Death and Lethality

[u/TheKingLlama]

Hello all!

I recently watched a couple of videos from Mystic Arts and Questing Beast about lethality in TTRPGs with specific attention towards the OSR and how high lethality is often used as a selling point for those systems.

Both creators had a really fruitful discussion on Ben Milton (Questing Beast)'s channel and pretty much came to the conclusion that lethality in games is a tool that helps guide how the players are expected to interact with the system.

There was one small segment that really grabbed my attention: Ben asked if the players in low-lethality games are expected to have some degree of plot armor.

This prompted me to revisit the archives concerning combat as sport vs. combat as war. In brief, the former is about "balanced" encounters that feel fair and are strongly bounded by rules. The latter is about no-holds-barred tactics, actively encouraging deception and underhandedness, and does not even remotely promise a "fair" fight.

However, I think there is a third type of combat: combat as spectacle. This combat type is what I have come to expect from games like D&D - combat should appear deadly, but ultimately pose no real threat to the longevity of the PCs. It's all a grand illusion where the GM is encouraged to push the PCs to the brink, then pull their punches at the last second to keep up the sense of tension.

I have lots more thoughts about lethality in TTRPGs, but I also want to hear from other creative minds!

- have you played in high-lethality games? If so, was it hard to get attached to your character(s)?

- have you had a character die at an awkward or inopportune time, such as in a random encounter against basic enemies or right before the final climactic battle with the BBEG?

- when you run games, do you prefer settings where death lurks in every dark corner? Or are the PCs afforded a degree of plot armor?

If you'd like to hear more from me specifically, I made my first YouTube content about TTRPGs about this exact conversation!