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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5516983" data-attributes="member: 1165">I'd rather start over. Here's why:I'm not the world's greatest RP'er. I'm in a game for fun, and will occasionally have my character act in a nonsensical way of acting "smart" results in doing something not fun. (To a point: poking a dragon with a stick "just to see what happens" is not only stupid, it'll also annoy the other players at the table.) Basically it means I'd rather be railroaded than argue with four other players about four different avenues of progress, none of which have to do with the presented plot. There are varying ways of increasing or decreasing my amount of fun, which is particularly relevant since I only get to play six hours a week, and some of those games aren't even really my cup of tea to begin with.One way of decreasing my fun is to depower my character for a long time. Level draining, taking away items (especially in 3.x) or temporarily taking away powers (I had this done to my character in Mutants & Mastermind) aren't a whole lot of fun. I wouldn't suicide my character, but making him retire seems like a valid option both in terms of RP and in terms of my own enjoyment. I only get to game about six hours a week, and it's not worth it if it's not fun. And sure, the GM might promise I'll get my stuff back, but I can't control when this is, nor can my PC know this.Another is to restrict what my character can do. So if I'm tossed in prison, my only goal now is to escape. Which is made harder because I don't know how to break out of prison in real life, and even if I did my character probably wouldn't. And if I were playing a character like an intelligent rogue who might know how to do this, the GM isn't going to give me freebie hints when I keep rolling Streetwise checks. The loss of equipment doesn't help with this goal either; even if I escape, I probably won't get it back, so see the above paragraph.Some games handle the situation differently from DnD. For instance in FATE, long-term debilitating effects are nearly non-existent. I think I read about a "bad luck" curse that assaults the victim with a single accident (one that is balanced mechanically too). This can occur far in the future, but it only happens once. Negative conditions can be simply removed with rest. Others, like Warhammer, do it even "worse" than DnD. Yes, you can lose limbs in that system, but even so you get a few fate/fortune points to put that off a bit.Generations (probably overly dramatic) of DMs have instilled this mindset in players. And it's not like these DMs are even bad. It's realistic when you're deciding what evil characters will do. If you're a powerful hero and villains are having a hard time dealing with you directly, villains will kidnap your significant other, threaten to burn down your child's school, harass your older sibling until they lose their job, read your younger sibling's mail, get your ex-significant other that you had a good relationship with into trouble with the law, etc.Personally I find playing foreigners to work quite well. The PC is from so far away that NPCs can't realistically find his family, and my PC might lie about his family members (claiming his parents are dead when they're alive, or saying he has lots of siblings when he only has one, or even naming the village bully as his old best friend, etc). But in a well-played campaign, he'll make friends anyway, and they'll be vulnerable to the villains, so the problem is still there.Killing is a "thin line". In most systems, it's hard to justify killing PCs unless there's been a TPK. You don't normally beat on an unconscious opponent without good reason (like you think the cleric is about to heal them). The DM feels like a bad guy if they have a villain do this anyway. Although it's easy to explain if it's an arena-trained brohg or a dumb hungry troll or some monster that would do this.</blockquote>

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