D&D 5E What D&D should learn from a Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think that suggests the idea that instead, you could view it as not a problem at all, simply one of the normal dynamics of play in an open-ended and complex game.

If it makes people unhappy, it's a problem. For some groups it might not make anyone unhappy. However, I have not experienced those players yet. In my groups I've had people complain that sneak attack was useless due to all the constructs and undead in 3.5, that they don't do anywhere near as much damage as their allies so it wasn't fun to play, that the game had too little combat in it so that they didn't get to use their cool powers, that the game had too much combat in it and that their character was useless in combat, that the game focused too much on one player and it felt like everyone else didn't even need to be there, that the DM wouldn't pay enough attention to them during social scenes so it seemed like their character could never say anything, that having the second highest skill in a social skill in the group was completely useless because only one person ever got to do the talking and it was the guy with the MOST in a social skill, that they feel they are being unfairly targeted by monsters, and so on.

I agree that some of this is part of the normal dynamics of play. But it should be minimized to avoid it constantly being an issue that gets in the way of play. I generally don't want to hear from my friends that they are considering not coming to my game anymore because it just isn't any fun for them.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If it makes people unhappy, it's a problem.

That's not the lesson I get from Game of Thrones. The lesson I get is if people don't care, it's a problem.

I generally don't want to hear from my friends that they are considering not coming to my game anymore because it just isn't any fun for them.

Neither do I, but I question whether having players make a checklist of what they want and giving it to them is going to achieve that.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's not the lesson I get from Game of Thrones. The lesson I get is if people don't care, it's a problem.

If people don't care, it's a problem as well. If I'm watching Game of Thrones, it is their job to entertain me. If they don't, I am unhappy and I stop watching. But there's a difference between watching/reading something and playing in a game. When you are playing, you expect to be part of the game. You expect to contribute. The DM has the unpleasant job of having to BOTH entertain you AND make you a part of the game at the same time. If you fail to give someone enough "screen time", they'll lose interest and stop playing. If you fail to involve them in a plot line they find interesting, they'll lose interest and stop playing.

Being a DM isn't easy. It requires keeping track of all of these things and trying your best to fulfill them.

Neither do I, but I question whether having players make a checklist of what they want and giving it to them is going to achieve that.

You don't have to have a checklist. But that doesn't mean your players don't. Though, they will do is subconsciously.

It's the same way that if you take someone out on a date, you don't HAVE to pay attention to what they are saying, look into their eyes, or pay on the first date. But depending on who you are dating, you shouldn't expect a second date.

There is a list of things people expect when playing a game. Giving it to them doesn't take all that much effort and makes the game more fun for them.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If people don't care, it's a problem as well. If I'm watching Game of Thrones, it is their job to entertain me. If they don't, I am unhappy and I stop watching. But there's a difference between watching/reading something and playing in a game. When you are playing, you expect to be part of the game. You expect to contribute. The DM has the unpleasant job of having to BOTH entertain you AND make you a part of the game at the same time. If you fail to give someone enough "screen time", they'll lose interest and stop playing. If you fail to involve them in a plot line they find interesting, they'll lose interest and stop playing.

Being a DM isn't easy. It requires keeping track of all of these things and trying your best to fulfill them.

No, it isn't easy, and yes, you have to DM for the players, not yourself.

But even if the goal is to entertain the players, sometimes the best way to do it is by screwing them in one way or another.

There is a list of things people expect when playing a game. Giving it to them doesn't take all that much effort and makes the game more fun for them.

To refer to [MENTION=6750284]SavageCole[/MENTION] above, that's exactly why sometimes you shouldn't meet their expectations. Subverting expectations is what people pay attention to, remember, and react to. If you don't do it, they'll get bored. If you do it all the time, they'll expect chaos, and that in itself will bore them. It's very challenging to keep people engaged while also surprising them, and GRRM seems to have a pretty good way of doing it.

 

[Tuft]

In my early RPG years I played in an AD&D campaign that had an XP penalty for dying to "make death matter". That is, if your character died, your next character started with quite a lot less XP than your previous character died with.

Quite predictably, that lead to several quite nasty "death spirals". As the new character was weaker than the rest of the party, it stood a much greater chance of dying - which brought an even weaker character into play for that player....

What I noticed was that at the end of such a death spiral, the player just stopped caring about the character, and started taking hair-raising risks, doing really stupid stunts, and quite frankly endangering the common goals of the party. This usually ended in that player leaving campaign, and in some cases even the circle of friends. When I joined that campaign I heard about the aftermath of three such spirals, saw two of my own, and finally after several years experienced it myself in a successor campaign for that same GM (Shadowrun, not D&D, but the same effect).

It took me quite a while to emotionally get over that spectacular crash and burn...

 

[pickin_grinnin]

In my early RPG years I played in an AD&D campaign that had an XP penalty for dying to "make death matter". That is, if your character died, your next character started with quite a lot less XP than your previous character died with.

That's ridiculous. Why did you keep playing with a DM like that?

 

[Umbran]

I think that suggests the idea that instead, you could view it as not a problem at all, simply one of the normal dynamics of play in an open-ended and complex game.

To quote myself: Which says (to me, at least) that in general this is just a fact of life, and we have to manage it.

We could imagine creating tools, guidelines, advice, and such to make managing easier. If we can provide assistance or partial solutions, that implies that there's a problem, so I'm willing to consider it as such.

 

[Lanefan]

Agreed. When I suggest that we explore the design space of games where players control multiple characters, I don't mean a return to the old days of having hirelings "check for traps",

I'm not a fan of this type of thing either, but it's easily fixed at the DM level: the hireling says "no" to doing anything risky. He's here to make camp and cook dinner, getting shot is what you big ol' adventurers do.

When I'm a player, most of the time I've got two characters on the go at once...if for no other reason than I'm usually a high-risk high-reward type of player and the high-risk part tends to catch up with me all too often.

Lanefan

 

[Ahnehnois]

In my early RPG years I played in an AD&D campaign that had an XP penalty for dying to "make death matter". That is, if your character died, your next character started with quite a lot less XP than your previous character died with.

It is a terrible idea. I experimented with something along those lines myself once. At the time, I had a serious problem with people wanting to make new characters even if the old ones were not dead, and there was so little continuity I needed to do something.

However, acting in such a metagame manner was needless, and lowering levels was needlessly spiteful. Trying to punish players for stuff that just happens doesn't make sense in a game with no winners and losers. The smarter play would have been simply to reject new characters in the absence of a compelling reason and let the chips (and the characters) fall where they may. No need to tack on a penalty.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In my early RPG years I played in an AD&D campaign that had an XP penalty for dying to "make death matter". That is, if your character died, your next character started with quite a lot less XP than your previous character died with.

In some versions of D&D, new characters always start with 0 XP. *Shudder* It sucks to die. It sucks to be the new guy in the group. You probably get stuck playing a 1st-level cleric.