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When players matter / don't matter
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6162185" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>It is very possible that some players "learn" that the PCs are supposed to win, therefore they will... and that certainly doesn't make it a good game for my own tastes. If 4e works like that, I'm sorry to hear that.</p><p></p><p>That's however not usually what happened in my own XP with RPG... in every campaign I've played there were PC deaths. Now how many of those deaths were really because of player's bad tactical choices and how many were just matter of bad luck, I really cannot say.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I have been actively trying to avoid giving my players the feeling that they are supposed to win. But I want to point out that even if I run a game where PC cannot <em>die</em>, I try my best to make sure that this doesn't mean they cannot <em>lose</em>. Just to clarify: dying can be substituted with another negative occurrence, if the group wants to play a campaign where their are guaranteed their PC will last long enough (typically because the players are interested in heavily developing their PC's stories, personalities, tactics etc.) Still, handwaving death doesn't mean they always "win", they can very much "lose" a quest even if I allow them to leave.</p><p></p><p>BTW, that was just an example, I am not a bigger fan of this campaign style than I am of old-school high lethality style.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Probably it was my bad choice of words... I didn't mean "being in charge" as "being confident on the outcome". I just meant it as opposed to have nearly no decision to make once the combat or challenge is started.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>True, but I was focusing on what happens during the action here, thus on tactics rather than strategies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Of course... I also still want to use the dice!! I wouldn't want D&D to be completely deterministic. But that is not a problem with D&D because it always had lots of dice, except in the interaction phase.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6162185, member: 1465"] It is very possible that some players "learn" that the PCs are supposed to win, therefore they will... and that certainly doesn't make it a good game for my own tastes. If 4e works like that, I'm sorry to hear that. That's however not usually what happened in my own XP with RPG... in every campaign I've played there were PC deaths. Now how many of those deaths were really because of player's bad tactical choices and how many were just matter of bad luck, I really cannot say. Anyway, I have been actively trying to avoid giving my players the feeling that they are supposed to win. But I want to point out that even if I run a game where PC cannot [I]die[/I], I try my best to make sure that this doesn't mean they cannot [I]lose[/I]. Just to clarify: dying can be substituted with another negative occurrence, if the group wants to play a campaign where their are guaranteed their PC will last long enough (typically because the players are interested in heavily developing their PC's stories, personalities, tactics etc.) Still, handwaving death doesn't mean they always "win", they can very much "lose" a quest even if I allow them to leave. BTW, that was just an example, I am not a bigger fan of this campaign style than I am of old-school high lethality style. Probably it was my bad choice of words... I didn't mean "being in charge" as "being confident on the outcome". I just meant it as opposed to have nearly no decision to make once the combat or challenge is started. True, but I was focusing on what happens during the action here, thus on tactics rather than strategies. Of course... I also still want to use the dice!! I wouldn't want D&D to be completely deterministic. But that is not a problem with D&D because it always had lots of dice, except in the interaction phase. [/QUOTE]
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