Save or Die, would it bother you as a player if

[Alzrius]

At any given table the rules should as far as possible be the same for all at that table. Otherwise you're sliding down the slippery slope to Calvinball.

Says you. When last week's session of my game ended, the score was still Q to 12.

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

At any given table the rules should as far as possible be the same for all at that table. Otherwise you're sliding down the slippery slope to Calvinball.

Lanefan

I could see that. On the one hand, the modules would exist anyway, so why not try to have them balanced for simultaneous use? On the other hand, it is yet more issues for the DM to adjudicate.
But the underlying question I'm posing is probably, how do things that don't directly affect your character still affect immersion? I expect different people will have different thresholds.

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

Constantly resurrecting people makes for a terrible terrible story.

I should probably edit the first post. If you look at the example, you'll see that at least some attempt at balance is made. Those who elect save or die have a larger penalty but it is less likely to occur. So I'm sort of presuming that on average folks who elect save or die will die at about the same round as those who don't.
What would your answer be if, on average, you need to resurrect people at the same rate?

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

Interesting question.

Thanks

I wasn't even sure of my own answer when I posted last night. I certainly think that average risk levels need to be comparable. But after sleeping on it, I think it doesn't really hurt my immersion to know that other people are using different resolution mechanics. Maybe I would feel differently after playing.

 

[cyphus5]

Looks to me that someone at your table needs to play smarter, or your DM needs to get his head out of his but.

Save or die situations are rare enough that there is no need to worry about them.

Using raise deads is part of the game. If you don't like using them and you die a lot then use the down time to roll another character.

I agree totally with his guy. Trying to build the game design around fear of death would ruin the very reason I play tabletop rpgs... the GM. You shouldn't fool proof the game for bad players, because most fans that also play games like WoD or GURPS know that sometimes survival is its own sense of reward.

Course, I'm a strong follower in easier death AND resurrection as a plot element. Maybe its all those Savage Worlds and Hunter the Vigil campaigns though that I'm used to playing.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[keterys]

Save or die situations are rare enough that there is no need to worry about them.

This is extraordinarily campaign dependent. Not only in what the DM chooses to use, but also what level you are.

I've played some adventures that contained things like a room of _several_ Bodaks, or necromancers who flung lots of SoDs, or a fight with multiple medusas.

It taught me to get a bit stupid about immunities, mostly. At the end of the campaign, almost no matter what the DM threw at me, I was immune. I didn't _start_ that way, but I certainly did everything I could to end that way after seeing how easy it was to have no control over whether I lived or died.

It's one thing if it is extremely rare, and you know you're going up against that one petrify monster, so prepare. It's another if it's on the random encounter table. Or if you're high enough level that every monster and caster you encounter will have several options.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Having Save or Die/Suck rules in the game because they aren't really that since there's a proliferation of Raise Dead or Stone To Flesh spells to negate it, is a good example of what we call in improv 'stalling'. You make choices that deliberately or unintentionally delay the story of a scene to deal with preparations of advancing the story of a scene.

If the DM and players are creating/following a story and a bunch of Save or Dies are thrown up to knock off characters... the actual story gets delayed simply to force the PCs to go back to town, negotiate a fee for the spell or scroll, then go back to use it. It's a TTRPG equivalent of a MMO 'corpse run'. Completely unnecessary and delaying of a story simply to give the illusion of deadliness and consequence (plus remove some money from the party's coffers.)

PCs dying should be a story in of itself. It should be important. And that has a much more difficult time of happening when the number of Save or Die effects (plus their "fixing" counterparts) gets higher and higher, because they turn Death into just another condition that the party has to wait for so that it will "wear off".

If the PC dying isn't the important story... don't throw up repetitive roadblocks to the actual one. It'll just bore everyone involved.

 

[Incenjucar]

Looks to me that someone at your table needs to play smarter, or your DM needs to get his head out of his but.

Save or die situations are rare enough that there is no need to worry about them.

Using raise deads is part of the game. If you don't like using them and you die a lot then use the down time to roll another character.

The only thing anyone in any game I have played in or run has ever used Raise Dead on was a griffon. Using Raise Dead is an immersion breaker for me, and for many people. It doesn't jive with fantasy fiction, it doesn't feel heroic, it doesn't do anything interesting, and it feels like playing an MMO or Diablo or Super Mario Bros. or other video game.

 

[malkav666]

Having Save or Die/Suck rules in the game because they aren't really that since there's a proliferation of Raise Dead or Stone To Flesh spells to negate it, is a good example of what we call in improv 'stalling'. You make choices that deliberately or unintentionally delay the story of a scene to deal with preparations of advancing the story of a scene.

If the DM and players are creating/following a story and a bunch of Save or Dies are thrown up to knock off characters... the actual story gets delayed simply to force the PCs to go back to town, negotiate a fee for the spell or scroll, then go back to use it. It's a TTRPG equivalent of a MMO 'corpse run'. Completely unnecessary and delaying of a story simply to give the illusion of deadliness and consequence (plus remove some money from the party's coffers.)

PCs dying should be a story in of itself. It should be important. And that has a much more difficult time of happening when the number of Save or Die effects (plus their "fixing" counterparts) gets higher and higher, because they turn Death into just another condition that the party has to wait for so that it will "wear off".

If the PC dying isn't the important story... don't throw up repetitive roadblocks to the actual one. It'll just bore everyone involved.

I don't view those things as stalling myself. For my games the adventure site which may contain the mentioned challenges is just a part of the story. It just happens to be the part of the story settled with violence. In most cases by being careful or doing research the group can avoid the roadblocks that save or die/suck could present to an unprepared group.

But in the end sometimes the dice fall the wrong way and the group just has a really bad day. I don't really litter my adventure sites with a ton of those abilities but I do use them from time to time as a tool to vary encounters. Its just like traps, if every door is trapped then the value a trap adds to your game is greatly reduced. But I tend to use every tool available to me at one time or another (traps, hordes, environment, riddles, hidden things, queer magical effects, varied monster strategies, etc). While I agree that if your group regularly faces SoD/S encounters they lose their potency and would in fact become an annoyance, I don't want them removed as they can be a great tool to add a little tension to an encounter.

As far as characters dying I agree with you that it should be important. My group has always had a house rule that if a player chooses a course of action that will directly lead to their character dying that they may not be resurrected without the group going to the plane where the soul resides and trying to convince the powers that reside there that the soul that chose willingly to go to their just rewards still has work to do. Because the soul was directly offered by the player. Of course you could devil's advocate me and say that choosing to go into a dungeon is a decision that directly leads to death, but its really not. Its all about intent for my group. Most toons go into dungeons to resolve part of a greater story, or to steal from ugly people. And sometimes in that profession they just have a bad day and they fall in a pit or take a crit to the face and wind up dead. Those toons are eligible for raise magic in my groups games. They still have things left to do so their soul is eager to come back to the prime when the magic calls.

A toon that stays behind to keep a demon lord busy so innocents can escape has directly made a choice to die. Sure the dice could fall in all the right ways and they could live (and that is the stuff that some of the best gaming stories are made of). But really they have chosen to sacrifice their toon for an aspect of the story that is important to them. In those cases I make them play for keeps. I have found that this approach makes the drama of those situations much more personal for my players and it adds history to the game. We have played in the same game world for 15 years and when players sacrifice toons I make the world remember them. Sometimes they will come across some remembrance in the game world of their lost toon (an offering at shrine in honor of the toon, or a statue, in some cases an entire people that views the sacked toon as a hero).

But to be practical with such a house rule you should always warn a player when they are making such decisions that you are going to play for keeps at the time the choice is being made. It lets the player enjoy the drama while choosing the fate of their toon and avoids any misinterpretation you may have about the motives of the player.

Sorry for the long post.

love,

malkav

 

[unan oranis]

I like where the OP is going with this, though I don't know if you need some kind of bonus to balance it out.

I'd be happy with a hardcore check box or something, kind of a reverse organ doner thing... "this character uses one death save and refuses to be brought back from the dead".

As a fan of nethack, and save or die, this would do it for me sitting at a table opposed to save or die.

The only benefit for a given player would be the status, a tiny little official checkbox would do the job perfectly.

Maybe thered be a crazy intelligent sword, or some npc, who respects you extra but that would probably be the dms call.