Stepping over "The Line" in a campaign

[Man in the Funny Hat]

But I would never dream of actually introducing a "saved game" mechanic. That's just too cheesy, and breaks the idea of the game.

What do you think Raise Dead and Resurrection are? Okay, they may not be a SAVE game mechanic but they are effectively a RESUME game mechanic and, IMGO, should always be thought of as such.

Edit:
As for use of an ACTUAL in-game "save point" I don't think it's as horrific an idea as it's being made out to be, probably because I see bringing dead characters back to life on a ROUTINE basis as wholeheartedly embracing such meta-game concepts already. However, since there is no traditional, well-established mechanism for SAVE instead of RESUME it seems jarring even though it is hardly much different.

Were I to use a "save point" in a game - and I actually LIKE the idea because of the unique adventure construction possibilities it opens up - it would almost certainly be a ONE TIME ONLY special event/device built quite specifically into an adventure rather than anything intended for repeated or routine use. Raise Dead/Resurrection already amounts to the video game analogy of "drop in another quarter to continue..." so an established, re-usable "save game" mechanic is very much overkill. Even so, with the RIGHT kind of campaign concept you might convince me otherwise. But that would be difficult to do.

 

[fusangite]

What do you think Raise Dead and Resurrection are? Okay, they may not be a SAVE game mechanic but they are effectively a RESUME game mechanic and, IMGO, should always be thought of as such.

I'm not a fan of that and tend to disqualify them in my games.

I think you do raise an important point, though: D&D already has a restore mechanic; why do we need more?

 

[Silver Moon]

A savepoint? Let me think on that a moment...NOT!

I agree. Back in 1982 I attended my very first D&D game. It was with a group that had been around for a year but had a first-time DM that night, with the group's founder not in attendance. The game was a bit of a disaster in execution, no character deaths but lots of confusion, and so at the end of the night the players and DM voted that the game didn't happen. I was bummed by that, having had a fun time and having enjoyed the introduction of my character. His re-introduction the following game was anti-climatic, lasting all of ten seconds rather than the several minutes of the first time, as the players already knew who he was. So I vote no reset buttons!

Crossing the Line - most of the time, it gets crossed because noone has recognized it as such.

I agree, whatever happens happens, let the dice fall where they lie. If you wind up with a TPK then just pickup the next game 20-30 years later with the next generation of the same character's with them knowing the legend of what happened to their parents/aunts/uncles and building a new campaign from there.

 

[Slife]

Actually, if you *really* need to save your game as a PC, there's a trick that lets you retry if you die in the next 24 hours.

 

[dren]

Yes, I use save points, kind of, I do the "Dallas scenario" in other words they wake up from a dream. I know it's cheesy, but I would rather use that trick then ruin an ongoing campaign. If the players agree we just go back anywhere from an hour to a session and then hit replay. I think I've done this twice in the last ten years for different groups. I explain that they experienced a certain truth, but, things can be different if they take the same steps again (i.e. dice rolls and other creatures also have free will.)

But I do this for convenience (mostly mine) and not so the players take a chance that they wouldn't otherwise do.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Were I to use a "save point" in a game - and I actually LIKE the idea because of the unique adventure construction possibilities it opens up - it would almost certainly be a ONE TIME ONLY special event/device built quite specifically into an adventure rather than anything intended for repeated or routine use. Raise Dead/Resurrection already amounts to the video game analogy of "drop in another quarter to continue..." so an established, re-usable "save game" mechanic is very much overkill. Even so, with the RIGHT kind of campaign concept you might convince me otherwise. But that would be difficult to do.

Personally, I find save points a far better mechanic than ready availability of resurrection, because they are, by default, a purely metagame concept. When every 9th level cleric can raise dead, it should have implications for the world - even if there's only a dozen 9th level clerics. Personally, I don't like those implications. Save points, by default, exist purely as a game mechanical construct of which the characters aren't aware, like classes and levels.

With that said, I'd like to see a campaign similar to Xenogears or (especially) Chrono Cross, where the save points really do exist in the world, characters acknowledge their existence, and it's common practice to use them before engaging on a risky endevour because their power to perform a local rewrite of time can and eventually will save your life/fortune/whatever. BUT, the PCs eventually discover that the save points, far from being archeotech scattered around the world by a long lost civilization, are actually the product of the evil empire/shadowy conspiracy/trans-temporal sentience that serves as the main bad for the campaign. In addition to their obvious function, they record all the data put into them and transfer it to the enemy, who use it to maintain control.

 

[Tarek]

A "save point" crystal?

I actually could see a dungeon where it is not only beneficial to have a "save point" (tied to a specific room), but it would actually be required in order to properly complete a set of tasks in order to unlock a vault/find the BBEG/advance the plot.

But just in general, a "save point" is pretty useless. That's what the Clone spell is for...

 

[Felix]

If any of you are familiar with Doc Midnight and his story hour Knights of Spellforge Keep, you'll remember that they were tackling the spire in the middle of the volcano in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

They met the skeleton with the Deck of Many Things, and one of the characters drew the Fates card:

Fates: This card enables the character to avoid even an instantaneous occurrence if so desired, for the fabric of reality is unraveled and respun. Note that it does not enable something to happen. It can only stop something from happening or reverse a past occurrence. The reversal is only for the character who drew the card; other party members may have to endure the situation.​

As the PCs were decending the stairway they ran into the dinosaur guards and were nearly TPK'd, the sole surviving party member being the one who drew the Fates card. The action he reversed was opening the door to the stairway to the dino's room without demanding everyone buff themselves for combat. Strictly speaking, the DM could have said this doesn't work, but he thought it was clever enough and allowed the party to avoid a TPK through this miniature Save Button.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

I had a campaign changing, crossing the line moment in a campaign that ended the campaign.

In the super hero game I was running just before I started running the current D&D game, the PCs were your classic costumed superheros, doing their best to keep Manhattan clean. But of course the police and authorities weren't their biggest fans. After months of running from the police, being called vigilantes and being badmouthed by the press, they were feeling a bit underappreciated for their efforts. While trying to break up a riot and capture a shapechanger, the police helicopter ordered them to surrender. The shapechanger was down and bleeding out due to a lucky shot by one PC when another PC flew up to the helicopter and requested a first aid kit. Instead, the door gunner unleashed a burst of machine gun fire at the PC....he had seen that PC not a moment ago fire lightning from his hand and down the shapechanger's partner so the cop was concerned and panicked when that same PC flew up to within 5 feet of him.

The PC, his player frustrated at this, drew back and fired lightning right into the blades of the chopper, the pilot lost control (failed pilotting checks) and the helicopter crashed into a building, causing a crash and explosion that killed the three cops on the chopper, two police and two civilians on the ground, and wounded dozens.

The other players and I sat back for a moment....this was campaign shattering stuff.
We attempted to play but the PC hijacked another chopper, flew it to New Jersey which made it a federal case since he crossed state lines in a hijacked helicopter. Finally the PC surrendered. When taken into custody by the FBI and NYPD, he erupted in violence then was surprised when the cops blasted away until he was unconscious.

When he awoke the PC was encased in non conductive body suit, suspended in a harness that immobilized him. He was to stand trial for his crimes. The player decided to be a jackass and had his PC give the secret identities of his fellow PCs, told the media and police everything they had done up to that point.

This would have bascially turned the campaign into a totally different animal. The other PCs would be on the run or surrender, their identities now public so their families and friends weren't safe. It was decided to end the campaign by the players.

We still hold that particular player responsible for crossing the line, and there's a bit of bitterness there.

 

[Quasqueton]

The campaign I mentioned in the OP, we are playing Star Wars. We were hired to retrieve an artifact by a Lord with control of a whole star system. We found out he was lying to us, and was in fact a bad guy. One of his cronies was escaping in a ship, to go back to his boss and report on our turning on him, and we were pursuing him in our ship. We told him to stop and surrender, and we fired a shot across his bow, but he didn't stop. The PC in our ship's gun turret was ready to fire and destroy the crony's ship, and asked me, the captain of our party, if he could open fire.

That was The Line in the campaign. Destroy that ship, killing the pilot, would probably let us escape the whole situation quietly and secretly. But the whole situation just felt too close to murder. We didn't know if the pilot we were chasing was actually a bad guy or just a mislead, innocent employee of the bad guy.

There was a long pause as everyone at the table kind of knew my order to the gunner would be a defining moment in the campaign. We had already proven ourselves to be fairly rough and tough and a bit bloody against known bad guys -- pirates, thieves, slavers, and such -- and the gunner PC already had a Dark Side point. But this? I couldn't do it.

I said let him go. And we all recognized that our lives would be more difficult from then on.



And, about raise dead and such spells. . . it might could be argued that every level up in D&D is effectively an autosave mechanic. When you get raised, the gods reload your character from the previous autosave (level).

Quasqueton