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Message: <blockquote data-quote="d4" data-source="post: 1592104" data-attributes="member: 12699">Hey Merak! you might recall from past threads on this topic that you and i have completely opposite styles of gaming. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />the main reason why i game is for stress relief.the paranoia, fear of death and loss, painstaking strategizing and planning, and "gritty" feel that you enjoy so much is exactly antithetical to why i play the game. i would be bored and frustrated in the types of games you enjoy, as you would be in mine.basically, things that increase the stress or tension of the game turn me off and make me lose interest very, very quickly. remember, i game to relieve stress, not to feel more of it. i know there are people who thrive on stress and feel energized by it, but i'm not one of them. this is also why i refuse to play horror RPGs.here's a good example, from two different groups i've played in. in both groups, there came a time when we needed to assault a heavily-defended enemy stronghold.in the first group, the other players spent over three hours during the session to minutely plan out the attack. every contingency was carefully discussed and weighed, and in the end, after much conversation, a beautiful assault plan was drawn up. we then proceeded to attack the stronghold. due to our brilliant tactics, we quickly overwhelmed the enemies in about twenty minutes of playing. due to our good planning, we were able to get the drop on the big boss guy and took him out in a round before he even spotted us. it was clean, quick, and executed flawlessly.i was bored to tears through the whole thing, and felt cheated out of what could've been a fun and exciting combat scene. the whole thing felt very anti-climactic to me.in the second group, we talked it over for about five minutes and realized none of us could think of a good plan to assault the stronghold with. someone suggested, "Heck, let's just bum-rush the front door!"that's what we did. it took us about an hour or so of playing to fight our way through the stronghold, fighting mooks at every turn, slashing our way through hordes of enemies until we finally came to the big boss guy. a climactic final battle ensued, and after much chaos, we were finally victorious.i had a blast. we didn't waste any time on the "boring" planning, and just jumped straight to the action. and instead of having an anti-climactic ending, we had a major combat at the end that really finished the session off with a bang.that, IMO, is the essential difference in our play styles. it seems (and i don't want to put words in your mouth, this is just my assumption) you get enjoyment out of the planning, whereas i get enjoyment out of the action.i have the same style when i'm GMing. i like the PCs to be larger-than-life action movie heroes. i don't have PCs arbitrarily die in my games. the only way a PC would die in one of my campaigns was if he did something really, really stupid and brought it on himself. fortunately, in my 20+ years of GMing, i have never had a player that stupid. (yes, that means i've never had a PC die in one of my games. ever.)i don't like my games to be realistic; i like them to be cinematic. when wondering about what should happen next, my mantra is not "What would be the realistic consequences of this?" -- instead, it's "What would make a good story or kick-ass movie scene?"this is not to say that the PC can act as they please with no consequences. yes, the fear of death has been eliminated almost completely. but there are far, far more dire consequences one can enact on a PC than just simple death. in some cases, letting them die is letting them get off easy. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />for example, which is worse? ok, you failed to stop the evil necromancer and he just blasted the entire kingdom into rubble. you're all dead. make up new characters.or...ok, you failed to stop the evil necromancer and he just blasted the entire kingdom into rubble. but you guys managed to survive somehow. now you must live the rest of your lives knowing that you failed, that all your loved ones are dead, and that everyone in the world knows it was your fault this great tragedy happened. deal with that, punk. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />i would argue that it's the first group that suffered no consequences. sure, they all died. but then they just went and made new characters who have no guilt and no repercussions from the event. whereas the characters in the second group are going to have to live with it for the rest of their (in-game) lives.</blockquote>

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