Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[pemerton]

can you tell I'm not a big fan of metagame

I've noticed this about you. I'd posrep you for having such a consistent and friendly way of talking about your gaming preferences, but must spread more XP around at this time.

How many stories are there about characters that are still growing, developing, etc? The majority of them, I expect. Yet the character still remains the protagonist and is deeply tied to the story without having to be the most powerful figure in the world.

<snip examples>

Both of these campaigns can be perfectly fun, and are perfectly legitimate styles of play. But in the second, the story is more about the characters than the Lich. It isn't about them seeking him out and becoming heroes by proving themselves against the bad guys of the setting, it is about them exploring their own personal stories as they connect to the plot of the game.

Couldn't agree more, but also must spread more XP!

 

[pemerton]

"I don't like my PC's death to be instantaneous" is inconsistent with liking SSSoD because the final S results in instanteous D (or not), just as with SoD.

"I prefer SS before SoD" is consistent, and one can then examine exactly what SS provides (ex., at least one, and possibly two clear choices where most variables are known prior to the final SoD, which can be used to alter the situation in some way).

It's never occurred to me to interpret the first of these in any way other than as equivalent (in intended meaning) to the second. The objection to SoD as instantaneous is an objection to it being instantaneous relative to the players salient field of action. And for non-exploration based play - which is a good chunk of contemporary RPGing, including a good chunk of D&D play - the salient field of action typically is not the gameworld. It's often not even the adventure. It may be a particular location. It is most often the encounter.

I'll happily agree with you and Ariosto that a game in which the salient field of action is the gameworld is one in which SoD is not necessarily objectionable, and (depending on some other things, like the players' tolerance for gamble over calculation) may even add to the game.

But I can't agree with what I take you to be saying, that a game in which the salient field of action for the players is something less than the entire gameworld is a bad game, or a game that exemplifies bad GMing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not RC, obviously, but I take it as plain by normal English usage that one cannot "meet the gaze" of a subject from whom one is "hidden".

A gaze is a long, steady look. "To meet a gaze" is to look at someone while that one looks back. Even more usually, and pretty explicitly in the cases at hand, it is to "look someone in the eye". It is a meeting of gazes, a reciprocal alignment of focus both optical and in attention.

Indeed.

I pulled out the 3.0 DMG this morning and re-read the section on gaze attacks. Lo and behold, what is described is meeting a creature's gaze, followed by some rules for determining when that would happen. Activity both from the gaze-attacker and the gaze-meeter. Not simply glancing at someone's face.

Huh. Who woulda thunk it?

That's because you're letting 3e RAW get in the way of common sense and well-known mythology.

Apparently not.

Seems like too much reliance on the SRD, and not enough looking at the actual rules to see what the SRD material is supposed to represent, to me.

It's never occurred to me to interpret the first of these in any way other than as equivalent (in intended meaning) to the second. The objection to SoD as instantaneous is an objection to it being instantaneous relative to the players salient field of action. And for non-exploration based play - which is a good chunk of contemporary RPGing, including a good chunk of D&D play - the salient field of action typically is not the gameworld. It's often not even the adventure. It may be a particular location. It is most often the encounter.

(1) Take a gander back up the thread, and see if you can discover anyone ever making note that encounter-based design has an effect on the problem.

(2) If "the salient field of action typically is not the gameworld" or "even the adventure" that leads directly to a lack of coherent self-reference in both game world and adventure. A rather perfect description of the modules produced by WotC, now that I think about it!

Yes, a lack of coherent self-reference can cause problems, and if you are playing a game without coherent self-reference the encounters themselves should probably have extra layers of padding, because neither the game world nor the adventure will provide it.

(3) Even so, the objection is one of "clear choices" to be made prior to the final roll that results either in death or not.

If death is a possibility in a game, there is always a final move/roll that determines whether or not that outcome occurs. This is tautological. Removing SoD does not remove that, so if that is the objection, the only reasonable response is to remove the possibility of death. Some folks do that.

However, the objection that specifically says SSSoD is okay (or good, even), while SoD is not, must perforce rely upon what SS adds to the SoD. And what SS adds are at least one, and probably two, decision points after the situation has become crystal clear.

That is all about minimizing the gamble taken, and maximizing narrative control.

(An alternate coherent hypothesis, if you prefer, is that some people believe SSSoD is better than SoD because they believe SS will prevent the SoD part of the equation from happening for some other reason that the one, and probably two, decision points after the situation has become crystal clear. Perhaps they don't really care about the decision points -- although most seem to make that claim -- and just think that the extra rolls will cushion the odds....allowing for the dubious "thrill" of facing death with little chance of it actually occuring.

If so, though, this is still all about minimizing the gamble taken, and maximizing narrative control.)

And, AFAICT, this entire discussion is about how some people wish to minimize the gamble taken, and maximize narrative control while trying to convince themselves or others that this is not so.

Play the game you want. Different strokes for different folks. Life is too short to play games you don't enjoy.

But, as the man said in The Outlaw Josey Wales, "REMOVED FOR UNINTENDED IMPLICATION." EDIT FOR INTENDED IMPLICATION: "Don't expect us to believe that it is something it is not."



RC

 

[Scribble]

Why doesn't the character's intelligence and wisdom stats determine what tactics the character uses in combat? Why doesn't the character's intelligence and wisdom stats determine what diretion he chooses? Why have the player show up at all?

Dunno...

All I'm saying is that it just seems kind of natural to me that a player (especially a frustrated player) would look at his 18 INT and wonder why it has no relevance towards helping Presto the Perspicacious escape the DM's "Ye Olde Merry Riddle Trappe" that's about to fry him...

From that the outgrowth of secondary skills / proficiencies and then skills feats and powers again seems only natural to me.

I have no real issue if you're cool with a game of match wits with the DM...

If everyone playing is on the same page- go for it...

Just seems like two separate games to me, as well as frustrating and kind of jarring- particularly if you're dealing with the Egotistical kind of DM that has determined the only right way out of the trap/challenge is his way no matter whether another option would actually work...

It also seems to me that in a game like that, when in a battle with a mighty dragon it should be equally appropriate for Joe the Body Builder playing a character with 4 strength to stand up, round-house kick the DM in the teeth 80's action movie style, then declare "Boo-Ya!!! Dragon defeated! Player skillz beotch!"

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'll happily agree with you and Ariosto that a game in which the salient field of action is the gameworld is one in which SoD is not necessarily objectionable, and (depending on some other things, like the players' tolerance for gamble over calculation) may even add to the game.

Done.

But I can't agree with what I take you to be saying, that a game in which the salient field of action for the players is something less than the entire gameworld is a bad game, or a game that exemplifies bad GMing.

Hmmm.

Say, rather, that a game in which the salient field of action is so narrowed that the encounter becomes that field, so that the field allows no forewarning to even be possible, nor any choice on the part of the players as to what is encountered, and which therefore makes self-reference and consistency either impossible or moot, is a game in which those encounters must provide the entirety of what was provided by the whole of the setting before, or it will be a bad game IMHO.

Certainly a lesser game, because the game world narrows down to the salient field of action. Everything else is just colour. Narrow that field, and, perforce, you narrow the game.

Certainly a different game than what was originally known as "Dungeons & Dragons". I guess that is a tacit admission that the game is no longer the same?

Moreover, the bad GMing examples arise from the GM designing encounters as though salient field of action for the players was the gameworld, when it is in fact the encounter. I.e., the bodak really did just jump out of your closet before you had a chance to do anything in the very narrow salient field of action "game world" that is now the "encounter".


RC

 

[Umbran]

But, as the man said in The Outlaw Josey Wales, "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." Some of us, at least, can tell the difference.

Right. The implication being that some folks cannot tell the difference between piss and rain, and/or that someone is willfully pissing on others.

How about this: Don't be rude and tell us it is clever pop-culture reference - some of us can tell the difference.

That goes for everybody - if you cannot play nicely, then don't play. Pretty darned simple, really.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Dunno...

All I'm saying is that it just seems kind of natural to me that a player (especially a frustrated player) would look at his 18 INT and wonder why it has no relevance towards helping Presto the Perspicacious escape the DM's "Ye Olde Merry Riddle Trappe" that's about to fry him...

It should!

I know of at least one game that has a "Reasoning Save" that allows the player to gain additional clues from the GM. The player still has to figure out the riddle, but an intelligent PC (and esp. one that invests in Reasoning) does so with far more hints and clues than does Joe the Barbarian.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

That's a Grand Canyon of a culture gap.

I expect that RC, like me, grew up playing games of skill as well as chance. I'm not even talking wide-open wargame / proto-role-playing-game campaigns like the galactic conquest game some friends and I made up for ourselves before we encountered D&D. I mean a whole host of games that were very challenging, whether of skills intellectual, physical or social.

What is the implication here? That your preference in D&D playstyle stems from enjoying games of skill?

I grew up playing bridge and other various card games of skill, and I couldn't disagree more with most anything you say about SoD, or D&D in general.

 

[MrMyth]

That's because you're letting 3e RAW get in the way of common sense and well-known mythology.

For a gaze attack to work in myth*, the attacker and the target have to be looking at each other at the same time - their eyes have to meet. 3e did away with facing and in so doing gave gaze attacks much more power and the wrong name; because gaze - as in eyes meeting - is obviously no longer a factor.

If I'm looking in a window at a basilisk who is watching a door in the right-hand wall, I'm safe - or I should be. Get the rules out of the way and use common sense.

Hmm, maybe this is the difference of understanding here. I've always viewed Gaze attacks as working in the classic medusa fashion - if you gaze upon the creature's visage, you are potentially afflicted by it. Hence why it is so hard to avoid - even if you actively are looking away, and focusing your gaze at the creature's shadow, feet, or tracking it in a mirror, you've got a 50/50 chance of glancing up and seeing its eyes.

I've never viewed it as having some sort of requirement that you need to have it recognize your presence in order for the Gaze to work. Everything that D&D has presented it as is that all it requires is that you "look at the creature’s eyes".

Now, if one feels that in order for a gaze attack to work, it requires both eyes to actively meet and acknowledge the presence of the other... well, I don't see any indication of that in the rules, but it doesn't seem an unreasonable house rule.

On the other hand, I don't think its the only interpretation - as you note, no such thing is present in the Medusa myth. And the way the rules present it is that the only requirement is to look upon the creature's eyes, whether it is aware of you or not.

Anyway, my big objection was with RC who was trying to present his position as being backed up by the rules themselves. The Common Sense argument... I understand where that is coming from. I don't necessarily agree with it, and I don't think it is fair to blame the DM for following the rules, but I see where people are coming from.

RCs claim that you cannot physically see someone's eyes while you are hidden from them? Yeah, I don't see any truth to that.

 

[MrMyth]

Nobody but you and Hussar appears to be expressing that attitude.

There are at least 2 quotes near the start of this thread that seem to say that in pretty absolute terms.

But the one that I was responding to was yours:
"I reckon that if a foolish magic-user can discover how to summon one in the first place, then slightly less foolish adventurers can discover what they need to know about the lair of Dreadgore the Deranged and the Dweller in Darkness before they invite themselves in."

That... certainly reads to me as saying that any non-foolish adventurers can find out what they need to know about upcoming encounters before encountering them.

If that isn't your attitude, then what precisely are you saying there?