Let me know your thoughts here, or you can comment on my substack and sign up.. https://open.substack.com/pub/theevildm/p/save-or-die-was-classic-d-and-d-too

Some of my fondest memories as a 2nd Ed. DM, are of watching my players, scour their character sheets, looking at all the equipment, the skills and the abilities, seeking that one thing that will help them solve the problem I had set for them. Back then, we understood the character, it's skills, abilities and equipment were all part of a toolkit and the player had to learn how to use those tools to solve the problem. The game encouraged players to get creative, to think their way out of situations. Nowadays, it feels like the game rewards the character, making them more super-powered, giving them instant abilities to win, instead of rewarding the player for being creative & clever.

As an Aussie, the 'save vs poison or die' was a reality.

In the game, it made sense that a giant scorpion had a save or die mechanic.   Something like the giant centipede wasn't death.

A lot of people went extreme, because.... we were young. When DM-ing the tournament modules, we had to allow rhe players to be able to find any trap or trick.  (Tricks are another thing that makes the AD&D game stand out).

Realistically,  if you set up a poison needle in a chest, the chest is meant to be opened, there has to be a way of disarming it or bypassing it.

For idols like one found in Indiana Jones and Raiders, that item was never meant to.be moved or leave the temple complex.   The whole sungeon was designed with a one way trip.

This also leads to another conversation (ahem.... found over at my own channel... shameless plug over), about Saving Throws and how wlse they could be used.   Gygax wrote in the DMG that 'anyone fsmiliar with wargaming understands the save mechanic'.   Characters could save vs Paralyzation to avoid a pit trap, if they fail, a save ve Death to grab the edge before they fall in.

As you said, Risk is part of the game, and what makes it entertaining is the chance of failure.

As you and others have said, Save Or Die was a mechanism to encourage intelligence and forethought, planning and conversation.  The guys and gals around the table needed to be focused on the events going on, which admittedly was a lot easier when I was young in the early 80s without anything like cell phones to distract us.  And sometimes, when we were being excessively dumb and goofy, having our favorite character get killed as a result of our bad choices was a harsh reminder that being dumb hurts.

I, and most of the DMs I knew then, applied Save Or Die selectively.  Sometimes the "death" was that you were rendered comatose, captured, and then you and your companions awaken in a cell, or bound and gagged in a tent, or some other such thing where now the adventure was escape and survive.  Losing all their items and having to scavenge weapons, armor (if they were lucky), and gear/provisions like at the beginning of module A4: In The Dungeons Of The Slave Lords was a new challenge.  Or a punishment for those who had gotten into this situation by easily avoided foolishness.  Either way, it prevented the brutality of sudden death while still giving the potential for recovering what had been lost.

I like to think that the old school way of doing things is akin to a spec ops operation.  Kicking in the door with no plan is NOT how the SEALs do things. There is a plan for how to attack, what to do when met with obstacles, where to look for booby traps, all of it.

The art in the thumb nail got me into dnd back in the 80s sick

I started an old school west marches esque campaign last year with a bunch of players mostly in their early 20s who were just familiar with 5e. They were skeptical of what they heard about OSR gaming especially save or die. Now many character deaths later they love it. It’s a good rule as You have to learn to pre plan and be smart to survive.Avoid combats when possible. Or simply run away before have to save 😉.

Also for what I see in your background: When you‘re nWo, you’re nWo 4 life!

"Risk. Risk is our business."

I agree with you whole heartedly. I've been playing D&D in all of its various forms and editions since the early 80s, and most often as a DM.
The game today is not what it once was. And the biggest problem is that so much of the risk has been removed to make it easier.
I think it's poorer for it. You seem to get this as well. Well spoken video, sir.

If you're ever recruiting for a game, I'd love to be a player. 🙂

Save or suck was the term I remember the most.

First character, first game, June 1982, died in his first combat. Second one died later that afternoon. Third, fourth, fifth went down in the subsequent couple of weeks, and I quit playing. Gave it another chance later on that summer, and the sixth one lasted until school started again and ate up all of our fun time. That character (and a better DM) got me through BECMI. Played up to 2e before I stepped away again for work and school.

Started 5e with an AD&D approach, so I made a character, a backup, and a backup for the backup. Been playing 5e for a decade now, and the first character made it to level 20 and retired a long time ago. The backups are either NPCs, or sitting unused in a folder somewhere. I tell myself it’s because I’m just a naturally superior player, and not because the deck was stacked in my favor this time around.

It's not about risk avoidance , it's about risk management.

The perils of dungton crawling are not perilous unless the risk of loss is present. Loss of life, loss of limb, loss of treasure, something.

Thoughtful play does not mean paralyzed play. Fortune should favor the bold (and only occasionally the stupid). How you differentiate the two reflects on your ability to analyze plan and make creative use of your equipment and environment.

Telegraphing a deadly danger isn't only about giving players chance to figure out a solution or escape. Knowing anticipation builds tension, or panic, and occasional hilarity. Those shared moments of fatal failure where one or all the PCs get dissolved, diced, or char-grilled (when GM'd well) are the stories we remember and laugh about together years later.

Telegraphing the danger in the right way, even if there's barely a moment to react, isn't just about conveying the realism — sometimes futility — of a brutal world (and the game's mechanics that support those situations). It's like the movie sharing the secret with the audience just before the payoff scene. It's one of the reasons we enjoy the squishiness of our AD&D PCs compared with the (boring) invulnerability baked into later editions, and it makes rolling up a next new character more than worthwhile.

Player said about 20x that there’s a trap in this room. Failed their detect trap roll 6 times, opened it anyway and died instantly to gas after a failed save. Was very funny, and went well, but I can still see that mechanic not being fun and being overly punishing especially after 50+ sessions with a character.

I got to the character art commission bit. I don't  commission art for a character until the campaign is done because my homie spent time making art for his character and a background story for a few day before game and that character was KIA. I now consider character art and long background stories to be a death flag. I also had a conversation with my dm a lo g time ago about how 3.5+ makes us feel like super heroes instead of early editions making us feel like regular folk who have survived to stuff

I feel like I've started changing what the "die" is to try and get modern players back into that space. Modern character creation is a big investment and for newer players learning to play a character is also a big investment so I kill things that arnt characters like magic items or maybe even steal a spell slot. Hp is pretty disposable so I always like to damage something that's harder to get back.

Great take. I've played and ran everything up to 3.5 and now OSE and Shadowdark. Not sure if I've ever hit someone with save or die. Maybe in the hazy past, but then they've gotten lucky. Haven't had a missed save kill off a PC at my table.

Here is an example of by the book AD&D play that I have experienced.

DM: “You come to a cave on the side of a hill, therein lies the treasure you seek.”

Player: “We listen”

DM: “You hear nothing.”

Player: “We head in with our 10” pole out to check for traps”.

DM: “Roll for surprise.”

Players: “We got a 2, we are surprised.”

DM: “Suddenly 6 stalactites fall from the ceiling, 1 on each of you. Magic-User, does an 18 hit? Of course it does.  You take 8 points of damage. You are dead.”

Repeat this 14 times from different traps and monsters.  

Players: “Hey let’s play this other game…” or “sorry DM, I’m busy that week and every other week going forward, good luck.”

I've never liked that so many poisons were insta-death. Poisons will have varying strengths, may take some time to take effect, and some might be the paralyzing kind, not the killing kind. Insta-death poison makes the Slow Poison spell pointless. I totally get that being bit by a giant black widow would kill you instantly, but I'm fairly convinced that many others should take several rounds or even turns to take full effect.

Nice thanks 🙏

We ditched save-or-die poison decades ago for a method we believe to be more realistic and fun than the old instant death.

In our world, poison takes effect over a number of rounds, with a save each round.

Typically a creature with 4d6 hit points will do d6 poison damage each round four times.

The poisoned creature saves each round, with success negating the damage for that round only.

Sure, this system involves a bit more bookkeeping than a simple one-roll solution, but there's certainly some dramatic tension around the table when a poisoned character's hit points dwindle with no one knowing for sure how much poison damage remains to be taken-- or when.