Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProfessorCirno" data-source="post: 5274169" data-attributes="member: 65637">While there may or may not be ballot stuffing, there is certainly a lot of anonymous voters all flocking to the same decision.As for save or dies, kill them.  Get rid of them.  The 4e mechanic is drastically better and introduces not just more fun but more dread, and I've adopted it to my non-4e games.  D&D has always grappled with horror and how to implement it, and here's a big major awesome tip to DMs (Seriously you'll thank me for this, it's the best advice for horror you'll see about the game) - horror is not "Hah hah you failed your save, you died."  That's not scary.  It's annoying.  It's irritating.  It's stupid.  It's frustrating.  It's not scary.Scary is "You're body is slowly solidifying into stone; at this rate, you won't be going much longer."  And then in the next round, "You feel your arms and legs creak and slow, and cracks begin to fade away on your now grey skin as it spreads even farther."  And then in the next round, "You kill the medusa, and the march of petrification across your body begins to reverse.  You've survived."That's awesome, dramatic, and scary as hell.  It's the difference between a slow building tense scariness, and some guy in a closet jumping out and yelling "Boogity boogity boo!"  In the first example, when are you going to be scared?  There's no moment of fear.  Just "Welp, you're gone."  In the second example, there's lots of time to be afraid.  A slow death is drastically scarier then a sudden one.Right now, D&D is still wrestling with wether it's high flying adventure! or Grim and gritty sword and sorcery.  People who generally like saving throws prefer the second option, where life is cheap, death is common, and there are no true heroes.But that's the rub, isn't it?  Don't whinge and claim that big saving throws make for big heroes - it doesn't.  That style of gameplay has nothing to do with heroism.  There's nothing heroic about slowly prodding forward in a dungeon, checking every cobblestone for traps, then the cealing, then the walls, and then the treasure, because they're all actually monsters and welp there goes another party.  There's nothing heroic about TPKs to poisonous gas attacks.  When a fighter grabs the nearby scythe to fend off some maurading orcs, that is heroic.  When the orcs just kill him and then destroy the farm, that's not heroic, and here's the interesting point - the first can happen without the second ever even being an option.When Perseus fought medusa, there weren't any dice being rolled.  The storyteller made up a story all on his own and then nodded and said "And that's what happened, the end."  Don't pretend it's some awesome example of gameplay.  It's not.Counterpoint, when Perseus fought medusa, the DMPC gave him a magical item that rendered the medusa's attack useless.  Those aren't swingy odds.  That's the DM just sighing and nodding.Counterpoint, when Perseus fought medusa, the only reason he was able to be heroic is because he got rid of the save or die effect entirely.  Yes, the only way to be a hero - by your own sig example! - is to get rid of the save or dies.  Thanks for agreeing!</blockquote>

Verification