Balancing "RP" and "G"

[Digital M@]

IFudging dice and changing stats and/or rules mid-combat does nothing to improve the art and science of DMing, IMO.

This is where we disagree, the game comes down to the players excitement and interest. I will tweak the rules to maximize this as much as I can. There are over 700 pages of rules in just the 3 core books not including the thousands and thousands of pages of rules outside of those sources. I am not interested in calculating all of the mathmatical possabilities of these rule combination nor even care to read them all. We both play for enjoyment and you can play your way and I can play mine, in the end the players never know either way.

I will add, I have started using action points to allow the PCs to succeed when they need and I find that is a good balance. When the PCs want something bad enough, they will enure they succeed. So I fudge less using this tool and it still allows the PCs to do what need to get done. I do agree that PCs want to be responsable for their own success so too much fudging could hurt the game, but used sparingly it can add drama.

 

[Odhanan]

If you are repeatedly killing off PCs, there is something wrong with your encounter design. Dice are not the only element that decides the outsome of events.

Agreed. This is bad encounter design, and plain bad DMing if your players don't appreciate that kind of deadly dungeon crawl. This is has nothing to do with fudging or not fudging, IMO.

We both play for enjoyment and you can play your way and I can play mine, in the end the players never know either way.

IME, they always end up knowing. As a player, I myself can feel when I'm railroaded, lied to when it comes to dice results or given silly justifications for stuff that happens in the game and goes against this or that rule/principle. When a DM fudges dice, that annoys me as a player. It usually demonstrates a poor knowledge of the rules, laziness and/or a "novelist" approach to DMing when it comes to adventure design. If I don't want to bother as GM with 700 pages of rules, I'll play Castles and Crusades instead of D&D.

Sure, if your players don't mind when you fudge, then by all means, do! But from what you're saying, it looks like they're not aware of it. And that is cheating/lying, by my book anyway.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Deliberate obtuseness aside, I'm not talking about a MAry Sue GMPC with whihc to pull the PCs' strings. i am talking about an overarching plot that continues, even if one group of heroes involved falls. But I think you knew that.

Actually, I didn't mention GMPCs. they weren't a consideration. i was talking about a setup where the story is about the big thing happening and the big bad guy or items or such doing it and where the PCs are not integrally linked to the goings on, where if one set falls, no big deal, just roll in some more.

Contrast this to star wars where, while it is dealing with the overthrow of the evil emporer and his attemtpts to eliminate the rebellion, Luke and Leia are not interchangeable with "other rebels". The story is about them... the children of vader Luke in particular. Londau could not just pick up the mantle of hero once luke and leia fell because he did not have the integral personal tie in to the story they had... unless we then find out vader had been sleeping around on the sly and yes indeed landau and others were also the "last hope" as infinitum.

The adversaries, big bads, and seasonal plots in my games are there. They are just directly and integrally tied to the PC backgrounds and goals... not something i can throw disposable PCs at in batches until the story of "my bad guy's great fall" is finished.

No. What *is* common in my campaigns is that the PCs do not exist in a vaccum. nor do their adventures. If BBEG is threatening the world, people are going to notice. If Heroes step up to stop said BBEG, people are going to notice. If said Heroes get squashed by said BBEG, people are going to notice. And, chances are, somewhere, someone else is going to honor that sacrifice by taking it upon themselves to make sure BBEG doesn't win. And those people are very likely the next set of PCs.

My games differ then in that there isn't this CNN-like info network. Most of the PC deaths don't happen where everyone knows and hears about it. heck, most of them happen in dark lonely places where the "rest of the world" just knows "they went that way and didn't come back."

if I had a TPK (and there have been some close calls in finales) most of the ones i remember would not have been ones where the rest of the world would know.

If all those people motivated in line with the PCs were somehow watching when they fell, ready to report their heroism to the next batch of replacement heroes, why didn't any try and help?

 

[Reynard]

My games differ then in that there isn't this CNN-like info network. Most of the PC deaths don't happen where everyone knows and hears about it. heck, most of them happen in dark lonely places where the "rest of the world" just knows "they went that way and didn't come back."

if I had a TPK (and there have been some close calls in finales) most of the ones i remember would not have been ones where the rest of the world would know.

If all those people motivated in line with the PCs were somehow watching when they fell, ready to report their heroism to the next batch of replacement heroes, why didn't any try and help?

So, if there is a threat to the world at large, there isn't anyone around interested enough in the outcome -- should the Heroes "go that way and not come back" to cast a couple divination spells to find out whether they lived or died? There are no travllers or patrols that might mark their passing? There is no system of simple overland communication to ensure that Kingdom A knows when Kingdom B falls?

If what the PCs do -- or fail to do -- doesn';t have any impact on the world around them, it seems to me that what they do doesn't matter in the first place.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

So, if there is a threat to the world at large, there isn't anyone around interested enough in the outcome -- should the Heroes "go that way and not come back" to cast a couple divination spells to find out whether they lived or died? There are no travllers or patrols that might mark their passing? There is no system of simple overland communication to ensure that Kingdom A knows when Kingdom B falls?

Since travel to and fro takes time, often lots of time, then it will not be uncommon for characters to be gone for long periods of time. heck, one sub-quest in my last game had the PCs not get back to their "home base" for over a year, with them travelling thru three different kingdoms in the process.

So, no, people being gone for a time doesn't start this high level scrying and divination network rushing into action looking for tonight's news sound byte.

if travellers and patrols come across them, they will likely report what they saw. Whether those people know the heroes or know enough to get word back is another matter. i don't think any of my PCs tend to carry "In case of TPK notify..." bracelets or badges.

and there is overland communication. its often slow and ponderous.

If what the PCs do -- or fail to do -- doesn';t have any impact on the world around them, it seems to me that what they do doesn't matter in the first place.

How did you make the leap here?

What they do or don't do matters and has impact, especially since i choose to run campaigns that are about the PCs.

Whether or not it matters or has impact is a different thing than whether or not people know what happened.

The issue at hand is whether the info about the fall of one group of disposable PCs somehow gets transmitted to the next group of disposable PCs so those new PCs can be ASSUMED to know more of the risks involved in picking up the quest.

 

[DonTadow]

This is where we disagree, the game comes down to the players excitement and interest. I will tweak the rules to maximize this as much as I can. There are over 700 pages of rules in just the 3 core books not including the thousands and thousands of pages of rules outside of those sources. I am not interested in calculating all of the mathmatical possabilities of these rule combination nor even care to read them all. We both play for enjoyment and you can play your way and I can play mine, in the end the players never know either way.

I will add, I have started using action points to allow the PCs to succeed when they need and I find that is a good balance. When the PCs want something bad enough, they will enure they succeed. So I fudge less using this tool and it still allows the PCs to do what need to get done. I do agree that PCs want to be responsable for their own success so too much fudging could hurt the game, but used sparingly it can add drama.

You hit the nail on the head. Dm'n is more than just guiding the rules along, its making sure, above all, that the pcs are having the maximum fun. A great DM, will have a character die in a session and the player is/was so excited about the fun he's having (or had with that character) that the sadness of losing a character is minimal. He still feels for the character, but the player knows that his character's death was a natural progression of the campaign. It also should have happen so infrequnetly that it makes character's deaths meaningful. He tells a story with the death despite the fact that the mechanics may have led to it.

In my current campaign of 45 sessions, I"ve had 4 actual character deaths (I say actual because there were some pcs turned npcs I had to kill off that don't count). In any case, these 4 deaths, (even though some occured by minor traps and henchmen monsters) all had deaths that were meaningful because I make every life and death encounter as meaningful as I can.

 

[The Shaman]

Please see the EGG quote in my signature...

 

[gizmo33]

You hit the nail on the head. Dm'n is more than just guiding the rules along, its making sure, above all, that the pcs are having the maximum fun. A great DM, will have a character die in a session and the player is/was so excited about the fun he's having (or had with that character) that the sadness of losing a character is minimal.

Nail...in the coffin...of gaming. (kidding )

Seriously though, I am not a fan of the novelist school of gaming, and when I'm grouchy I sometimes believe that the "novelists" out there would not have a game to play without the facade of a game, made plausible by those of us that play RPGs as a game.

It strikes me as this weird bait and switch sort of thing, where players sit down with a set of expectations and the DM secretly (or not so) has another. As if a new football league were to come along that realized that people would really love it if every game was won in the last second on the last play, and so the games were rigged to produce this "fun" result. It would only be possible as long as:
a. there were people out there still playing the game "fairly", so that the rigged games would seem plausible
b. people didn't eventually catch on that all the important events and actions were fixed

I don't think it's a coincidence that RPGs were invented by the wargamer side of the wargamer/novelist spectrum.

It's not that I don't believe in creating the best possible backstories, interpretations of game events, and that all of my NPCs act according to motivations. It's that it seems strange to me to say things like "A great DM, will have a character die". It implies a level of control ("having" a character die, rather than death being a result of choices plus dice) by the DM that I think contradicts the implicit "contract" in RPGs between DM and Player.

 

[DonTadow]

Nail...in the coffin...of gaming. (kidding )

Seriously though, I am not a fan of the novelist school of gaming, and when I'm grouchy I sometimes believe that the "novelists" out there would not have a game to play without the facade of a game, made plausible by those of us that play RPGs as a game.

It strikes me as this weird bait and switch sort of thing, where players sit down with a set of expectations and the DM secretly (or not so) has another. As if a new football league were to come along that realized that people would really love it if every game was won in the last second on the last play, and so the games were rigged to produce this "fun" result. It would only be possible as long as:
a. there were people out there still playing the game "fairly", so that the rigged games would seem plausible
b. people didn't eventually catch on that all the important events and actions were fixed

I don't think it's a coincidence that RPGs were invented by the wargamer side of the wargamer/novelist spectrum.

It's not that I don't believe in creating the best possible backstories, interpretations of game events, and that all of my NPCs act according to motivations. It's that it seems strange to me to say things like "A great DM, will have a character die". It implies a level of control ("having" a character die, rather than death being a result of choices plus dice) by the DM that I think contradicts the implicit "contract" in RPGs between DM and Player.

I think I"m a victim of a bad word choice. To rephrase... a Great DM, can have a pc die in the game (by whatever means bad rolling, great monster rolling, the cat jumping on the table ect.) and the character is having so much fun that it is a sad loss, but one the character feels is just at the end. If the characters walk away after his character dies feeling as though the DM purposely killed his character, or that things were unfair, then the DM didn't do a good job.

The mechanics is more than just rolling die. The mechanics are only the means to tell that portion of the story, and the DM must interpret that portion of the story so that it has meaning in a way other than purely mathematical algorythms.

"Nikylik rushes down the stairs, hearing the screams of his teammates and the explosions of concrete and metal. HOwever, he slips stumbling onto a pressure plate in the floor. The ceiling crashes on top of him, killing the small gnome instanty. "Sadiyah, you see you watch it happen, what do you do in response. "

tells a better story than " Nikylik rushes down the stairs and triggers a trap, take 48 points of bludgending damage that drops your character". Next initative.

 

[Odhanan]

"Nikylik rushes down the stairs, hearing the screams of his teammates and the explosions of concrete and metal. HOwever, he slips stumbling onto a pressure plate in the floor. The ceiling crashes on top of him, killing the small gnome instanty. "Sadiyah, you see you watch it happen, what do you do in response. "

tells a better story than " Nikylik rushes down the stairs and triggers a trap, take 48 points of bludgending damage that drops your character". Next initative.

That's the neverending debate of RPGs. Game versus Storytelling. The problem I think is that you consider that the game and its mechanics serve the story being told, while I and a few others consider a RPG doesn't tell a story at all. We think the story is the consequence of RPG sessions after they occur.

I.e. what Gary says: The aim of the RPG is not to eventually create a story. Any story that evolves during or after play is a bonus that is developed by the participants who enjoyed playing a game.

That's two different point of views right there. Conciliation didn't happen for the last thirty years on this topic. I doubt it will happen now.

In fact, in gameplay here's what I do: the guy triggers the trap, takes 48 points of damage, but I still describe the action immersively. Immersion shouldn't in this case be mixed up with storytelling/a "novelist" approach to game mastering. These are two different things.

A particular focus on immersion in RPGs can often result in a novelist approach to RPG and adventure design/game mastering. But this is just one of the possible consequences and one concept doesn't replace the other. I know because I've been a novelist GM when running Vampire The Masquerade. I came back from it because I was realizing that the focus of the game wasn't having fun anymore. It was to flatter my wanna-be-writer's ego by enacting stories and getting them to go as I wanted them to. And I would make the game less fun for the other players if the game didn't go the way I wanted it to. Which is a mistake.