Talk:Failure is not the End (3.5e Variant Rule)

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Sulacu likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

This variant rule reminds me a little of the 'combat' rules in the Toons roleplaying game, where kids play as cartoon animals that can never die, no matter how many anvils are dropped on their heads. That said, if you're playing a Tolkienesque epic destiny shonen manga blockbuster action movie Monkey Island adventure malarkey type of game, I could really see this kind of rule work. That said, if you're playing some kind of Zombie apocalypse hack and slash survival horror bollocks where you'd just roll up a new dude to keep the fun going, it would likely only cheapen the experience. At any rate, a bit of houseruling to complement playstyle has never killed anybody. Just don't allow resurrection magic while you use it.

	Foxwarrior likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	I don't like the PC/NPC asymmetry, but I accept that it's a (fairly) necessary evil for this variant rule. If you're going to play D&D as a game about a series of difficult battles, which you should, this is very helpful for making it also be a game about character development.

RiverOffers opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

There are so many ways to come back from the dead that death is already a joke for the most part. Any penalties one gets will be over done and fixed in little time at all. So I say let them die so they can come back to life. Let there team mates be heroic for raising them back from the dead. On of the things that make Gandulf so great is he battled and died killing a demon, AND CAME BACK. Do I say we don't rob that from our "Hero's" as there chance to prove there greatness.

This is meant more for High-level games and lower where death isn't a speedbump, and is actually meaningful. You know, when heroic sacrifices actually mean something rather than being ressurected at the next waypoint. That kind of play is detestable in my opinion, as it makes death meaningless which is bad for the story overall in my opinion.

In fact, the example you gave? A perfect way of using this variant. Without this variant, there would be no end after failure, falling into the chasm. Instead, following the D&D rules, Gandalf would be fairly perma-gone until some cleric (and I'm not sure there are even any high-level clerics in Middle-Earth) cast Ressurection on him. So the thematic aspects you want? They're actually provided for perfectly by this variant. Contrast this with some of the notables who died in Helm's Deep--how less would their sacrifice had been if someone had gone, "Yawn, k, let's get the cleric to cast Raise Dead, no big whoop"? --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

All your consequences seem geared toward TPKs

Yes, I know that making consequences for the non-death of a single player character is hard, which is why you, as the creator of this variant rule, should do the work to suggest some that make sense. You clearly don't support a "single dead characters survive unless abandoned" route, because abandonment can be done by players other than that PC's controller. But if the character(s) are abandoned and don't die, now the party is split and the DM has to somehow run two games.

For the highly indecisive TGDMB view on this topic, read this thread and this one. --Foxwarrior 20:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Fix'd, thanks for reminding me. Meant for the consequences to be examples of what happens when the whole party dies.

Just skimming the two posts you wrote up, but let's actually look at the numbers on the first post of the first thread you linked.

TPK once every 50 campaigns is the premise. Let's assume a campaign goes from level 1-10, and you need 10 combats on average to gain a level. This means on average that the entire party is supposed to die once every 5,000 combats. A 0.02% chance of something happening is so miniscule that it might not as well be there IMO, so the argument is fairly non-sensical. The second part is that the people discussing don't seem to realize that non-death threats can be very threatening and can have great impact on the characters, shattering and breaking some and strengthening the resolve of others. It's like they assume that death is the only way to truly threaten a party, and I have to disagree with that.

(Preface the following with IMO:) The game is about having fun. The DM's job is to make sure that people are having fun. Death is not fun. Completely disrupting the story isn't fun. Losing one's character, who one is emotionally invested and attached to isn't fun. Momentary setbacks can be fun. Opportunities for RP can be fun. Heroic sacrifice and meaningful deaths that are part of the story are fun. Random death is not. Having your character taken away from you is not. --Ghostwheel 21:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)