a curosity (campaign survivability)

[big teej]

from "a cheap way to defeat detect evil" thread


A potion of Undetectable Alignment (as a Bard spell) costs only 100 gp, and lasts a whole day. Instead of splurging 8K on a ring, get 20-30 potions. Let's face it, in 20-30 game days, either you will die, or the Paladin will die, or the campaign will end. (also, after several failures to detect your alignment, the Paladin may assume you're permanently undetectable and stop trying)


originally posted by big teej
bolded for emphasis.... care to explain? :smallconfused:

I quickly took this post back down as I feel it warrants it's own discussion.

anybody care to confirm, deny, or dispute the idea that a campaign is liable to die within an in-game month?


that just seems wierd to me.


my school group is just hitting level 7-8 and it's been roughly a year and a half in game.

thoughts?

:smallconfused:

[SaintRidley]

I think the idea is that if you need Undetectable Alignment in order for your party's paladin to not notice you're evil, your party is almost certain to be doomed to losing one of you (characters) because of the need to play against each other in this way.

[flumphy]

A tabletop game is almost certainly going to last longer, yes, but a PbP game is actually very likely to die within that time. I'd estimate more than half, actually, with maybe 1/3 never even finishing up a single in-game day. I'm sure different people have probably experienced different numbers, but I don't think anyone who does much PbP would dispute that the "mortality rate" of games in much, much higher in that medium.

And some GMs just flat-out don't give downtime or use realistic travel times. I can see that contributing.

[Diefje]

If there's no real chance of losing (as in death), the victories aren't as sweet. I can't really say about the 30days, since every campaign has a different pace with travel, research, crafting, being thrown in jail. But, the life of an adventurer is definately risky. Most people stay peasants cause they don't want to die (and/or their tyrant overlord). If your PCs are scared of everything, they're in the wrong business

[Kol Korran]

i too am unsure as to what the writer meant, but i suggest you ask him in a private message. (or on the forums, what might work)

there might be 4 cases i know of that might explain this saying, which might come from the writer's experience with the game:

- PbPs as has been mentioned

- short campaigns of 3-4 levels (some people like it that way, it has it's advantages) which can be completed in that time

- very "kill the monsters, then rest 15-minutes-adventuirng-days" kind of long dungeons. in game, you level up meteorically, and can even ehot 10-15 levels in a month. i really dislike this kind of game.

- or he might (and this seems more likely to me) play with undedicated groups or DMs, that get bored/ frustrated/ want to change ideas after a short time, and therefor never get to finish a campaign.

just my thoughts. :smallwink: