Why is it so important?

[shilsen]

If the game is structured so that progress occurs during the course of successful adventuring, i.e., 1+1+2+3+1+5, then anything that negates that progress is IMHO an absolute loss, i.e., 1+1+2, followed by death, either equals 4, upon which +3+1+5 can then follow, or it does not.

This may explain why you have to repeat yourself so often. You're spending way too much space and time coming up with weirdly inappropriate terminology that does nothing to advance an argument. I'd recommend sticking with English.

If there is a sequence of adventures, each with a value of 1, and death resets you to 0, then death includes an absolute loss, as when two players experience 20 adventures, the one who died in the 15th has a sum total of 5, while the one who did not die has 20.

Do players actually die in your campaign? If not, I'd say that the two players both experience 20 adventures. The one whose PC died in the 15th experiences the last 5 with a new PC, so he still experiences the same adventures as the other player, except he does so with different PCs. Hardly an absolute loss.

In many games, there is an XP and/or level penalty when replacing a PC due to death. This is intended, AFAICT, to make some form of absolute loss occur with death. Of course, as I am sure diaglo can tell you, when you die in OD&D, your next character begins at level 1.

Absolute loss would be not getting to take part at all. An XP and/or level penalty is a relative loss, since you lose the original character, but get a new one to play with. See why I mean it's a matter of definition?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Honestly, RC, the reason I stopped replying to this thread was questions like this. I thought I made it quite clear that you can still have an interesting, exciting encounter where the primary measure of importance isn't the resources which are expended/lost. You suggest otherwise.

And I submit, respectfully, that it should therefore be quite easy for you to answer Gizmo33's questions.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC, removing death from the game isn't about ensuring the players 'win' all the time. It's not about removing challenge.

I didn't say it was; If you look back, you will see that I said "If, once you've failed the Grail Quest, you don't get another shot at it, then I'd agree that the game without death has equal (or perhaps greater) stakes than the game with death."

 

[Jackelope King]

And I submit, respectfully, that it should therefore be quite easy for you to answer Gizmo33's questions.

RC

And I submit, respectfully, that I just did in the post I just made. I'll post it again.

There is a WORLD of difference between a 10th level fighter and four goblins (where there is, presumably, no challenge at all) and the encounter I ran in M&M just last night where the PCs were left after the encounter in exactly the same state, mechanically, they were before. Since you seem to equate the 10th level fighter and four goblins with any encounter where resource expenditure is minimized, I pose the following challenge to you:

Please tell me how the six rounds of combat, where the PCs were forced to contend with a water ninja's obscure effect, the Hellfire-controlling PC almost taking himself out of the fight when he stabbed an alternate-universe version of himself in the soul, federal agents stunning and trapping a shrinking hero in a specimen jar, and a squad of soldiers taking one of the heroes prisoner temporarily was of no "mechanical interest".

Please tell me how the Big Bad Evil Guy rolling so well for the first four rounds that he didn't take any damage, as well as one federal agent who took an absurd amount of punishment for those early rounds (again rolling extremely well), leaving the PCs seriously wondering whether or not they could win the fight, especially when an NPC psychic with them was rolling so poorly that he might as well not have been there (he couldn't hit the broad side of an anything) was of no "mechanical interest".

Please tell me how the enemies upending lab benches to use for cover to thwart the PC blasters' attacks, volatile chemicals exploding and harming PC and NPC alike, and the MacGuffin both groups were after (a rare primate) sitting in the middle of all of this chaos with his piddly +1 toughness save modifier was of no "mechanical interest".

The PCs were going through hero points, alright, but they were gaining them like crazy too, thanks to unforseen complications arising constantly (one PC fighting her archenemy, another having to fight his alternate self, a third being trapped in a lead-lined specimen container that blocked her powers). Indeed, even the luck controller (who by design must spend oodles of hero points) wound up right back to where he started after the fight, when an NPC snuck away with a box containing material which could be used to blackmail him.

Please tell me how this encounter was of no "mechanical significance".

And most importantly, please make sure your forward your response to my players, who told me that they greatly enjoyed the encounter last night and thought it was great fun. They apparently need to know that their encounter had no "mechanical significance", and that they should have simply ticked off resources instead and skipped the encounter. That's what you do with things that are insignificant, right?

 

[Mallus]

I'd recommend sticking with English.

But then we'd miss out on the cool Timecube vibe we've been getting from RC's arguments.

Absolute loss would be not getting to take part at all.

Heh, I was thinking that the only 'absolute loss' would be scrapping the campaign in favor of a poker night.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have never understood, though this is a long standing issue, how an encounter that poses no risk to a PC (of either resource loss or loss of life) is of any mechanical interest.

This has been asked, in many different ways, dozens of times. I am interested to see an actual answer.

1) If "mechanical interest" means only in the rules (and not in the story), which I assume it does:
I agree, you're right, the encounter can't be of mechanical interest. If that's all what you wanted to hear, stop reading right here*.

2)
If that wasn't enough yet, I also agree that any mechanic that includes a daily resource concept can guarantee that the 9:00 to 9:15 adventure will not happen. (Happy now, stop reading!)


2) But I think there is still a considerable margin for improvement if we lessen the impact of these daily resources on the total resources for each encounter. The 9:00 to 9:15 is an extremist example. Often enough, people will probably last a bit longer in the dungeon (maybe 2 hours?) and have more than one encounter. Which means there is the willingness for a little risk. But even 2 hours are ridiculous as long as resetting resources requires 8 hours of rest and for some characters a new morning/evening. The in-game time (not real world play time) balance between rest and action is way off...

1) If the game is not just about the mechanics, it is also about the story that is told as part of the game. So, even if the players are guaranteed to survive, don't lose any resources, an encounter can still be interesting to the game.

And the question is also: Is an encounter actually interesting just because it has the mechanical impact of costing resources?

That depends probably a lot on personal preference and the situation at hand, but for me most of the time, only the "potentially deadly" encounters (discounting the ones where other goals than survival are important) are really interesting.
The only other reason they could interesting is because you get to wonder "Did I use to many resources, so the next encounter will become more dangerous and pose a threat to my characters survival?". But this interest is not an immediate part of the current encounter. Now, if you're not such an "instant-gratification" kind of player/DM as me, that might be enough. But I think there are many people that want the interesting things to happen now, and not be hinted at for later. ("Maybe later it's getting more interesting wether I should have fireballed the Ogres...")

*)and if your daughter allows, you might even get to sleep. Though I have no idea what time it is when you read it. For me, it's evening.
PS: I just recognize that this *) thingy is mean because I wrote "..stop reading right here." Sorry for that...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Really? Through no fault of their own, other than bad dice, the PCs expended more resources than the adventure designer was expecting, and cannot stand up to the final encounter.

Do you teach your children that, if they land on a slide in Snakes & Ladders, that they get to just reroll?

In any event, I think you place too much emphasis on the designer. I am not personally interested in any game, as player or DM, where the PCs are forced to go along with what the designer thought they should do (even if - perhaps especially if - that designer is me).

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

This may explain why you have to repeat yourself so often. You're spending way too much space and time coming up with weirdly inappropriate terminology that does nothing to advance an argument. I'd recommend sticking with English.

I attempted that. Some wanker didn't know what "absolute loss" meant.

(And I am very tired right now. At least I don't have to drive my son back from Canada's Wonderland at Godawful Early in the morning again tonight.....)

RC

 

[IanArgent]

Do you teach your children that, if they land on a slide in Snakes & Ladders, that they get to just reroll?

I don't have children yet. At any rate, I've never liked Chutes & Ladders for exactly that reason. I don't care for pure-random mechanics in games, certainly not in RPGs. I know, in reality, crap happens. In a story, crap happens, in the end, for a reason. Even in a Tom Clancy novel (the king, IMO, of random occurrence), the "random" occurrences drive the plot.

That having been said, I'm fine with the PCs derailing the plot, as long as it doesn't impact the ability to tell a story that's fun for all participants.

In any event, I think you place too much emphasis on the designer. I am not personally interested in any game, as player or DM, where the PCs are forced to go along with what the designer thought they should do (even if - perhaps especially if - that designer is me).

RC

I'm not arguing that the designer should have the whip hand in adventures. In some ways I want the exact opposite. I want a game that someone who is unfamiliar with the capabilities and intentions of my party can design an adventure, that I can take, off the shelf, and run with no more prep than reading it through once, and have that adventure be fun, exciting, and "correct" for my party. If I can't have that, I want a system where I can correct "on-the-fly" for "incorrect" encounters/monsters/etc.

Onc eyou have a solid foundation, you can build what you want on it. Right now, 3.5 does not have that solid foundation - the design is too ad-hoc, too dependent on the DM having time to prep, and too dependent, quite frankly, on the DM being overly competent. I have a lot harder time running a D&D adventure from a module than I do running SR off the top of my head. To a certain extent, I have a harder time running a module in D&D than I do running an adventure off the top of my head - and that's not a good thing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

*)and if your daughter allows, you might even get to sleep. Though I have no idea what time it is when you read it. For me, it's evening.
PS: I just recognize that this *) thingy is mean because I wrote "..stop reading right here." Sorry for that...

MR, I think that I agree with everything you wrote. I'll go over it again when I'm less foggy.

So, get this: My youngest girl? Cold that wakes her up with wracking coughs every few hours. She sleeps in our bed. My partner? She has the same cold, so she's tired, and when I get home I can't just shuff everything onto her. Me? Same cold, lesser degree, but still tiring. My eldest? Working at Canada's Wonderland Horror Haunt (formerly Fearfest) as a scarer, gets off around 10 pm (soon to be 12 or later), needs a lift back to the city. About 1 1/2-2 hours round trip.

No wonder I look like this:

RC