Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[The Shadow]

"It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a failure; that is life".

I've got life already; it's not what I'm looking for in a game.

More generally, I'm a little curious why "no character death" is being conflated by some with "the characters always succeed". The two are not the same!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've got life already; it's not what I'm looking for in a game.

More generally, I'm a little curious why "no character death" is being conflated by some with "the characters always succeed". The two are not the same!

To me, the question is, "can the PCs suffer permanent/long-lasring, personal, detrimental effects (such as death) without their consent?". If they can't, quite frankly I'm not interested.

 

[pemerton]

Seems less exciting to me if the decisions about life or death happen before the actual life or death decision occurs.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

In the context of framing scenes and/or rolling the dice only when something significant is at stake - say MHRP, HeroWars/Quest or Burning Wheel - what decision about life or death is happening before "the actual life or death decision"?

Likewise in the context of the sort of play I mentioned with reference to 4e D&D, and that @Thomas Shey elaborated on with reference to some other systems: what decision is being made before the "actual" one?

 

[pemerton]

A foe does 20 damage to a character, the character has 10 hit points....what happens? Nothing. The rules don't matter when the character has plot armor. Why even bother with the rules if your playing this sort of game style?

What RPG are you talking about?

In D&D, depending on edition there are many different things that might happen when a PC with 10 hp suffers 20 hp of damage. My favourite version of D&D is 4e, and in that version the PC in question is knocked unconscious and has to make death saves.

Take two groups and run them through an adventure.

What do you mean by "running a group through an adventure", in this context? Are we assuming railroading by the GM? That all the scenes to be framed are known in advance?

The first is a group that agrees on no character death ever and the heroes always succeed.

As @Irlo posted, I don't know how these two things are related. I've never heard of a RPG in which the PCs always succeed, and I don't really know what you have in mind by that.

I have played RPGs in which the default orientation is that PCs don't die - I'm thinking of MHRP, Prince Valiant (that I mentioned upthread), Cthulhu Dark (unless the PCs try to fight a shoggoth or similar creature), etc. These are not RPGs in which the PCs always succeed.

The second in my game: hard core hard fun unfair unbalanced anyone can die at the drop of a die anytime.

What RPG system are you talking about? I assume some version of D&D, played in a broadly 1980s-but-not-DL style.

 

[pemerton]

"It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a failure; that is life".

Which bit of life? I mean, it's true of backgammon but it's not true of chess.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which bit of life? I mean, it's true of backgammon but it's not true of chess.

The part where circumstances unknown to you and/or outside your control affect the outcome. So, you know, most of life. What are  you referring to?

 

[pemerton]

A situation from my current game: the character didn't die, but during a combat did get perma-polymorphed into a giant ant with the brains and abilities of such...the poly couldn't be reversed without resources they're nowhere near being able to acquire, so for playability purposes the character might as well be dead.

I assume that it's obvious that it's not self-evident how this makes for good game play, or for better game play than the Prince Valiant sessions that I linked to upthread.

RPGs are games of shared fiction. In my experience, much of the excitement and emotional engagement comes from the content of that fiction. The possibility of the protagonist dying, or being turned into an ant, isn't the most exciting thing I can think of about a fiction. The possibility of losing my playing piece isn't the most exciting thing I can think of about in the context of participating in a game of shared fiction.

 

[pemerton]

The part where circumstances unknown to you and/or outside your control affect the outcome. So, you know, most of life. What are  you referring to?

I'm referring to the bits where I play chess and backgammon.

 

[pemerton]

To me, the question is, "can the PCs suffer permanent/long-lasring, personal, detrimental effects (such as death) without their consent?". If they can't, quite frankly I'm not interested.

Does being banished from their hometown count? Or having their beloved killed? Or losing all their wealth and fame? These are all long-lasting personal detrimental effects that are part and parcel of the sorts of stories (fantasy and others) that inspire RPGs. D&D, as typically played, rarely puts these at stake. But many other RPGs do.

 

[The Shadow]

To me, the question is, "can the PCs suffer permanent/long-lasring, personal, detrimental effects (such as death) without their consent?". If they can't, quite frankly I'm not interested.

"Their" consent? I assume you mean the player's consent. In Fate, one can definitely have long-lasting, detrimental effects happen to one's character - Severe Consequences take quite a while to get rid of, and there's an optional rule to have them permanently alter the character that suffers them.

Death is not typically one of those effects, unless the table agrees on it ahead of time.