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

[Vyvyan Basterd]

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?

Call me a grognard, but I prefer to use common sense when presented with specific cases.

"Does the law apply underwater?" First, I'm not sure why you insist twisting the context from a rule to a LAW, but I'd ask you: Can a character speak underwater? RAW has no answer. Geuss by your measure you should be pre-prepared a house rule governing speaking underwater. My common sense approach says you can at best let out a very muted gurgle.

"You are beheaded by a vorpal blade; does the law apply?" Can a normal human being speak when their head has been severed? And what version of vorpal sword are you using? Current versions don't actually sever anything. Past version tell you they sever the victim's head, but this actually is in support of the "attacks that kill but cause no hit point loss." And nowhere in the RAW of those past versions does it say losing your head results in death. The game assumes you would use common sense to link the loss of one's head with death.

"What about if you are swallowed by a purple worm and digested?" I'd still allow the final words, but it's unlikely anyone of importance would hear them from the stomach of the worm.

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'.

Yes, applying a house rule blindly when it doesn't fit the circumstances will result in something that doesn't fit. I'm not writing a houserule for a computer game, I'm writing one for myself.

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.

That's why I prefer the, he's already [game condition]dead[/game condition], but tells you one last thing. And letting players know that this is possible in my game world. They know by RAW that their healing magic won't work unless it works on dead people. They even know that bringing a person back from the dead requires willingness of the spirit and may not work. But if they are prepared with a Speak with Dead, different story.

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.

So, you apply the rules to everything you determine as DM? Nothing happens "off-screen" without a roll? The characters in the set up enter the screen when the 'last words' NPC is already dead in my setup. You've never framed a scene where the characters come in to find dead townsfolk killed by orcs? Why didn't you give the characters a chance to stop those orcs? My suspension of disbelief is harmed when people act like things can only happen in the game world when the characters are involved.

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.

Yep, just dying conversations. Twice in two decades justifies trying to ridicule me for suggesting I use a trope you dislike.

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.

Agreed. I don't think any non-jokin comment I've made would be heavy-handed, nor do my players feel that I am that way.

 

[prosfilaes]

And what if it's the deities standing by and refusing to grant the cleric the spell effects?

Then you've just used a hammer to swat a fly, and left my cleric wondering why suddenly did his god decide to intervene. In any case, that's beside the point; the point was that the DM should expect the cleric to try and heal the man.

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

Of course they do. "Oh great sirs, if you had just been here five minutes ago! The lord gasped out 'cryptic clue' and died from his wounds."

except in the rare cases of things like ongoing ability damage or magic-proof poisons or the like.

Or, you know, poison of any lethal type if you know the cleric won't have an anti-poison spell on them.

The DM has lots of options without house ruling stuff; it's the insistence on a very specific scenario that's the problem.

 

[prosfilaes]

That's why I prefer the, he's already [game condition]dead[/game condition], but tells you one last thing.

Then the PCs just happen to walk into the scene in the one round that the victim is slipping into death, or do people linger around in the [game condition]dead[/game condition] for an extended time just waiting for the PCs to show up, so they can utter their dying words?

 

[Jhaelen]

Then the PCs just happen to walk into the scene in the one round that the victim is slipping into death, or do people linger around in the [game condition]dead[/game condition] for an extended time just waiting for the PCs to show up, so they can utter their dying words?

Well, does a falling tree make a sound if no one is nearby?

 

[baradtgnome]

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

Sorry if my comment was not clear. It simply refers to the fact the players have healing ability and they are not allowed to have it work without explanation.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Then the PCs just happen to walk into the scene in the one round that the victim is slipping into death, or do people linger around in the [game condition]dead[/game condition] for an extended time just waiting for the PCs to show up, so they can utter their dying words?

I've already admitted way upthread that this is a cliche. That's why the trope has come up maybe twice in 28 years for me.

Besides, alot of things happen around the heroes where the timing seems a little sketchy. It is as if Fate draws such improbable events to figures of great potential destiny.

 

[pemerton]

Besides, alot of things happen around the heroes where the timing seems a little sketchy. It is as if Fate draws such improbable events to figures of great potential destiny.

Can't XP you again yet, so just QFT. It's reassuring that someone else has noticed!

 

[Celebrim]

Call me a grognard, but I prefer to use common sense when presented with specific cases.

Good. I've already mentioned that back in the July 14 9:43 post.

"But for the purposes of scene resolution, then I think that players have a reasonable expectation that everything that they interact with will obey some sort of knowable rule, even if only 'common sense'." - Me

So your real rule is: "Characters can get a death speech when it makes sense." But that is not only more of a guideline than a rule, I can easily claim that it applies to my game as well. Sure, where it makes sense, characters can get a death speech.

Yes, applying a house rule blindly when it doesn't fit the circumstances will result in something that doesn't fit. I'm not writing a houserule for a computer game, I'm writing one for myself.

Justice is meant to be blind. A good rule requires as little interpretation as possible. Otherwise, it's just sort of a guideline. I respect the DM's authority to break the rules occasionally, but if there is a better alternative course available I would advise taking it.

That's why I prefer the, he's already [game condition]dead[/game condition], but tells you one last thing.

For a guy who sites the importance of common sense with such stridence, you seem to be very willing to suspend it when it suits you. My intuitive understanding of 'dead' is that it would work alot like being dead. Does common sense tell you the dead should be talking?

So, you apply the rules to everything you determine as DM? Nothing happens "off-screen" without a roll?

I believe I've already addressed this as well, when I wrote:

"It's one thing to have an argument about scene framing and say, "Well, for the purposes of scene framing, a DM doesn't have to play out the scene. He can simply construct the scene by fiat - the destroyed fort for example - without doing the game mechanics resolution - he doesn't have to run the battle or establish the army size from precise calculations of the regions demographics. A DM doesn't have to exactly prove that the band of Hill Giants can find enough food in the arid badlands to survive. A DM only has to make these events and decisions plausible, so that the players don't have suspension of disbelief harmed by finding 8 hill giants living behind a sealed door in a 30'x30' room deep in a dungeon down a 5' wide corridor with no apparant means of egress or physical support." - Me

So where you are going with this tangent I haven't a clue, but its certainly not based on anything I've been saying. It certainly doesn't seem to follow from anything you quoted.

We aren't talking about off scene events or scene framing, but scene resolution. This is happening 'on stage'.

You've never framed a scene where the characters come in to find dead townsfolk killed by orcs?

Sure I have. I've even framed a scene where they find some injured survivors, or even injured and dying survivors. I've just never told my players, "You can't heal this guy just because."

However, oppurtunities for death speeches have been rare. Both PC's and important NPC's tend to die in epic fashions that don't leave a lot of room for lengthy soliloquy, or they die in lonely ways where it wouldn't matter what they said. Or they just have better things to do while they are dying than to give lengthy monologues, like you know, try to prevent their deaths.

My current game integrates the way I played GURPS, so that if you fall to 0 hit points or less you make a fortitude save to remain conscious. If you succeed, you are staggered and bleeding but conscious. This gives some time for saying something before you die. I have no general problem with that. The problem I have is the cut scene like nature of finding a survivor who dies regardless of what you do. I don't even like cut scenes like that in video games, much less in a PnP game where the DM can apply common sense.

Yep, just dying conversations. Twice in two decades justifies trying to ridicule me for suggesting I use a trope you dislike.

I have no intention of ridiculing you.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

So your real rule is: "Characters can get a death speech when it makes sense." But that is not only more of a guideline than a rule, I can easily claim that it applies to my game as well. Sure, where it makes sense, characters can get a death speech.

Since I have counted every rulle in D&D in all of its incarnations as a guidline, I agree 100%.

Justice is meant to be blind. A good rule requires as little interpretation as possible. Otherwise, it's just sort of a guideline. I respect the DM's authority to break the rules occasionally, but if there is a better alternative course available I would advise taking it.

My opinion is that a good rule allows wiggle room to apply common sense in particular situations.

For a guy who sites the importance of common sense with such stridence, you seem to be very willing to suspend it when it suits you. My intuitive understanding of 'dead' is that it would work alot like being dead. Does common sense tell you the dead should be talking?

Someone who is dead should not be talking, normally. Someone who is [game definition]dead[/game definition] is adjudicated according to the rules. The problem with all forms of D&D is that they are limited to 3 functional states (or less): fully functional, unconscious, or dead. I do not tie game conditions directly to the literal real world meaning. That's why I've adjusted my style to define what [game definition]dead[/game definition] means in may games. But I do try to hew close to the rules. A [game definition]dead[/game definition] character may be able to spurt out "Rosebud!" but will under no circumstances be allowed, normally, to cast one final spell, etc.

So where you are going with this tangent I haven't a clue, but its certainly not based on anything I've been saying. It certainly doesn't seem to follow from anything you quoted.

We aren't talking about off scene events or scene framing, but scene resolution. This is happening 'on stage'.

Well, it's not completely on stage. The PCs are coming in at the tail end of events that have occurred before their involvement.

Sure I have. I've even framed a scene where they find some injured survivors, or even injured and dying survivors. I've just never told my players, "You can't heal this guy just because."

Neither have I. I've explained that he's already [game definition]dead[/game definition], but gasps out a few dying words.

My current game integrates the way I played GURPS, so that if you fall to 0 hit points or less you make a fortitude save to remain conscious. If you succeed, you are staggered and bleeding but conscious. This gives some time for saying something before you die. I have no general problem with that. The problem I have is the cut scene like nature of finding a survivor who dies regardless of what you do. I don't even like cut scenes like that in video games, much less in a PnP game where the DM can apply common sense.

Maybe it's just an sense of what Cure Light Wounds/Healing Word can accomplish, but it fits my common sense to come across a townsfolk with his guts hanging out onto the floor, dying but still barely speaking. I don't picture CLW/HW doing anything to fix this guy and since the two times I have used this trope was with low-level characters, it fits. I don't know if it's realistic and I don't care. It is cinematic and a style that I enjoy and my players at least tolerate if not enjoy.

I have no intention of ridiculing you.

Then I apologize for accusing you of such.