Do you "save" the PCs?

[Janx]

There's an interesting parallel between ear-seekers, rooms full of silent monsters and the like and the belief that in d20 D&D, the PCs only meet monsters that will provide a level-appropriate challenge. In both cases the environment is changing, in fairly implausible ways, to fit the PCs. The environment seems to know about the PCs and warps in strange ways so as to always challenge them. There's a really clear example of this from Dragon #26, Notes From A Very Successful D&D Moderator (sorry Janx) -



The old crazy dungeon with its traps arms race, and the new tailored encounters are both examples of gamism. Encounters are always a challenge, no matter what counter-measures the PCs employ or what level they are, relative to where they go. Both are criticised for a lack of verisimilitude. The counter to this is simulationism - ear seekers don't exist, traps don't escalate, encounters aren't tailored.

I don't mind the quotes, so much as holding them as sacred law. Umbran summed it up really well, but I must spread some XP around before I can give him some.

With the story you cite, my beef with it isn't verisimulitude, it's the GM is playing adversarially and using out of game knowledge to boot. The jello story is just funny, and a rational line can be traced as to how an NPC might know it and target the PCs (or adventurers in general).

But the pit trap is a clear case of deliberately thwarting player planning for the sole purpose of making them go into a pit trap. That's a railroad. And the sad thing is, he's chewing up PCs, just so he can have the perfect pit trap that kills a PC.

One positive trait though, is that it seems like the GM isn't changing the pit trap mid-encounter, thus if they outsmart him, they get past the trap. But the next trap will more than likely be designed to thwart those PCs and their latest solution, despiite the trap being centuries old and the thought never would have occurred to the creator unless he saw the PCs latest innovation (which he would have employed on the first trap in the first place).

The result of this pit-trap shennigans is that eventually your PC will diie from a pit trap of some sort. And so will your next one.

Certainly, it can be a fun mental challenge to face a trap that you have to outwit. But the story demonstrates the GM bad behavior that is analagous to the PC Chain-Fighter. One trick ponyism. Which the GM is technically allowed as many one-trick ponies as he wants.

 

[Umbran]

The old crazy dungeon with its traps arms race, and the new tailored encounters are both examples of gamism. Encounters are always a challenge, no matter what counter-measures the PCs employ or what level they are, relative to where they go. Both are criticised for a lack of verisimilitude. The counter to this is simulationism - ear seekers don't exist, traps don't escalate, encounters aren't tailored.

One of the possible counters to this is simulationism. It is not the only counter.

Another possible counter is Drama - ear seekers are rare (they might be a cool story element once, but we don't make a habit out of them 'cause that makes for a lame story), traps don't escalate (because that's kinda hokey). And we tailor the encounters or not to meet the group's particular desires with respect to dramatic tension.

 

[Doug McCrae]

With the story you cite, my beef with it isn't verisimulitude, it's the GM is playing adversarially and using out of game knowledge to boot.

Yeah. I took note of that article when I first read it because it seemed such appallingly bad DM-ing, by my standards at any rate. It looks like the PCs are actually being killed by the traps, so it's Killer DM-ing, which I regard as a degenerate form of gamism. It's gone beyond challenging the players to killing their characters no matter what precautions they take.

 

[Mallus]

Well, if you are going to appeal to Gygax in the DMG as your authority...

I believe that's your shtick.

If one doesn't know it when one sees it, then what does one know?

The limits of my own knowledge and ability? Particularly when I'm called on to make a snap judgment on game night after a long week at work?

 

[Ariosto]

What he suggests is passive-aggression, rather than just coming out straight and saying, "Guys, please speed things up, you're boring the arse off me here."

I think it would be more accurate to take that as said! There is no confusion; the players are screwing around "despite the obvious displeasure you express"!

[edit]: Gary was writing for the Advanced players of 1979, not the audience of 2009.

The response, I think, is more a hint of Gygax's pretty openly and actively aggressive personal style as DM. The indication I've seen from people who played with him back in the day is that he took great delight in the "antagonist" part of the job. I expect that "hard, but fair" -- a characterization of another famous DM of the time, Dave Hargrave -- would be appropriate.

No compunction about killing characters, no "easy pitches" to experienced players. If they were not entertaining him, then he would entertain himself. Wasting time should not be an issue if players have their stuff in one sock before the session. How many times does the PHB advise that a group had better have an objective, a plan?

It is a game of *a*d*v*e*n*t*u*r*e*. If you come in with high-level characters and "pixel bitch" to clean out the 1st-3rd-level dungeons, then not only is it a drag for the referee to moderate the sessions but then he's got to restock the dungeons!

Therefore, (A) you'll get pennies on the dollar for XP, and (B) he is going to mock you, and (C) there is going to be an upping of challenge down the line.

[edit]: Also, for training, I think we're looking at Poor ratings all around. Kiss that cash goodbye!

What he does not do, however, is change the environment utterly at whim in the midst of an encounter. There will be potential "payback" set up down the line, "but that is the stuff of later adventures."

When players in such manner throw down the gauntlet to such a DM, they should not be surprised to find that, "Ha! Ha! See how we pwn your dungeon!" elicits a response demonstrating Gygax's view that "Treasure and experience gained must be taken at great risk or by means of utmost cleverness only."

If one instead wanted even a character's survival, much less success, to be a basic entitlement, then I am pretty sure that gaming with Gary would have been a poor choice.

The Tomb of Horrors and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth were not, last I checked, all about "saving" PCs on the presumption that if they were getting killed then something was wrong with the DM!

 

[ExploderWizard]

I expect that "hard, but fair" -- a characterization of another famous DM of the time, Dave Hargrave -- would be appropriate.

You ain't kiddin! He might spare your character's miserable life but it will cost you a buttock.

 

[Ariosto]

I would like to point out that I have had players specifically request "fudging the dice" for Wandering Monsters when they seem in order for "meta game" reasons.

They did not, when they reflected on it, really want to waste time. They tended to get wrapped up in things that were fascinating at the moment, and lose track of time. Looking back at a whole session, they would find that they had accomplished less than they might have hoped.

A fundamental problem really was that they did not set out to accomplish anything specific!

"Skilled players always make a point of knowing what they are doing, i.e., they have an objective."

Back in the days when our DMs would not even schedule a session without that prerequisite, and well-organized parties could get in frequent play indeed, that would probably have been nipped in the bud.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It is a game of *a*d*v*e*n*t*u*r*e*. If you come in with high-level characters and "pixel bitch" to clean out the 1st-3rd-level dungeons, then not only is it a drag for the referee to moderate the sessions but then he's got to restock the dungeons!

Therefore, (A) you'll get pennies on the dollar for XP, and (B) he is going to mock you, and (C) there is going to be an upping of challenge down the line.

What he does not do, however, is change the environment utterly at whim in the midst of an encounter. There will be potential "payback" set up down the line, "but that is the stuff of later adventures."

When players in such manner throw down the gauntlet to such a DM, they should not be surprised to find that, "Ha! Ha! See how we pwn your dungeon!" elicits a response demonstrating Gygax's view that "Treasure and experience gained must be taken at great risk or by means of utmost cleverness only."

So you're saying D&D is a better game when the challenges are level-appropriate?

 

[Fifth Element]

The Tomb of Horrors and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth were not, last I checked, all about "saving" PCs on the presumption that if they were getting killed then something was wrong with the DM!

They are also not, last I checked, the only example of adventures available for the game. Or even representative of the 'typical' adventure, even at the time.

 

[Ariosto]

Another possible counter is Drama

Yes, definitely!

There's a lot of interesting stuff in Amber Diceless Roleplaying. It's definitely a different mix of priorities and techniques than Gygaxian D&D (or a lot of other quite distinctive things). I think both are in the nature of phenomena that arise prior to, or in disregard of, the neat pigeon holes of theory. They are built up of pragmatic responses to needs in play, wherever those may lead.

I see two different but related topics running through the thread.

1) One is the idea -- pretty firmly embraced in some recent games -- that each encounter should be "balanced" especially for particular players and/or PCs, so that in itself it offers a certain level of challenge. Taking that to an extreme, one might find even the treatment of Daily Powers and Healing surges in 4e unsatisfactory because it introduces an element of unpredictability from one encounter to the next.

On that view, one might make adjustments to the odds in an encounter, but not care about the outcome. One might prefer a system in which it is easier to figure out what the odds are, which might or might not be the latest hot system.


1B: An opposing view is that it is the strategic game requiring a proper "balance" that is really a state of disequilibrium among potential encounters. There must be better and worse choices.

I think this also tends to be better suited to a big campaign than the "tailored encounter" approach, and the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns had certainly been big!


2) Second, there is a view of just how challenging the game should be -- more specifically, how lethal; even more specifically (for reasons not quite clear to me) whether a "TPK" should be allowed.

The general question, though, seems to be the fundamental one. At an extreme, the "save the PCs" leaning seems often to assume some standard not of opportunity but of results. It is then the outcome itself that indicates the DM "screwed up". As the wrong outcome (the PCs die) is clear, so is the right outcome.

I don't think it otherwise likely that the DM supposedly so incompetent as to have set up a "wrong" encounter should be trusted to recognize a "right" one at all. The more competent the DM, the less plausible it is that a situation simply on odds should be so wrong, much less that it should go unrecognized until "TPK" is imminent.

Then again, I have not been a DM much for certain game systems that I admit look a bit more complicated than old D&D.

2B: An opposing view is that more frequent (relative to other view) loss, even of PCs, is an expected part of a game in which victory is supposed to be hard-won. Probability is part of that, the reason for rolling dice. The full expression of chance along with the full expression of skill gives a game that is fascinating for its challenge as well as for the often surprising turns of event.