Grittiness and Lethality in Game Combat vs in Read-Only Fiction

[Retros_x]

But then combat becomes trivial thing. You know your character can't die unless you choose to.

Not if you implement other consequences. Its definitely possible to build "plot armor" in as a gameplay element, many tables do in some form. If you would enjoy that kind of game is a different question, but it weakens the point you were making.

 

[GrimCo]

Sure you can. If you like it, go for it.

One of the easiest ways to do it is to give players control if they even want to engage in a fight ( no ambushes) and give only opponents that are reasonable enough and don't have kill on sight mentality (for example, pack of hungry predator animals will go for the kill if they defeat you while mercenary captain might capture you in hope of good ransom).

In the end, it's down to players and dm to adjust lethality of their game to their liking. While i like my games to have combat where everything, including PC's lives are at stake, i know some people aren't into it. For me, there are very few other consequences that are on par with character death when it comes to combat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Does it have to though? You could have the game rules literally say 'Your character can't die unless you choose to, they suffer narrative setbacks instead'

Or I dunno, a lives system.

Or literally retcon a TPK or death.

Or have the game and table 'carefully'(or even loudly say) make sure that players aren't dying.

Neither players nor DMs are disallowed to make the fictional world as something that reflects reality's indifference.

A fictional world that reflects reality's indifference is what I want.

 

[Distracted DM]

There seem to be a number of tables and players that treat PCs as if they have the same kind of plot armor characters in stories have.

I assume you're referring to the folk that are in favor of "character death can be off the table, there are worse things that can happen to a character than death" line of thinking. In which case yeah there have been a surprising number (to me) of people on these forums that have expressed that preference.

On one hand I am in favor of "if the bad guys would actually want to capture you, then sure it makes sense that they do so. It's not a cop-out, it is a realistic way to keep the game going after a possible TPK." Some adventures like Red Hand of Doom actually have a sidebar for this.

But on the other hand, I don't personally like things like: "characters can't die, the Dark Powers revive you with a mutation or curse because living with this malignance is worse than death," which means that if you play long enough you will stumble your way to victory in Curse of Strahd.

 

[GMMichael]

Also, in fiction, author has complete control of what happens to main characters. In games, there is always element of luck. You roll very bad, DM rolls exceptionally well, things happen . . .

Always? I know at least one game that allows static results on dice. When that happens, the combat focus moves squarely from luck to tactics

Yes, you could have rules like that. But then combat becomes trivial thing. You know your character can't die unless you choose to. But without risk of PC death, you can be more gung ho and trigger happy cause you know, no matter what, even if you lose combat, you live to fight another day. For me at least, that tones down danger of violence, and turns it from life or death situation to sports.

Sure, that might not work for you. But there's an entire video game genre (Souls-like) that expects PCs to live to fight another day. So there are other players out there who expect their characters to not die (permanently).

A Discursive RPG can raise the stakes for undying characters by making them lose gear, XP, status, friends, directions, gold, or most intrinsically (?), their objectives.

 

[GrimCo]

Always? I know at least one game that allows static results on dice. When that happens, the combat focus moves squarely from luck to tactics

Well, at least in any game i played that involves rolls to hit and damage in combat.

Sure, that might not work for you. But there's an entire video game genre (Souls-like) that expects PCs to live to fight another day. So there are other players out there who expect their characters to not die (permanently).

Like i said, if they like that, good for them. (sidenote, i don't really like Soulsborne games). But in souls games, you die. A lot. You just don't die permanently. It's not game over- load last save. You just lose stuff and enemies respawn. Not that big of a deal, you grind, kill them again, get stuff back. It's frustrating until you get good. Then it's just a matter of patience and grind.

A Discursive RPG can raise the stakes for undying characters by making them lose gear, XP, status, friends, directions, gold, or most intrinsically (?), their objectives.

IMHO, depends on why character is undying. I played fair bit of VtM, longest campaign with my 7th generation Toreador ( 7th gen are hard SOBs to kill ) took span over couple of centuries in game time. I lost gear, allies, wealth, status (those revolutions are pesky things), everything possible with that character. In the end, you can rebuild and regain everything, providing you are alive and have enough time. For undying character, everything besides getting killed is just speed bump on the road.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Medievalish-Fantasy game systems do a fair job of emulating the injury and death rates seen among secondary characters and nameless mooks in read-only fiction, but a poor one of emulating the much lower injury and death rates among the protagonists - the characters who would be PCs in a game.

As evidence, I offer this list of injuries suffered by the nine members of the Fellowship in Lord of the Rings during the course of the story. I'm leaving out the purely magical effects, the fatigue, thirst, starvation, and exposure damage, and the injuries to characters other than members of the Fellowship.

---
Frodo, Sam, and Pippin get scratched up by brambles, while hiding from a Black Rider during their walk through the Shire

Frodo is stabbed on Weathertop. [physical injury, even if most of the life-endangering effect came from magic]

Sam gets a scratch along the scalp in the fight against the orcs in Moria

Frodo gets the wind knocked out of him by a spear thrust in the fight against the orcs in Moria [He is presumed dead after that attack, but was saved by his mithril chain shirt]

Gandalf gets injured ["I was burned"], dies, and then gets better, fighting the balrog. [This happens off-screen]

Boromir is wounded and killed fighting orcs at Parth Galen. Unlike Gandalf, above, he does not get better. Noteworthy in that he received multiple wounds in that fight, where nearly all of the other examples are of single wounds.

Merry gets a cut on his forehead at Parth Galen. The orc leader uses a nasty orc healing ointment on it.

Merry and Pippin suffer various minor cuts and sores while being driven as captives of the orcs. [Those cuts and sores heal in a "remarkable way" when they drink from and bathe their feet in a stream in Fangorn Forest.]

Gimli suffers a head injury in the Battle of Helm's Deep. It gets bandaged, and he passes it off as nothing serious.

Frodo gets stung by Shelob in the Pass of Cirth Ungol

Sam and Frodo get scratched by thorn bushes after jumping off a bridge when escaping Cirth Ungol

Pippin gets crushed (and seriously injured) by the falling body of the troll he kills, at the battle before the Black Gate of Mordor.

Sam gets knocked down from behind and hits his head, at the Crack of Doom. [The injury bleeds.]

Frodo has his finger bitten off by Golum, at the Crack of Doom.
---

I count 17 examples of members of the Fellowship getting injured in the whole Lord of the Rings, with 5 of the examples being bramble and thorn scratches. And I note that Aragorn and Legolas do not get injured at all.

I submit that this is a low, low, low injury rate, compared to that typically seen in a tabletop game that covers the same amount of adventuring, run under either D&D rules or under some alternative rule set having about the same degree of crunch in its mechanics.

I know people will want to make this into a hit points/meat points discussion, but the main takeaway here is that you are absolutely correct. This isn't about D&D's weird take on health.

Not just for LotR, but for fantasy fiction in general. Injuries and deaths among the "PC equivalents" in fantasy fiction are generally pretty rare, especially outside of climactic battles.

And this is one of my major complaints about like, 75% of fantasy-based TTRPGs developed in the last decade or so. They're all desperately rushing to be "gritty" and have high injury/death rates , but when you look at the stuff that they list as inspiring them, or that's obvious as inspiration - it absolutely does not feature the PC-equivalents being wrecked on the regular!

Really, it's pretty clear that in fantasy fiction, if we were actually trying to simulate it, we'd need combat that's more about successfully defending a lot until you don't, where even minor injuries that break the skin are relatively uncommon, and larger ones very rare. There are some different ways to do this, but for whatever reasons, surprisingly few games seem to actually use them (PtbA games are often pretty good for it).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A Discursive RPG can raise the stakes for undying characters by making them lose gear, XP, status, friends, directions, gold, or most intrinsically (?), their objectives.

This is precisely what Spire and Heart from Rowan, Rook and Decard do, I note. I mean, they also do injury, but you can be taken out of the game just as surely as getting shot by having your cover blown hard enough in Spire for example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know people will want to make this into a hit points/meat points discussion, but the main takeaway here is that you are absolutely correct. This isn't about D&D's weird take on health.

Not just for LotR, but for fantasy fiction in general. Injuries and deaths among the "PC equivalents" in fantasy fiction are generally pretty rare, especially outside of climactic battles.

And this is one of my major complaints about like, 75% of fantasy-based TTRPGs developed in the last decade or so. They're all desperately rushing to be "gritty" and have high injury/death rates , but when you look at the stuff that they list as inspiring them, or that's obvious as inspiration - it absolutely does not feature the PC-equivalents being wrecked on the regular!

Really, it's pretty clear that in fantasy fiction, if we were actually trying to simulate it, we'd need combat that's more about successfully defending a lot until you don't, where even minor injuries that break the skin are relatively uncommon, and larger ones very rare. There are some different ways to do this, but for whatever reasons, surprisingly few games seem to actually use them (PtbA games are often pretty good for it).

Maybe we're not looking to emulate fantasy fiction. We're looking to emulate a fantasy world.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe we're not looking to emulate fantasy fiction. We're looking to emulate a fantasy world.

Sure, but many fantasy TTRPGs aren't - they're explicitly emulating fantasy fiction.

You can see that in how they're constructed, what their ideas are, and so on. Others still are more focused on providing something "game-able" than "emulating a fantasy world". I think I could count on one hand the games that make a real stab at "emulating a fantasy world". GURPS arguably is one. D&D is not, nor are most OSR games, they're concerned with game-ability and/or emulating fiction for the most part.

If a fantasy TTRPG is coming from the perspective of "emulating a world", that's cool, but which are? I feel like you're about to name a bunch of games which even you know definitely are not making that a high priority!