D&D with checkpoints?!

[Mattachine]

I think this is a good idea for groups that want

a.) Very lethal games
b.) A game with some mechanics from video games

I have a D&D club at the high school I teach in. New players sometimes ask questions like, "Can my hero come back if killed?" or "How many lives do I get?"

"Ohnoes!" you might say. I would say that new, young players have different expectations out of a game than grognards like myself.

To borrow a phrase from Jameson Courage, "Play what you like."

 

[Joshua Randall]

Your player is telling you something important about how he wants to enjoy the game.

You don't necessarily have to adopt the exact mechanic of checkpoints, but you would do well to listen to his concerns and see what you can do to satisfy them.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Your player is telling you something important about how he wants to enjoy the game.

You don't necessarily have to adopt the exact mechanic of checkpoints, but you would do well to listen to his concerns and see what you can do to satisfy them.

That's exactly why I am here

I agree with most of you that death is important but more important is not so much playing what I want but playing what WE want so I don't want to just say no...

that said there was a general feeling of, "hmm maybe he has a point" among the group so I am wondering about having a "Guardian Angel" some higher power who will help the party so long as they don't do something stupid, "I Power Attack the Orc with the Greatsword with mine" and miss and the Orc kills the player is OK but "I charge the Dragon, running through his flame-breath and Jump into his mouth in an attempt to..." and the player gets eaten or burnt or swatted or any of the other bad things that go with suicidal plans and the higher power would say "actually you deserved that" and leave him dead...

Better/Worse, Good/Bad?

EDIT: [MENTION=16069]Goonalan[/MENTION] I was curious because he never gave reasons for his view (unlike everybody else who posted after him) but the people who posted after all share the same view and reasons

 

[Raddu]

It changes the dynamics of the game. Look at Eclipse Phase, you basically have multiple bodies that you can be downloaded into, giving you a similar effect. In essence you're not really afraid to die, although there are some circumstances where you can die.

I found that it makes people more reckless and willing to take "personal" risks, which is fun. Then the game changes from being about will they succeed to how they will succeed.

And after they fail at storming the wizard's enclave, they wizards know they'll be back and prepare more or change some things, or come looking for the characters.

So I think as long as you have a reason for the "checkpoint" then it can work. Perhaps the gods deem that you are immortal and will be reborn until you succeed. If you just say, you go back to the town and restart like you never raided the wizards enclave, then it will feel false.

 

[filthgrinder]

There is no right or wrong way to play D&D. If you do this, you wont have bad-wrong fun, it'll probably be fun. However, I think you probably don't want to just drop this mechanic into the game without making other adjustments.

This "Save/restore" mechanic is very video gamey, so keep that in mind. You'll want to adjust encounters accordingly. There is no problem with this, but just keep in mind that it's not the "Default" or "assumed" way of playing.

I think you should bring it in via the story A powerful god/wizard/demon/mind flayer (everybody loves a good mind flayer invasion) traps the party into a death trap dungeon. Everytime they die the evil gains power from their misery, so they are ressurected and forced to run the gauntlet again. The evil overlord intend for this to be an unlimited source of power, and has done it before. Have the party run into another adventuring group who are trapped as well, and have been trapped for centuries. Let the players have fun with it. Then once they conquer the puzzle and escape, they find they are still cursed! Now the fun begins as they try and find out how to "fix" things.

It brings in the check points idea, through the story, and then by having each time they "respawn" fuel the big bad guy, they have a reason to avoid it.

If it works out, cool, if not, you can stop it at anytime by having the players solve the mystery.

If everyone like it, keep it around for a bit. When it's time for a new campaign, everyone likes change, so you can go to the "no checkpoints" variant and see how that works.

D&D is fun. It'll be fun if it's high story or hack and slash action rpg. If it's improve acting or video gamey dice rolling. "Add salt to taste"

 

[kitcik]

Your reasoning behind not wanting to play is?

1) No risk no reward. If you can't really lose, you can't really win either.
2) I can play DIablo online.
3) If anyone in the world can risk everything at all times with no worries, it will be a screwed up world.
4) Why don't the BBEGs come back? If they do, what's the point of adventuring?
5) If I am imprisoned / captured, suicide is my best option.

I am sure I could think of mroe, but it just sounds like a bad game to me.

EDIT: In a normal game, if I have a 0.5% chance of defeating Demogorgon and stealing his loot, I won't try it. In that game, I might say "let's do the Demogorgon run 200 times and get his loot!" That doesn't seem like D&D to me.

That said, as stated above, there is no wrong way to play D&D - if you enjoy it, have at it.

 

[Omegaxicor]

1) No risk no reward. If you can't really lose, you can't really win either.
2) I can play DIablo online.
3) If anyone in the world can risk everything at all times with no worries, it will be a screwed up world.
4) Why don't the BBEGs come back? If they do, what's the point of adventuring?
5) If I am imprisoned / captured, suicide is my best option.

1) Fair
2) not all of us have internet access
3+4) not everyone revives just the players because it is their game
5) it depends on the system we use, if we use revive rather than checkpoints then you would die and then revive in the cell, no better off
6) Yea that is definitely a problem, I don't know what Demogorgon is but I get the reference

 

[Nagol]

Your reasoning behind not wanting to play is?

When I play a game like Bioshock or Halo, I'm playing to see how the author progresses the story. The game elements are there to keep me engaged and (frankly) draw out the telling of the story long enough to make me feel sufficiently entertained. I understand going in that I am fulfilling a pre-written role and will have no impact on the story other than a "kill-count" (and sometimes not even that). The save points are a acknowledgement that not every person will be sufficiently strong in skill to get through the missions on the a single attempt and are there to keep player frustration low enough that the player may reasonably finish the game before running out of patience.

None of those premises are true when I play a RPG like D&D. I am playing to see how my character progresses in the environment. There is no overarching narrative pre-set for me. The character's goals and method chosen to achieve those goals are informed by my desire and the initial situation the character encounters.

If a TPK happens there are three possibilities:

1. We knew it was a possibility and accepted the risk because the potential payoff was suffiicient. If we replay it, it undercuts our risk/reward evaluation -- there is no risk other than we'll get bored trying the scenario over again. We will get that reward eventually.
   
2. We didn't understand the risk and got in over our heads with no way out. If we replay it, we've lost the feeling of discovery since we already know more features of the situation than we should. This undercuts the need for investigation and research since we can charge in and die as a form of recon or at very least have a recovery mechanism to pull us back from the brink.
   
3. The random element behaved badly and made a known minor risk situation very deadly and we couldn't recover in time. This undercuts contingency planning as well as the research and planning to a degree.

Adding the feature of save points offers me nothing of particular value and will affect the behaviour of my and other player characters in ways that are more likely to be detrimental to my enjoyment than adding to it.

But that's just me.

 

[Joshua Randall]

You need to have a discussion with your group about what kind of game of D&D they want to play.

How hard do they want it to be?
How random?
How lethal?
How dark?
How funny?
How "game"-y?

Should it be over-the-top with indestructible heroes who respawn time and again? Or do the heroes respawn but it's because they are trapped in an endless cycle of pain and futility?

Is the respawn part of the humor? Or is the respawn not funny at all, but instead deadly serious?

Is the respawn given some kind of fictional justification (e.g. guardian angel; clone spells) Or is the respawn simply part of the game that requires no justification? (e.g. there are respawn in Fourthcore adventures, but you're playing those to have fun and to accumulate points so respawn is simply, overtly a game element)

 

[the Jester]

One of my players expressed the idea of having "safe areas" where the party could rest and, if they suffer a Total Party Knockout, are returned to...basically making Checkpoints.

Does that take anything away from the fun of risk or is that a good safety net in case the dice "hiccup"?

(one of my players says his dice "Hiccup" whenever he gets a run of four or five bad rolls in a row)

While this is a playstyle issue, if one of my players seriously suggested this he'd get laughed right out of the house.

If you want to save your game, there are plenty of old D&D video games that allow that. I would never play my "real" D&D game that way- holy crap, talk about missing the point of the game!

That doesn't mean that it's an invalid option for those that like it, just that I would never ever play in such a game. If I want multiple lives in an rpg, I play Paranoia or a game with frequent resurrection.