Is there a Relationship between Game Lethality and Role Play?

[Ariosto]

The war in the background of X4 and X5 was given strategic treatment in Red Arrow, Black Shield. I can't cite any offhand, but I'm pretty sure some of the C and M modules were dominion-level affairs. The Bloodstone Pass (H1-4) series was definitely military-political, although the finale involved an absurd (yes, more than Q1) "strategy" of messing with Orcus.

In general, though, play at that level is not well suited to modules, which of necessity involve assumptions about the campaign. If you've got your own domain, why substitute the Duchy of Grand Fenwick?

Modules in general are a poor example for campaign play. Even when they were not designed specifically as tournament rounds, the format is constraining. The closest one is likely to get to examples of campaigning, outside of magazine articles, is in setting books.

The biggest problem with writing up for publication even a small campaign dungeon is that it is dynamic. Take a "snapshot" at any time, and there's a lot to understand about the arcs of events that have been for a moment frozen. Brief notes that would be cryptic to anyone else may be keys to volumes of information in the DM's head.

Arneson's The First Fantasy Campaign is but a little step removed from that state, an obviously incomplete and muddled miscellany pretty useless as "something to play". For all that, it offers sometimes inspiring glimpses into what made up the original D&D campaign.

 

[GSHamster]

Let's flip the question: How lethal is your roleplaying?

For example, let's say there's a crime lord the PCs need something from. They have the choice of either attacking the lord's lair (combat) or negotiating with him (roleplay).

How often are you willing to have the PCs outright fail if they undertake the second option? And have the crime lord kill them outright.

Most DMs I've seen will "roleplay" for a while, as the PCs pull out all sort of ideas, but will let them be sucessful in the end. So if the combat option is lethal, but the roleplay option never is, then obviously players will roleplay.

But is that the correct response? Sometimes combat is the correct response. To me, a lot of the discussion in this thread states that negotiating in the scenario above is the more desired option. I'm not sure that's correct. Both options should be equally desirable, equally different, and equally lethal.

 

[Ariosto]

CM1 (Test of the Warlords) and CM9 (Legacy of Blood) deal with establishing domains.

M2 (Vengeance of Alphaks) is a mission of politics and diplomacy.

X11 (Saga of the Shadow Lord) is an epic on Tolkien/Brooks/Eddings lines, as is the original Dragonlance series. X13 (Crown of Ancient Glory) entails restoring the monarchy of Vestland, which faces invasion by the Golden Khan's hordes.

Touching on the thread's main topic, though, one might note that in the traditional D&D scheme high-level machinations involve characters of high experience levels -- who are not so vulnerable to things that would remove normal men from the scene.

The Veiled Society and Legions of Thyatis are examples of lower-level intrigues, and of course there are also modules focused on solving mysteries.

 

[Hussar]

Let's flip the question: How lethal is your roleplaying?

For example, let's say there's a crime lord the PCs need something from. They have the choice of either attacking the lord's lair (combat) or negotiating with him (roleplay).

How often are you willing to have the PCs outright fail if they undertake the second option? And have the crime lord kill them outright.

Most DMs I've seen will "roleplay" for a while, as the PCs pull out all sort of ideas, but will let them be sucessful in the end. So if the combat option is lethal, but the roleplay option never is, then obviously players will roleplay.

But is that the correct response? Sometimes combat is the correct response. To me, a lot of the discussion in this thread states that negotiating in the scenario above is the more desired option. I'm not sure that's correct. Both options should be equally desirable, equally different, and equally lethal.

By and large I agree with you to be honest.

I'm just going by what a number of RPG's are promoting, at least implying pretty strongly. That negotiating IS better role playing than combat. ((Note, I do NOT agree with that, just restating what they seem to be saying)) That the goal of the mechanics is to use the stick to make players roleplay instead of trying to solve every problem with violence.

And, there is some reason for this reaction as well. There are many, many adventures out there where killing Team Evil is pretty much the only course of action. You kill Team Evil cos they need killin' and you're the ones that are gonna do it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Okay, but my point was specific to the experience of combat lethality in Traveller and its potential effects on roleplaying, not playing Traveller generally.

That said, I've played Traveller games where we jumped from system to system trading our wares, focused on system codes and trade tables with a bare minimum of roleplaying, and I've played Traveller games where we built complex webs of commerical contacts through schmoozing, bribery, and skullduggery that involved more roleplay and almost no trade table consulting at all.

Sometimes they were the same game, actually.

I think it tells me a lot about me and my group. We like the game part of RPGs a lot. But I don't like them that much that I wanted to play Traveller this way all time. I still need the story and role-playing along with it. But I don't mind playing different "mini-games" besides the combat game.

And I think other players are not that different. If there is a "game" to be played - be it a combat mini-game or a trade mini-game, they will play it, and they might think about the role-playing and story-telling aspect less.

 

[S'mon]

I think the relationship is very complex.

If you have a lethal combat system and little reward for combat, like classi Traveller, that discourages combat, which typically leaves more space for roleplay.

If you have lethal combat, but lots of combat and thus lots of dead PCs, like many D&D games, that discourages roleplay.

When I want to encourage roleplay in a genre like D&D with lots of combat, I make the combat less lethal, so players don't have to worry about min-maxing so much and can get attached to their characters. You usually get something like a typical fantasy/swords & sorcery movie, cheesy but fun.

So I think the relationship between game lethality and role play depends strongly on genre. In a genre like Vietnam War or WWII Eastern Front, high lethality is in-genre and can strongly support characterisation and roleplay, as long as there are some long-lived PCs. High lethality in Call of Cthulu supports a feeling of horror, but can have somewhat blank-slate PCs.

My experience of D&D though is that high lethality is harmful rather than supportive of roleplay, and that taking the pressure off is best.

 

[S'mon]

It might not be simply the lethality of a system that's the deciding factor, however. I also think complex, highly tactical combat systems discourage role-playing, because brainpower that might otherwise be devoted to role-playing must be diverted to considering combat options. Long combats also discourage role-playing, in my experience, because they leave less time available at the table for interaction with NPCs.

Yes, my experience with 3e-4e is that long, complex, highly tactical combat discourages roleplaying simply from the amount of mental investment it requires.

I've found a kind of U-shaped relation between lethality of combat (X axis) and roleplaying (Y axis):

Easy & Very Difficult combats both tend to encourage RP.
Balanced combats tend to discourage RP.

With Easy combats, they are usually done with quickly. While ongoing they encourage players to kick back and have fun, rather than focus on tactics.

Very Difficult combats either lead to PCs quickly running away/avoiding them, or to rare high-drama events where the PCs are fighting against hopeless odds, they may be captured, somehow triumph, or it may end like Thermopylae.

Balanced, winnable combats by contrast encourage heavy focus on min-maxing, and can get very grindy.

 

[S'mon]

Sorry if I jumped in there a bit quick, but the fact that you deliberately excluded 4e from the idea of higher lethality kinda led me to think that. There is an implication in your post that 4e leads to the opposite of "some combat even with good strategies to avoid pointless fights." which, I took to mean that 4e is nothing but a string of poor strategy and pointless fights.

Out of curiousity, why did you exclude 4e?

1st level 4e, while plenty lethal enough IMO, is clearly not as lethal as 0e-3e. I think that's on balance a good thing for my play style, with the older systems I fnd myself adding hp kickers, starting at higher level, etc to reduce lethality, while 4e seems more runnable out of the box, for the kind of game I personally most enjoy.

 

[S'mon]

Fair enough. Like I said, it was just strange to me that you would specifically include things like Pathfinder (which IIRC makes low level characters a fair bit more powerful), 3e (which has MUCH more powerful 1st-3rd level characters than earlier editions) .

Compared to typical enemies, I don't find 3e 1st level PCs powerful at all. Look at the stats on orcs or ogres, especially the 3.0e "CR2" ogre. Or "CR1" ghouls. They all easily kill 1st level 3e PCs, just like in 0e-B/X-BECMI.

Of the pre-4e systems I'd say the least lethal for 1st level PCs was actually 1e with Unearthed Arcana, due to the immense offensive power of Weapon Specialisation, super-high-stat human PCs; Cavaliers and (high stat) Barbarians. 1e-UA 1st level PCs can plow through Ogres, with their stats (4+1 hd, AC 5, 1d10 dmg) unchanged since 0e. Compare to 3e ogres doing 2d8+7 on a hit.

 

[S'mon]

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?

Lots of BECMI modules, 2 that come to mind are X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield and CM1 Test of the Warlords.