Do you "save" the PCs?

[Ariosto]

I was contesting what you said. Not "schooling" you. Cripes.

It was, and is, not your place to contest what I said -- any more than it would be someone else's place to contest your statement that

Back off, please. You're coming across extremely aggressively when you absolutely don't need to be. If you're going to discuss a topic where someone disagrees with you, there's no reason to be rude while doing so; it only obscures your point.

If this is at all unclear, please PM me. ~ Piratecat

to me PC death should be rare or for when they "deserve" it. I have the ability to throw whatever the hell I want at them, a TPK is not a challenge to produce. I find it much more enjoyable, for the PCs and for me, if I can walk the fine line of nearly killing them in a fight, putting the fear of DM into their hearts but still leaving the encounter level such that they can survive and overcome it. And I don't mean every time i roll damage, I fudge to what's thematically coolest. I go with what's rolled generally, until it becomes a big problem. I mean that I try to tailor the encounters I plan to attain that "extremely dangerous but 100% survivable if you use good tactics" level.

This is a very elementary matter of common sense.

It is quite seemly for you to speak authoritatively of your own beliefs and experience and knowledge.

It is unseemly and unnecessary for one to quote, and question the veracity of, what someone else has to say of matters to which, in fact, only he or she -- certainly not oneself -- is privy.

Moreover, as a very plain matter of fact that you can easily verify (and could have before you posted), I never said that I was "just" a referee.

I stated merely that I am a referee, which is in fact how Mr. Gygax addressed the reader, e.g., in the Preface to the DMG:

What follows is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee.

The term "referee" appears as the usual term throughout the Original Dungeons & Dragons books. The first appearance in them of the term "dungeonmaster" (spelled just so, and in quotes) is, I think, in the Foreword to Supplement II, in reference to Dave Arneson, "the innovator of the 'dungeon adventure' concept".

The "referee" usage is resumed for the body of that work, the terms "Dungeon Master", "Dungeonmaster" and "DM" coming into broader use only in Supplement III.

In practice, Gygax and others used "referee", "judge", "game master" (another term predating D&D) and "dungeon master" interchangeably.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Yeah, we used to play this way back in the day. There was the running joke about my brother, who we would say would poke the thing with a 10-foot pole, and if that was safe, would take out a nine-foot pole, and if that was safe, would take out an eight-foot pole...

In my youth when hours were cheap, that's how we played. My current groups have jobs and kids and little free time, and like to jump into the game and have some adventure. We don't enjoy poking and prodding around for signs of danger.

So play however you wish. Making informed decisions before rushing in is merely a survival tip. If you feel more comfortable just rushing headlong into unknown danger it is your right to do just that.

I would suggest using a rule system with quick character creation if you do this though, time being so precious.

 

[Reynard]

So play however you wish. Making informed decisions before rushing in is merely a survival tip. If you feel more comfortable just rushing headlong into unknown danger it is your right to do just that.

I would suggest using a rule system with quick character creation if you do this though, time being so precious.

Best part of B/E D&D: 5 minute char gen, 1 minute if you make up some typical adventuring gear packages beforehand.

 

[Fifth Element]

So play however you wish. Making informed decisions before rushing in is merely a survival tip. If you feel more comfortable just rushing headlong into unknown danger it is your right to do just that.

I would suggest using a rule system with quick character creation if you do this though, time being so precious.

Alternatively, we can have a DM who understands the players' desires, and doesn't place encounters likely to result in a TPK in such a situation. Which is what we do, since we find playing more fun that character generation.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Alternatively, we can have a DM who understands the players' desires, and doesn't place encounters likely to result in a TPK in such a situation. Which is what we do, since we find playing more fun that character generation.

The dm should never tailor encounters to a party's strength. He merely places the encounters, monsters, and treasures where they would logically appear in the game world. The pcs are free to go wherever they wish. There are many methods of research to find out whether there are goblins or giants in a particular dungeon. Consulting a sage, divination spells, library research, interviewing people who've been there, etc. Of course they might stumble upon something way out of their league, even after all their preparations. Thebest laid plans of mice and men and all that. Such is life. It cannot be the dms fault unless he deliberately places a Chimera in the midst of a goblin warren or some such. But I can see a reason for this, even. Perhaps the goblins worship the Chimera, and in return for protecting their lair, they provide it with food in the form of adventurers. The Chimera is lazy, and prefers this to actually having to hunt its food. But again, there should be hints something is afoot to any pcs taking the time to gather information about their adventuring locale. They can then choose to go there or not. If they choose wrong, they die, or succeed against all odds, either way it's better than tailor made encounters prepared by a mathematical formula. Boring.

 

[rgard]

The dice rolls are bad. The tactics have failed. The situation is grim. Yet, they won't run away. So what do you do?

If you are GMing and the PCs get themselves in a pickle, but through poor judgement, overconfidence or just plain stubbornness they refuse to leave a losing encounter and a TPK or similar fate seems imminent, do you save them? Do you fudge the dice or have some deus ex machina event save them? Or do you leave them to cruel fate?

Yes, once in 1980 via deus ex machina. Never again. Cruel fate has ruled since then.

 

[Ariosto]

I will say this, in games with high lethality, I would probably not roleplay my character very much. That sort of game can be fun, but it would feel more like playing a boardgame to me.

You are clearly not alone! Some people are not cut out for "one shot" games, either, in which a single session is the extent of a character's career.

But, of course, neither was the old D&D game meant to to be limited to that, either!

From what I have seen, the tendency has been to keep characters longer in the old game. That applies, of course, only to those that survive a while.

I know some old hands who prefer to play low levels, and many who find it hard to role-play a character they have not brought up from first the hard way. I also know some who prefer to skip the "basic" levels and start at 4th (or maybe with an x.p. total that makes thieves 5th).

Gygax in the DMG suggested that experienced players might as well have mid-level characters, because they have already experienced low-level play as genuine novices -- a state that can be lost but once!

Once a character reaches second level, that usually means enough hit points so that becoming a "one-hit wonder" is at least unlikely (if not downright impossible). Gaining third tends to be relatively easy, as it requires only as many x.p. as to reach second!

If one either starts characters at 2nd, or gives them maximum hit points at 1st, then keeping them alive becomes much easier. They are then about twice as tough as typical 1st-level monsters, and easily worth several kobolds each.

But what of "play 'em as you roll 'em"? Then, one may find that one or two characters (or more) bite the dust before at last one character gets "over the hump". Some folks will "play them to the hilt", making up all sorts of personality quirks. Others won't even give a character a distinctive name (unlike, say, "Phred IV") until it gets to 2nd level.

Most genuine novices, in my experience, do indeed approach characters initially as what in fact they are -- personas behind and through which one interacts with the game environment.

This may seem weird if one is accustomed to more recent RPGs, but one thing that got no mention at all in the original D&D set is "back story". Perhaps even more surprisingly, the first edition of RuneQuest (1978) also said nothing about it. Neither did the AD&D PHB released that same year.

Not a word!

That does not mean that nobody cared about creating pre-game biographies. I don't recall offhand which issue of TSR/TD it's from, but Best of The Dragon includes an early article ("The Play's the Thing . . ." by Thomas Filmore) that ends with a one-paragraph example.

The handbooks did not bring it up, though. The games were presented as being about "what will you do now", and indeed the "you" being addressed was the player, the ghost in the machine, not an imaginary personality.

The process that, among most of the people I met in FRP circles, seemed pretty natural -- an "organic" part of the game -- was for roles to gain not only breadth but depth as they were played.

That reminds me of the development of many of the heroes of adventure fiction, whose origins are gradually woven of hints revealed over the course of many stories.

It certainly helped that the games happened to be about just such characters, most often met first as figures walking or riding up to the gates of the Keep on the Borderland or some such outpost on the frontier. (An alternative was a "hard boiled" city with swords for hire in place of P.I.s.) If they at first seemed like cutouts from a Sergio Leone film, then that was fine; archetypes give you somewhere to hang your hat while getting on with the action.

 

[Aus_Snow]

This may seem weird if one is accustomed to more recent RPGs, but one thing that got no mention at all in the original D&D set is "back story". Perhaps even more surprisingly, the first edition of RuneQuest (1978) also said nothing about it. Neither did the AD&D PHB released that same year.

Not a word!

'Details as to your appearance, your body proportions, and your history can be produced by you or the Dungeon Master.' -- AD&D Players Handbook, p. 7.

'By determining abilities, race, class, alignment, and hit points you have created your character. Next you must name him or her, and possibly give some family background (and name a next of kin as heir to the possessions of the character if he or she should meet an untimely death) to personify the character.' -- Ibid., p. 34.

I'm not saying there is a heavy emphasis on such, let alone a system for determining anything of the sort. But, I simply couldn't resist when you said, 'Not a word!'

 

[Hussar]

The dm should never tailor encounters to a party's strength. He merely places the encounters, monsters, and treasures where they would logically appear in the game world. The pcs are free to go wherever they wish. There are many methods of research to find out whether there are goblins or giants in a particular dungeon. Consulting a sage, divination spells, library research, interviewing people who've been there, etc. Of course they might stumble upon something way out of their league, even after all their preparations. Thebest laid plans of mice and men and all that. Such is life. It cannot be the dms fault unless he deliberately places a Chimera in the midst of a goblin warren or some such. But I can see a reason for this, even. Perhaps the goblins worship the Chimera, and in return for protecting their lair, they provide it with food in the form of adventurers. The Chimera is lazy, and prefers this to actually having to hunt its food. But again, there should be hints something is afoot to any pcs taking the time to gather information about their adventuring locale. They can then choose to go there or not. If they choose wrong, they die, or succeed against all odds, either way it's better than tailor made encounters prepared by a mathematical formula. Boring.

This is certainly a valid way of playing. Been there and done that.

But to claim that this is the one true way of playing and all other ways of playing are "boring" is just so much crap.

If you want to play this way, more power to you. But, don't tell me that it's any better than any other way of playing. You can dislike it all you want, but, trying to claim that your way is somehow "the best" is ludicrous.

Considering the amount of bandwidth people have spent pissing and moaning about how WOTC has bashed certain playstyles, I certainly see enough old school types going out of their way to tell others that they're doing it wrong.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

This is certainly a valid way of playing. Been there and done that.

But to claim that this is the one true way of playing and all other ways of playing are "boring" is just so much crap.

If you want to play this way, more power to you. But, don't tell me that it's any better than any other way of playing. You can dislike it all you want, but, trying to claim that your way is somehow "the best" is ludicrous.

I never said it was any "one true way." It's how the game was designed, though. By all means, nerf everything to the character's abilities. I don't see the point in every fight being fair or tailored to the character's particular abilities. They may as well stay first level and fight goblins forever if the entire world levels up with them.

But by all means, go right ahead and tailor the world to the pcs if that floats your boat. It certainly isn't "wrong." It's just different from how the game was designed.