The Reduction of Uncertainty

[Lanefan]

Lanefan, Shilsen mostly said what I would have. But for the sake of completeness I'll engage in mostly pointless repetition.

Sure, why not?

<snip>

If it's all understood as metagame, then it need not destroy believability (although, for some players, it may disturb immersion).

I've been using 'believability' to mean immersion, among other things...you can't really have much of either without the other.

Agreed. Although it can make for a better game if the players give the GM some idea of the direction they want the game to go.

Assuming the players aren't making it up on the spot (which I've seen and done, from both sides of the screen), quite true.

Lanefan

 

[shilsen]

OK, you've taken death out, and that works well for you by the sound of things. However, there's others here who'd go a step or three further; not just keeping key characters alive but also keeping key story items safe from harm or loss, hence my example of what happens to the Sword of Mighty Swordiness. (the more times I type that, the more I realize I just *have* to chuck an item by that name into my game...)

Damn - you're selling me on that name too! But it should be Teh Awesome Sword of Mighty Swordiness.

But I'll go out on a limb here and guess you did away with PC death for reasons of player enjoyment, rather than to save the story.

Not exactly, though player enjoyment was the primary motivation. I like to run games which are heavily player/PC-controlled (hence the lack of a preplanned overarching plot) and give the PCs as much freedom as possible, with the game's direction and plot/story emerging from an amalgam of PC choice, action and backgrounds. So even though I don't have a pre-planned plot/story, the things that will form the plot and story will be things that arise from the particular PCs we have in the game, and losing them would make things a whole lot less interesting and meaningful for new PCs. I should also note that I'm really not a fan of easy and regular return from the dead. Combine that with the fact that I run absolutely brutal encounters, with enemies often punching much above their weight (one of my players just came up with the theory that "created by Shil" is a template that gives you a CR of "2 more than the enemy expects"). So a death-lite game works perfectly for me and my group.

My argument here is not necessarily with removal of PC death in general (that's a bigger and different issue); not, at least, this time. My argument in this particular thread is that removing PC death *because it is inconvenient for the DM's story* is wrong, just as not allowing the PCs to throw the Sword of Mighty Swordiness (ha! got it in again! ) into a lava pit is wrong for the same reasons.

That's where I (obviously) beg to differ. Though I probably have way less experience gaming than you (only started in 1999), I've just seen and heard of so many gaming styles and tastes that I sincerely believe that there is no style of gaming which is wrong, as long as the people gaming that way are enjoying themselves. After all, isn't that the point? In gaming, the proof of the pudding really is in the eating thereof, or at least as far as I'm concerned.