Playing 2e, 3e, and 4e at the same time: Observations

[ferratus]

[MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] - Oh please, save or die doesn't challenge players any more than a coin toss challenges those who wager.

The only games that can end on a single roll of a dice aren't games of skill, they are gambling games of chance.

The only thing that save or die proves is how unfair the DM is. If he includes a lot of poisons, level draining or save or die effects in his game, he generally frustrates his players. If I do my cautious best and still lose a character every few weeks, you better believe I'm going to be one of the "whiny" players who drop out.

I don't mind if my character dies because of bad choices, or bad tactics. But a bad roll which I may or may not have been able to prevent? You better believe that pisses me off.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I also think some of you have to realize that not everyone is spoiled for choice in players. I like in a rural area myself, so I'm confident I know every D&D player within an hours drive, because I've gamed with all of them. So I don't have the luxury of only choosing the hardcore. Nor has anyone ever left because I wasn't hardcore enough about killing their characters on random rolls of the dice.

I've lived in cities; I've lived deep enough in the woods that my nearest neighbour was five miles away. I've moved to places where I knew no gamers, and had to simply create them out of the people I knew. I've lived in places where there were many gamers to choose from.

In none of these places have I wanted for gamers; in none of these places have I decided it was better to keep a poor gamer than have none at all.

Nor do I think you need to be "hardcore" in any sense of the word to accept that, sometimes, characters die. That's part of the game, IMHO and IME. A lot of my favourite moments as a player, if I am honest, are when I almost succeeded, but didn't.

My swashbuckler caught in a water trap who, instead of trying the doors, tries to swim against the flow of the inrushing water....makes it against terrible odds.....and then emerges in the Chamber of the Water Weirds (who proceed to make short work of him) is one of my favourite moments as a player.

Another great moment, with the same DM, occurred when I turned on an NPC cleric. I had asked for a healing spell, she said she was out of spells, and I took it a little too literally. The rest of the party backed the cleric. Rather than kill me, they decided to tie me up in the ghoul-infested ruin we were exploring. One of the PCs came back and slit my throat. It was glorious....not because I died, but because it was a fitting end to the character I had created. I hope he still haunts those ruins in undead form!

[MENTION=428]RaveN[/MENTION] - Please do get me that quote, because I think you are not understanding me correctly.

What I am disagreeing with is:

Despite all the skill in the world, luck has a way of screwing with everyone. Now perhaps we shouldn't be such pansies, but it took 9 months of real time to get to 6th level, and now all the accumulated backstory and work the DM has put into his campaign is going down the crapper. Unless the DM allows the thief and wizard to escort the dead fighter and duck to a place where they can receive restoration magic, then they are sunk. Either the DM looks the other way and allows the heroes to escape, they have a magic item that can undo the damage, or they simply will die because of the dangers of trying to reach a safe haven. I am fairly confident that this will happen often enough in the default rules that the DM who chooses option 3 all the time will be a DM who is replaced.

and

In other words, the idea that you can't rest in the the middle of the dungeon without consequence like you could in the Neverwinter Nights videogame. The idea that you can keep monsters from attacking you when you are weak simply but not opening up the next door.

These conventions are very common in D&D as it is played. Dungeon Masters generally do this because they want their players to have a good time, and generally having a party low on resources too early is very common. A DM who brings the hammer down on a diminished party that has no chance of surviving the next encounter because of those low resources generally doesn't remain a DM for very long.

On the contrary, IME and IMHO, a GM who brings the hammer down is the only sort of GM I am interested in.

IMHO, a good GM wants the players to win, and therefore runs a fair game. But (and this is important to me), a good GM does not fudge to make it so,

YMMV.


RC

 

[Lanefan]

Interesting thread...

[MENTION=2425]Gentlegamer[/MENTION] - there were options for crit-hits presented for 1e in Dragon and (if memory serves) for 2e in the RAW.

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - both as player and DM, I can't imagine being in a game run as tightly as yours. Different style, perhaps; I'm a bit more laid back. That said, having played loads of 1e and several years worth of 3e (mostly with subsets of the same player group so that's not really a variable) I can say with certainty that after about 3rd level - assuming much the same party fighting much the same foes - 3e combats start to take much longer than 1e combats. Why? Buffs for one; and players like me being unwilling to memorize what a bunch of feats do for another.

Both systems had crits and fumbles and both re-rolled init. each round (the 3e group have gone to rotating init's since I left, media coverage tells me it hasn't sped things up much) so there's not much variability there either. Both systems also use aiming rolls for spell effects; again, no variance.

[MENTION=55966]ferratus[/MENTION] - a better test might be to try using minis in 2e as well, see if that makes any significant difference to combat length. If nothing else, you'll have a better comparison with 3e and 4e as the mini/non-mini variable will be removed.

And no matter how tough a DM is, as long as she's fair and the players are having fun there's no problem. That said, I strongly encourage all true Viking-Hat RBDMs to run systems that feature fast character generation - it just works better that way.

Lan-"kill 'em all and let the paper shredder sort 'em out?"-efan

 

[the Jester]

[MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] - Oh please, save or die doesn't challenge players any more than a coin toss challenges those who wager.

The only games that can end on a single roll of a dice aren't games of skill, they are gambling games of chance.

The only thing that save or die proves is how unfair the DM is. If he includes a lot of poisons, level draining or save or die effects in his game, he generally frustrates his players.

Again, you're leaving out the fact that (at least with a good dm) a save or die probably doesn't come out of nowhere.

I'm not saying that save or die makes a dm good, or that all dms use save or die fairly; what I'm saying is that you are painting with an awfully broad brush and that not all games that include save or die effects necessarily exclude narrative play. Save or die isn't automatically terrible any more than it's automatically good.

If I do my cautious best and still lose a character every few weeks, you better believe I'm going to be one of the "whiny" players who drop out.

I don't mind if my character dies because of bad choices, or bad tactics. But a bad roll which I may or may not have been able to prevent? You better believe that pisses me off.

If you do your cautious best, you probably won't lose a character every few weeks. If you expend all your resources and try to plunk down to rest in the dungeon, you have just made at least one bad choice and set yourself up for some awful tactical situations.

Earlier you also suggested that a party without a healer must get some kind of healing ability from the dm or they'll give up or fire him. I just want to point out that there have been times, especially in 2e (when specialty priests meant that your cleric might not have healing), when I've run literally years of games with the party having no party healer and only an occasional healing potion, which they had to hold onto for the right moment.

I'm not saying you are doing it wrong, just that not everyone does it the way you do. There's a lot of "Any dm who..." in this thread, and frankly none of it is true. There are tons of different gaming styles, and some groups clearly like different things, or do different things well, than others.

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=428]RaveN[/MENTION] - The first quote is clearly explaining the aftermath of a party that had a bad single encounter. The first line mentions bad luck quite clearly.

The second quote mentions the type of game I don't want to have, and I'm quite clear about that too. It is just the type of game that is generally played because DM's are often shy about pulling the trigger due to bad luck.

I am also going continue to doubt that DM's who regularly kill their players from arbitrary rolls of the dice are the majority of DM's. Now, I've never met one in 20 years of gaming, but I've certainly had players tell horror stories about them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There's a lot of "Any dm who..." in this thread, and frankly none of it is true.

Unless it is subjective, of course, such as "Any DM who I catch fudging repeatedly is not going to be my DM any longer"......or must be true such as "Any DM who has blonde hair is blonde."




RC

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - I have played some of the 2e encounters with minis, I have spent hundreds of dollars on minis after all, so I might as well use them. It still holds up that 2e is faster, but the minis aren't actually useful for much except determining where everyone is standing.

2e would be a much better mini-less game though if it wasn't for area effect spells. Cones and balls in 2e are arguments waiting to happen, because that's when knowing exactly where people are standing becomes really important.

I killed area effect spells in my evolving homebrew system for that very reason.

 

[Raven Crowking]

[MENTION=428]RaveN[/MENTION] - The first quote is clearly explaining the aftermath of a party that had a bad single encounter. The first line mentions bad luck quite clearly.

Yes, well I'm still not seeing what in the quote is not the result of player choices, and what is the result of luck.

The second quote mentions the type of game I don't want to have, and I'm quite clear about that too. It is just the type of game that is generally played because DM's are often shy about pulling the trigger due to bad luck.

Sorry, but you did say "generally having a party low on resources too early is very common". I disagree. Having a party low on resources is, IMHO and IME, only common in games where the players have an expectation that they can easily replenish those resources.

(I also have to wonder, "too early" for what?)

Moreover, it seems that you are claiming that the game you "don't want to have" is the default for pre-4e systems. That is not at all my experience, and my experience includes playing with quite a few players, in quite a few locations, both as GM and player.

IMHO, playing the game well includes not relying on good luck, and not relying on resources being easily replenished. It includes being prepared for bad luck.

If you really believe that these situations are common (as you seem to), and you really believe that players know this (as you seem to), I find it hard to comprehend how not taking this into account has nothing to do with player choice.

I am also going continue to doubt that DM's who regularly kill their players from arbitrary rolls of the dice are the majority of DM's. Now, I've never met one in 20 years of gaming, but I've certainly had players tell horror stories about them.

Who said anything about arbitrary? Who said anything about regularly killing players? ( )

IME, given the chance, most players learn from missteps and become better players. For that matter, given the chance, most GMs learn from missteps and become better GMs. The GM doesn't have to fudge; the players take responsibility and stop putting their characters into death traps.

Or, as a wiser man than I said,

Again, you're leaving out the fact that (at least with a good dm) a save or die probably doesn't come out of nowhere.

RC

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim - both as player and DM, I can't imagine being in a game run as tightly as yours. Different style, perhaps; I'm a bit more laid back.

I'm probably not as tight as comes across in the text. It's hard to describe quantitative differences. Almost invariably you end up describing something that sounds like a qualitative difference. I'm not lying about my style of play - I really will start counting down Tomb of Horrors style if I can't get a decision in fairly short order - but there are times when the player is confused (after all these are new players) when I have to be sympathetic and talk the player through his confusion. Likewise, there is one player who has a terrible time dealing with the mechanics of his attack action, and I end up having to run through all of his attack bonuses to get his final result for him. Fortunately, I know the character's mechanics better than he does, so its not that big of a delay. It's not that I'm going to get really angry if a person doesn't adhere to a tight schedule, but it is true that I know from experience that if you don't crack the whip a little the players will tend to evolve to a mode of behavior that makes no one more miserable than themselves. Players are the typical reason you cram 15 minutes of fun into 4 hours. Granted, that might be a better ratio than you'd get going to Disney World (30 minutes in line for a 2 minute ride) and people pay big money for that, but I know that you can do better than that by tightening up the game a bit.

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] - Argh! I've said 10 times now that this isn't about people who know they are low on resources but continue on into the dungeon anyway. It is about pre-4e games where you get destroyed in a single encounter because of bad luck.

If the save or die defenders can't take my words at face value, then I can't argue with you. I have as much interest in defending DM's who never kill a player as I do in defending DM's who kill players on the surprise round with save or die.

I will also argue that of course save or die is bad for narrative, because save or die spells DO come up in cases where they are unavoidable, no matter your player's skill. You can point out how a good DM can use them judiciously, or that with enough careful playing you can avoid some, but you cannot hide from the truth that a save or die mechanic means that characters will die from random chance.