Are risks of non-combat death exciting or just frustrating and discouraging? [closed]

Question

I'm a brand-new DM (haven't had my first session yet but it is approaching) so I'm reading up about all DMing-related topics. I'm about to play Pathfinder.

My question is about PCs having a risk of death in non-combat scenarios; for example, jumping between two very large buildings or across a crevice. If they fail the jump, they cling on to the ledge, and roll to climb up. Failing again has them fall to their death.

Does this risk add a little excitement to these situations or does it just lead to frustrating and unavoidable deaths that discourage players?

Answer 1

One of the most important things for a DM to remember is to make failure interesting. Your players (and you) are there to have fun. Dying because you had a couple bad rolls isn't fun, it's just frustrating. And as you suggest, it's likely to discourage players.

That said, that doesn't mean that there should never be a risk of failure in your game. If there's no chance of failure, that's boring! Getting failure right is all about how the failure affects the entire party. So perhaps instead of the PC falling to their death, they fall into a deep pit, where they take some significant but non-crippling amount of damage upon landing - and are then confronted by something hungry in the darkness. That's interesting, because now the entire group has to make some choices: should the fallen PC try to climb back up before she's eaten, perhaps with assistance from the others? Should the others purposefully jump down to help her? Can they provide assistance against the grue from above, without getting themselves trapped? Or perhaps there's no grue, but the time it takes to extract the fallen PC from the pit means they don't reach the Dread Altar before the Necromancer finishes her Dire Ritual of Destruction. Etc. You can even use it as a chance to reward the players if they do something interesting after the failure: perhaps they find the body of another adventurer who also fell into the pit, who still has some useful gear; or they find a back door into the dungeon. Whatever keeps things exciting!

Basically, try to never kill a player just because they had two unlucky dice rolls. (Obviously there's some situations where that might still be appropriate, such as sudden-death dungeons like the Tomb of Horrors, or failing death saving throws in D&D 4e, but in most such situations the other PCs also have a chance to intervene before the unlucky rolls kill the character.) Instead, look for ways to make failure interesting by throwing additional challenges at the players, and reward them if they figure out a way to turn the failure into an advantage.

Answer 2

Really it depends upon the style of game you are running and what sort of consequences you are looking for. In a game with high character mortality then it might be acceptable to kill characters because they fell into a trap. In other games though even a complete Total Party Kill against the big bad would have the GM find a way to keep them alive (taken prisoner perhaps).

Personally I play somewhere in the middle, where risks are real but clear. Something like a trap I would have weaken the players. It would cost them some resources, lose a few hp or some healing spells, but would be unlikely to kill them outright.

The key thing here is player agency. Risks are good, in fact I think they are essential for an exciting game, but they need to be ones the players choose to take:

Example 1:

DM: You see your goal in the cave beyond, there's a 20' chasm descending into the depths below crossing the room.

Rogue: I jump the chasm!

DM: It's a long jump and deep, you realize that if you fail you will most likely die. Do you still go for it?

By giving that clear warning that if you want to do this you are staking the future of your character on the roll of the dice that leaves it over to the player to decide whether to take that risk or not.

Example 2:

DM: You're walking along the mountain ledge when suddenly it starts to give way. Make a DC20 acrobatics roll or fall to your death.

The first one is fair, the second one is arbitrary and unfair.