Let's Talk About Health, Damage, Wounds, Death and Related Mechanics

[Thomas Shey]

I get you. I still say, fair enough. As Captain Kirk tells us, "Risk is our business".

Yeah, but numbers and frequency matter. There's risk and then there's risk. Like I said, not a coincidence that back in those days a lot of bottom end games were token play.

 

[Umbran]

Again, this perceived need to play out one character's "story"...

Hm.

Their desire to play out one character's story is no more or less a "perceived need" than your clinging to setting logic as a dominant force in play.

It is an entertainment - we aren't talking about air, water, food, clothing and shelter. There are very few "needs", and many, many desires.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And again, if you tell people you're offering X, expect them to expect X. If your system doesn't provide it, they're going to demand it if you don't want them to leave, and over time that's what happened.

Basically, you can't have it both ways: if you wanted most people to play token play, you can't use fictional sources as your example of how its supposed to go. I suspect had D&D not progressively moved in that direction, it'd never have gotten where it is.

Disagree. You can play your character as a person with personality and an independent life and still be fine with bad luck of one kind or another cutting their adventuring career short. Token play in the pejorative way you are presenting it is not necessary for high lethality to coexist with it.

Not sure what you mean by, "using fictional sources as your example of how it's supposed to go". To my mind, there's no "supposed to go", because there's no built-in story. You play your PC, you make choices, and things happen. Sometimes that's a heroic adventure that ends in victory, sometimes you trip a trap and die with a crossbow bolt in your throat. I see fictional sources as setting inspiration, and character aspiration, but nothing is promised but the opportunity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, but numbers and frequency matter. There's risk and then there's risk. Like I said, not a coincidence that back in those days a lot of bottom end games were token play.

From what I'm reading, they appear to matter to you more than they matter to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hm.

Their desire to play out one character's story is no more or less a "perceived need" than your clinging to setting logic as a dominant force in play.

It is an entertainment - we aren't talking about air, water, food, clothing and shelter. There are very few "needs", and many, many desires.

Well, those particular desires are not what I want, and to me represent an unwelcome shift in the hobby.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Disagree.

You can disagree all you want, but that's what they expect, and that's what the game lead them to expect by its examples. When you list a bunch of fictional protagonists as your sources, that's what people are going to expect the kind of characters they're going to play to come out like. And no, noting they're first level doesn't change that (two of the classec examples were probably "first level" in at least one of their stories, and they still didn't die to a random arrow).

 

[Thomas Shey]

From what I'm reading, they appear to matter to you more than they matter to me.

Neither you nor I are everyone, and if you wait around for me to only talk about myself you should know by now you're going to be disappointed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, those particular desires are not what I want, and to me represent an unwelcome shift in the hobby.

Well, fight the tide if you wish, but I'm going to engage with what's actually out there.

 

[Reynard]

I feel like the discussion about whether people like having characters die is a little far afield of the thread subject at this point.

 

[Umbran]

I get you. I still say, fair enough. As Captain Kirk tells us, "Risk is our business".

Note how he isn't the one in the red shirt, though? Ironic for a character with a ton of plot armor to say that...