Do you "save" the PCs?

[Raven Crowking]

Given the context in which the example arises, I would go do far as to not only say that it is appropriate - but that "let the dice fall as they may" in those circumstances was clearly inappropriate.

Sorry, but I have to disagree.

Using an area set up for experienced gamers was inappropriate; once that choice is made, though, letting the dice fall where they may was not.

What Hussar should have done (ideally) was set up a "training ground" area, where the newbie could experience the thrills of first-time playing without meeting the same level of danger the "old hands" expect.

When I taught my daughter to play D&D, I set up her first adventure in exactly this way. It was designed to give basic concepts, to include a bit of thinking, include a bit of easy combat, and to teach basic game skills. The scenario culminated in a harder combat that could be bypassed or taken in stages, as she desired. The scenario is still available here on EN World......somewhere.

So......set up an easier scenario? Absolutely.

"Let them win"? Absolutely not.

(IMHO and all that jazz.)

RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sorry, but I have to disagree.

Using an area set up for experienced gamers was inappropriate; once that choice is made, though, letting the dice fall where they may was not.

What Hussar should have done (ideally) was set up a "training ground" area, where the newbie could experience the thrills of first-time playing without meeting the same level of danger the "old hands" expect.

When I taught my daughter to play D&D, I set up her first adventure in exactly this way. It was designed to give basic concepts, to include a bit of thinking, include a bit of easy combat, and to teach basic game skills. The scenario culminated in a harder combat that could be bypassed or taken in stages, as she desired. The scenario is still available here on EN World......somewhere.

So......set up an easier scenario? Absolutely.

"Let them win"? Absolutely not.

(IMHO and all that jazz.)

RC

A very solid approach.

My first experiences with D&D were filled with characters that had the life expectancy of a fruitfly. It wasn't because the DM felt like killing off the newb or that I was forced to face impossible challenges. My characters died a lot at first due to stupid decisions on my part. Rolling up a new character frequently made me more familliar with the process, appreciate the fact that the game can continue even if your character dies, and most importantly, that thinking before acting is something worth doing.

A fudged game that let me keep going, making the same mistakes would not have been more fun. A false sense of accomplishment would have been resented once I found out about it. If someone is interested in doing something only so long as it results in fabulous success regardless of knowledge or skill how long will that interest be maintained? Do we as gamers really want to teach new players that the game is only worthwhile as long as victory is assured?

Its been said before here and it is still true: If circumstances in the game can only get so bad then they can also only get so good.

 

[Janx]

I don't want my players wondering what I think. I want them wondering if they are ready to face that dragon, visit that city, draw a sword in anger.



To me, excessive editorial control is an undesired outcome.



Is that a kindness? The day they stop being a newbie, will they thank you for it? Assuming adults here.



Because the goblins did too much damage?



Whatever happened to the ol' Bart the Fighter II routine? Or just saying, "Look, I don't want to go through character generation again, so we're just going to say you're unconscious here instead of you being dead, which is what would normally happen?"

If I had to apply EXCESSIVE editorial control, I'd assume I was doing something wrong. As it is, if I have to apply any editorial control, I ponder what went wrong, and what I could have handled better.

In the case of the newbie example, I didn't prepare any material, I simply decided there would be goblins, and made up 3 encounters of them. The new player wanted to play a spell caster of some sort (not recommended for a newbie anyway), so it was already going to be complicated. It was easier to fudge than to design a more balanced mini adventure of the top of my head (I do not normally run a full impromptu session).

I'd rather she understood what was going on in her first session, than to be expected to learn all the "smart" tactics in her first session, or repeatedly go through characters.

On top of that, this person was not a gamer. I don't think I should have let the dice fall where they may really understand that not all new players are suited for D&D Unfiltered. Imagine Eric's Grandma trying D&D for the first time, and not being big into anything you've ever read, played or seen. There's a huge culturual and mindset difference between a gamer and their approach to a game, and somebody who didn't know the Lord of the Rings movies were based on a book (let alone that the first movie was part of a trilogy).

 

[Raven Crowking]

If I had to apply EXCESSIVE editorial control, I'd assume I was doing something wrong. As it is, if I have to apply any editorial control, I ponder what went wrong, and what I could have handled better.

In the case of the newbie example, I didn't prepare any material

Seems like you figured out what went wrong, all right.

I'd rather she understood what was going on in her first session, than to be expected to learn all the "smart" tactics in her first session, or repeatedly go through characters.

OK, easy questions: What did you want here to learn? What did you want her to understand? Could you have prepared encounters/material that directly taught what you wanted her to learn/understand? Did you give any thought to what you explicitly did not want her to learn, such as (say) a reliance on the DM saving her or a reliance on DM "editorial control"?

Because, when I teach someone RPGs, one of the most important lessons I am trying to impart is "Your decisions make a difference; they have consequences for good or ill." I might start them off with easy decisions, of course, but that doesn't mean that they aren't real decisions.

OTOH, once the GM starts "editting" mid-encounter, those decisions are not real, nor has the player learned anything related to what decisions are good to make. You are either teaching the player to rely on the GM, or you are teaching the player to fail.

IMHO, you aren't doing anyone any favours. And when the same player encounters a GM who doesn't hand-hold, everyone involved will certainly pay the price.



RC

 

[Hussar]

OTOH, splatting newbie PC's teaches players to not bother engaging in any role play at all, since, well, your character is only going to die anyway, so, why bother? Backstory? Pfft. If I'm changing characters every three sessions (or more often) then my backstory is going to be a sentence, if that. Talk to people in the setting, build relationships? Again, pfft. Why bother? Any relationship I build is only going to vanish when I have to bring in yet another PC.

Like Pawsplay, I too started off with characters with a half-life measured in minutes. That's exactly what I took from the experience. It took YEARS before I grew out of that and started actually spending any time engaging in the setting or with NPC's. Again, why should I possibly bother if I'm just going to have to do it all over again a couple of sessions down the line?

Now? Now I want to teach a new player that building those relationships, engaging in the setting and the plot is the main point of gaming. Developing a character is why I game. Developing a shared story where the characters and their relationships are not disposable, interchangeable and ultimately completely bland and generic (because doing anything more than that isn't worth the bother) is the point of gaming.

And if that means, from time to time, I fudge the dice or go soft, then so be it. Note the time to time part of that. No one here is saying that you should do it each and every time. Just once in a while, when appropriate.

Then again, I think this is why I've moved away from GMing D&D (I'll play it or run one off's, but I can't see myself developing a serious campaign for it in any edition for the foreseeable future) into systems which place the fate of the PC in the hands of the players. Systems where the player can decide for himself if it's important enough or not to risk the life of his or her character by upping the stakes.

I can't really see myself running a serious campaign in D&D. The fact that D&D relies on the idea of disposable characters just breaks it for me.

 

[Jhaelen]

The dice rolls are bad. The tactics have failed. The situation is grim. Yet, they won't run away. So what do you do?

If you are GMing and the PCs get themselves in a pickle, but through poor judgement, overconfidence or just plain stubbornness they refuse to leave a losing encounter and a TPK or similar fate seems imminent, do you save them? Do you fudge the dice or have some deus ex machina event save them? Or do you leave them to cruel fate?

The latter. Time to roll up new pcs.

 

[Raven Crowking]

OTOH, splatting newbie PC's teaches players to not bother engaging in any role play at all, since, well, your character is only going to die anyway, so, why bother?

Too true.....but your argument suggests that "splatting newbies" or "fudging the dice or going soft" are the only two options. They are not. They are not even remotely the only two options.


RC

 

[Steel_Wind]

Blah blah blah from three posters to the effect of, "DM cheating, editing, fudging bad; some other hard-ass way of dealing with the situation good."

First off, let's not get sucked into the semantics game. "Pulling back" is okay but "letting him win" is not?

That's splitting hairs and having it both ways in the context of the post, imo.

Pulling back is okay - but editing adroitly mid-battle so that the player does not even detect that a change has been made is a bad way of handling it? No other DM you have met in Real Life handles an encounter gone wrong that way?

I got some news for you: yes they do. Not often - sometimes it happens with experienced GMs only once over the course of several years. But does it happen? Yes, it absolutely happens. If you haven't figured that out by now - you're either being willfully blind, or more likely, the GM in question is so skilled that you didn't detect it. Which is - by the way - how it is supposed to work out. You aren't supposed to notice.

Then a few of you guys chime in with words to the effect of "A better way to handle it would have been to run some entirely other and different encounter and learning game."

Sure. No argument. I agree. But that ISN'T WHAT HAPPENED. You don't get to retcon an encounter that was actually run. This isn't theory - this is discussing an actual factual event. You need to deal with the facts as they happened - not make up some other "new facts" that fit your theory better.

In the actual circumstances described by the poster, the hard-ass approach you advocate ended up in the death of the character and the departure of the noobie player from the hobby after a few minutes of play - for good.

This, apparently, is seen by some of you as a good thing.

*cough* I think we must be judging "success" by a very different standard.

Anyways, Hussar seems to have his own defence well in hand. But suggesting that it would have been better had the DM in question run some entirely other and different encounter -- instead of the one he actually DID run -- is no answer to how to best deal with the unfolding disaster, midstream, on a practical basis.

 

[SteveC]

On the issue of new players, I think the best advice I have (actually it's good advice overall...) is don't be a jerk. There are plenty of ways for a GM to not go out of his way to target the characters for new players.

You don't have to cheat, but giving good advice and not always going for the throat can go a long way to keep things fun.

--Steve

 

[Raven Crowking]

First off, let's not get sucked into the semantics game. "Pulling back" is okay but "letting him win" is not?

No semantics game here.

Bobby wants to learn how to hit a ball, you teach him using soft lobs or T-ball.

What you do not do is throw him into a major league game and tell everyone else to play down to Bobby.

It is hoped that what Bobby learns in T-ball and soft lob is applicable later, with more competitive types of ball.

Susy wants to learn how to play D&D, you teach her using a kinder, gentler location with real decisions and real consequences for those decisions. Dying is harder to accomplish, but certainly possible.

What you do not do is throw Susy into an ongoing game with experienced gamers and then fudge results so that she does well.

It is hoped that what Susy learns in the "newbie" dungeon is applicable later, with more complex decisions that have larger consequences.

Then a few of you guys chime in with words to the effect of "A better way to handle it would have been to run some entirely other and different encounter and learning game"

Sure. No argument. I agree. But that ISN'T WHAT HAPPENED.

No, it isn't what happened. It is what should have happened.

Throwing Susy into an ongoing game with experienced gamers is a screw up of the kind that throwing Bobby into a major league game is. But in neither case is the "solution" actually solving anything.

The DM could have said, once he saw how things were going, "Susy, that was my fault for throwing you into deep water. I should know better. Let me set up a game just for you, where you can get your feet wet before swimming with the sharks. How does that sound?"

That would have been acceptable, and far, far better than fudging the dice.

The difference is that Susy gets the results she earns; her decisions matter. She actually learns what decisions will be rewarded, and which will not. She doesn't learn to rely on the DM changing things to accomodate poor decisions. She learns that she, and she alone, has to deal with the outcome of her choices....and that she, and she alone, gets to bask in the glory of success.

Because if the DM solves your problems for you, the DM is also the only one who actually "succeeded" when all is said and done. You have nothing to feel good about. You have nothing to be proud of. You have won nothing.


RC