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General Tabletop Discussion
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Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment
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<blockquote data-quote="Obryn" data-source="post: 5158378" data-attributes="member: 11821"><p>I'll start by saying that I agree with you that gamers whose ego depends on their characters' success or failure are detrimental to the game. My disagreement is best made with the point, below.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think it's important to make a distinction between players who want to <em>win</em> and players who want to <em>participate.</em> I've seen a lot of confusion between these two goals, and none of it leads to a productive conversation.</p><p></p><p>As an example, see Morrus's recent post which may or may not have led to this one... Not liking the "stun" or "dominate" conditions in 4e doesn't mean that a player has a great deal of ego invested in winning, or that the DM wants to tilt the field in their favor; it just means that the DM or players want to make sure that they can participate in a meaningful fashion on more rounds. If this leads to easier "victory" conditions along the way, that's a side-effect, not a goal.</p><p></p><p>In the same way, a disdain for "Save-Or-Die" effects isn't usually geared towards wanting to win fiights more easily. It's geared towards helping an encounter stay tactically interesting for longer, and making sure players aren't left sitting on their hands for most of a fight (or until they can be Raised, or until their new character can show up, etc). It's a shame that SoD (and, the somewhat-related Level Drain) so often get characterized as a kind of litmus test for gamers.</p><p></p><p>-O</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Obryn, post: 5158378, member: 11821"] I'll start by saying that I agree with you that gamers whose ego depends on their characters' success or failure are detrimental to the game. My disagreement is best made with the point, below. I think it's important to make a distinction between players who want to [I]win[/I] and players who want to [I]participate.[/I] I've seen a lot of confusion between these two goals, and none of it leads to a productive conversation. As an example, see Morrus's recent post which may or may not have led to this one... Not liking the "stun" or "dominate" conditions in 4e doesn't mean that a player has a great deal of ego invested in winning, or that the DM wants to tilt the field in their favor; it just means that the DM or players want to make sure that they can participate in a meaningful fashion on more rounds. If this leads to easier "victory" conditions along the way, that's a side-effect, not a goal. In the same way, a disdain for "Save-Or-Die" effects isn't usually geared towards wanting to win fiights more easily. It's geared towards helping an encounter stay tactically interesting for longer, and making sure players aren't left sitting on their hands for most of a fight (or until they can be Raised, or until their new character can show up, etc). It's a shame that SoD (and, the somewhat-related Level Drain) so often get characterized as a kind of litmus test for gamers. -O [/QUOTE]
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