Roles in Roleplaying Games

[JamesonCourage]

Just a very minor pet peeve spurs me to ask you: Do you have signatures turned off? Because every one of your posts has the above quoted line both in the body of your post and your sig. So those of us who do see sigs always see it twice. Just letting you know in case that wasn't your intent.

No, it is my intent. The signature is just a fallback for when I forget to proactively mention it to people. Sorry it bugs you... I'll refrain from posting it to you if you'd like (and if I remember).

 

[Hassassin]

This type of drama never happened in the 3.x games because it was a foregone conclusion that no enemy was ever going to survive the combat. The mechanics did support it, but in such a poor fashion that the option was not useful.

My experience is exactly the opposite.

Trying to "take them alive" in 3e is a real decision with costs and benefits. If you go on hitting them lethally, there's always a chance you push them to -10 before anyone can keep them alive. If you want to hit nonlethal you usually take a penalty to hit, but you can attempt to subdue them by e.g. grappling and pinning. Many spells are useless, unless you come prepared.

In my experience this makes the decision to take enemies alive actually heroic, since it involves risk. The PCs also get to feel superior if they defeat the enemy while not even going all out.

 

[D'karr]

My experience is exactly the opposite.

Trying to "take them alive" in 3e is a real decision with costs and benefits. If you go on hitting them lethally, there's always a chance you push them to -10 before anyone can keep them alive. If you want to hit nonlethal you usually take a penalty to hit, but you can attempt to subdue them by e.g. grappling and pinning. Many spells are useless, unless you come prepared.

I agree about the "perceived" costs and benefits, unfortunately they were not "dramatic" costs and benefits. It always became a metagame solution (can't take them below -10). Everytime I saw this tactic attempted in the game it involved no drama, only metagaming. Using the "subdual" damage rules ended up being a washout. The amount of times that the players missed their target trying to attack, almost always made the attempt futile. They would get frustrated, and simply revert back to doing regular damage. And if the solution was to go to the more complicated grappling and pinning rules then the entire point of the "drama" was lost in the minutiae of the rules. It also didn't work with things like dragons, which had such an outrageous grappling bonus that the players might as well have been trying to swim up a tornado.

The reason the 4e mechanics work better in the "dramatic space", in a narrativist way, is that they make it simple, without any need for metagaming. The players get to keep their concentration in the "drama" of the moment (capturing prisoners) rather than on how many more times they're going to miss, or if their grappling bonus is high enough (the metagame). There's no metagaming involved in the "drama" at that point.

The rules don't mechanically get in the way of the "drama", and they also don't make capturing prisoners a suboptimal choice within the mechanics. Because it is not automatically a suboptimal choice, it gets used quite frequently. The drama occurs because they are able to capture their opponents rather than kill them. It does not require a frustrating spiral of misses, or complicated grappling rules to do so. It can also be done with all manner of creatures, instead of only with those with a crappy grappling bonus.

With the 4e games I've run or played, and I've done a lot of that in the past 3 years, capturing prisoners happens all the time. And by ALL the time I mean once per adventure, or even more. I ran, and played 3.X games for a home group, and at conventions for almost 10 years. In that time I saw the "effective" capture of prisoners happen exactly twice.

So that dramatic opportunity was "supported" by the rules. It's just that it was done in a way that made the option not be used often, if at all.

 

[Hassassin]

I agree about the "perceived" costs and benefits, unfortunately they were not "dramatic" costs and benefits. It always became a metagame solution (can't take them below -10). Everytime I saw this tactic attempted in the game it involved no drama, only metagaming.

It's not "metagaming" to weigh the costs and benefits of lethal/nonlethal, any more than it is for any other combat actions.

Maybe you've played with open enemy hit points? Then I guess someone might see an enemy at 1 hp and decide he can't afford to swing the greataxe... That might be a bit metagamey.

Using the "subdual" damage rules ended up being a washout. The amount of times that the players missed their target trying to attack, almost always made the attempt futile. They would get frustrated, and simply revert back to doing regular damage. And if the solution was to go to the more complicated grappling and pinning rules then the entire point of the "drama" was lost in the minutiae of the rules. It also didn't work with things like dragons, which had such an outrageous grappling bonus that the players might as well have been trying to swim up a tornado.

Usually, melee types hit around half the time against opponents. After the -4 they hit about one third of the time. It hasn't been a problem in our games.

I have to agree about grappling, but usually only those who play monks attempt it and they've memorized the rules in any case.

The rules don't mechanically get in the way of the "drama", and they also don't make capturing prisoners a suboptimal choice within the mechanics. Because it is not automatically a suboptimal choice, it gets used quite frequently. The drama occurs because they are able to capture their opponents rather than kill them.

Maybe I'm just more simulationist, but IMO trying to subdue someone non-lethally *needs* to be more difficult. If it's not suboptimal there's no weight to the choice.

Without a cost, doesn't it reduce to just an alignment check? "Ok, I'm LG and that's a human, so we'll have to haul him to the authorities."

With the 4e games I've run or played, and I've done a lot of that in the past 3 years, capturing prisoners happens all the time. And by ALL the time I mean once per adventure, or even more. I ran, and played 3.X games for a home group, and at conventions for almost 10 years. In that time I saw the "effective" capture of prisoners happen exactly twice.

So that dramatic opportunity was "supported" by the rules. It's just that it was done in a way that made the option not be used often, if at all.

Capturing prisoners is very common in our 3.5 campaigns whenever there is combat against humanoid opponents. Depending on party alignments it may only happen when someone lands between -1 and -9 or intentionally through nonlethal damage and/or demanding surrender. I've never felt that the mechanics of it were in any way lacking.

 

[tomBitonti]

I can give a quick example of one mechanical feature that "easily" promotes "drama" in a narrativist fashion within the game, when compared to similar rules in previous edition(s), which were more mechanically driven.

Taking prisoners.

In 4e, the player decides at the time of the hit whether to leave an eneny alive, or whether to kill him. It is a simple yes/no toggle at the time the enemy reaches 0 Hit Points.

In the previous edition taking prisoners was usually a mechanical slog of missing the target because doing "subdual" damage incurred a penalty to the attack.

With those circumstances, the option to do subdual damage was very often completely overlooked, eliminated, or house-ruled.

In 4e, the fact that the decision is simple and the mechanical implementation is also simple makes the option of taking prisoners a useful one.

In addition, the consequences of this action (taking prisoners) are usually felt in the drama of the game. I've had players get into heated in character arguments as to why another player let a hated enemy live. Or the other way around of why a "valuable" potential prisoner was killed in the combat when he could have been captured.

This type of drama never happened in the 3.x games because it was a foregone conclusion that no enemy was ever going to survive the combat. The mechanics did support it, but in such a poor fashion that the option was not useful.

There is a different way to obtain drama. This is an example from one of the games that I play in:

The players are infiltrating an enemy base. We approach a simple worker, with my character using intimidate to convince him to surrender. I go for a fearful result, and roll high, leading to the worker surrendering, but being scared out of his wits.

We interrogate the prisoner, and are distracted by discussions of what to do next. None of us say that we are watching the prisoner, who promptly bolts.

The Druid of the party, who has an large cat animal companion, has her cat chase down and pounce on the fleeing man (who hasn't yet gone very far). She isn't thinking about how rake damage is lethal: The poor worker is torn apart and killed.

One of the great moments from our game. We very much didn't want to kill the worker.

TomB

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Maybe I'm just more simulationist, but IMO trying to subdue someone non-lethally *needs* to be more difficult.

Depends on what you're trying to simulate.

The real world? Then my question is, why? What makes striking someone without the intent to kill inherently more difficult?

Fantasy fiction? The fantasy heroes I read and watch don't seem to have any more difficulty knocking a foe out than running them down with a sword.

 

[D'karr]

Depends on what you're trying to simulate.

The real world? Then my question is, why? What makes striking someone without the intent to kill inherently more difficult?

Fantasy fiction? The fantasy heroes I read and watch don't seem to have any more difficulty knocking a foe out than running them down with a sword.

This.

 

[LurkAway]

The real world? Then my question is, why? What makes striking someone without the intent to kill inherently more difficult?

Assuming you're trying to knock them out with a kick or sword hilt punch, I think it's risky. Bring fists into a knife fight, you will likely get cut.. badly. Bring fists into a sword fight is probably worst. You can try to use your sword to cripple instead of kill, but it still carries the risk that they will stab you lethally as a reward. I heard that police shoot to kill if the man wounded in the leg or arm can still lurch forward to harm you.

Fantasy fiction? The fantasy heroes I read and watch don't seem to have any more difficulty knocking a foe out than running them down with a sword.

I guess because watching the protagonist getting stabbed multiple times with a sword is too unbelievable, so the kicks and sword hilt punches magically connect more often than the blade. Not sure how this translates into RPGs, I'm not aware of D&D caring to address it one way or another.

 

[D'karr]

There is a different way to obtain drama. This is an example from one of the games that I play in:

The players are infiltrating an enemy base. We approach a simple worker, with my character using intimidate to convince him to surrender. I go for a fearful result, and roll high, leading to the worker surrendering, but being scared out of his wits.

We interrogate the prisoner, and are distracted by discussions of what to do next. None of us say that we are watching the prisoner, who promptly bolts.

The Druid of the party, who has an large cat animal companion, has her cat chase down and pounce on the fleeing man (who hasn't yet gone very far). She isn't thinking about how rake damage is lethal: The poor worker is torn apart and killed.

One of the great moments from our game. We very much didn't want to kill the worker.

TomB

Sure, and the rules don't get in the way of doing it like that.

 

[Guest 85555]

Assuming you're trying to knock them out with a kick or sword hilt punch, I think it's risky. Bring fists into a knife fight, you will likely get cut.. badly. Bring fists into a sword fight is probably worst. You can try to use your sword to cripple instead of kill, but it still carries the risk that they will stab you lethally as a reward. I heard that police shoot to kill if the man wounded in the leg or arm can still lurch forward to harm you.

I think attacks of opportunity are a good way to handle this. Personally I liked thd non lethal damage system 3e used. Don't think d&d has ever handled unarmed combat very well. Things like grapple and the old fist fighting chart from 2e stand out in my mind as clunky solutions.