Dungeon Master Assistance

In an earlier post (HERE) I praised this adventure. After a recent, more careful, reading I have changed my mind. As written, I would only recommend it for children that are too young to accept character death.

Below I am quoting some DM tips that I take issue with, followed by my comments. I will start with one of the last presented DM Tips.

“A character that reaches 0 hit points falls unconscious and remains unconscious until they regain hit points through healing. At the end of the encounter, any unconscious player characters regain 1 hit point automatically.”

This adventure is presented as “an introductory Dungeons & Dragons (also known as D&D) adventure designed for younger players, but it can be enjoyed by players of all ages!” I understand leaving out a lot of unnecessary rules but this is a new rule that eliminates character death. If you are using this to learn (or teach) a little about D&D I would change this to the D&D rule used in D&D 5e.
It can be simply explained like this:

PC (Player Character) Death
A PC reduced to 0 or fewer Hit Points is dying. A PC reduced to as many Hit Points below 0 as the PC’s Hit Point maximum dies outright. A dying PC makes a death saving throw on its turn; no other action, movement, or activity. There are no modifiers to this roll.

On the 3rd failure, the PC dies. On the 3rd success, the PC stabilizes. A stabilized PC is unconscious, has 0 Hit Points, and does not roll death saving throws.
Successes and failures reset as soon as a dying PC stabilizes.
A stable PC that is not healed regains 1 hit point and becomes conscious after 1d4 hours.

“Advantage and disadvantage are powerful game tools. They make d20 rolls more likely to succeed or fail, so use them wisely. They are best used as a reward for clever play by the players, or to represent good or bad luck affecting the story. …”

The examples that follow this DM tip give good examples of how they should be used, but they are not, and should not be, used to “reward clever play” or to “affect the story”.

“You can intervene if the characters seem to be losing the battle. For instance, you can give the characters advantage on attack rolls or give the monsters disadvantage on attack rolls. … Changing probabilities like this can improve the characters’ odds in defeating the monsters.”

I think this is bad advice. I have never done this and would advise DMs to never do this. If a player is too young to accept that their character can die, play a different game. Otherwise, try to not pit them against a monster that they have almost no chance of defeating, and let the dice fall where they may. Or, rather, never let them know if you cheat in their favor. If you give the PCs Advantage and/or give the monsters Disadvantage then that would be obvious. I have, very rarely, lowered the hit points of a monster during combat if it was going very badly for the PCs. Part of the fun is the excitement of not knowing if your character will survive.

“If a character carries the baby dragon and falls during the climb, the dragon doesn’t take damage. You can reward a character protecting the baby dragon by giving them advantage on certain rolls.”

I have no problem with the baby dragon not taking damage if the PC that is carrying it falls. However, there is no reason to give a PC Advantage on rolls just because they are carrying it. I might not go so far as giving that PC Disadvantage on certain rolls, but I would with experienced players. There needs to be a good ‘in game’ reason for giving a PC Advantage or Disadvantage. To just award it to help then is not a good reason. Because carrying a baby dragon might make it harder to climb a wall would be a good reason to make them role with Disadvantage.

“Rule 0 of D&D is simple: Have fun. It’s fine if everyone agrees to change the rules as long as doing so means the game is more fun for everyone.”

This is the DM tip that prompted me to make this post. This new definition more than implies that any rule change must be agreed to by all the players. This is a change to the official definition and I don’t like it. To me, Rule 0 has always been “The DM is always right” or “The DM can change or add any rule.” What do you think?

Here is an excellent post on Rule 0 (Posted on October 12, 2013) – Rule Zero Over The Years.