Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[Ariosto]

Again, RC, the issue at hand isn't the idea of having signs of a monster's presence available. It is that your argument seems to take that to the extreme expectation that there are never situations where PCs don't come across those signs or find themselves without the knowledge to interpret them correctly.

Yes. The more you go down that path, the more it looks as if you are holding up the same yardstick of expectations as Hussar, and merely arguing over how poorly certain corner cases measure up.

For that matter, Hussar wrote that he really was not interested in even that standard. His repeated assumption that players will not take even the most rudimentary precautions -- applicable to much more than "SoD" effects -- reinforces my impression of the firmness of that position.

Similarly, is it that unreasonable to assume that some encounters may happen without tons of advance warning?

I think it is not unreasonable at all. In the end, one either accepts the role of the rolls in playing the game, or one plays a different game.

However, there is also a HUGE difference between the game in which players have strategic moves, permitting investigation to inform the series of decisions that lead ultimately to running headlong into either Demogorgon and his demonic hosts, or a handful of kobolds -- the game in which it is up to the players to take whatever measures they will -- and the game in which "encounters" are what the DM chooses for them as part of "the adventure" that is the DM's design.

In the former case, it is by default not at all necessarily a matter of having "tons of advance warning". It is not the player's role passively to receive "warnings". It is the player's role actively to investigate and extrapolate. It is the same in a card game, or in a board game of World War 2 -- really in almost any game that comes to my mind.

You keep presenting this as an either/or situation: Either all encounters contain a reasonable footprint that the PCs will have the opportunity to discover and knowledge to decipher, or a game lacks any internal inconsistency.

I suppose the contrary could be true, but I doubt that RC's intent was absolutely to deny such a bizarre possibility.

I think it suffices that, if there is even a moderate correspondence to the reality of causes and effects we know, such as what even the weirdest RPGs in my experience assume, then any monster -- like any other phenomenon -- is a cause of effects that propagate through the world.

That something can be discovered is very, very far from a guarantee that it shall be discovered. It is in fact in narrowing that gap that the game lies.

Again, there are other possible games we can play. We can play one in which players are guaranteed certain knowledge every step of the way, regardless of their actions or inactions, and the game lies elsewhere. We can play one in which players are guaranteed a good chance of survival and success in any encounter, regardless of their prior actions or inactions, and the game lies elsewhere.

I am sure we could come up with several more.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>


But not necessarily one preferred by everyone. I know I've been in games of that sort, and while I like the idea of a sandbox environment, the actual experience was incredibly frustrating. What plot thread should I be chasing? Who do I ally with? Where do I go from here? What decision does the DM expect me to make?

Now, in a good game, there are many roads to success, and the DM can provide guidance for players to make enlightened decisions without feeling like they are stumbling in the dark. But it's also all too easy to feel like it isn't a question of challenging the character, but instead the player, and the skill they need to master is predicting how the DM thinks.

Having a game where you can involve yourself in the plot without playing a guessing game? There is plenty of room for a character to still rise to the occasion and prove themselves worthy of being a hero. Preferring a game where you are the protaganist, and deeply immersed in the plot rather than watching it as a bystander, is a very far cry from wanting to simply be spoon-fed the life of a hero.

In what I think of as a sandbox, the DM doesn't expect you to make any particular decision -- merely make a decision and move forward. The decision should feel right to the character being played. Hopefully, the strategic and tactical play will lead to further greatness and a stronger presence in the campaign world.

There's a difference between a protagonist and "the protagonist" whom the world orbits. Other games that don't involve a "growing into power" theme often work better for being "the protagonist" than D&D does.

 

[MrMyth]

If a game world is to have internal consistency, all creatures that can be encountered should have a "footprint" which is consistent with their effects on the environment. The greater the environmental impact, the greater the chance that the PCs will encounter some element of that footprint. They may or may not actually do so, and they may or may not have the knowledge to determine what the footprint actually indicates.


Some may disagree with this, but I note that even Hussar's arguments are not that the medusa wouldn't have a "footprint" per se, but more about how she might be able to reduce the opportunity to discover that footprint and/or interpret it correctly.

I don't think anyone is arguing that those footprints don't exist in potentiality. The question is whether PCs will always come across them. Your statement of things now indicates that you always want PCs to have the chance of encountering them and the potential to decipher them... and I don't particularly disagree with that.

But at the same time, there would seem to be encounters where that 'footprint' is nearly impossible to find. Such as a Bodak created to guard an evil lair. Or a wizard who happens to know Prismatic Spray. Or an assassin taking measures to conceal his presence.

Your argument is that even in those situations, there should be some possible tell-tale sign for the PCs. Assassins are only sent out by kings who are known to use them. Even cautious monsters leave behind distinct enough remains to always pinpoint their specific nature.

And this might be true, but I contend that in many situations, the bar to puzzle out the nature of the creature or foe is going to be beyond a PC's capability. Perhaps you could find enough information with powerful enough divination spells and extremely high monster knowledge skill checks.

But not every group will have those, either due to party composition or simply level. And some of the opinions presented earlier in this thread were that, if PCs ended up in a situation where they were making Saves vs death, the fault was either on them for not being prepared, or the DM for not sufficiently preparing them.

That seems to be what you are suggesting here - that every enemy has the potential to be foreseen, and thus Save or Dies are acceptable because PCs should take note of a monster's footprint and prepare accordingly. And if they don't, then the fault lies with them, rather than the nature of SoD itself.

If this isn't your viewpoint, then my apologies, and feel free to clarify - though in that case, I'm not particularly sure how this relates to the topic of SoD at all.

 

[awesomeocalypse]

With an approach like that, you'd last less than ten minutes at my table.

Probably, but then, Chances are I wouldn't be there in the first place.

What happened to the idea of getting out and doing the necessary in-game legwork to make the world revolve around your character (or preferably, party)? Why should anyone care about you before you've done the Great Deeds that make you a hero?....

About the only story types that suit what you want are the "child of prophecy" sort of things e.g. David Eddings' Belgariad series (one of my all-time favourites, by the way); and while that works wonderfully for literature it sets up to fail dismally in a game - believe me, I've tried it - unless the DM makes you death-proof, at which point the game becomes a farce.

Certainly, child of prophecy is one way to give a character instant significance.

But it is FAR from the only way.

Perhaps the character has come into possession of a powerful artifact, which he is unable to properly wield, but which could devastate the world if it fell into the wrong hands. He and his party would become automatic targets for those dark forces, and achieve instant plot significance. It worked for this dude Frodo.

Or perhaps the character is the last living member of a royal line long-thought exstinguished. If he achieves sufficient power, the people may rally to him, but before he can do that he will have to cope with the powers that be that will do anything to prevent the return of the king.

You're entirely right, I have no interest at all in "earning" plot significance. I'm not interested in being some random dude who stumbles across some evil mastermind/monster/dire conflict which he has no prior connection with, and who then may or may not influence it in a significant way. I'm not interested in playing out other people's stories, except for those of the other PCs.

That doesn't mean I want to be the most powerful dude around from day one. It just means I want the story to be about *me*. I don't want that evil overlord to try to kill me just because I happen to look like an adventurer and wandered into his lair. I want him to try to kill me because *I*, specifically, matter in some way to his goals. I don't want to fight some generic villain, I want to fight *my* villain, in the same way that Frodo deals with Sauron, that Batman deals with the Joker, that Superman deals with lex Luthor.

I think you're misreading what he's looking for. He's not asking to be the 'Hero of Prophecy', he's just asking to be the protaganist.

At least, that tends to be my take on it. A player looking for the world to revolve around them isn't asking to be the most important character in the setting - rather, they just want the plot to be in front of them, and accessible, and something that they can influence and affect by their own actions.

This. I don't need to be the most powerful dude in the universe. I just want a plot that is specifically about me, in which my playing a significant role isn't dependant on random chance.

Rather than being, instead, immersed in a huge sandbox setting with tons of other stories going on, and the plot being driven by powerful NPCs of the DM's creation. Now, there is certainly room for campaigns like that, or with some of those qualities, and working your way into such stories can be a thrilling experience.

But not necessarily one preferred by everyone. I know I've been in games of that sort, and while I like the idea of a sandbox environment, the actual experience was incredibly frustrating. What plot thread should I be chasing? Who do I ally with? Where do I go from here? What decision does the DM expect me to make?

Quite simply, I like railroads better than sandboxes, for precisely this reason. I don't want to be some random guy in a world that is chugging along fine without me, full of people more important than me, which I will then attempt to influence in some way of my choosing.

I want to be the protagonist. Those powerful people with their agendas? What is their connection to me, how do they affect my story? If the answer is "no connection, unless you 'earn' one", then I'm not interested.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think anyone is arguing that those footprints don't exist in potentiality. The question is whether PCs will always come across them. Your statement of things now indicates that you always want PCs to have the chance of encountering them and the potential to decipher them... and I don't particularly disagree with that.

As opposed to my statement of things when?

But at the same time, there would seem to be encounters where that 'footprint' is nearly impossible to find. Such as a Bodak created to guard an evil lair. Or a wizard who happens to know Prismatic Spray. Or an assassin taking measures to conceal his presence.

Your argument is that even in those situations, there should be some possible tell-tale sign for the PCs. Assassins are only sent out by kings who are known to use them. Even cautious monsters leave behind distinct enough remains to always pinpoint their specific nature.

More to the point:

* The bodak created to guard an evil lair was created by someone with the potential to create bodaks. Unless it happens to be the first and only bodak that someone ever created......

* The wizard who happens to know Prismatic Spray researched it or learned it from somewhere. And, unless it happens to be the first time he's ever cast it........

* Assassins can be sent out by lots of folks, but they are usually folks who have reasons to have sent out assassins. But, here's an interesting point -- assassins, unlike bodaks and wizards, are real. They really do target real people in the real world. And, while you or I might not have much of a chance were we randomly targetted for some unknowable reason, the people in the real world who are likely to be targetted by assassins really take real world precautions.

And, sure, there may be individual cases where the footprints are very unlikely to be found. If that makes sense within the setting -- if the footprint is "consistent and self-referential", I have no problem with that. Sometimes, unlikely to be found is what "consistent and self-referential" means!

And some of the opinions presented earlier in this thread were that, if PCs ended up in a situation where they were making Saves vs death, the fault was either on them for not being prepared, or the DM for not sufficiently preparing them.

"Fault" is a loaded term here. If you mean that the players or DM are bad players or DMs, I wouldn't say that. If you mean the players took a mistep, or the DM failed to provide that potential, then I would agree that there is fault in that sense.

I would say that "every enemy has the potential to be foreseen, and PCs should take note of a monster's footprint and prepare accordingly." I wouldn't hook that into my argument about why SoD is acceptable though. What you are describing is my answer to the argument made for Hussar why SoD is bad.

As far as I am concerned, the potential to deal with SoD is no different than the potential to encounter a monster far, far tougher than the PCs. I like SoD because it meshes with my idea of how certain creatures/effects should be presented in the rules, but what SoD monsters offer (the chance for getting well and truly creamed) can be offered by non-SoD monsters just as easily.

And I do believe that the tension of not knowing for sure whether or not you've parsed out the threat level of an adventure site is critical to keeping the excitement level in the game.

When people say "You can't go back to the gaming of your youth", I often think they are talking about that tension of not knowing. My answer is, "Sure you can. You just need a ruleset that plays fast, and a willingness to let the players -- not the GM -- set the level of risk."

That is, IMHO, part of why players don't seem to mind SoD as much as GMs.

Allowing for the chance of the PCs getting well and truly creamed is part of letting the players set the risk. Eliminating it damages the game, IMHO. SoD isn't the only way to do it, but it isn't a particularly bad way to do it, either. Likewise, SSSoD can be interesting and fun. They are both tools, and only slightly different at that.

I have no desire to limit the tools at my dispossal.

 

[Ariosto]

Nor is it my argument that "there are never situations where PCs don't come across those signs or find themselves without the knowledge to interpret them correctly" -- that is Hussar's interpretation of my argument.

You know his S.O.P.. You have played into it with your emphasis.

I merely require that it be possible. Whether or not the PCs actually come across those signs, and whether or not the players interpret them correctly, is besides the point. I only require a "footprint" that is "consistent and self-referential".

THAT is what needs emphasis, as well as the context in which the probability makes sense.

The bottom line is that Hussar wants something else, a whole different context.

 

[Raven Crowking]

there is also a HUGE difference between the game in which players have strategic moves, permitting investigation to inform the series of decisions that lead ultimately to running headlong into either Demogorgon and his demonic hosts, or a handful of kobolds -- the game in which it is up to the players to take whatever measures they will -- and the game in which "encounters" are what the DM chooses for them as part of "the adventure" that is the DM's design.

In the former case, it is by default not at all necessarily a matter of having "tons of advance warning". It is not the player's role passively to receive "warnings". It is the player's role actively to investigate and extrapolate.

This is where the crux of the problem lies, IMHO.

That something can be discovered is very, very far from a guarantee that it shall be discovered. It is in fact in narrowing that gap that the game lies.

Agreed! I discussed this somewhat upthread as well.

I find myself somewhat sad at how often I am now responding to Hussar's straw man of my position, and how little people seem to have actually read what I wrote.


RC

 

[Ariosto]

What happened to the idea of getting out and doing the necessary in-game legwork to make the world revolve around your character (or preferably, party)?

It fell before the onslaught of a new demographic.

I don't know, man. Maybe we could mount a counter-invasion of Exalted, but besides two wrongs not making a right I think we are outnumbered.

Anyhow, it does not require something like the Belgariad as a basis. If the intent is to copy the assurances of any story, then the game -- the D&D game as you and I have known it -- is up.

 

[MrMyth]

As opposed to my statement of things when?

I'll get into that a bit below, but the original position you had seemed to take - which could have been a misreading on my part - was that you would always make a monster's footprint obvious to the PCs, rather than simply something that they had the potential to find and understand.

* The bodak created to guard an evil lair was created by someone with the potential to create bodaks. Unless it happens to be the first and only bodak that someone ever created......

Sure, but how do you know he created a Bodak and not, say, some other nasty sort of undead? Or some sort of golem? Or any number of other magical guardians?

Now, a group could simply assume that any monster is capable of death attacks, and prepare accordingly - but that might get into the 'magical arms race' of having high level clerics able to cast extended chained Death Wards or whatever. For groups without that, what is the proper precautions to take? Enter the fight blind, on the possibility it might be a creature with a death gaze?

And yes, there are ways they could definitively find out... generally through, again, potent magic such as divinations. (Assuming the enemy hasn't taken precautions against that.) The options left to a more standard or level-appropriate adventuring group might involve sending in a scout - and IDing the Bodak could well result in dying to it.

* The wizard who happens to know Prismatic Spray researched it or learned it from somewhere. And, unless it happens to be the first time he's ever cast it........

Sure, there could be evidence somewhere. Maybe it is obvious - bards regularly telling tales of his magical duels, for example. Maybe it is less so - they would have to actively know his mentor in the magical arts, or find a copy of his spellbook. And maybe it is almost impossible to know - he could be a sorcerer who just learned it, or they could be in a foreign land confronting him for the first time, with no rational reason why they would have researched his spellcasting habits in advance.

That's the issue, again - there are plenty of situations where you can come up with ways for the PCs to have access to this info... but also plenty of situations where they can't. Or rather, where the potential is there, as you desire, but it is so incredibly small as to be irrelevant.

* * Assassins can be sent out by lots of folks, but they are usually folks who have reasons to have sent out assassins. But, here's an interesting point -- assassins, unlike bodaks and wizards, are real. They really do target real people in the real world. And, while you or I might not have much of a chance were we randomly targetted for some unknowable reason, the people in the real world who are likely to be targetted by assassins really take real world precautions.

Maybe so. What precautions can PCs take? Investing in some sort of magical trick that will protect against death attacks? Again, you are getting into the magical arms race, and require some pretty serious resources or really optimized tricks to ensure that the suspicion an assassin might come after you translates to protection from the SoD.

*Tangent, because it's amusing: My group used to have a joke where everyone would constantly declare that they believed every square within 100' of them was always filled with invisible assassins, since the wording on the assassin's Death Attack said it didn't work if the target was aware of you, and so by declaring that invisible assassins were everywhere, you were safe if there happened to actually be one. I'm pretty sure that didn't actually work, but it was an entertaiing concept.*

* And, sure, there may be individual cases where the footprints are very unlikely to be found. If that makes sense within the setting -- if the footprint is "consistent and self-referential", I have no problem with that. Sometimes, unlikely to be found is what "consistent and self-referential" means!

Yeah, I think that's pretty much what we've been saying all along - some times, what is most reasonable is that the footprints will be hard to find (if not nigh-impossible.) Perhaps the main disagreement here is simply how often that is the case - Ariosto comments that it is only in "certain corner cases" (if I'm reading him correctly), but I don't think it is nearly that rare.

Also, I mean to apologize for muddying the waters with the issue being about "PCs being at fault", since that wasn't specifically your point in the past. It was raised in the thread, and I think it does tie it, but isn't where this particularly thread unravelled from.

Rather, I believe this came up from your earlier talk that every SoD was technically a SSSSSoD, in that it was the result of many rolls and actions taken before the SoD effect was actually encountered.

That argument was rooted, strongly, in this claim that every monster has a distinct footprint which PCs could respond to. Thus, you felt that PCs reacting to the footprint and then encountering the SoD was a similar situation to PCs entering a fight with a monster, feeling the initial effects of a SSSoD, and reacting to that.

(If I've got your argument wrong at any point here, just let me know.)

Now, I'd argue that the two are somewhat different simply due to the immediacy of one compared to the other... but even if you don't consider that, I think the point doesn't hold up because, as you note, note all footprints are reliably found.

If a party goes to enter an evil wizard's lair, and there is a Bodak inside, there may be checks they could have made to know this in advance - perhaps rolling Knowledge: Nature to notice dead creatures (without a mark upon them) outside its lair, and Knowledge: Religion to realize this is the work of a Bodak.

If, however, the wizard has kept the Bodak confined inside (perhaps to ensure it is always in the presence of what it is guarding, or perhaps because being active around his lair would cause trouble for his other minions), then those checks go away.

There could still be ways to learn of its presence - notably powerful divination or the like - but those resources aren't always there. And, most importantly, the PCs don't know the immediate consequences of their actions.

If I am in a fight, and I slowly start turning to stone, I know that I have different options - do I continue to throw myself in the fight, regardless of the consequences, to try and win victory for my friends? Or do I try and focus on fighting off the petrification, even if it means the tide of battle might turn against us? I don't know the right answer, but I at least have a general idea of the question.

If there is a SoD monster floating about somewhere, and I don't yet know about it, while there may be courses of action that reveal its presence and nature, I don't know in advance what they are or the consequences of looking into them or not. So while there may be a number of checks that lead up to the fight, they aren't enlightened ones - and, thus, the SoD itself remains a SoD, despite the fact that it happens as part of an adventure in which many other checks have been made.

 

[Lanefan]

You're entirely right, I have no interest at all in "earning" plot significance. I'm not interested in being some random dude who stumbles across some evil mastermind/monster/dire conflict which he has no prior connection with, and who then may or may not influence it in a significant way. I'm not interested in playing out other people's stories, except for those of the other PCs.

That doesn't mean I want to be the most powerful dude around from day one. It just means I want the story to be about *me*. I don't want that evil overlord to try to kill me just because I happen to look like an adventurer and wandered into his lair. I want him to try to kill me because *I*, specifically, matter in some way to his goals.

Wander into his lair and start bustin' it up and you'll matter to his goals pretty damn quick! But that's just my point: it's up to you to put yourself on his radar.

I don't want to fight some generic villain, I want to fight *my* villain, in the same way that Frodo deals with Sauron, that Batman deals with the Joker, that Superman deals with lex Luthor.

And once you've fought and beaten him, what then? Do you just fade into the sunset like Frodo does?

Quite simply, I like railroads better than sandboxes, for precisely this reason. I don't want to be some random guy in a world that is chugging along fine without me, full of people more important than me, which I will then attempt to influence in some way of my choosing.

I want to be the protagonist. Those powerful people with their agendas? What is their connection to me, how do they affect my story? If the answer is "no connection, unless you 'earn' one", then I'm not interested.

Sounds a bit selfish, taken at face value...

Now, if everything you were saying was about "the party" rather than "me" all the time then I could get behind it at least somewhat; because the party *is* the key ingredient. The party, as a whole.

But the party is greater than any of its individual characters! Characters come and go...my analogy again is a sports team, where players come and go but the team carries on year after year. Ditto for the party: it too (usually) remains and carries on; and through its deeds is going to attract attention quickly enough, both good and bad.

Lan-"Hall of Heroes - 1989"-efan