Players, DMs and Save or Die

[Celebrim]

Imagine how much more fun you could have had if you hadn't lost those 10 PCs. It just takes a little willingness to embrace change. Not much at all. Yes, I know change can be scary, but it can bring huge rewards.

Of all the insulting, denigrating, personal attacks that I've ever seen on the Enworld boards, that's absolutely the worst. What makes something insulting is the disrespect it has for another poster, not the fact that it uses 'insult nouns' or 'emotional trigger words' or that it is said in a fit of anger. And when it comes to disrespecting another poster, that's about as bad as it gets.

ptolemy18 is not an emotionally and psychologically crippled, closeminded, fearful coward just because he likes to play a game with a high risk of character loss, nor does it follow that he does not know what he is missing by playing a game where his character doesn't die. He is expressing his choice of what makes an enjoyable game. I don't see anything in his posts were he makes any sort of judgment about your motivations and mental state to justify this sort of ad hominem attack. He just said he didn't like your style of play. You are responding that if he doesn't there must be something wrong about his mental state. I don't know where you get off or why that sort of thing is tolerated.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

It is a negative thing.

We differ. If there were an infinite number of good console RPGs, I'd get my old console RPG group together and play them rather than D&D, no question. That's pretty much what we did during the PS1 era, when there was, if not an infinite number, at least a more than adequate number; it was the best gameplay, and spun off the best roleplaying, I've experienced, by a wide margin.

Without the risk of character death, D&D is no fun. Period.

At least to me. Maybe not to you or MoogieEmpMog. Different styles.

Then it's not "period."

You obviously enjoy a tactical game, though, so I assume that risk of character death is part of the "tactical risk" in that game. Otherwise it's just a marilith-killing romp through the park with your friends every weekend. If "Save or Die" breaks your definition of "acceptable risk" then that's one thing. It doesn't break mine, though.

You assume wrong.

Shining Force is a tactical game, yet there's no permanent death due to gameplay. Ditto Vandal Hearts. Final Fantasy Tactics is, as the name implies, a tactical game; while there is a very slim chance of permanent death due to gameplay, you'd have to almost deliberately work to achieve it because it's so improbable.

While I'm opposed to gameplay death in general, Save or Die is particularly abhorrent to me because in most cases it can ONLY be addressed strategically, not tactically: either you have Death Ward or, if someone else survives, they use Raise Dead. In both cases, the solution has to be found OUTSIDE the context of the encounter that poses the problem, pushing it outside the tactical scale.

The tactical risk is the risk of LOSING. What happens AFTER you lose has nothing to do with tactical risk.

 

[Cadfan]

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.

That's a good summary of one reason I hate save-or-die. Its not a "slim" chance. Its not a "slim" chance by the wildest margin. Its an extremely high chance, if your campaign has you encounter certain incredibly rare creatures as "wizards" or "clerics" on an even semi-regular basis.

If run intelligently, a 3e enemy spellcaster after a certain level has about a 50% chance of killing your character each round.

The only way to avoid this is to run the spellcaster unintelligently. For no explicable reason, have the spellcaster not memorize the spells that give it the best chance of winning. And when the spellcaster DOES memorize those spells, have it cast them on the characters most likely to make their saves.

But a spellcaster who 1) memorizes save-or-die spells when they're available to him, and 2) casts them on the PCs likely to have the lowest saves versus them, is NOT a slim chance of a dead character.

Its about a 50/50 shot.

I don't want the game to be set up so that running bad guys in the most obvious, straightforward manner makes you a "killer DM." "Memorize the best spells and cast them against the most vulnerable targets" should be standard issue, not bad DM practice.

 

[Cadfan]

While I'm opposed to gameplay death in general, Save or Die is particularly abhorrent to me because in most cases it can ONLY be addressed strategically, not tactically: either you have Death Ward or, if someone else survives, they use Raise Dead. In both cases, the solution has to be found OUTSIDE the context of the encounter that poses the problem, pushing it outside the tactical scale.

Its worse than that. You can't use Raise Dead to save someone who died to a death effect.

Seriously. Its stupid, and no one pays attention to it, but its in the spell.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Of all the insulting, denigrating, personal attacks that I've ever seen on the Enworld boards, that's absolutely the worst. What makes something insulting is the disrespect it has for another poster, not the fact that it uses 'insult nouns' or 'emotional trigger words' or that it is said in a fit of anger. And when it comes to disrespecting another poster, that's about as bad as it gets.

ptolemy18 is not an emotionally and psychologically crippled, closeminded, fearful coward just because he likes to play a game with a high risk of character loss, nor does it follow that he does not know what he is missing by playing a game where his character doesn't die. He is expressing his choice of what makes an enjoyable game. I don't see anything in his posts were he makes any sort of judgment about your motivations and mental state to justify this sort of ad hominem attack. He just said he didn't like your style of play. You are responding that if he doesn't there must be something wrong about his mental state. I don't know where you get off or why that sort of thing is tolerated.

…Relax, Francis.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I play and DM and I am in favor of save-or-dies and their cousins the save-or-sucks, on the condition that they are all made to be less usefull against PCs and BBEGs. Save-or-suck spells should be mostly flavor spells and effects that are only really useful against mooks and summoned monsters.

 

[RFisher]

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.

Sure, I would like to be the hero every time. There's a problem with that, however. I make mistakes. Sometimes I make big, there-goes-my-chance-at-hero-hood mistakes. Sometimes I make fatal mistakes.

I only see two ways to ensure I'm always the hero:

• prevent me from making decisions that can lead me away from hero-hood
• remove the consequences of mistakes I make

Neither makes sense to me.

That's a good summary of one reason I hate save-or-die. Its not a "slim" chance. Its not a "slim" chance by the wildest margin. Its an extremely high chance, if your campaign has you encounter certain incredibly rare creatures as "wizards" or "clerics" on an even semi-regular basis.

If run intelligently, a 3e enemy spellcaster after a certain level has about a 50% chance of killing your character each round.

The only way to avoid this is to run the spellcaster unintelligently.

That's not the only way. The other way out is for the players/PCs to be creative.

When the players/PCs know something is a slim chance, that's the game's way of telling them that they either need to avoid getting in that situation or find a way to change the odds in their favor.

At least that's the way I've come to see it.

 

[hong]

Sure, I would like to be the hero every time. There's a problem with that, however. I make mistakes. Sometimes I make big, there-goes-my-chance-at-hero-hood mistakes. Sometimes I make fatal mistakes.

I only see two ways to ensure I'm always the hero:

• prevent me from making decisions that can lead me away from hero-hood
• remove the consequences of mistakes I make

Neither makes sense to me.

Save-and-reload, aka resurrection, is the traditional way of handling this impasse. IMO save-and-reload is more hokey than plot protection, and brings more problems in terms of versimi verislimi verilism suspension of disbelief. Better to replace "dead" with "defeated" as a state, and let PCs accumulate sucks-to-be-me points for being repeatedly defeated.

That's not the only way. The other way out is for the players/PCs to be creative.

To be precise, the way out is for the players/PCs to be more creative than the DM. Which is often hard to distinguish from "play the bad guy dumb".

 

[hong]

Of all the insulting, denigrating, personal attacks that I've ever seen on the Enworld boards, that's absolutely the worst. What makes something insulting is the disrespect it has for another poster, not the fact that it uses 'insult nouns' or 'emotional trigger words' or that it is said in a fit of anger. And when it comes to disrespecting another poster, that's about as bad as it gets.

ptolemy18 is not an emotionally and psychologically crippled, closeminded, fearful coward just because he likes to play a game with a high risk of character loss, nor does it follow that he does not know what he is missing by playing a game where his character doesn't die. He is expressing his choice of what makes an enjoyable game. I don't see anything in his posts were he makes any sort of judgment about your motivations and mental state to justify this sort of ad hominem attack. He just said he didn't like your style of play. You are responding that if he doesn't there must be something wrong about his mental state. I don't know where you get off or why that sort of thing is tolerated.

Mang, this post is so anime.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Sure, I would like to be the hero every time. There's a problem with that, however. I make mistakes. Sometimes I make big, there-goes-my-chance-at-hero-hood mistakes. Sometimes I make fatal mistakes.

I only see two ways to ensure I'm always the hero:

• prevent me from making decisions that can lead me away from hero-hood
• remove the consequences of mistakes I make

Neither makes sense to me.

Explain a mistake that's so big, you can no longer be a protagonist after making it.

To qualify, it of course has to be a bigger mistake than every mistake ever made by a protagonist in a fantasy book, film or electronic game - I'll limit it to fantasy to narrow the field a bit - who remains a protagonist till the end of the story.

Fritz Lieber's Swords stories - Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser often underestimated the opposition or leaped into a situation unprepared or otherwise stuck their necks out in ways that by rights should have killed them.

Robert E. Howard's Conan yarns - Conan was a bit more cautious, but still bit off more than he could chew and only escaped by luck and quickness on more than a few occasions.

The Lord of the Rings - Frodo put on the One Ring multiple times and ultimately wore it and would have used it had not Gollum bitten it off.

Jack Vance's Dying Earth - Cugel the Clever's entire life story was one bit of petty, thuggish foolishness after another, which he survived as much by blind luck as skill.

Lunar: Silver Star Story - Alex of Burg trusted Magic Emperor Ghaleon and led him right to the sanctuary of one of the four dragons of Althena, inadvertently turning Luna/Althena over to him at the same time.

Xenogears - Bart Fatima repeatedly did moronic things that put his and other protagonists' lives at serious risk.

That's just off the top of my head. Fantasy is FULL of characters who make decisions that range from ill-advised (practically every action taken by a hero!) to downright moronic. Most of those characters survive.