So what claimaints, precisely, are you referring to? You mention that I should call you on it if you change your stance in a later post - are you saying someone has done that here?
Is there, tell me, a point to my going through the Great Archive of Locked Threads to pull quotes? Or would you like to go through threads like this one (
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/274845-do-you-save-pcs.html) yourself? Suffice to say, you will see roughly the same divide, but calling individuals out is a can or worms perhaps best left sealed. Or should I go looking for other threads with roughly the same content, and the same players? Because, as I am sure you know, they exist to be found.
And, there is a big difference in qualifiers, I note. I said that I have previous experience that many of the anti-SoD folks prefer to avoid D as well; I did not add the qualifiers "indicated to
you" (does it matter to whom a post is addressed?) or "avoiding death in their games
entirely" (
entirely, IMHO, being a false qualifier -- for example, what of the individual who disallows death unless the player okays that his character dies? The problem is still with D, and SoD is still merely a symptom).
You really don't see the value judgement he's lobbying in that and later posts? His reference to people objecting to death because they see it as "losing" doesn't seem like a negative portrayal? His talk about how heavy-RP games have "heroic, dramatic deaths" doesn't clearly show his preference?
No. If I run a dungeon crawl, then it is easy to set up a survival-win, die-lose scenario. Lots of convention modules have used the same metric. And the relationship between "heroic, dramatic"
anything and role-playing is, IMHO, fairly straightforward and obvious. How can any death be heroic except as relates to the role? I mean, does your pawn make a heroic, dramatic sacrifice in chess?
If you honestly are going to deny the bias in his statement, and claim that I made my portrayal of it up out of nothing - despite using the exact same language he did - then I really don't know what to say.
I don't deny the bias -- preference is, by definition, bias. But there is a difference between stating personal bias, and claiming that personal bias in universal. I see plenty of the former, none of the latter.
But, perhaps, ByronD will be kind enough to correct me if I am wrong?
RavenCrowking - perhaps the larger issue here is that you are pulling your experiences into this discussion through the lens of your own biases, making the arguments you put forth seem much more broad reaching than what's going on in this particular discussion.
In other words, you're dragging in conversations which are not necessarily linked to this one other than in your own mind.
It is possible that there is no logical link between disliking D and disliking SoD, but it is also fairly obvious that, if you dislike D, you are going to dislike XoD, regardless of what X is.
Making an observation that there is, AFAICT, a direct and obvious link between the two is hardly bias.
Now, a question RavenCrowking. If SoD is perfectly fine, why the kids gloves when using it in game? Do you always make sure that your players know what's coming up next for every encounter? Do you never attack your PC's? I'm going to assume that you do. So, if SoD is perfectly acceptable as a part of the game, why treat it so differently from a standard encounter?
Depends upon how you define SoD, but, in general, anything that has a large impact on the environment is going to leave a correspondingly large footprint. I never make sure that my players know what's coming up for any encounter; I do, however, supply the means to do so, corresponding to the environmental footprint of the encounter.
This is, IMHO, no different than noting that a mountain lion loose in your neighbourhood is more noteworthy -- and more likely to be noted -- than a squirrel. One consistently makes the local news; the other does not.
Now, if a low-level PC happens to decide that shaking down the city's criminals for info is a good idea, takes no pains to conceal his identity, and causes problems up the food chain, the local mob boss will take steps to eliminate the problem. This is pretty analogous to a SoD in my game, because assassins can potentially do massive damage....easily enough to kill a PC with a single dagger thrust.
My twin mantras are "Context" and "Consequence". "Context" means supplying information --
or making a supply of information possible. If the players choose not to seek information, that is when "Consequence" comes into play.
BTW, not making snaky hair somehow silent and invisible isn't treating SoD encounters differently than other encounters; it is putting them back on the same footing. I don't make rust monsters silent, either, or orcs indistinguishable from humans at ranges greater than 30 feet.
EDIT: Likewise, for example, if you know you've p.o.ed a demon lord capable of sending bodak assassins after you, enough to make said demon lord really, really want you out of the picture, you might want to take precautions against bodak assassins.
RC
