D&D General "Hot Take": Fear is a bad motivator

[HJFudge]

There's two different versions of this question.

1) Your campaign is nearing its conclusion (like, all the PCs are level 20, their personal storylines have generally resolved, and they are coming up on the Big Bad who you expect to be the final antagonist before you do something else.)

2) Something goes awry, and the characters are in a situation such that the obvious natural conclusion is a complete campaign fail The moral equivalent of a TPK in games that have death).

My answers are (1) certainly, and (2) I will consider it, but it depends on how the players view that conclusion.

Stepping away from the question of motivation, just as allowing death for some adds a certain atmospheric spice to the game, not having death serves the purpose of not ending stories prematurely, or in an unsatisfying manner. If that unshceduled campaign failure is unsatisfying, then I probalby won't do it. If it is satisfying, then that's how it goes.

On number 2: Can you elaborate on this a bit? With the players you've had, what sorts of situations have they seen such a conclusion as acceptable? What situations have they not?

I guess I am just curious as to what other parties view as an Acceptable 'We screwed up, we lose' scenario. Does it entirely depend on if it creates a 'satisfying story'? Or can they accept the loss due to screw up/bad decisions even if it ends in an ignoble tragedy for the party?

 

[Umbran]

No, but the page count is deceiving. Combat tends to be a LOT more complicated in many games, especially in D&D, so it needs a lot more pages of rules.

With respect, that is a design choice. And we should interrogate that choice.

That page count doesn't make it what the game is primarily about.

What does? I mean, you can't go by statement of intent of the author, because their design may not meet the stated goals or intent. You can't go by what happens at tables, because they are only local, and GMs can and will go well outside the game as printed. You say the rules themselves can't be used as a determiner? So, what IS your determiner of what the game is about? Are declarations about what the game is, or isn't, about so subjective as to be meaningless in this context?

 

[Umbran]

On number 2: Can you elaborate on this a bit? With the players you've had, what sorts of situations have they seen such a conclusion as acceptable? What situations have they not?

Broadly speaking, when the end is most closely tied with choices they thought were meaningful at the time, but they just chose poorly, I see players okay with ignoble ends. They'll also easily accept it if it is at least dramatic.

When the failure was, well, lame - a player misunderstood a rule, there was a bookkeeping error, bad luck on items they thought weren't terribly important, miscommunication between players, or the GM made a really poor adventure design choice (the case I have in mind, I was playing, not running the game), the players are less sanguine about it.

 

[Maxperson]

With respect, that is a design choice. And we should interrogate that choice.

What does? I mean, you can't go by statement of intent of the author, because their design may not meet the stated goals or intent. You can't go by what happens at tables, because they are only local, and GMs can and will go well outside the game as printed. You say the rules themselves can't be used as a determiner? So, what IS your determiner of what the game is about? Are declarations about what the game is, or isn't, about so subjective as to be meaningless in this context?

I think that broadly, adventure is the goal of the game. Combat is a part of those adventures, but it's not the main part. You have to explore to find dungeons and places where monsters wander. The game involves interaction with NPCs to get quests, learn information, etc. I don't see any part of those three as inherently greater than the others when we play the game. More specifically it's a table decision. If a table wants combat to be the focus of their adventures, then that's what the game is about. If a table wants social interaction to be the focus of their game, then that's what the game is about. Same with exploration as the focus or a mix of equal parts.

 

[Umbran]

What is the OP suggesting? Fear is not a good motivator for whom? The OP. Great. Follow your bliss! And find a DM who has a similar preference.

I however disagree on my part and on the part of my friends/gaming partners in D&D. For us.

[/QUOTE]

For the purposes of considering game design, style, or element, it becomes important to consider not one table, or another, but people in general. This is why I mentioned typical human behavior in the face of fear or anxiety. While any individual or group of individuals can defy that norm, that typical behavior is still, well, typical. Going against general human behavior is a design choice you can make, but that choice will limit the appeal of that element. One may be able to make up for it, but you're unlikely to do so if you don't recognize it happens.

 

[Lanefan]

The only way it can get degenerate if the player actively pushes the things to degeneracy.

Agreed. I used the degenerate examples to show the outer extremes of what's IMO almost certain to happen to a lower-grade or more subtle degree: players gently (ab)using the no-death rule to give their PCs unfair advantages or get-out-of-jail-free cards when sheer common sense would otherwise say they're dead.

To me that's every bit as degenerate.

 

[Lanefan]

Man who uses exploit to leave the map boundaries upset the designers didn't put anything for him to do or way back besides resetting...

You might be joking, but seriously I am one of those people: if the map has borders or the program has limits I want to go beyond them; and if the program doesn't allow for that I'm disappointed.

This is why I get - or got, when I played them back in the day - annoyed with a lot of geography-based computer games. Take a typical car race game. The programmers expect you to try to stay on the racetrack, where sooner or later I want to get off the track and explore the city in my racecar (and maybe find a shortcut, or maybe get completely lost...).

It's not the programmers' fault for not including those things - it's not like they're part of the basic mandate they were given - but I still find it unnecessarily limiting, once I get bored of going round and round the racetrack.

 

[Lanefan]

Like any other concept, this requires player buy in.

I'm buying in to playing my character to the reasonable best of its abilities, such as those may be. (I'm neither munchkin nor powergamer, hence "reasonable best")

If the game gives me the ability to not die, it's kinda dumb of me not to use it.

Refusal to buy in to one of the central concepts of a campaign means you are not a good fit for that particular campaign.

That's just it - I am buying in to a central concept of the campaign, that being that PCs can't die. At the same time, I'm trying to point out just how horribly bad that central concept is.

 

[Mort]

Agreed. I used the degenerate examples to show the outer extremes of what's IMO almost certain to happen to a lower-grade or more subtle degree: players gently (ab)using the no-death rule to give their PCs unfair advantages or get-out-of-jail-free cards when sheer common sense would otherwise say they're dead.

To me that's every bit as degenerate.

Why do you immediately assume bad faith gaming? If player's bought into the no death concept they've also agreed to not exploit it.

That said, there are some changes in playstyle that might result - and that's not a bad thing. Gives players a chance to play in a way they might not when death is a constant fear (more adventurous, more reckless/headstrong etc.)

 

[Lanefan]

Here's how I would respond to that as a DM:

DM: Lanefan, when as a group we decided characters wouldn't die, we didn't mean to make this into Looney Tunes. If you really want your character to die, I'll follow through, but also don't expect me to invest in the story of background of your characters.

My response: Whether or not we meant to make it into Looney Tunes, the very fact that PCs can't die makes it so by default, which means we made a dumb decision. All I'm doing is pointing that out in an extreme enough manner to make y'all sit up and take notice.