Do you "save" the PCs?

[francisca]

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?

I kill the hell out of them, and add an appropriate amount of skull and crossbones stickers to my DM screen.

We're talking D&D, not an exercise in self-esteem building.

 

[Kingreaper]

And, yet, this entire thread is predicated on the premise that some outcomes are prefereable to others. If one cannot "win" or "lose" within the context of an RPG (a premise I believe to be false), then why bother fudging to save the doomed newbie?

Because you want them to understand how a NORMAL game goes, and experience that, rather than get a completely inaccurate impression of what gaming involves?

If you're playing paranoia or similar, where dying is a major part of a normal session, fudging it is silly. If you're playing D&D, and normally have a death every 20 sessions or so, then fudging it is sensible, because they're going to get the wrong end of the stick otherwise.

 

[Janx]

And, yet, this entire thread is predicated on the premise that some outcomes are prefereable to others. If one cannot "win" or "lose" within the context of an RPG (a premise I believe to be false), then why bother fudging to save the doomed newbie?

The answer is obvious -- some outcomes are "wins" and some are "losses". To use the chess analogy again, sessions of the game are like individual chess matches within a tournament (this is esp. true in the case of an AP set-up, where there is an "end" to the game where the PCs either accomplish their goals or do not). Simply because part of the overall structure continues (the tournament, or the game) does not mean that you didn't "win" or "lose" a match, an encounter, or a session.

Sorry, but I call shennanigans.


RC

I think that from a generic player perspective, they consider a session a win if:


1) their PC is in a better situation than the start of the session.
2) their PC is not dead.
3) the player had a good time.

Obviously, that doesn't cover a really good game with an Empire Strikes Back ending (where the PCs are worse off, because this is the "setback" session. But then, it still qualifies as a win, because nobody died.

A "good" PC death might also invalidate my overly simplistic summation of what a player might consider a win. But then, condition 3 would be kicking in, did the player have a good time.

Despite, differences in GM opinion on what's really going on behind the screen, I think my summation of the player's opinion is probably close enough for government work.

 

[Janx]

I wonder if the divide in "yes fudge, or no don't" is also fed by a desire for "realism/simulationism".

Adventuring is dangerous work. If the game is more lethal to reflect that, it rewards more cautious players. it "might" punish more carefree players (I don't want to say risk taking), where they may try crazy stuff, because they act like they are in a movie.

In a video game, say Oblivion, which does a pretty good jobb of simulating a solo RPG game world, it is really easy to play a sneaky assassin type. The game design rewards someone who hides well, and can backstab, because it is ridiculously easy when you pump those skills. This is the "cautious" behavior is rewarded. Uncautious behavior can get you killed, because you might not see a trap, or be able to fight off all the monsters you woke up.

However, in Oblivion, unlike D&D, if you die, you reload from your last game save. It is completely forgotten that you died. Therefore, there is no real penalty to dying and playing more aggressively (plenty of people do and I've seen it work just as well as my sneaky way).

In D&D, just charging ahead, and playing 'move-mode" rather than "simulation mode" can get you killed if a GM chooses to play that way. it's not just fudging die rolls, its a matter of does the GM knitpick the player's preparations. Does the GM put in a greater level of detail in the dungeon that rewards the cautious explorer, and punishes the "retreat forward" rusher?

Given that I play my way, and other people play it completely different, and we're both happy at our respective tables, it's obvious that the game itself is pretty flexible.

I also don't think anybody is seriously harmed by playing in one style. Yes, it means they might have culture shock when they visit another table, but then I am surprised when I meet people who DON'T expect to find different play styles and house rules when they visit another table.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Because you want them to understand how a NORMAL game goes, and experience that, rather than get a completely inaccurate impression of what gaming involves?

Just to make my XP comment clear, I don't disagree about wanting them to understand how a normal game goes. However, I disagree with this part:

If you're playing D&D, and normally have a death every 20 sessions or so, then fudging it is sensible, because they're going to get the wrong end of the stick otherwise.

Either you've done a poor job in the setup (as GM) or the player has had a really poor run of luck, or the player has done something phenomenally stupid. Let's look at each of these in turn.

1. Poor setup.

You, as GM, have set the player up for encounters way out of her league.

Proper Solution: "Wow. I've really mangled that setup; I'm sorry. Normally, you wouldn't encounter these sorts of problems yet. Give me 10 minutes to adjust my setup, and we'll try this again."

2. Poor Luck.

The player has a phenomenally poor run of luck, resulting in the PC's death.

Proper Solution:

Long before PC's death: "Wow. You are really having a poor run of luck here. Would you like to stop now, and maybe come back at this later, with an NPC or something?"

When the die is cast (and by this time, the GM has already failed, so we are only looking at how to ameliorate that failure): "Wow. That was a really bad run of luck. Usually, if the dice were falling like normal, you'd have done really well. Still, chance is part of this game. Would you like to try again with another character? I've got a couple premade......"

3. Player does something very stupid.

The player does something like jump in lava.

Proper Solution: "Are you sure you want to do that?" If the player is sure, "Your character dies. Jumping in lava works in the game pretty much like it works in real life."


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

There are a lot of things that are okay only in certain specific ways and not in others. In fact, it is a nearly universal truism. Next time you go through an intersection when the light is red, be sure to tell the officer that he is just splitting hairs.

It's never okay to go through an intersection when the light is red...your analogies are quite weak here.

That is obviously untrue.

It is so obviously untrue that one wonders why it continually rears its head as the last, false hope of "fudging" not being a damaging choice for a Game Master to make.

A bare minimum of consideration demonstrates its falsehood:

I'd ask that you be more condescending and dismissive, but I fear that would be impossible.

If one accepts that chess is a battlefield simulation, then winning at chess does not mean that you have won a real battle. It does, however, mean that you won at chess. That is a real accomplishment.

Yes, because there is a defined goal in chess: to win, using the specific rules of the game. It makes a terribly poor analogy for D&D, of course, which neither is competitive nor does it have a single defined goal.

OTOH, if I engineered the game so that, no matter what you did, you would win, there would be no accomplishment (minor or major) on your side at all.

True, and I see what you're trying to say here. But try not taking it to the ridiculous extreme that no one (as far as I can tell) is actually proposing here.

Even Gygax suggested that fudging may be called for at times. That's all I'm suggesting. Sometimes, fudging is okay, if the circumstances call for it. I would say it is infinitely better than stopping a game mid-stream with the DM saying "oops, I messed up, can we start again?" That can kill any kind of investment the players have made to that point. (It might also lead the players to ask "why can't we start over if we mess something up?")

EDIT: I wonder if you also believe that Olympic gold medallists have accomplished nothing, because they were just playing a game? Or the team that wins the Stanley Cup? Or the World Chess Champion. Etc., etc., etc.

You know the answer to this. They're competing against other participants using defined rules to achieve a defined end. Not remotely comparable.

 

[Fifth Element]

2. Poor Luck.

The player has a phenomenally poor run of luck, resulting in the PC's death.

Proper Solution:

Long before PC's death: "Wow. You are really having a poor run of luck here. Would you like to stop now, and maybe come back at this later, with an NPC or something?"

Are you suggesting that the DM should be able to predict a bad run of luck? Since it's luck, it can change at any time. Consecutive natural 1s can be followed by consecutive natural 20s.

There's no reason to think that a bad run of luck will continue, and lead to a PC's death. How is either the player or the DM supposed to predict that? Your "proper" solution involves the DM predicting the future. That's not a viable solution.

 

[Kingreaper]

2. Poor Luck.

The player has a phenomenally poor run of luck, resulting in the PC's death.

Proper Solution:

Long before PC's death: "Wow. You are really having a poor run of luck here. Would you like to stop now, and maybe come back at this later, with an NPC or something?"

This was the situation I was dealing with. Player stupidity and GM stupidity both shouldn't result in fudging.
Because they'll both be there in normal play.

But in this case: Okay, they have a run of bad luck, and die. You say "wow, you were really unlucky"
They go "uh-huh". They don't realise just how different the game normally plays out, because they have no frame of reference, they're a newb. To them, this is how the game plays out.

It's like a person who goes to McDonalds, and gets a rancid burger with unmelted cheese on top. They're not going back, no matter how much you tell them that that was an unusual event.

And you can't really know they're losing until they actually do so. My first 4e GMing experience, with new players, they thought they were dead meat in the boss fight. Some of them were preparing to flee. Then, they hit the dragon with an immobilising attack, ongoing damage, and a forced move. Boom, it was dead before it recharged it's breath weapon.
I didn't have to fudge that. And I probably wouldn't have even if they were going to die (they'd won three combats first, and I'd warned them that as it was a one-shot the final combat was epic victory, or death; thus explicitly informing them it wasn't regular play)

 

[Shoe]

a part of being a good RPG'er is knowing when to RUN AWAY! I rarely pull punches, but depending on the battle they die in, there are alternatives to death as long as the whole party isnt at -10. In Illithid battles for instance, the illithid may be full and save the PC's for leftovers, but if you are fighting an unintellegent monster you are usually just dead

 

[Janx]

You know the answer to this. They're competing against other participants using defined rules to achieve a defined end. Not remotely comparable.

To further emphasize:

winning a Medal at the Olympics is a big deal. You get your face on a box of Wheaties, and people want to combine genetic material with you.

Winning a chess tournament is a big deal, because you have now been crowned the smartest nerd in town.

Winning at Texas Hold 'Em is a big deal, because you now have 10 times more money than when you started the game.

Winning at D&D is only meaningful to those who participated. Nobody at the game shop wants to hear about it.