Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, we eventually resolved that. I agree that if one wants a record of unbroken success through superior planning, Fate is probably not going to be a satisfactory game.

I didn't realize how many pages behind I was on this thread when I posted that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Fine for you (and a cool story) but what about the other players - what did they get to do in the meantime?

That's an interesting question. Obviously at the origin story of my PC they got boned, they rolled up new characters. OTOH it was AD&D and it takes 5 minutes, and this stuff happened all the time. I seem to recall that what actually happened is that people lost interest in playing that game, but my friend Mike, the DM, ran all the time, and it was always the same campaign world, so pretty soon we rotated back to D&D and Cargorn joined another party (IE I already had a suitable PC rolled up) and pretty soon Mike baited me with more demogorgon worshipers, and Cargorn got another party killed! Well, then everyone started to think it was amusing, the cursed ranger and all. I don't really recall all what happened after that, but there were tons of games in Mike's campaign, different PCs would mix and match, there were multiple groups of players that only partly overlapped, etc. Every character had their 'thing'. I'd be hard pressed to remember the names and fates of most of the other PCs in those games, but I know some of them became 'big name' characters, some died, some just weren't interesting enough or whatever (I had a doppleganer assassin character, IIRC, which was just pretty vanilla and only ever got to like 8th level).

However, nowadays, with the more 'adventure group focused' kind of play in D&D? I am not sure how exactly that would play out. I expect my obsession with Demogorgon would have led, say in 4e, to that demon lord being somehow significant to epic level play. Maybe killing him was my goal, but getting some artifact he had was another epic PC's goal, etc. Yes, that sort of thing can somewhat run counter to the most low myth kind of play.

@bloodtide is right in this much: the moment a story gets too good to lose, there's a problem. This more commonly arises as a GM issue, frequently leading to railroads and-or trampling of player agency as the GM tries to stick to a "too good" story; but this shows it can be a player-side issue as well.

Meh, I don't know that any trampling happened. It all seemed pretty organic, and it played out over YEARS of real life time through many many sessions of play and was only a major focus now and then. I had an entirely other major character that I often played that had nothing to do with that story arc much at all too.

 

[Lanefan]

He could have had a fairly short story arc where he got himself ganked because he was too stubborn to give up. Actually, a subtext was that every other party he adventured with always ended up getting slaughtered or screwed over somehow because he'd always end up making it all about getting more of those darned demon worshipers. I mean, it wouldn't have been too shabby a story if the paladin had just ganked me! lol. I mean, once I got to about 5th level paladins and such were like "no thanks, there's something wrong with THAT guy!" So, there could have potentially been many endings.

Clearly your table ignored the 1e rule where Rangers had to be Good-aligned.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Clearly your table ignored the 1e rule where Rangers had to be Good-aligned.

Meh, those sorts of rules were pretty much DOA in our world, lol. Alignment never suited us that well because its too simple a depiction. Cargorn claimed to be good, he was wiping out evil! He was really successful too! I mean, sometimes the means justify the ends, right? There were certain other PCs that liked him well enough. Granted most of them were a little 'darker'.

 

[The Shadow]

But if it can die against one thing then - assuming a good-faith neutral-arbiter GM who lets the dice fall where they may - the whims of random chance dictate there's a possibility, however small, of it dying any time it puts itself at risk.

The problem with this paragraph, as I see it, is that it is assuming D&D or a game reasonably similar, and even a particular playstyle within that game.

That playstyle is perfectly okay. I played D&D in the 80's, I know what it's like and I had fun. But it's not how I play now.

In Fate, your last clause is flatly untrue. There is NO chance of your character dying purely through chance. Or by any other means save your choice, unless the table agreed otherwise beforehand.

But it isn't even true in every playstyle of D&D that people want a "neutral arbiter who lets the dice fall where they may". D&D isn't the ideal vehicle for narrative, dramatic play, but it can be done. (It was done quite a bit, back in the day, before there were any real alternatives.)

We don't begrudge you your fun. I, at least, understand it. Why won't you even consider our point of view? Why do you keep making assertions about our play that are blatantly false, even after we tell you they're false and explain why in detail?

 

[The Shadow]

To have it that the character can die only in certain dramatically-appropriate scenes/situations but not in other more mundane scenarios tells me there's a problem with both internal campaign/setting consistency and willingness to honour die rolls; the exception, of course, being in-fiction set-ups where the character's fate has somehow been determined in advance and you're playing out the route it takes to get there.

Forgot this one. This is undoubtedly a "problem" for you. It isn't a problem for us. (Also, in Fate at least, nobody's ignoring any die rolls.)

Dismissiveness duly noted.

Pot, meet kettle. You've been incredibly dismissive. I see no sign you've even read the last couple pages of posts, much less tried to engage with them.

 

[Lanefan]

Forgot this one. This is undoubtedly a "problem" for you. It isn't a problem for us. (Also, in Fate at least, nobody's ignoring any die rolls.)

Pot, meet kettle. You've been incredibly dismissive. I see no sign you've even read the last couple pages of posts, much less tried to engage with them.

Problem is, if I engaged with them the way I'd really like to I'd get buried in a sea of red mod ink. So I'm showing some restraint for once...

 

[The Shadow]

@Lanefan
All right, I appreciate you letting me know. Now that I know that you aren't open to actual discussion, I can ignore your input to this thread with a clear conscience.

 

[Umbran]

Right, it's like either 1) you must be vulnerable to death in every situation or 2) everything must always go your way, with sunshine and roses.

I don't get why the dichotomy? Why must it be one or the other? I've never experienced anything even remotely like that, nor would I want to.

Because this is how internet arguments go.

There is frequently a "creeping strawman" effect, where someone who disagrees restates a position as slightly more severe than it is. Then a little more. Then a little more, until the position is equivalent to eating babies, or something. The discussion becomes an argument over the extreme poles, and any and all nuance is squeezed out.

 

[Umbran]

Problem is, if I engaged with them the way I'd really like to I'd get buried in a sea of red mod ink.

The point at which this is what you want is the point you should probably disengage, even if you can avoid the red text. Because this state isn't one in which you are prepared to be constructive.

And if you aren't going to be constructive, you probably should find something better to do with your time.