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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9568856" data-attributes="member: 32075">I'll repost, yet again, an old USENET post - not by me, I just agree with it. ----Nov 20 2006, 5:48 pmNewsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacyRPGs and video games differ from most ordinary board games in that there doesn't have to be a loser. I think it's reasonable that they attract mindsets which aren't very interested in losing; and a lot of RPG groups successfully cater to this.If I enter into playing, say, chess with the expectation I will never lose, I'm being an idiot and I'm bound to be disappointed. Not even the World Champion gets that. But if I enter into Heroes of Might and Magic IV (which is what I'm currently playing) with the expectation that I won't lose, I'm not hurting anyone, and it's not unreasonable that I may get what I want. (Especially if I turn the difficulty down--and I may yet do that, because the losses are really more annoying than challenging.)Whether the player still wants it when she gets it is another question, but for at least some players in some situations the answer is "yes." I don't think I would still be playing Heroes if I lost even 1/3 of the time. In a board game, I know I have to give my opponent a fair shot, but here there's no such obligation; the only thing against winning all the time is that it may detract from the challenge, and for me, right now, I'd rather win than have a really strong challenge.If this is a personality flaw it's an awfully common one; I think it's better just regarded as a preference.A common problem with such games is that they are entertaining for the players but not for the GM. I get tired of having my NPCs wiped out time and again; I spoiled a campaign recently by engineering a TPK in the attempt to make things "a bit more challenging." Clearly I overshot, but by game contract I shouldn't even have been trying. --- end quoted post ---Now to add my own gloss: Another aspect I want to emulate is the experience of the protagonists/main characters in read-only fantasy. The secondary characters in those works die, and the mooks die and die and die, but it's extremely rare for the main characters to die - and on those rare occasions when a main character does die, it's after surviving years or even decades of exciting adventurers, at least in the backstory. So I want a game system that will let a PC survive playing out those years of exciting adventures without the system killing them, preferably without having to invoke GM fiat/fudging to accomplish this. And if this means that the PCs are superior, special, and "overpowered" that's actually a bonus from my point of view, contributing to the experience of being a protagonist in a work of read-only fantasy fiction. There's a piece of conventional wisdom that goes back a long long way: That 'munchkinism' is poison and to be avoided - and to be avoided at all costs. But I dissent from that conventional wisdom. My experience is that a dash of munchkinism is a useful and desirable feature in a TTRPG. So, 'overpowered'? Sure!</blockquote>

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