Stun/Paralysis effects

[Fifth Element]

Bad things should happen to the characters, not to the player.
<snip>

Very well put. I was a bit uncomfortable with the whole "reduce unfun things" slant of 4E. But this perspective brings it into...perspective. You've hit the nail on the head, I think.

 

[Fifth Element]

Half? Half?! How often to 3E fights last 14 rounds? 3d4 rounds of sit and suck is generally the whole fight.

I DMed a 14-round fight last weekend. I made note of the number at the time. It was 4 characters (4th level) against a mezzoloth. They never did figure out how to overcome the damage resistance (they're new players), and had to rely on wearing it down, bit by bit. I don't think any of them had more than 10 hit points at the end, and one of them had dropped, but since it was low-level play it really didn't take that long.

 

[pemerton]

I don't mind bad things happening to my PCs, but I would prefer to avoid long stretches of time in which I don't have anything significant to do.

There is a difference between "bad things happening" and being a player and sitting around for an hour or longer twiddling your thumbs

Bad things should happen to the characters, not to the player.

Agreed with all the above.

Surely the argument that 'Bad things shouldn't happen to my character because it precludes me having fun' can be applied universally to any bad thing that can happen to a character?

<snip>

If its true that a player should always have the oppurtunity to contribute at all times, doesn't this logically preclude character death? Doesn't this logically preclude unconsciousness when you reach 0 hit points?

Agreed, this is where the logic of the argument pushes. W&M makes somes comments on how 4e will handle character death, but does not flesh out the mechanics.

There is some reason to think that Second Wind mechanics, plus APs, will be important ways of mechanically handling the threat of death (at least at the Heroic Tier). I wouldn't be surprised if dazed and stunned in the RPG also interact with these (or similar) mechanics (I assume that DDM doesn't use APs or Second Wind, and thus couldn't incorporate these into its dazed rules).

I find that a key value in D&D is the ability to play in a rich alternate reality and face and overcome the threats that the world brings with it. If the threats are reimagined with the design basis of keeping the player active no matter what then the sense of reality is greatly wounded.

<snip>

As a player, if I got to continue having actions and I knew that this is for purely gamist reasons, the contribution to victory that those actions contributed would seem completely hollow and therefore the ultimate victory (assuming) would be hollow as well.

And I'm not saying that there is no threat. But there is distinctly less threat. And less threat for reasons that are purely for gamism and wholely at the expense of immersion in a convincing independent reality.

I agree with you that this is gamism at the expense of simulation. That is the whole point of "adversity for the PC is not adversity for the player": it severs the identity of player and PC which is at the core of simulationist play.

But then when you say it reduces the threat, you are to some extent presupposing the very identity which gamism (and also narrativism) deny. After all - especially if dazed and stunned interact with APs and Second Wind - then the threat to the PC in the gameworld is just as great. It's just that the player has a metagame device which allows them to exercise narrative control over the gameworld. (I am assuming here that AP and Second Wind will be presented as metagame devices - I hope that whatever simulationists overlay is given to them doesn't actually infect the game in any serious way.)

I think this is another example of 4E giving up the very things that D&D does best. Tabletop will never be as good as online play when it comes to constant action, instant recovery play.

I don't agree. What tabletop RPGs can do best is give players the chance to play out interesting stories. Decent metagame mechanics facilitate this - and involvement in those stories in turn generates immersion. Unrepentant simulationism gets in the way of the stories, and hence the immersion. At least IMO, the best vehicle for pure immersion in a fantasy world is a literary one, not a gaming one. When I play a game I want to play, not spectate.

 

[pemerton]

Still, I am of the opinion that "dazed" is kind of weak sauce for the mind flayer. The idea should be not to penalize the PC, but to make them (and, to a lesser extent, the player) feel helpless. The idea is that you can't stop the twisting tentacles and the deadly embrace that leads to your horrific death. That's a potent little piece of drama, there, and 4e doesn't have it quite right. They give you the feeling of mental anguish, but not the feeling of helplessness that, IMO, makes the Mind Flayer truly frightening.

<snip>

The idea is to keep the feeling of helplessness that total inaction gives the character (You can't run. You can't hide. You are totally exposed.

Good post, interesting ideas.

 

[StarFyre]

i'm still with the other camp...

My friends do sit around excited, watching what happens if someone gets paralyzed. To them, it makes sense. Hell, in real life there are creatures that can cause mild types of paralysis. The fact that sstuff like this could get removed from 4E has them thinking this is made for the younger, 'no patience' audience who can't handle a true challenge. (ie. real life style challenge where not everyone can 'save the day' every moment)

They like that.

But, once again, for those who don't like the new Mind Flayer changes; it's easily house ruled to be back to a full paralysis, mind control, etc whatever effect you want to replace the 4E version...so no harm done

Sanjay

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My friends do sit around excited, watching what happens if someone gets paralyzed. To them, it makes sense. Hell, in real life there are creatures that can cause mild types of paralysis. The fact that sstuff like this could get removed from 4E has them thinking this is made for the younger, 'no patience' audience who can't handle a true challenge. (ie. real life style challenge where not everyone can 'save the day' every moment)

I wouldn't say it's about "no patience" or age, it's more about some people see D&D as a game - A game they want to play, not spectate.

I agree that it's possible to have fun watching other people play. In fact, there are some games I'd prefer watching, because I am myself not a good player of the game and thing it's more fun for everyone if the good players get to play and I get to spectate the game. But this is not my stance towards D&D. But I don't think a game should aim to make any kind of player into a non-player / specator (there are still games that do - some card games for example). If possible (and that's not always the case, and not always sensible), the player and the player alone should decide whether he wants to turn into a spectator or not.

 

[FireLance]

In fact, there are some games I'd prefer watching, because I am myself not a good player of the game and thing it's more fun for everyone if the good players get to play and I get to spectate the game.

That describes my relationship with one-on-one fighting games like Street Fighter and King of Fighters. I don't play them very well, but I enjoy watching truly skilled players at work. I will sidestep the obvious "more of a video game" joke now.

And speaking of video games, I recently played Feeding Frenzy 2 and I found the way in which they handled negative statuses quite interesting. You can get poisoned by eating tainted fish, and when you are poisoned, your controls reverse, so doing what normally makes you go up makes you go down, for example. Because of this, it is usually in the casual player's interest to stay completely still until the poison wears off so that he doesn't accidentally blunder into the path of a bigger fish that eats him. However, this wouldn't bother a skilled player much. In addition, you can purge the poison faster by pressing the left mouse button repeatedly. From a game perspective, I thought this was a pretty neat mechanic. You have the incentive to stay still, but it can be overcome by skill, and you can do something to mitigate the condition.

The only time that you are truly "stunned" and unresponsive is if you jump out of the water, attempt to do a flip for extra points, and fall back into the water before completing it (a "belly flop"). Being unresponsive is thus something the player deliberately chooses to risk. If you don't try to do a flip, you won't belly flop. And even then, you aren't stunned for more than a few seconds (but that is sometimes enough for a bigger fish to eat you).

 

[I'm A Banana]

To them, it makes sense. Hell, in real life there are creatures that can cause mild types of paralysis. The fact that sstuff like this could get removed from 4E has them thinking this is made for the younger, 'no patience' audience who can't handle a true challenge. (ie. real life style challenge where not everyone can 'save the day' every moment)

Well, in real life, when you get paralyzed, it's an adrenaline-pumping moment of edge-of-your seat danger...or you just fade out of the world.

In D&D, when a character gets paralyzed, it's time for them to go play Xbox for a while and ignore the game.

In a game that has such a fragile sense of immersion, a break like that breaks it all to pieces.

Real life doesn't have such shallow immersion.

It's not about age or not being 'good' enough, it's about the very reason you're at that table in the first place: to enjoy yourself. If that's not happening, why play the game?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That describes my relationship with one-on-one fighting games like Street Fighter and King of Fighters. I don't play them very well, but I enjoy watching truly skilled players at work. I will sidestep the obvious "more of a video game" joke now.

And speaking of video games, I recently played Feeding Frenzy 2 and I found the way in which they handled negative statuses quite interesting. You can get poisoned by eating tainted fish, and when you are poisoned, your controls reverse, so doing what normally makes you go up makes you go down, for example. Because of this, it is usually in the casual player's interest to stay completely still until the poison wears off so that he doesn't accidentally blunder into the path of a bigger fish that eats him. However, this wouldn't bother a skilled player much. In addition, you can purge the poison faster by pressing the left mouse button repeatedly. From a game perspective, I thought this was a pretty neat mechanic. You have the incentive to stay still, but it can be overcome by skill, and you can do something to mitigate the condition.

The only time that you are truly "stunned" and unresponsive is if you jump out of the water, attempt to do a flip for extra points, and fall back into the water before completing it (a "belly flop"). Being unresponsive is thus something the player deliberately chooses to risk. If you don't try to do a flip, you won't belly flop. And even then, you aren't stunned for more than a few seconds (but that is sometimes enough for a bigger fish to eat you).

Interesting game concept. I also like your example of the "PC only gets stunned if he conciously chose the risk to do so). This reminds me a bit of the "Death Flag" in E6*.


for those not familar with E6: A D&D game limited to not go beyond level 6. After that, advancement is severely limited - feats and spells might stil be gained, but no HD/BAB/Save Bonus). An optional rule is the Death Flag. A character can only really, permanently die if he choses to raise his death flags. This gives a few bonuses for the action at hand. The goal is basically ensuring that character death happens only if the players deem it appropriate for the story. Someone else can surely point out the threads on this boards where E6 is discussed.
E6 is probably not the only game with such a mechanic, but the first time I heard of it was in context of E6.

 

[StarFyre]

hmm

I think the difference is playstyles..which I should hve mentioned; and the people who don't like some of the changes I assume are more like my players and My dm styles.

We treat the game worlds really as a simulation of real life; tons of fine details for that and it takes more time.

What this means is, alot of stuff we use to give that sense of it being like a fully real world.

We even go to the lengths of having programs on our laptops to calculate physics forumlae for speed, etc to figure stuff out as close to exact as we can.

Ie. a player one had a giant boulder lifted high in the air, and came down as a meteor. we calculated, to an estimation of course, the damge we would expect from soemthing at that speed, etc.

My players like that sense of realism; where it's like any RPG but the danger is real.

Ie. a lot of stuff that the game uses as HP damage, that logically should kill instantly..in our games, it does. You don't even want to know what some of the traps are like in our games, espec since I don't let them use dice rolls to disarm them..they have to tell me how they disarm it for real! (ie. traps I do are drawn out like real traps and if i can, i show an engineer friend to ensure the trap , in his opinion, could work the way i want). then when the players find it, if they do, i show them the mechanism i drew, and they really have to figure out how to do it. (it helps with real life problem solving, instead of a dice roll)

but my players expect and like that. it makes the world seem real to them and they say helps them imagine everything...so that is the style i go for. ultra dangerous, hyper real, as far as i can make it.

I think I should correct myself, incase i insulted anyone. I think it was my mistake.
My players prefer the roleplay experience almost to the level of a live action, real life styled rpg, so a person getting incapacitated doesn't bother them, since it's expected that it might happen.

In that sense, the find the 4E rules are toning it down to a point that they don't like it. Not all are like that...the group is split about 5 who like our current style, adn 2 who prefer a 'lighter' style..but overall, they are ok playing with my current Dm style...i am sure they would like an 'easier' DM.



once again, sorry if i insulted anyone

Sanjay