Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[RealAlHazred]

7. Give the monster 1 attack per PC.

Alternate 4. The monster deals an average of 1/2 the max HP of the weakest PC per hit.

8. Don't be afraid to kill a PC. For a boss monster, stakes should be high. But try to let the PC go out in a blaze of glory, instead of a series of disappointing die rolls.

 

[RealAlHazred]

But what if… you are wrong about this?

Unpossible.

 

[overgeeked]

Not this thread.

Damn. Ain't that the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Meech17]

I don't have any problems with admitting I'm wrong...

But I'll be darned if I let some punk on the internet know that I think they could be right!!!!

 

[overgeeked]

8. Don't be afraid to kill a PC. For a boss monster, stakes should be high. But try to let the PC go out in a blaze of glory, instead of a series of disappointing die rolls.

I'm very much an old-school referee. The dice fall where they may. If you're in a fight to the death, death is always an option. A pickpocket rolls a crit and kills your PC in a dirty back alley over a few coins...well, that's what happens. That's the emergent story we're dealing with now. I really detest the notion of giving PCs plot armor to make it through to the "dramatically appropriate" points. I'd rather skip everything between dramatically appropriate points than ever protect the PCs from the players choices.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Everyone else appreciates it, and will think more of you as a person, not less, if you do that.

But that this was true. The world is all too full of people who will hold on to any error you've made until the end of time.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I'm very much an old-school referee. The dice fall where they may. If you're in a fight to the death, death is always an option. A pickpocket rolls a crit and kills your PC in a dirty back alley over a few coins...well, that's what happens. That's the emergent story we're dealing with now. I really detest the notion of giving PCs plot armor to make it though to the "dramatically appropriate" points. I'd rather skip everything between dramatically appropriate points than ever protect the PCs from the players choices.

Sure. I once killed an entire party fighting against the dragon they'd been hunting for all campaign (he was epic, he'd killed one PC's parents, he was one of the other PC's parents and had abandoned them, etc.) but the group was unable to roll higher than a 10 on the dice in the last fight, and I rolled 8 20s in a row. You can do that. But telling the players who felt they'd wasted a whole 6-month campaign to die ignominiously in the dragon's dung heap due to the roll of the dice that this is the "wonder of emergent gameplay!" is not satisfying to me personally as a DM. Your mileage may vary, and I want to be clear that I am not making any comments about your style. But my PCs don't currently have plot armor, and when they die, they generally do so in the most badass way the player can conceive of, rather than me telling them, "Sorry, your wild sword swing connects but doesn't seem to do much to the dragon (minimum damage on the dice) while his bite complete severs you at the waist (my crit)."

 

[RealAlHazred]

Everyone else appreciates it, and will think more of you as a person, not less, if you do that.

Counterpoint: I don't actually care what other people think of me. It never crosses my mind to wonder about it, and the few times someone has brought it up, my response is generally, "Please submit criticisms in written form only, in the place provided for them" (points to the garbage can).

I am reminded of one of my favorite Jack Vance quotes, I believe it's from The Eyes of the Overworld: “I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise.”

 

[CleverNickName]

8. Don't be afraid to kill a PC. For a boss monster, stakes should be high. But try to let the PC go out in a blaze of glory, instead of a series of disappointing die rolls.

9. Give the monster the Lucky feat, the Sentinel feat, and/or the Mobility feat.

I like to give 1 feat for every 10 Hit Dice, but only for "boss" encounters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Great.

@Dannyalcatraz has just created the new hobgoblin of player agency debates...

THE QUANTUM DOG.

Let it live, and the party is dead.
Kill it, and the party is dead.

Which may or may not be entangled with the existence of Schrödinger’s Felinoid…