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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7586029" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>But I've seen this rule in play, and I've never travelled in time. Nor have any of the PCs in my game travelled in time when this sort of thing happens. So I know from experience you're wrong.</p><p></p><p>(And it's weird to describe damage as "soft and cuddly" when it knocks someone unconcsious. To me that actually seems rather brutal. When I used to play AD&D it was not uncommon for PCs to be knocked unconscious. No one thought that this meant that the damage being dealt was "non lethal" or "soft and cuddly". I think 3E has a similar mechanic. And you purport to be familiar with AD&D and 3E.)</p><p></p><p>What you seem to be confused about is the resolution system in question. In 4e it goes like this:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">(1) Apply damage to target;</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">(2) If damage leaves target at >0 hp, target remains conscious'</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">(3) If damage drops target to 0 or fewer hp, player makes choice - either target is unconscious, or target is dead.</p><p></p><p>There's no time travel. The player's choice about whether the damage is fatal or merely debilitating is part of the resolution process.</p><p></p><p>In terms of raw mechanics, this is actually no different from what Gygax proposes in his DMG (p 110), except that in 4e the mechanic is player-side whereas Gygax is envisaging a GM-side mechanic:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player-character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may!</p><p></p><p>In 4e, the player has the right to "adjudicate the situation" when a foe is reduced to zero hp. This isn't "time travel", just making a choice about the fiction that results from a particular category of successful check.</p><p></p><p>You may not like the rule, just as - perhaps - you don't like Gygax's suggested rule and don't use it. But neither is hard to make sense of, neither involves "time travel", neither requires any concept of "non-lethal damage" (just the banal notion of "not-fatal attack"), and neither produces unrealistic outcomes in the fiction.</p><p></p><p>"Lethal damage type" isn't a technical term in 4e. So I can only assume it means <em>is able to kill you</em>. Fire can kill things in 4e. My game has seen numerous beings hurt and killed by fire.</p><p></p><p>That doesn't mean its unreaslistic that sometimes, people who are attacked by fire fall unconscious but don't die.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7586029, member: 42582"] But I've seen this rule in play, and I've never travelled in time. Nor have any of the PCs in my game travelled in time when this sort of thing happens. So I know from experience you're wrong. (And it's weird to describe damage as "soft and cuddly" when it knocks someone unconcsious. To me that actually seems rather brutal. When I used to play AD&D it was not uncommon for PCs to be knocked unconscious. No one thought that this meant that the damage being dealt was "non lethal" or "soft and cuddly". I think 3E has a similar mechanic. And you purport to be familiar with AD&D and 3E.) What you seem to be confused about is the resolution system in question. In 4e it goes like this: [indent](1) Apply damage to target; (2) If damage leaves target at >0 hp, target remains conscious' (3) If damage drops target to 0 or fewer hp, player makes choice - either target is unconscious, or target is dead.[/indent] There's no time travel. The player's choice about whether the damage is fatal or merely debilitating is part of the resolution process. In terms of raw mechanics, this is actually no different from what Gygax proposes in his DMG (p 110), except that in 4e the mechanic is player-side whereas Gygax is envisaging a GM-side mechanic: [indent]Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player-character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may![/indent] In 4e, the player has the right to "adjudicate the situation" when a foe is reduced to zero hp. This isn't "time travel", just making a choice about the fiction that results from a particular category of successful check. You may not like the rule, just as - perhaps - you don't like Gygax's suggested rule and don't use it. But neither is hard to make sense of, neither involves "time travel", neither requires any concept of "non-lethal damage" (just the banal notion of "not-fatal attack"), and neither produces unrealistic outcomes in the fiction. "Lethal damage type" isn't a technical term in 4e. So I can only assume it means [I]is able to kill you[/I]. Fire can kill things in 4e. My game has seen numerous beings hurt and killed by fire. That doesn't mean its unreaslistic that sometimes, people who are attacked by fire fall unconscious but don't die. [/QUOTE]
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