No. The bandits jumped us, so they were between us and the exit. We had literally just gotten inside a ruin, fought some spiders that almost murdered several people, and then taken a short rest because we knew if we fought anything else without healing, we'd die. The Paladin used up all but a trace of his lay on hands to help out. We weren't second level yet, otherwise I would have been able to give folks song of rest, but as noted that would have made no difference anyway. The DM sprung the bandits on us in the middle of the short rest with no prior warning that there were any bandits to fear, ruling that because we hadn't finished the rest, we got nothing out of it.
The ruling about getting nothing from the unfinished rest is correct.
After that, however; yeah, even ignoring your fairly clear bias it seems the DM went overboard. The only thing you might have done differently (though you likely had no reason to think of it in this case) was go ultra-cautious and, after the spider fight, say "We're done for the day" and retreat outside to return tomorrow after a full rest.
Oh, and did I mention that more than half the group was brand new to TTRPGs? To the best of my knowledge, none of those new folks elected to try again, because this experience turned them off of tabletop. Not just DgD, tabletop. Not that I can blame them. They'd eaten a thing folks were raving about and it tasted terrible; why would they ever want to eat it a second time?
And as a DM with a group of new players, there's only one thing I'd have done differently: made it abundantly clear up front in the game write-up that adventuring is a very risky way to make a living, and most who try it don't survive for long.
After that fair warning, I'd let the chips fall where they may and leave it up to them to get themselves both into and out of trouble.
But not our enthusiasm for it. And it is that enthusiasm which actually decides whether the game lives or dies.
Remember my anecdote about the new player who, on her first character death, became even more determined to have the next one survive? That's enthusiasm for the game. That's a player who will make the game live. That's a player I want at my table.
No. They naturally assume that you won't take their story participation away.
Their story participation isn't being taken away, as long as one defines "story" to be that of the overall party or campaign rather than of one specific character.
There are MANY ways to lose that are not death or something equivalent to it.You already asked me about several of them, and I noticed you did not respond to the fact that I was anywhere between "eh, not my thing but it's fine" (level drain) and enthusiastic (limb loss), especially if these things build new story as a result of the loss.
I saw those responses; thanks for giving them. However....
But because half of DMs are stuck on this idea that death is the one and only consequence that matters.
...DMs looking for a hard-coded mechanical loss condition ends up "stuck on the idea" of death because in 5e,
death is all those DMs have left. Level drain, limb loss, item loss, and most other long-term or permanent negative consequences that affect a player's ability to play a character have been excised from the game over the years and editions; I fully expect any form of body horror (e.g. unwanted polymorph, petrification, etc.) to be the next to go. Even short-term debilitations e.g.
Hold Person have been heavily nerfed.
And that's why I asked about those alternate loss conditions, which earlier editions had and which - in the case of level loss and loss of magic items - oftentimes were seen by players as being worse than death.
A ludicrous notion, as though nothing in your life ever matters unless it could kill you. The birth of one of your children doesn't matter, the death of a spouse doesn't matter, the winning of a marathon doesn't matter, the loss of a devastating court case doesn't matter, your first kiss doesn't matter, *nothing except your death?" Come the frick on. Consequences and results matter all throughout our lives and the vast majority of them, indeed the vast majority of the ones that are most memorable and impactful to us, have nothing to do with death or even violence.
In a typical D&D campaign, I'd posit marriage and-or childbirth are fairly rare among PCs. And the big difference otherwise is that in real life we can only die once, where in D&D it's nowhere near so cut and dried.
Heroes lose sometimes. But the form and shape of that loss is different compared to random shlubs, because those differences make it more interesting for most players. Surely not all. Some folks love playing random shlubs, and the game should support them at doing so (better than it does, at the very least.) But it should not be mandatory for all players that everyone must play hours and hours and hours of random shlubs before they're permitted to play heroes.
I want to play the random schlub who goes on to become...well, maybe not necessarily a hero, but a big damn fish in the pond. I also want to play the other random schlubs who die trying.
And if you start out already a big damn fish and have thus already pretty much reached your ceiling, where do you go from there?