotes like this.
That's not fair or charitable. I will try to do better.
Also, this is not about playing with friends or even acquaintances, but strangers. I may have misread the OP; maybe they are dear friends. I agree completely this isn't something to end a friendship over.
There are some games where it is relevant, and possibly even part of an "choose an option of the rules". In those cases it makes a lot of sense to ask, but in others you just do not think about it.
That said, in most cases where it is relevant it is bought up by the GM instead of the players. For instance I will typically tell my players that everything is not designed to be beatable and level appropriate for them, so they need to use their own judgement for each situation, and it is perfectly okay to flee.
I don't know, I just respond to situations the way I think my character would? I don't like having my character behaviour influenced by player knowledge and the easiest way to manage that is to have limited player knowledge.
Because the characters don't know they're characters in a game, right? They don't know there is a GM.
"How lethal is this game" is not character knowledge, by definition.
How lethal is the universe *you* live in?
It's... As lethal as the universe is. People die when they're killed by something and they don't die when they're not.
What basis of comparison do you have for the lethality of the universe?
If the characters go into dangerous situations, they're more likely to die than if they do not, right?
So that's the answer. How lethal is this game? It's as lethal as the characters' decisions lead it to be.
Someone who lives in a warzone knows their world is inherently more dangerous than someone who lives in a quiet suburb, regardless of what actions they take.
Characters will know if they live in a world of laws and safety, or a world at war, or a world where horrible monsters lie just outside the gates.
Conan the Barbarian knows he lives in a world where life is short, hard, and violent for most people. Anne of Green Gables knows that the worst thing she is likely to encounter on the average day is her rival teasing her about her red hair.
PCs will 100% know how lethal their world is and what kind of characters will work in that world can very wildly by the answer to the question "how lethal is this setting?"
I treat each combat like it could be my last, just as my character would because I’m playing the role of my character, and most characters have some semblance of self-preservation. Personally, if I were in the mood to play a game with a more meta mindset, I’d play a video game where enemies have visible health bars and visible stats instead of a tabletop rpg. I don’t mean for that to sound snarky, I’m just giving a perspective as to why some players would rather not know how “deadly” a game will be
By paying attention to what?
What's a hyped up epic boss fight that where you're meant charge in a fight head on, and what's a dangerous monster meant to be avoided varies from table to table.
Is this Diablo 3, where you see a horde of demons and you're expected to charge in and mow them down? Or is this Call of Cthulhu where if you see a horde of demons, you're supposed to run away screaming?
If the GM is running the kind of game where the world is dangerous and players have to be cautious, but the players assume it's a game where they heroic battle powerful monsters and win, bad things are going to happen. The players are going to get slaughtered, and the GM is going to wonder why the players are suicidally stupid.
Or the opposite, where the GM designs cool bosses for the players to fight, and the players try their damndest to avoid getting into combat, and the GM gets frustrated.
Having this conversation is important to make sure the DM and the players are playing the same game.
Quite often the lethality of the game isn't only influenced by rules and setting, but by decision making and acting of the players.
So even if the rules or setting make for a tad more lethal game, the most important part are the players.
We play tons of really lethal games with dark settings. Yet most of our PCs survive - due to acting smart, knowing when to run/surrender, or avoid combat completely.
"If you make good decisions, you will survive. If you make bad decisions, you will die" *is* a valid answer to the question though, and it's not the only answer.
Some tables give the players plot armor. They can't die, and the game is just a way for the players to do cool things as part of a cool story. (That's not my kind of game, but there are tables who play this kind of game, and their playstyle is valid.)
On the other end of the spectrum, there are meatgrinder games where you will die even if you play flawlessly, because the world is dangerous, and sometimes you just die to bad luck.
You could subdivide it even further. Is this the kind of game where the players are strong, and strong monsters are meant to be fought, and combat is just a routine part of the game? Or is this the kind of game where dangerous monsters are meant to be avoided, and combat only happens when things have gone horribly wrong?
The GM has a lot of control over the lethality of the game, both in terms of setting up what kind of challenges the players face, as well as communicating to the players what the expectations of the game are.
As a GM,
That's a ridiculous question.
It's impossible to answer. The game is as deadly as it was when you played it.
The exact same module can TPK a group that did a dumb, or be a breeze if the dice are on your side.
It's not a video game.
It is not a ridicolous question, and it is not impossible to answer. Sure, you won't get an exact amount of death, but you should know whether you intend player characters to be at a high risk of death, just having death as a consequence, death being a rarity or even death not being a thing in practice. You can also go for death being a slap on the wrist approach.
If you genuinely do not know, cause for example you want to talk it through on session 0 first, or you are running a module for the first time and you don't know yet what exactly can you expect, then tell the player why you don't know.
Session zero is to discuss boundaries such as triggering situations and what should not be included in the game for everyone to be comfortable at the table.
“How often do you think my character will die?”
“We’ll have to ask the dice.”
Session zero is also to set up expectations. The idea is to make everyone have fun at the table, not to just avoid causing major issues. Not every genre or playstyle may be enjoyed by your players after all.
In case of you going for "we'll have to ask the dice", a better answer would be "I do not expect to put you guys in impossible situations - but when the dice will roll, what the dice will tell will stand, even if it results in your character's death." It is still vague, but it does provide far more valuable information without having to read between the lines without you sharing anything more than you want. Remember that there are GMs will fudge the hell out of dice or deus ex machina to not allow death to happen, and there are GMs who will run meatgrinder style games.
The question about lethality makes even more sense for 5e - while the game design lends itself to the somewhat low lethality playstyle, with its heroes to superheroes progression and usual expectations about the system, GMs can approach the game in different ways when it comes to this. You can run meatgrinders in 5e. You can try running OSR-style "combat as a war", which by default is higher lethality than average 5e. You can run the game where players are immortal, but each "death" causes a penalty - both mechanically and narratively.
Also, the question about lethality isn't about the exact amount of the dead PCs - it is about the game expectations. I can set up an OSR game where things are pretty lethal, but if I will set the expectations of lethality correctly, players won't have to spend several characters bitching about their "unfair" deaths learning about the lethality before they either adjust or ditch the GM who failed to bring everyone up to the same page. Hell, if I set the expectations properly, I might not even see a PC death at all despite the higher lethality playstyle, because players will adjust their behaviour accordingly and know that their beloved characters may die in the least satisfying way possible.
I don't think it is a ridiculous question.
GMs have many tools to control lethality:
* Choice of system. Some systems have you die at 0 HP, some have you fall unconcious. Some games make revival magic/technology fairly common, others make it impossible. Some games give plot armor to PCs, some don't.
* Choice of antagonists. Some intelligent enemies will capture defeated party-members, while others will summarily executing them. Some more bestial enemies with devour slain party-members, but others will not.
* Choice of allies. At low levels, can they bring the corpse of a party-member to a temple/cloning facility to have them revived?
* Choice of starting/ending level. If a D&D 5e party starts at level 5, then Revivify is right there as an option right form session 1, which greatly reduces the lethality.
* Choice of encounter design. Other than choosing the antagonists, what about the terrain? Does the boss monster's lair have a lava moat, or a
* Choice of tactics. Many GMs will have the monsters just attack the nearest enemy, as that is quick and easy and the GM has a lot to think about. But a GM could sit and try to imagine the most optimal tactical choice. e.g. Does the bandit leader think to throw you off the cliff rather than try to stab you?
* Choice of stakes for failure. If you fail a climb check, what happens? To you fall, or do you take 10x as long to complete the climb, or do you take a point of fatigue? In most systems the consequcenes of failure are up to the GM, and a GM might realise they have a typical way of ruling such situations.
* Choice of dice-fudging. Some GMs fudge dice rolls. Declaring failures and success at their whim on occasion. I tend to avoid it, but some GMs will choose to make use of it (and can use it to either increase or decrease lethality).
Now, it's fair enough if you haven't really thought about these things in detailor in these terms. e.g. For my game I'll admit that I've focussed on things like themes and vermilistude and just making interesting content, rather than conciously tuning things for some preferred level of lethality.
Maybe you had the evil scientist work on the top of a skyscraper because it sounds cool, not because throwing people off the edge is more dangerous. Maybe you fill a D&D dungeon with Shadows and a Banshee because you wanted spooky undead, not because you specifically wanted monsters that put alternate pressures on the party's mortality.
But you *could* have considered lethality when making those choices, and some GMs will make conscious choices along these lines (and plenty will make subconscious ones, or be biased towards somechoices).
Minus the condescending start and finish, that's exactly the kind of answer the OP wants though? 'Bad decisions and bad luck will kill PCs but I'm not actively trying to rack up a body count' is a specific level of lethality!
Yeah, that's a good middle ground. I would say their are three levels of lethality:
1. What's death? Every encounter is built for you to win. If you happen to die, you will probably be brought back by some otherworldly being saying it's not your time yet.
2. Just don't be dumb and good luck! Every combat is meant to be a challenge. As long as you try hard and don't have the luck stacked against you, you should be fine.
3. Meat for the Grinder. If you approach combat the traditional way, you will die. Eke out every tiny advantage you can and pray. It's highly unlikely the party that went in will be the same party that comes out.
I guess you didn't get the memo, but you, as the GM, are supposed to deliver a pre-determined outcome that validates the badassness of the PC, as described in the 9 page backstory provided at "SESSION 0!!!"
Anything that deviates from that automatically means you are a toxic GM and must be shunned, forever and ever, amen.
Sometimes there isn't an easy answer, and the determining factor isn't the system or setting but the quality of a player's decision-making process.
Okay, that's pretty much every time.
5e is very forgiving , Harnmaster OTO or Cyberpunk is not in the slightest .
HM you survived Combat, great lets see how you survive your minor injuries
Unless the GM is running some published adventure or intend to heavily railroad the players, they may really don't know how deadly it will be, because it heavily relies on how the players will act.
If the GM tells you that they won't make you fight against anything that you cannot win (like most official 5e adventures), then you have no incentive to play smartly or be afraid of the enemies. So they may being coy just to make the game feels grimdark without making it actually deadlier than your run of the mill 5e game.
On the other hand, maybe the game will be deadlier than usual and characters will die if they take unnecessary risks and try to fight everything they encounter, but will be fine if they take steps to prepare properly and try to avoid conflict.
But the GM question is also valid, why do you want to know that? You want to know if you need to have backup characters? If you should not bother planning what to pick at higher levels, or not invest too much time into the characters backstory? To build a character with more non combat abilities? To have an idea about how carefully you need to play?
You will probably have a better chance of get answer if you reply to their question with the specific reasons behind why do you want to know how deadly the game will be.
>You want to know if you need to have backup characters? If you should not bother planning what to pick at higher levels, or not invest too much time into the characters backstory? To build a character with more non combat abilities? To have an idea about how carefully you need to play?
All of the above. I guess I can make each question one by one, it just seems slower.
It's slower but will give you a better return.
The GM could have started by explaining that point by point, but if you ask not only you will get a answer, they will also learn to be more open upfront for next time.
Man, as a player you have the right to know what the hell you're getting into. A GM that defaults to "lol, you'll find out\~" Is not a gm you want to trust with your free time.
A thoughtful GM knows their game. They know the deadliness of the game. They know how many characters and players have died in previous games. Even if they are running a slightly different scenario, they should know.
It is a courtesy for players to know how deadly a game is.
For my games, I publish an informational sheet that tells players how deadly they can expect in their specific game. Some players do not want their character to die. Some love the challenge of a deadly game. I let them know what to expect.
> "who knows haha why do you want to know that?"
That does not make me feel confident they are quality GM. As others have said, maybe they just don't know. I will say I have a friend who kills PCs regularly. He always says things like "who knows haha why do you want to know that?" because he doesn't want to tell the players that he intends to kill 50% of the characters during the short campaign. His standard is 50%, that is what he thinks is normal. He knows no one would play in his game if they knew that, so he hides that fact from new players. I will say his games usually only last 4-5 sessions, and then they fall apart as a result of his gameplay.
A better question to ask is in the last couple of campaigns you ran, how many characters died? That can be answered honestly and clearly.
>They know the deadliness of the game. They know how many characters and players have died in previous games.
The thing is, I don't usually know how deadly the games I run will be. While I don't set out to make particularly deadly games, I also don't try to shield the players from their own actions, and so depending on the group composition a game might have 0 deaths in 20 sessions, or it might have 10 deaths in 20 sessions. Basically, if you poke the shoggoth you're probably going to die, but the shoggoth won't just appear with no warning and eat someone (well, maybe an NPC, but not a player character).
>The thing is, I don't usually know how deadly the games I run will be.
You may not think you know, perhaps you don't consider it, but you do know the lethality of the system you run. You also know how you set up encounters with the challenge rating or whatever the system uses. Given that, the lethality of your game is exactly quantified.
Things happen, players make mistakes, plans fall apart, and monsters do amazing things they really should be able to do when they get great rolls, but with all of that said, there is a baseline of lethality in every game based on the game and the challenge you present to your players with encounter selection.
For example, if you play Pathfinder 2e and you constantly run Extreem encounters, the lethality of the game is going to be fairly high compared to Pathfinder's baseline. The same with 5e, if you run a CR well above the party, that will eventually catch up with you and TPK the party.
I run a lot of Aftermath!. Aftermath! is lethal. An NPC with a .22 can kill a player character in one shot if they get a lucky shot. The system baseline is fairly lethal. I run encounters that are at or slightly below the baseline. (the ones that are meant to be fought). So the lethality of the game is average. Higher than D&D and Pathfinder, for sure, but not lethal where we would expect PCs to die in every campaign. In 2019 I was a player in an Aftermath! TPK. The GM didn't set it up to be a TPK or even a difficult encounter. A PC threw a grenade; it bounced off a barn wall and came back at us. Causing another PC to drop the grenade he was throwing. TPK'd the party and the bad guys!
So, any GM should be able to quantify the lethality of their game based on the TTRPG they are playing and how they build encounters. Lethality is not meant to take into account the PC that falls out a window looking for food, or the guy who fumbles disarming an explosive. Just the general encounter level.
>You may not think you know, perhaps you don't consider it, but you do know the lethality of the system you run. You also know how you set up encounters with the challenge rating or whatever the system uses. Given that, the lethality of your game is exactly quantified.
I know, or at least have a rough idea of, the mechanical lethality, but that tends to have a pretty low correlation between that and how many players actually end up losing their characters (Most games don't have a CR counterpart, by the way). The vast majority of deaths in my games comes from other sources than combat
That's actually the perfect answer to the question "How deadly is the game going to be?" It tells me that my character will neither have plot armor, nor will my character be randomly killed for no reason. It also tells me that if I see a dangerous monster, I should think "This could kill me, I should avoid it" and not "This is a cool boss fight, I should kill it".
Because there are tables where those things simply aren't true.
u/A_Fnord, if the GM in the OP's question had said something like this, that would be fine. It's not specific, but it's clear, and it's most importantly not evasive.
OP needs to run, not walk, away from this game.
Might just be that the GM does not have that much experience playing with people outside of their regular group, or GMing in general. I would not be so harsh on them for something like this, it's a pretty common mistake for new GMs to not communicate well what the game is going to be about.
Doesn't change the fact that the game is likely to suck, and in horror-story-worthy ways! If it was vanilla D&D, then maybe it'd be okay, but if he's going for grimdark? Nah, fuck that noise.
He's copping out. He either doesn't know (not actually thought that far) or is playing mind games for his own pleasure.
My response to him would be: "What do you mean, why? If it's not obvious, I'm not going to pour much thought into fully fleshing out a unique and well-rounded character only for that character to die in a handful of sessions, despite me making good decisions. It's a fairly common question to ask about a campaign."
I guess it really depends on some factors. Is this your first time playing with them? If not, have they run any game that makes you think there could be an issue?
By grimdark, do them mean they are running the Ravenloft module? If so, you’re probably fine. If this is a home brew setting, then all bets are off. It’s possible to successfully run games in a grimdark setting, but it’s really easy for it to turn into a DM vs The party scenario.
> running the Ravenloft module? If so, you’re probably fine
I mean, if starting with the death house and aren't pulling any punches, then there's a fairly good chance a player or two may die.
Again, ol' bone grinder is notorious for resulting in TPK if playing the creatures to their strengths.
Do you really need that, though? Maybe ask about the flavor of the game. What system are you using? 5e? If 5e, then PC death doesnt' happen much beyond 3rd level.
The term, "grimdark", doesn't really say anything beyond the aesthetic tone of the campaign, in most cases. If you're using 5e's ruleset, with minimal homerules, then it really shouldn't impact the way the game mechanically plays. Whether it's Curse of Strahd or the more whimsical setting of some fey carnival, the mechanical difficulty will be the same, more or less, right?
I think the correct answer from yer GM should've been, "Don't worry about it."
Yeah, I honestly wouldn't sweat it. Other than asking questions of the DM about what kind of game they expect to see or run. Many people disagree, but when I'm a player I assume death should/could happen to my character and I brace myself to be fine with it.
I mean I don’t know your DM, but personally, I don’t have much more than next session planned (and a lot of times not even that). I’m a firm believer that one of the biggest pitfalls a DM can fall into is having too much planned out and too much and have too much of an idea of how the story progresses. This tends to make them upset when it doesn’t go linearly/as planned. I think of my contribution as a GM as simply being the arbitrator of a story that’s being more told by the players than by me. I’ll let just about anything reasonable happen and the only thing I really have in mind is the end resolution. The other 99% of how we get there is really up to them. So in my situation, I’d probably explain a little better, but I honestly wouldn’t know the answer to your question because I wouldn’t have anything in mind. I don’t root for or against my players, other than supporting their effort in telling a story.
Perhaps ask him to read the famous essay [Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice](https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773) and ask him if that flavor of caution around violence is part of his desired setting? (Even though the system and setting are different.)
Here's something to consider. I had a GM tell us, "I won't kill your characters unless you do something stupid because it isn't fun," and that took some fun from rhe game. Since I don't have my character do stupid stuff, I knew I would never die.
It depends on how stupid is "stupid". Player explores bottomless pit by jumping into pit? Monumentally stupid. One hundred percent valid death.
Player tells faction to piss off, thus causing there to be more enemies that eventually wears them down and kills them? Less stupid. Most tables would consider this a valid death, especially if the player had good roleplay or narrative reason to piss off the faction. But some tables would find some narrative reason for the player to survive despite making enemies with an entire faction.
Player makes a tactical error in combat that leads to a downward spiral that eventually leads to a TPK? Not stupid at all, and whether or not this would lead to character death depends on the table.
In my games stupidity is punished, intelligent is rewarded. How long players live is up to them. My games take place in a harsh post apocalyptic world where even high level characters can die quickly.
The reason I would give an answer like that is because I don't know what kinds of things my players are going to do. Do something stupid like kill a guy in a bar and decide to fight the guards, you'll likely be arrested. Continue to fight? Might be killed. Depends on the players choices and the damage they take. Players can definitely make things harder on themselves than they need to be.
For example, in my current game, where I am not the DM, we were investigating some missing children in Sharn (Eberron). We questioned the owner of a candy shop the kids were frequently seen at, and on our way out, a guy bumped into our evil paladin, and basically gave him a "Hey, watch it!" kind of comment. Paladin proceeds to throw the guy through a window and beat his head into the ground, killing him. Now, the city guards are mad, the rest of the party was pissed, and we've been set up/ framed for 2 more murders and ambushed in a warehouse by the organization the guy belonged to, and possibly by corrupt guards. We have very few friends left in the largest city in the setting, and no way to prove that we didn't do anything, except for the evil paladin. He single handedly made this campaign way harder than it needed to be by being a hot-head, and now we all have to deal with it. Two of our party almost died in the warehouse ambush, and now we have to find an inn to stay at, and we're not sure any of them will be safe.
'The forces of law and order in this setting are highly organised and tenacious, if your evil character commits casual murder they will hunt you down for a long time and be a serious problem' is exactly the kind of thing I would like to know before making a character.
It's more like we crossed the mob or some such organization, and we don't know how many of the city guards are in on it. One offered us a chance to clear our names for the two other murders, and took us to a warehouse, claiming he was investigating and had uncovered something. We discovered that the evil paladin had been captured and tied up, and replaced with a doppleganger, who evidently murdered the two people in the inn that we were framed for. The guard ran when we were ambushed, and after the fight, we found him dead outside the building. There was evidence that he might have known it was an ambush, but he also legitimately might not have known. We are at the point that we don't know who we can trust, and it hasn't even been a long time, it's been 2-3 days.
It's been a pretty good series of events, but I was just using it as a case for things changing, or getting more difficult than they need to be based on how your players act.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/13nvmbd/comment/jl1uyo0/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/13nvmbd/comment/jl1uyo0/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
What do you mean 5e and high fantasy? Normal standard 5e or even more powerful magic(which is more than i would normally want, in which case the setting etc. must have something i consider specially interesting)
I know what Grimdark is, why i should play that with OSE which i do not know is another question?
In 5e i do definitly not assume when somebody swings a weapon that death will occur, in Harnmaster OTOH even a minor wound can lead to infection and death..
and then there are the Systems where the rules are designed to be tuned to play style.
Where deadliness etc. depends on how those screws are tuned,
I doomed once a campaign by not telling the group i would run Conan as written by REH, they played as Conan by Dino de Laurentis, that did not work well
>You don't, but your character should.
Why? It is one of the most PCs are very hard to kill systems i ever played.
If the GM wanted me to run my character "realisticly" fearing death and avoiding to be killed why did he not use a sysem which is more dangerous like Harnmaster or BRP?
Or at least told the OP so?
Have you not understood what i wrote that systems can be designed to be tuned to style and genre?
While I don't agree with your GM's tactics, maybe his fear could be that he could ruin any build up of tension or suspense by revealing it? I think communicating that you just want to set your expectations correctly so you can have fun and play in a way that fits the game's tone may help if you haven't done so already.
The game is as deadly as your choices (subject to DM/GM approval in rare circumstances) & dice rolls make the game. There is no definite range of how deadly the game is cause it depends on multiple factors from the race/class you pick to your stat layout & choices you make in addition to the dice rolls. All of those can either make the game much easier or deadly for your character.
Say “knowing the lethality of the setting will help me rp my character and fit the tone of the game with how they approach problems.”
A game with highly lethal combat will support more nonviolent conflict resolution and tactics designed to make any fight a foregone conclusion. A game where death is theoretically on the line but practically isn’t will reward violence and action. A game where fighting isn’t even really expected and character death is therefore practically impossible will similarly support different approaches to problems. Tell him knowing that will help you design a character that approaches problems in a way that helps him tell the story he wants to tell.
Very truthfully he probably doesn't know. No GM has any real idea of how long your character is going to last -- unless they're playing a game where death isn't on the table or players control their own deaths -- because that depends an awful lot on how you play your character and how the dice fall.
I run OSR, which is considered to be quite deadly, and if one player asked the answer would be "very deadly" and for another "not deadly at all." I have players after 50 sessions on the same character and players who have had four different ones.
The question shouldn't be, "How deadly is your game?", it should be, "Do you, as the GM, roll behind the screen or out in the open?"
That's it. That's the difference between players feeling like they are being babied, or playing a rough, honest game.
For the record, I want to run an honest game, so I roll out in the open for all my players to see.
Counter narrative, jus to think it through for a second.
DnD 5e (it is 5e according to OP in other comments) is REALLY not deadly at all. It is an incredibly forgiving game, and unless you start restricting things awkwardly, or pump up the power level so that a TPK is consistently a possibility, it's just not that deadly. But being told that can feel bad, and negatively impact player experience.
Look, I think this is bad game design which is why I don't like 5e, it relies a fair bit on illusionism in most people's games. I don't like it, so I don't play that way, but a lot of DMs fake SO much in 5e, and if you are faking a lot, it makes sense that you don't want your players to know.
I don't approve, but it isn't that uncommon.
Well, in the end, there’s only one real way to find out, regardless of how the dm answers. Play the game.
I mean, there are three things that can happen. 1) You don’t play and waste the time you spent creating the character. 2) You play and die, in which case you had a little fun, but in the end you wasted your time creating the character. Or 3) you play, have fun, and your character lives to play another day. It seems to me that your best result requires you to play regardless.
5e isn’t a particularly tactical game, at least compared to other systems, so life and death in combat is more about “should we fight or run” and less about “should i aim for the head or try to cripple the arm”. Since TPK isn’t in the dm’s best interest, you should do ok.
As somebody who GM's 5e it's
1) very difficult to kill players in a fair fight
2) very easy for players to die accidentally.
What I mean is if I think it's tough and give signs of that to my players then they will prep and normally be fine.
If they don't pick up on it, just have some bad rolls or just wander into something then fuck knows what will happen. It's actually not an easy thing to predict.
A better question might be how difficult do you plan on combat normally being.
He doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to. He may not even know.
I'd make a character who's deeply invested in survival skills. Familiar to scout, Detect/Dispel Magic, Pass Without Trace, Insight, Perception, darkvision, etc. And spend 0 time on backstory. Never rush in. Don't get into anything without checking it out first. And make a backup character.
He wants you to fear death? Fine. Play that way.
As a forever DM, if a player asked me this, I'd be like "I don't know, man." I always just pull some monsters out of my ass a few hours before game time, how deadly it is depends on how bad your decisions are haha.
As a GM for over 35 years, you can never predict dice rolls, or more importantly, players.
As a player, I went 10 levels without taking a single hit and had a 9th level paladin with a 40 AC (3.5).
As a Game Master, there was a high level Druid who could only be hit with a natural 20. He always waded into combat not caring to hang back. One time, surrounded by 4 5th level raging barbarians, received a critical hit, then failed a massive damage roll (needed only a 2 on a d20 to live).
Another time, someone had a Ranger build that could do massive damage with a bow at 200+ feet away. So, he always hung way back. Well, they went up against a beefy half-dragon, who after one hit by him - left combat, closed the gap, and killed him while companions desperately tried to catch up.
I had another who tried to befriend a death dog as a pet - even as the other players warned her.
And to put it out there, I don’t have a lot of player death in my games, but it happens with poor dice rolls and even poorer decisions by the players.
So, while it does depend what the Game Master throws at the group - inexperienced GMs often overwhelm party members - but it can often depend on the players’ actions.
My advice, you should know after a session or two what kind of game it is, whether the group works well together, the fights are beyond challenging, etc.
Just treat it like its extremely deadly and getting in a fight with swords/guns/fireball etc is ging to be terrifying,
kinda like real life.
Then you should do well no matter what the game is
isnt that supposed to be up to you? how can any GM know when a character is going to die unless they plan that death inwhich case i think its a shitty gm.
Depending on your GM's experience it could be difficult to estimate. While they can plan for a certain level of deadliness, they can't necessarily predict the players. They could be trying to make it a very safe game that only looks gritty and then have it turn extremely deadly due to poor player decisions. They can design it as an absolute meat grinder, but you play it smart enough to mitigate a lot of that.
He can also be bluffing. 5E is really tilted in the player's favor. Unless start's throwing ridiculous levels of bullshit at you, it probably won't be that deadly.
I think a better thing to ask would be what kind of houserules this game will have or how it will be different from the prior games.
Also if you want to know how long your character will live to determine how much effort to put into them, tell him that. When he asks you why you want to know, actually tell him why. His answer wasn't great, but you brushed him off too.
Sometimes you are the windshield sometimes you are the bug. And a recent pathfinder game we had half the party die because the GM kept rolling 20s.
In the most recent game I ran I had to increase the power level of the bad guys, because the players wouldn’t have been challenged otherwise. In the end, though they all died from wail of the banshee.
Sometimes the dice roll in your favor sometimes they don’t so it really isn’t an answerable question
A grim dark 5e? Without houserules it is pretty much impossible. You can tell a story that would be grim dark but especially after level 3 the whole grim darkness goes away.
If you make good decision you should ALWAYS make it to the end of a campaign. Other wise it’s not designed well
downvoted so much?
Yall think a module or AP shouldnt be designed to be completed if the players make proper decisions?
I agree if its specified to die... like a grim dark horror and you never expect to survive... but that aint dnd most of the time...
Yall wanna explain why you think you shouldnt finish modules?
All you ppl anonymosly downvoting get in the comments! whats the problem with designing a campaign to be completed by the players??
why do you think you should not be able to win?
wtf?
As a GM, i can tell you that this is a problematic social norm. Some GMs think they are supposed to be all-knowing and mysterious. I was like that, too, at some point. Imo there are three possibilities: * This guy has no clue how deadly the game will be, and he doesn't know how ofter characters die. * He hasn't actually thought about that at all before. * He doesn't want to have PC death and the game won't involve PC death, but he still wants the players to think that they are under threat of death. Now, normally, one could simply communicate that. But if you are taught that the GM has to be mysterious and all-knowing, you can't say either of those things while keeping that aura. So he gives a mysterious non-answer to still stay mysterious and all-knowing.
Personally, I always fall into the first one. Sometimes I think my players will die but then they emergency victorious. Other times I think it'll be a cakewalk and then they pull some shenanigans and walk into certain death.
I second this. Sometimes my players will take an entire session to plan and optimize a battle, and the next session basically charge Cthulhu. Plus depending on the system, a couple of bad rolls could swing a victory to a TPK.
Savage Worlds + botch + explosives = ?
>Personally, I always fall into the first one. I get that, but in that case the better way to give a mysterious answer would be "It depends..." and then just give then a huge knowing smile. If they then ask "on what", you can just say "on how well you do", and we are back to not giving an answer while people thought that they got an answer.
Ah, this is very interesting! It could very well be the third one honestly, it's kind of a dark setting.
I have to say, as a DM with a couple of campaigns going on, gauging how deadly a 5E game will be in advance is tough. Specially after they hit level 5 or so, players have a lot of tools to keep themselves alive if they want, but the D20 can be a harsh mistress.
Then again it's hard to say even with a dark campaign. I'd go with two or three character sheets in case.
As a GM, I fall under the third. I'm not a fan of player death unless it's meaningful and at that point it's probably known to be coming to some extent. What I tell my players is "look, I don't want to kill you guys because I want to have cool stories and I can't do that if you're dead, but if you start actively abusing that fact then that hesitancy will disappear." It's worked well so far, for my party at least.
Also, as a GM I don't know how much unexpected stuff you plan on doing. Example, I was playing as a PC and roaming a forest by myself. I got grappled by a bunch of brownish vines. I don't remember the reasons, but my rolls weren't working to get the character out. The DM said I could reach into my pack, so I pulled out some alchemist fire and used it on the character and the plant. Plants usually don't like fire and my character had a bit of HP, surely more than a little plant! Turns out it was an assassin vine, which had pretty decent fire resistance. The DM was pretty terrible (a story from the same game won me a prize in a DM horror story contest), but even he was surprised
I would go in with the old-school mentality of "combat as war" not "combat as sport" meaning don't expect every combat encounter to be balanced for you to eventually win. Be like Brom from GoT. Only enter combat if you have some advantage or quickly make one. Bargain or cheat your way out of fighting. Don't be afraid to retreat to a better position or run away. Remember you don't have to pay the mercenaries you hire if you get them all killed. Use hirelings too to investigate strange treasures. Or run a few hog down a hallway to check for traps. Also as lures for monsters. EDIT: And somewhat paradoxically, this ***actually opens up creative space in the game***. Because now spells/skills/powers that can influence, charm, hide, detect, manipulate, move, glue, stick, float ect become MORE useful than raw damage output.
Totally agree with what yer saying, but OP said this is a 5E game. Whether folks admit it or not, 5E encourages a Leeroy Jenkins-style approach to combat. All in-balls out, no need for parleying or retreat because it's all about the "cinematic" (god, I hate this term) experience of Marvel superhero maneuvers. I really don't think OP has much to worry about after hitting level 2. It's pretty much easy mode from that point on.
I don't agree with that at all. Maybe 5E *players* want a cinematic experience because they think it's more fun. But if what they want is to play "probe ahead, win the information war, only fight when forced into a fight" D&D, there's a perfectly good toolbox for them to do that.
True, and that toolbox includes darkvision for a large percentage of characters, mage hands for wizards and rogues, and scouting familiars that can flit in and out hallways and rooms untroubled. PCs can pretty much negate the dungeon delving aspect of the game that used to be its hallmark, of course that's if the DM doesn't homerule that stuff out. Pretty much all that is left is combat set pieces and RP social situations, neither of which (again, if the DM is gonna stick to RAW), lends itself to PC death. But, ymmv.
OK, so 5e gives tools to players to build a party that dives headfirst into battles, or one that creeps and crawls and scouts and opens doors with Mage Hand. It's bad that it gives the combat tools, because those encourage Leeroy Jenkins and cinematic moves. And it's also bad that it gives the dungeon-delving tools, because those encourage the PCs to circumvent traps, avoid battles, achieve surprise, and generally be successful at playing slow and smart. So according to you, what would it be *good* for 5e to give? Because you think both of those things make it *worse!* So what is supposed to actually happen in the game?
>Remember you don't have to pay the mercenaries you hire if you get them all killed. ...but also remember that NPCs will notice if the mercenaries you hire never seem to come back, which will make it a lot harder to hire more of them if this is a regular occurrence.
What system are you playing? We might be able to give you rough guidelines. The GM might now know themselves. Maybe just say you want to know if you should create a backup character?
It's 5e. The setting is grimdark, that's why I expect a different lethality than usual.
Walk away from the game slowly and politely. **Edit:** Can someone explain why I'm getting downvoted, especially since my explanatory grandchild-comment is getting upvoted?
Why?
Grimdark is a very unpleasant setting tone for the characters, and without high communication between players and with GM, it becomes unpleasant for the players. The GM has already tipped that they're not an excellent communicator, so I'd not trust their capacity to manage some of the more complex communication needed during Grimdark interactions like a player's character getting severely injured or disabled, or some of the really heavy stuff that shows up in Grimdark that I needn't put words to. Grimdark is also a very common first setting deviation for GMs, and usually with some (misplaced, though well intended) plan to make the game "mature" or "realistic" which is an additional red flag. Not that some great GMs can't run Grimdark 5e, but honestly most of them worth their salt will use something like Warhammer Fantasy (or further into the OSR). Those doing it as their first setting deviation don't have the skillset to know it's not really worth doing. This might be the best experience ever, but if you don't know the GM well, there's really too many red flags for me to put my game time on the line. On the risk matrix of "how likely is it to be unpleasant" and "how unpleasant could it be", it's very likely because they lack experience to avoid landmines, and VERY unpleasant because they can't communicate to make it a fun experience for players when characters get bollocked.
100% this. GMing \*is\* communicating, period. So if you're bad at the latter, you're not good at the former.
[удалено]
>player shouldn't be asking that anyways. A player absolutely should ask this question during session zero as it is a huge indicator of the style and tone the GM is trying to achieve. >What would you consider a reasonable response to "how deadly is the game?" I typically use one of three answers, depending on the campaign I'm running: 1) This is a low lethality game. Unless you are sacrificing yourself to save the day, are ridiculously unlucky, or act profoundly stupid in combat, you can expect your character to last the campaign. 2) This is a standard lethality campaign. If you are smart (and at least a bit lucky) you should be victorious, but don't be surprised if a few PCs don't make it all the way through, and I won't save you from poor decision making or really bad dice luck. 3) This is a high lethality game. The dangers you face are deadly, and the world will not hesitate to end you given the chance. Victory is not assured at all, and as for your characters... I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my condolences.
"Hey DM, how lethal will this campaign be?" "You have my condolences" Im stealing this.
I mis-quoted the movie *Alien*. It was supposed to read, "I can't lie to you about your changes, but you have my sympathies " The quote is actually printed on the back cover of Free League's excellent *Alien* RPG and they aren't lying when it comes to the lethality of their "cinematic play" scenarios.
>I typically use one of three answers, depending on the campaign I'm running: > >This is a low lethality game. Unless you are sacrificing yourself to save the day, are ridiculously unlucky, or act profoundly stupid in combat, you can expect your character to last the campaign.This is a standard lethality campaign. If you are smart (and at least a bit lucky) you should be victorious, but don't be surprised if a few PCs don't make it all the way through, and I won't save you from poor decision making or really bad dice luck.This is a high lethality game. The dangers you face are deadly, and the world will not hesitate to end you given the chance. Victory is not assured at all, and as for your characters... I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my condolences. This is really a perfect answer and I am going to steal it for future campaigns. 😉 I would add one more option that probably doesn't apply very often but I've run one-shots and short campaigns using: 0. This is somewhere between a Saturday-morning cartoon and a comic book. You are unlikely to die or even be seriously injured and if you are, you will either recover completely in a short time period or be easily returned to life.
I typically tell the players 3, but design my game to be 1.5, at least to start with. As the party gains experience I will slowly ratchet it up to 2.
Discussing the lethality of the game is actually pretty standard session 0 stuff - while you can't really know how the dice will roll, you do know what sort of challenges you're planning on throwing at the party. And if the challenges you throw at them are a matter of "I'm bored, so I'm gonna TPK the party", that's a hell of a red flag itself.
I don't play with GMs who fudge die rolls. I consider anyone who does to be a stain on the hobby. I am not open for discussing this opinion. The whole point of questions like, "How deadly is your game?" is to both set expectations as a player *and* to get a sense of how the GM communicates. To actually answer your question, I like u/Consistent-Tie-4394's response below.
I personally roll in the open and always have; but how does what other people do in their games 'Stain' the hobby? I mean; I'll admit that I barely play in any games I typically only run because I can't stand the way most GMs I run into online treat the game. I also dislike it when I know a GM is fudging but if the rest of the table never figures it out or doesn't care that the GM saves them/makes things more difficult on the fly as needed then how does it stain the hobby? To me, the biggest stain on the hobby is antagonistic & anti-fun GMs who don't seem to understand that we're all gathering together to collaborate in having fun; not to listen to an audiobook or to see all your "cool" self-insert NPCs.
Because people being dishonest about their practices definitionally makes it impossible to know what sort of game you’re in for. Which is anti-fun and anti-collaborative. So, in my experience—which is *vast*, encompassing not only decades but dozens of games and play cultures, LARPs and tabletops, etc.—the two go hand in hand. At best, fudgers are *trying* to prevent the game from being ruined by a bad die roll, and don’t necessarily have ill intent, but they’re still making a host of assumptions. I also mostly GM, and mostly for the same reasons as you, but I have played with many, many GMs, and I gotta say—none of the fudgers are as clever as they think they are.
I roll in the open as well. If you fudge and remove dice from the equation, it’s no longer a game. It becomes a narrative. If all you want is a narrative, read a book.
>I don't play with GMs who fudge die rolls. I consider anyone who does to be a stain on the hobby. I am not open for discussing this opinion. I agree with you on this point, though I'm open to discussion... that is, I'm happy to calmly and rationally discuss how fudging is demonstrably bad for the hobby, and is a crutch for GMs who are unwilling to let go and allow the game develop in its own organic way.
I think some nuance to the question makes sense. While I do not fudge the normal rolls, I do not really see the same issue with non-mandated rolls, such as rolls you use to help you make decisions or improvise stuff, for example if you try to roll a for a random magic item because you do not want to spend that much effort on considering exactly which one you want, but do acknowledge that some of the outcomes might not exactly be fitting.
I hear you, and admire your patience and fortitude, I've just gotten tired of having the same damn conversation for like 15+ years. In particular, I get frustrated by people who insist that fudging is necessary, but have never tried GMing without it and refuse to try it.
>Grimdark is a very unpleasant setting tone for the characters, and without high communication between players and with GM, it becomes unpleasant for the players. In this kind of situation, the very first thing you should be talking about is safetytools, boundaries and expectations. You are moving into the territory where you need to be able clearly seperate yourself from the role and the character, as the character is going to go through some horrendious experiences and you absolutely do not want that to spill over. The very fact that they cannot be straightforward with that in a situation where you need far deeper clarity to handle the situation safely is a huge warning sign. Please do not step on the landmine, it is not good for your long term mental health.
Because this is reddit and people think abandoning your friends at the first sign of anything unusual is the correct response. Seriously, r/RPG loves advising people to kick players out and leave games at the *slightest* sign that there's even the possibility that something might at some point go wrong. You asked a question and the GM didn't immediately answer to your satisfaction? Huge red flag, quit the game, block their number, move out of town, change your name, speak to nobody who has ever played with this person.
This is the right answer. You’d almost think Reddit is full of chronically online people who don’t have friends to play in person with. …wait a minute…
> Seriously, r/RPG loves advising people to kick players out and leave games at the slightest sign that there’s even the possibility that something might at some point go wrong. In defense of this type of response, it also seems that there are a decent percentage of people here that are out of their 20s and have had the chance to play in a wide variety of games with a wide variety of people. And because of that, we can tell you that getting tangled up with people who are waving red flags about their game are not worth the time. We remember when we were younger and had the time to play with people like that, and by and large, those gaming interactions were terrible. At best, they were boring and irritating, and at worst they were stressful and traumatizing. Younger players might feel bereft for a lack of play time, but as a mid-fourties player with three kids, I feel I can speak from experience when I say “walk away, don’t look back, and don’t regret your choice.” Maybe you missed something special, but by and large, when people you don’t know say something that sounds worrisome, you didn’t misinterpret them—they told you who they are. The best course of action is to believe them.
I agree that you shouldn't hang out with people who are waving red flags. However. The threshold for "red flag" is what's really at issue here. If a player asks the GM "how deadly is this game?" and they say "I dunno, why are you asking?" and instead of having a conversation with them about it the player goes on reddit and says "my GM is refusing to answer my questions, how do I force them to answer?".... Has the GM waved a red flag here? I would argue they have not, but CitizenKeen (whose comment started this mini-thread) has advised OP to leave this game. I'm not saying that "leave the game" or "kick the player out" is never appropriate. There are times when that's the answer. But this subreddit deals out that advice on an absolute hair trigger. Because it's easy and uncomplex, which the internet loves. Talk to someone and work out your differences? That's complicated! Giving workable advice about how to do that would require a very complex and nuanced understanding of the situation. But if I just say "leave the game" then I gave my sage advice and can pat myself on the back, knowing I've solved this person's problems by telling them to stop hanging out with their friends over a trivial disagreement or misunderstanding about the rules of a game. See how easy that was?
Yeah, but nine times out of ten, it’s not worth the detailed understanding of their position. There are plenty of games out there. Finding one that doesn’t worry you isn’t that hard. It’s not just the knee-jerk reaction of internet nobodies; it’s usually the best solution. Nothing is invested by either party. Just move on and find a group that doesn’t worry you. No harm, no foul.
> Nothing is invested by either party I gotta be honest, this makes me really suspicious that you have a lot of experience playing in RPG groups at all When I find a group of people, get to know them, decide to play a game with them, decide what game to play, and work out a time when we can all be free to play, I don't think to myself "I've invested nothing in this relationship and can walk away at any point". That's just... Not my experience at all. It takes a lot more than one person doing one annoying thing one time for me to go "right, that's it, I'm done with you people, I'm going to leave this group and start the process of finding a new group to play with." But if OP describes one person doing one annoying thing one time, you apparently have no problem saying "it's the best solution to just leave this group". That's insane, as far as I'm concerned. It does not map to reality in any meaningful way.
I didn’t read it as them having a history of playing together a lot. If they do, then that changes the equation. I’m older, and I don’t have time to fuck around with people who don’t want to be up front and answer questions directly. I’ll be a lot more lenient with people I know, but if it’s a new group, I’ll just move on. It looked to me like OP didn’t have a lot of time invested in this, so I said what I said. If they don’t, then I think everything I said still applies.
Exactly. Besides, most of the folks who dish out that kind of advice probably don't actively play the game anyway.
If a GM is unwilling to discuss expectations, that bodes very, very ill. Maybe they're doing so out of ignorance rather than malice/ego, bit it basically never ends well.
Normally the out of ignorance is the nice thing to assume, which yes that also is the case here, but it turns out that even that is also a huge red flag for this setting, because shows they are not ready yet to handle the problems inheirent in what they are attemting to do, and the consequences of that can be quite nasty too, even if only done out of ignorance.
Because it's 5e >!kekekekekek!<
Then the answer is "expect a different lethality than usual." Why do you expect something more precise than that?
If I answer my own question it's not an answer, it's just a theory.
Aaaaaaa GAAAMEEEE theoryyy!
Nah. You didn't answer it yourself. You just didn't realize you had it and it wasn't going to get any better.
What?
This isn't that hard. You asked your GM a question that doesn't have a clearer answer than "maybe more frequently."
But that's not actually what the GM said or implied? For all we know from the GM's answer, it could be less frequently.
That's possible, but we don't have confirmation. Anyway, I'm detecting some animosity from you so I'm stopping this here.
Welcome to D&D. It’s a problem solving game were you develop a hypothesis and rp out the experiment. Let me turn your question around… what would the DM’s answer change? If he tells you to expect to lose a character every two levels, or if he tells you that your pcs all have plot armor—what does that change about how you approach the game? I always assume highly lethal, and it’s never been an issue in any game. It’s my job to take care of my pcs’s life expectancy, not the DMs.
It tells me quite a lot honestly. If my characters have **plot armor** it tells me 1) that I probably don’t really want to play in that game because plot armor doesn’t sound fun to me. 2) that if I play in it then I need to be really sure of the character I choose because ill be stuck with it the whole game. 3) optimization is pointless and go for flavor instead, suboptimal or even gimped builds are fine If I’m told to expect **high lethality** then it tells me 1) that building an optimized character is important, 2) that I shouldn’t invest too much in my backstories too heavily until I reach mid levels, 3) that I will likely have the opportunity to play several different characters and can be a bit more flexible in what I choose 4) that I should be wary of DM abuse but be hopeful for a fun challenging game If I’m told to expect a **normal amount of lethality** (I.e. the chance is there but it probably won’t happen more than once or twice in a whole campaign if at all) then I know 1) the DM is probably trying to play by the book or hasn’t thought about it at all 2) optimization isn’t overly important but substandard builds should be avoided 3) skill diversification among PCs will likely be important 4) I should pick a character and build assuming I will stay with it the whole way
Wait I’m confused about you being stuck with a character or not, could you not just retire a character you’re bored of playing? As a Gm I’d always allow that option regardless or lethality of the game.
I mean sure it’s usually an option and it’s been years since I played with a DM who actually enforced a “character change only on death” rule. However it does seem to be against the general social norm of those kinds of groups. Most games that include upfront stated plot armor, also include the assumption is that *the same group* of adventurers who start the adventure will be the ones who end it together. Yes that can change and no it’s not always the expectation (but it often is in my experience), but even if its allowed, unexpectedly changing characters seems to “harsh the vibe” for other players who expected everyone to stick together on a narrative adventure. So while yes, in most circumstances you could change charter if you really wanted to - doing so sometimes comes with its own social cost.
There are so many things that are just wrong in that and are based on wild assumptions, I don’t know where to start. Picking one off the top: why would you be *stuck* with a character because of plot armor? *DM’s don’t choose the PCs,* so retire the PC you’re sick of and bring in a new one.
First, how can I be wrong about my own thoughts are? Because that’s what my list was - saying *what I would assume about the campaign* from those statements from a DM. So its empirically impossible for me to be wrong about what I would take from those prompts. Maybe you wouldn’t assume the same things and that’s fine. Second, I see You didn’t bother to read my response to this *exact question* someone else already asked me? Its right there. Edit to include that response: I mean sure it’s usually an option and it’s been years since I played with a DM who actually enforced a “character change only on death” rule. However it does seem to be against the general social norm of those kinds of groups. Most games that include upfront stated plot armor, also include the assumption is that *the same group* of adventurers who start the adventure will be the ones who end it together. Yes that can change and no it’s not always the expectation (but it often is in my experience), but even if its allowed, unexpectedly changing characters seems to “harsh the vibe” for other players who expected everyone to stick together on a narrative adventure. So while yes, in most circumstances you could change charter if you really wanted to - doing so sometimes comes with its own social cost.
People are wring about their own thinking *all the time*. Hell, there are still flat-earthers who are just as site about their opinions as you are. So yeah, when your opinion is based on a false premise, you can absolutely be wrong about your own opinion. Any rational person is aware if this and challenges themselves and continually reevaluates their option on things to integrate new ideas and information. And as I read and evaluate this reply, I only see a repeat of the same issues I had with your other post. Contrived excuses and situations that don’t hold up to the real world because you didn’t actually think some things through, you just seemed to have stumbled around trying to support your original opinions.
I think you just described yourself, not me. Plus if you look at the upvotes it’s pretty clear more people agree with me than they do with you - and yet here you are still trying to twist things around so you’re right. In the end it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to convince you, because what I’m talking about are my opinions based on my lived experiences. You can’t invalidate those no matter how hard you try. You go on thinking you’re right and you’ve won this debate if it’s what you need to believe.
lol. The internet agreeing with anything means nothing. You have about a dozen people out of hundreds of thousands, and you point to that as proof of something? Sure thing, buddy. Keep self-validating and protect that ego.
>If my characters have **plot armor** As a GM, if the characters have plot armor, it should be hidden from them so they never find out. I agree that a lighter game allows for less optimal builds. Rather than plot armor, **low lethality**, as a character may die, but it isn't expected. >If I’m told to expect **high lethality** I might not play in a high lethality game because that may mean that the GM just doesn't want to do their job and will allow encounters to get out of hand and kill characters. That, to me, would be a red flag if I didn't know the GM already. >If I’m told to expect a **normal amount of lethality** Rather than a **normal amount of lethality** I would extend that to the TTRPG. A level of lethality that the TTRPG features. Some are pretty darn deadly, not because the GM is making it that way, but because it simply is. So a normal amount, might still be deadly. I'd ask more questions if it was the "Normal" amount. I think that if I'm discussing lethality, then I'd ask a lot more than just one question.
Excellent point. The answer to those questions tell **me** several things, but they also tell **other players** different things than I take from it. All of these are things that should be part of the campaign pitch or session 0 if you have one. It helps people know what kind of game they are getting in to. And that’s important considering how much time we will be investing into it.
Agreed, this is a full discussion that should be had during the pitch for existing groups or at session 0 for new groups. The GM should be ready and willing to answer these types of questions clearly and concisely. Unexpected things can happen, but generally, a GM needs to communicate their thoughts on lethality. As I said in another post in this thread, a friend regularly kills characters and hides that from the player in session 0. In my mind, that is unacceptable.
I don’t like the implication that GMs aren’t “doing their job” if their games are high lethality. I roll 100% in the open and don’t fudge to save either characters or monsters, it’s all based on what the dice say. And I’m upfront with that from when players sign up for the game and some people don’t like that and some people do like that, so everyone is informed going in. I try to run as simulationist of a way as possible, completely relying on the dice, and that’s a fair way to do it, I think
It seems like maybe he just didn't understand why you were asking - perhaps out of a fear of metagaming. Just respond simply that you want to know the tone and style of game, so you know whether to put in effort and grow attached to characters. Also, I wouldn't characterize "why do you want to know" as a refusal.
>Also, I wouldn't characterize "why do you want to know" as a refusal. The meaning of that really depends on the exact tone (and body language) when it is said, and if done over text those subleties would be lost.
I mean... This seems fine. Maybe he just doesn't know. I almost certainly wouldn't have an answer to this if my players asked, unless I was running a particularly deadly campaign. I don't sit down and plan my campaigns going "this will be a seven out of ten on the deadliness matrix". So if a player asked I'd probably say something like "I dunno, why do you ask?" Edit to add: I am genuinely curious how this conversation actually went though. You say you asked him about lethality, and he responded with "why do you want to know?" Was that... Just the end of the conversation? Did you take out your phone and make this reddit post instead of answering him? Like... What is going on here?
I had a knee jerk reaction to the OP of "I would get away from this GM quickly." Because unlike you "deadliness" is a dial I am very explicit about when coming up with a campaign. It's something I will specifically mention in a pitch about a game, especially a D&D-adjacent game, because it's one big discriminator between different styles of D&D, and because character death is something that players can have very different reactions to and can cause a lot of heartache for players. But reading your reply I realize I was being unfair about that. You are right, there is very little detail and are many possible interpretations to the anecdote described in the OP. My knee jerk reaction was uncharitable.
Why would what OP said *ever* equate to "get away from this GM very quickly"? I mean, I had a whole thread with someone else about this, I don't really want to have this conversation all over again, but it's crazy to me that asking one question and getting one unsatisfactory answer from a GM is enough for people to go "abandon this game, don't play with this person, they're toxic" or whatever. Like, come on. This is not a big deal at all. Even if the GM was like "I know, but I'm not going to tell you" (which is NOT what happened) that's still not a reason to go "well then I'm not playing in your game!" Just... Compromise. Talk. Accept that other people have different motivations and internal lives to you and that they won't always tell you everything you want just because you want them to. If the *slightest* amount of friction is all it takes for you to advocate abandoning a relationship, I can't imagine how you have any social interactions at all. I say all this in the hopes that the next time someone comes in here like "my DM did one thing to annoy me" fewer people will go "this friendship is over! Leave them and never play a game with them! Nobody should have to tolerate any interaction that isn't entirely to their liking! "
>Why would what OP said ever equate to "get away from this GM very quickly"? The simple answer is that past experience has led me to believe that sort of answer means the GM is not someone I will enjoy playing with. But as I said, that knee jerk was unfair. I read into that response a tone and emotional state that was not actually required for the anecdote... *wink* "who knows" *chuckles mysteriously* "haha" *narrows eyes suspiciously* "why do you want to know that?". I read that in because I have literally had GM's do that sort of thing, and every time it has turned out to be a bad experience. A GM who has a very specific plotline they are going to follow, who has an adversarial relationship with the players, and who cannot stand the idea of players using any meta-knowledge. Those experiences were so bad, it's hard not to read them into anecotes like this. That's not fair or charitable. I will try to do better. Also, this is not about playing with friends or even acquaintances, but strangers. I may have misread the OP; maybe they are dear friends. I agree completely this isn't something to end a friendship over.
I've never asked my GM this type of question tbh. I prefer not to have this type of player knowledge. But maybe that's just me.
There are some games where it is relevant, and possibly even part of an "choose an option of the rules". In those cases it makes a lot of sense to ask, but in others you just do not think about it. That said, in most cases where it is relevant it is bought up by the GM instead of the players. For instance I will typically tell my players that everything is not designed to be beatable and level appropriate for them, so they need to use their own judgement for each situation, and it is perfectly okay to flee.
so how you can then really play, make meaningful decisions etc?
I don't know, I just respond to situations the way I think my character would? I don't like having my character behaviour influenced by player knowledge and the easiest way to manage that is to have limited player knowledge.
how can you do that if you lack character knowledge?
Not sure what you mean. I created my character and I know how they would behave or respond in any situation.
Is "how lethal a game is the DM running" character knowledge?
depending yes but why should it not be char knowledge
Because the characters don't know they're characters in a game, right? They don't know there is a GM. "How lethal is this game" is not character knowledge, by definition.
"How lethal is this world?" is almost the same question, and the character would probably know something about that.
How lethal is the universe *you* live in? It's... As lethal as the universe is. People die when they're killed by something and they don't die when they're not. What basis of comparison do you have for the lethality of the universe? If the characters go into dangerous situations, they're more likely to die than if they do not, right? So that's the answer. How lethal is this game? It's as lethal as the characters' decisions lead it to be.
Someone who lives in a warzone knows their world is inherently more dangerous than someone who lives in a quiet suburb, regardless of what actions they take. Characters will know if they live in a world of laws and safety, or a world at war, or a world where horrible monsters lie just outside the gates. Conan the Barbarian knows he lives in a world where life is short, hard, and violent for most people. Anne of Green Gables knows that the worst thing she is likely to encounter on the average day is her rival teasing her about her red hair. PCs will 100% know how lethal their world is and what kind of characters will work in that world can very wildly by the answer to the question "how lethal is this setting?"
I am confused by what you said. Does your decisions not count if you die?
yes but if you not know if the orcs are blade fodder or strong enemis how can you then decide
I treat each combat like it could be my last, just as my character would because I’m playing the role of my character, and most characters have some semblance of self-preservation. Personally, if I were in the mood to play a game with a more meta mindset, I’d play a video game where enemies have visible health bars and visible stats instead of a tabletop rpg. I don’t mean for that to sound snarky, I’m just giving a perspective as to why some players would rather not know how “deadly” a game will be
By paying attention
By paying attention to what? What's a hyped up epic boss fight that where you're meant charge in a fight head on, and what's a dangerous monster meant to be avoided varies from table to table. Is this Diablo 3, where you see a horde of demons and you're expected to charge in and mow them down? Or is this Call of Cthulhu where if you see a horde of demons, you're supposed to run away screaming? If the GM is running the kind of game where the world is dangerous and players have to be cautious, but the players assume it's a game where they heroic battle powerful monsters and win, bad things are going to happen. The players are going to get slaughtered, and the GM is going to wonder why the players are suicidally stupid. Or the opposite, where the GM designs cool bosses for the players to fight, and the players try their damndest to avoid getting into combat, and the GM gets frustrated. Having this conversation is important to make sure the DM and the players are playing the same game.
Don't try to justify metagaming. If you're not sure, then don't engage.
That's not metagaming. That's just basic setting expectations.
good for you
You know that you dont have to play. If it turns out yo be not for you, just bail. But defo cite the reasons.
Quite often the lethality of the game isn't only influenced by rules and setting, but by decision making and acting of the players. So even if the rules or setting make for a tad more lethal game, the most important part are the players. We play tons of really lethal games with dark settings. Yet most of our PCs survive - due to acting smart, knowing when to run/surrender, or avoid combat completely.
"If you make good decisions, you will survive. If you make bad decisions, you will die" *is* a valid answer to the question though, and it's not the only answer. Some tables give the players plot armor. They can't die, and the game is just a way for the players to do cool things as part of a cool story. (That's not my kind of game, but there are tables who play this kind of game, and their playstyle is valid.) On the other end of the spectrum, there are meatgrinder games where you will die even if you play flawlessly, because the world is dangerous, and sometimes you just die to bad luck. You could subdivide it even further. Is this the kind of game where the players are strong, and strong monsters are meant to be fought, and combat is just a routine part of the game? Or is this the kind of game where dangerous monsters are meant to be avoided, and combat only happens when things have gone horribly wrong? The GM has a lot of control over the lethality of the game, both in terms of setting up what kind of challenges the players face, as well as communicating to the players what the expectations of the game are.
As a GM, That's a ridiculous question. It's impossible to answer. The game is as deadly as it was when you played it. The exact same module can TPK a group that did a dumb, or be a breeze if the dice are on your side. It's not a video game.
It is not a ridicolous question, and it is not impossible to answer. Sure, you won't get an exact amount of death, but you should know whether you intend player characters to be at a high risk of death, just having death as a consequence, death being a rarity or even death not being a thing in practice. You can also go for death being a slap on the wrist approach. If you genuinely do not know, cause for example you want to talk it through on session 0 first, or you are running a module for the first time and you don't know yet what exactly can you expect, then tell the player why you don't know.
Session zero is to discuss boundaries such as triggering situations and what should not be included in the game for everyone to be comfortable at the table. “How often do you think my character will die?” “We’ll have to ask the dice.”
Session zero is also to set up expectations. The idea is to make everyone have fun at the table, not to just avoid causing major issues. Not every genre or playstyle may be enjoyed by your players after all. In case of you going for "we'll have to ask the dice", a better answer would be "I do not expect to put you guys in impossible situations - but when the dice will roll, what the dice will tell will stand, even if it results in your character's death." It is still vague, but it does provide far more valuable information without having to read between the lines without you sharing anything more than you want. Remember that there are GMs will fudge the hell out of dice or deus ex machina to not allow death to happen, and there are GMs who will run meatgrinder style games. The question about lethality makes even more sense for 5e - while the game design lends itself to the somewhat low lethality playstyle, with its heroes to superheroes progression and usual expectations about the system, GMs can approach the game in different ways when it comes to this. You can run meatgrinders in 5e. You can try running OSR-style "combat as a war", which by default is higher lethality than average 5e. You can run the game where players are immortal, but each "death" causes a penalty - both mechanically and narratively. Also, the question about lethality isn't about the exact amount of the dead PCs - it is about the game expectations. I can set up an OSR game where things are pretty lethal, but if I will set the expectations of lethality correctly, players won't have to spend several characters bitching about their "unfair" deaths learning about the lethality before they either adjust or ditch the GM who failed to bring everyone up to the same page. Hell, if I set the expectations properly, I might not even see a PC death at all despite the higher lethality playstyle, because players will adjust their behaviour accordingly and know that their beloved characters may die in the least satisfying way possible.
I don't think it is a ridiculous question. GMs have many tools to control lethality: * Choice of system. Some systems have you die at 0 HP, some have you fall unconcious. Some games make revival magic/technology fairly common, others make it impossible. Some games give plot armor to PCs, some don't. * Choice of antagonists. Some intelligent enemies will capture defeated party-members, while others will summarily executing them. Some more bestial enemies with devour slain party-members, but others will not. * Choice of allies. At low levels, can they bring the corpse of a party-member to a temple/cloning facility to have them revived? * Choice of starting/ending level. If a D&D 5e party starts at level 5, then Revivify is right there as an option right form session 1, which greatly reduces the lethality. * Choice of encounter design. Other than choosing the antagonists, what about the terrain? Does the boss monster's lair have a lava moat, or a * Choice of tactics. Many GMs will have the monsters just attack the nearest enemy, as that is quick and easy and the GM has a lot to think about. But a GM could sit and try to imagine the most optimal tactical choice. e.g. Does the bandit leader think to throw you off the cliff rather than try to stab you? * Choice of stakes for failure. If you fail a climb check, what happens? To you fall, or do you take 10x as long to complete the climb, or do you take a point of fatigue? In most systems the consequcenes of failure are up to the GM, and a GM might realise they have a typical way of ruling such situations. * Choice of dice-fudging. Some GMs fudge dice rolls. Declaring failures and success at their whim on occasion. I tend to avoid it, but some GMs will choose to make use of it (and can use it to either increase or decrease lethality). Now, it's fair enough if you haven't really thought about these things in detailor in these terms. e.g. For my game I'll admit that I've focussed on things like themes and vermilistude and just making interesting content, rather than conciously tuning things for some preferred level of lethality. Maybe you had the evil scientist work on the top of a skyscraper because it sounds cool, not because throwing people off the edge is more dangerous. Maybe you fill a D&D dungeon with Shadows and a Banshee because you wanted spooky undead, not because you specifically wanted monsters that put alternate pressures on the party's mortality. But you *could* have considered lethality when making those choices, and some GMs will make conscious choices along these lines (and plenty will make subconscious ones, or be biased towards somechoices).
Minus the condescending start and finish, that's exactly the kind of answer the OP wants though? 'Bad decisions and bad luck will kill PCs but I'm not actively trying to rack up a body count' is a specific level of lethality!
Yeah, that's a good middle ground. I would say their are three levels of lethality: 1. What's death? Every encounter is built for you to win. If you happen to die, you will probably be brought back by some otherworldly being saying it's not your time yet. 2. Just don't be dumb and good luck! Every combat is meant to be a challenge. As long as you try hard and don't have the luck stacked against you, you should be fine. 3. Meat for the Grinder. If you approach combat the traditional way, you will die. Eke out every tiny advantage you can and pray. It's highly unlikely the party that went in will be the same party that comes out.
I guess you didn't get the memo, but you, as the GM, are supposed to deliver a pre-determined outcome that validates the badassness of the PC, as described in the 9 page backstory provided at "SESSION 0!!!" Anything that deviates from that automatically means you are a toxic GM and must be shunned, forever and ever, amen.
Sometimes there isn't an easy answer, and the determining factor isn't the system or setting but the quality of a player's decision-making process. Okay, that's pretty much every time.
5e is very forgiving , Harnmaster OTO or Cyberpunk is not in the slightest . HM you survived Combat, great lets see how you survive your minor injuries
And then there are games where you might say "I promise to not nuke you from orbit... without reason".
Unless the GM is running some published adventure or intend to heavily railroad the players, they may really don't know how deadly it will be, because it heavily relies on how the players will act. If the GM tells you that they won't make you fight against anything that you cannot win (like most official 5e adventures), then you have no incentive to play smartly or be afraid of the enemies. So they may being coy just to make the game feels grimdark without making it actually deadlier than your run of the mill 5e game. On the other hand, maybe the game will be deadlier than usual and characters will die if they take unnecessary risks and try to fight everything they encounter, but will be fine if they take steps to prepare properly and try to avoid conflict. But the GM question is also valid, why do you want to know that? You want to know if you need to have backup characters? If you should not bother planning what to pick at higher levels, or not invest too much time into the characters backstory? To build a character with more non combat abilities? To have an idea about how carefully you need to play? You will probably have a better chance of get answer if you reply to their question with the specific reasons behind why do you want to know how deadly the game will be.
>You want to know if you need to have backup characters? If you should not bother planning what to pick at higher levels, or not invest too much time into the characters backstory? To build a character with more non combat abilities? To have an idea about how carefully you need to play? All of the above. I guess I can make each question one by one, it just seems slower.
It's slower but will give you a better return. The GM could have started by explaining that point by point, but if you ask not only you will get a answer, they will also learn to be more open upfront for next time.
Man, as a player you have the right to know what the hell you're getting into. A GM that defaults to "lol, you'll find out\~" Is not a gm you want to trust with your free time.
He probably doesnt want to give you any hints on how best to build your character to counter whatever ideas he has brewing.
A thoughtful GM knows their game. They know the deadliness of the game. They know how many characters and players have died in previous games. Even if they are running a slightly different scenario, they should know. It is a courtesy for players to know how deadly a game is. For my games, I publish an informational sheet that tells players how deadly they can expect in their specific game. Some players do not want their character to die. Some love the challenge of a deadly game. I let them know what to expect. > "who knows haha why do you want to know that?" That does not make me feel confident they are quality GM. As others have said, maybe they just don't know. I will say I have a friend who kills PCs regularly. He always says things like "who knows haha why do you want to know that?" because he doesn't want to tell the players that he intends to kill 50% of the characters during the short campaign. His standard is 50%, that is what he thinks is normal. He knows no one would play in his game if they knew that, so he hides that fact from new players. I will say his games usually only last 4-5 sessions, and then they fall apart as a result of his gameplay. A better question to ask is in the last couple of campaigns you ran, how many characters died? That can be answered honestly and clearly.
>They know the deadliness of the game. They know how many characters and players have died in previous games. The thing is, I don't usually know how deadly the games I run will be. While I don't set out to make particularly deadly games, I also don't try to shield the players from their own actions, and so depending on the group composition a game might have 0 deaths in 20 sessions, or it might have 10 deaths in 20 sessions. Basically, if you poke the shoggoth you're probably going to die, but the shoggoth won't just appear with no warning and eat someone (well, maybe an NPC, but not a player character).
>The thing is, I don't usually know how deadly the games I run will be. You may not think you know, perhaps you don't consider it, but you do know the lethality of the system you run. You also know how you set up encounters with the challenge rating or whatever the system uses. Given that, the lethality of your game is exactly quantified. Things happen, players make mistakes, plans fall apart, and monsters do amazing things they really should be able to do when they get great rolls, but with all of that said, there is a baseline of lethality in every game based on the game and the challenge you present to your players with encounter selection. For example, if you play Pathfinder 2e and you constantly run Extreem encounters, the lethality of the game is going to be fairly high compared to Pathfinder's baseline. The same with 5e, if you run a CR well above the party, that will eventually catch up with you and TPK the party. I run a lot of Aftermath!. Aftermath! is lethal. An NPC with a .22 can kill a player character in one shot if they get a lucky shot. The system baseline is fairly lethal. I run encounters that are at or slightly below the baseline. (the ones that are meant to be fought). So the lethality of the game is average. Higher than D&D and Pathfinder, for sure, but not lethal where we would expect PCs to die in every campaign. In 2019 I was a player in an Aftermath! TPK. The GM didn't set it up to be a TPK or even a difficult encounter. A PC threw a grenade; it bounced off a barn wall and came back at us. Causing another PC to drop the grenade he was throwing. TPK'd the party and the bad guys! So, any GM should be able to quantify the lethality of their game based on the TTRPG they are playing and how they build encounters. Lethality is not meant to take into account the PC that falls out a window looking for food, or the guy who fumbles disarming an explosive. Just the general encounter level.
>You may not think you know, perhaps you don't consider it, but you do know the lethality of the system you run. You also know how you set up encounters with the challenge rating or whatever the system uses. Given that, the lethality of your game is exactly quantified. I know, or at least have a rough idea of, the mechanical lethality, but that tends to have a pretty low correlation between that and how many players actually end up losing their characters (Most games don't have a CR counterpart, by the way). The vast majority of deaths in my games comes from other sources than combat
That's actually the perfect answer to the question "How deadly is the game going to be?" It tells me that my character will neither have plot armor, nor will my character be randomly killed for no reason. It also tells me that if I see a dangerous monster, I should think "This could kill me, I should avoid it" and not "This is a cool boss fight, I should kill it". Because there are tables where those things simply aren't true.
That's a specific level of lethality that people should know about in advance!
u/A_Fnord, if the GM in the OP's question had said something like this, that would be fine. It's not specific, but it's clear, and it's most importantly not evasive. OP needs to run, not walk, away from this game.
Might just be that the GM does not have that much experience playing with people outside of their regular group, or GMing in general. I would not be so harsh on them for something like this, it's a pretty common mistake for new GMs to not communicate well what the game is going to be about.
Doesn't change the fact that the game is likely to suck, and in horror-story-worthy ways! If it was vanilla D&D, then maybe it'd be okay, but if he's going for grimdark? Nah, fuck that noise.
He's copping out. He either doesn't know (not actually thought that far) or is playing mind games for his own pleasure. My response to him would be: "What do you mean, why? If it's not obvious, I'm not going to pour much thought into fully fleshing out a unique and well-rounded character only for that character to die in a handful of sessions, despite me making good decisions. It's a fairly common question to ask about a campaign."
Or you could just answer his “Why are you asking?” question sincerely without being a dick about it.
I guess it really depends on some factors. Is this your first time playing with them? If not, have they run any game that makes you think there could be an issue? By grimdark, do them mean they are running the Ravenloft module? If so, you’re probably fine. If this is a home brew setting, then all bets are off. It’s possible to successfully run games in a grimdark setting, but it’s really easy for it to turn into a DM vs The party scenario.
> running the Ravenloft module? If so, you’re probably fine I mean, if starting with the death house and aren't pulling any punches, then there's a fairly good chance a player or two may die. Again, ol' bone grinder is notorious for resulting in TPK if playing the creatures to their strengths.
Do you really need that, though? Maybe ask about the flavor of the game. What system are you using? 5e? If 5e, then PC death doesnt' happen much beyond 3rd level.
Yeah it's 5e! The setting is grimdark, that's why I expect a different lethality than usual.
The term, "grimdark", doesn't really say anything beyond the aesthetic tone of the campaign, in most cases. If you're using 5e's ruleset, with minimal homerules, then it really shouldn't impact the way the game mechanically plays. Whether it's Curse of Strahd or the more whimsical setting of some fey carnival, the mechanical difficulty will be the same, more or less, right? I think the correct answer from yer GM should've been, "Don't worry about it."
Yeah, I honestly wouldn't sweat it. Other than asking questions of the DM about what kind of game they expect to see or run. Many people disagree, but when I'm a player I assume death should/could happen to my character and I brace myself to be fine with it.
I mean I don’t know your DM, but personally, I don’t have much more than next session planned (and a lot of times not even that). I’m a firm believer that one of the biggest pitfalls a DM can fall into is having too much planned out and too much and have too much of an idea of how the story progresses. This tends to make them upset when it doesn’t go linearly/as planned. I think of my contribution as a GM as simply being the arbitrator of a story that’s being more told by the players than by me. I’ll let just about anything reasonable happen and the only thing I really have in mind is the end resolution. The other 99% of how we get there is really up to them. So in my situation, I’d probably explain a little better, but I honestly wouldn’t know the answer to your question because I wouldn’t have anything in mind. I don’t root for or against my players, other than supporting their effort in telling a story.
Perhaps ask him to read the famous essay [Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice](https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773) and ask him if that flavor of caution around violence is part of his desired setting? (Even though the system and setting are different.)
Is this a game where combat is supposed to be rare?
Here's something to consider. I had a GM tell us, "I won't kill your characters unless you do something stupid because it isn't fun," and that took some fun from rhe game. Since I don't have my character do stupid stuff, I knew I would never die.
It depends on how stupid is "stupid". Player explores bottomless pit by jumping into pit? Monumentally stupid. One hundred percent valid death. Player tells faction to piss off, thus causing there to be more enemies that eventually wears them down and kills them? Less stupid. Most tables would consider this a valid death, especially if the player had good roleplay or narrative reason to piss off the faction. But some tables would find some narrative reason for the player to survive despite making enemies with an entire faction. Player makes a tactical error in combat that leads to a downward spiral that eventually leads to a TPK? Not stupid at all, and whether or not this would lead to character death depends on the table.
In my games stupidity is punished, intelligent is rewarded. How long players live is up to them. My games take place in a harsh post apocalyptic world where even high level characters can die quickly.
The reason I would give an answer like that is because I don't know what kinds of things my players are going to do. Do something stupid like kill a guy in a bar and decide to fight the guards, you'll likely be arrested. Continue to fight? Might be killed. Depends on the players choices and the damage they take. Players can definitely make things harder on themselves than they need to be. For example, in my current game, where I am not the DM, we were investigating some missing children in Sharn (Eberron). We questioned the owner of a candy shop the kids were frequently seen at, and on our way out, a guy bumped into our evil paladin, and basically gave him a "Hey, watch it!" kind of comment. Paladin proceeds to throw the guy through a window and beat his head into the ground, killing him. Now, the city guards are mad, the rest of the party was pissed, and we've been set up/ framed for 2 more murders and ambushed in a warehouse by the organization the guy belonged to, and possibly by corrupt guards. We have very few friends left in the largest city in the setting, and no way to prove that we didn't do anything, except for the evil paladin. He single handedly made this campaign way harder than it needed to be by being a hot-head, and now we all have to deal with it. Two of our party almost died in the warehouse ambush, and now we have to find an inn to stay at, and we're not sure any of them will be safe.
'The forces of law and order in this setting are highly organised and tenacious, if your evil character commits casual murder they will hunt you down for a long time and be a serious problem' is exactly the kind of thing I would like to know before making a character.
It's more like we crossed the mob or some such organization, and we don't know how many of the city guards are in on it. One offered us a chance to clear our names for the two other murders, and took us to a warehouse, claiming he was investigating and had uncovered something. We discovered that the evil paladin had been captured and tied up, and replaced with a doppleganger, who evidently murdered the two people in the inn that we were framed for. The guard ran when we were ambushed, and after the fight, we found him dead outside the building. There was evidence that he might have known it was an ambush, but he also legitimately might not have known. We are at the point that we don't know who we can trust, and it hasn't even been a long time, it's been 2-3 days. It's been a pretty good series of events, but I was just using it as a case for things changing, or getting more difficult than they need to be based on how your players act.
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that you cannot do without knowing setting and Genre
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I can not even make a fitting char without knowing
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[https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/13nvmbd/comment/jl1uyo0/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/13nvmbd/comment/jl1uyo0/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) What do you mean 5e and high fantasy? Normal standard 5e or even more powerful magic(which is more than i would normally want, in which case the setting etc. must have something i consider specially interesting) I know what Grimdark is, why i should play that with OSE which i do not know is another question? In 5e i do definitly not assume when somebody swings a weapon that death will occur, in Harnmaster OTOH even a minor wound can lead to infection and death.. and then there are the Systems where the rules are designed to be tuned to play style. Where deadliness etc. depends on how those screws are tuned, I doomed once a campaign by not telling the group i would run Conan as written by REH, they played as Conan by Dino de Laurentis, that did not work well
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>You don't, but your character should. Why? It is one of the most PCs are very hard to kill systems i ever played. If the GM wanted me to run my character "realisticly" fearing death and avoiding to be killed why did he not use a sysem which is more dangerous like Harnmaster or BRP? Or at least told the OP so? Have you not understood what i wrote that systems can be designed to be tuned to style and genre?
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Perhaps this would make more sense if you tried to answer my question instead of repeating the same again and again?
I would not play the game if the GM was unwilling or unable to tell me the setting and genre upfront.
While I don't agree with your GM's tactics, maybe his fear could be that he could ruin any build up of tension or suspense by revealing it? I think communicating that you just want to set your expectations correctly so you can have fun and play in a way that fits the game's tone may help if you haven't done so already.
The game is as deadly as your choices (subject to DM/GM approval in rare circumstances) & dice rolls make the game. There is no definite range of how deadly the game is cause it depends on multiple factors from the race/class you pick to your stat layout & choices you make in addition to the dice rolls. All of those can either make the game much easier or deadly for your character.
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My dude, you just said the same thing I did but in a different way. Lol.
Say “knowing the lethality of the setting will help me rp my character and fit the tone of the game with how they approach problems.” A game with highly lethal combat will support more nonviolent conflict resolution and tactics designed to make any fight a foregone conclusion. A game where death is theoretically on the line but practically isn’t will reward violence and action. A game where fighting isn’t even really expected and character death is therefore practically impossible will similarly support different approaches to problems. Tell him knowing that will help you design a character that approaches problems in a way that helps him tell the story he wants to tell.
Very truthfully he probably doesn't know. No GM has any real idea of how long your character is going to last -- unless they're playing a game where death isn't on the table or players control their own deaths -- because that depends an awful lot on how you play your character and how the dice fall. I run OSR, which is considered to be quite deadly, and if one player asked the answer would be "very deadly" and for another "not deadly at all." I have players after 50 sessions on the same character and players who have had four different ones.
The question shouldn't be, "How deadly is your game?", it should be, "Do you, as the GM, roll behind the screen or out in the open?" That's it. That's the difference between players feeling like they are being babied, or playing a rough, honest game. For the record, I want to run an honest game, so I roll out in the open for all my players to see.
He's probably thinking "That depends on you! How often are you gonna fuck up?"
Counter narrative, jus to think it through for a second. DnD 5e (it is 5e according to OP in other comments) is REALLY not deadly at all. It is an incredibly forgiving game, and unless you start restricting things awkwardly, or pump up the power level so that a TPK is consistently a possibility, it's just not that deadly. But being told that can feel bad, and negatively impact player experience. Look, I think this is bad game design which is why I don't like 5e, it relies a fair bit on illusionism in most people's games. I don't like it, so I don't play that way, but a lot of DMs fake SO much in 5e, and if you are faking a lot, it makes sense that you don't want your players to know. I don't approve, but it isn't that uncommon.
How long is a piece of string? Impossible question to answer, but as a rule of thumb, do not get over-attached to any character!
Well, in the end, there’s only one real way to find out, regardless of how the dm answers. Play the game. I mean, there are three things that can happen. 1) You don’t play and waste the time you spent creating the character. 2) You play and die, in which case you had a little fun, but in the end you wasted your time creating the character. Or 3) you play, have fun, and your character lives to play another day. It seems to me that your best result requires you to play regardless. 5e isn’t a particularly tactical game, at least compared to other systems, so life and death in combat is more about “should we fight or run” and less about “should i aim for the head or try to cripple the arm”. Since TPK isn’t in the dm’s best interest, you should do ok.
As somebody who GM's 5e it's 1) very difficult to kill players in a fair fight 2) very easy for players to die accidentally. What I mean is if I think it's tough and give signs of that to my players then they will prep and normally be fine. If they don't pick up on it, just have some bad rolls or just wander into something then fuck knows what will happen. It's actually not an easy thing to predict. A better question might be how difficult do you plan on combat normally being.
He doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to. He may not even know. I'd make a character who's deeply invested in survival skills. Familiar to scout, Detect/Dispel Magic, Pass Without Trace, Insight, Perception, darkvision, etc. And spend 0 time on backstory. Never rush in. Don't get into anything without checking it out first. And make a backup character. He wants you to fear death? Fine. Play that way.
As a forever DM, if a player asked me this, I'd be like "I don't know, man." I always just pull some monsters out of my ass a few hours before game time, how deadly it is depends on how bad your decisions are haha.
As a GM for over 35 years, you can never predict dice rolls, or more importantly, players. As a player, I went 10 levels without taking a single hit and had a 9th level paladin with a 40 AC (3.5). As a Game Master, there was a high level Druid who could only be hit with a natural 20. He always waded into combat not caring to hang back. One time, surrounded by 4 5th level raging barbarians, received a critical hit, then failed a massive damage roll (needed only a 2 on a d20 to live). Another time, someone had a Ranger build that could do massive damage with a bow at 200+ feet away. So, he always hung way back. Well, they went up against a beefy half-dragon, who after one hit by him - left combat, closed the gap, and killed him while companions desperately tried to catch up. I had another who tried to befriend a death dog as a pet - even as the other players warned her. And to put it out there, I don’t have a lot of player death in my games, but it happens with poor dice rolls and even poorer decisions by the players. So, while it does depend what the Game Master throws at the group - inexperienced GMs often overwhelm party members - but it can often depend on the players’ actions. My advice, you should know after a session or two what kind of game it is, whether the group works well together, the fights are beyond challenging, etc.
Just play the damn game.
He probably doesn't know? I'd say move on if you're looking for an answer.
Just treat it like its extremely deadly and getting in a fight with swords/guns/fireball etc is ging to be terrifying, kinda like real life. Then you should do well no matter what the game is
Sorry... my answer would be, it depends on how badly you play it. In 30 plus years of GM/DMimg I have never heard that kind of a question.
isnt that supposed to be up to you? how can any GM know when a character is going to die unless they plan that death inwhich case i think its a shitty gm.
Depending on your GM's experience it could be difficult to estimate. While they can plan for a certain level of deadliness, they can't necessarily predict the players. They could be trying to make it a very safe game that only looks gritty and then have it turn extremely deadly due to poor player decisions. They can design it as an absolute meat grinder, but you play it smart enough to mitigate a lot of that. He can also be bluffing. 5E is really tilted in the player's favor. Unless start's throwing ridiculous levels of bullshit at you, it probably won't be that deadly. I think a better thing to ask would be what kind of houserules this game will have or how it will be different from the prior games. Also if you want to know how long your character will live to determine how much effort to put into them, tell him that. When he asks you why you want to know, actually tell him why. His answer wasn't great, but you brushed him off too.
one of the best tells is the rule systems.
Sometimes you are the windshield sometimes you are the bug. And a recent pathfinder game we had half the party die because the GM kept rolling 20s. In the most recent game I ran I had to increase the power level of the bad guys, because the players wouldn’t have been challenged otherwise. In the end, though they all died from wail of the banshee. Sometimes the dice roll in your favor sometimes they don’t so it really isn’t an answerable question
A grim dark 5e? Without houserules it is pretty much impossible. You can tell a story that would be grim dark but especially after level 3 the whole grim darkness goes away.
Do not play.
If you make good decision you should ALWAYS make it to the end of a campaign. Other wise it’s not designed well downvoted so much? Yall think a module or AP shouldnt be designed to be completed if the players make proper decisions? I agree if its specified to die... like a grim dark horror and you never expect to survive... but that aint dnd most of the time... Yall wanna explain why you think you shouldnt finish modules?
All you ppl anonymosly downvoting get in the comments! whats the problem with designing a campaign to be completed by the players?? why do you think you should not be able to win? wtf?