Is it okay if player characters never die?

[Rated Aargh]

Remember 1979? That year saw the publication of Barry Sadler's book Casca: The Eternal Mercenary. Sadler was (and probably still is) best known for singing "The Ballad of the Green Berets," but for me, he's the creator of Casca Longinus, the Roman legionnaire who stabbed Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross and was condemned by Him to live until the Second Coming.

The series spans sixty books and two thousand years of military history. During that period, Casca met almost every famous figure from every war, including a stint in Hitler's bunker.

Nothing can kill Casca (he wouldn't be eternal otherwise), so he's the perfect vehicle for discussing character death or lack thereof, especially when I consider a recent topic concerning permanent consequences in gaming. Casca is still interesting, and the action remains compelling even though he can't die.

Could the same thing apply to role-playing? If you run a campaign with unkillable PCs, would it hinder the fun you could have? Is the threat of death essential to keeping the stakes at an engaging level?

I can see both sides of this coin. Threats don't feel real if a player has no fear for their character. However, some players don't react well to character death, and having that risk lifted might make the game more fun for them.

Do we have any consensus on this issue?

 

[PolarBlues]

I am pretty sure we won't have consensus on this and that's OK.

The notion of "death off the table" (expect where the player agrees) is well established in roleplaying. It's usually associated with games that have strong genre conventions (comedy, more traditional superheroes, lighter pulp).
and it absolutely does not mean the party can't fail or suffer set backs.

For other types of games, the constant threat of death is part of what creates the tension and drives the players decision making. It is more appropriate to darker, more tactical or more realistic genres.

Why does the hobbby have to choose between one or the other?

 

[Silverlion]

I have got a friend who feels if his character dies, the game is over. Because you only ever have one character per game, I guess? I didn't grow up that way. Characters of mine have died. (Usually not from stupidity, often because they were too damn smart and entrapped themselves.)

However, in most games I run, I take death off the table because I can do SO many worse things to a character who is still alive. In H&S, I note that in superhero games, death, is usually off the table, but that goes for both sides of the equation. If you get to stay alive, then so do the villains. I also work hard to not have the revolving door prison problem. Something I have an advantage in doing over comic books is I can make new bad guys, I'm not trying to keep my copyrights ad nauseum in an active game. On the other hand, my best villains rarely ever get caught. There is one exception to this, the Cowboy from Hell, Hellrider, routinely escapes Hell itself, but that's kind of his thing and his deal with the devil.

A lot depends on the genre. I don't mind letting someone take their character out in a heroic sacrifice. I High Valor I point out that is pretty close to fitting the epic nature of the game.

I run things to meet the needs of the players and the needs of the genre.

 

[AsenRG]

Casca is a good example, since he's eternal...but the rest of the cast aren't. And that's what makes it interesting.

Also, due to it he is really on a different power level from everyone else. I'd argue that on such a power level it makes very little difference...
But NPCs around Casca are a different matter. And you can very easily see how the intrigue shifts to be "which NPCs get to live long and prosper".

OTOH, my players have accused me of emotional sadism when favourite NPCs have suffered...ahem, consequences that were intended* for the PCs.

Personally? I get disinvested when death isn't on the table. What's the point of striving to preserve a character that won't die anyway?
I mean, there's a reason why all the ads for buying personal protection don't say "you're going to be able to deal with anything on your own, but we'd like you to hire us"...
Instead, they tell you "imagine if you had to protect your kids". Cheap trick, but it works!

*The campaign didn't have the death off the table, it's just that the intended kill team didn't find her home. And when you send a kill team for a Celestial Exalt that is known for her mastery of several martial arts, that's a kill team that can mess up pretty much anyone else...
So no, it wasn't deliberate emotional sadism. But it was hard to explain that to the player in question!

I am pretty sure we won't have consensus on this and that's OK.

Yes, 10 000 times this!

 

[Godfather Punk]

I have got a friend who feels if his character dies, the game is over. Because you only ever have one character per game, I guess?

I guess he spends a lot of money on video games too?

I could see an Epic campaign style, where the Immortal Casca characters have to achieve certain goals (help an upcoing important historical figure, save a civilisation from extinction, prevent a global catastrophe, ... Eternal Champion stuff). Short term death by hail of bullets or stab wounds would be shrugged off after a few Rounds. 'Real death' could be from decapitation, nuclear explosions, crushed by a moon,.. Then if a character 'dies', becoming incapacitated for a longer time while recovering, it would mean that they fail the mission, and that would make the rest of the campaign harder. But they would return and have to live with the conseqences of their failure.

Also, the ususal immortal shenanigans of never being able to really settle down, seeing al your loved ones grow old and die, having the cosmic goal post repositioned all the time.

This is of course for epic godlike settings. If you're playing a regular hero, then 'not-dying' would be like a tv serial where the status quo is reset after each episode, or shaking off wounds like a real Rambo.

 

[AsenRG]

I guess he spends a lot of money on video games too?

Yeah, that would be prohibitive for me...

 

[Steve Hall]

I think death has to be on the table as a possibility, but although PCs at my table have ended up close to death, not one has died in a good while - medical intervention to save the death spiral has usually prevented PC death (although one of my PCs was on the last chance to avoid snuffing it before the dice roll finally saved him).

I think GM style as well as system has a input here - killer GMs (aka arseholes) anyone?

 

[sharps54]

I prefer to have death on the table but recognize that isn’t how some players and groups play which is fine with me. I can definitely see genres and specific game set ups where death would be inappropriate and 0 HP (or equivalent) means the PCs are captured or defeated as opposed to killed.

 

[robb]

For me it depends on the game and genre. I like deadly dungeon crawls but I am happy with drama where the worst consequence is not getting to be happy/what you want.

 

[Kage2020]

Death can also be a choice of the player---and not just because they want out of the game.

In one case, the party were fighting a bunch of Gobbos in a totally not-dungeon. It was essentially a series of holding actions that became increasingly fraught.

The player in question side-barred with the GM, and the next time the situation happened rather than rinse-and-repeat the player slammed and barred to door screaming through it something along the lines of "Save yourselves. Save the <McGuffin>!"

The party/players were visibly stunned as the player walked out of the room to start generating a replacement.

 

[TheoryofGame]

Remember 1979? That year saw the publication of Barry Sadler's book Casca: The Eternal Mercenary. Sadler was (and probably still is) best known for singing "The Ballad of the Green Berets," but for me, he's the creator of Casca Longinus, the Roman legionnaire who stabbed Jesus of Nazareth on the Cross and was condemned by Him to live until the Second Coming.

The series spans sixty books and two thousand years of military history. During that period, Casca met almost every famous figure from every war, including a stint in Hitler's bunker.

Nothing can kill Casca (he wouldn't be eternal otherwise), so he's the perfect vehicle for discussing character death or lack thereof, especially when I consider a recent topic concerning permanent consequences in gaming. Casca is still interesting, and the action remains compelling even though he can't die.

Could the same thing apply to role-playing? If you run a campaign with unkillable PCs, would it hinder the fun you could have? Is the threat of death essential to keeping the stakes at an engaging level?

I can see both sides of this coin. Threats don't feel real if a player has no fear for their character. However, some players don't react well to character death, and having that risk lifted might make the game more fun for them.

Do we have any consensus on this issue?

Most protagonists in books and movies avoid death because the author controls the story. With most ttrpgs the dice decide who lives and dies and if you take that away - if the players control when their characters die - then you ruin the whole concept of "game". It's like if someone could magically never lose at poker unless they wanted to. The competition and risk associated with gaming is gone. Now you're just Storymaking™!

 

[Steve Hall]

I seem to recall that in some builds of FUDGE a PC couldn't die unless the player agreed to it, although the PC might be deemed too messed up to continue.

 

[Stumpydave]

Put me in the "Kill'em all!" camp. If the risk of death (or injury, or loss) isn't a thing, what's the point. Might as well just announce you've won and go home early.
I get annoyed when players can't accept losing in a situation that won't result in serious harm or fallout, let alone expecting their shiny avatars of hope to prevail against all.


It's bad enough that the current trend seems to be players can't lose points they spend, even if they lose the items/servants/powers they bought with said points.

 

[sharps54]

Death can also be a choice of the player---and not just because they want out of the game.

In one case, the party were fighting a bunch of Gobbos in a totally not-dungeon. It was essentially a series of holding actions that became increasingly fraught.

The player in question side-barred with the GM, and the next time the situation happened rather than rinse-and-repeat the player slammed and barred to door screaming through it something along the lines of "Save yourselves. Save the <McGuffin>!"

The party/players were visibly stunned as the player walked out of the room to start generating a replacement.

On multiple occasions I have seen a player attempt to do this just for the rest of the party to pivot and try to save that character that wanted to self sacrifice

 

[randall]

I used James Bond as example sometimes. You go to watch a James Bond movie (maybe before last, modern batch) and you were reasonably sure, like 99% sure or more, than James Bond doesn't die. And that doesn't take the fun out, according to ...well, it's James Bond, they had like a million movies.

Dr Who is another character that you are mostly sure it will not die in a Game of Thrones fashion. It may change actor, whatever, but not die.

If you go to see Band of Brothers, knowing baring minimum WW2 history, and maybe knowing some Save Private Ryan, you are reasonably sure that not all the cast will be alive at the end. A classic Japanese samurai movie? Someone will die, probably the protagonist, it would be shocking to have the protagonist alive at the end.

And all of them are cinema (or adjacent, for TV shows). So we can have different flavours of gaming, even RPG gaming, in which is ok to have this or that expectation, and it should be fine to express that before the game starts, because genres, game systems and tables experiences are so wildy complex that we cannot rely on "but everybody knows James Bond doesn't die" , because we no longer have (and maybe never had) a true "everyone" that applies to all gamers in the world, covering 50 years of experiences.

 

[Vidgrip]

Stories and games are different. We know in most Bond movies that he isn't going to die, but in some movies the actor shows confusion, doubt, and concern for his life, while in others he strolls along as if he knows he has invincible plot armor. I enjoy the former movies much more than the latter.

In written fiction I have no tolerance for an immortal hero. I think Carl Edward Wagner had great writing skill, but I could never enjoy the Kane novels because the protagonist was immortal and having lived so long already, was a very self-aware Mary Sue.

In games, I prefer the ever-present threat of actual character death and would not play D&D or any similar game without it. That being said, other genres can be different. Pulp games can work fine without character death as long as the danger of failing your mission is present. Losing doesn't have to mean dying. It may mean your nemesis gets the golden idol and you do not. The damsel gets sacrificed before you can save her. You lost this time. You might lose the next one too. It's still a game as long as their is an objective that you may or may not achieve. Even here, though, I do think the threat of actual character death does add some spice to the game. It's just not an essential ingredient for every genre.

 

[DeadBob]

In practical terms, I really think that, for low-death probability genres, the way the skirmish minis campaign game folks do it is the way to go.

High probability of your PC getting KOed if they are truly foolhardy or unlucky, but a rather low probability of them actually dying.

IMO, the best example (there are quite a number of games that do something similar) comes from the Rangers of Shadow Deep game. Worth looking into to get a handle on it if you haven't seen it before.

I truly believe some more thought about RPG implementation of the concept would be pretty tasty, and having it be openly part of he game would be a lot better than the common old-time kludges I'm familiar with or D&D 5e's three roll nonsense.

 

[sharps54]

In practical terms, I really think that, for low-death probability genres, the way the skirmish minis campaign game folks do it is the way to go.

High probability of your PC getting KOed if they are truly foolhardy or unlucky, but a rather low probability of them actually dying.

IMO, the best example (there are quite a number of games that do something similar) comes from the Rangers of Shadow Deep game. Worth looking into to get a handle on it if you haven't seen it before.

I truly believe some more thought about RPG implementation of the concept would be pretty tasty, and having it be openly part of he game would be a lot better than the common old-time kludges I'm familiar with or D&D 5e's three roll nonsense.

This isn’t much difference than RPGs that have you roll over downed characters at the end of combat and roll on a chart to see if they are dead or not.

 

[DeadBob]

This isn’t much difference than RPGs that have you roll over downed characters at the end of combat and roll on a chart to see if they are dead or not.

The problem as I foresee it is that often in RPGs, you end up with a rolling/ongoing situation.

With minis games, there's usually both a narrative break and a real-world break as you clean up and reset the play space on the table for the next installment.

And yes, some RPGs have implemented it already, but it doesn't seem to be something the overall hobby community is familiar with.

I personally find in the minis version, it doesn't make characters more durable or less durable than normal, but it does help the player get out of the hyper-paranoid mindset and play a little looser and more heroic, without completely falling into a Naked Dwarf on the battlefield syndrome.
ETA:

Those games also tend to have very easy-going HP recovery rules too. Most of them tend to use a "You heal fully between battles/encounters", usually with some notable exceptions. What they don't generally do is some sort of "Heal X points per day, modified by factors A,B, C, D...."

 

[Exploderwizard]

If death is off the table then the game should be designed to have different winning & losing parameters. In classic D&D surviving and getting treasure is winning, surviving to seek treasure another day is winning, and dying is losing. Any game that features a good deal of violence and attempts to imply life or death consequences that takes death off the table just doesn't seem interesting. There really does need to be win/loss conditions apart from victory or death for it to work. A sense of danger comes from mortality. Even Superman has his weakness, one that could possibly kill him. So yes a no death game is entirely possible but I just don't see it working if it involves elements of danger.

 

[Baulderstone]

In both RPGs and fiction, it's fine if death is off the table as long as the threat of death isn't used for tension. In a game about social intrigue, I'm fine with no death as there are other consequences. On the other hand, I once played in a D&D 3.5 game where the GM mentioned to me that she always fudged combat to keep everyone alive. It completely ruined the game for me. I was already tiring of 3.5, and spending 40 minute combats where I knew nothing I did mattered was miserable.

 

[MoonHunter]

Never say never! exceptions to every rule and all that.

Characters should never die in non-dramatic ways. In key moments in the storyline? fine. In a random encounter to fill time for a couple of bad rolls? No.

Besides, you normally can only kill them once. What is the fun in that? And, they just make a new character that you have to work into story arcs. Capture, ransom, throw in the oubliette, blackmail, enslave, leave for dead when impaired, those are things you can do to them over and over and over again. I can "torture" the player forever. (think of what seems to happen in pulp fantasy...)

 

[sharps54]

Never say never! exceptions to every rule and all that.

Characters should never die in non-dramatic ways. In key moments in the storyline? fine. In a random encounter to fill time for a couple of bad rolls? No.

Besides, you normally can only kill them once. What is the fun in that? And, they just make a new character that you have to work into story arcs. Capture, ransom, throw in the oubliette, blackmail, enslave, leave for dead when impaired, those are things you can do to them over and over and over again. I can "torture" the player forever. (think of what seems to happen in pulp fantasy...)

I agree with the last paragraph, characters get captured all the time in the source material. That said I’m not a fan of fudging dice to make that happen but if that works at your table and the players know you are fudging it’s all good.

 

[rumble]

Characters should never die in non-dramatic ways.

Since about a decade ago, I made character death a player choice in games I GM. Period.

This doesn't mean they have a free pass to behave recklessly. I try not to recruit players like that.

But If you want your character to survive something terminal, there's a price to pay in my games.
The villain survives too (somehow).
A valuable (character-defining) item gets lost.
A loved NPC passes on.
Some other insufferable event occurs.
Bottom line: death or near-death results in profound character changes.

 

[Silverlion]

Put me in the "Kill'em all!" camp. If the risk of death (or injury, or loss) isn't a thing, what's the point. Might as well just announce you've won and go home early.
I get annoyed when players can't accept losing in a situation that won't result in serious harm or fallout, let alone expecting their shiny avatars of hope to prevail against all.


It's bad enough that the current trend seems to be players can't lose points they spend, even if they lose the items/servants/powers they bought with said points.

There is no true win condition in D&D, and as I said I can make them suffer more if they live

 

[PolarBlues]

Most protagonists in books and movies avoid death because the author controls the story. With most ttrpgs the dice decide who lives and dies and if you take that away - if the players control when their characters die - then you ruin the whole concept of "game". It's like if someone could magically never lose at poker unless they wanted to. The competition and risk associated with gaming is gone. Now you're just Storymaking™!

I don't think that is entirely true. Take for example Cartoon Action Hour. This is a system designed to emulated 80s action animated series, like He-Man, Thundarr or Transformers.

In CAH player character don't have Hit Points, but they get Setback Token whenever they fail a important dice roll. When the number of Setback Token goes over a certain value (in effect 0 Hit Points equivalent), there is a consequence. This could mean the character is KO or just falls off a cliff can't take part in the action for a while. It could mean he temporaliy loses his memory or powers, or even turns evil.

The effect are temporary, but it is clearly a game, with rules that determine when you succeed and when you are defeated, governed by dice rolls and stats. And if the "penalty" of a character dying is just the time it takes to roll a new one, is it really that different?

 

[Baulderstone]

Characters should never die in non-dramatic ways. In key moments in the storyline? fine. In a random encounter to fill time for a couple of bad rolls? No.

If your game wants to be dramatic, you shouldn't be throwing meaningless fights at them anyway. Fights should happen for a reason, even if they are random. If you wander into a dangerous area and I roll an encounter, it was random but not meaningless. It was a dramatic outcome of your choice to enter the area.

I should add that GMs using meaningless combat to pad sessions is something that really bores me.

 

[Nick J]

I like playing mortal characters who can die due to any number of reasons, be it foolishness or bad luck. The stakes (if such a thing can even be real for an imaginary character) are part of the appeal of playing an RPG. Also, as someone who has mostly been a GM vs a player, I’ve gotten very used to holding characters “lightly in my hand” without getting too attached.

I don’t begrudge anyone who feels differently, but I think a lot of this boils down to what I seek from a game and how I conceive the activity of roleplaying. I don’t consider it storytelling. I’ll write a story or read a good book if I want to scratch that itch.

 

[PolarBlues]

If your game wants to be dramatic, you shouldn't be throwing meaningless fights at them anyway. Fights should happen for a reason, even if they are random. If you wander into a dangerous area and I roll an encounter, it was random but not meaningless. It was a dramatic outcome of your choice to enter the area.

I should add that GMs using meaningless combat to pad sessions is something that really bores me.

I think I can accept an throw away fight scene in a super hero game where even D-rate villains still have a unique set of powers, motivations and personality. And even then you can complicate things with civillians in harms way and collateral damage.

And now I want to play a superhero game. It's been too long.

 

[sharps54]

I think I can accept an throw away fight scene in a super hero game where even D-rate villains still have a unique set of powers, motivations and personality. And even then you can complicate things with civillians in harms way and collateral damage.

And now I want to play a superhero game. It's been too long.

I agree although most supers games I have played in are of the four color variety so death was rare. Normally villains or heroes are knocked out or defeated in combat. Death is on the table but we always clarified when a battle was for keeps as the default was to defeat not kill the opponent.

 

[Baulderstone]

I think I can accept an throw away fight scene in a super hero game where even D-rate villains still have a unique set of powers, motivations and personality. And even then you can complicate things with civillians in harms way and collateral damage.

And now I want to play a superhero game. It's been too long.

I wouldn't really consider that a throwaway though. If superheroes fight a villain with a unique powers, motivations and personality, those three things are going to make it interesting. The work put into that character ahead of time will make the encounter meaningful, even if they did show up randomly because the GM rolled them on a random Crime in Progress table. That's a case of a GM having done good prep and drawing on it in play, even if it wasn't something they expected to use that session.

To me, a throwaway is just having 10 orcs show up to fight the party when there is no reason to believe orcs were in the area and the orcs have no motivation, and the players have no reason to fight them other than they are being attacked.

 

[Voros]

I wouldn't really consider that a throwaway though. If superheroes fight a villain with a unique powers, motivations and personality, those three things are going to make it interesting. The work put into that character ahead of time will make the encounter meaningful, even if they did show up randomly because the GM rolled them on a random Crime in Progress table. That's a case of a GM having done good prep and drawing on it in play, even if it wasn't something they expected to use that session.

To me, a throwaway is just having 10 orcs show up to fight the party when there is no reason to believe orcs were in the area and the orcs have no motivation, and the players have no reason to fight them other than they are being attacked.

Video games have given us a good term for the 10 orcs scenario: trash mobs. They're the main reason I got turned off random encounter tables for D&D back in the B/x-2e era. If I rolled an encounter I'd just pick the one I thought was most interesting and I had an idea to spice it up from the table.

Thankfully the OSR (and the better 5e adventures) has come up with far more engaging random encounter tables that don't default to combat and thrilling encounters with 1d6 rats without a hook and the such.

As for the OP, for adventure games yes of course death has to be a possibility although I can see where that may not be true or as likely. For instance, a rpg based on Murder She Wrote style mysteries are unlikely to end in a drag out, down and dirty physical fight. Although turning that expecation on its head once in a while could be fun.

Most clearly there are the more niche games based around more slice-of-life or everyday rping that don't require and it would be absurd to insist on some threat of death.

The family drama and romance games of Emily Care Boss and others, the Jane Austen rpg, Golden Sky Stories, etc. are all games where to insist that there must be a threat of death would be silly and counterproductive.

I realize there are those who insist there must be a fail state for something to be a game but imo that usually involves a dogmatic defintion of failstate and twisting the defintion of 'game' into a pre-determined, narrow set of requirements so it fits their preconceptions instead of looking at the wide range of activities we call a game. Another case as Paul Mason has noted of fan theories of taxonomy usually being designed so as to assert the superiority of one type of play over another.

 

[Simlasa]

I prefer it when death is on the table, even meaningless/trivial death. But that dovetails into the sort of media I enjoy... like horror/noir crime movies where anyone/everyone might die by the end (last night I watched a double feature of Reservoir Dogs and The Blair Witch Project). It's also why I'm NOT a fan of a lot of action movies where it's obvious the main character is going to come out on top, no matter what the odds (James Bond, John McClain...).

BUT, I could easily enjoy something like a Captain Scarlet game where my PC can't be killed but could fail miserably, unable to stop the evil plans of the villain and lots of other people die (not that that happens in any episode of CS).

What I really do not like are games where the Players want no consequences for their actions... like smashing down the door, guns blazing... knowing full well they can buy off any damage they might accrue. They want their PCs to feel 'capable' no matter how dumb their actions are. They'll claim it's 'genre emulation' but to me it just seems like 'Hand Job: The Wanking'.
But generally it's been easy enough to avoid playing with folks who demand such things... so not a big deal.

 

[Savage Schemer]

I don't generally take death entirely off the table, but it's also not the default stakes. This is one of the things from Jaws of the Six Serpents I've stolen for using in every game. That game uses three separate "danger levels" known as Drama, Risk (or Scars) and Doom. Drama in that game is the default and consequences for loss are generally fairly short-term. In a fight, these are injuries you can heal from, given time & rest. Risk / Scars have longer lasting consequences, such as permanent injury that cannot be healed. Doom is life & death. If you loose a fight with Doom as the stakes, your character meets their final fate and is out of the game. In my games, the default of "pulpy" games is going to be Drama; in grittier games it'll be Scars.

 

[TheoryofGame]

I don't think that is entirely true. Take for example Cartoon Action Hour. This is a system designed to emulated 80s action animated series, like He-Man, Thundarr or Transformers.

In CAH player character don't have Hit Points, but they get Setback Token whenever they fail a important dice roll. When the number of Setback Token goes over a certain value (in effect 0 Hit Points equivalent), there is a consequence. This could mean the character is KO or just falls off a cliff can't take part in the action for a while. It could mean he temporaliy looses his memory or powers, or even turns evil.

The effect are temporary, but it is clearly a game, with rules that determine when you succeed and when you are defeated, governed by dice rolls and stats. And if the "penalty" of a character dying is just the time it takes to roll a new one, is it really that different?

I wrote "most games" not all and CAH has risk revolving around the Setback Tokens. Very game-like just not as deadly as other more popular ttrpgs. Then there's ---

Never say never! exceptions to every rule and all that.

Characters should never die in non-dramatic ways. In key moments in the storyline? fine. In a random encounter to fill time for a couple of bad rolls? No.

Besides, you normally can only kill them once. What is the fun in that? And, they just make a new character that you have to work into story arcs. Capture, ransom, throw in the oubliette, blackmail, enslave, leave for dead when impaired, those are things you can do to them over and over and over again. I can "torture" the player forever. (think of what seems to happen in pulp fantasy...)

Any time a character dies it's dramatic, right? I'm not sure a PC could die and the group (players and characters) isn't impacted emotionally on some level. I don't know. Fall damage kinda sucks but it's still dramatic!

 

[Baulderstone]

Video games have given us a good term for the 10 orcs scenario: trash mobs. They're the main reason I got turned off random encounter tables for D&D back in the B/x-2e era. If I rolled an encounter I'd just pick the one I thought was most interesting and I had an idea to spice it up from the table.

Thankfully the OSR (and the better 5e adventures) has come up with far more engaging random encounter tables that don't default to combat and thrilling encounters with 1d6 rats without a hook and the such.

Random encounter tables in B/X adventures could be good or bad with about the same consistency as OSR adventures. As an example, Moldvay's The Lost City has good random encounter tables that give a sense of life to the factions in the dungeon.

I don't think 5E's reliance on adventure paths in WotC meshes well with random encounters. One of the best things about a good random encounter table is that it can take the adventure in completely unexpected directions, but that's at odds with a campaign with a predetermined story.

 

[Voros]

Random encounter tables in B/X adventures could be good or bad with about the same consistency as OSR adventures. As an example, Moldvay's The Lost City has good random encounter tables that give a sense of life to the factions in the dungeon.

I don't think 5E's reliance on adventure paths in WotC meshes well with random encounters. One of the best things about a good random encounter table is that it can take the adventure in completely unexpected directions, but that's at odds with a campaign with a predetermined story.

Yeah I figured there were some good exceptions in older modules, just none were coming to mind.

For 5e I believe I'm thinking of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, their one very good original megadungeon which had some clever and flavourful random encounter tables. Curse of Strahd had a good random encounter table as did Ghosts of Saltmarsh with its random ecounters at sea tables. Notable I guess that all three tend towards more of a sandbox play style.

 

[MoonHunter]

But If you want your character to survive something terminal, there's a price to pay in my games.
Some other insufferable event occurs.
Bottom line: death or near-death results in profound character changes.

I approve. Never just kill them. But you can alter the game and "penalize" the player.

 

[MoonHunter]

I think I can accept an throw away fight scene in a super hero game where even D-rate villains still have a unique set of powers, motivations and personality. And even then you can complicate things with civillians in harms way and collateral damage.

And now I want to play a superhero game. It's been too long.

My primary gaming genre is comic style.

 

[PolarBlues]

I am not expert on things OSR or D&D in general, but my understanding is that the random "10 orcs" style encounter goes hand in hand with strictly itemised XP/loot and fits in a risk vs reward model, which has since been taken up by computer games. The orc encounter may not forward the player character's goal of lifting the sinister curse from the kingdom (or whatever) but it's a chance to get XP and treasure which forwards the player's goal of improving his character.

The moment a GM decides to drop the itemised XP and treasure guidelines for something more flexible or practical, the risk/reward model no longer holds. There may other reasons to have random encounters in a particular adventure, but I would not just use them as filler content or just out of habit.