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Is 4th edition getting soft? - edited for friendly content :)
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<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 3818381" data-attributes="member: 40961"><p>No. </p><p></p><p>I think it is absolutely ridiculous to think that save-or-die effects are necessary to instill the fear of character death in players.</p><p></p><p>Save-or-die effects are good in some kinds of games and some kinds of circumstances. For example, if what you want to do is play Paranoia with swords, save-or-die is great. A lot of early modules and playstyles worked that way, and that was fun for what it was worth. Ironically, that type of gameplay has absolutely no fear of character death in it. If you show up to the session with two or three extra character sheets because you know your character isn't going to make it, you have no real fear of character death.</p><p></p><p>Save-or-die also works best in an environment in which Raise Dead is easily available. Again, this is a gaming environment in which fear of character death is minimal, because its only a temporary setback.</p><p></p><p>Save-or-die is incredibly hostile, as rules go, to gameplay which centers around character driven storylines. Its also hostile to games in which Raise Dead isn't easily accessible to someone with an adventurer's wealth. These tend to be the games in which fear of character death is the greatest, because characters are a serious investment for their players, and they can't get them back after they've died.</p><p></p><p>So, in short, no. I expect that eliminating Save-Or-Die will actually make character death more fearful, because it will enable gameplay where character death actually matters. Eliminating save-or-die will make character death less common, but not necessarily less frightening to players.</p><p></p><p>PS- My grognard-poking instincts make me want to toss out a comparison to fail-save-die-resurrect gameplay and MMORPGs, and an accompanying comment on how thankful I am that, after decades, D&D is finally moving away from the MMORPG model.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 3818381, member: 40961"] No. I think it is absolutely ridiculous to think that save-or-die effects are necessary to instill the fear of character death in players. Save-or-die effects are good in some kinds of games and some kinds of circumstances. For example, if what you want to do is play Paranoia with swords, save-or-die is great. A lot of early modules and playstyles worked that way, and that was fun for what it was worth. Ironically, that type of gameplay has absolutely no fear of character death in it. If you show up to the session with two or three extra character sheets because you know your character isn't going to make it, you have no real fear of character death. Save-or-die also works best in an environment in which Raise Dead is easily available. Again, this is a gaming environment in which fear of character death is minimal, because its only a temporary setback. Save-or-die is incredibly hostile, as rules go, to gameplay which centers around character driven storylines. Its also hostile to games in which Raise Dead isn't easily accessible to someone with an adventurer's wealth. These tend to be the games in which fear of character death is the greatest, because characters are a serious investment for their players, and they can't get them back after they've died. So, in short, no. I expect that eliminating Save-Or-Die will actually make character death more fearful, because it will enable gameplay where character death actually matters. Eliminating save-or-die will make character death less common, but not necessarily less frightening to players. PS- My grognard-poking instincts make me want to toss out a comparison to fail-save-die-resurrect gameplay and MMORPGs, and an accompanying comment on how thankful I am that, after decades, D&D is finally moving away from the MMORPG model. [/QUOTE]
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