"He's beyond my healing ability..."

[Nagol]

<snip>

It's just a bloody death scene.

If I want to try to setup a Last Words scene, I can. I shouldn't have to plot and plan how to cock-block everything the PCs could do to foil it.

Obviously, when the PC does the unthinkable and tries to heal the NPC, I have a conundrum. Let it wor, or not. And then I have to guage if not letting it work will cause me any further questions from the player or not. Some players wil go "oh, ok, must be hurt to bad, or some other problem" Others will dig and have to know WHY.

But the WHY is NOT something they have a direct right to know. I don't go figuring out where the orc got his weapons from that he used in the last encounter. I don't figure out where he learned his skills. If he has a special ability, I don't go figuring that out.

If there's a special environmental effect occuring in the area, I do not go backtrack exactly how within the rules of the game that an NPC could have caused it to happen (which might have required desiging new spells and items). It just does.

Asking WHY is the player trying to make you gamespeak your way to justify the exact reason the situation is as such. And sometimes, that information just isn't relevant or even appropriate for the player to know.

<snip>

To the DM, it’s just a bloody death scene. For the players it is a situation where their expectations for in-game effect do not match with observed effect. As far as the players are concerned this could be a CLUE. Is all healing affected? Perhaps the area is tied to the Negative Material Plane and healing is strongly suppressed . Perhaps the “dying man” isn’t really a dying man? Is he a form of undead/illiusion/possession of his dead body by some other THING? Perhaps the PCs aren’t actually in the environment they think they are – is it a dream or alternate reality?

When the player questions why he is trying to make sense and remove the inconsistency between expectation and observed effect and work out the expected consequence for the environmental inconsistency.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The problem is, once you've done it once, it calls into question every ruling from then on. If you're willing to change the rules here to suit your specific outcome, then what other rules are subject to change? Is it truly a one time thing? How can the player be sure?

It shouldn't need to be said, but the rules don't cover everything. The rules have FAR more significance as limitations for the players than they do as limitations for the DM. DM's are indeed allowed to invent stuff that the players and PC's do not have access to nor are ever allowed to use. Players have a reasonable expectation that rules can and will be enforced as regards THEIR characters, they do not have the same reasonable expectation that NPC's will at all times and in all ways will be similarly limited. Furthermore, DM's should not expect that players must never be allowed to divert from the rules.

The trust between DM and players is that the DM will not screw them over just because he can; when he goes outside the written rules (or allows the players to) that he has proper motivations for doing so, not that he never will do so.

Still, it's clear that if a DM wants NPC's to be giving deathbed clues and speeches without the players inflicting cures, etc. upon him then he should be instituting rules or at least formal exceptions and making players aware of them BEFORE they come up. Either that or you'd best be willing to roll with the punches as the players throw them without prompting them to mutiny with seemingly arbitary, thoughtless fiats.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There's always the other solution....
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs]YouTube - ‪Monty Python-Bring out your dead!‬‏[/ame]


The Auld Grump

 

[Janx]

To the DM, it’s just a bloody death scene. For the players it is a situation where their expectations for in-game effect do not match with observed effect. As far as the players are concerned this could be a CLUE. Is all healing affected? Perhaps the area is tied to the Negative Material Plane and healing is strongly suppressed . Perhaps the “dying man” isn’t really a dying man? Is he a form of undead/illiusion/possession of his dead body by some other THING? Perhaps the PCs aren’t actually in the environment they think they are – is it a dream or alternate reality?

When the player questions why he is trying to make sense and remove the inconsistency between expectation and observed effect and work out the expected consequence for the environmental inconsistency.

I see a fork in the road on this point. On the one hand, yes, when there's something "different" about the situation, players SHOULD be asking questions, as that was the reason the GM put the anamoly there.

On the other hand, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. the NPC is dying and healing didn't work, because his role in this scene was to convey the message and die to make it more emotionally moving. the dungeon corridor ends because that's what the random generator did and I made up a reason that the dwarves ran out of funding. it does NOT hide anything, you do NOT need to spend 6 months tunneling into it.

I don't think any ruleset can truly protect you from these moments. Where something was setup by the GM, and it rouses player suspicion where really, nothing interesting is to be found, and the GM can get stuck in an argument over it.

If one GM's game is so well thought out and and every contingency is handled and no inconsistencies ever happen, kudos to them. The rest of us humans don't strive to that level of perfection and simply have to muddle through these situations when they occur.

An honorable player should have the grace to allow the GM to save face and get the game going again. An honorable GM should admin that the anomoly came up, and that nothing nefarious lies behind it.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

When the player questions why he is trying to make sense and remove the inconsistency between expectation and observed effect and work out the expected consequence for the environmental inconsistency.

This is where our styles split. IMCs, the rules never constitute the environment or reality in the game world. They are guidelines to adjudicate the actions of figures of destiny, the heroes of the story, the focal point of the campaign. They do not dictate in-game reality where a normal person can reach a point where no manner of healing will save them. I don't impose this sort of anti-climatic reality on the heroes of the game, but I hope anyone playing in my game will recognize that their characters are different from the normal folk of the world and that what works on them won't necessarily work for a commoner of non-heroic status.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Ranes]

There's always the other solution....

I'll see your plague victim and raise you [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJfowXTXOfU"]the last words of Joseph of Arimathea[/ame].

 

[WarlockLord]

I'm going to have to disagree with the use of DM fiat as being a good thing.

1) My style is that the rules exist for a reason, and by God, we are going to use them. So if I wanted to set up that cliche, I'd probably use vile damage on the guy (can't be healed in a nonconsecrated area), or you know, not do it. D&D doesn't really model anything well except for D&D, and you can make the argument that it should model "fantasy novels" or whatever - good luck modeling Mistborn (magic system too weird), Song of Ice and Fire (too low magic, not enough bling), Harry Potter (spells different), or even LoTR (low magic, not enough magic crap for warriors).

2) It's pretty heavily implied that arcane magic is the science of the land, and wizards are the local scientists. Also, magic works. It's stated in the FRCS that random peasants know that if uncle Rufus breaks his leg, the clerics in the temple down the street can heal him. So if the magic that normally works doesn't work, there'd better be a damn good reason, not "um...it's dramatic?" And yes, the rules ARE intended to be in-game reality (at least in 3.X, anyway) - why do the commoners have class levels, skills, and feats?

3) "Because it's dramatic," at a certain point, begins to actively work against suspension of disbelief. Anyone remember the last seasons of Heroes where the protagonists acted like idiots because, you know, needless drama? There are pages upon pages at Tvtropes asking why the hell people forget their powers in 'dramatic moments'. Heck, this even has it's own trope page.

4) Fluff arguments don't work. There, I said it. You can't really make a good argument from anything in fluff without sounding like a "Darth Vader vs. Spiderman" argument. Sure, your character is the High Priest of the God of Healing, personally empowered by Healing McNicePants, but the dagger which stabbed the guy over there is a cursed Dagger of Hater von Kittykiller, created by the Dark God Groinkicker out of the souls of 10,000 cute kittens. Who wins? That's why we have rules. Because I could honestly dispute any fluff assertion with another one, and there's no way to tell who's right. I could argue my modern-day collegiate wizard would be able to, fluff-wise, destroy an ancient artifact with dispel magic due to modern-day progress in the magical field, similar to how modern weaponry would easily destroy ancient fortifications. You could argue the dagger's protected by the dark gods. I could argue my wizard draws power from the Great Old Ones, who even the gods fear, so it's not like that power can't overcome the power of the dark gods. We could keep arguing for hours in this vein, but ultimately there is no way to prove one side right because it devolves down to the "nuh-uh! Uh-huh!" style of six year old arguing. This is why you have rules in an RPG, to resolve these kinds of issues. You throw these rules out the window, you get back into the six year old arguments.

5) "The PCs are special because the rules apply only to them" is complete, utter bull. This leads to the 4e style crap of the NPCs being able to do all the cool stuff while the PCs have to follow the rules. It turns out the reason you can't heal the guy is because the DM made up some curse placed by a wizard? Well. I'm a wizard, can I learn it? No, it's not on the PCs power list. But I'm a human wizard, why can't I learn it?

"Because shut up" is not an answer.

 

[Nagol]

I see a fork in the road on this point. On the one hand, yes, when there's something "different" about the situation, players SHOULD be asking questions, as that was the reason the GM put the anamoly there.

On the other hand, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. the NPC is dying and healing didn't work, because his role in this scene was to convey the message and die to make it more emotionally moving. the dungeon corridor ends because that's what the random generator did and I made up a reason that the dwarves ran out of funding. it does NOT hide anything, you do NOT need to spend 6 months tunneling into it.

I don't think any ruleset can truly protect you from these moments. Where something was setup by the GM, and it rouses player suspicion where really, nothing interesting is to be found, and the GM can get stuck in an argument over it.

If one GM's game is so well thought out and and every contingency is handled and no inconsistencies ever happen, kudos to them. The rest of us humans don't strive to that level of perfection and simply have to muddle through these situations when they occur.

An honorable player should have the grace to allow the GM to save face and get the game going again. An honorable GM should admin that the anomoly came up, and that nothing nefarious lies behind it.

Yep I agree with all that. It's this section of your previous post that set me off...

But the WHY is NOT something they have a direct right to know. I don't go figuring out where the orc got his weapons from that he used in the last encounter. I don't figure out where he learned his skills. If he has a special ability, I don't go figuring that out.

If there's a special environmental effect occuring in the area, I do not go backtrack exactly how within the rules of the game that an NPC could have caused it to happen (which might have required desiging new spells and items). It just does.

Asking WHY is the player trying to make you gamespeak your way to justify the exact reason the situation is as such. And sometimes, that information just isn't relevant or even appropriate for the player to know.

If its a bloody death scene and not a environmental concern/clue/something-subtle-to-be-detected and the players show signs of investigation or confusion... tell them. The players cannot separate out subtley in the game world from heavy-handed trope use without guidance.

Most of the time the players don't care about the in-game justification (especially once it is explained as cosmetic) for an effect -- they're trying to suss out implications and consequences. The 'why' they want answered is "Why did this happen and is it going to affect me further?" as opposed to "Why did this happen and what in-game mechanism caused it to occur?". Telling them there are no implications other than the NPC was able to pass on information they otherwise would not have had is enough for them.

 

[Subtlepanic]

Different gaming styles - therefore no right answer. Each group to their own.

For some, D&D is a series of puzzles and tests: a set of challenges to overcome through clever use of powers and cunning. I'm down with that. But for others - and this goes all the way back too - it's more about narrative, and thus the social contract* you have with your DM is much more important; i.e. in certain situations you know to roll with it, because you trust that it's all going to lead to some good story stuff in the end.

Personally, I think if the DM says "this is beyond your healing abilities", they're clearly putting themselves in the story-telling camp. But at the same time, they're also saying "this isn't a test situation", surely?

* See Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Joy and Sorrow)