The top 100 'Sacred Cows' of Roleplaying

[big dummy]

58: Realism is a four letter word (count it, its 7 letters)

59: Realsim automatically means more complex. (I know this because I tried rolemaster / runequest / gurps before and it was too complicated)

60: Historical and or Realism both make the game into Dilbert in the Dungeon, i.e. I'm weak I'm lame and fat and I'm going to die of plague within 3 minutes. (Apparently there were no heroes , warriors, or adventurers in history)

 

[Odhanan]

61: The DM can be rude with the other players of the game, since he's the DM.

62: Players are expendable. DMs aren't.

 

[Odhanan]

63: Killing summarily the character of a troublesome player (i.e. via random lightning bolt, rain of anvils or whatever comes up in the DM's mind) is really cool and absolutely okay.

 

[Rystil Arden]

57: Players can never die

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to break the rules here a bit. You've got to be kidding me! You think D&D would be more fun if you started murdering your players? Please tell me this is a joke or a mistake?

 

[buzz]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to break the rules here a bit. You've got to be kidding me! You think D&D would be more fun if you started murdering your players? Please tell me this is a joke or a mistake?

D&D is, IMO, more fun if there are consequences. I don't want the DM pulling any punches; if I take actions that lead to my PC's death, then so be it. I think that fudging to keep PCs alive sort of invalidates all of the kewl powerz your PC earns. E.g., what good was all the effort I put into crafting a good PC if he's going to succeed (or at least not die) no matter what I do?

That said, I don't wanna play in no game where the DM is trying to kill everyone 24-7, either.

(This is all D&D-centric, of course. Choose a different system and I'll give a different answer.)

 

[big dummy]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to break the rules here a bit. You've got to be kidding me! You think D&D would be more fun if you started murdering your players? Please tell me this is a joke or a mistake?

There is a difference between players never dying, and players very, very rarely dying. What if the players are making very unwise decisions? IMO, if the players sense that there is NO possibility that their characters could die no matter what they do, it really takes away from all those undefinable abstract things people talk about like sense of wonder, immersion etc.

That said, I'm not advocating killing a player in a shower of anvils just because they are

Just to cite one example. You have a fairly low level party who knows there are some ogres in the area. The ogres are more than a match in a direct fight, but the ogres are not too bright. There are a number of ways the players could get the ogres. Divide and conquer (lure the ogres away from each other and destroy them in detail) trick the ogres in various ways, set traps, enlist allies. Even if they prefer a direct fight their chances can be vastly enhanced by setting up a clever ambush, or getting the ogres to attack them in favorable terrain (while they are in a fortified position perhaps, or on top of a steep hill).

If your low level party decides instead to just go at it head to head with the ogres knowing full well how tough they are in a strait fight, then you kind of have to let the cards fall where they may. At least to some extent. Ideally, maybe the party will get away with no deaths, or just one or two, and learn and important lesson.

If a player dies, as a DM I will definately feel that I screwed up. I didn't communicate to the players what the environment was like. (I didn't make it apparent enough how tough the ogres were ) or I didn't make alternative options apparent enough. Or I have simply designed the wrong kind of campaign for this particular group.

On the other hand, as a player I know that a sense of danger makes the game come alive for me much more. If I have the feeling that I'm invulnerable, it takes a lot of the wind out of my sails. I feel like Im goijng through the motions. I feel exactly the same way about the (to me) crazy idea of being able to expect a certain amount of treasure automatically for each session or each encounter, or by each level. How much treasure I get should depend on how much I can actually find, get a hold of and spirit away!

I guess I come from a very different way of playing than most people these days.

BD

 

[big dummy]

D&D is, IMO, more fun if there are consequences. I don't want the DM pulling any punches; if I take actions that lead to my PC's death, then so be it. I think that fudging to keep PCs alive sort of invalidates all of the kewl powerz your PC earns. E.g., what good was all the effort I put into crafting a good PC if he's going to succeed (or at least not die) no matter what I do?

That said, I don't wanna play in no game where the DM is trying to kill everyone 24-7, either.

(This is all D&D-centric, of course. Choose a different system and I'll give a different answer.)

Yeah the flipside of this is where you can play games in which it's actually part of the fun to be killed, like Paranoia or Kobolds Ate my Baby (?), or sort of expected like in Call of Cthulhu. One of the nice things about RPG's is that you can do all sorts of stuff you cant do in real life. I don't get why some people are so conservative even in their imagination!!! To me an RPG game is a place to let loose and realy have fun.

(I too disagree with rule 1 in this thread, though I really like the thread. "Fun" may mean different things to different people and may be misused by some people as an excuse for doing things which are in fact silly and not fun, but FUN is the ultaimte and ONLY reason to play any game that I can think of. Unless you are desigining the game maybe in which case it's at least partially Work...

bD

 

[GMSkarka]

64. (more metagame, really) Gamers are smarter, more well-read, and more creative than the non-gamer population.

(This isn't really specific to gamers -- it pops up in every niche-genre interest group, but it's still pretty damned annoying.)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

64) Rolling hit points. As a "resource" for characters, they should be fixed. You dont roll for how many skill points, you dont roll to see whether or not you get an additional spell when you level, and feats arent randomly generated. Hit points should be a fixed amount, to prevent a front line fighter having less HP than another character due to poor rolling. I'm against any randomness in character generation.

65) Excusing poorly designed and weak feats as "role playing oriented". Mechanics should be balanced with mechanics, there is no coolness:effectiveness ratio. Similarly, you dont get to have an overpowered combat move that comes off as lame.

66) You dont pay for fluff with character "resources". If something is exotic, unusual, or strange, thats no valid reason to require paying extra for it in terms of feats, skills, etc. Only if its mechanically superior to something else should it justify the expenditure of additional resources. Presumably, the players are portraying unique individuals with a unique background... thus the exotic is no longer such if written in.

67) That its ok for DM's to "cheat" to tell a story (read: cram a story down someone's throat). If you cant handle your NPC's being potentially killeld, dont place them in situations where they can be killed. Learn to DM for once rather than writing a half-assed piece of fiction with the players only pretending to have control. Similarly, if you cant handle players using magic to counter your crappily written adventures and feel the need to constantly deprive them of abilities to make them play out as you had planned in "the one true path", hang up your hat.

68) Midieval European Fantasy - I'm bored to tears by it. Moreover, I'm irritated by worlds which dont jive with the system. If cure disease and raise dead are simple matters (which they are in D&D), the world should reflect that. Greyhawk is about the epitome of this garbage, which just drops magic in the world with little thought as to how it would impact things.

 

[buzzard]

D&D is, IMO, more fun if there are consequences. I don't want the DM pulling any punches; if I take actions that lead to my PC's death, then so be it. I think that fudging to keep PCs alive sort of invalidates all of the kewl powerz your PC earns. E.g., what good was all the effort I put into crafting a good PC if he's going to succeed (or at least not die) no matter what I do?

That said, I don't wanna play in no game where the DM is trying to kill everyone 24-7, either.

(This is all D&D-centric, of course. Choose a different system and I'll give a different answer.)

Once again the inability of net humor to function rears it's ugly head.

Read the initial post and response. He said players cannot die, not PCs. Methinks that's a touch different.

Hmm, sacred cow. I don't want to contribute to the peeve tirade which is passing for sacred cows.

How about:
#XX (not keeping track) Certain spells must advance in power with level if they did so since 1st edition.

buzzard