DMs: Fight to Win or Fight for Fun?

[Raven Crowking]

Well, for the record, when I am playing I don't want the DM to artificially save my character. I want the consequences of my actions, for good or ill. If you really think you need to intervene, you'd better be subtle about it, because if I notice it I won't be happy.

You can kill me; you can't coddle me.


RC

 

[Pielorinho]

I haven't seen anything to indicate why this conclusion would be reached. Perhaps the PCs had been seen by this ghoul letting their own friends die, showing "take one down with me" behavior themselves.

Frankly, I've never seen a hostage situation work in a game or in real life: the hostage-taker always gets killed.

Were I in the ghoul's situation (i.e., being attacked by a group that considered me essentially evil, in overwhelming numbers, in my own home), I would have reached the same conclusion.

Daniel

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Guess what - without NPCs, your PCs wouldn't have any story to star in...

So? Both PCs and NPCs have their place in a game. That doesn't mean they have the SAME place, are of equal import or should be treated or handled equally.

Not so - almost always, the NPCs are in their position due to the actions or reactions of the PCs.

your games are very very different than mine then. The vast majority of NPCs in my games tend to be where they are not due to actions of the PCs.

So - if the campaign revolves around, for example, the PCs acting as agents of an (NPC) king, and the king gets assassinated because of PC actions (or lack therof), then it is the GMs fault?

who said anything about GMs fault vs players fault? If the king dies as a result of actions of the PCs, then the responsibility for that lies with them for their part in it.

So that GM is too invested in that NPC?

huh? No, the Gm is not too invested in an NPC just because the player's characters kill him or cause him to be killed..

Players are only invested in one (in the old days, two or three) PCs at any one time. GMs *have* to be invested in every one of their NPCs for the campaign to run smoothly.

having run many a game where i wasn't invested in my NPCs, i have to say experience says to me this is an incorrect statement.

Why should the GM accomodate any *one* player, especially if doing so violates the basic axioms of his campaign world or conflicts with the rest of the players?

What a clever wordsmith you are.

for those who missed the sudden shift of context... "anyone" does not equal "any one".

good try tho. kudos for the shifteroo.

The problem that I see is that, especially with the current crop of RPGs, the players *expect* that there will be very little consequence to their PCs when they make poor decisions. As in real life, there needs to be consequences for actions.

I agree, but frankly, dont see this as related to the RPG much at all. Its a player thing and i saw players like this back in the Ad&D 1e days and i see hem now too. If i have one in my games, i make sure early on they expect NPCs to react to the character's actions accordingly. I don't see it as anything new, anything related to a given RPG or anything that growing now as opposed to "in the old days".

To give you an example of how unfairly some players in my group want the deck stacked in their favor, one of the players came up with a critical hit table that required NPCs to get a "better" dice roll than the PCs in order to effect the same results (i.e. in order to hamstring an opponent, the players could roll a 75 while the DM would have to roll a 95) and that had no insta-kill results.

sounds like "mook rules" to me and for some genre its entirey appropriate. For instance, iirc, in spycraft a "standard character" (IE a mook, some guy who is probably described as "guard number 12" in the credits) cannot score a critical hit on a PC (unless it has certain qualities or somesuch.) This helps to simulate the "lack of threat" from the unnamed guards frequently seen in such movies and is appropriate. if james bond is killed by minion number 12 in the second act, you really aren't doing that genre well.

Not knowing more about the specific game in question, its impossible to say whether its appropriate or not for that specific game.

But, for instance, removing insta-kill effects doesn't seem necessarily out of whack either, witness some of the various changes to save-or-die spells in some d20/DnD games.

The DM reluctantly agreed to use it because he desired to not have any arguments. When I got a copy of SSS's Advanced Players Guide, and presented it to him, he loved it but the player who came up with his own charts whined and complained about the possibility that the DM would think of using it because it wasn't "fair."

Well, i think we can get a clear read of how you felt about it, from your portrayal.

not sure we get much more than that.

 

[swrushing]

Frankly, I've never seen a hostage situation work in a game or in real life: the hostage-taker always gets killed.

Were I in the ghoul's situation (i.e., being attacked by a group that considered me essentially evil, in overwhelming numbers, in my own home), I would have reached the same conclusion.

Daniel

odd,

in games i have run, hostage taking is not a frequent occurance, but when it happens i would have to say it works in the taker's favor about half the time. It might be the case, though, that it works more in games where there isn't easy ressurection than in ones where there is. "ill kill him" doesn't carry the same weight when the cleric is saying "so, I got the spell!"

 

[Henry]

Yeah, whether its a house rule or not, i tend to play that "if you can do it, you can threaten to do it" logic. DnD really has no solid rules for the standoff situation, so i tend to count that as something I the Gm have to handle on my own.

One option to allow this: during a "Mexican Stand-Off" (as the term goes), the one preparing the Coup de Grace has an initiative of 20+initiative modifiers. Then, roll initiatives for the party if someone decides to "break" the stand-off. Ever see those action movies where someone gets a shot in before the bad guy can make his threat good? This would work.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Well, for the record, when I am playing I don't want the DM to artificially save my character.

Equally for the record, i agree completely. The difference is i dont think thats the case here.

I want the consequences of my actions, for good or ill.

as do I, though in the case here, the consequence is apparently for the action of failing a saving throw.

If you really think you need to intervene, you'd better be subtle about it, because if I notice it I won't be happy.

agreed.

You can kill me; you can't coddle me.

agreed, though i usually don't prefer the "kill me" part.

But let me give you some examples from current real life gaming...

in our midnight game, our Gm is prone to overmatch us. he really doesn't have a decent grasp on balance within midnight and often throws much too powerful force at us, often overlooking (in spite of cautions in the book) the impact things like "at will magic abilities" have in a rare magic set of PCs.

The sequence is FREQUENTLY this...

1 the situation is setup that we have to fight the set of bad guys and there is little we can do before hand about it.
2. the bad guys should mop the floor with us given even amatuer tactics. they have one to two traits we simply have no counter for.
3. in character, we discuss this and try and find ways around it but there are usually little to no options.
4. engagement rolls along and we start getting clocks cleaned.
5. gm realizes this.
6. Enemies start playing really stupid and making idiot mistakes and sometimes just doing nothing while we get the upper hand.
7 we win what was a "tough fight". We pull it out dramatically after everything seemed lost.

Examples you say:

The dragon stays in arrow range while circling and then after landing at one point spends a full round action "turning around" while standing on the ground (otherwise, it full set of attacks would have gutted the PC who ran up right next to it.)

The demon who has been established as having at will dispel magics capable of dropping spells many levels higher than our mage's who DOESN"T dispel the insect cloud we threw even after pre-game we discussed how the IC would only be around for a few rounds at best due to his dispel. Instead the demon flies back into the cloud and back into melee and gets double teamed and dropped.

A demon gang who start throwing at will darkess globes they can see thru, which cuts out my character's sneak attacks and drops our damage output dramatically, who suddenly stop doing so and start engaging us into normal lighted melees.


Honestly, most of the other players are pretty satisfied with this, while its leaving me flat. I really think they don't realize whats happening and just think that I (or my character or both) is a "worrier" due to all my pre-battle "whining" when we could "just go ahead and and get to it."

I would enjoy instead if he used either:
1. better initial setup allowing more useful choices so that we can utilize some terrain or other setting advantage to make this a reasonable fight.
2. a better force mix so that its not a runaway
3. a less "cohesive unit" where the "evil guys" have more forces but they turn on each other so much as to make their more powerful force less effective than it should be.

When i run games, if you see a battle you cannot win, i expect you to be looking for other solutions, not to plunge in hoping "it all works out anyway."

 

[swrushing]

One option to allow this: during a "Mexican Stand-Off" (as the term goes), the one preparing the Coup de Grace has an initiative of 20+initiative modifiers. Then, roll initiatives for the party if someone decides to "break" the stand-off. Ever see those action movies where someone gets a shot in before the bad guy can make his threat good? This would work.

YUP
tho usually me MSO situations are usually resolved with social skills, as someone ends up using bluff or diplomacy or intimidate to distract one side and get the others that split second of opportunity.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Huh, my solution to that would be to make balanced encounters where the DM doesn't have to pull his punches. Sometimes the opponents will overwhelm the PCs and they must flee or die. Sometimes its a cakewalk. And, sometimes its a good fight where a streak of good luck can make it the encouter easy or a streak of bad luck can get a PC killed.

You can't use a rookie DM's mistakes as a reason for a seasoned DM to make decisions. Sure, newbie DMs make mistakes like that. I've been DMing for over a decade now, and I don't expect that that will be a problem. So, I think I'll stick with my current way of doing things. My players want it that way, and so do I, so I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

EDIT: You saw my post where a dominated PC decided to CDG another PC and everyone was okay with this, right? It's just how some people play.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Ironically, I've had monsters run away from the players rather than fight to the death, and this seems to bother the players MORE than just outright killing PCs.

Ditto for me too. My players seem to get infuriated at the idea of a foe escaping their righteous wrath. A recent run in with some Dark Elves has the Wood Elf player absoultely hating every memeber of the species (despite the fact that the rest of the party dealt with them in trade and an exchange of services).

I probably wouldn't have had the ghoul CDG the PC but I should. I don't like to kill the PCs but it does happen. Character death unhiges the adventure, imo, as everyone has to stop and either a) try to find a ressurect or b) figure out some way to bring a new character into the party (very difficult right now given where they are).

 

[swrushing]

EDIT: You saw my post where a dominated PC decided to CDG another PC and everyone was okay with this, right? It's just how some people play.

iirc it was the dominate specifically said to KILL so the character stopped for CDG rather than go for more tactical choices?

Sure, sounds reasonable and fitting with how i run dominate too.