Restart From Last Save?

[Hella_Tellah]

I like the way the game Prey handled death, and I think it could be adapted to pen-and-paper, after a fashion. In Prey, the main character, Thomas, has the power to see and move through the spirit world. When he dies, he goes into a dreamy mini-game, in which he must shoot flying spirits with a bow to regain his health and spirit energy. At the end of a short time limit, he is resurrected on the spot with whatever health and spirit energy he could gather. In a PnP game, you could follow a TPK with a short adventure, in which the dead heroes must fight their way out of the underworld. In D&D, you could balance it out by having the players fight enough encounters to earn a resurrection's worth of treasure.

 

[Chris Knapp]

Only time my group ever "restores from a save" is after a TPK.
[sarcasm]
If at least one PC survives an encounter, s/he clearly is a superior player and the others must be punished with creating a new character, but if its a TPK, then obviously the DM cheated and we deserve a restore.
[/sarcasm]

 

[Hussar]

A couple of things to remember too.

When a PC dies, typically the new PC doesn't come in at 1st level. ((Yes, yes, I know some people play this way, but, I think it's fair to say that most don't.)) You don't really come in at the beginning, you simply come with a new character that joins the group in progress.

This, of course, doesn't work if you have a TPK.

Secondly, most CRPG's don't have a mechanic for someone else to cast Raise Dead on you. You die in an MMORPG and start back at your home town. You die in most CRPG's and you just die. There's no way for someone else to save you if you die. In PnP RPG's, particularly D&D, being Raised is not terribly difficult beyond about 5th level.

Again, ignoring TPK's. And, to me, the threat of a TPK is one of the few ways you can truly "lose" in D&D. Otherwise, you come back with a new PC or get Raised. I don't mind having a fairly (hopefully) rare lose condition in the game. It makes success that much better.

 

[justanobody]

What is it about P&P games that causes this difference?

Well many things. Start with a video game is usually a single player game. When all your characters die, the story ends. You do have the choice of restarting in the beginning such as the oldest of ggames prior to save points, but then you have lost all those quarters you put in trying to get your high score.

Also if you just can "load" a game at the last place in a PnP game then what real threat is there? What story is there?

In a video game you pay $60 these days for a scripted story that you can follow some of several ways, or just one story. You pay the money for the game to see the whole story and fight all the things along the way. Having to start all over there would be a loss of money.

When you play a PnP game, there is no real loss. You character dies, and you can continue with a new one.

Red Wizard has died, Red Valkyrie has joined.

You haven't really lost anything because most tiems you are brought in the game with similar abilities relater to where you left off.

The biggest thing is the story doesn't need Mario to complete the story in a PnP game because the NPC scripts are not finite, the animations do not require it to be the same person, and all those other things that a computer requires to be programmed and scripted in advance based on that one character that saves and reloads.

is it the DM aspect?

Not at all.

Do you accept the "save point" more in a computer game because the computer can't come up with "consequences" on the fly? Or because the computer can't handle another adventurer joining the game, and taking on a "new" adventure based on the old?

Not really. I accept it because the amount of money I paid for the video game to see the story told with those characters. Some times the character or even a member of his party dies and cannot be brought back. (see Aeris)

These are the stories I paid for and want to see even if there was a way to bring them back to life in the original Japanese version.

Other adventurers can join based on the old, or for many other reasons.

It is the two ways the stories are presented that is the driving force mostly.

PnP offers you to create the story while most video games are really just visual novels you get to push buttons to get through the story and act out the combats yourself rather than actually decide what story you want as you go like PnP games.

Or is it something else?

Um... I might have alreayd answered this part....

Does anyone out there use an idea like "save points" in their P&P D&D game?

Not a snowballs chance in hell would I play in a D&D game with "save points". If I screw up and get my character killed...c'est la vie!

I brought that one into the world and I can make another one that looks just like him, and better.

 

[FireLance]

Now a snowballs chance in hell would I play in a D&D game with "save points". If I screw up and get my character killed...c'est la vie!

I brought that one into the world and I can make another one that looks just like him, and better.

I take it that you're only objecting to the idea of reversing time to a point before character death? After all, rituals and spells like raise dead, clone and resurrection function very much like "save points" without the time reverse aspect, as does the play convention of "the character's twin brother shows up" or "the character's even better twin brother shows up".

 

[justanobody]

I take it that you're only objecting to the idea of reversing time to a point before character death? After all, rituals and spells like raise dead, clone and resurrection function very much like "save points" without the time reverse aspect, as does the play convention of "the character's twin brother shows up" or "the character's even better twin brother shows up".

Just like a video game. Save right before the big boss fight and enter the next room and die, then reload, and gear up a bit differently or go somewhere else and get supplies, and come back more prepared, etc save and try again to die, wash, rinse, repeat.

No memory card exists to allow for that. If there is some way to see the future, then it bypasses, the "save point" aspect, as well does something that takes a single user or worse player, back in time.

It is the players knowing what happened the first time, that presents the problem. Somehow that seems to translate to the character actions because of player knowledge, and it is boring to offer mulligans/do-overs on things like entire encounters.

You screw up some diplomacy check, because the player got tongue tied or couldn't find the right word, you can try again with the same concept; but a battle just don't cut it, and you must take you "mulligan" prior to the resolution of the attempt.

"Is this your final answer?" kind of thing, and then you take what you get from it.

So no "save point" from "I walk in the door what do I see?" Then the DM says you fall down a pit and you want to back up. No "save point" for you! Your actions do carry weight, and offering do-overs just removes the chance to make a mistake or fail at anything.

 

[Cryptos]

I suppose, if one were so inclined (I'm not, personally) that Milestones in D&D 4th Edition would make good auto-save points.

 

[woodelf]

So I was playing Dead Space last night for a bit, and I died. (Booo.)

The game as lots of (all?) computer games do started from the last point I saved at. It wasn't a far point behind where I died, so I liked my ego wounds and moved on...

But then it made me think...

I'm pretty used to that idea in computer games. If I die, I don't end up having to restart from the very begining, or make a new guy, or choose some other path in the adventure. I just restart from the last save point and move on. I don't think twice about it. I don't think I ever really thought twice about it in the very first few computer games that had save points in them. I just restarted, this time with a renewed energy to beat the jerk that killed me...

But in a Pen and Paper game, this idea just seems wrong. I died... There's no restarting the adventure from the last "save" point... You make a new guy, or you end up "failing" at the adventure and suffering the consequences.

What is it about P&P games that causes this difference?

is it the DM aspect?

Do you accept the "save point" more in a computer game because the computer can't come up with "consequences" on the fly? Or because the computer can't handle another adventurer joining the game, and taking on a "new" adventure based on the old?

Or is it something else??

I suspect the difference is that, for many, RPGs are essentially a highly-structured storytelling activity. The game-like aspects may be more important than the story-like aspects but, ultimately, the appeal is the story--the opportunity to inhabit an alternative person and live an alternative life. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be playing an RPG. Because that's the one thing that an RPG brings to the table (no pun intended) that no other sort of game does: the freedom to tell that story and live out that other life.

Computer games, no matter how good, so far can't provide the freedom to make storytelling a viable part of their experience. You can experience a story that someone else has crafted--they might've even crafted multiple stories and you can choose amongst them. But you can't tell your own. And stories (barring a few more fantastical ones) have a causal narrative that involves consequences--"do overs" violate that causality. So, when you play a computer game, the appeal is that of either a very complex game with really nifty visuals, or of experiencing an existing story, not of creating your own story.

In short, they're really two different activities that have converged to a certain degree on the surface. But their fundamental appeals are very different. This has been masked not only by their surface similarities, but also by the crossover appeal--a lot of people that like one like the other, perhaps because of the surface similarities, perhaps for different reasons--differences that they might not even themselves be aware of, depending largely on whether or not they've ever bothered to think about why they like them. But, IMHO, they're no more alike than orcas and sharks.

Though the fact that there are other people involved who'd have to replay, rather than just computer-controlled NPCs (there's a computer-game-specific term for this, isn't there?), may also contribute--i hadn't thought of that part, specifically, before.

 

[Baumi]

I never done it in an RPG, but my first LARP used Save-Points, but it was a very special scenario

It was classic Fantasy but we died in the first scene, then we were picked up by the Death-God who said that the Underworld has some problems and if we fix them then we will be returned to life. Our main problem was time since we only had till Dawn (the game played from Dusk till Dawn) to do it.

Since we were already dead he offered us a limited number of "Saves" where we could reset to, our Items and Lifepoints would also reset to this point but we would keep our memories so we could work out new strategies. The thing was that the scenarios were very hard and the time was quite short (we didn't make it to the end) and we even had to save after players died (=permanent death, I was the first victim ) since we couldn't afford to do the scenario again. Also we had less saves than scenarios so we would sometimes really lose MUCH time to reset.

So it was very fun and shows that Saves can work, at least in such unusual scenarios,...

 

[Aus_Snow]

As an optional rules variant (in an optioanl supplement) for Precognition in Mutants & Masterminds, 2nd edition:

Ultimate Power, p. 87 (sidebar: 'Precognitive Do-Overs').

But no, I haven't tried it. Not sure I will, either. But in that particular psychic/magical context, referenced above, it could have promise.