L&L 3/05 - Save or Die!

[Mattachine]

As I noted in my above xp comment, we should divorce this discussion from the particular example of THE Medusa. Resist the temptation to use a legendary, mythical creature as a standard monster. I blame AD&D (and BECMI) for making such an epic creature into an encounter for low-mid level heroes.

 

[Sunseeker]

Getting the mechanics right is critically important.
The DM running a good game is ALSO critically important.

Yep, and it's not like it's difficult to throw a save, or an extra save or two in front of a spell that would normally be "you die" when I'm at the table.

 

[keterys]

The D&D medusa, ie the generic monster of which there are hundreds or maybe even thousands, sometimes hiding in closets, sometimes even encountered in _packs_ is not The Medusa.

That's probably a very high level creature, especially if you allow it to affect things like gods.

P.S. I now have a vision of the standard "Surprise! It's a medusa" D&D trope adopted to one bursting out of a cake.

 

[howandwhy99]

Death =/= Game Over

There are lots of ways to lose one's characters temporarily in older versions of D&D. Death is actually one of these and not necessarily the final curtain.

I'm not saying there is no way at all to lose a character permanently in D&D. It's simply the majority of so called game ending rolls were more Save Or Roll up a Temporary PC, not Save or Absolute Character Death (and never Save or Leave the Table - [Sorry Blackleaf]).

Dead characters can be resurrected, reincarnated, wished back to existence, heck, maybe even summoned and bound into another creature's body. "I'm playing two characters in one body!"

Temporary characters can retire when you get your old one back and be there in case it happens again. Becoming a thrall did not need to be the end either. However the time limit on getting Buddy back is probably a little shorter (yet less expensive) than death.

The catch is, there was a limit on how many times a character could lose everything (typically what we think of as death) and come back from it. This limited NPC villains too, so it wasn't all bad.

In the end, "The game can end for characters before retirement or natural death" should be in the rules the players read prior to play. Then give some basic overview of how such might happen. If the players are okay with it, game on.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But if the system is designed from the ground up with the presumption that a SoD effect is to be avoided, then it is highly unlikely it will be capable of providing the "vs. classic Medusa" result that other alternative systems offer.

Yep, and it's not like it's difficult to throw a save, or an extra save or two in front of a spell that would normally be "you die" when I'm at the table.

It's not like it's difficult to add a sidebar to the medusa entry that states: "to achieve the 'classic' medusa result, just skip stages one and two so that a successful attack by the medusa results directly in turning the character to stone."

It is more difficult to design stages one and two that are flavorful and balanced. Not impossible by any means, but not usable out of the box like the medusa I propose with SSSoD as the default and a SoD sidebar.

 

[Dausuul]

Dead characters can be resurrected, reincarnated, wished back to existence, heck, maybe even summoned and bound into another creature's body. "I'm playing two characters in one body!"

This is very, very campaign-dependent. Many DMs of my acquaintance, including me, disallow resurrection except in very rare cases.

Now, you could argue that I'm not playing the game as intended and therefore I shouldn't complain about save-or-die. My response is that enough DMs object to resurrection that 5E should take that preference into account during design.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Presumably, it reflects the rising tension, which undermines your heroic spirit and wears you down, as you struggle to fight the medusa without meeting her gaze.

That's what I had in mind when I suggested the "Heroic Avoidance" option earlier. I must not have been clear the way I wrote it up.

 

[Mattachine]

Death =/= Game Over

There are lots of ways to lose one's characters temporarily in older versions of D&D. Death is actually one of these and not necessarily the final curtain.

I'm not saying there is no way at all to lose a character permanently in D&D. It's simply the majority of so called game ending rolls were more Save Or Roll up a Temporary PC, not Save or Absolute Character Death (and never Save or Leave the Table - [Sorry Blackleaf]).

Dead characters can be resurrected, reincarnated, wished back to existence, heck, maybe even summoned and bound into another creature's body. "I'm playing two characters in one body!"

Temporary characters can retire when you get your old one back and be there in case it happens again. Becoming a thrall did not need to be the end either. However the time limit on getting Buddy back is probably a little shorter (yet less expensive) than death.

The catch is, there was a limit on how many times a character could lose everything (typically what we think of as death) and come back from it. This limited NPC villains too, so it wasn't all bad.

In the end, "The game can end for characters before retirement or natural death" should be in the rules the players read prior to play. Then give some basic overview of how such might happen. If the players are okay with it, game on.

For my group and many others, the issue isn't that SoD means the PCs die. The two biggest issues for us are

1. A player whose PC fails an SoD often misses out on playing for an hour or more. This is really bad when a group only plays for 2-3 hours once a week.

2. It makes fights against BBEG anti-climatic, anti-cinematic. As another said better than I, SoDs are both stressful and boring.

 

[howandwhy99]

I think there are legitimate issues. The first one you bring up is more about PC generation time. Ours takes about 10 minutes, but first timers usually take longer. For a game that plays for 100s of hours having a backup handy isn't out of the question, plus there are other options than playing a PC.

The other concern is difficult to overcome. It comes down to how fragile the characters are. IMO death isn't really climactic or cinematic. Having "anything you can imagine and express" as means to escape death, or better, overcome life's challenges highlights how it's the living that is profound.

 

[Mattachine]

I think there are legitimate issues. The first one you bring up is more about PC generation time. Ours takes about 10 minutes, but first timers usually take longer. For a game that plays for 100s of hours having a backup handy isn't out of the question, plus there are other options than playing a PC.

Making a new PC isn't usually an option without breaking immersion. If a character dies in the middle of a fight in a dangerous area, that player won't come back into the game until the fight is over (maybe 30 min, maybe 60 min), and then after the party finds a suitable time/place to revive the PC. The remedy to this situation is for the game to have shorter fights, I would say.

As to other options: playing assistant DM is usually more trouble than it's worth, especially since a player half-heartedly then fights the remaining PCs. Having two PCs is great, unless the party already has 5-6 characters, and only if the players want multiple characters.

If the game is using SoDs, this situation (a player not being able to play) happen more often. Again, I'm not talking about a character dying and not coming back--that is rare after a certain level. I just mean when a PC is knocked out of a fight due to a single bad roll--that could be death, paralysis, petrification, and (perhaps worst) domination.

Sure, it's a game, and sometimes people "lose". On the other hand, I'm not running a tournament in my dining room: these are my friends and we want to play.