Why the Modern D&D variants will not attract new players

[Celebrim]

I don't care whether it's an attack or not. The rules are my interface to the world.

If you really believe that, then we have so little in common that we can do nothing but speak past each other.

Taking pain and damage is all part of the job and if you want my character to fear falls, they need to be something to fear in game.

A 30' unexpected fall is potentially lethal to a character of any level in my game. Granted, the odds are tiny (somewhat less than 1 in 20,000 depending on the assumptions you make), but the possibility exists. So, to that extent I agree with this claim.

I can't. If a 50' fall isn't going to seriously hurt my characters, and I know that, and my character knows that, it's going to be seriously frustrating to me to be told that I've act as if my character doesn't know what falls feel like.

To a certain extent, I agree. I believe that the rules should match the reality being simulated to as great of extent as possible. That this feeling is common is to a large part why the D&D default rules for falling are so frequently questioned and changed. Certainly that's why I changed them.

Okay. But when a character does decide that the lethal heat behind him is less scary then the multitenticalled stinging ooze demon in front of him...

Your character only knows what you would know in the same situation. You can't expect to have perfect information about the environment. I'm not going to tell you how many hit points the moster has, or how much damage it can do, or anything at all in terms of the rules if I can help it. In the real world, there are many things you don't know until you try them, and that remains true even after you are experienced with them - which is why even experienced real world 'adventurers' can get themselves into trouble.

And again, he's fighting a multitenticalled stinging ooze demon that could drive a dozen Call of Cthulhu characters insane by just looking at them; why should he be terrified of a little heat that he's faced before?

Because, quite arguably, your character knows that he's escaped all those situations only by at least some reliance on luck and good fortune, and his luck and good fortune might suddenly run out. The default understanding of hit points is not that they make your character immune to crossbow bolts in the chest, but that they represent to a large extent your heroic luck that protects you so that crossbow bolts fired at you don't hit you squarely in the chest. But from your character's prespective he knows that on those few occassions he does get squarely hit, he's as mortal as any other man. So sure, he knows his luck and good fortune protect him, but why should he try his luck? In point of fact, if your character fell 50' and lived, in D&D that doesn't mean that falls aren't lethal, that the force of gravity is lesser, or that stone is less solid. So your character doesn't 'know what falls feel like' in the sense that he knows that falling doesn't hurt. He knows rather, "It's a good thing that I managed to land on that patch of mud, didn't fall head first, was able to slow my fall on the way down, etc. because otherwise I'd be dead."

I could be widely off base here, but you bear the marks of a player who has been repeatedly screwed over and even abused by bad DMs.

 

[nedjer]

Just anecdotal evidence. Most of the people I see playing encounters aren't young. That implies to me, that they probably aren't a new generation of players either.
Plus, I kind of think you need to have friends participating to really get into the game. Having friends that share a common interest with you, keeps everyone enthusiastic about the whole affair. IME, alot of the people in pickup groups at stores are throwbacks from more regular D&D groups. You know who I mean- the kind of guys that epitomize the most negative stereotypes of our beloved hobby. I'm sure plenty of awesome people play it too, but my experiences with such games were made very negative because of such players.

Fair comment But to stick to the dull tutorial analogy - I've seen plenty of teachery/ tutory types have a nightmare start. But they improve the materials, build 'social contracts', start to anticipate problems before they occur . . . TRPGs are pretty new to making themselves more accessible; it'll get better if they stick at it.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm aware of the WP/VP mechanic. It has its purposes, but it IMO tends to make the game less gameable. One of the reasons that HP's are the defacto standard mechanic not only in RPG's but in games generally is that they mitigate against bad luck. The tendency of WP/VP is to create a lot of random deaths, which may be realistic and appropriate for some settings/games, but does reduce gameability somewhat.

But isn't any system where falling damage has lethal potential going to run into this same issue? I mean, either high-level PCs can die from a 30' fall, or they can't. If you regard dying from such a fall as "random death," then any system in which such a thing is possible is going to have random deaths.

 

[prosfilaes]

A 30' unexpected fall is potentially lethal to a character of any level in my game. Granted, the odds are tiny (somewhat less than 1 in 20,000 depending on the assumptions you make), but the possibility exists. So, to that extent I agree with this claim.

It's not a fix I'd be terribly happy with; for one, odds of more then maybe one in 400 (18 on 3d6, or 2 20s in a row on a d20) are too unlikely to have any result but causing random destruction once in a blue moon. For another, Rolemaster is right; any attack can bring the sudden death of an unlucky victim. If it really started to annoy me, I could see a quadratic system--(distance / 10')^2 d6 or something. But singling out falls as having a low probability of sudden death strikes me as weird.

Your character only knows what you would know in the same situation. You can't expect to have perfect information about the environment. [...] anything at all in terms of the rules if I can help it.

I am not my character; my character is a very-much larger than life experienced adventurer. There is no way you can convey the information my adventurer knows about this situation in mere words. If you want to try and feed me everything in description, I don't feel unreasonable in wanting that description to give me a solid understand of just how dangerous a trained professional thinks it is.

which is why even experienced real world 'adventurers' can get themselves into trouble.

I'm playing D&D, not E6 or Rolemaster. The Crocodile Hunter is not a medium or high level D&D character.

Because, quite arguably, your character knows that he's escaped all those situations only by at least some reliance on luck and good fortune, and his luck and good fortune might suddenly run out.

That's some characters. But that's not necessarily all characters; some may trust their god to have their back, some may believe their luck will never run out, and some may just stop caring.

But from your character's perspective he knows that on those few occassions he does get squarely hit, he's as mortal as any other man.

From my character's perspective, he's had a few occasions where he's been squarely hit by a crossbow bolt. Most people were killed by the first, and never got a raise dead. He's clearly not as mortal as any other man. You're making a lot of assumptions about how people respond to these things, and while I think that some PCs may be reasonably cautious people, I think others may well believe themselves immortal or think they have nothing to lose.

 

[Celebrim]

But isn't any system where falling damage has lethal potential going to run into this same issue? I mean, either high-level PCs can die from a 30' fall, or they can't. If you regard dying from such a fall as "random death," then any system in which such a thing is possible is going to have random deaths.

Yes. It's hard to have a system where there is meaningful risk and 0 chance of death. But typically WP/VP systems tend to generate fairly high risks of death in a wide variaty of situations.

 

[Hussar]

I do think Prosfilaes has a point. The primary interaction that any player will have with the game world will be through the rules, whether those rules are filtered through the GM or not. Take two example players:

Player 1 plays in a system where the rules are very open to all players and he knows the books reasonably well. He comes to a pit. He knows, from the rules that this fall will not do enough damage to kill his character. His decisions about how to cross this pit will incorporate that information.

Player 2 plays in a system where the rules are kept hidden behind the DM wall. He comes to a pit. The first time this happens, his decisions will be based on guesswork. But, after he falls in that pit the first time, the second pit trap he comes to will no longer involve guesswork. He knows the rules now and he's in the exact same position as Player 1.

So long as the GM is consistent (and a good GM will be consistent) it doesn't matter at all whether the resolution mechanics are pre-written in the rules or spring from the forehead of the GM. At least, it doesn't matter to the player after the first time.

What is gained by hiding the rules behind the GM wall? After a very short period of time, the rules will be known to everyone at the table and both groups will base their decisions on that knowledge.

About the only difference I see is that when Player 1 moves to a different DM, he knows the rules up front. Player 2 has to relearn them again with the new GM. But, again, after a fairly short period of time, both players are in the exact same position - all interaction with the game world is based on the mechanics.

And, really, this is a good thing, IMO. Using different mechanics means a very different play experience depending on the game and genre. I want certain mechanics if the game is meant to emulate particular genres - more or less lethal combat, more or less integrated social skills, more or less task resolution skills. More or less buttons to fiddle with depending on the game.

Knowledge of the game mechanics allows players to make informed decisions regarding their play. If the mechanics are suited to a particular genre, they should reward some actions while possibly punishing others. Or at least provide a disincentive to follow certain actions.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. It's hard to have a system where there is meaningful risk and 0 chance of death. But typically WP/VP systems tend to generate fairly high risks of death in a wide variaty of situations.

Where did the "fork thread" button go???

Starting new thread in General on this topic...don't know how to link from here.

Lan-"no fork, no knife, no spoon - what's this place coming to?"-efan

 

[Celebrim]

It's not a fix I'd be terribly happy with; for one, odds of more then maybe one in 400 (18 on 3d6, or 2 20s in a row on a d20) are too unlikely to have any result but causing random destruction once in a blue moon. For another, Rolemaster is right; any attack can bring the sudden death of an unlucky victim. If it really started to annoy me, I could see a quadratic system--(distance / 10')^2 d6 or something. But singling out falls as having a low probability of sudden death strikes me as weird.

I'm not singling out falls.

So, just so you understand the rules.

1) Falls do 1d20 damage per 10' of falling, divided by the results of 1d6. This generates an average damage very near to 1d6 per 10' of falling, but as you might expect has a very broad multimodal distribution where 'anything is possible'.
2) Any single blow/attack of any sort which does 50 or more points of damage forces a traumatic damage save. This is a DC 15 fortitude save. If it fails, you roll against a table with results varying from things like broken limbs, to internal hemoraging, to crushed skulls. Since a 30' fall can conceivably do 50 damage (50+ on the result of a 3d20, and a roll of 1 on the mitigation die), and since any saving throw can be failed on a roll of 1, any character that falls 30' unexpectedly is at risk of dying. This greatly increases at greater heights. Falling off of great heights is almost never automatic death, but it is always the risk of it. Both are highly desirable traits as far as I'm concerned.
3) Any fall which reduces you to zero or less hit points is automatically considered traumatic damage. This is also true of any critical hit which does so, so I'm not particularly picking on falling I just don't want to make resolution any more complex than it is by treating the ground as attacking you.
4) PC's have a stock of 'destiny points' which can be used to buy rerolls or to force critical blows to become non-critical as well as many other useful things. So, in general, bad luck can be mitigated unless you make too much of it for yourself.

The results of this are pretty straight forward. The results of falling are on average pretty much exactly what you'd expect if I had used the standard rules, but exactly as I desire, every player is very much careful around heights because any mishap means potentially burning all important destiny points or outright death. Death is always lurking just a round away, but so far the players in my current campaign have managed to avoid it - though at least once (involving the harpoon trap in the shrine of the traps god) I was certain that they wouldn't.

And the simulationist in me likes that you can fall out of an airplane an live, or fall out of a tree house and die.

There is no way you can convey the information my adventurer knows about this situation in mere words.

Errr..... yeah. Right. So, I continue to feel like this conversation is going to become more and more pointless.

If you want to try and feed me everything in description, I don't feel unreasonable in wanting that description to give me a solid understand of just how dangerous a trained professional thinks it is.

How about, 'Very'? I'm having a hard time relating this request to anything real people know about real situations.

I'm playing D&D, not E6 or Rolemaster. The Crocodile Hunter is not a medium or high level D&D character.

I'm not sure you can state anything definatively about what is or isn't high level except with respect to a particular campaign. What was 'high level' on Krynn was low level on Faerun. High level for Eberron is probably different than high level for Planescape.

You're making a lot of assumptions about how people respond to these things, and while I think that some PCs may be reasonably cautious people, I think others may well believe themselves immortal or think they have nothing to lose.

Maybe. I am making some assumptions here, but I note so are you about how D&D plays as if there was one answer to that question even in published works to say nothing of homebrews. I'm not even sure that characters that you envision as the default D&D character exist in my worlds.

You want to play a reckless devil may care sort of character, I'm perfectly fine with that. But unless you are a particularly skilled role player, chances are you are going to end up dead in a hurry trying to personify that. More importantly though, I find your argument to be a bit spurious because you don't seem from your discussion to be the sort of person who leans strongly toward 'role playing your character is more important than success' much less one that deliberately chooses less than optimal strategies because 'its what my character would do'. In fact, the some of your statements convey to me exactly the opposite. You want to play 'strong' characters. You want to have full knowledge so you can choose the winning strategy. You talk about knowing whether something is useful is critical to your enjoyment. You seem to me to be inventing this notion of the reckless character to justify precisely the opposite sort of play.

Look, you are talking to the guy who spent most of his 1st edition career playing a thief - a class with virtually no advantages at all in 1st edition, with an attack progression worse than a 3e mage, poor hit points, bad saves, and no class abilities that weren't obseleted by spells before 10th level. Your talking to a guy who cut his teeth as a player in a game system where you weren't that worried about the save or dies - it was the die no saves that you had to be particularly careful of. You are talking to a guy that played the game at a time when reading the DMG as a player was considered somewhat less than bad form. I just have hard time being sympathetic with your position that you need all this control and metagame information to enjoy the game. And in any event, I don't think that that is the way you nuture up new players.

 

[Dausuul]

Edit: Taking it to Lanefan's thread on WP/VP systems.

 

[Umbran]

Well, that depends on how it's implemented, doesn't it?

All other things being equal, if you allow some forms of damage to effectively skip past some of your hit points, you are increasing the risk of PC death. The more forms of damage skip past, the greater the increase in risk. You'd have to nerf some other damage forms, or give some other benefit, in order for risk to be equivalent. That's just the math - make some things hurt more, risk increases.

You may feel the increase in risk is something you feel you can ignore, of course, or you may feel that the increased risk is worth the verisimilitude, or actually enhances some flavor in your game, or is otherwise acceptable. But that's perhaps a separate question.

For me - if the change isn't a raise in risk worth worrying about, I'd have to wonder why it was done. Special rules for rare cases are usually not worth their weight in paperwork.