Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Aus_Snow]

Diablo 2, Starcraft, World of Warcraft.

Hm. . . which one does not belong with the others. . .

 

[Wormwood]

I don't mind cinematic play at all. In fact, my favorite game system, the Unisystem of Buffy and Angel and Army of Darkness , is quite cinematic and action packed and daring. I've already modified my v3.5 game with houserules to make it more cinematic (although I never thought that the system lacked that quality in the first place).

(quick aside) One of the best things I did for my D&D game was importing Unisystem's Drama Points system---essentially unchanged.

(I especially like the part where I pay you a couple of DP for permission to completely screw over your character)

 

[Wormwood]

Give me "Die Hard in Full Plate" over "CSI: Tomb of Horrors" anyday.

Sigged. Sigged hard.

 

[hong]

The articles headline might be about save or dies. But when you read the text you come to the conclusion that it is about "You can do what you want because it will never kill you".

You do? Clearly you have been reading an article almost but not quite entirely unlike the one I have been reading.

Staying in a mine cart which drives towards a chasm is not taking risk, its pure desperation or when that don't apply (like in Chris post) pure stupidy. But in the 4E world of unreasonable action movie stunts this is not a risk at all.

To be precise, in the action movie world of the campaign being described where unreasonable stunts become reasonable, this is not a risk at all. Or possibly low risk so that the characters easily made it but still with a fair chance of being splatted on the wall, but let's not quibble.

The characters can fly over the chasm with a untrained skill check.
There is a door in your way? Smash it without regard to the consequences as nothing the door can do will harm you. Why do we even need traps in the game when there is no risk in activating them?

I succeeded in my skill check to detect the logic trap in your paragraph! But there was no risk involved, which made this my worst post ever.

Such a gameplay is suitable when you play characters wearing latex costumes with a big letter on their chest, but should not be the default playstyle in D&D.

Indeed. The default playstyle in D&D should be characters wearing leather costumes with a big metal stud on their chest. You know, studded leather.

And if you want to turn D&D into a superhero game don't be suprised that the people who want to play a (more or less) mediveal fantasy game leave.

Oh well.

 

[WhatGravitas]

And if you want to turn D&D into a superhero game don't be suprised that the people who want to play a (more or less) mediveal fantasy game leave.

You mean a medieval game, where death is nothing more than a speed bump?

Honestly, rather give me hard-to-kill characters that can take crazy risks and survive than more-easily-killed characters that take crazy risks, die, and get resurrected.

Doing things despite bad odds is better than a revolving door of death. And traps... were always "gotcha!" things. If they couldn't kill you, you just healed up using your wand of cure light wounds. And you have "search every tile"-rogues. Making traps more than "die-or-get-XP", i.e. exciting mini-encounters is adds more depth and opportunities to the game.

Cheers, LT.

 

[hong]

Heh. One sure-fire way to bring the fear of death back, regardless of how wahoo the rest of the system gets: ban resurrection.

 

[cwhs01]

The articles headline might be about save or dies. But when you read the text you come to the conclusion that it is about "You can do what you want because it will never kill you".

This is obviously what you concluded. But why?

The article specifically states that pc's can die. they won't die from their first mistake or due to a single bad die roll. But pressing their luck may/will/should get them killed. This doesn't really imply that pc's are invincible. It means that a 4e pc can attempt some stunts that would kill or are just impossible for a 3e pc. It does not mean that there won't be consequences to being foolhardy. Just that you won't loose your character the first time you are unlucky or bold.

why is this bad?

 

[FireLance]

why is this bad?

Playstyle conflict. Some people don't want that in their games.

 

[Derren]

This is obviously what you concluded. But why?

The article specifically states that pc's can die. they won't die from their first mistake or due to a single bad die roll. But pressing their luck may/will/should get them killed. This doesn't really imply that pc's are invincible. It means that a 4e pc can attempt some stunts that would kill or are just impossible for a 3e pc. It does not mean that there won't be consequences to being foolhardy. Just that you won't loose your character the first time you are unlucky or bold.

why is this bad?

First, never believe everything a designer tells you. Normally 50% of it is true, at best 75%
Second, when someone talks great lengths about what crazy stunts he can pull of and how easy it is to survive them a small sentence that it is still dangerous will not help much.

There is nothing wrong with being bold. The problem is that 4E thinks it has to downgrade suicidal into bold making everything, no matter how stupid, surviveable.

 

[Wormwood]

Playstyle conflict. Some people don't want that in their games.

Oh God. I smell a poll.