Should the players always win?

[Jedi_Solo]

Sometimes the only way to make the big victories really truly sweet is to make the potential failures devastating.

A request/question that is open to anyone with this view point: define devastating.

Massive party deaths/TPK?
Crashing the party's beloved airship into a mountain and spreading the wreckage over the countryside?
The incredably brutal and grusome slaughter of the party's favorite friendly NPC?

I fully support the "don't reward stupidity" aspect of the discussion. If a party decides to fight an Ancient Red Wyrm at first level they deserve what they get. If a player, despite several signs - including a flashing neon one with arrow that says 'do NOT pull the lever' - desides to pull the lever he has no one to blame but himself for the PC death.

Another question for the "no" crowd: Do you choose when the PCs "lose" (by any definition) or just not stop the player's dice from rolling all 1s? If so, how often do they lose?

 

[drothgery]

No they shouldn't always win. No they shouldn't always even have a chance to win. If the PCs choose to fight a god at first level I'm noty going to handicap the god so they have a chance.

I think there's an implied "unless the PCs decide to do something mind-boggling suicidal and stupid with clear knowledge that this is the case" for most of us who think the PCs should always have a chance to win, at least in the long run.

Heck, if a first-level PC starts out with a good reason why he wants to fight a god, I don't see why he can't spend his adventuring career preparing to do that (or learning why his reasons for wanting to fight a god are wrong), and if the game goes epic, he can do it.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'm not clear on what you mean. My gut tells me "Yes," because this is a D&D-centric board and losing in D&D tends to mean a TPK.

I personally do not want a PC or major NPC to die due to lucky/unlucky rolls. This is purely from a genre emulation perspective. Boromir and Aeris don't die from bad rolls; both die in their respective mediums' equivalent of "cut scenes." Boromir I can see maybe dying in what would be a gameplay sequence in an RPG - but due to a choice his player made, not due to a single poor dice roll or even a string of them. Aeris would have to die due to player choice - her departure from the party either counts as a "I'm moving in two weeks, can you write me out of the campaign?" moment or a "Are you SURE you want to do that?" moment. Conan doesn't die in battle at all, but if he did it wouldn't be because of bad luck.

If the genre I were emulating were grittier (say, A Game of Thrones rather than Conan or Final Fantasy), I'd be just as happy to see PCs and major NPCs die to bad rolls.

On the flip side, I have no problem with PCs failing to accomplish their objective, being defeated, being knocked out and forced to use a hero point to live to fight another day, being confronted with the dramatic results of their failure, being embarassed in front of their social betters, or being exiled - among other unpleasant fates.

 

[Drowbane]

No they shouldn't always win. No they shouldn't always even have a chance to win. If the PCs choose to fight a god at first level I'm noty going to handicap the god so they have a chance.

The PCs should just expect to win every encounter they come acrossed. Not all encounters are meant to be won.

 

[The Shaman]

I personally do not want a PC or major NPC to die due to lucky/unlucky rolls. This is purely from a genre emulation perspective.

I hope that you are upfront with your players about this - I would be extremely disappointed to discover I was playing in a game like this without notice beforehand.

Luck of the dice is what sets roleplaying games apart from storytelling. If the game master decides from the outset that character death is off the table because of "genre emulation," then my dice bag and I will politely excuse ourselves and find something else to do.

I like the luck factor - good and bad. I like that I can do everything "right" and still end up wriggling at the tip of a pike - that's "the will of the gods" made manifest.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I hope that you are upfront with your players about this - I would be extremely disappointed to discover I was playing in a game like this without notice beforehand.

Luck of the dice is what sets roleplaying games apart from storytelling. If the game master decides from the outset that character death is off the table because of "genre emulation," then my dice bag and I will politely excuse ourselves and find something else to do.

I like the luck factor - good and bad. I like that I can do everything "right" and still end up wriggling at the tip of a pike - that's "the will of the gods" made manifest.

Fair enough.

Since a hero points/drama points system is the method I prefer to avoid this (alternately, a "death in combat is not death, merely 'removed from play'" rule), you'd have to know about it.

Nor do I always run games using hero/drama points. I haven't found a good way to mix them with core d20 yet, for instance.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I'll go as far as to say that sometimes PCs should be expected to lose. Their actions will determine the severity of said loss.

This, of course, acknowleges that loss doesn't mean death, and even doesn't imply death as the harshest reality of a loss. If the adventure is mostly political, for example, a very bad loss would entail perhaps contacts turning against the PCs, public defacement, or an opponent gaining the position the PCs are gunning for.

Occasionally, NPCs ask the PCs to do things that are outside of their power level. The PCs have the option of accepting or declining the offer, and if they accept, perhaps they can't win. Some DMs don't like to drop plot hooks for impossible* scenarios, but I think it makes decisions all the more important. Just because NPCs come to the PCs to do something (even if it looks easy at first) doesn't mean the PCs can do it.

*Impossbile being not actually impossible, just highly highly improbable. This is clarification that I don't force a situation to be impossible for the PCs to overcome, I just might create one where the odds are stacked against them. I've had my impossible scenarios won before, after all.

 

[irdeggman]

I voted no.

I think the campaign should be designed with the PCs "winning" as should every adventure. This does not mean that the PCs always succeed but that they will over the course of the adventure/campaign succeed a lot more than not.

Not winning does not equate to total party kills though. It can merely mean having to run away.

 

[Glyfair]

In another thread, it was suggested that some D&D groups prefer campaigns run so that the PCs always win the day.

I'm not sure many want that. I prefer a game where the players can always win the day in the end.

To me, that contradicts the very essence of it being a game and renders obsolete any sort of skilful play. I think that without the threat of failure or the dreaded TPK, D&D is just a self-indulgent fantasy with well-painted action figures.

I agree there should always be the threat of failure. I don't agree there should always be the threat of a TPK. That's something that each campaign should decide.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I'm another, "yes and no," vote...

I run a very status-quo sort of campaign. I determine, even before thinking about who the characters might be or what they might be interested in doing, a lot about the world, and the 'bad guys' that are going to be in it. I know who they are, what they are doing, and what sort of resources they'll be willing and able to call upon in the event that a party of adventurers (likely the PCs) interferes with whatever it is that they are doing...

I know, for instance, that Vladsylvania is regented by a Vampire Lord, and that if they PCs attempt to directly confront him over his jerk-wad policies, that he'll gladly eat them for lunch... And that if they get too far out of line while in his country that he'll send X number of baddies to take care of Y situation. I also know that Stinky Pete, the second sight addict, will definitely try to rob anyone who he thinks he can get away with robbing, and that he'll roll over on Archibald Barisol, his dealer, in a heartbeat if confronted by any sort of strength.

On the other hand... If the party ends up being a group of paladins and clerics, I'm probably going to lift, or otherwise make easily bypassable the ban on all religious worship in Vladsylvania, so that the PCs aren't forced to step out of line or directly confront the evil vampire lord over his jerkwadery.

My philosophy in DMing is that, while there should definitely be encounters out there that the PCs are going to be completely trounced by... They should never be forced into such encounters. And any encounters that I do throw at the party without giving them much in the way of the possibility to avoid it (random encounters, etc.) they should definitely be likely to win. My players know that there is stuff out there that will just plain kill them. They also know that as long as they don't go galivanting off into absolutely every country run by an evil vampire lord to end his reign of jerkwadery, they are pretty likely to succeed at whatever it is that they want to do.

Later
silver