Recent content by Thomas Shey

That's true. But they don't seem to suggest people doing the opposite are playing lesser games for the most part, and I see plenty of that from people who consider a game with lethality necessary. I'd argue most of the people who want that aren't going to play in most horror games anyway.

And I think when it comes up, its much more common than you seem to think it is. Then perhaps reassess that my argument means I'm hostile to games with lethal risk to characters and stop jumping to conclusions.

Only if there's no consequence to the combat outside the situation of the PCs. That doesn't fit most combats in any game I've ever been in except occasional wandering encounters during the early days. (And I'm not going to hold conflating me with someone else that shares some common views in...

I mean, the truth is, I'm not going to be onboard arguments on either side here that says there's no tension in superhero combats (which are almost always about something beyond personal survival, and where sometimes personal survival is distinctly secondary), or at the other end there's no...

Not to put too fine a point on it, but--so? That doesn't mean the impact on the player is any less. In some cases it can be more. I don't think its as high on the priority of people as you do as-is, or people wouldn't die for their friends, their country or a principal as often as they do...

And? But they could have gotten what mattered to them done before dying. Unless all that really matters to them in the end is surviving. I haven't suggested its better; what I have suggested and stick to is that if games without death in combat can't produce tension, then in the end, the...

Three is a good compromise over the raft of people medical texts and legal books get; you probably get to diminishing returns after that anyway (the only reason those type of works get more is the consequences of missing one can be drastic there). That said, if you get more than one full time...

The problem is that given the wide range of people who will run into problem with this, it uses an awfully expansive cateogry for "jerk".

As someone who used to do editing, including in the game industry its astonishing what will slip past you. I've had things I must have read a dozen times that I suddenly spotted when the actual book arrived. Some of it is that since the work is often a moving target, you come to expect the...

When you've got a language that probably started out as a pidgin, that sort of thing is going to happen.

That's an issue with most people not wanting to really engage with the consequences of failure, and is just as true whatever those consequences are. And honestly, RPGs are a leisure time activity; if people don't feel like dealing with heavy negative consequences in that that's their choice...

Point is, I think it requires a certain self-centered view of what you're playing for for character survival to be the main one. its not a problem in other people's games. Its a problem when they project it on their expectations in the hobby as a whole. I absolutely grasp people do feel...

Only because in most media they're not going to let a real failure happen. That doesn't have anything to do with what the actual stakes are.

Its only not exciting if you don't care about the other consequences of failure. You know, the place you're protecting getting destroyed, bad guys stealing technology they'll use to do harm, little things like that. It may not get your character killed, but them going down can lead to failure...

As I've noted before, this would define the vast majority of superhero campaigns as having no significant stakes. Yeah, no.