Your money or your life?

[DeusExMachina]

I think being less effective without equipment is probably the most important reason. You see your character grow over time, he quests for new items that make him stronger and then it just sucks to have to go back. I'm afraid I have acted out this way too and for just that reason.

Very important here though, is that it was only 2 characters out of the party. The rest was still at full effectiveness and that creates a skewed situation, because now 2 people feel sucky while the rest is fine. The rest will want to engage full encounters and do what they always did, 2 of them will not, in fact cannot.

If the whole party had been robbed it would probably have been less of a problem, because then the party as a whole would have had to try and survive while they try to get their equipment back or try to find new stuff. The relative strength between members of the party remains the same and all that was needed from the DM is to scale the encounters a bit so that they are not instantly lethal (just very hard).

 

[Charger28Alpha]

Very important here though, is that it was only 2 characters out of the party. The rest was still at full effectiveness and that creates a skewed situation, because now 2 people feel sucky while the rest is fine. The rest will want to engage full encounters and do what they always did, 2 of them will not, in fact cannot.

Since the OP stated that these two PCs were not with the party when they killed the Dragon's ally. I think they should get the rest of the party to pay for the resurrections and purchase new items or share some of their own.

 

[Dragonblade]

If you knew before you started that this was the rule would you play? For example, DM wants to run a by the numbers 1st AD&D game where death, if you couldn't get a raise dead, meant you re-rolled at level 1. You would just stand up and walk out?

I guess this style of game play is just old fashioned.

It wouldn't be a problem in a 1e game, because it literally takes a couple minutes to create a new PC. Indeed, Gary Gygax himself discouraged players from even naming their characters until they had several levels under their belt since odds were they would just die anyway. In 1e AD&D, the PC was a thinly veiled avatar for the player to interact with the gameworld. You didn't need skill checks and all the other stuff that comes with characters in 3e/4e. There was no need to differentiate one Fighter from another, because the difference in play came solely from the player.

Somewhere along the line, the emphasis in D&D shifted from the player overcoming challenges to the character overcoming challenges. That shift resulted in complex character creation and a plethora of character building options.

But many of the rules didn't adapt to accomodate that shift. That is why 3e is such a mess. Game mechanics like level drain, save or die, rust monsters, etc. were designed under the assumption that you challenge the player. Losing items, and PC death was not a big deal when the rules assume that a new character was only ever six 3d6 rolls and a sheet of notebook paper away.

In 3e, the focus of the game changed to the character. As a result, character creation evolved to become a complex and option heavy undertaking. When your PC dies, its a big thing to recover from considering the amount of work and time you have put into making that character come to life.

The fatal flaw of 3e was the designers tried to keep these legacy mechanics while failing to realize why they worked in 1e, but don't in 3e.

4e works because it completes the evolution that 3e started in terms of changing the game to be about the character and not the player. The 4e designers recognized that the flaws of 3e stemmed from legacy game mechanics designed for an era when the game was about challenging the player.

Like 1e before it, 4e works as a complete whole in a way that 3e did not. 1e was about challenging the player and it worked because the mechanics were designed solely with that in mind. 4e is about challenging the character and it works because the mechanics were designed with that in mind.

IMO, when people talk about 4e having a 1e feel, its because subconsciously they recognize the harmony of the mechanics of the game working together with the assumptions of the game and not against it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think so. I'm pretty good about using description to clue my players in on how a fight is going, and this would barely even qualify as a fight, it was so one-sided. So again, anything's possible, but if so ... really, really dumb and meta-gamey.

I have to say that I, too, don't like to kill PCs but am perfectly willing to do so, going back to 1Ed. It also isn't uncommon for me to put in a foe that the party is NOT going to be able to defeat by force of arms & spells, and that avoidance, negotiation, retreat or other options are to be explored.

The problem is that, no matter how well your players learn this lesson, there will be occasions when they completely misread the situation.

And in a way, that mirrors real life.

Over the past few days, I've been gorging on true crime shows, and have witnessed a parade of criminals who were fantastically competent at bank robberies, armored car heists, and the like. And many of those criminals' stories ended when somebody made a mistake of misunderstanding the situtation- they shot someone they shouldn't have, offended a confidante, whatever. IOW, they got cocky and it cost them.

The old saying "Pride goeth before the fall" was true for Lucifer, its true for RW humans, and its true for PCs of all stripes.

 

[Spatula]

In 3e, the focus of the game changed to the character.

Good post, but I think this trend definitely started in 2e. The focus on roleplaying & storytelling over exploration & looting, all the splatbooks and their customization options, and then Skills & Powers.

 

[Dragonblade]

Good post, but I this trend definitely started in 2e. The focus on roleplaying & storytelling over exploration & looting, all the splatbooks and their customization options, and then Skills & Powers.

Oh I certainly agree. But I think 2e was still mechanically similar enough to 1e that I think the disharmonies weren't as obvious.

 

[Demongirl]

Money comes and goes. You only have one life (my gm has houseruled all spells that bring the dead back to life banned).

I'd rather my character go naked than be dead.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Does "True rez required" mean removed from the game in your world? Can they NOT get true rezzed?

Yes, they can, although it would involve a trip to another nation. (In Eberron, 17th level clerics are very, very rare., so the only one they know can do it is the Voice of the Flame in the nation of Thrane.) But they have the money -- three 12th level PCs with ~100,000 gp worth of gear each -- and the means to get where they'd need to go.

I'm not getting much from the players, except (what feels like) a genuine lack of resentment. One of them flat out said, "I screwed up by hesitating. I should have just run immediately." The other one says he's glad he went down swinging, which I guess is cool, but wasn't really a response to my point in the email about "overcoming serious setbacks."

In other words, I think one of the players will now run from an overwhelming situation, given the chance, but it doesn't sound like either would ever be willing to ransom their lives with their stuff. I'm going to try one more time with a gentle nudge about this, but I really don't want to make them feel bad about it, which I think they will if I pursue it much further.

 

[Charger28Alpha]

I'm not getting much from the players, except (what feels like) a genuine lack of resentment. One of them flat out said, "I screwed up by hesitating. I should have just run immediately." The other one says he's glad he went down swinging, which I guess is cool, but wasn't really a response to my point in the email about "overcoming serious setbacks."

It is good that they are taking it in stride. With the player that was glad to go down swinging you might want to nudge him towards wanting payback.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not getting much from the players, except (what feels like) a genuine lack of resentment. One of them flat out said, "I screwed up by hesitating. I should have just run immediately." The other one says he's glad he went down swinging, which I guess is cool, but wasn't really a response to my point in the email about "overcoming serious setbacks."

That, to me, sounds very much like the conversation I heard after a near-TPK, in which one person correctly assessed the gravity of the situation and ran immediately while the others stayed and fought to the death.

My later guess may have been right- they may have merely misread the situation. Of course, the only way to know for sure is to ask them directly.