General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I have found that engaging encounters on your own terms and trying to withdraw from those where you don't have that is a good general rule to live by. But I also fondly remember my first character ever, who was killed by orcs in a mine in his first combat, the wizard who was caught breaking into a palace in his home town and had his hand chopped off as a punishment (harsh), or the 3.0 game where we all went down to a combination of orcs/shambling mound, the survivors sent a rescue expedition to retrieve and loot the corpses, and suffered a second TPK (brutal but fun).
What also helps is that I have never taken character death too hard - it is a cool war story, and often makes a character memorable even if he never realised his life goals or whatever... the classic example being Ratomil the Rogue, a thief character in my current campaign who died in the first round of his first combat before gaining initiative, to 1 HD illusionary monsters. Ratomil is fondly remembered, while his player took out another sheet of paper and rolled up a new pc.
Of course, some people like a different type of fun, and more power to them. Myself, I like old school D&D because it is really my shrewdness making a difference between life and death. There are limits - I don't think I'd enjoy a hyper-paranoid don't-you-touch-anything campaign - but most of the time, I am all right with a bit of danger.
__________________ "5. If they do not wish to take a few risks, their characters should stay home and become shopkeepers and farmers.
Then wish them luck!" -- Gary Gygax: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
"Dragons are so Beowulf! Should DnD be in the business of selling 1200 year-olds back their childhood? Sheesh." -- gizmo33, on the power of nostalgia
For most of my current 3e campaign I've been averaging 1 dead PC per 4 hour session. I started using death at negative CON + 10 to reduce fatalities; still lost 2 PCs in 1 fight to a fireballing Wizard. Funny thing is, I'm using B/X and C&C modules and monster stats to reduce the lethality!
Maybe it's because players expect to win the fights in 3e they die so much. Plus the modern modules especially can be rather linear.
The big eye opener for me in 3e was the World's Largest Dungeon, where I was running three, four encounters pretty much every session. 3e monsters are just really, really lethal. The fact that most creatures where CR=PC level can either incapacitate or outright kill a PC in a single full attack, while not likely, WILL come up from time to time.
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I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
1) There are the rules to the game, and then there is the intent (which is certainly open to personal interpretation). To me, the intent is the fun of adventuring, and the game is more fun when the characters have a decent shot at survival; plus I want to reward reasonable risk-taking as I find "probe every bit of floor with a 10' pole" utterly boring.
Well said and agreed. This is how we like our D&D.
For those who prodded every square foot of floor with a pole, listen at every door, and took every possible precaution in excrutiating detail - I refer you to page 97 of the AD&D DMG. Gary had little patience for that style of play and made recommendations on how to 'train' your players. Anyone remember Ear Seekers? (page 36 AD&D MM).
Now if you like having a checklist to open each and every door, and your DM supports that as good play. Then for you it is. Its just that we don't find that fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricNoah
2) D&D has always been my gateway at being the character in a fantasy novel....
Again, I think we have a game more similar to Eric. It took us a while to make the rule adjustments and player learning but we did, and still do, stay away from the grinding procedures and high kill rate games. I don't think it is about right or wrong, just playing in a style that suits.
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The big eye opener for me in 3e was the World's Largest Dungeon, where I was running three, four encounters pretty much every session. 3e monsters are just really, really lethal. The fact that most creatures where CR=PC level can either incapacitate or outright kill a PC in a single full attack, while not likely, WILL come up from time to time.
Yeah, that's why I stopped using 3e monster stats in my 3e games.
Um, you don't have to cheat or house rule running out of HP if you're using the Rules Cyclopedia. There's optional "death's door" rules for below zero HP under the heading Keeping Characters Alive, page 266.
They even appear to be more forgiving than the 2E death's door rules, so long as someone has a healing skill, spell or potion handy.
__________________ "They've taken all the fun out of slaying things and stealing treasure!" - Bolt
Copy, paste and redesign your way to your own ideal custom game with the Swords & Wizardry.doc file. Renovate the elf, build a rogue or thief, and make all your favourite rules and splat core.
Um, you don't have to cheat or house rule running out of HP if you're using the RC. There's optional "death's door" rules for below zero HP under the heading Keeping Characters Alive, page 266.
They even appear to be more forgiving than the 2E death's door rules, so long as someone has a healing skill, spell or potion handy.
I'm using that (Death Save at 0hp) in my current Labyrinth Lord chatroom Wilderlands game. Came up last session when the halfling went one on one with the BBEG... luckily he made his death save & woke up cradled in the arms of his amazon ladyfriend.
I'm using that (Death Save at 0hp) in my current Labyrinth Lord chatroom Wilderlands game. Came up last session when the halfling went one on one with the BBEG... luckily he made his death save & woke up cradled in the arms of his amazon ladyfriend.
I note that one side effect of this rule is that a seventh level halfling or a tenth level dwarf or elf has a 95% chance of making this save, given they need a 2 or more.
That makes them on average a cat with 19 lives from that point on. Gimli, Legolas and Frodo get plot protection, seemingly.
Given the lethal nature of unfudged BECMI D&D, I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing, but if you combine this rule with weapon mastery (deflect revolves around death ray saves as well) then you begin to make a stronger case for not using the no level limits optional rule for demihumans.
Come to think of it, elf with short sword weapon mastery (deflect and disarm) and dwarf with battle axe weapon mastery (delay and stun) are quite reminiscent of those LotR movie characters in melee.
__________________ "They've taken all the fun out of slaying things and stealing treasure!" - Bolt
Copy, paste and redesign your way to your own ideal custom game with the Swords & Wizardry.doc file. Renovate the elf, build a rogue or thief, and make all your favourite rules and splat core.
Last edited by rounser; 31st May 2009 at 12:47 AM..
I note that one side effect of this rule is that a seventh level halfling or a tenth level dwarf or elf has a 95% chance of making this save, given they need a 2 or more.
That makes them on average a cat with 19 lives from that point on. Gimli, Legolas and Frodo get plot protection, seemingly.
Given the lethal nature of D&D, I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing, but if you combine this rule with weapon mastery (deflect revolves around death ray saves as well) then you begin to make a stronger case for not using the no level limits optional rule for demihumans.
Come to think of it, elf with short sword weapon mastery (deflect and disarm) and dwarf with battle axe weapon mastery (delay and stun) are quite reminiscent of those LotR movie characters in melee.
I'm retaining the level limits, so the halfling can't go over 8th, while the human Fighter is unlimited. Plus I'm restricting him to shortsword 1-h, longsword 2-h. I'm also using max hp, which favours the d8 classes. No weapon mastery in LL.
I have to confess that our main experiences with BD&D (Rules Cyclopedia / Labyrinth Lord) were indeed post-3e. In fact, They've been after several 3.x TPKs in Age of Worms. So it's understandable for us to be paranoid
We also used some houserules:
* "Broken shield": If a character had a shield, he could discard it instead of suffering damage from an attack. This could be done after rolling for damage.
* Max. hps at 1st level.
* PCs are unconscious at 0 hp, dead at -10.
The second and third of these houserules I have been using for years, but the first one is an interesting concept. It certainly addresses part of the problem with the shield just not being powerful enough (why take a shield in 3e or later when you can do double weapon fighting), and also seems to have quite a strong in-game reason for working.
I think I would adjust it a little, just to avoid it becoming unbalanced at higher levels when single foes dealing large amounts of damage with single attacks are more common than the multi-foe lower levels. Perhaps:
* "Broken shield": A character using a shield may elect to discard it in order to reduce the damage from an attack. The first 6 hp of damage are avoided completely, with any damage above this level being halved. This option can be elected after rolling for damage.
And to add my experiences to the thread: I was only lucky enough to play D&D for a few months before our GM, a teacher at high school, died. I then took over GMing, started a gaming group at lunch times (that grew to about 20 people playing all sorts of games), and just winged it. I was always in the school that preferred the story to develop and characters to build, and thus character death was a bit less common than the rules alone would suggest.
More like:
PC Thief: Check the door for traps, looking at the hinges, the floor below, and the ceiling above. Anything unusual? Is there a lock?
DM rolls: You don't see anything unusual. There doesn't appear to be a lock.
PC Thief: Any light coming in around the door?
DM: Yes, a little bit.
PC Thief: I take off my helmet, press my ear to the door, and listen. What do I hear?
You hear ear seekers. Because any DM that wants you to use a boring SOP to do something as simple as opening a friggin door will quickly grow tired of it working.
10 foot poles? Good for setting off 11 foot radius traps.
I really prefer a style where everyone agrees to dispense with the poking things with sticks and adventuring with 2 dozen red shirts in exchange for not putting screw job traps in the adventure. It feels more heroic both ways.
Last edited by ehren37; 31st May 2009 at 07:46 PM..
You hear ear seekers. Because any DM that wants you to use a boring SOP to do something as simple as opening a friggin door will quickly grow tired of it working.
10 foot poles? Good for setting off 11 foot radius traps.
I really prefer a style where everyone agrees to dispense with the poking things with sticks and adventuring with 2 dozen red shirts in exchange for not putting screw job traps in the adventure. It feels more heroic both ways.
Bravo!
In our games, we've used some "screw the PC" traps (in fact, every time we know we're playing a Goodman module, we double-check the traps for traps!) but we rarely used a lot of random traps, extremely powerful wandering monsters, ear-seekers, green slime, and cursed magical items for no other reason that the first few times, its scary and makes you cautious, the 35th time, your hacking apart chests with axes and spending 20 minutes (real time) at every door, hallway, and interpass.
It is not the game you play - it is how you play it. Always has been that way. Always will be.
I think this is an over simplification and undermines the importance of the system in a given game. While I think it is possible to play an "old school" style game in any edition of D&D, the farther you remove yourself from those "old school" rules the more difficult it becomes. 3E, for example, allowed for "old school" play primarily at low levels because of its lethality (and retained it for the same reason throughout, though to a lesser degree). However, the increased power of the PCs made maintaining the "old school" feel more difficult, even at mid levels, and the focus on skills and feats (that is, mechanical character attributes rather than player interaction with the scenario) makes some aspects of old school play more difficult -- particularly with respect to traps and the like (though I recall a few arguments related to "caster levels" and such for enemies, as well).
In my relatively limited experience with 4E, these problems are mostly exacerbated. Characters, even at low levels, are less fragile, "powers" and skills/skill challenges undermine player-based engagement (at least as it relates to "old school" play; opbviously, using the system is still engagement by the players) and the ubiquity of "level appropriateness' all make old school much more difficult to do with 4E. While this doesn't in any way diminish 4E as a well designed game, it does make it difficult to continue to play the game as one might have played it in the new edition.
In the end, I think rules (or the lack of them) are important enough that people should choose games based on how theyw ant to play them, rather than attempt to shoe-horn a game into a style of play it wasn't really designed for. This isn't always plausible, of course (I am currently running a 3.5 game I had originally envisioned and desired to run as either AD&D or BECMI D&D, but the vote pushed it to 3.5 for familiarity) but in a perfect world, the right tool for the job may not always be the only tool, but it is the best tool.
__________________ Reynard
-------- Reynard's Foxhole - My ENWorld Blog
Updated 03-24-09: Alvoran -- Island of a Thousand Kings
In our games, we've used some "screw the PC" traps (in fact, every time we know we're playing a Goodman module, we double-check the traps for traps!) but we rarely used a lot of random traps, extremely powerful wandering monsters, ear-seekers, green slime, and cursed magical items for no other reason that the first few times, its scary and makes you cautious, the 35th time, your hacking apart chests with axes and spending 20 minutes (real time) at every door, hallway, and interpass.
To quote Monty Python: "GET ON WITH IT!"
In my OD&D/EPT campaign, I put in traps where the PCs ought to reasonably expect one. I don't like "random pit in the middle of the hallway" type stuff. Instead, think of the statue room from the temple at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You see the faces on the wall, and the tiles, and you might expect that, given the room's importance, there could be a trap. Likewise, there's every reason to expect that the statue itself is trapped.
To me, randomly guessing whether there's a trap on an otherwise nondescript block of stone doesn't prove anything. The *game* is whether you can figure out where the traps are in an area that it is reasonable to suspect is trapped, and furthermore, whether you can figure out how to find them and how to get past them.
__________________ "I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"
In my OD&D/EPT campaign, I put in traps where the PCs ought to reasonably expect one. I don't like "random pit in the middle of the hallway" type stuff. Instead, think of the statue room from the temple at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You see the faces on the wall, and the tiles, and you might expect that, given the room's importance, there could be a trap. Likewise, there's every reason to expect that the statue itself is trapped.
To me, randomly guessing whether there's a trap on an otherwise nondescript block of stone doesn't prove anything. The *game* is whether you can figure out where the traps are in an area that it is reasonable to suspect is trapped, and furthermore, whether you can figure out how to find them and how to get past them.
This is right on target. For a totally random dungeon there can literally be traps everywhere because the entire layout (including occupants) don't make a lot of sense. In a more thoughfully designed environment traps won't be nearly as common as they are in some published dungeons.
Consider the typical low to mid level evil genius. This guy might have the brains to design and build some terrible traps all through his lair. A 10' wide corridor with a random pit trap in the right 5' section seems simple enough. He is smart enough to know where it is and it's easily avoided. What about the 7 INT kobolds that work for him? Chances are he would be fishing dead kobolds out of his trap more often than it would catch an intruder. The trap that lies beyond the bad guy's secret door on the way to his treasure stash makes more sense. Nobody but him should be there anyhow so it's a good place for a trap.
Consider the typical low to mid level evil genius. This guy might have the brains to design and build some terrible traps all through his lair. A 10' wide corridor with a random pit trap in the right 5' section seems simple enough. He is smart enough to know where it is and it's easily avoided. What about the 7 INT kobolds that work for him? Chances are he would be fishing dead kobolds out of his trap more often than it would catch an intruder.
What the PC's (and Kobolds) believe to be a misplaced trap is primarily a Kobold-Population-Control mechanism. It also has a hidden extra benefit: The average Kobold Int used to be 6...
What the PC's (and Kobolds) believe to be a misplaced trap is primarily a Kobold-Population-Control mechanism. It also has a hidden extra benefit: The average Kobold Int used to be 6...
Plus, he has a food source for feeding the other dungeon monsters.
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