Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[SSquirrel]

Hear hear!

Charge first, ask questions later never.

Lanefan

Battleragers never stopped to ask questions, why should you?

 

[Incenjucar]

Some assembly required.

Welcome to Tabletop RPGs.

 

[Zulgyan]

This is making the game look more stupid.

 

[Incenjucar]

This is making the game look more stupid.

Compared to old men in pointy hats and tiny men with fuzzy feet?

It's a fantasy game. It's there to be fun.

Some people just prefer Nintendo-Hard games, but this is the Wii generation.

 

[Voss]

The point, for those who apparently refuse to grasp it, is that if the default scenario as presented in the books (and here) fails to satisfy, there are plenty of DM tools available to change that scenario. This can even be done with minimal adjustment to the rules as they are written. Encounter framing, development of PC-NPC relationships, exploration of character motivations and desires, explication of dire consequences if things go wrong; all can make the most foolhardy character think twice before putting his hand/head in the hole.

Oh. Was that the point? I thought you were making snide comments about people being unable to tell that they were playing a game, for no apparent reason. But still. 'You can change the rules!' doesn't make me want to buy into a ruleset. But none of the rest really addresses the point that if the character sticks his head in the hole, nothing particularly bad will happen to him. He'll take some damage, and the damage will then be healed. And the party moves on to the next action shot. None of adds up to dire consequences if the player knows he will take a handful of d6s worth of damage, and it can't actually kill him, because it would have to do 150% of his hit points in damage.

1. So change it. Are you so incapable a DM as to be unable to conjure the appropriate atmosphere of foreboding without crude tools like "make a save; if you fail, you die"?

Sorry, why is this an issue? I've mentioned not being a fan of save or dies three times now. And it is quite hard to create an atmosphere of foreboding when the PCs know that nothing bad will happen to them, because mechanically, it can't. I'd be worried facing a gunman. I'd be pretty casual about facing a gunman armed only with blanks.

2. "Permanent damage"?

Yes. Is meaningful damage better? HP damage that isn't just tidied up with a per encounter power and negative effects that last beyond the end of the encounter.

And so it is possible to have "permanent damage" in the game, yes?

Possible? Yes. But its also possible that someone will drive their car through my patio door and run me over while I sit at this computer. Neither seems likely right now.

 

[SSquirrel]

Yeah, its turning out pretty much exactly how I imagined as well. No risks. No dread. Lots of tactical illusionism. Heroic feats attempted not because the situation demands you take the risk, but just because you can and because well they really aren't risks. Even players not being able to make sound judgements because the game universe bears so little relationship to the real one. The worst sort of cornball action movie as the standard of dramatic tension. It's all there. Nerfworld. Everything bounces. Everything is now the 'I can jump off the 60' cliff because it can't really hurt me' problem.

Actually in 3E the damage from a fall table reaches a terminal velocity that, w/some careful casting, won't kill a level 6 character. The game has always been pretty nerfy w/weird jagged spikes sticking thru w/the death effects and such.

Personally, I play D&D to play the character types in the game or just to be a heroic kinda guy. If I want a game filled w/lots of dread, constant fear for my life, I'll play Call of Cthulhu. Heck, I'll play some Ravenloft. Any game where you have reasonably cheap access to spells like Resurrection, nothing is too out there to try. If you thought up something that could be devastatingly cool if you pull it off, save the party, but has a lot of personal risk, how could a hero do anything BUT attempt to end the fight quickly, save the damsel, etc in that fashion?

I'm 31, I've played D&D for 20 years and the idea of a less tactical swat team game in favor of a game that encourages you to try things that might be a bit wild, but fit the mold of heroic deeds (even before your bard stretches the truth), sounds great to me. I bet it keeps people from falling asleep at the table after the 4th room in a row of taking 20, carefully examining everything b/c you play w/a dyed in the wool, me against them, "I will kill them all (unless my dice hate me)" DM like I did for several years

 

[Campbell]

All he's basically saying is that one bad decision or poor dice roll won't lead to instant death. Rather, most of the time it will lead to interesting situations that increase the likelihood of death. I'm also hoping he is hinting that initiative won't be nearly as critical as it was in 3e. Are we really having a 'D&D has gone Care Bear' debate ?

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Yeah, but I don't consider that a good thing. I don't want to play 'superheroes in chainmail'. Heroic-Paragon-Epic doesn't suggest Wolverine-Superman-God to me.

And your above post, while quoting Celebrim...
I'm going to be polite and just say that there should be real risks to the characters.

Honestly, this whole encounter sounds perfectly "heroic" to me. It's straight out of Indiana Jones (pretty much literally), and I don't think you could argue that Indie has superpowers.

EDIT: That said, a lot of the "nerfiness" in the article is DM fiat. If my players were stupid enough to start reading evil spell scrolls they didn't understand, they sure as hell wouldn't get a helper-ghost-symbiant out of it. I don't need a save-or-die mechanic to say, "You just summoned Cthulhu without any protective wards. And he's grumpy."

 

[SSquirrel]

Yes. Is meaningful damage better? HP damage that isn't just tidied up with a per encounter power and negative effects that last beyond the end of the encounter.

D&D has never had a good system designed for permanent damage in the core game. The chance of running an encounter and, by the rules, losing your sword hand....pretty much nil. Your head, a good roll on a vorpal handles that Lost limbs can be restored, death can be reversed, a bear trap over your forearm to the bone can be pried off by the strong types and your flesh mended by a quick prayer to a god. I would just hope that the character doing crazy things is merely b/c THAT is his character. Daredevil w/no regard for himself or others gives you a potential story arc of self-improvement, learning to care about what happens to your fellows, etc

 

[Celebrim]

This is making the game look more stupid.

Well, if there is one thing that they've been consistantly good at it is making the game look stupid in thier previews.

Imagine instead of focusing on how reckless he could be and get away with it, he instead focused on round by round account of the really cool mine cart encounter, taking care to show how the new mechanics of the game facillitated this sort of running series of challenges. That's what we really want to know. Can the game make my game better? You know, what if they made this an oppurtunity to make a real preview? What if they actually focused on game events rather than the internal emotional state of the writer?

Instead, what we get is someone ranting on a particular play style, which sort of sight unseen implies that if your play style of 25 years is radically different than the above, that you just aren't going to be supported. And that the particular play style seems goofy, slightly juvenile, and seems to primarily support gamer archetype #3 only makes it worse.

Whoever thought 'encourages player recklessness' made a really great selling point? It doesn't matter what sort of rash and foolish decisions I make, I'm likely to succeed anyway? That's not a selling point to me. This isn't the sort of challenges I thought anyone was clamoring to be made easier. I thought there was a general agreement that resolving challenges ought to be easier. Making overcoming challenges easier does not count as reduced system complexity. We wanted I thought to reduce the mechanical headaches. I want 'kinder and gentler' to mean the math is easier, not that the game was easier because all the bad things that might happen to your character have been carefully removed and all the sharp corners filed down and padded. D&D was plenty cooshy as it was.

It's so bad, I half suspect deliberate sabotage on the part of the writer.