Players, DMs and Save or Die

[MoogleEmpMog]

Sometimes you aren't the hero. Sometimes you're the guy who dies & doesn't get a story written about him.

This right here? This is the ESSENCE of why I don't want save-or-die (or gameplay-dictated death AT ALL) in the game.

Why would I want to be the guy who dies and doesn't get a story written about him? I wouldn't read about him, I wouldn't watch a movie about him, I wouldn't play a console game about him - but for whatever reason, I would play him in an RPG, investing more time, more thought and more effort into him than in any other medium?

Even worse, why would I want to GM a game for 'that guy?' Why set up a series of events and antagonists and plot hooks - only to discover that the dice say the character those were hung on is 'that guy,' not an actual protagonist?

It makes no sense to me.

 

[hong]

This right here? This is the ESSENCE of why I don't want save-or-die (or gameplay-dictated death AT ALL) in the game.

Why would I want to be the guy who dies and doesn't get a story written about him? I wouldn't read about him, I wouldn't watch a movie about him, I wouldn't play a console game about him - but for whatever reason, I would play him in an RPG, investing more time, more thought and more effort into him than in any other medium?

Even worse, why would I want to GM a game for 'that guy?' Why set up a series of events and antagonists and plot hooks - only to discover that the dice say the character those were hung on is 'that guy,' not an actual protagonist?

It makes no sense to me.

Well, you know, D&D is character building.

 

[Lanefan]

This right here? This is the ESSENCE of why I don't want save-or-die (or gameplay-dictated death AT ALL) in the game.

Why would I want to be the guy who dies and doesn't get a story written about him? I wouldn't read about him, I wouldn't watch a movie about him, I wouldn't play a console game about him - but for whatever reason, I would play him in an RPG, investing more time, more thought and more effort into him than in any other medium?

Even worse, why would I want to GM a game for 'that guy?' Why set up a series of events and antagonists and plot hooks - only to discover that the dice say the character those were hung on is 'that guy,' not an actual protagonist?

It makes no sense to me.

Why *would* you GM for "that guy", instead of for the party as a whole??? The *party* as a unit is the story...the *party* is the protagonist...the *party* is what the story should be hung on, regardless of what characters pass through it. The guy who shows up, takes a couple of hits, and dies has still done his bit for the party and played his part in the story...it just wasn't a very big one. And hanging your story on just one character is asking...nay, begging...for just the result you describe above: that that one key character will be the guy who pulls the short straw early.

And this is coming from someone who has played an awful lot of characters just like this...I call them one-hit wonders...that haven't survived their first combat, never mind their first adventure. RFisher is exactly right: sometimes you aren't the hero.

Lanefan

 

[hong]

Why *would* you GM for "that guy", instead of for the party as a whole??? The *party* as a unit is the story...the *party* is the protagonist...the *party* is what the story should be hung on, regardless of what characters pass through it.

The party is a construct. The party is a meaningless concept outside the context of the dungeon. The party has no needs and wants, no feelings and desires. The PEOPLE making up the party have needs and wants, feelings and desires.

The sooner this concept of the "party" as a faceless, multi-tentacled hivemind dies a flaming death, and the focus of the game is returned to the actual characters who do things, surmount obstacles and achieve goals, the better.

 

[ptolemy18]

The sooner this concept of the "party" as a faceless, multi-tentacled hivemind dies a flaming death, and the focus of the game is returned to the actual characters who do things, surmount obstacles and achieve goals, the better.

I'll agree with that statement wholeheartedly as long as you change it to "the actual characters who do things, surmount obstacles, achieve goals... or occasionally fail to achieve goals, suffer, and die tragically."

I think this is basically a question of what level of risk, danger and PC death you're willing to have in your campaign, and I say, as a player and a DM -- bring it on. Bring on that chaos and randomness and PC death. A tough-but-fair DM is the best kind. There is nothing more aggravating than playing in a RPG where the DM is a jerk and has it out for your character, but there is nothing more boring than playing in a RPG where the DM is obviously going soft on everyone and your characters never die. Dullest campaign ever.

 

[ptolemy18]

But even Call of Cthulhu, noted for its deadliness, doesn't have anything really approacing save or die (I suppose you could argue that seeing Cthulhu himself is a "save or go insane" since the SAN loss is 1d100, but I digress). The drama comes from the ever-increasing loss of resources/sanity, which causes a slow buildup of tension. The problem with save-or-die, in my view is that there is no drama/tension.

Actually, it does. There's tons of monsters in Call of Cthulhu who have something like 150% attack percentile and do 8d6 damage (in a game where PCs have on average 14 hit points), or Instant Death damage without a save. I think the rules for Cthulhu state that he "automatically kills 1d3 characters per round." :/ Not that Cthulhu is a model for D&D, of course.... and I don't think these monsters are supposed to be casually sprung on the players... but, being a horror game, Cthulhu is actually WAY deadlier than "save or die."

 

[ptolemy18]

Well, part of the problem with that is that published adventures, supplements, and the like will use them if they're available, as is the case in 3E. So if you don't like them, it's harder to get rid of them. I've suggested that save-or-die be non-standard, and that any spell with the [Death] descriptor have a standard save-or-penalty effect that can easily be replaced with save-or-die if you've flipped on that particular switch in your campaign.

I agree with everything here, except the suggestion that save-or-die is a good addition. If my character dies, it should be because I did something stupid, or we took on a challenge that was too big for us, or despite our best efforts things went south due to bad die rolls. It shouldn't be because I happened to enter a room with a bodak.

I'm not specifically in love with the existing mechanics of Save-or-Die. But I don't want D&D4E to be: (1) less deadly or (2) less random. (Or #3, less diverse in terms of character creation options and campaign styles, but that's for another thread.)

If Save-or-Die is replaced with something EQUALLY deadly and random, then I'll be happy as a clam. But it's hard for me to think of what that might be, and if the idea is to eliminate "unpredictable" deaths of characters and NPCs/BBEGs/monsters, then I am opposed to that, in whatever form it's done. I don't want the game to be nerfed, and I like having a random element which has the potential to trump the best tactics.

 

[ptolemy18]

I agree with everything here, except the suggestion that save-or-die is a good addition. If my character dies, it should be because I did something stupid, or we took on a challenge that was too big for us, or despite our best efforts things went south due to bad die rolls. It shouldn't be because I happened to enter a room with a bodak.

If your DM sets up an encounter which involves you randomly stumbling upon a bodak without warning, that's basically no different than an encounter which involves you randomly stumbling upon some monster which has an incredibly high attack bonus and does enough damage to kill your character in one blow. It's just called "having a killer DM," aka, in most cases, "having a bad DM." If your DM does stuff like that and you don't like it, then you are playing with the wrong DM. It doesn't mean the rules are wrong for allowing the existence of a creature which kills through a "save-or-die effect" rather than just crushing you under sheer weight of HP damage.

I'm not saying that dungeons should be crawling with bodaks, but the option should be there. Otherwise? The same killer DMs will create dungeons crawling with Ancient Red Dragons whose breath attack does 30d6+30 damage. I swear. It'll happen. I'd do it. (Kidding.)

 

[hong]

I think this is basically a question of what level of risk, danger and PC death you're willing to have in your campaign,

No.

 

[ptolemy18]

This right here? This is the ESSENCE of why I don't want save-or-die (or gameplay-dictated death AT ALL) in the game.

Why would I want to be the guy who dies and doesn't get a story written about him? I wouldn't read about him, I wouldn't watch a movie about him, I wouldn't play a console game about him - but for whatever reason, I would play him in an RPG, investing more time, more thought and more effort into him than in any other medium?

Even worse, why would I want to GM a game for 'that guy?' Why set up a series of events and antagonists and plot hooks - only to discover that the dice say the character those were hung on is 'that guy,' not an actual protagonist?

It makes no sense to me.

So you play games where you always know when your PCs and NPCs are going to die? :/ Sounds pretty boring to me.

And speaking personally, I do occasionally enjoy stories about the tragic fates of poor souls, cut down before their time. I love the democratically random element of D&D where there is always a SLIM chance that things will get totally screwed up even for the awesomest heroes or villains. Give me a down-by-law, hard-luck, unlikely hero any day. Give me a doomed figure like Marv (from Sin City) or Elric of Melnibone. Or an even more screwed up and unlikely hero. Like the Band of Brothers comparison I made earlier. If you want to know for sure that the hero you created will survive to the end of the game and win, then that's a console RPG, not a tabletop RPG.

Capital-H Heroes get boring sometimes. Infallible destined Heroes even more so.

But on the other hand, heck, it's all up to you and your DM! You can play that kind of game if you want to, and I will play a different kind of game, inasmuch as it's possible for both of us to do this using the same ruleset. To each their own.