Do you "save" the PCs?

[pemerton]

The excitement that comes from playing adventures as a game rather than a story is basedon not knowing if the eventual outcome will be an epic story about mighty heroes conquering the villian or a tragic tale of a handful of nobodies who got dissolved by green slime while trying to seek their fortunes.

If a game does feature life or death combat within the context of the game world then I see no point in running such combatunless those stakes are meaningful. If only a handful of combats were deemed interesting enough to be considered potentially lethal then I guess I would only run a handful of combats for the entire campaign.

Rolling the dice for combat under any other circumstances is like filming the walk-through. Whats the point?

When playing the game, death as a possible result of engaging in combat (any combat) is part of the decision making process that helps define the choice of joining combat as meaningful. If the players are aware that the mechanics and the tweaking will generally see them through the "regular" combats then how is their decision to engage in the activity meaningful?

If the DM has determined that an encounter is relatively meaningless then why play it out?

I have some inclination to agree with this, especially about not playing out meaningless combats.

The fact is that Dungeons & Dragons is a game and some people find the mechanics of combat themselves fun.

But I also have some inclination to agree with this. And I'd add - part of what can make a combat fun is that the players get a chance to express their PCs via the action resolution mechanics. This is a bigger deal in some systems than others - not such a big deal in AD&D or RQ, where there is not much round-by-round choice to be made (your best attack, defence etc were already chosen at character generation) but a big deal in 4e and Rolemaster, for example, because every round the player has a range of options from which some selection has to be made. Especially where those choices are flavourful and affect the way the combat unfolds, they can be meaningful choices even if death is not on the table.

To give a concrete example. Suppose the player of the samurai chooses a high risk, high reward strategy. If the samurai cuts down all the opponents like chaff, we have a story about prowess and also, perhaps, about arrogance. If the risks are realised, and the samurai is actually beaten off by one of the opponents, having to fall back and receive healing wile the monk goes on to finish the combat, then the story becomes one about reliance, teamwork, succour and perhaps comeuppances.

These meaningful player choices which lead to differences in what's happening in the story - both in the gameworld, and at the metagame/thematic level - can take place even if PC death is not on the table because the samurai and monk are virtually guaranteed, if played cleverly, to wipe out the opponents one way or another.

To try and reconcile my two inclinations: I agree with Exploder Wizard that we should avoid meaningless encounters, but really want to stress that combat and encounters can be meaningful (for some players) even if death is not on the table because they can still provide an outlet for meaningful choices that express the character of the PCs and drive the story forward. And I'm saying this not just as theory, but based on my actual play experience.

On the other hand, Exploder Wizard, I get a strong sense that what I've described is really not the sort of D&D game you're interested in playing. And obviously that's fair enough. I'm enjoying this conversation about different playstyles. Apart from anything else, it's making me work hard to try and express what exactly it is that I enjoy about fantasy RPGing, and how the mechanics of the game feed into that.

 

[Fifth Element]

Go back through this thread. My posts are littered with "IME" and "IMHO" and "It is my belief that".

That by itself is not enough. For example if I said:

IMHO, your reasoning for not liking fudging shows that you have the mind of an 8-year-old.

That's obviously insulting. IMHO wouldn't get me out of that being insulting.

It is my belief that DMs who do not fudge are control freaks who don't care about the players' fun.

"It is my belief that" would not get me out of a personal attack.

IME, all good DMs fudge.

That may be IME, by I have no evidence to support it, nor could I ever have evidence to support such a broad claim.

Qualifying a badly-worded, overgeneralized, often-insulting argument in this way does not prevent it from being badly-worded, overgeneralized, and often insulting.

 

[Mallus]

I infer from this experience that whether dying counts as a failure or not - let alone the ultimate failure - is heavily context dependent.

That matches my experiences playing RPG's. The importance of PC death depends on your level of character investment.

It's hard for me to see PC death as the ultimate loss condition when, in every game I've ever played in, you jump right back into play, often with a character that's more-or-less equally capable. Perhaps 'ultimate' doesn't mean what I think it means .

I mean, wasn't D&D was the first game to feature 'unlimited continues'?

Thinking along these lines led me to go the death-lite route in my campaigns. I began to see PC death in terms of the loss of a personality I liked to play. This stopped making sense to me. A big chuck of what I get out of the game is characterizing my PC's. Being forced to ditch one role --in the actor-y sense-- in favor of a new one because I encounter one of the games failure conditions began to look unnecessary.

So long as I could fail at something I deemed meaningful, PC death became unnecessary, even contrary, to my goals. Fortunately, I game w/some like-minded people.

In most supers games the PCs are mortal, and death would be meaningful and important. But the action resolution mechanics mostly keep it off the table.

In some supers games, it's more shared expectations. For example, it's rather easy to make Mutants and Masterminds lethal. Ditto Champions, I think -- it's been a while since played it.

I know some people are happy simply to play through a story the GM has already written, but I'm not one of them (and I don't have any interest in GMing in that way either).

Same here. I have no story in mind when I DM, outside of creating characters and conflicts for the players to interact with, if they so choose. But I also have no problem w/running a campaign where the players can keep playing their PC of choice, so long as it amuses them to do so.

Though who knows what the future will bring? Maybe when my next stint as DM comes up my group will ask me to lower the death-flag and make the campaign old-school lethal.

 

[Raven Crowking]

"It is my belief that" would not get me out of a personal attack.

IME, all good DMs fudge.

Oh nooooes. I'm being attacked.



Really, if you think something like that is insulting, or worse yet "a personal attack" you are finding offense in shadows.


EDIT: If anything is being "attacked" in this thread, it is the right to use critical thinking, or to hold a viewpoint that includes any form of valuation.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

The fact is that Dungeons & Dragons is a game and some people find the mechanics of combat themselves fun. Is it that you don't find any part of D&D fun unless character death is on the line, or is it just combat?

I find a lot of fun in playing apart from combat. If a session doesn't happen to contain a combat but the group has a good time and remains engaged in the game then there is nothing lost.
The mechanical aspects of combat are fun too. Fudged results of these aspects are not fun (for me).

It doesn't matter what the context of the combat is or how important the struggle is to the "big picture". Once the dice come out and the mechanics are in play I simply prefer that they be used to resolve the action as intended.
Part of playing a game is abiding by the rules and accepting the results of fair play, win or lose. If the DM has plans involving the PC's that cannot be interrupted by the results of fairly applied mechanics there
is no point in applying those mechanics in the first place.

What this all boils down to is this: Is the group there to play a game or engage in a session of wish fulfillment storytelling? Both can be fun if everyone is on the same page. Players expecting a game and getting a story instead might be dissappointed and vice-versa.

 

[Fifth Element]

Because it's an abuse of authority. If the GM thought it was funny, and a couple of the players at least snickered, but one player felt cheated out of the promised campaign, I think that one player is entitled to feel poorly used.

That doesn't really address Hussar's point. As you show here, one player's "abuse" is another player's "fun time."

To me, "abuse" means doing things with your authority that the group does not enjoy. If all of your players enjoy fighting that red dragon at 2nd level, then dropping it on them is not abuse. If they hate it, it is abuse.

What does and does not constitute abuse, then, depends entirely on the group's preferences. That's a theme of the thread: it depends on the group.

Now, achieving agreement within a group is not always easy (see your example), and there are usually compromises that needs to be made. But there is no use of a DM's authority that can be inherently labelled as being abusive. Again, because this is a game of make-believe. If the group likes it, then it's not abuse.

You can't say that pitting a red dragon against 2nd-level characters is an abuse of DM authority without considering who's playing the game. Maybe that's what the group wanted: to fight a nigh-impossible foe, maybe they'll get REALLY lucky and one of them might survive. If they have fun fighting the dragon, then it's not abuse.

 

[Benimoto]

If we are to pursue this line of reasoning, I would suggest that we seperate time and inclination, because they are constraints for different reasons. A DM with a time constraint may well wish to prep better, but be unable to do so. A DM with an inclination constraint may well know that doing X is better, but choose to do Y because it is easier (or whatever).

The counter to that is the tired old "it's just a game" argument. There's already a separate thread on the topic of which activities make GMing into "work". If eschewing some of those "work" activities even though it may involve more fudging at the table makes for a net increase in fun, then I'd suggest that's a best practice.

Besides, aren't most time constraints really just inclination constraints? I am inclined to play my home game once a week, thus I only have the time between sessions to prepare. I am inclined to work for a living although I could theoretically just mooch off my significant other, another factor increasing my time constraints. I am inclined to spend time writing this post, even though that's time I'm not spending ensuring less fudging at the game table this Thursday.

 

[Fifth Element]

Oh nooooes. I'm being attacked.



Really, if you think something like that is insulting, or worse yet "a personal attack" you are finding offense in shadows.

Now, who gets to decide what someone finds insulting? You, I guess?

EDIT: If anything is being "attacked" in this thread, it is the right to use critical thinking, or to hold a viewpoint that includes any form of valuation.

Nonsense. Perhaps it's the right to say anything you like and claim truth, even though do not have (even cannot have) evidence to support it, that's being attacked.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The counter to that is the tired old "it's just a game" argument.

(shudder)

Besides, aren't most time constraints really just inclination constraints? I am inclined to play my home game once a week, thus I only have the time between sessions to prepare.

Okay; I can agree with that.

The remainder of my earlier response still stands, however.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Now, who gets to decide what someone finds insulting? You, I guess?

No. If you want to take offense, no power on Heaven or Earth can prevent you from doing so. You have proven that more than adequately.

And now, having tried to tip my hat to you already, I will do so again.

I see no value in continuing down this line with you.

(You may now post & have the last word. At least so far as my exchanges here with you are concerned. )


RC