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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6156455" data-attributes="member: 17106">That might be one way to run a game, but that is not the definition of good game design. There are many games where it is entirely possible to play optimally well and lose anyway (many card games, such as poker, blackjack, and solitaire are this way; casinos are founded on games that are easy to lose) (not to mention large segments of the video game world, including D&D-based CRPGs, where it is assumed that the player will lose repeatedly and reload saved games and try again). Likewise, there are many stories where major characters fail for reasons outside of their control. It's quite a large contrivance to say that the players are completely in control of their own fate. Where is it written that failure should only come from player choice? I don't understand the origin of this idea.Personally, I think that giving the players the sense that nothing bad can happen to them if they don't let it is a recipe for disaster. It tends to make them overconfident and insulated, and then when something bad does happen, that means that they are effectively being blamed and they tend to take that personally. Again, I think the whole reason for making random chance a core element of rpgs (by using dice) is not poor game design.Player choice is part of the equation, but not the only part.We do? Personally, I applaud whoever came up with the test in the first place (which by the way, was really a plot device to save money by reusing Klingon footage from the first movie). Yes, it is a defining part of Kirk's character, but do we think that every other cadet who went through it and lost like they were supposed to is a chump?The D&D relevance, in my mind, is that situations in which characters must die are often the climax of a great campaign, IME.</blockquote>

Verification