Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
The difference is that an expenditure is entirely within the player's control. A random roll is not. Just like how people generally don't always get to decide not to die.
D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?
- Thread starter ECMO3
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
I don't think it's a matter of "trained" by anything.
The majority of players are not interested in random, irrevocable, permanent death as a major, prominent consequence. They prefer other kinds of consequences: moral/ethical dilemmas, the gain or sacrifice of personal power/resources/tools, interpersonal relationships and their development over time, political or social stuff, etc. In large part, this is because whether those consequences are good, bad, or indifferent, the show goes on.
In many ways, the experience of D&D-like tabletop play is like getting to be one of the core characters in a character-driven, plot-heavy TV show, particularly in the vein of things like Babylon 5: while the occasional core character may die (or get Put On A Bus as TVTropes phrases it), the audience's interest is in seeing the characters...y'know...actually DO things and GO places and develop and change and, ultimately, face whatever it is that's going on. The camera isn't looking at people who live lives of quiet desperation or who die pointlessly on a random dirt road or in some forgotten fortification, because those people aren't interesting enough. We look at the ones who...don't. That doesn't mean they never experience hardship. That doesn't mean they aren't subject to some horrific things and have to deal with permanent, lasting consequences. They do! And any show that failed to do that, a show that always had nothing but bright happy awesome things happen all the time forever, would be a show that didn't make it to its first season finale.
That's what most people want out of D&D. A good drama, coupled with feeling like they've gotten something done that was worth doing. What, exactly, is "worth doing" will vary; some want it to be a worthy gameplay achievement, others (which I think would be most similar to you) want a worthy figuring-out of the world and one's place in it; others still want a worthy overcoming of moral and ethical dilemmas; etc.
You're never, ever going to get a game that sells well and reaches a lot of people by telling them that they not only can, but will be subject to story-ending, random, uncontrollable consequences. It doesn't matter that real life is full of story-ending, random, uncontrollable consequences. People don't want real life. They want drama and adventure, and if that requires dismissing significant parts of what makes real life work the way real life works, so be it.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
People also don't get to decide their background, nor do they get to sit and have a real good think for five minutes about whether they're going to succumb to terrible temptation or reject it.
The premise is false from its foundation: RPGing is not real life, and never has been. The very act of roleplay is, itself, something "entirely within the player's control" when that is emphatically not true of real life.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Pardon, I was confusing blackjack and poker.
Still, there is a link, albeit a weaker one. A new deck is often shuffled while the current deck is being dealt, so that as soon as one hand ends, a new hand from an entirely new deck can be played. (Once the old deck is collected, it is then shuffled so it can be ready for the next next game.)
I really don't think it is. As @pemerton noted, both sides have perfect information about the state of play. You can't hide anything on the chessboard. The only "psyching out" you could even theoretically do is making a bold/risky play--but all of your cards are face-up.
Unless you mean to say that there's some other way a person could "bluff" in chess? I'd be curious to hear about that.
W'rkncacnter
Hero
to my knowledge, yeah, psyching your opponent out in chess basically amounts to trying to kick them out of their prep (and preferably straight into your own) as quickly as possible.
as a (fictional) theoretical physicist once said - "You could be Einstein or Tesla, but you're always going to lose to that psycho who memorizes board positions and can remember 50 moves in his head. Computers can beat us in chess because it's a game MEANT for computers!"
Crimson Longinus
Legend
Right, and there were some other things in that description, where players get to decide things their characters possibly couldn't. That's fine, but it puts us more into author stance as opposed to the actor stance. And that's not something everyone likes.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Sure, but anyone who wants pure actor stance is always going to be disappointed by D&D-alike roleplaying games. It would be like asking for actor-stance play in OD&D, which is aggressively, overtly pawn-stance.
Zardnaar
Legend
Are you familiar with OD&D?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Technically, I've played a clone of it (Labyrinth Lord). Is that sufficient to pass muster?
Zardnaar
Legend
Provably close enough to it's playstyle.
There's a bit if variety in how OSR DMs run games.
I've never really gad the fatalities peopke expect but I dint run early dungeon hacks either.
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