D&D 5E Combat as war, sport, or ??

[Aldarc]

DYING IS THE ONLY STAKE!

~Privately panics over making ends meet with a sick child and a distant father~

Unless you are a Vampire. Then stakes are the only way to die.

 

[tetrasodium]

I can't remember what book it was (maybe the domains of dread reprint of classes, or maybe the black boarder reprint of teh PHB) but by the end of the edition it was at least strongly recommended max 1st hd...

I remember this well because it caused a HUGE fight when a player rolled up a mage level 1 and had a low con (I think it was a 5) rolled a 1 for HP and the DM ruled that character died and he had to start over... and as you point out that was the last step so we had already spent some time making characters. (and it was 3d6 place as you get it and he rolled both an 18 int and a 16 wis).... he brought up the newer thing about max 1st level and that would give him 3, and another thing (maybe a splat book or maybe dragon mag my mind is foggy) that says min 1hp per level... and that was the game that never was. (too bad too it was the closest I came to seeing a paladin in play it wasn't me but Linda rolled almost exactly the min stats needed for a paly)

I don't know where it was recommend but remember that as well. With that said, there is a huge difference from roll hp "but you should probably take max and here is why" as opposed to 5e's method of every commonly used gm chargen influenceing dial plus a bunch more being already set to the most pc friendly notch by default under the old way gm's could leverage those dials to ease their load.

Making those kinds of changes and claiming that it somehow empowers the gm when the system is doing little or nothing to carry the gm's already unequal responsibility or provide the gm influence over the minimally responsible minimally needy players is just creating problems for the gm. If anything 5e increases the gm's responsibility here by taking so many of the tools they once had available to aid things and giving them to players automatically by default with no strings.

That trend extends well beyond chargen too. Take the old iterative attack penalty as an example. Bringing it back doesn't nerf players, it introduces a ceiling on how long a combat should take while shifting combat from an almost foregone conclusion to something where randomness of the dice add room for uncertainty and PC contribution differentiation.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Unless you are a Vampire. Then stakes are the only way to die.

STAKES ARE THE ONLY DEATH!

Unless you're a cow in which case,

STEAKS ARE A WORTHY DEATH!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Honestly though, if you honestly think death is what makes life meaningful and aren't just using the platitude because we're expected to not only be okay, but eager for it in order to be seen as 'adults' in the modern cynicism, I urge you to go talk to someone you care about and who cares about you. If they're not available, PM me and I will personally give you a pep talk. This wide old world is both wonderful and terrible and what's the point of any of it if there's no one to appreciate it?

 

[reelo]

Honestly though, if you honestly think death is what makes life meaningful and aren't just using the platitude because we're expected to not only be okay, but eager for it in order to be seen as 'adults' in the modern cynicism, I urge you to go talk to someone you care about and who cares about you. If they're not available, PM me and I will personally give you a pep talk. This wide old world is both wonderful and terrible and what's the point of any of it if there's no one to appreciate it?

I take it you are not familiar with the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus? Existentialism as a philosophical current? Don't be so quick to (mis-)judge my statement. It is precisely the "expration date*, and the fact that we don't know what date it will be for us, that drives us to enjoy the present moment.

In most fantasy worlds were immortal creatures exist (often elves) there's a sense of boredom, fatigue, even decadence to them. The mortality of humans is often depicted as the driving factor for their heroic deeds.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I take it you are not familiar with the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus? Existentialism as a philosophical current? Don't be so quick to (mis-)judge my statement. It is precisely the "expration date*, and the fact that we don't know what date it will be for us, that drives us to enjoy the present moment.

'Familiar with' and 'respect' are two entirely different roads.

I feel if you need a deadline, you're not actually interested in the work.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

'Familiar with' and 'respect' are two entirely different roads.

I feel if you need a deadline, you're not actually interested in the work.

on a small scale I argue with my fiancé over this all the time. I always want to do things now, "oh the garbage needs to go out I will do it now" she on the other hand always wants to know when something needs to be done by and pushes it off until the last minute "Trash day is Sunday we can do it in a few days"

 

[Malmuria]

There is no inherent (ontological) meaning in the dungeon. The "gods" that created it have either abandoned it or, more likely, were always imaginary. When you inevitably die, you only return to the first level, an eternal return. The dungeon has NO EXIT.

Thus spake Xanathar

 

[overgeeked]

I take it you are not familiar with the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus? Existentialism as a philosophical current? Don't be so quick to (mis-)judge my statement. It is precisely the "expration date*, and the fact that we don't know what date it will be for us, that drives us to enjoy the present moment.

In most fantasy worlds were immortal creatures exist (often elves) there's a sense of boredom, fatigue, even decadence to them. The mortality of humans is often depicted as the driving factor for their heroic deeds.

"One must imagine the grumbling dwarf happy."

 

[Lanefan]

If I were to add them in right now, they'd hate it. Most of us didn't use things like level drain back when they were in the rules. Which is why I would never do that to them, even if I personally liked level drain. In my group, we're perfectly adept at challenging the table, including high lethality, without using level drain (et al).

However, if for whatever reason they were waxing nostolgic and talking about the "good old days of level drain, when things were actually a challenge", they'd laud me for bringing it back.

I mean, we've literally had post-game discussions where the players offered feedback like, "the fights are getting a little too easy, can you up the challenge?"

You have different players, and a different dynamic, than I.

And shockingly, the players didn't complain (except in jest) when the challenge was increased, despite that characters were much more likely to die as a result.

RPGs are a group activity. I'm literally scratching my head at how you imply your players behave. You kind of portray them as a bunch of children who only ever want to win even though that would ruin the game for them, and you the stern parent who forces unpopular challenges on them for their own good. IDK, maybe I've gotten the wrong impression? It just seems like an unhealthy dynamic, if I am in the right ballpark.

We agree that RPGs are a group activity; that's a start. That said, hockey is also a group activity; where two teams are trying to win and in doing so will often push the rules envelope as far as they can until-unless the ref calls a penalty.

As a player at an RPG table, I see my main purposes being to roleplay my character in-game and advocate for my character out-of-game. Among other things, that out-of-game advocacy includes finding ways to make things easier on my character in the game...which in turn means pushing against the rules envelope if the opportunity arises.

It's the DM's job to push back, and make sure I and-or the other players don't break the game; and it's on me to accept that pushback if-when it comes.

As I've said before, in the case of a new DM it's better to have the system default to easier encounters. That way they don't have to worry about accidentally slaughtering the party while learning the game, and can focus on having the most fun possible.

I get this sentiment. My concern with defaulting to easier encounters is that doing so will set expectations among said new DM's new players that that's how it'll always be, leading to dissatisfaction and complaints when the difficulty gets ramped up later.

It comes back to the premise that "start hard then ease off" is a better formula than "start easy then (try to) add difficulty".

Eleven "bad things" over seven adventures. Six of which were deaths, so that's 5 "perma bad" things over seven adventures. I presume the level drains and limb loss each took place during their same adventures, so that's 3 instances of "perma bad" challenges over seven adventures.

Therefore, clearly you don't NEED these mechanics to challenge your players, if these only featured in something like three out of seven adventures. You might like the variety that they bring to the table, but either more than 50% of your adventures are without challenge or you're able to challenge the party just fine without level drain (et al).

Here's the Bad Things breakdown, by adventure number. It seems I'd forgotten a few...

1. none
2. 1 level drain, 2 major agings (which I'd forgotten about in my previous posts)
3. 1 level drain, 2 limb losses
4. 2 deaths (1*), 1 perma-poly*
5. 1 death
6. 2 deaths
7. 3 deaths, 1 major item loss*

The ones indicated with '*' are either permanent or will require Something Very Big to undo e.g. a wish. The two deaths in adventure 4 were the same character; bad luck for her, and she declined revival the second time. The death in adventure 5 had nothing to do with the adventure itself; the party found unrelated trouble while travelling and it went wrong.

This run covers about fifteen real-world months of regular weekly play.

Again, I'm not arguing that there's anything wrong with using those mechanics if your group is on board. I'm simply refuting the concept that a group cannot be challenged without resorting to them.

Fair enough; and it's not like this lot hasn't had (and still has!) story-based challenges as well. Adventures 5-6-7 above are the first bits of what I hope will be a 5 or 6-adventure arc (or mini-AP, if you like); and sooner or later it'll become clear to them that to complete it they're going to have to find a way to fix that "major item loss" noted above...