This is the bit I find odd - in the typical old school dungeon delve retreat is almost always an option, and there'll rarely be more than one 1 in 6 wandering monster check during the retreat; you can go a long way in 20-30 minutes if you're not mapping. Parties normally keep some resources in reserve just in case, too. In old school dungeons you sometimes get teleport traps, one way doors and such that make easy retreat impossible, but these are very much noted as the exception.
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Playing 2e, 3e, and 4e at the same time: Observations
- Thread starter ferratus
- Start date
This is the bit I find odd - in the typical old school dungeon delve retreat is almost always an option, and there'll rarely be more than one 1 in 6 wandering monster check during the retreat; you can go a long way in 20-30 minutes if you're not mapping. Parties normally keep some resources in reserve just in case, too. In old school dungeons you sometimes get teleport traps, one way doors and such that make easy retreat impossible, but these are very much noted as the exception.
I'm really new here, so hopefully I'm doing this right.
This thread seems a bit volatile, especially since it seems to be focused on a debate between two different play styles.
Just out of curiosity, could each side (or anyone involved here) sum up the actual reasoning or potential outcomes of their style?
Essentailly... why do you do it that way?
As a long time DM, I have two thoughts which drive me to the middle:
1. I have killed characters, characters have died from sheer bad luck in my games, and characters have died from "charging in headlong" and poor resource planning.
This is just the story, no one has ever gotten that upset.
2. I am loathe to let really great characters die THAT easily. I have been known to cheat a roll or two... perhaps fudge a call... because yes, there is investment there.
I think players do enjoy the unpredictable nature of a game... otheriwse we would not use dice to determine random outcomes... so honestly, I cannot make a call on this one...
some nights I'm a hardass
some nights I'm a softie
If you buy the pizza... well maybe that one external bit of resource managment has some weight with me as well
This thread seems a bit volatile, especially since it seems to be focused on a debate between two different play styles.
Just out of curiosity, could each side (or anyone involved here) sum up the actual reasoning or potential outcomes of their style?
Essentailly... why do you do it that way?
As a long time DM, I have two thoughts which drive me to the middle:
1. I have killed characters, characters have died from sheer bad luck in my games, and characters have died from "charging in headlong" and poor resource planning.
This is just the story, no one has ever gotten that upset.
2. I am loathe to let really great characters die THAT easily. I have been known to cheat a roll or two... perhaps fudge a call... because yes, there is investment there.
I think players do enjoy the unpredictable nature of a game... otheriwse we would not use dice to determine random outcomes... so honestly, I cannot make a call on this one...
some nights I'm a hardass
some nights I'm a softie
If you buy the pizza... well maybe that one external bit of resource managment has some weight with me as well
JRRNeiklot
First Post
I took my level 13/14 fighter mage into ToH. And it took me over 4 years to get him that high. He currently resides in Acererak's teeth. I loved every second of it. Some day I'm going to mount a rescue mission.
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I was talking about The Tomb of Horrors with a couple of friends... one of them piped up while reading it "This is stupid... I just walk through a mirror and disintegrate, that is the dumbest thing I have ever read".
My other friend said... "Well I used my rope to test it first, and realized it was a trap pretty easily".
I said "I used our torchboy to test it"
silence... then laughter
I think I read somewhere that Gary wrote Tomb of Horrors to challenge people on a different level... the invisible side of D&D.
You can make a lot of fun challenges (of common sense) that require no dice rolls.
My other friend said... "Well I used my rope to test it first, and realized it was a trap pretty easily".
I said "I used our torchboy to test it"
silence... then laughter
I think I read somewhere that Gary wrote Tomb of Horrors to challenge people on a different level... the invisible side of D&D.
You can make a lot of fun challenges (of common sense) that require no dice rolls.
Raven Crowking
First Post
Sorry, but it is a rational position to say that A can exist, but B can mitigate. That is not at all the same thing as saying a thing is both A and not-A.
I agree that you can get a character death with one failed saving throw. I do not agree that getting to that point -- in any game I would consider a reasonable game -- occurs without context or choices that place the character in the position requiring that saving throw.
"You wake in the inn up next to a bodak" is not a game I am interested in!
Actually, I recently ran this, and I can guarantee you that there are people who can and do get through the ToH without any character loss whatsoever. I've run it in the past without character loss as well. As a player, I did less well, but that was my fault.
Character loss is the norm, perhaps, and it is certainly easy enough to get a TPK if you are foolish. Luck doesn't come into it much until the final encounter, because ToH is filled with ways to die which offer no save at all. Your "saving throw" is your ability to make decisions and think quickly. And people do run characters who survive.
You are right though.....this is going in circles. I've been playing these games for 30 years, but apparently I am deluded in my extremely consistent observation that letting the hammer fall means players start planning ahead so that the hammer need be let fall far less often.
Your game is what it is. Others' games are different.
[MENTION=6679036]Dunnagin[/MENTION]: Welcome to EN World. I summed up why I play as I do here: http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html
RC
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Herobizkit
Adventurer
Just a note re: ToH.
I don't know the source of the quote, but in short, ToH was designed to challenge the PLAYERS, not the abilities of their PC's. To win, you actually had to consider how the Dungeon Master (then Gary Gygax) thought and plot your strategy accordingly. Each trick/trap was essentially a logic puzzle, something that couldn't be 'defeated' by a die roll alone.
Here's one author's view of the Original ToH, with SPOILERS and commentary:
http://community.wizards.com/monstro/blog/2010/08/11/tomb_of_horrors,_then_and_now,_part_2
I don't know the source of the quote, but in short, ToH was designed to challenge the PLAYERS, not the abilities of their PC's. To win, you actually had to consider how the Dungeon Master (then Gary Gygax) thought and plot your strategy accordingly. Each trick/trap was essentially a logic puzzle, something that couldn't be 'defeated' by a die roll alone.
Here's one author's view of the Original ToH, with SPOILERS and commentary:
http://community.wizards.com/monstro/blog/2010/08/11/tomb_of_horrors,_then_and_now,_part_2
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the Jester
Legend
For the record, in my campaign I took my players through the entire Return to the Tomb of Horrors boxed set (the 2e box, though I converted it to 3.5). At least one of those pcs had been in play for over a decade.
They survived, and I didn't pull any punches at all. I was amazed and surprised- and gratified.
Part of the reason I'll throw any level of deadliness at my players is because they have demonstrated, time and again, that they are creative, effective players who love a good challenge.
Again, I'm not saying that there is anything with your playstyle, but you seem to keep arguing that nobody can have fun if the hammer falls, and there are several of us in this thread alone with experience going back to the 80s that strongly contradicts you.
There is nothing wrong with a narrative game that's all about telling this pc's story (or these pcs' stories), but there is also nothing wrong with a game that is all about empowering the pcs to make choices with real consequences and telling the stories that result. They are different but have co-existed since 1e or before.
Listen guys, I'm making these three claims.
1) Save or die means that the possibility is there that a character or even a party can be destroyed by a few bad rolls, regardless of how skilled you are. Sure you might be able to ensure that you have to take a save or die roll less often by sacrificing henchmen, tapping everything with a 10 foot pole, and treating every flagstone and crack in the wall as a lethal threat... but no matter what you do the possibility exists that a character will die from bad luck.
2) Given that 1 is true, then the more often you use save or die poisons and spells, the more likely you are going to fall victim to random fate. Therefore, if someone generally wants the PC's to survive longer to the end of a story arc, he will use fewer save or die spells or none at all.
3) If you get into a situation where the characters are too damaged to continue, and you have a story type game where there is an ongoing story involving those characters, then you need to have a mechanic to overcome bad luck. 4e has healing surges, shaking off disability, and recharging spells/powers. AD&D has a similar mechanic, only they recharge once a day. The mechanic for overcoming bad luck is called "spells" such as raise dead, remove curse, remove blindness, restoration, regenerate etc. etc. The only difference is that they recharge every day instead of every encounter.
Why did they come up with these powers? Why did they come with magical items that store these powers? Why to keep on player their character of course, when a bad encounter hits you. Obviously the namby pamby storyteller DM's who want to undo bad rolls and keep on playing have been with the game a long time.
Now you guys might like to play to a game where an overarching story arc isn't important. Fine, I'll agree that is a valid style of play.
You might like to put years of work into a campaign and just simply toss it away from a bad couple of rolls with dice. Fine. I'll admit that some like killer dungeon crawls and loss of characters from random chance.
You've memorized every bit of minutae from the rules for every counter to common save or die effects, and have learned several tricks to avoid taking save or die rolls except on rare occassions. Fine. I'll accept that you find that kind of 10-foot pole style of dungeon exploration part and parcel of how you play D&D.
But my 3 points that I have made are true as well.
1) Save or die means that the possibility is there that a character or even a party can be destroyed by a few bad rolls, regardless of how skilled you are. Sure you might be able to ensure that you have to take a save or die roll less often by sacrificing henchmen, tapping everything with a 10 foot pole, and treating every flagstone and crack in the wall as a lethal threat... but no matter what you do the possibility exists that a character will die from bad luck.
2) Given that 1 is true, then the more often you use save or die poisons and spells, the more likely you are going to fall victim to random fate. Therefore, if someone generally wants the PC's to survive longer to the end of a story arc, he will use fewer save or die spells or none at all.
3) If you get into a situation where the characters are too damaged to continue, and you have a story type game where there is an ongoing story involving those characters, then you need to have a mechanic to overcome bad luck. 4e has healing surges, shaking off disability, and recharging spells/powers. AD&D has a similar mechanic, only they recharge once a day. The mechanic for overcoming bad luck is called "spells" such as raise dead, remove curse, remove blindness, restoration, regenerate etc. etc. The only difference is that they recharge every day instead of every encounter.
Why did they come up with these powers? Why did they come with magical items that store these powers? Why to keep on player their character of course, when a bad encounter hits you. Obviously the namby pamby storyteller DM's who want to undo bad rolls and keep on playing have been with the game a long time.
Now you guys might like to play to a game where an overarching story arc isn't important. Fine, I'll agree that is a valid style of play.
You might like to put years of work into a campaign and just simply toss it away from a bad couple of rolls with dice. Fine. I'll admit that some like killer dungeon crawls and loss of characters from random chance.
You've memorized every bit of minutae from the rules for every counter to common save or die effects, and have learned several tricks to avoid taking save or die rolls except on rare occassions. Fine. I'll accept that you find that kind of 10-foot pole style of dungeon exploration part and parcel of how you play D&D.
But my 3 points that I have made are true as well.
Raven Crowking
First Post
I agree with your points (1) and (2); I disagree about your point (3).
If you reworded your point (3) to say, instead,
I could agree to that. I don't think that it need be a story-telling game. Why you don't want the PCs to die is of no importance to the conclusion; that you don't want the PCs to die is of paramount importance.
Of course, I would argue that it is better to never allow a potential consequence for failure that you are unwilling to play through in the event of failure in the first place. IOW, if you are unwilling to allow the PCs to die, don't set up a situation in which they can die.
I'm not big on the so-called "illusion of choice". I am less big on the "illusion of consequences". If you don't want the PCs to die, I would prefer the GM be up-front about that, and that there is a table consensus on what to do when the dice call for death.
That is a separate thought, and one I very much disagree with.
EDIT: BTW, your post above (and others) show evidence of the fallacy of the excluded middle. You seem to feel that either (A) you need a mechanic to save PCs or (B) you are running a killer dungeon. I hope that is merely hyperbole, and that you realize that there is a very wide range of options between the two!
RC
If you reworded your point (3) to say, instead,
3) If you have predetermined that the PCs may not die then you need to have a mechanic or role-playing device to overcome bad luck and/or the effects of poor choices.
I could agree to that. I don't think that it need be a story-telling game. Why you don't want the PCs to die is of no importance to the conclusion; that you don't want the PCs to die is of paramount importance.
Of course, I would argue that it is better to never allow a potential consequence for failure that you are unwilling to play through in the event of failure in the first place. IOW, if you are unwilling to allow the PCs to die, don't set up a situation in which they can die.
I'm not big on the so-called "illusion of choice". I am less big on the "illusion of consequences". If you don't want the PCs to die, I would prefer the GM be up-front about that, and that there is a table consensus on what to do when the dice call for death.
That is a separate thought, and one I very much disagree with.
EDIT: BTW, your post above (and others) show evidence of the fallacy of the excluded middle. You seem to feel that either (A) you need a mechanic to save PCs or (B) you are running a killer dungeon. I hope that is merely hyperbole, and that you realize that there is a very wide range of options between the two!
RC
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Gentlegamer
Adventurer
You're only considering "after the fact" resources and ignoring "before the fact" resources.
