What the heck is "Unfun"?

[WarlockLord]

I think I have to speak up in defense of save or dies.

1) The 'save or die' effects are a main part of the fantasy genre. Whether Circe is turning Odysseus' sailors into pigs, the White Witch turning creatures into statues, and so forth, these spells are precedented. Remove these, and you end up with a 3.5 fighter. For me, what isn't fun is just doing HP damage. If you don't kill your opponent, it means nothing.

2) Runescape Sucks. This is what you get when you remove the interesting spell effects. The mages in Runescape just blast people with damage. It is a boring combat. No one wants to just blast away. Battlefield control, turning bad guys into toads, killing them with hallucinations, and panicking them are all way, way cooler.

3) This is a fight, you know. You guys are engaged in mortal combat with the enemy. They are not expected to be nice. They will try their best to kill you. If you do not like this, go ask the DM to give the orcs wiffle bats, or, better yet, play Candyland. This is D&D.

However, pure chance is annoying. I am not a hater with no positive ideas. Therefore, I suggest giving all PCs a 1/day (maybe too much? I don't know) reroll power. Once per day, you can reroll any roll you want. This would allow PCs to survive Save or Dies (and could be given to important BBEGs).

But getting rid of Confusion, Dominate, Hold, Sleep, Baleful Polymorph, Finger of Death...bad. These are awesome and flavorful effects, and deserve to stay. They are useful and make combat interesting, because HP damage only is unfun.

Plus, there is always resurrection. And if they shorten combats as a result of 4e, so much the better.

And WoTC designer/developers? Please don't capitulate to the 'make it all ability damage' people. It's fine as it is, and people should stop whining about it, because that is unfun.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I fail to see how this is overwhelming.

The DM has to keep track of this stuff for all of his NPCs.

You actually track arrow expenditure for archer NPCs?

I seriously doubt that.

 

[F4NBOY]

When threads get heated up like this I thank god gamers are like this:

and not like this:

To me the most "unfun" thing in D&D are bad DMs. I hope WOTC can fix that in 4E, somehow...

 

[Nifft]

To me the most "unfun" thing in D&D are bad DMs. I hope WOTC can fix that in 4E, somehow...

Perhaps not fix, but every DM will have a "challenge rating" branded onto his forehead.

(Of course, players will be worth XP...)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Sun Knight]

I haven't read this enitre thread but I just want to say that what is unfun to one gamer may be completely fun to someone else. I find playing over powered characters who have no possible threat of death as well as the thrill of danger removed from the campaign unfun.

Some people might think it is fun to have no chance of dying in an instant due to bad luck. That is all good but for me that is very much unfun. Maybe I am too hardcore but I think that hardcore gaming is fun. 4e is not for hardcore gamers, therefore decidedly unfun for gamers as myself.

It is unfortunate that WotC thinks that making the rules to allow more uber powers for characters who are already overpowered as fun, and forcing what they think what we gamers want as fun, totally disregarding those who do not want a bland generic easy uberpowered game and who thinks those types of campaigns as unfun.

Tomb of Horrors and Temple of Elemental Evil were fun. The question is will 4e give us that same level of fun. I really doubt it.

 

[Elf Witch]

It takes me some time to create a personality for my characters, and it would feel like I was "cheating" on my current one to have a back up ready. So when my well designed, interesting character dies 3 combat rounds into the start of a new campaign it is "unfun" for me to sit out the next 4 hours of the night and then try to force a new Well designed, interesting personality to coalesce by next weekend.

I have some question because I am trying to understand this point of view. When is it okay for character death? Is it that you hate character death in early levels and is it okay later on?

Or is is that you hate death all together?

To me I would rather lose a lower level new character to death then one I have been playing for a long time becuse as the game goes on I get more attached to my character.

 

[KarinsDad]

You actually track arrow expenditure for archer NPCs?

I seriously doubt that.

It's pretty simple. 5 Archers. Give them 20 each. If they fire 3 each, there are 85 arrows left over. The PCs might find 7 more if they go look in the bushes.

And, quite frankly, I do not track them to the nth degree. But, I have a fairly decent educated guess as to how many are left over when the PCs go loot the bodies. If I'm off by two or three, no biggy.

I also know how many potions and scrolls the NPCs have left over, which spells (if they get away), money, regular items, magical items, etc.

It's not too hard to cross things off a sheet of paper.

You should try it some time.

 

[hong]

It's not too hard to cross things off a sheet of paper.

... or necessary.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It's pretty simple.

Even more simple is, "You find a couple dozen unspent arrows in the enemy archers' quivers."

If the archers are not going to be around long enough to run out of arrows (and, generally speaking, they aren't), any number beyond "enough to fire at the PCs and a couple left over" is more paperwork than is strictly necessary.

It works really well. You should try it some time.

And, quite frankly, I do not track them to the nth degree. But, I have a fairly decent educated guess as to how many are left over when the PCs go loot the bodies. If I'm off by two or three, no biggy.

Same here - but I do less paperwork, and my players don't seem to mind.

I also know how many potions and scrolls the NPCs have left over,

Yep - because those generally come in 1s and 2s, rather than job lots of 40, and tend to be more important for the PCs (and tend to only be found on the more important NPCs, as well).

money, regular items, magical items, etc.

Yep, yep, and yep. But, again, 1s and 2s (each archer has a shortbow, a dagger, and 1d8 silver bearing the crest of Badvillainia!), rather than lots and lots.

 

[KarinsDad]

Same here - but I do less paperwork, and my players don't seem to mind.

How do you know you do less paperwork?

How do you know that I even write it down?