D&D 4E Hitting "reset": A counterpoint to "gritty" 4e

[shilsen]

Actually I am not certain that it's a probem with emotional attachment, but more a problem with the _lack_ of emotional attachment. You can't really attach yourself to a character if you get to play him for only 2 sessions and he then dies some random ugly death.
In fact, if you ever had such emotional attachment, you learn to avoid it, since it does you "no good".
Instead, the game risks turning into more hack & slash, and you detach yourself from your character as far as possible. He is just a set of stats that are most effective as what you want him to do (combat, spellcasting, social encounters), but that's all.

I think it's something that sometimes happens in the really gritty game (Call of Cthulhu) far too often, and D&D can be at risk of it, too. You can end up with every CoC investigator being armed to teeth, regardless of how "unrealistic" it is and how bad it actually works for the intentend style of play for the game.
Some players can live fine with such adaptations. But others will question is, because that's ultimately not what they expect from their game, and I think that's exactly the type we're talking about in this case. The player wants character attachments, but he can't "risk" it because he knows his character will probably die soon anyway. So, what can he really do? Constantly ressourection is just another way of removing attachment, because it cheapens the impact of death to a person.

The Archchancellor, as ever, is wise. I'm not assuming this is the case for anyone else, but certainly for me the above is absolutely true. If I'm playing a game where I know my PC can and will die regularly, then it just doesn't make that much sense for me to seriously flesh out the background and the personality, to develop bonds and relations of various kinds with the other PCs or the NPCs that inhabit the game world, etc. And those are some of the things I really enjoy about the game, so for me as a player and as a DM it makes sense to have a minimal chance of character death in the game.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to offer. I am not even convinced that the "Save Point" mechanic will work. I think action points might work better, because they strain suspension of disbeliev a bit less.

For me personally, the action points work a lot better than the "Save point" mechanic. But I'm interested to hear what the OP's experience with this mechanic is.

 

[shilsen]

I'd never play with people who can't see any other risk/consequence of failure than death. People who don't consider having your character deal with being branded an outlaw, lose his honor, fall from grace, lose his freedom, lose his family, see his church split, see his home country get conquered, lose his reputation etc. as being a risk won't fit my game at all.

Same here. Death, for me, is only one of the possible repercussions of failure in the game, and for me one of the most boring ones. And one of the most boring things about death as a repercussion is that it means the character doesn't have to live with the consequences of failure. In that sense, I think death (esp. regular or permanent death) actually lessens the existence of consequences in the game.

Edit: I am asking this since I do feel all the scoff and scorn at people who don't play with character death is misplaced. Back in 2E, when our 4/5th level party was beaten in a fight with bandits, and then bungled their escape attempt due to a string of fumbles, we ended up sold as slaves to the south, and then had to first escape, then get new gear while being on the run. We had lost a couple of magic items, and had to scrounge for basic gear for a month. If we'd all have rolled up new characters, then we'd have had it far easier.

I've had players mention more than once that it would have been easier on the PCs in my game if they just died. I joke about it, but I'm also partly serious when I say that I won't kill PCs in my game because I'm not that nice. Death means a PC has escaped me. Every good torturer knows that you never kill the victim.

 

[Fenes]

In a way, rerolling a character is a sort of reset - you get to start over, with a fresh character, and can try again.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

For me the most disturbing thing posted by the OP was the comment by one of his players that if I die I'm done playing. As a DM I would definetly be put off by such a statement. Without the context of knowing the person or your group as a whole its hard to know how I would react, but from an outside POV its unlikely I would tolerate what stinks of some sort of tantrum or blackmail.

From where I'm sitting, that kind of language shows you'd engage in some sort of counter tantrum and/or blackmail. But it needn't lead in that direction.

Think of me as that player Shadeydm, and here's the deal.

I invest effort and time to make and play my character, and playing that character is my source of fun. When that character is gone, all my effort is wiped and I'm left without my source of fun. Should I make up a new character? Why bother? I might pour more effort just to have it wiped, and wiped depressingly easy.

At the Monte Cook website, in his Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil forum, there is a thread called 'The Graveyard'. It's about 4 pages of dead characters. At some point last year Monte posted a brief apology to all the players for the character deaths. At the time I didn't get it and replied, saying something like 'that's ok, it's just part of the game.' Only recently (because of all the 4E re-analysis of 3E) do I understand what he's talking about.

The 3E game assumes that characters will die, and players will be punished for their character's death (character level loss or replacement) - this is on top of and despite the obvious attachment many players have with their characters.

The issue is highly complex, and the many 4E changes WoTC has made points to areas in the game that cause these deaths:
- deadly criticals
- uncontrolled attack & defence numbers
- ability & level damage
- undeveloped perception skills
- insert favourite other

Back to your comment Shadeydm.

3E kills PCs. I want to play 3E with my PC. I don't want to play another PC. Please don't kill my PC, because I want to play 3E. This can manifest as some agreement to always raise the dead or to pull punches just before death.

As an aside, we use resurrection magic and grudgingly accept the havoc is plays on designing encounters and rewarding XP...

 

[Fenes]

I'd rather know beforehand what players have fun with and what ruins their fun instead of see them walking out after I ruined the game for them.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

It is certainly a brave new world when PCs are expected to be given success on a silver platter.

I think it's a healthy attitude to assume that the PCs are generally going to be pretty successful. Failure needs to exist to keep the outcome of success in some doubt, but the nature of the failure needs a close anaylsis so as to not compromise the games primary objective - fun.

That's right. Failure in D&D does not need to be at the expense of fun.

If the PC's are defeated by the evil necromancer while attacking his tower in the swamp, they may find themselves spending a session needing to escape from ritual undeath. Perhaps another session fleeing pursuit? Maybe if they succeed in both adventures they could have another crack at the tower? Or if they failed, something else...

The agreement for no permanent death requires give and take. It seems perfectly reasonable for the player to be asked to have their character care about or otherwise be 'connected' to the campaign world. That way, failure is felt by the character without ruining the fun of the player(s) and dm.

I'd rather know beforehand what players have fun with and what ruins their fun instead of see them walking out after I ruined the game for them.

True. We're all obliged to speak up on these matters and work out a mutual agreement, preferably in advance - but a new player may discover something after the fact.

Threatening to walk out... It does seem to be engaging in a power sharing struggle rather than an avenue of fruitful dialogue. Then again, the player is going against one of the rules of the 3E game. Our characters are supposed to be killable. Maybe the request had been made in the past and the then dm, faithful to the rules, had said no? From there, the dialogue had stopped and the ante was raised. Maybe after some kind of similar experience the player had learned to state their position before spending time to make a character?

 

[Dragonblade]

I should clarify that the player in question, never meant his statement as a threat of any kind. In fact he specifically did not want any sort of immunity for his character.

It was spoken more like a tired old man who has sadly seen all his friends pass away. Our games have had lots of problems with serial restarts over the years. Games starting and then just sort of dying without any resolution or ever getting beyond about 12th level.

He is just burned out on constantly putting creative work into new characters only to see the campaign dropped. Thankfully due to the Adventure Path going to 20th level, it looks like this game may go the distance.

And then 4e will give us all a fresh start. Hopefully with WotC addressing high level play and making the math work, we won't have campaigns fizz out anymore.

 

[Fenes]

Then again, the player is going against one of the rules of the 3E game. Our characters are supposed to be killable. Maybe the request had been made in the past and the then dm, faithful to the rules, had said no? From there, the dialogue had stopped and the ante was raised. Maybe after some kind of similar experience the player had learned to state their position before spending time to make a character?

I have to disagree with this statement. The rules as written assume that player characters don't die for real - they just get put "on hold" before getting raised/revived/resurected. A DM faithful to the rules can't deny players those spells without changing the game at least as much as if he'd assume they could not be killed - especially once resurrection and true resurrection come into play at higher levels.

RAW, PCs get back fromd eath, repeatedly, if needed - unless the DM changes the game, alters wealth per level, bans those spells, etc.

 

[FireLance]

Though fantasy is by its nature somewhat fantastic, there is one striking similarity between reality and fantasy fiction and that is people die and, sometimes at least, death is permanent. With death or any other sort of unique situation (read: every encounter) that involves serious repercussions for PC success or failure there is, as in real life, no do-overs.

Do-overs only exist in artificial situations such as in taking certain kinds of tests. If you can demonstrate a do-over that takes place in the real world or in fantasy fiction (without magic) where someone is killed and fails in their mission and can just restart the situation at the beginning I will rethink my position.

Ah, I think I see the key difference in perspectives now. You were talking about the characters, but I was thinking more about the players. Certainly, for a group of players sitting round a table and rolling dice, venturing into a dungeon and encountering monsters is pretty much an artificial situation. So, the presence of a reset button should not rob the players, at least, of real achievement.

As for the characters, the argument gets a bit more metaphysical. Can any fictional character be robbed of achievement? Or conversely, can any fictional character actually achieve anything? If the author of a novel decides from the outset that his protagonist will complete his quest successfully, does this authorial guarantee of success make the outcome meaningless?

 

[FireLance]

As an aside, this thread has given me an idea that I plan to try out in the next campaign I run. At the start of every adventure in the campaign, the PCs will all experience a recurring dream in which they fight some terrible monster. Most likely, at the lower levels, this will result in all of them being slaughtererd, at which point they will wake up and proceed with the adventure du jour. Slowly, as they gain levels, get better equipment, and discover more about the monster's tactics and weaknesses through the repeated battles, they will do better and better until they finally manage to beat it. At that point, they will face the monster in real life, in the next adventure.