Is there a Relationship between Game Lethality and Role Play?

[S'mon]

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.

Why? Not for realism/simulation, surely - in real life, jaw-jaw is almost always less lethal than war-war. For fun? All options should be equally fun, and having all options carry similar risks & rewards best achieves that?

 

[jensun]

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

While this is true thats because domain management was a significant part of the game, the Companion boxed set provided extensive mechanical support for it.

It is however telling that such rules were virtually absent from 1e. There is a nod to it in the PHB with the name level followers if you build a temple/caste/tower etc but thats about it.

2e brought it back in a significant way with Birthright which sank like a stone.

3e got rid of the followers stuff but brought out the Stronghold Builders Guide.

 

[GSHamster]

Why? Not for realism/simulation, surely - in real life, jaw-jaw is almost always less lethal than war-war. For fun? All options should be equally fun, and having all options carry similar risks & rewards best achieves that?

I would argue that jaw-jaw is also less successful than war-war (unless you are *very* good at talking). But that is a philosophical point.

My point is that most DMs have much lower standards for roleplay success. As long as the PCs give it the good old college try, they will be far more successful with roleplay than they should be, if we are weighting the tasks equally.

 

[S'mon]

I would argue that jaw-jaw is also less successful than war-war (unless you are *very* good at talking). But that is a philosophical point.

My point is that most DMs have much lower standards for roleplay success. As long as the PCs give it the good old college try, they will be far more successful with roleplay than they should be, if we are weighting the tasks equally.

I think your point is wrong - IRL we spend far more time talking than fighting! Even in the 'state of nature', rival hunter-gatherer bands spend far more time talking to each other than killing each other.

I also don't understand your "weighting the tasks equally" concept. Why wouldn't it be easier to negotiate with a crime lord than kill him? He has a lot invested in not dying, and is probably very good at not dying, else he'd not have reached crime lord status. By contrast, negotiation may reach a mutually acceptable outcome.

 

[Mallus]

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.

Another benefit of ratcheting down the lethality is you get a wider variety of characters ie, a wider variety of fictional roles being played. Lethal campaigns tend to produce hard-bitten, paranoid survivalists, which is great for certain people, but less good for the chap who wants to play Westley from the Princess Bride (or, for that matter, Princess Buttercup).

So I think the relationship between game lethality and role play depends strongly on genre.

A good point, which is further complicated by the way gamers have used D&D to run several different genres, sometimes within a single campaign (say by going from assualting the Slave Lords to tangling w/Strahd in Ravenloft).

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.

Mine too.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

There's alot of pent up anger in my PC group. When there isn't combat arround, they LOOK for some. If its a peaceful negotiation, they offer to kill things and trade the stuff they take. If its negotiations for the ownership of land, they Kill the buyer (Because "somthing's fisy about that").

My players crave blood, and I fear if I don't let them kill things in the game, they may rise up and kill me!

 

[Ariosto]

While this is true thats because domain management was a significant part of the game, the Companion boxed set provided extensive mechanical support for it.

It is however telling that such rules were virtually absent from 1e. There is a nod to it in the PHB with the name level followers if you build a temple/caste/tower etc but thats about it.

The 1st ed. PHB indicates such factors as radius to clear of monsters, and basic tax revenue rate. In the DMG, we have ...

p. 16 ff.: Followers for Upper Level Player Characters; Spying
p. 28 ff.: Hirelings (Standard and Expert, from carpenters to mercenaries to sages); Henchmen; Loyalty of Henchmen and Hirelings, Obedience and Morale; Time in the Campaign
p. 53 ff.: Waterborne Adventures (naval rules)
p. 86 ff.: The Campaign; Climate & Ecology; Typical Inhabitants; Social Class and Rank; The Town and City Social Structure; Economics; Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes and Tolls; Monster Populations and Placement -- These sections mostly treat general principles rather than codifying rules.
pp. 93-94: TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT BY PLAYER CHARACTERS; Peasants, Serfs, and Slaves
p. 105: Use of Non-human Troops
p. 106 ff.: CONSTRUCTION AND SIEGE

 

[Ourph]

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.

Aside from the domain building aspect (which I'll grant you, is absent in 4e so far) I'm having trouble understanding where you're getting the idea that 4e de-emphasizes exploration of dangerous places, dealing with traps and tricks, and engaging in special missions in support of mass battles. It seems to me that the 4e rulebooks devote just as much space and attention to rules in support of those things as any edition of D&D has preceding it. In some cases (traps and tricks come to mind) the rulebooks arguably devote MUCH more attention to those subjects than any previous edition has. You'll find new traps and terrain hazards in nearly every rulebook for 4e, whereas most previous editions devoted a small section of the DMG to those things and left the subject at that.

In any case, all three of those aspects of gameplay, to me, fall under the heading of killing things and taking their stuff. Exploring dangerous places is the way to find dangerous foes to fight. Navigating tricks and traps is a prerequisite to getting to those foes. Skirting the edge of a massed battle to accomplish a mission generally involves some amount of killing enemies (and who wouldn't take their stuff afterward?). In addition, I can say from my own personal experience that, as a 4e DM, all three of those activities have occured in my campaign (sometimes with great regularlity) and were fully supported by the 4e rules.

Can you explain how you think the 4e rules are lacking in regard to these things and where you think another edition of D&D has devoted more attention to them or done a better job supporting them in the rules? Because I'm just not seeing what you are seeing.

 

[outsider]

In a game where a single roll can kill my character, I don't see much point in investing personality and background into the character. Thus the way I rp in a game like that is far more shallow than the way I do it in a game where I can reasonably believe that the time I invest in a character won't be wasted.

The 'high lethality = more role play' theory has other flaws as well. In my experience, in the more lethal versions of D&D, traps are just as lethal(if not more) than combat. While there was less time spent on fighting, the time gained was basically spent on things like 10 foot poles and describing in explicit detail how every single door was opened.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Can you explain how you think the 4e rules are lacking in regard to these things and where you think another edition of D&D has devoted more attention to them or done a better job supporting them in the rules? Because I'm just not seeing what you are seeing.

I can't speak for anyone else, but IMHO speed of play is a real issue, in all WotC editions of D&D. If an average combat takes X time in the real world, and an average session lasts Y time, then X/Y determines the number of potential combats in the game.

Should the potential number of combats be very high, because combats play quickly, then there is more time in each session to devote to traps, tricks, exploration, role-playing, etc. Nobody feels gypped that this material takes away from bopping some orcs on the noggin. IOW, the weight of a satisfying session is balanced among many encounters, so each can be its own thing without dragging the whole down. Like wearing snowshoes.

However, if X/Y yields a very low number, then the weight of a satisfying session is balanced on relatively few encounters, and each encounter must be that much more capable of supporting a satisfying game session by (or nearly by) itself. Like wearing stilts in deep snow. In a game like D&D, this often means combat encounters, at the expense of all other type of encounters.

A low X/Y also means that these combat encounters will often fall within the same "threshold". If it takes half a minute to defeat a giant rat at 10th level, the 10th level character may well encounter a giant rat without thinking it a major waste of time. If it takes 20 minutes, though, things are different. This is why "combat grind" in 4e becomes a source of complaint.....Or why many high level combats in 3e become dissatisfying.

(IMHO, this is the direct result of pushing a grid-based combat system; itself a direct result of WotC's marketing research, which pointed out that a gamer who buys minis tends to spend over 40 times the amount of a gamer that does not.)


RC