D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Aldarc]

Fair enough. I would say a GMs detailed campaign notes, let alone a published campaign setting, constitutes significantly less illusionism than a story made up by a player on the spot, but that's a preference issue.

You said that the existence of the setting would be rendered meaningless by the players' input into the setting. That to me seems more suggestive of some sort of illusion regarding the setting and the simulation thereof that you would desire to preserve.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was using the sport analogy because that was what Lanefan used. It applies just as much to narrative challenge, hence my references to things like growth and changing who and what yoy are, which is mostly irrelevant to sporting.

And yes, sometimes just rolling over a challenge is great! Sometimes fleeing to fight another day is great!

But terminating the story is not great. It's actually really boring. Hence, don't make that one of the available failure states. Let there be real failure! Without it, the story is dull. But don't use "and thus nothing else happened forever" as a failure state, because then the story is dull too.

It's why "save the world" plots are so boring, unless used as vehicles for other, more interesting developments. Because no story actually worth reading will let that failure happen. Just deleting the world entirely is a narrative dead-end and deeply unsatisfying. But if we know the world will be saved, then dangling "the world is in danger!!1!one!" in the audience's face is pointless. Which means you must either move the excitement and uncertainty to secondary plotlines (e.g. romance subplots, "No, I am your father," training montage, etc.), or you must make the core plot require resolving some dilemma (trilemma, etc.) which seems to have no answer, and yet we as an audience know it must have one because the world is going to get saved in the end.

Random, irrevocable permadeath is fine, if you're cool with completely unsatisfying endings in 90% of cases. I'm not. I'm here for a cool story that even I as GM don't know where it will go or how it will end. (I may know some bits before the others do, but I don't know what those bits will mean until they do too.) So I don't make dull, pointless consequences—or "nonsequences," if you'll grant me the terrible wordplay. Only roll the dice if consequences for both success AND failure are interesting. Random, irrevocable permadeath is usually not an interesting consequence. Thus, I won't generally roll for it.

But that doesn't mean death isn't an option. It just means:
It won't be irrevocable (you can be raised, but what terrible cost might be paid to do so? What dark alliance might have to be made to secure your revival?), or
It won't be permanent (you'll come back...but what will your allies suffer in your absence? What goals might fail because your critical aid was missing?), or
It won't be random (either you as player accept the death and choose to roll with that as an interesting consequence along the way, or you decide this is a good stopping point for your participation in the game and thus stop playing.)

All of these are simply more interesting than "you failed to avoid being gutted by the kobold. You are now dead, and nothing you cared about matters to anyone else now. Roll up a new character. Hopefully this one lasts longer."

This is very much a preference issue, and we're not going to agree. I'm don't play RPGs to experience a cool story, although it's great if we end up with one. I play to experience an interesting and fantastic world from the perspective of my character, and to make choices in that world that affect future events. I run games to showcase an interesting and fantastic world to the players, and see how their choices affect future events. If those events lead to character death, even if it's random, or permanent, or irrevocable, then that's what happens. The player makes a new PC and the game continues, which is exactly what I'd do if I was the player whose PC had just died.

I know a fair number of people feel differently, and that's ok.

 

[Oofta]

I was using the sport analogy because that was what Lanefan used. It applies just as much to narrative challenge, hence my references to things like growth and changing who and what yoy are, which is mostly irrelevant to sporting.

And yes, sometimes just rolling over a challenge is great! Sometimes fleeing to fight another day is great!

But terminating the story is not great. It's actually really boring. Hence, don't make that one of the available failure states. Let there be real failure! Without it, the story is dull. But don't use "and thus nothing else happened forever" as a failure state, because then the story is dull too.

Perhaps for you. But the game goes on, just with different characters. Yes, that character arc is chopped off, and I run a pretty low lethality PC campaign by default. On the other hand if death is off the table, it doesn't feel right either.

It's why "save the world" plots are so boring, unless used as vehicles for other, more interesting developments. Because no story actually worth reading will let that failure happen. Just deleting the world entirely is a narrative dead-end and deeply unsatisfying. But if we know the world will be saved, then dangling "the world is in danger!!1!one!" in the audience's face is pointless. Which means you must either move the excitement and uncertainty to secondary plotlines (e.g. romance subplots, "No, I am your father," training montage, etc.), or you must make the core plot require resolving some dilemma (trilemma, etc.) which seems to have no answer, and yet we as an audience know it must have one because the world is going to get saved in the end.

I will agree save the world things are something to avoid. Unless you're willing to start a new campaign world of course. On the other hand, we aren't reading a story. A story emerges from how the PCs interact with the world but I will never guarantee success.

Random, irrevocable permadeath is fine, if you're cool with completely unsatisfying endings in 90% of cases. I'm not. I'm here for a cool story that even I as GM don't know where it will go or how it will end. (I may know some bits before the others do, but I don't know what those bits will mean until they do too.) So I don't make dull, pointless consequences—or "nonsequences," if you'll grant me the terrible wordplay. Only roll the dice if consequences for both success AND failure are interesting. Random, irrevocable permadeath is usually not an interesting consequence. Thus, I won't generally roll for it.

But that doesn't mean death isn't an option. It just means:
It won't be irrevocable (you can be raised, but what terrible cost might be paid to do so? What dark alliance might have to be made to secure your revival?), or
It won't be permanent (you'll come back...but what will your allies suffer in your absence? What goals might fail because your critical aid was missing?), or
It won't be random (either you as player accept the death and choose to roll with that as an interesting consequence along the way, or you decide this is a good stopping point for your participation in the game and thus stop playing.)

All of these are simply more interesting than "you failed to avoid being gutted by the kobold. You are now dead, and nothing you cared about matters to anyone else now. Roll up a new character. Hopefully this one lasts longer."

I'm just going to disagree. In many campaigns, death after a certain level is just a speed bump. In my campaigns coming back from the dead is not guaranteed and then can only happen for a very short period of time. I will agree that truly random death is something to be avoided, but an example of that would be "Rocks fall" followed by roll a D6 to see which PC dies. But when I'm playing or DMing, life and death can be capricious and is not under control of the player. I happen to roll 3 crits in a row? Start making those death saves.

I used to have a "no kill" policy but it lessened the enjoyment and sense of risk for my players. I still ask how lethal people want the campaign to be but death, up to and including a TPK, is never off the table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You said that the existence of the setting would be rendered meaningless by the players' input into the setting. That to me seems more suggestive of some sort of illusion regarding the setting and the simulation thereof that you would desire to preserve.

Again, a story made up by a player on the spot, having nothing to do with the PC themselves but everything to do with the actual background of the situation at hand, is what I object to here, and what I would consider a break from the outside perspective simulation of the setting that I want. I don't want that specific sort of thing as a player or a GM.

 

[Oofta]

Again, a story made up by a player on the spot, having nothing to do with the PC themselves but everything to do with the actual background of the situation at hand, is what I object to here, and what I would consider a break from the outside perspective simulation of the setting that I want. I don't want that specific sort of thing as a player or a GM.

This is one of those things that I don't care about with DW as well. In the stream I'm listening to one of the players made a roll (perceive reality, maybe?) then just made up some stuff on the spot about the dungeon they were investigating and it's inhabitants. I think I literally groaned out loud ... it would just destroy any feeling of the world existing outside of my PC.

Not inherently good or bad, just not my cup of tea. When I'm reading a book I'm discovering the world through the eyes of the protagonist(s), I'm not helping to write the story.

 

[Aldarc]

Again, a story made up by a player on the spot, having nothing to do with the PC themselves but everything to do with the actual background of the situation at hand, is what I object to here, and what I would consider a break from the outside perspective simulation of the setting that I want. I don't want that specific sort of thing as a player or a GM.

I understand your desire to play that way. It's not my goal to invalidate that preference. Where I took issue was with your word choice regarding how players contributing to the setting details somehow made the setting meaningless or non-existent for the PCs, who are neither (a) real nor (b) privy to the setting-creation process. Because it's not about whether or not the setting feels real to the PCs. What's at stake is whether or not the setting feels real for you the player at the table who is guiding their PC through the setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I understand your desire to play that way. It's not my goal to invalidate that preference. Where I took issue was with your word choice regarding how players contributing to the setting details somehow made the setting meaningless or non-existent for the PCs, who are neither (a) real nor (b) privy to the setting-creation process. Because it's not about whether or not the setting feels real to the PCs. What's at stake is whether or not the setting feels real for you the player at the table who is guiding their PC through the setting.

Fair enough. Player rather than PC then.

 

[Stalker0]

To the notion of “if you bring in a high level party to take out the PCs, then why aren’t the high level parties dealing with this stuff all the time?”…it’s a fair concern in world building, as you don’t want all the problems hand waved by Uber NPCs.

That said there are ways to handle this with a little thought. As an example, maybe one of the city guards the PCs killed was the brother of the city mayor. He has sworn revenge, and has bartered a special family heirloom to a group of adventurers to hunt down the party. So it’s no meer money, but a special item that has called these high level adventurers into the Frey.

Or you could take it one step further for some more interesting roleplay. In this high level group, one of the group themselves once had a destructive streak as an adventurer, and so takes a special interest in this case. He’ll stop the party if he must, but would be willing to talk them down and offer exile if they are willing to listen.

So there are options that make this scenario work without opening the doors of infinite high level interference.

 

[Mort]

Fair enough. Player rather than PC then.

This just seems to be 100% pure preference.

Some players feel more invested in a setting they helped create or ARE helping create as they go. The setting feels more "real" and more a product of their own.

Others feel that they want to have their character and their character only affect the setting, the rest is for the DM. Anything else takes them out of the setting because they don't WANT to look behind the curtain much less contribute to what's behind it.

It's like someone who dislikes strawberries because they've tried them at various times and with various pairings and just don't like them.

At that point, no amount of "you just haven't had them correctly..." will matter and will just irritate the person.

 

[Mort]

To the notion of “if you bring in a high level party to take out the PCs, then why aren’t the high level parties dealing with this stuff all the time?”…it’s a fair concern in world building, as you don’t want all the problems hand waved by Uber NPCs.

That said there are ways to handle this with a little thought. As an example, maybe one of the city guards the PCs killed was the brother of the city mayor. He has sworn revenge, and has bartered a special family heirloom to a group of adventurers to hunt down the party. So it’s no meer money, but a special item that has called these high level adventurers into the Frey.

Or you could take it one step further for some more interesting roleplay. In this high level group, one of the group themselves once had a destructive streak as an adventurer, and so takes a special interest in this case. He’ll stop the party if he must, but would be willing to talk them down and offer exile if they are willing to listen.

So there are options that make this scenario work without opening the doors of infinite high level interference.

Yes, there are ways to make it work.

But, IMO doing it to "teach the players a lesson..." is never a good reason to do it and is highly, highly unlikely to get a good result.