Do you "save" the PCs?

[Ariosto]

As a player, I prefer that outcomes be based on consistent rules, not on a GM's whim. PC deaths are no different. TPKs are no different in that regard, but are in a sense neater than only a few paying the price for a group's move.

The original D&D set was designed to have 1st-level clerics or magic-users (d6) die on the first hit (d6) about 58% of the time, 1st-level fighters (d6+1) about 28%. (What a difference a pip can make!)

With Supplement I (and all later TSR-D&D), magic-users (d4) went to 75% versus the same old d6, or about 81% versus d8 (e.g., sword or battle-ax). Thieves (d4) were the same. Clerics (d6) had about 58% and 69%. Fighters (d8) were about 44% vs d6, 64% vs d8. AD&D moved thieves up to d6, clerics to d8, and fighters to d10 (35%, 45%). In AD&D, the chance is for being reduced to 0 h.p. or below, not necessarily death.

(These figures do not include bonuses or penalties for constitution, which average out in the original set.)

Obviously, those chances go up after the first hit. In the original set, 1st-level clerics and magic-users are about 91% likely to be dead after two hits, fighters about 84%. From Supplement I on, many monsters got multiple attacks (usually claw/claw/bite), and with that or otherwise many got higher damage potential than before.

Considering that even orcs do 1-8 by default in AD&D, one might see a trend of increasing deadliness. The orcs are also harder than in OD&D for a first-level fighter to hit (14+ vs 13+), although the orcs hit just as often.

On the other hand, AD&D officially introduced a rule that exactly 0 hit points indicates unconsciousness, and losing another point per round until either receiving aid, or dying at -10. Optionally, the zone of unconsciousness could be extended to -3 from the same blow that brought the total to 0. In either case, another hit would be decisively deadly (as would one beyond the zone of one or four points). The more generous option gives just an even chance of getting killed instantly taking d8 with one h.p., none at all taking d6 with three points. Note that the rule applies to all creatures, not just PCs.

Versus d6 per hit, getting down to 12 points poses some risk of being at least helpless after two hits, and getting down to 6 means it could happen in one hit. However many points one started with, those are serious danger zones. Bigger damage rolls mean not only bigger averages but greater ranges.

Not only could a 1E T. Rex (18 HD) potentially dish out 52 points of damage in a round, it had a 15% chance of just gulping down a man-sized creature regardless! The relatively humble (5+5 HD) giant scorpion could deal 24 points plus poison. Poison had a basic 10% chance of killing even a top-level fighter, or 5% with constitution of 19 or 20. The terrible purple worm had 15 hit dice, did up to 32 points, plus engulfing and poison.

So, death was not very hard to come by even for very high-level characters. At lower levels, a single carrion crawler or a pack of ghouls could make quick work of a party (although they might turn to feeding rather than pursue a remnant, and a cleric of 5th level or higher could turn or destroy ghouls, but not necessarily ghasts, automatically). Getting surprised could be very bad luck indeed, whatever one faced.

Then there were level-draining undead, and mummy rot, and giant spiders with webs, and various nasty magics such as the infamous E.H.P.'s finger of death (slay living in AD&D) and the wizard's disintegrate.

And yet, all this is not enough for a perhaps surprising number of people! There are those who balk at not being able to pot even a fresh character with a single shot regardless of level. So, they throw in "exploding" damage dice, or some chance of instant death based on roll to hit, or the like.

The common sense reason for introducing random chances of death is to allow the cases to arise. In O/AD&D, the "sure thing" is not the rule but the exception. Risk, and its balancing against potential reward, is a key part of the game design. Death is expected, although she may call at any hour. Even being raised or resurrected from the dead in AD&D comes with a chance of failure if constitution is less than 18 (as well as an absolute limit in any case).

Small chances, what might seem "mere outliers", are built into the rules. It's not feasible to avoid risk completely, and chance is likely to play a dramatically telling role, but one can shift the odds over the long view.

As a general rule, if a brand-new character gains x.p. at the same rate as an established character of less than "name" level, then the new one will eventually be just one level behind. There are ways to accomplish that, or even for the lower-level character to advance more rapidly.

All that is part of the "balance" of the game. It was not for nothing that it was written of magic-users that "survival is often the question". If that's not the case, then expect canny players to adjust their strategies accordingly.

There are many other games. The 40 years since the first expedition into the dungeons beneath Blackmoor Castle have not exhausted the possibilities in detail, but have certainly explored many more broadly different paths. There are games that owe relatively little to the historical-wargames campaigns that inspired the first distinct RPG. There are games in which character death is neither expected, nor left to chance, nor any sort of setback, but strictly a "narrative-authorial" option for a player. Other setbacks for a character may not even be that for a player! There are all sorts of other games as well, too many to relate at once. Some come with a lot of "baggage" from previous game forms, legacies adopted without much thought. Some go to the other extreme, that of novelty for its own sake. Some are very thoughtfully designed.

Different people want to get different things out of a "fantasy role-playing game", and so there are different FRP games.

And so, no, nothing is "necessarily good" -- but various games satisfying various tastes seems to me a state of affairs likely on balance to be better than uniformity.

 

[The Shaman]

I think the issue is that you, the referee are not some impartial robot processing a simulation of a fantasy world.

And a "storyteller game master" doesn't sit in front of the group reading aloud from his novella, either - at least I hope he doesn't.

Absurd extremes which mean nothing in the context of how people really play don't add much to the conversation, in my humble opinion.

 

[pawsplay]

I often find myself retreating from extreme, inflexible viewpoints. In my view, the basic point of breaking out the dice is to use a system to determine what happens in a situation. However, it us up to the GM to decide when to break out the dice and how they will be used. I would have no problem overruling something suggested by the rules that makes no sense, but would probably not overrule a character death caused by "bad rolls." On the other hand, I would be pretty free with Gygax's suggestion for the GM to do things beyond what the rules can accomplish alone. For instance, "death" in a relatively unimportant encounter might instead be a crippling blow. I don't use that prerogative very often, but it's there.

Generally speaking, I let the dice fall where they may. However, although I often run story-driven games, I engineer my campaigns with the possibility of failure always in the forefront of my mind. If an RPG is taken as a vehicle for storytelling, and uncertainty and choice as means of generating ideas, the picture changes. In that case, "saving" PCs makes more sense. Letting it be done by GM fiat versus a game mechanic is not inherently inferior, but I think it's a good idea to design a campaign with game systems that will favor the outcomes you want. A game in which the GM applied fiat to every single resolution might still be, in some thin sense, an RPG, but it's not the experience I'm seeking.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This differs from a sporting even with a true referree, of which the the referee only initiates play with a whistle and makes calls on plays. A GM makes a zillion other tiny miniscule decisions and such that are unaudited by anybody else.

This tells me that you think the DM is either adversarial or a puppet master controlling the fate of everything with no room for a different role.

 

[Ariosto]

Additionally, just pointing at Gygax and saying "That's how I play" is of no value.

Pointing to the instructions, the rule books, as some call them, is no value in learning to play a game? Then what are people paying for? Why the heck are so many people so foolishly insistent not merely on playing "D&D" or "RoleMaster", "Hero System" or "GURPS", "World of Darkness" or "Mutants & Masterminds", but on playing a particular edition?

Maybe you just know so much better than all of them. Maybe not.

You can do what you want, add what you want, change what you want, and that's just fine. However, some things are or are not in fact in there to start. The text is not just a random collection of alphanumeric characters!

The more you have to reduce it to that to "read between the lines" this or that rule, the more you have to ignore the context in which it was originally written and read, the more you have to throw out further elaborations and answers to queries -- the more likely it is that you are just over-writing with your own text.

If you don't want to read the plain intent, then ain't nothin' gonna make ya. There are plenty of things like that.

So I ask you again: please describe your playstyle. If nothing else, it will be enlightening to those of us that have never experienced it and may perhaps improve our games.

As it relates to the matter at hand, I have already stated what that is -- and had other people try to tell me I'm wrong!

I told it like it is. It's nothing else. The answer is not going to change just because you don't like it.

Try this again.

I'm the referee. I volunteered for the job so that my friends could play a game. I'm not in the game. It's not my place to be partial, to use my power to rig an outcome. I will get my own turn to play, and someone else to referee.

So, if "a TPK or similar fate" is the consequence dictated by the rules of their game, then that is their fun and I have no reason to spoil my friends' fun.

That's the same no matter the game.

 

[Ariosto]

What's it like to be a referee in D&D?

It's like writing an Adventure computer program.
It's like drawing a maze.
It's like making a jigsaw puzzle.
It's like creating a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.
It's like writing a mystery story.
It's like playing Black Box (a sort of advanced variation on Battleship).
It's like playing Hangman.
It's like playing Twenty Questions.

Most of all, in terms of direct historical antecedents, it is like being referee of a Braunstein, a Diplomacy game, or a Napoleonic wargames campaign.

From the Wikipedia article on Twenty Questions:

Lying is not allowed, as it would ruin the game.

That's just the way it is, and anyone with whom I would want to play in the first place understands without a whole lot of fancy metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

 

[Janx]

This tells me that you think the DM is either adversarial or a puppet master controlling the fate of everything with no room for a different role.

I don't think I think that.

It's more that I don't think that a human can be truly impartial. If I sat at the table of somebody who disagreed vociferously on my opinion of this topic, would I get a fair game? There would always be that question based on the outcome of the game. it might even be that the GM would over-compensate, and thus bias the game the other way.

The human brain's decision tree starts in the emotion chip of the brain. Everything after that is in support of that emotional decision. Thus, there is no guarantee that the impartial GM is actually impartial.

Since I don't think the GM is impartial and I don't see an absolute mathematically tested model to ensure he is reigned in, I see no point in pretending he is impartial. Since the GM has ultimate power (remember, no absolute mathematically proven model to bound his power), it would be an abuse of power and true imbalance to play as an adversarial role.

Sure, the GM's gotta try to be fair. Impartial? No way, he's a human and has just as much right to pursue his goals within the game as the players.

Now is the GM a puppet master? I don't necesarily think that either. Sure, a DM is in position to manipulate the players, and what GM doesn't. But ultimately, the GM has a game because he delivers a great experience for the players. And that means it can't be against the players will. Not truly.

 

[Ariosto]

I think the issue is ...

... something that not I, nor my friends, nor even the extremely simulation-minded designers of Chivalry & Sorcery care about in the least.

It sure as shooting is not a compelling (or even remotely sensible, really) argument for throwing up our hands in dismay, throwing out our agreed upon rules, and telling the GM just to dictate what happens!

If we wanted to be "players" in a staged production, then I don't think we would want to mess around with pointless and distracting dice rolls.

Therefore, when the encounters are suddenly lethal, one thing to consider is whether you screwed up or even if not, you owe it to your players, per this implicit understanding to not necessarily destroy them.

It's simply not possible for anything involving creatures getting hit to be "suddenly lethal". An average 84% to 91% dead after two hits is where it started! Guess what happens to a lot of the PCs' foes?

Some of their enemies surrender, and more flee. The players have those options as well!

There is no "implicit understanding not to destroy them!" Jumping crickets, what is this deal with suggesting that I'm lying?

The perfectly explicit understanding is that they roll up characters, guide them through the world to see what they can see and do what they will do, and the best laid plans of gallants and waghalters come to what ends skill and chance may yield.

There is no reason the Wicked Wyrm of Withywains should suddenly have to become other than what it is just because this or that player has chosen to molest it. Bands of men or monsters don't suddenly shrink when they have the upper hand, for the same reason they do not suddenly turn into fanatics with miraculous reinforcements when the players are easily routing them.

So if you, the ref, are throwing out combats ...

I am not. It is up to the players what they will do, and it takes two to tango! If they go to a dangerous place, then they are likely to encounter some of its dangers. That is rather to the point -- but fighting with anyone and everyone they happen to meet generally is not.

If characters somehow manage to reach a cloud giants' castle, then they can either keep their heads or lose 'em. If they are cunning and lucky enough, they may well escape with treasure. If they pick a fight and get smeared, then they have learned something. That's how it goes in games!

If something really, really unusual happens, well, it's the unusual that makes for memorable stories. It's also part of the game, right along with the really, really common occurrences.

 

[Enclave]

In my youth, I was a lethal GM. Now that I'm nearing 30 though, I'm more forgiving.

I'd sooner have the party locked up in a dungeon or prison of some sort than kill them.

Players don't like their characters being killed. But you can certainly cause them some inconvienience.

 

[Hussar]

As far as D&D goes, I'm a big believer that the ruleset is flexible enough to encompass a pretty broad range of playstyles. If you want to be 100% hard nosed about it, let the dice dictate events, that's no problem. OTOH, softening the death at -10 (or whatever) rule does not invalidate large swaths of the mechanics.

I mean, if you change the rules so that any lethal attack instead leaves you stable at -1, it is possible to have a TPK (or the baddies could just take you prisoner), but highly unlikely. That does not suddenly turn the game into a predestined lockstep railroad.

It just means that failure by death is not on the menu. If the only failure that can possibly occur in a game is "failure by death" I would think that the game is pretty shallow and nothing but hack and slash. OTOH, I don't presume that about other people's games.

It would be nice if people wouldn't presume things about mine.