"He's beyond my healing ability..."

[Celebrim]

a.k.a. Codified DM Fiat.

Yes. However, all DM fiat is effectively house rules whether codified or not. Mine has the advantage of being codified, which means my rules have the advantage of being knowable, reviewable, somewhat more unbiased in application, and generally less forcing than uncodified rules. Rather than being, "The DM gets his way.", they are "The DM gets to decide the percentage chance that he gets his way."

I'm not really suggesting hypocricy on selective rules. I'm not suggesting that because anyone who accepts one form should accept all. I'm more on the side of pointing out that there are issues that people accept freely. But when one particular ruling they dislike is used, the DM using it is now a bad DM. I don't think anyone here is a bad DM based on their strict adherence to the healing rules, but "the other side" has some that do think those who use Dying Breath scenes are "Bad DMs."

And they are therefore hypocrites? Quibble over the term how you like, I think I understood your position well. When I said you were trying to point out hypocricy, it was short hand for what you just stated.

But, specifically in this example, I don't want the heroes to die because they slipped off a ladder.

Well, I don't want the heroes to die because they slipped off the ladder either. Frankly, I don't want the heroes to die whether its because of ladder slippage or dragon pwnage. However, if I simply made the rule be, "You can't die", this would consequences that I wanted even less.

That's something that happens to the Average Joe in my game world, not the characters. My players understand that the resolution system built around them emulates the survivability of Captain Kirk, while the minor players in the world are Red Shirts.

Well, in practice, as does mine. The chance that a PC would die from slipping off a ladder is tiny, so tiny that PC's could probably slip off ladders hundreds of times without killing themselves. In fact, it might be some time before any of them did it and injured themselves. But the chance of death is non-zero so long as the act of slipping off a ladder does at least 1 point of damage since the PC that so slips could already be injured. Likewise, there is a chance that the PC's will die from a rat bite or pnuemonia or drowning in shallow water or a lucky shot from a kobold archer. The chances of that happening are in fact quite low, because the PC's are very resource laded and the players very resourceful. But it's not a non-zero chance.

If I have a rule that says, "The PC cannot die except in a heroic manner", I might well be better off in a system that doesn't track hit points.

This whole discussion boils down to taste. Some players are fine with off-the-cuff rulings.

As a player rather than a DM, I'm fine with off the cuff rulings. No rule set is or can be complete. However, I expect that when I'm in a similar situation the previous ruling will now constitute a body of what you might call 'common law' which I can weigh my decision on the basis of. If the situation for example previously required me to roll a 15 or better on the d20, then I'll expect that of similar situations (as well as ideally easier rolls for less challenging situations and harder rolls for more challenging ones). If something is possible, it stays possible unless acted on by an in game force. If something is not possible, it stays impossible unless acted on by an in game force.

Likewise, as a DM, whenever possible I prefer to have rules, because the act of applying an existing rule is less stressful (and speedier) than deciding how I should handle a proposition fairly in an off the cuff manner.

Now, other people may have differing opinions. They may expect far less consistancy and fairness from their DM if they are recieving some other quality that they value higher, or they may feel that making up rules is far harder than making up rulings.

Be as that may, I think that on the whole the sort of 'lazy by fiat' scene framing and scene resolution suggested by some while not 100% wrong is not 100% right either, and that there are better ways to do things. It doesn't make you a bad DM to apply fiat scene resolution, but its something you ought to really think hard about before you do it, including thinking hard about whether you can get to what you want without breaking the rules and the player's expectations of fairness.

 

[Janx]

I think celebrim has some pretty well thought out house rule mods to get the "real world" effects he wants. I'd probably like to get a copy so I can consider some of them for my game.

For every other GM though, some things just aren't that well thought out. Nor should we expect perfect consideration about every game element.

It is entirely concievable that a GM could put a NPC into "last words" mode, and not even think of what might happen in a PC tries to heal him.

I find it gimpy to have to consider ever angle on every game element, and adding blocks like "he was almost killed with special unhealable poison" just to get the emotional effect of the scene that these are indeed his dying words.

I'm not comfortable making up some excuse of "why it doesn't work" when the player does the unthinkable and tries to heal him.

I don't want to spoil the mood of the scene by declaring as part of it that "this is a scripted encounter and he's meant to die". That's about as disrupting actually as arguing with the PC whether the heal should work.

I stand by my right to put a tear jerker moment in the game if I think it'll make the story about the game better.
There's a reason shirts that say "Because I'm the GM" have existed since the darn of RPGs.

A GM has the right to do whatever the heck he wants through any edition of the game, so long as he has an audience to GM for. Given that he does most the work, he has more rights and therefore more power than the players.

So why does the healing fail? Because the Gods have decided it was his time. Much like anything else happening in the game world.

 

[prosfilaes]

I'm not comfortable making up some excuse of "why it doesn't work" when the player does the unthinkable and tries to heal him.

Unthinkable? In the real world, paramedics don't just stand by and watch someone die; they get in and do their best to save the person's life. What's unthinkable to me is that someone given the power of the gods to heal people should stand by a dying ally and not try to save their life.

 

[Janx]

Unthinkable? In the real world, paramedics don't just stand by and watch someone die; they get in and do their best to save the person's life. What's unthinkable to me is that someone given the power of the gods to heal people should stand by a dying ally and not try to save their life.

I was being tongue in cheek about that dude. Unthinkable as in "how could the GM have not forseen that the party healer would try to heal the guy"

That's layer 1 to this whole topic. The premise that GMs have infallibly thought all the stuff out. I do not assume the GM thought of everything and may be scrambling to adjust as players do what he did not expect.

It is also just as likely that the guy is sitting there bleeding out, and the party healer just sits there, not thinking to jump in. Because the PLAYER is NOT a MEDIC.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Rather than being, "The DM gets his way.", they are "The DM gets to decide the percentage chance that he gets his way."

Do you consider the "percentage chance" a prerequisite to a good houserule? Or is the houserule stated by a few of us here, "people can eke out a few words when they are RAW dead," somehow damaged because it lacks a variable?

And they are therefore hypocrites? Quibble over the term how you like, I think I understood your position well. When I said you were trying to point out hypocricy, it was short hand for what you just stated.

Sorry for the quibble. I wasn't trying to argue the hypocrisy, just the angle I was approaching it.

Likewise, as a DM, whenever possible I prefer to have rules, because the act of applying an existing rule is less stressful (and speedier) than deciding how I should handle a proposition fairly in an off the cuff manner.

Agreed. And when I do house rule I usually choose simple non-game-rules affecting things like the ability to gasp out something while dying. Not a spell. Not a final attack. Just conversation.

It is entirely concievable that a GM could put a NPC into "last words" mode, and not even think of what might happen in a PC tries to heal him.

Some of us gave a simple ruling with a basis that has no far-reaching rules implications and were still inferred to be bad DMs.

 

[baradtgnome]

I can see both sides. My bias is, if I put the players in the action (scene, whatever you want to call it) as much as possible they are able to interact, use their skills and abilities, to alter the environment. I find it breaks the verisimilitude if we switch their ability to influence their environment on and off at random times.

So for example, regardless of what edition you play, there is a line where characters are no longer able to act because they are hurt. Whether hit points are zero or a negative number, the characters die or fall unconscious. If a DM rules strictly the players can take no further actions once that happens (take speaking for example) how is it not confusing to the players if NPCs can do what they cannot? Sure, there might be a special circumstance which allows it, but shouldn't that supernatural occurrence be at least hinted at somehow to the players, even if they don't fully understand it?

I like the players to use their brains to solve problems and puzzles. If the world is inconsistent on purpose some of the time - why would they try to make sense of it?

Having said that, I really understand the emotional impact of the scene played out in the OPs example. I personally would have created some explanation in the scene for why they could not have cured him. Yes, maybe that is cliche on top of cliche but I prefer that to asking players out of character to sit and watch.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

As I said from the beginning, if the rules don't allow you to achieve what you want to achieve, then change the rules.

This, a hundred times over.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Unthinkable? In the real world, paramedics don't just stand by and watch someone die; they get in and do their best to save the person's life. What's unthinkable to me is that someone given the power of the gods to heal people should stand by a dying ally and not try to save their life.

And what if it's the deities standing by and refusing to grant the cleric the spell effects? I mean, after all, it's the DM who wants this character dead. He just doesn't want him to die until he's given his cryptic clue or whatever. Rules as written don't generally allow for that possibility except in the rare cases of things like ongoing ability damage or magic-proof poisons or the like. What the DM seems to want is the "paramedics" hitting the poor slob with the paddles and pumping him with adrenaline to the heart as well as IV's, but everyone STILL watching the victims face twisted in agony, then opening his eyes and with his final breath... "Rosebud..." Hit points and healing rules just don't allow that. It requires house rules, or ignoring the rules or circumventing the rules with outrageous circumstances just to pull off this cliche scene.

Given what the DM wants (cryptic dying clue) and what the players expect (their magic to work as it always does) the rules are getting in the way. If the DM really wants/needs this event to happen then either the rules run the DM, the DM rules by fiat, or the DM makes new rules FOR HIS GAME into what he wants and needs them to be. Any of those three options is viable. None are inherently "incorrect" (though for my money the preferred option is the last of the three). The only remaining thing to talk about is the DM communicating with the players; both sides of the DM screen understanding and accepting of the DM's choice of those three options so that it won't be a game-disrupting issue when it actually arises.

 

[Celebrim]

Do you consider the "percentage chance" a prerequisite to a good houserule?

I consider probabilities the basis of all gaming. There exists a fortune mechanic for determining what the outcome of a proposition is a special and important case of the fundamental law of RPing: "Thou Shalt Not Be Good at Everything."

"people can eke out a few words when they are RAW dead," somehow damaged because it lacks a variable?

It's damaged because first it is noncontextual. It's a Shrodinger Law. We can't know if it applies until after we know the game state, and by the time we know the game state it may be too late to apply the law. You fall into the flooding pit trap and drown. Does the law apply underwater? You are beheaded by a vorpal blade; does the law apply? What about if you are swallowed by a purple worm and digested?

It's damaged secondly because applying the law generally suspends disbelief in the game world. The above cases were apply the law results in ridiculousness are a case in point, but they are generally true of many deaths which we cannot gaurantee will be long and dragging except by applying alot of force to the game. I have a tendency to believe in trusting the dice. If the results aren't what you want, its not the fault of the dice. Either you have the wrong system for what you want, or you've become too committed to a single outcome to let the game breathe and you are acting like a petty tyrant and control freak. If there is only a single outcome that must happen, then stop pretending this is a multiplayer game and write the novel. I think DMs get themselves into big big trouble by asking themselves what they want to happen and fanticizing about how it is going to happen instead of focusing on what is and what the NPC's given the scene framing are going to do. Alot of the best scenes will be the ones you didn't plan for, and in my experience fantasizing too much about getting a particular scene just leads to frustration and disappointment, not only for the DM, but for his players who feel like they are 'doing it wrong'.

And in fact, a lot of people in this thread have suggested that the players are seriously 'doing it wrong' by trying to heal the injured person. A lot of people have suggested that those players need to be lectured, set straight, and possibly punished for attempting to 'ruin' the DM's scene. I see that as a potentially problimatic approach to the game. Sometimes it will work, and some players may be ok with taking hints from the DM that things are supposed to work out a certain way and that they shouldn't interfere with the DM's plans, but I wouldn't recommend that as a best practice.

It's damaged thirdly precisely because a 'rule' like that is focusing on what someone outside of the game 'wants' to happen instead of what the characters inside the game actually do. Rules are there for arbitrating out of game propositions and creating in game outcomes. Meta rules tend to work only if the game is to have a very limited scope. As can be seen from my first example, the rule might be fine, if and only if we want to say that are game is very much not about certain things. Saying that your game is about something very narrow - like heroes always get dying monologues - is in fact excluding everything else your game could be about. I generally don't want to narrow my game so much unless its a one shot with characters with a meaning and purpose that is only going to last for 4 hours or so.

Agreed. And when I do house rule I usually choose simple non-game-rules affecting things like the ability to gasp out something while dying. Not a spell. Not a final attack. Just conversation.

No purple worms? No beheadings? No dissolved in a pool of acid? No drowning in the briny depths? No screaming out your last soundless breaths in a vacuum trap? No reduced to quivering mindless jelly by a chaos curse? Just dying conversations. Ok, I got it.

I don't believe that there are 'bad DMs' and 'good DMs'. I don't believe that something like skillful DMing is binary or even a linear axis. There are lots and lots of aspects to skillful DMing, and one of them is adjusting your game to your particular players. For example, in my current campaign a lot my players are new and are really enjoying the levelling up process, so I tend to not to 'punish' them too much for dying. Sooner or later many of them will stop seeing leveling up as the primary reward of gaming, and some of them will want to only get a high level character 'honestly'. For that group, maybe we'll have harsher rules about starting over if you die because ultimately it would be more satisfying to that group; for this group, it would just be frustrating. That's just one example.

I do believe however that everyone can improve their game. And when I start hearing how players are 'bad players' for not likeing a DM cut scene with heavy handed and generous use of DM force, then I'm thinking that those are DM's that could use some advice on how to improve that one area of the their game. I'm not thinking however that they are bad DMs. They might very well be very good DMs; the original poster seems fairly sound and interesting. I just think in this one area he might find his group even happier with his direction if he's less heavy handed.

 

[pemerton]

The players cannot actually change the outcome of the scene since the DM declares that the guy is too hurt to be healed and he just dies.

Quickleaf hasn't said this. Majestic Word didn't work - but whether a power that allows death to be delayed or reversed, or even a more powerful heal-all power or potion, would work, wasn't explored (presumably the PCs didn't have access to such magic).

In my posts talking about how I might run this sort of situation, and have run a somewhat similar situation, I've made it clear that a range of magic might work, including the Remove Affliction ritual.

if I put the players in the action (scene, whatever you want to call it) as much as possible they are able to interact, use their skills and abilities, to alter the environment. I find it breaks the verisimilitude if we switch their ability to influence their environment on and off at random times.

In what way did Quickleaf switch off the abilities of the players in his game to influence the fiction via their PCs?

So an PC's interaction with an NPC isn't a "particular conflict in which the player, via their PCs, are invested"?

There's a lengthy discussion upthread, involving me, Quickleaf, Crazy Jerome and maybe others, about hard scene framing, colour vs conflict, etc. I've expressed my views there. TL;DR - it depends on the group, the context etc. Unless you were at Quickleaf's table, I don't think you can know what was going on there in terms of the reasonableness of the GM force he used.

If a character can't be healed by normal magical means, then it ought to be obvious why and make sense within the context of the game

As I said from the beginning, if the rules don't allow you to achieve what you want to achieve, then change the rules.

This is exactly why I've said that 4e makes Quickleaf's scenario easy to run. Because the rules of 4e manifestly permit injuries that mere hit point healing cannot deal with - it's just that there is no way for ordinary attacks by monsters or PCs to inflict those injuries via the typical action resolution mechanics. Hence the need to inflict the injury in question via scene framing rather than scene resolution. But once the scene has been framed, no action resolution mechanics need to be suspended to make the injury unhealable by PCs who have access only to hit point healing.

In Quickleaf's case, furthermore, the PCs only had access to surge-dependent hit point healing, and the NPC had no surges remaining.

So Quickleaf's scenario (and my scenario, in which the PCs came across injuries - including maiming and blinding - that hit point healing magic couldn't heal) doesn't require changing any rules. It just requires stipulating, indpendependently of the action resolution rules, that the injuries in question were inflicted in battle. Hence the significance of the scene-framing/scene-resolution distinction.

I find it gimpy to have to consider ever angle on every game element, and adding blocks like "he was almost killed with special unhealable poison" just to get the emotional effect of the scene that these are indeed his dying words.

<snip>

I stand by my right to put a tear jerker moment in the game if I think it'll make the story about the game better.

For example, magic items, like the one implied in the above scene framing, are a very easy way in D&D introduce whatever rules exceptions you desire.

Actually crafting the house rules you need is another way.

I agree with Janx that introducing magic or poisons should not be necessary to create the desired scene. Happily for me, I run a game - 4e - in which they are not necessary, because the scene can be framed and then adjudicated without needing house rules (other than pretty standard adjudication, like thinking about what sorts of injuries Remove Affliction might heal).