Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Lanefan]

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.

Losing a lot of wealth was often at stake in early D&D, in that if you failed a save vs area damage (fireball, lightning, etc.) all your items also had to save.

3e cut way back on this and 4e-5e dropped it completely.

As for the other things - being banished from my hometown would likely be in response to something I willingly did in-character, which means I'd likely already be in a position to not care. Having my beloved killed gives me a two-headed story arc to follow: getting that person revived and exacting revenge on the killer(s). Losing fame? Well, of all the dozens of characters I've ever played I can only think of one who gave a flip about her own personal fame, though for that one character fame - and resulting political success - is a core part of her personality and long-term (non-adventuring) goals.

 

[Lanefan]

This all just tells us how little you have grasped, or at least as narrow as your vision of RPGs is. Nor is your 'comparison' meaningful, because it utterly misses the entire point! Are you really suggesting that all adventure-type literature is worthless because the major characters won't die?

It's not all worthless. That said, one thing that makes the GRRR Martin books truly excellent is that major characters can and do die, sometimes before their own story arcs are really finished.

 

[Lanefan]

Upthread I posted this link to a session in which the PCs failed - those who were pursuing a kidnapper failed to catch him; the one who was leading the defence of a castle against a siege failed in his leadership, and the castle fell to its besiegers; and then when all the PCs were trying to withdraw to their friendly castle, their enemies caught up to them just outside its walls.

I think one thing that might help here is to distinguish between setbacks and failures.

A setback slows or temporarily derails the character's pursuit of its goal(s), but the character can dust itself off and keep going. In the smaller scale this manifests as fail-forward; in the larger, it shows as your examples above.

A failure or loss (for lack of a better term) stops the character's pursuit of its goal(s) entirely or almost entirely, in the larger scale usually by rendering the character somehow incapable of continuing. In the smaller scale this manifests as a hard fail (resolution shows you're flat-out not climbing this wall); in the larger, by mechanical loss conditions e.g. death, loss of mind, being turned into an ant, etc.

 

[Cadence]

It's not all worthless. That said, one thing that makes the GRRR Martin books truly excellent is that major characters can and do die, sometimes before their own story arcs are really finished.

Tangent:

Are they major characters though if they died early, or did you only think they were? What makes the ones that died in GRRR's books (especially early on) major?

And now I'm trying not to look up False Protagonists instead of doing work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think one thing that might help here is to distinguish between setbacks and failures.

A setback slows or temporarily derails the character's pursuit of its goal(s), but the character can dust itself off and keep going. In the smaller scale this manifests as fail-forward; in the larger, it shows as your examples above.

A failure or loss (for lack of a better term) stops the character's pursuit of its goal(s) entirely or almost entirely, in the larger scale usually by rendering the character somehow incapable of continuing. In the smaller scale this manifests as a hard fail (resolution shows you're flat-out not climbing this wall); in the larger, by mechanical loss conditions e.g. death, loss of mind, being turned into an ant, etc.

Yup. Seems like a lot of folks are only interested in setbacks lately.

 

[Lanefan]

Take crime-noir detective shows from back when. How many times can the hero be knocked out, seemingly with a concussion, without the villain ever going too far and killing them and without any long-term bad effects? Are there some readers/viewers/listeners who run across that a few times and then just can't because it seems silly? Are there others where it's just a genre trope and they go with it?

For me it's both - I go along with the trope while at the same time being mildly annoyed by it.

Are hit points in some ttRPGs and meta-currency in other ttRPGs examples of things that some people are fine with ignoring and others aren't?

Meta-currency is something I'll avoid at all costs. Hit points are one of those necessary evils @Micah Sweet refers to.

 

[Cadence]

Meta-currency is something I'll avoid at all costs. Hit points are one of those necessary evils @Micah Sweet refers to.

I'm usually in that camp too as a player.

I wonder if some people on here view hit points as having properties not too far from meta currency

• It doesn't really map to something exactly in the game world, unlike, say encumberence in pounds or movement speed .
• You can spend it for doing things. "I've got 180hp, so I cannonball off of the 40 foot cliff to the road below to catch up to them."

I can even imagine some on here saying HP annoy them more than meta-currencies because it tries to act like it has some interpretability but doesn't narrate into the game naturally in many cases. (Or really at all by RAW?).

 

[Lanefan]

Tangent:

Are they major characters though if they died early, or did you only think they were? What makes the ones that died in GRRR's books (especially early on) major?

Their potential.

Khal Drogo had boatloads of story potential but was killed off early, seemingly just to get him out of the way. Ditto Robb Stark aand various other people killed at the Red Wedding. Etc.

 

[Umbran]

A failure or loss (for lack of a better term) stops the character's pursuit of its goal(s) entirely or almost entirely

Sure. But that doesn't have much to do with death. In fact, death means you don't have to interact with the consequences of failure!

Like, you didn't beat the BBEG before they hit the Big Red Button. Boom. You have lost. The BBEG got what they wanted.

Now what?

If you are dead, now... nothing. Game and story ended for you the moment you died. The fact that you lost is immaterial to a dead character, honestly.

If you aren't dead, now... maybe something else.

Which means death is apt to be the least interesting form of failure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. But that doesn't have much to do with death. In fact, death means you don't have to interact with the consequences of failure!

Like, you didn't beat the BBEG before they hit the Big Red Button. Boom. You have lost. The BBEG got what they wanted.

Now what?

If you are dead, now... nothing. Game and story ended for you the moment you died. The fact that you lost is immaterial to a dead character, honestly.

If you aren't dead, now... maybe something else.

Which means death is apt to be the least interesting form of failure.

If you are dead, and the story isn't over, you make a new character and the story continues. I don't understand why some people have so much trouble just making a new character.