Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[Ariosto]

Personally I don't think non-rules based gamism works. It's not a real challenge, it just comes down to a GM call.

What, all that stuff about having to investigate the situation and form a strategy, instead of just rolling dice? It works for Poker. It works for Stratego. It works for Diplomacy. It works for D&D.

It also worked (and so did the role of GM) in a host of wargames prior to D&D. That's the scene from which and for which it was designed. Chance -- the factor that is actually relevant here, not "a GM call" -- was most definitely part of the challenge.

Maybe you don't like it, and that's fine. It's just baloney, though, when you claim that others of us have "no justification" for liking the game.

That not liking it has become the great fixation of so many is not to my mind a healthy development. It may be that down the line some other game, whose developers and fans are noted more for actually liking it, shall rise to first place in popularity.

 

[Reynard]

Chance -- the factor that is actually relevant here, not "a GM call" -- was most definitely part of the challenge.

I tend to think of the randomness inherent in D&D as a) a good thing, and b) a representation of all those little elements that there's no way the GM has time to think up, let alone implement. So, when a save or skill roll or attack roll or wandering encounter roll produces an apparently incongruent result, it is an opportunity for the DM to engage in some creative description.

Let's say you are playing 3.x and there's a save versus death from a relatively weak source against a high level, powerful PC. The PC, who couldn't fail the save otherwise, rolls the dead Natural 1 and is killed by something that, by all accounts of the setting and mechanics based milieu, should not have been able to kill him. But it did, the same way that a man might die from slipping in the tub or taking a tumble on a ski slope or whatever. *Something* bad happened -- perhaps mere poor luck, but perhaps not. Powerful PCs often have powerful enemies -- not kings and courtiers, but gods and demon lords. Could one of them be responsible.

My point is, using the result is better than throwing it out, and having the possibility of the result is better than not, because even if you are a "story GM", those two options *create* more story than they inhibit.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're missing the distinct possibility that while you might think you have more fun without SoDs, you're actually wrong about that, and the DM knows it.

Is that supposed to be a stab at turning thread into one which was closed?


RC

 

[jeffh]

I explain the result as DMs feeling worse about killing characters than the players of those characters feel about losing them. In some cases, the DM sees how much work the player has put in while the player, while also conscious of that, has half a dozen other ideas s/he'd be equally interested in trying out. This certainly happens in my own case.

As for the original topic, I voted DM/no, but that's really too black and white a choice. I think SoDs should be extremely rare and that any capable of affecting a PC or plot-critical NPC should be very high level, and either tied to unique creatures or cost the user something that will make them think twice about using them.

 

[Ariosto]

My point is, using the result is better than throwing it out, and having the possibility of the result is better than not, because even if you are a "story GM", those two options *create* more story than they inhibit.

If the "story GM" is called that because he is intent on telling a particular story -- which is the only way I see the term being actually relevant -- then a random chance of something happening that he wants not to happen is not going to be acceptable.

Closer to what you are actually talking about, as Clausewitz put it, "friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. " (Or as Mike Tyson put it, "Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.")

Still, people trying to construct plausible paper wars are concerned with how closely statistics correspond to those in the real world. There are in fact actuarial records of death by accident in bathtubs and on ski slopes and so on, and insurance underwriters use those to calculate premiums.

A random chance that is far out of proportion is not what one wants in a "simulating" model. Just as in the case of the "story", there are boundaries within which acceptable probabilities lie.

Old D&D was designed as neither of those things, but above all as a game. The chances are what they are so that in the long run they play out on average as they do -- or rather as they did in the years of development and play-testing that preceded publication.

 

[Hussar]

If you still decide to play, and then you become upset when a SoD effect appears, esp. if you disrupt the game for everyone else, you are a whiny git. You knew what you were playing, you agreed to play it.

Oh, now ain't dat de troof. I totally agree here.

I think the main points of why I don't like SoD have been hit here, so, I'm just going to reiterate mostly for my own benefit: (In case it's not totally clear, these are just 100% my opinion)

1. SoD creatures are too one trick pony. Yes, you can massage situations to make them more useful, much like other one trick pony creatures, but, that doesn't make them good design, it just means that a good DM can do things with inferior products. Being able to use a crappy tool doesn't make the tool not crappy.

2. SoD is too lethal. The saving throws in the game are typically 25% fail at best, and usually considerably worse than that. If an effect causes the group to SoD, it's almost guaranteed to kill at least one PC. Any single effect that powerful should not be something that you can run into with any regularity.

3. SoD is not worth the cost. The thrill of forcing the save is not worth the potential loss of PC's. Or, to put it another way, 10 seconds of excitement is not worth a player sitting out for potentially tens of minutes or perhaps even hours.

It's interesting to note, that once you get away from D&D, and associated clones, retro-clones and the like, I'm really drawing a blank on another game that uses this mechanic. I've been reading a LOT of RPG's lately and I cannot think of a single one that uses this mechanic. Can anyone else think of some?

 

[Ariosto]

If an effect causes the group to SoD, it's almost guaranteed to kill at least one PC. Any single effect that powerful should not be something that you can run into with any regularity.

I know some players who would be loath to give up their sleep spells.

Leaving 'em in leaves in the utility of tactics that prevent the whole party from getting zapped at once.

 

[Ariosto]

10 seconds of excitement is not worth a player sitting out for potentially tens of minutes or perhaps even hours.

Yeah, funny thing, that is not an issue in old D&D.

It's an issue in 3e, and Rolemaster, and Hero System, and GURPS, and so on and on.

 

[InquisitorLeet]

I'm a DM and I dislike Save or Die. I fee like it's really anti-climatic. The PC's prepare to kill the bbeg, researching and questing and killing his way through minions and then at the final scene the wizard petrifies him in the first round...that seems boring for the wizard and the rest of they party.

gaming stories are always more interesting when you talk about being whittled down to your last few hitpoints and finally landing the killing blow while half the party is in negatives then simply saying: "yeah we petrified him"

-Inquisitor Leet

 

[zlorf]

I personally not a fan of save and die - but what you say is true. Its the DM's job to provide hints/good comms to players that if they dont heed them then death may be lurking around the corner. With the medusa the DM has a few statues that look out of place or misc adventures, even a missing town member.

I think save or die works well with earlier versions (pre 2nd ed) because it only took a short amount of time to build a new character if required.

If the players ignore the DM's hints, then they only have themselves to blame.

Cheers
Z

Why would you have gone into a game with SoDs in the first place if they're a gamebreaker for you? If you didn't know they were there or weren't expecting them, that tells me there was a huge breakdown in communication between the DM and players.

Frankly, that's what discussions like these are really about: making sure everyone at the table has non-conflicting expectations for the game.