Gaming Style Assumptions That Don't Make Sense

[Zhaleskra]

From either the GM or player side, there are an awful lot of assumptions about style that don't make sense to me. The most jarring for me is "let the dice fall where they may" = "PCs dying frequently". What are some of yours?

 

[Umbran]

The most jarring for me is "let the dice fall where they may" = "PCs dying frequently".

Well, note that there's the word "frequently" in there. That's not well-defined. One person's "frequently" may be different from another's. Part of it not making sense to you may stem from that.

But, in general, this may be less an assumption than it is an empirical observation. Played by the book, 1st (and generally low-) level D&D of most editions can be pretty deadly stuff.

But, be that as it may, there's the one from another side of that coin (or die, since we are gamers): "occasional fudging" = "no sense of tension".

You can probably identify an over-stated assumption from any end of any style dichotomy. Old-school / New School, Railroad/Sandbox, and so on.

 

[Jhaelen]

The most jarring for me is "let the dice fall where they may" = "PCs dying frequently". What are some of yours?

To me the most jarring are games that don't "let the dice fall where they may". What's the point of playing an RPG if I know my character's always perfectly safe? Under such circumstances, I prefer watching a movie or reading a book.
Also, imho, there's nothing worse than losing trust in your GM because you catch him at fudging dice (assuming he didn't tell you he would do that, beforehand...).

I'd also like to point out that in my experience PCs only die frequently
a) at the very beginning of the game, especially if the players don't coöperate well. This is what I call "a self-correcting problem" in my games: Players will roll up new characters until they arrive at a party that works well.
b) at high levels (10+). This is due to the deadliness of some monsters that are somewhat regularly encountered at these levels. However, it's rarely a problem because there's also plenty of methods of returning characters from the dead available at these levels. It all balances out really.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I had originally worded that as "PCs dying left and right", but decided on the different wording. The assumption that letting the die roll "do its job" = "dead PCs every fight" is how this assumption comes across to me. To be fair, there are systems that are deadlier by design, and even they have way of mitigating this; even the death spiral style combat ones.

 

[Umbran]

What's the point of playing an RPG if I know my character's always perfectly safe?

So, let me restate the assumption above:

"GM doesn't always let the dice fall where they may" = "PCs always perfectly safe".

This is not a valid assumption, and makes no sense to make. I occasionally fudge, and have had character deaths in my games.

In general, if you artificially drive a position to the extreme (as often happens on the internet - it is a subtle form of strawmanning that happens in discussion) it will come up as an assumption that doesn't make sense.

 

[Bagpuss]

From either the GM or player side, there are an awful lot of assumptions about style that don't make sense to me. The most jarring for me is "let the dice fall where they may" = "PCs dying frequently". What are some of yours?

Could you list a few more of this "awful lot" as the one example you provide doesn't really give me a clear idea of what you mean by gaming styles or the assumptions made about them.

I'll give it a go though...

Sandbox = Good, Linear Plot (Railroad) = Bad.

Sandbox's can sometime lead to "too much" player freedom, such that they don't have a clue what to do. Some players just want to follow a straight forward plot so they can crack some skulls.

 

[Creamsteak]

To me the most jarring are games that don't "let the dice fall where they may". What's the point of playing an RPG if I know my character's always perfectly safe?

Well in the theme of this thread, that's not logical. The conclusion could just as easily be the opposite (GM ignores dice in favor of his monsters/npcs/etc).

 

[Zhaleskra]

Great, now I have to dig up an old thread to show an example.

 

[Celebrim]

The DM doesn't usually need to fudge the dice to keep PC's from dying left and right, and can let the dice fall where they may, if the DM has so cooked the scenes so that the math wildly favors the PC's. Lucky attack by a monster will drop a particular PC in one round? Try not to use such a monster. Monster has a save or die attack that the party can neither prep for nor recover from? Try not to use such a monster.

The other trick to this is carefully and consciously not trying to win. As the DM, you have out of game knowledge about how to beat the PC's. You know that if you want to win, attacking the PCs with low hit points and ignoring the ones with high hit points is vastly more effective than the reverse. You know that if you want to win, beating down the healer early and often is much better than trying to beat down the tank.

But you can ignore your own insights and consciously choose to play into the parties hands.

In this manner, PC's really only die 'left and right' even when the dice fall as they may when the PC's split the party or play against their own tactical advantages - fragile spell casters in the front, beefy armored tanks in the back.

 

[Zhaleskra]

At this point we're crossing whether it's a problem with the scenario or a problem with player attitudes. If you're losing a fight, RUN. Perhaps I thought it would be a challenge, but the monster keeps getting high criticals (I'm not using D&D as the example here, obviously), lesson learned: use something less powerful, give it a smaller weapon, something like that. If you stand there fighting a battle you're clearly losing because you assume you'll always win, "Here's your sign". Which is not to say come from behind victories don't happen, they're just hard to pull off.

One of my favorite settings dismisses "balanced encounters" because "real life doesn't work that way".