Cheating, Action Points, and Second Wind

[mach1.9pants]

deleted 'cos the argument is goin nowhere, sorry

 

[JohnSnow]

Some RPG goes that way, but that's not D&D.

Well.. I suppose it could be done, but many other parts of D&D don't support that kind of play.

It's really not that hard to alter D&D to support "that kind of play." Here are the, IMO, necessary changes:

1) No level loss for character death.
2) Rules for handling the "Dramatic Sacrifice."
3) Action points for enabling "cinematic" heroics and heroic survival.
4) Elimination of "random death" events.
5) Reduction of "reset" spells, like Raise Dead.


That's it. It's a relatively short list. Item 1 is critical because you don't want death to penalize the player. In fact, if the player elects to allow his character to die in a dramatic fashion because it's good for the story, the player should be rewarded. Items 3 & 4 pretty much remove random, pointless character death from the game. Item 5 is necessary because the character who makes the heroic sacrifice can't be brought back, or it's not a sacrifice.

Then the only thing you need is the rules for handling the dramatic sacrifice. My thinking is that after his character is plunged below zero hit points, the player who chooses the "last stand" option can choose to fight on, temporarily refreshing his character completely (as if he were just joining the battle). Maybe this even happens again. When the battle is over (or he's exhausted his last stand), he gets a few final words and then he dies. And can't be raised.

As you can see, characters would only choose this option when they had something the player felt was worth dying for. But I'd be willing to guess that 2 or 3 lives would be enough to finish off all but the most dire threats. And if the entire party chooses the option, we have Thermopylae. That's the kind of death where heroes shout "this may be our end, but we will make such an end as to be remembered for eternity!!"

The player who takes this option then gets the option to rejoin the game with a new character who's the same level as his old one would have been had he survived. So the player isn't penalized.

You might have to put a limit of "once every X levels, per player" to prevent glory hounds from potentially abusing this rule to always be the one who "saves the day" with their heroic sacrifice. But I imagine that wouldn't be a problem with most groups. On the other hand, in a super-gritty game, character death that frequent might even be appropriate.

I dunno. Maybe it wouldn't work. But I think it might.

 

[marune]

It's really not that hard to alter D&D to support "that kind of play." Here are the, IMO, necessary changes:

1) No level loss for character death.
2) Rules for handling the "Dramatic Sacrifice."
3) Action points for enabling "cinematic" heroics and heroic survival.
4) Elimination of "random death" events.
5) Reduction of "reset" spells, like Raise Dead.


That's it. It's a relatively short list. Item 1 is critical because you don't want death to penalize the player. In fact, if the player elects to allow his character to die in a dramatic fashion because it's good for the story, the player should be rewarded. Items 3 & 4 pretty much remove random, pointless character death from the game. Item 5 is necessary because the character who makes the heroic sacrifice can't be brought back, or it's not a sacrifice.

Ok, let say you have done it for death.

Now, if a player choose to do A instead of B in combat, where A is the action resulting from the best strategy to overcome the challenge and B the action giving the most dramatic efffect.

Using RAW, A is obvious because it's the best way to get XP, avoid getting killed and advancing in levels.

You have now a similar problem that arise a lot more often than the death of a PC.

Your idea above is nice, but it can't make D&D what D&D is not.

Let's stop this now, because it's no longer directly linked to the topic.

 

[Zurai]

<shrug> Like I said, a surprising number of people are unwilling or unable to discuss this without bias. No more reason for me to continue reading this thread, since only a couple people have bothered to actually read and understand the original post.

 

[Professor Phobos]

EDIT: Getting back on topic...

Anyone want to fill me in on how action points are supposed to work? I'm not familiar with the mechanic.

 

[Piratecat]

<shrug> Like I said, a surprising number of people are unwilling or unable to discuss this without bias. No more reason for me to continue reading this thread, since only a couple people have bothered to actually read and understand the original post.

**EDIT: I've spoken to Zurai, so I'm editing this post.**

The possibility exists that they are reading and understanding the original post, and they are treating the subject without bias. They just disagree with you. That happens.

Please don't announce you're leaving the thread while firing a parting insult, though. That's comes off as really rude.

Everyone else back on topic, please.

 

[Fenes]

I consider action points and such the same as any other buff, especially if it can be self-applied like a potion, or after the roll, like some of the special abilities (which we even had in 2E, Priest of Luck, for example).

It's not cheating if I down a potion of jumping before making a leap.

I'd also disagree with the notion that D&D does not support "cinematic play" - we've been playing in a similar way as was described above for years, with no random pc death, and no regular resurrection mechanics. No action points though.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

The discussion here is good evidence of why DMs changing rules or modifying the game is something that they do carefully and at the risk of social punishment. For longer than I've been playing, there have been explicit instructions to the DM to change rules in order to assist play. However, different players define "play" in different ways. Thus those players who demand a "risk challenge" (to coin a phrase half borrowed from a previous poster), will see any deviation from the rules, except those deviations that overcome conflicts or cover areas not done well in the rules, as a deviation from the social norms of the game and thus at least akin to cheating.

I'm with Piratecat (happily) in that I don't think that this discussion has gone far off topic. I think that the desire for cinematic play is exactly the kind of social norm that varies from table to table, depending on the desires of the gamers involved, and this sets the acceptability for Dm rules changes.

JohnSnow gave an excellent list of ways to make D&D more cinematic that involved minimal rules changes. Accompanying these minimal rules changes would be an expectation of the group about the kind of story told by the gaming sessions. This might make their game different from the (more purely) risk challenge game desired by other gamers and thus make DM changes during play more acceptable.

 

[Najo]

I second this. The degree of "cheating" is tied to the playstyle of the group. The story driven party is more likely to have a DM who fudges rules to get the story to go the way they want. The simulationist style of players are going to accept the rules as they occur. But, both of these groups are playing a different game with different reasons for playing and neither way is wrong.

In the perspective of the wargamer D&D player, fudging dice rolls is near blasphemous. It takes something away from their hard earned victory and cheapens their accomplishments.

From the perspective of the story driven campaign, if a bad dice roll ruins months of story building drama, character background, intricate plots and emotional investment, then why let one bad dice roll do that? Its like having a good movie suddenly go the entire wrong direction.

I think that most D&D campaigns find a place between these two places, and its the ones at opposite ends whose players disagree and declare the other one wrong.

 

[buzz]

Thanks, but like I said earlier, fudging can become a necessity when the DM makes error or is faced with the errors of the designers during play.

This is a wholly separate issue to what's being discussed here, though.