Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Asisreo" data-source="post: 8091206" data-attributes="member: 7019027">Within the nature of a game, there are certain win-states and fail-states. Though actually, there ever really needs to be a fail state. In Tetris, you fail when the blocks reach the top of the line. In Pac-man, you fail when your lives are exhausted when you touch a ghost. In skyrim, you fail when your health is depleted. These failures cause you to obtain some sort of penalty. In some games, the penalty is rewinding to a specific moment in time, making you re-do what you've done before. In others, the penalty is making you start the whole game over again. Death &amp; TPK's are a fail-state in D&amp;D, but they don't need to be the only fail-state. A player can be penalized by failing to prevent their enemy from finishing a rite or by taking too long. Going over the games I've played, both through modules and homebrew, many of the adventures established a challenge to players without threatening their resources like HP or spell slots. In fact, the hardest game my players will attest to was one where their characters were never close to the jaws of death, but they repeatedly failed to accomplish the tasks that they intended to do, in which penalties for their failure kept stacking onto one another. They called this particular adventure &quot;unfairly difficult&quot; because they were failing so often. They were challenged not through scarcity, not through limited resources, but through limited capabilities. The wizard couldn't concentrate on 2 spells, the rogue couldn't complete their task quick enough, the paladin couldn't do enough damage in a short enough amount of time. While you can say concentration, time, and instantaneous damage is also a form of resource, these seems too broad of a statement as well. Furthermore, these &quot;resources&quot; have nothing to do with a 6-8 encounter day.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Asisreo, post: 8091206, member: 7019027"] Within the nature of a game, there are certain win-states and fail-states. Though actually, there ever really needs to be a fail state. In Tetris, you fail when the blocks reach the top of the line. In Pac-man, you fail when your lives are exhausted when you touch a ghost. In skyrim, you fail when your health is depleted. These failures cause you to obtain some sort of penalty. In some games, the penalty is rewinding to a specific moment in time, making you re-do what you've done before. In others, the penalty is making you start the whole game over again. Death & TPK's are a fail-state in D&D, but they don't need to be the only fail-state. A player can be penalized by failing to prevent their enemy from finishing a rite or by taking too long. Going over the games I've played, both through modules and homebrew, many of the adventures established a challenge to players without threatening their resources like HP or spell slots. In fact, the hardest game my players will attest to was one where their characters were never close to the jaws of death, but they repeatedly failed to accomplish the tasks that they intended to do, in which penalties for their failure kept stacking onto one another. They called this particular adventure "unfairly difficult" because they were failing so often. They were challenged not through scarcity, not through limited resources, but through limited capabilities. The wizard couldn't concentrate on 2 spells, the rogue couldn't complete their task quick enough, the paladin couldn't do enough damage in a short enough amount of time. While you can say concentration, time, and instantaneous damage is also a form of resource, these seems too broad of a statement as well. Furthermore, these "resources" have nothing to do with a 6-8 encounter day. [/QUOTE]

Verification