Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[Raven Crowking]

An aside, related to a thought I just had. SoD is one thing, but I have no problem with SSSoD, where the SSS is not three strikes, but three chances to fail. That poison? Still active in your system.

That is a good way of having something be truly deadly, without having to make the save impossible to make. It also gives the PCs (depending upon how often the save must be made) a chance to potentially do something about it (i.e., neutralize poison or the like).

I like the ideas in 3e about poisons and diseases; I am happy with the Labyrinth Lord suggestion of a poison doing XdY damage over Z rounds. I am very happy with all of these options existing within the same game system!


RC

 

[Dausuul]

Please quote me an example from myth of anyone ever speaking a single word, much less taking a single action between seeing Medusa and becomign fully stone.

You're the one claiming the 4E interpretation is somehow inconsistent with the original concept of Medusa. I have made no similar claims about the pre-4E interpretation. Therefore it is on you to prove that the 4E approach is wrong, not on me to prove it right. The way I see it, the legend doesn't say a word about the details of the process, and therefore the game designer has plenty of leeway to come up with something that works both conceptually and mechanically.

Now, shall we discuss how well D&D's demons and devils match up to their mythological equivalents (those that have them)? How many dragons in real-world legend were color-coded? How many of them breathed lightning, acid, or cold? Does the mythological Asgard really look like rivers of earth churning through empty space? Was the old Greek idea of Tartarus actually a chain of red-glowing pearls in a black void?

I consider verisimilitude quite important in game design, and I have a number of beefs with 4E's designers on that point. SSSoD is not one of them, however. It is merely a different take (a more mechanically convenient one, true) on the concept of how petrification works within the game world. You don't like it, that's your privilege, but it's just as valid as the old way.

(And when you apply it to other areas, such as poison, SSSoD makes far more sense than the old save-or-die. Instantly lethal poison is so rare as... well, as far as I know there isn't any such thing. Hydrogen cyanide gas will knock you out in seconds but takes a couple minutes to kill; if your companions had the antidote, they'd have time to administer it. Even sarin gives you a minute or so in which to jab a needle full of atropine into your chest. Most animal venoms take many minutes before you even feel the effects, and as for the sort of poisons people put on weapons in medieval times, they'd take hours if they worked at all.)

Please go out into public and start asking random people who much time a person who has seen a medusa has to act prior to turning to stone.

I predict the response I'd get is, "Medu-what?" And for those who know what Medusa is, "Uh... I dunno." Probably, on sufficient questioning, they would shrug and say not very much, but I doubt they would object if I suggested it might take a few seconds.

 

[Rel]

I think that the general level of confrontation in this thread should go down. A lot.

 

[Hussar]

RC - Ok, I understand a bit better now. Thanks for clearing that up. Also thanks for not going to route of accusing me of lying or other underhanding things. It's nice to talk to people who can retain a level of professionalism.

I have a bit of a counter analogy though. Every day, virtually everyone reading this post gets into a car and drives somewhere. Or, if not every day, at least lots. Yet, we all know that there are impaired drivers on the road. We know that for an absolute fact. So, we drive carefully and we put on a seatbelt. Fair enough. We take reasonable precautions.

Yet, despite that, I'll bet that someone reading this has been rear ended at a stop light at some point in their life by an impaired driver.

Is the victim here in any way at fault? I would say no, and I imagine so would everyone else.

Yet, the idea that's being put forth is that if I know that there are SoD monsters in an area, I should be absolutely prepared at all times, and (as has been mentioned in this thread) if it gets to the point where I'm making saving throws, I've screwed up.

I'm not really convinced this is fair.

Or, to give you another real world example from my own experience. Some years ago I visited Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. ((AMAZING EXPERIENCE!!)) While sitting in a cafe in Siem Riep, the small town that services the tourists for Angkor, the waiters became very, very agitated. They rushed inside and ran out with long sticks and began beating the ever living crap out of a bush not ten feet from where I was sitting. A few minutes later, they pull up this honking huge bloody snake that had been in the bush.

Now, I know that there are poisonous snakes in Cambodia. But, real life means that all sorts of surprises can be lurking around the corner.

Unless the players actually are forewarned about the the location of the SoD creature, within a fair degree of accuracy, the forewarning is mostly useless. There's no way to be 100% prepared 100% of the time. Yes, I know that there are poisonous snakes in the forest and I don't go out of my way to go kicking at holes in the ground, but, death by snakestep isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility either.

Yes, I totally agree that creatures should be foreshadowed. Makes for great games. But, unless the foreshadowing is very specific, it's not really going to be adequate for the adventuring party.

 

[Reynard]

Hussar: Why do you want to be 100% prepared or, as you put it upthread, "safe"?

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC - Ok, I understand a bit better now. Thanks for clearing that up. Also thanks for not going to route of accusing me of lying or other underhanding things. It's nice to talk to people who can retain a level of professionalism.

You're welcome.

I try to follow my own endorsement (Take what is written in the best possible way). I have to admit that, given the number of times that we've come to loggerheads about the same issues, you still don't know where I stand on this. My main mantras are always the same:

1. If the DM has players, he can run the game any way he likes. If the players don't like it, they shouldn't play.

2. Complaining isn't helpful. Start your own game if you don't like the one you are in.

3. Life is too short for bad games.

4. Foreshadowing is vitally important to encounter design.

5. Don't fudge. If you want the players to maintain narrative control when the dice are rolled, use a system (such as AP) that does so above-board.

6. Encounter design =/= fudging.

7. It is the player's job to seek out information.

8. It is the player's job to decide what risks to confront.

You might disagree with me (and I am sure you do on some of them), but I think that I am pretty consistent in what I'm spewing out here.

I have a bit of a counter analogy though. Every day, virtually everyone reading this post gets into a car and drives somewhere. Or, if not every day, at least lots. Yet, we all know that there are impaired drivers on the road. We know that for an absolute fact. So, we drive carefully and we put on a seatbelt. Fair enough. We take reasonable precautions.

Yet, despite that, I'll bet that someone reading this has been rear ended at a stop light at some point in their life by an impaired driver.

Is the victim here in any way at fault? I would say no, and I imagine so would everyone else.

Okay. I can see this. Here is my counter (again, one you should be expecting from long association with me here):

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

The problem here is the belief that there must be a "fault" (in the assigning blame sense) for something bad to happen. But that's not true in a game with random elements. Just as, when you got into the car, you accepted the risks of doing so, the players accept the risks of putting their characters in harm's way.

Players try to ameliorate the risks as best they can -- as you do when you put on your seat belt -- and DMs try to present the risks in ways that are both interesting and entertaining.

Again, it comes down to how much narrative control you require, or how much tension you require. No one is all one thing or the other. For me, the metric is that what happens "makes sense" from hindsight, and could therefore have been predicted if one knew then what one knows now.

And, I think, one has to accept that sometimes the GM knows why things are happening, and you just don't have enough info to figure it out, or you're being slow, or whatever. If the GM is generally worthy of trust, it is crass (at best) to suddenly cease to trust him just because you can't tell what's happening right now.

Frex, in a Modern game, the chances of running into an impaired driver might be slightly higher than in real life, but they should be comparable. Sometimes getting from Point A to Point B might be a challenge -- it is in the real world, too -- but the challenge presented should make sense. And it should exist as part of the milieu, not simply to frustrate player choices.

As a player, I have lost many, many characters. Sometimes these were to failed saves. Sometimes these were because I made choices that didn't allow saves at all. Sometimes, I delved too deep. Sometimes I got greedy. Sometimes I got unlucky.

Unless this was with a bad DM (and it has happened, either because the DM was inexperienced, or because he had a narrative he wanted to play out) none of these things were the DM's fault. They were my fault. They were not my fault in a "Bad player! Bad! Now go to your room and feel guilty!" sense. They were my fault in a "These are the consequences of your choices" sense.

It is far too easy to cry Bad DM!

But, IME anyway, it is a far better game if you do not. I try to follow my own endorsement: "Take what happens in the game in the best possible way. Have fun. Help others have fun. Don't pout."

I won't play with whiny gits. Life is too short for bad games.

You shouldn't play under circumstances you don't enjoy. If you don't like SoD, don't play in games that use it. But, if you choose to play in those games, don't whine when it happens. The same mantras apply.



RC

 

[Dausuul]

Unless the players actually are forewarned about the the location of the SoD creature, within a fair degree of accuracy, the forewarning is mostly useless. There's no way to be 100% prepared 100% of the time. Yes, I know that there are poisonous snakes in the forest and I don't go out of my way to go kicking at holes in the ground, but, death by snakestep isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility either.

Yes, I totally agree that creatures should be foreshadowed. Makes for great games. But, unless the foreshadowing is very specific, it's not really going to be adequate for the adventuring party.

Okay, having argued the anti-SoD side to the point of moderator warning, I'm now going to turn around and argue the other way.

To a certain extent you are right; it's not reasonable to expect the PCs to take extensive precautions purely on the basis that a given creature exists somewhere out in the world. However, foreshadowing should be much more useful than that.

Let's take the typical case: The PCs are headed off to the dungeon of the week in order to rescue the hapless Prince MacGuffin, who is desperately hoping that they both arrive in time and don't start quoting Monty Python when they do ("I'm sorry, I thought your son was a lady." "I can understand that!").

The PCs do some investigating and discover clues pointing to the existence of bodaks in said dungeon. They don't know exactly where, and it's not positive proof, but it's a strong possibility that going to that dungeon is going to entail facing bodaks.

This is the point where the PCs should be taking extensive precautions. Look around each corner with a mirror. When opening a door, face away from it and hold up a mirror to see over your shoulder. Avoid facing doorways into areas you haven't cleared and secured, in case a bodak steps out of one. Pay special attention to unexplained, unmarked corpses.

If the PCs take these precautions, they should be fairly safe from insta-death. Of course, there will be other risks involved... if you face away from all unsecured doorways, for example, other monsters might sneak up behind you. So these precautions are not no-brainers and there are tradeoffs.

All in all, I think I'd say that the big issue with save-or-die is treating it as a common mechanical element rather than a truly extraordinary threat. I think DMs and game designers are often misled by the existence of the save into supposing that it's no big deal if PCs are occasionally targeted out of the blue with these effects. Hence you get the situation described upthread, where the party rogue goes to scout out an area, happens across a bodak with no warning, and drops dead.

IMO, if one is going to design or use a critter with a save-or-die attack, one should think of that attack as an auto-kill and plan accordingly. The saving throw is just a tease, a last shred of hope for a sadistic Dungeon Master to dangle in front of a dying PC.

[size=-2]Note: This is not intended as any kind of criticism of sadistic Dungeon Masters. Quite the contrary.[/size]

 

[Dausuul]

Also, is anyone else interested in the fact that according to this poll, DMs are overall opposed to save-or-die while players seem to be in favor?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Also, is anyone else interested in the fact that according to this poll, DMs are overall opposed to save-or-die while players seem to be in favor?

Yes. It confirms (as far as it can, which isn't far) what I experience at the table.

Also, nice analysis in your last post.


RC

 

[Hussar]

Hussar: Why do you want to be 100% prepared or, as you put it upthread, "safe"?

Because, mathematically speaking, save or die is very rarely just save or die, it's usually just die. An unprepared party of five PC's meets a medusa has to make five saving throws, possibly ten saving throws if there is a surprise round, before their first action. The chances that someone will fail that saving throw is too great IMO.

If the chance of failing the save is even 25%, odds say that someone is going to die in the first round if they are caught unprepared.

That is too powerful of an ability. Never mind the skyrocketing odds of failure if you add a second or (shudder) a third SoD effect to the same encounter.

To me, this is the whole problem in a nutshell.

RC - I mostly agree with your 1-8, although, I do think that massaging the situation during design with a view of increasing the odds of a particular outcome is a form of fudging, but, that's a semantic debate that's not going to go anywhere. I can totally see your point, I just don't agree with it.

The problem here is the belief that there must be a "fault" (in the assigning blame sense) for something bad to happen. But that's not true in a game with random elements. Just as, when you got into the car, you accepted the risks of doing so, the players accept the risks of putting their characters in harm's way.

But, there's been multiple posts in this thread that anyone who suffers from a SoD effect is at fault. That they should have been "more careful" or if the only time a saving throw is called for is when the players screwed up. I'm not saying you're saying this, but, it is a pretty common opinion in this thread.

Sure, I put my character in harms way. Totally accept the fact that my character might die. Got no real beefs with that. Heck, just lost a PC last week to disease in a 4e game (with a second character, not mine, buying it in the same encounter). Fair enough. Poopie happens.

My beef is the binary nature of SoD. SoD monsters are almost always one trick ponies and if you negate the SoD, the encounter is a joke. Medusa's not a bad one actually because at least a medusa has some back up abilities. But a bodak? Pshaw. Basilisk? Cockatrice? That stupid faerie that kills you if you look at it (whose name I'm totally blanking on)? All one trick ponies that become, IMO, anticlimactic as soon as the party negates the baddie's one big gun.

I won't play with whiny gits. Life is too short for bad games.

See, this is the attitude that flies up my nose. If I don't like SoD I'm suddenly a whiney git? I don't get to decide on my own that I think SoD is piss poor game design? If I play with a DM who likes SoD, I just have to suck it up, or leave the game?

I dunno, I play with people I can actually have a conversation with. That I can bring up concerns and discuss them rationally. Maybe it's because I play with almost all DM's and mostly always have. Very, very few of my groups have been made up of gamers with little or no DMing experience. I've found that, by and large, as evidenced by this thread, a lot of DM's really don't like SoD effects, so that, even if they use them in the game, a few words at the waffle house after the game is usually all it takes.