Is there a Relationship between Game Lethality and Role Play?

[Mallus]

Maybe... but the comment that D&D is fundamentally about killing things and taking their stuff comes up dishearteningly often in posts... and from 4e designers for that matter.

"Kill things and take their stuff" is a gamer aphorism, oft-repeated because it's pithy. I doubt anyone means it as an exclusive summary of what occurs in their campaigns.

I can't shake the feeling that sentiment is at the core of the game philosophy that shaped 4e and its ENWorld fan-base

My feeling is that D&D always gave you more rules for killing + taking than anything else. Despite that, different groups of gamers filled their particular campaigns with all manner of other activities (for instance, tricking + fleecing).

And it may be part of the reason 4e and I don't get along so much...

You should see what my group does with 4e. Things like put on musicals (for great justice!) and write/disseminate highly-eroticized labor propaganda (for great justice... wait, make that 'for little justice', it was done on behalf of disenfranchised goblin dockworkers).

I'm guessing most other 4e groups behave somewhat differently.

 

[The Shaman]

I play D&D to kill things and take their stuff. And I get xp for it.

I'm The Shaman, and I approve of this message.

 

[Bluenose]

I can't see it myself. You can have two games which are pretty much on the same level of lethality yet get totally different approaches from the same group of players. Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia are both extremely deadly in their own special ways, yet the role-play I've seen in the two is different. And different groups of players can and often will approach the same adventure with the same system, and yet the role-play will be different each time. So I think it's much more about the people involved than anything to do with a games lethality or lack of it.

 

[Ariosto]

The XP incentives stood out in my limited experience with 2E and 3E. It's still notable that defeating a kobold smirmisher in 4E yields as much at first level as completing a quest: 1/10 the XP needed to reach second, versus about 1/200 to 1/333 in 1E.

However, XP in 4E are really more about "overcoming the encounter", which can mean whatever the scenario designer wants it to mean. I think the key here is the assumption that there is an encounter-specific victory condition, and that the players take their cue from the DM as to what is the "correct" thing to do.

RPGA scenarios are in my experience very clearly divided into fights and skill challenges. I once encountered an actual puzzle posed to the players, but that was apparently so unprecedented that the DM felt obligated to walk the players through the process of solving it!

 

[Ourph]

Maybe... but the comment that D&D is fundamentally about killing things and taking their stuff comes up dishearteningly often in posts... and from 4e designers for that matter. I can't shake the feeling that sentiment is at the core of the game philosophy that shaped 4e

Can you (or anyone else for that matter) tell me which edition of D&D didn't have the sentiment "kill things and take their stuff" at the core of its game philosophy?

 

[Korgoth]

I don't believe Gary intended it to be an alchemical weapon, rather he mistakenly allowed medieval lantern oil to burn like petrol. His model was probably the molotov cocktail, an anachronism. There is only one entry for oil in the 1e PHB, not two separate entries for alchemist's fire and normal oil, as there are in 3e. In 1e it does 2-12 points of damage on the first round and 1-6 on the second.

I say it's an exploit because no one would assume, without having read the DMG, that medieval lantern oil would be as effective a weapon as it is.

That's not how I use it.

I assume that it's a special brew like Greek Fire (but also useable as lamp oil). The party can coat an area with it and set it on fire; you take 1d6 if you enter that area and another 1d6 as it burns out. In Petal Throne they have only used it on zombies ("Mrur"), which are the only things dumb enough to walk straight through the fire.

But zombies tend to come in mass quantities, so it's an excellent weapon against them. It could also be used to discourage pursuit from dumb predators, but they haven't tried that yet.

 

[billd91]

Can you (or anyone else for that matter) tell me which edition of D&D didn't have the sentiment "kill things and take their stuff" at the core of its game philosophy?

Killing things and taking their stuff as an element of the game is a far cry from that being the total essence or the encapsulated description of the game. Used to be the game was about exploration of dangerous places, dealing with traps and tricks, establishing domains, and engaging in special missions in support of massed battles. The game used to have much higher ambitions than killing monsters and taking their stuff. Now, I'm not so sure. The game's headspace seems pretty limited by comparison. That may not be the only thing 4e can do, but it seems to capture the zeitgeist of 4e as presented by the designers and as discussed here. Mallus excepted.

 

[Doug McCrae]

That may not be the only thing 4e can do, but it seems to capture the zeitgeist of 4e as presented by the designers and as discussed here.

It supports what, imo, has always been the default mode of play.

You don't really need rules for upkeep of a stronghold or massed battles, any more than you need rules for falling in love. Though I'm sure at least some of these will be published in supplements, for the minority that want that kind of thing.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

establishing domains, and engaging in special missions in support of massed battles. The game used to have much higher ambitions than killing monsters and taking their stuff.

/snip

Bill91, can you name 3 modules where this is true? The other stuff about traps and searching, sure, I'll buy that, but, then again, I lump that in with "taking their stuff". Can you name 3 modules where establishing domains and engaging in special missions in support of massed battles was the main purpose of the adventure?

I'd love to play them.

It's interesting that Paranoia and Call of Cthulu were brough up. It's true that both systems are particularly lethal. But, I would also say that they both tend to focus much more on role play rather than combat.

While Mallus has a point about role playing in combat, I'm thinking that an awful lot of combat encounters begin to sound like Bingo night at the local Legion. The players call out numbers and very little is done "in character". While there may be exceptions to this, I'm thinking this is far more often true than not.

 

[billd91]

Bill91, can you name 3 modules where this is true? The other stuff about traps and searching, sure, I'll buy that, but, then again, I lump that in with "taking their stuff". Can you name 3 modules where establishing domains and engaging in special missions in support of massed battles was the main purpose of the adventure?

Not all of it comes from specific module support but from the rules themselves. A few 1e classes were built with political/domain abilities in them at higher levels. H1 - Bloodstone Pass and I14 - Swords of the Iron Legion stand out as being war support/domain building adventures/mini-campaigns. H3 - Bloodstone Wars also falls into that line of design. Early scenarios run by Dave Arneson often involved taking characters on various missions around the larger scale wargaming going on. A bunch of the Oriental Adventures modules like Blood of the Yakuza and Ninja War were not at all exercises in enemy home invasion and robbery (especially with taboos against touching let alone looting dead bodies the plethora of vendetta opportunities that abound if you do). The same goes for Al-Qadim modules.