Do your PCs lead a charmed life?

[Snoweel]

In my current game, oh boy, are they ever charmed. They're stronger, faster, more skilled and heal better than anyone else. Of course, three are fugitives, and the remaining one has memories from a past life slowly creeping in his mind. And they just pissed off a body hopping undead, who, while too weak to actually stand up to them in a fight, weill be more than happy to harry them any way he can. Just as soon as he gets back out of the underworld and finds a body...

Exalted d20?!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[hong]

Exalted d20?!?!?!?!?!?!?

SUBSCIRBE

 

[Thanee]

If every NPC they met (and killed and looted for this purpose ) had the same amount of gear, they had, then there would be some serious inflation thing going on, doubling their gear (since future NPCs have more gear as well) after every successful fight.

In general PCs and NPCs are treated equal, but NPCs tend to carry a lot less in terms of their resources (they have it otherwise, followers, base of operation, etc - sometimes quite a bit more than the PCs, actually).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Zappo]

There are campains - lots of them from what I read - in which the PCs are inherently superior to NPCs in some way. Essentially, if a PC were to meet an NPC of identical class and level, the PC would have some sort of advantage. Perhaps the PC has higher attributes. Perhaps he has greater funds from which to purchase equipment. Perhaps he can always fall back on Hero Points or something, or perhaps the DM will be lenient and allow more cinematic actions to have a greater chance of success. Perhaps the player knows the DM doesn't really want to hurt him, and will take silly chances to exploit that fact. Maybe the PCs are min-maxed a certain amount, and your average NPC isn't. Maybe bad guys don't fight as effectively as they could.

IMC, the heroes have about the same stats as NPC of equivalent class and level. Mind ya, I use 25 point buy, so that's not much of a stretch. Money is different; if each NPC had comparable equipment, the PCs' wealth would grow exponentially! So NPCs tend to have worse equipment, and no equipment which they can't or won't use. I rationalize this by assuming that NPCs that are not adventurers have gone up in levels much slower than the PCs, and without doing the high-earning activities which PCs do on a regular basis (looting dragons, that sort of things).

And there are aspects of "charmed life" that can show up outside of combat. Perhaps a necromancer is going to destroy the kingdom, and the PCs fail to uncover a vital clue. Is reality altered to give them another chance, or does the necromancer destroy the kingdom because they failed?

Nope. Screw up, and you're dead. If I'm feeling generous, I might have the necromancer reanimate your corpse as some kind of undead.

I'm sure you're getting a hint of the kind of game I like. I like to be paranoid. I like to know that, should I do something stupid, my ass is toast.

My rule of thumb is that PCs should only die of stupidity; random death isn't fun, and neither are inescapable situations (I know this isn't how you see it - just my style).

I like games where sometimes the bad guy wins becuase you couldn't figure out how to stop him. And you just have to deal with the new situation.

Check.

I like random encounter charts that include powerful, deadly monsters.

Nope! Actually, I don't use random encounters at all, unless there are some very good reasons for creatures to just appear at random from a seemingly endless supply. Anyway, I don't like PCs getting killed randomly.

I want my actions to have consequences.

Check.

I want my character to EARN the title of "Hero" through determination, wits, and more than a little luck, not becuase PCs automatically get to be heroes.

I agree (well, except for luck, it's important but I never make it a requirement for survival). I like the fact that you didn't include simple brawn in this list of requirements. Hit dice, spells and BAB are given to you by the rules, but to piece together the clues, you've got to be smart.

I like knowing that the odds are not somehow stacked in my favor. I like to know that if I win, it's because I am THAT good of a player, not becuase the story would be cooler that way.

Yes and no; I never plan random death in my adventures (though I won't avoid it if it just happens), so I guess that makes your life a bit less than completely realistic.

Then again, it's not like avoiding an unpredictable, random death attack makes you a better player; only more lucky. That's the reason for which I don't like random death; it proves nothing. If you die, it's not your fault, if you live, it's not your merit. Boooring.

 

[Deadguy]

We all have different styles of playing, and that's cool, ya know? But I've been wondering how many of you like the same kind of game I like.

I like games where, from the perspective of the campaign world, the PCs are treated the same as NPCs.

I've been thinking about this point recently myself. I tend to see the classic D&D model of PCs is that they are essentially unique within the world. The PCs deal with the situations that crop up because no-one else can! Note that this doesn't necessarily mean that the PCs are inherently more powerful than the NPCs - with higher ability scores, for example. Nor are tehy always the best-equipped. But they are generally in the right place at the right time (though echoing Xenoflare, many PCs end up seeing it as always being in the wrong place at the wrong time!). And they do become the ones that the NPCs turn to for help.

Now this model makes a lot of sense, since ultimately the game is about the PCs. I don't think that there's much call for games where the DM spends his time telling his players about how good his NPCs are and what they are busily doing! (Okay, there are some DMs like that, but they don't last long.) But this needn't be the only model.

When I returned to the D&D fold with the advent of 3e, I designed a new campaign setting, having long ago lost earlier D&D campaigns I'd run. One of the decisions I made was to get away from the 'unique PCs' feel. I treated PCs as bounty hunters-cum-troubleshooters-cum treasure hunters, and introuduced the idea that this was a profession that some people took up. So there are considerable numbers of adventuring parties - enough that getting a name and a symbol for the PCs is worthwhile. PCs might even have to compete to be recruited for plum jobs!

One thing that flows from this is that I designed a couple of long adventures where I knew the PCs were outmatched by their opponents. It was up to them to uncover their enemy and do what they could. But it was also up to them to understand when they were out of their depths, and either tell their employer, or bring in their own help. In both cases the players have backed off eventually, and let higher level parties take on the final steps of the 'mission'. And surprisingly they have been quite happy about this; to quote "it makes the world seem more real".

But even I would do this sort of adventure sparingly. It might be 'real' but it can feel frustrating for the players to always be butting heads against opponents who are beyond them. And this approach has, on one occasion, left me an adventure that was insoluble from the PCs' perspective, and which forced them to flee for their lives. Whilst that was realistic, it was unsatisfying for all concerned, if only because storylines that were playing out had suddenly to be dropped.

So, yes, PCs don't have to be unique or even really special. But they do need a fairly regular chance to succeed, IME.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

As a DM I stray towards running Epic style games where the PCs are a big cut above normal everyday NPCs. I give them the stats of 18,17,16,15,14,13 and we have a Hero Point system that is similar to Action Points but much more high powered. I guess I like running my games like I would be running them for Achilies, Hercules, Perseus, and the like. It is a different style of game... not any better but not any worse than any other DM's game. On the plus side, I've never met a player who didn't love playing these larger than life heros in my games.

 

[Shallown]

The Pc's in my games are head and shoulders above the common herd but they are by far not the only ones. For example they have interacted with one paladin who is the right arm of the former king. I have described him as the NPC not stated out becuase I don't want to mess with Epic rules. Lord Marcus is fairly unique. If I wante dto I could probably name every epic level person in the world. The players even at 15th level know they are not top rung on the ladder. But I want them to know they may be some day. Unfortunately the mission they are on is one thatthey can't get recognition for, for fear of sparking an all out war that has contained itself to the shadows so far. I want my PC's to feel special but not neccessarily unique in thier power. The Bladesinger knows that on his word alone he could get an audience with the elvish queen. He knows better than to do so without some extreme dire circumstance. He has the power but knows to use it only in the extremis.

As far as power and ability go there are those that can go toe to toe with the players in combat and some who wield an entirely different sort of power.

The same bladesinger wanted access to ancient elven records on weapons, and only having a short while to gain access he used the shortest route he could think of. He went to the church of war/conflcit and challenged the priest to a duel and more or less fought his way up through the church's best warriors. First 3-4 battles where hand waved then I started slowly challenging him and finally beat him with someone of equal level and gear. (He had to fight the battles back to back so was wounded tired).

The characters often combat NPC's of some power both in level and gear. Since they are fighting an organization more than one BBEG. they have fought their way up the command chain. I tend to run treasure as a matter of logic then random rolls so usually I total the treasure up for a group and distribute it as makes since not according to a chart in the DMG. (Though I do use the chart as a guide not a law.)

Later

 

[Umbran]

(of course, this is a recent development. It began only after we started rolling godly stats of 90-ish and above with the "roll 4 dice, drop lowest" method.. maybe superheroes need to deal with more crap.)

Pray tell, what sort of die are you using that you roll stats of 90 and above by adding three of them? I mean, yes, you're life should be interesting if your stats are made from 4d100 drop the lowest

 

[frankthedm]

Only times my PC's live a charmed life is when they lose to a vampire, fey or Enchanter.

 

[Davelozzi]

Pray tell, what sort of die are you using that you roll stats of 90 and above by adding three of them? I mean, yes, you're life should be interesting if your stats are made from 4d100 drop the lowest

I'm assuming that he's either exagerating for effect, or that he means 90 is the combined total of all 6 abilities, which averages out to about a 15 in each.