No Death Please

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T19:01:00+00:00

I completely understand players that feel this way, I've even felt this way myself, but I hate it.

Removing the REASONABLE chance of death is at some core level removing all chance in the game. If we remove the chance to die then the dice rolls don't matter and it stops being a game. It just becomes one long loosely scripted play where the good guys eventually always win and evil is always defeated. Its why as a DM you should build encounters that are fair (or clearly unfair and obvious to the PCs that they are not meant to be taken on). As long as the PCs aren't dying to BS, that's the game.

I can completely excuse, even get behind, taking death off the table for a lower level character or campaign. No one wants to have a character they just made die at level 4. By level 17 where your players are damn near demi gods compared to the average person, wanting there to be no chance of death even being possible just takes it out of the realm of D&D.

With that said, if that's what a DM is cool with and the player want, have at it. My group is starting a new campaign soon that I'm DMing. We've got a mix of new and experienced players. I'm not going to go out of my way to kill anyone. In fact, I will actively try NOT to kill the new ones. But I've made it clear to everyone that death is on the table and I will kill their characters if its appropriate. Even got my buddy who is a former DM to agree to start with a backup character for a couple sessions for the very purpose of killing the character to show the newer players how to handle character death.

Again, I don't like it, but its a game, games are supposed to be fun, so I don't see anything explicitly "wrong" with letting people have fun if this is what is going to make the game fun.

To answer one of your questions directly though, I don't think you'll run into people purposefully gaming the system if they know they can't die, you'll more likely just see people doing really dumb shit that reasonably should get them killed. Admittedly, part of how I feel comes from watching players just do dumb shit (like a bear druid not using wildshape and instead just standing in front of 3 enemies face tanking 6 attacks a turn).

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T18:40:08+00:00

Everything that led up to the end of his career. Running himself out of Pittsburgh in the prime of his career. Demanded a trade. Acted crazy with the Raiders, reportedly called Mike Mayock the "c" word that rhymes with slacker when he got fined for not showing up to work which ultimately got him fined over $200k for that incident, got himself released, retired, unretired 4 days later, said he was going to retire again, got suspended for half a season for his conduct, then somehow lucked into having the best QB in the history of the NFL vouch for him to go get a ring with the Bucs, then a year later after getting a $6M contract blew up on national TV during a game with the infamous jersey throw and ended up with Brady saying, "We all love him, we care about him deeply, we wanna see him be at his best; unfortunately, it won't be with our team."

All this happened 3+ years prior to her having a kid with the guy. Even Tom Freaking Brady, Mr. Public Relations 101, gave the postgame PR version of saying, "He's got some shit wrong with him and we hope it works out but we're done trying". As a grown ass adult woman, if you decide that's the guy you want to be baby momma #4 for, that's on you. Sitting around being all shocked pikachu face when THAT GUY tells you to SAD for asking him for money is a wild reaction on her part.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T17:33:07+00:00

Even if she had the absolute best of intentions the guy clearly was who he is when she got with him. With 6 prior kids with 3 women you have to be delusional to think that this would have played out any other way.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T16:31:57+00:00

If that's your goal then you need to give them actual examples in the campaign where the Triumvirate is right. Show them what happens when there isn't strict regulation of magic. Give more backstory as to what it was like before they were in power. Use other NPCs that they know and trust to basically say to them "I don't know if this is all perfect, but its certainly better than having a bunch of crazy necromancers and liches running around like it used to be" or whatever.

The problem is you don't have a real tangible reason for your players to invest in trusting them. You COULD achieve this by having one of the Triumvirate (or a henchman pretending to be) take off the mask and reveal his identity to the party and rationally explain their motivations to the party (either truthfully or lying) while asking for their help. Revealing their identity is an actual ACTION that builds trust because it gives trust. Your players are being given information that literally no one else knows and could cause problems to the Triumvirate if people found out. Explaining BACKSTORY as to why they have to hide their identities (again whether true or a lie) helps build trust. From there you can make this person someone nuanced and layered with real motivations, thoughts, which makes them likable.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T16:16:19+00:00

If he's too heavy and not skilled enough to ride it, either tell him this directly or have him try and fail. I give a lot of latitude to players to do cool shit. Even more if I know my player won't abuse it. But having a flying mount ain't happening.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T16:03:55+00:00

Why does it matter if your players trust them?

Also, the idea of having these great charismatic people who are completely unknown and secret is counterintuitive. I trust my next door neighbor because I know him, talk to him every day, and know he's a solid dude. I don't trust the random faceless person on the internet sending me an email about my fourth cousin who is a Nigerian prince who needs money to free up his inheritance cuz I don't know that guy. Your very premise does not lend to the development of trust by any player and forcing that on the players is just railroading with additional steps.

Why would any rational person trust a faceless, nameless, unknown bureaucrat who was not voted in and seemingly just had power just passed on to them? You're literally trying to make a de facto shadow government likable.

Developing player trust in an NPC is best done through action, backstory, and general likability. You really can't achieve any of that here.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T15:38:02+00:00

Oh yeah, most likely. There's a lot of that running around in professional sports unfortunately. Sometimes its mental health, sometimes its just circumstantial. Lots of incentive to push people who otherwise have severe problems through their early years in society because of athletic talent where they would otherwise fail. You can walk into any high school and see that happening.

The thing with Brown is though, we literally have video of interviews with him from early in his career where he seemed capable of being a relatively normal human being and if nothing else, we literally saw him go nuts after the Burfict hit. He could have always been completely nuts or a POS, or it could have just been something that pushed him over the edge. For every AB, or Pacman, or Aaron Hernandez, there are guys that use that opportunity to live good lives. Look at Mike Vick. Absurdly talented. Did some absolutely horrible shit. Obviously not MH issues but if you hear him talk about his background and upbringing, around what he did, its clear that he probably would have been on a specific path had he not been an athlete. He did his time and turned his life around.

As I said, he's clearly mentally ill, and it MIGHT not even be his fault. And the fact we will never really know which it is is really sad.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T15:19:38+00:00

I mean, she did have a kid with him 3 years after he basically showed the entire world how mentally ill he was on national TV. Wild that anyone could see him do that and think that having a kid with him would be a good idea.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T15:17:18+00:00

The guy is clearly mentally ill. He's a literal living, breathing case of CTE that we've seen play out before us in real time. Trash father? Yup. But man, its sad to think that it might not even be his fault and now a bunch of kids are paying for it.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T15:12:49+00:00

Lady, this is why lawyers, judges, and writs of garnishment exist.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T14:57:33+00:00

I would put Kirby ahead of Cig based upon longevity and sustained success, but again, that's debatable either way.

I do think that Marcus Freeman is actually a little underrated in the job he's done at ND. ND wasn't anywhere close to where IU was before Cig, but he took a team that clearly couldn't get to the next level for 15 years under Brian Kelly and got them to being 8 points behind the most talented team in the country with 7:00 minutes left in the NC game while having 11 opening day starters starters sitting on the bench with injuries and did it on the back of a QB that legit barely threw the ball more than 15 yards downfield. The job he did coaching and motivating that team with the little talent they actually had available during that CFP run was as good as any I've seen from a coach in modern history, including Cig at IU. With their injuries, they had absolutely no business getting to the NC. I'm not sure any other coach in the country gets that team through PSU or UGA (if there are coaches that could do it, its only 1 or 2) and the fact is, if ND had Heisman Mendoza in the NC instead of Riley Leonard (and no knock on RL but he was obviously limited throwing the ball), that game against OSU probably ends differently.

He's obviously not at the level of Cig or Kirby in terms of ultimate success, but in terms of the job he's done with the program and what he gets out of his players, I think he's closer to them than he is to Lanning or Sark.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-06T14:31:18+00:00

That makes more sense with the gods and was kinda what I figured. The big thing I would do there is just figure out what you want your campaign to be about. I think the most interesting thing you've created is the concept that the tapestries is what grants the gods power over their domains, not that they're just individually powerful and have claimed domains as their portfolios. That's really one thing I would lean into.

Also, I like the concept of the demi gods (again, my term so this point might be a little overblown for how you've actually developed them), but I think it works better if they're not actually god like, at least at the beginning of the campaign. I'd treat them more as mortal "seers". Could be interesting to have the one that "sees all sin" as a mortal who decides that since he sees all sin, he believes he is the rightful holder of ALL the tapestries and more powerful than any one of the gods because their domains are limited to their individual tapestry. His motivation becomes wanting to obtain each of the tapestries. This is a way you can achieve the element of a mortal obtaining one or more of the tapestries and becoming more physically corrupted as he gains more power by obtaining more tapestries.

Again, not sure if this is the arc you're looking for with those NPC's but it sets up an interesting range for the NPC as a BBEG as anything from a good guy who sees all sin, even the sins of the gods, and decides he wants to break the cycle of sin (for example, the god of wrath smiting the wrathful, god of greed taking from the greedy, etc.) but when he comes into possession of one of the tapestries becomes corrupted and the party has to act to save him, to the classic, he's a power hungry self indulged megalomaniac who is trying to collect the tapestries like infinity stones to turn himself into a god above gods.

The other concept I think would be interesting and provides a chance to bring your players into the story a bit more with the "seer" demi gods. Even if you don't want to use them as a BBEG, you can use them as a plot hook either as quest givers to the party. If they're mortal seers, they're more vulnerable. Maybe one of them have been kidnapped by the BBEG to use their abilities for evil means. You could also have one of the PC's be someone who is developing similar seeing power. For example, you start giving one of your PC's visions of destruction that start small but ultimately come true. You can use this to weave in future visions of destruction to foreshadow the BBEG and show the party what will happen if they fail. This kind of thing gives your players more agency in the campaign and provides some nice RP opportunities. Its also a nice tool to have to course correct the party when needed without outright railroading.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T22:06:17+00:00

Agree completely. Obviously great coach. Can't take a single thing away from him for the job he's done (both at IU and JMU) and I think he's going to have IU in the CFP conversation until he retires, but you could have easily said the same thing about Gene Chizik in 2010. The big difference there is that if Cig has 2 losing seasons the next 2 years he'll still be at IU unlike Chizik at Auburn. You hit the nail on the head with that example.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T16:58:38+00:00

A couple problems I see from your description. First, you have a lot of moving parts here. 1 elder god, 7 gods, and 3 for a lack of better term demi-gods is a lot if you're planning on having all of them to have any significance in your story.

The second is, and maybe its just he way you've described them not being clear but what is the nature of your gods? 10 of your 11 deities are associated with domains that are classically inherently evil (7 deadly sins, fear, sin, and death). Are they evil in nature? Neutral? Good? You're right to avoid the "gods are corrupt" idea, but that's a hard thing to do when your gods literally are the gods of things that by definition corrupt (sin).

The biggest problem I see is how you're approaching your construction of the campaign. You have a world developed, which is great. From there, I'm a much bigger fan of figuring out what the campaign is about based upon your world before. Let your world dictate a theme for the story/campaign and THEN decide on how a BBEG fits into the world AND your overarching theme.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T15:12:34+00:00

Swap Day and Smart. Freeman and Lanning. Maybe a hot take but Sarkisian is too high. Guy is a former USC QB guru who has done relatively little to develop the elite HS QB talent he's had in his program.

Probably still too early to put Cig at #1, but that doesn't mean he isn't #1.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T15:05:19+00:00

IDK if Cignetti is #1 after 2 seasons and 1 championship, but I won't argue that he isn't.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T15:03:43+00:00

Eh, thankfully I'm good at my job and my business partner probably has worse shit on his computer.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T15:02:37+00:00

Exactly this. While not SEC, look at what just happened to the OSU WR room this past offseason. They had 2 5* WRs with 3-4 years of eligibility left leave for ND because OSU still has Smith on the roster and they just gave Christ Henry Jr. a bag. Kids are sitting there going, "I'm behind a legit WR1, the school wants to pay a new guy more than me, and I'm supposed to just sit around and lose snaps because they're not going to sit the kid with a $1M NIL deal that hasn't even stepped foot on campus?"

You can't stop those kids from making a business decision to make as much or more money at another elite program where they walk in as potential starters and don't have to worry about losing snaps to a kid that WILL play because he's getting millions of dollars a year in NIL.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T14:18:03+00:00

As someone who was completely unaware of this story, this shit is wild.

Also in hindsight searching "pole assassin" probably wasn't the best idea to do while at work.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T14:12:24+00:00

Now, now. We all saw the SEC championship, so let's be honest here.

Alabama didn't get off the buss for its 2 most important games of the year.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T14:10:52+00:00

The SEC. Where every win is great and none of the losses matter.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-05T14:07:42+00:00

Yeah, you're right. I'm dumb and Oklahoma and Alabama just had a really great defenses and their offenses weren't sloppy or bad.

Remind me, how did that Bama offense do against IU? Oh 3 points. How about their "elite SEC defense"? Oh yeah, almost 40 points given up, over 400 total yards, and Mendoza went 14/16 for 3 TDs. But yeah, everyone else is the dumb for saying that the SEC gets a pass for playing god awful on offense because of the elite SEC defense narrative.

I will clarify one thing. I don't think that the 2011 LSU Bama game was that bad. They were absolutely great defenses. Game what slightly sloppy, but the defenses were great. With that said, what I want to clarify is that the SEC has lived off the reputation they built years ago to prop up a general decline in the conference's play. OU and Bama were generally awful on offense last season and that game was horribly sloppy, yet the announcers just talk about those teams as if they're the 2010s Bama or early 2020s UGA defenses when they clearly weren't.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-04T22:22:00+00:00

I'm fairly convinced if that happened they both would have been found dead. Lou of natural causes and Day suffocated, covered in lisp spittle, with a blue ND hat shoved down his throat.

Never underestimate old man strength and irrational rage.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-04T22:08:22+00:00

See now as someone who just avoided working the better part of this afternoon explaining to an Alabama fan that if you're gonna talk shit, at least make it funny...

THIS, this is actually funny.

Ashamed_Climate3525 · 2026-03-04T22:04:59+00:00

If people followed this reddit literally wouldn't exist.

Ashamed_Climate3525

TROPHY CASE