Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Worlds of Design: “Old School” in RPGs and other Games – Part 1 Failure and Story
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7768479" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Not all the risk vanished, though: you still had to make that resurrection survival roll and even if you did you still came back down a point of constitution - and note that both of these drawbacks to death have disappeared from the game over the years, further supporting the point the article is trying to make. Raise Dead cost a lot too, and Resurrection even more.</p><p></p><p>And Raise in the field took having a 9th-level Cleric in the party, which is pretty late-game for 1e.</p><p></p><p>At automatic chance of success and at much lower cost.</p><p></p><p>So, Trauma here replaces Sanity in CoC? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Damn right we wouldn't! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> If I ever get to the point of having to say "Joe, can I please have permission to kill off your character?" then I'm doing it wrong on a host of levels right from square one - and Joe's probably in the wrong game, too.</p><p></p><p>Yet as you yourself note, there's much more to danger than simple death. Level loss is gone. Magic item destruction is gone, or close enough. Limb loss is either gone or close to gone. Most save-or-dies are gone, along with many save-or-hosed; and those save-or-hosed that remain have been greatly mitigated in duration and-or severity.</p><p></p><p>There's just no denying that dangers in most NS games are less than in OS games.</p><p> </p><p>Chance of failure isn't a factor - 50-50 odds, for example, are the same in any system.</p><p></p><p>But what's become different is what a failure represents, and how the roll is interpreted.</p><p></p><p>What it represents: </p><p></p><p>In OS, a failure usually means 'no, you can't do it', whatever it was you were trying to do. You don't climb the wall. You don't find the secret door. You don't talk your way past the guards. You don't find the princess before her kidnappers kill her off. (as a side note, this is what 'failure' means - the opposite of success)</p><p></p><p>In NS, a failure quite often in fact means success (and is thus the wrong term to use) but with a complication. You climb the wall but there's a guard at the top waiting for you. You find the secret door because a monster comes out of it. You talk your way past the guards but one is suspicious and runs to inform her boss. You find the princess but she's been horribly disfigured. (note: none of these are actual failures!)</p><p></p><p>How the roll is interpreted:</p><p></p><p>In OS, in cases where success or failure is not necessarily a binary condition, many DMs would interpret rolls such that a narrowly-made success might end up with what we'd now call a fail-forward. For example, if you're trying to climb a wall and need to roll 11 to make it, on 10 or less you fail outright but on 11 or 12 - a narrow success - a DM might say you made it but there's a problem - you were too noisy, or you took longer than expected, or whatever. Failure was never mitigated, but success sometimes was.</p><p></p><p>In NS it's the reverse: success is never mitigated, but failure often is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7768479, member: 29398"] Not all the risk vanished, though: you still had to make that resurrection survival roll and even if you did you still came back down a point of constitution - and note that both of these drawbacks to death have disappeared from the game over the years, further supporting the point the article is trying to make. Raise Dead cost a lot too, and Resurrection even more. And Raise in the field took having a 9th-level Cleric in the party, which is pretty late-game for 1e. At automatic chance of success and at much lower cost. So, Trauma here replaces Sanity in CoC? :) Damn right we wouldn't! :) If I ever get to the point of having to say "Joe, can I please have permission to kill off your character?" then I'm doing it wrong on a host of levels right from square one - and Joe's probably in the wrong game, too. Yet as you yourself note, there's much more to danger than simple death. Level loss is gone. Magic item destruction is gone, or close enough. Limb loss is either gone or close to gone. Most save-or-dies are gone, along with many save-or-hosed; and those save-or-hosed that remain have been greatly mitigated in duration and-or severity. There's just no denying that dangers in most NS games are less than in OS games. Chance of failure isn't a factor - 50-50 odds, for example, are the same in any system. But what's become different is what a failure represents, and how the roll is interpreted. What it represents: In OS, a failure usually means 'no, you can't do it', whatever it was you were trying to do. You don't climb the wall. You don't find the secret door. You don't talk your way past the guards. You don't find the princess before her kidnappers kill her off. (as a side note, this is what 'failure' means - the opposite of success) In NS, a failure quite often in fact means success (and is thus the wrong term to use) but with a complication. You climb the wall but there's a guard at the top waiting for you. You find the secret door because a monster comes out of it. You talk your way past the guards but one is suspicious and runs to inform her boss. You find the princess but she's been horribly disfigured. (note: none of these are actual failures!) How the roll is interpreted: In OS, in cases where success or failure is not necessarily a binary condition, many DMs would interpret rolls such that a narrowly-made success might end up with what we'd now call a fail-forward. For example, if you're trying to climb a wall and need to roll 11 to make it, on 10 or less you fail outright but on 11 or 12 - a narrow success - a DM might say you made it but there's a problem - you were too noisy, or you took longer than expected, or whatever. Failure was never mitigated, but success sometimes was. In NS it's the reverse: success is never mitigated, but failure often is. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Worlds of Design: “Old School” in RPGs and other Games – Part 1 Failure and Story
Top