Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[Jd Smith1]

Yeah, character death is often the least interesting result for many games.

It is the only interesting result. Risking a PC you have invested time and effort into is what makes RPGs come alive. Otherwise, all you have is what overgeeked noted: a bunch of people telling each other how cool their imaginary friends are.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It is the only interesting result. Risking a PC you have invested time and effort into is what makes RPGs come alive. Otherwise, all you have is what overgeeked noted: a bunch of people telling each other how cool their imaginary friends are.

I would say there are a lot of things that make RPGs come alive. One of which is indeed risk. But there are lots of different things to risk.

Look at Call of Cthulhu and its risk of characters’ sanity and how that changes the feel if a game versus one where the only risk is PC death. The game feels different. Look at Delta Green, where you watch as an agent’s connections to their loved ones bear the brunt of their struggles against the mythos. Look at any number of other games where concepts of identity or belief are at risk during play. Where the PCs take actual consequences from their choices along the way and need to press on anyway.

Death is far from the only interesting consequence in an RPG. At times, I’d say it’s the end of consequence.

 

[Aldarc]

It is the only interesting result. Risking a PC you have invested time and effort into is what makes RPGs come alive. Otherwise, all you have is what overgeeked noted: a bunch of people telling each other how cool their imaginary friends are.

There is more to risk-taking than simply life or death.

 

[Jd Smith1]

There is more to risk-taking than simply life or death.

Sure: there's maiming, attribute loss, and the like.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I would say there are a lot of things that make RPGs come alive. One of which is indeed risk. But there are lots of different things to risk.

Look at Call of Cthulhu and its risk of characters’ sanity and how that changes the feel if a game versus one where the only risk is PC death. The game feels different. Look at Delta Green, where you watch as an agent’s connections to their loved ones bear the brunt of their struggles against the mythos. Look at any number of other games where concepts of identity or belief are at risk during play. Where the PCs take actual consequences from their choices along the way and need to press on anyway.

Death is far from the only interesting consequence in an RPG. At times, I’d say it’s the end of consequence.

The ending of a PC's playability, be it insanity, death, or maiming, amounts to the same thing. Wounds or sanity, the loss of the PC is the stake in the game.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure: there's maiming, attribute loss, and the like.

There are so many significant risks that characters take in the grand history of fiction, often with incredibly dramatic stakes on the line, and yet the only ones that you seem to imagine that matter or regard as interesting for TTRPGs are ones that physically harm the character?

 

[hawkeyefan]

The ending of a PC's playability, be it insanity, death, or maiming, amounts to the same thing. Wounds or sanity, the loss of the PC is the stake in the game.

It need not be.

For example, I’ve played in a Tales From the Loop game. Character death is off the books in that game….it does not happen.

Yet there was risk. The characters had goals and achieving them was uncertain. We had to play to find out if they could succeed.

And that game was not anything like players “telling each other how cool their imaginary friends are.”

 

[Jd Smith1]

There are so many significant risks that characters take in the grand history of fiction, often with incredibly dramatic stakes on the line, and yet the only ones that you seem to imagine that matter or regard as interesting for TTRPGs are ones that physically harm the character?

RPGs are a game, not fiction.

But to go back to the fiction that was the core of TTRPGs, Frodo's core goal was to destroy the One Ring and survive.

 

[Jd Smith1]

And that game was not anything like players “telling each other how cool their imaginary friends are.”

Sounds like it was, actually. If my PC can't die/go insane/etc, just text me the outcome. If the stakes are that low, why bother? Hamlet could have just waited for his inheritance, but it wouldn't have made an interesting play.

 

[Aldarc]

RPGs are a game, not fiction.

RPGs are games of creative fiction.

But to go back to the fiction that was the core of TTRPGs, Frodo's core goal was to destroy the One Ring and survive.

Most characters in fiction want to survive. Survival is basic. It's just as interesting as reading "I'm good at MS Word" on CVs. But I would say that Frodo's core goal was not to survive. The framing of Frodo's goal was simply "destroy the One Ring." He hoped that he would return to the Shire, but his goal was destruction of the Ring of Power.