What type of strain do you like?

[rubycona]

In our group, we're having a problem of types of challenges. In short, we have different views, and that's causing conflict. So I was wondering what you guys feel. All these questions are from player perspective.

1. Do you enjoy battles/conflicts with a short-term, significant risk of death? IE, a major boss battle, where there's a real risk of a TPK.

2. Do you enjoy battles/conflicts with a long term, significant risk of death? IE, a series of traps or monsters, where any one is very unlikely to kill you, but cumulatively, your chance of death is considerable.

3. Do you enjoy situations with a high risk of social consequence, but no/little risk of death? IE, you are trying to stop a war, and if you fail, an entire group of people will be killed. Or you lose someone's trust, or someone you're protecting dies, etc.

4. Do you enjoy situations with little risk of any significant consequences? IE, you're mostly looking at losing some arrows and potions, but unless you do something suicidally retarded, you're coming away clean.

Me personally (and another of the players) hates the risk of character death. I worked hard on her, and I want to see her get to high levels. However, I take social risk extremely seriously, and I find it exhilarating, and stressful, in a good way.

Another player finds combat boring unless there's a significant risk of death. This came to a head last game, where the DM obviously chose not to finish me off, just leaving me unconscious. Combat-y player got annoyed, saying he couldn't take the game seriously now. Whereas, the other RP player, who's fairly new, said she'd have flat out quit D&D entirely if my character had been killed. She found it extremely stressful and uncomfortable, just being in that intense of a combat. Her only other experience with D&D was with me as the DM, and as is probably obvious, I had exclusively social/RP type stressors, and combat was challenging, but not life-threatening.

So my final question is, has anyone else had this type of conflict? If so, how would it be resolved? The only situations I can see are either someone is unhappy with the game, or we don't play with this mix of players.

[Lord Ruby34]

I generally like 1, 2, and 3. Four bores the crap out of me though. One thing that you need to remember about the system though, is that at mid-to high levels death is really only an inconvenience.

I'd suggest just making raises easier (Scrolls of Raise Dead or Reviveify, or friendly clerics or Psions.). As long as you're not bothered by the revolving door of the afterlife, it should satisfy both problems.

[rubycona]

This DM hates, absolutely loathes, ressurection magics of any kind. In fact, in his own created setting, there's literally no way to bring back the dead, in any fashion, save undead, and as far as I know, intelligent undead are impossible.

(Fortunately his crafted game is RP-centric, so there's little risk of death, as long as we're not stupid)

I can try to talk him into easy resurrections in this new game, though. Maybe XD

[Andreaz]

For slow games (which most RPGs are, due to how mechanics work), I prefer something long, moderate risk, interspersed by 4. 4 lets you relax and be creative with your tools, and an array of moderate battles tests your endurance and offensive power.

[hisnamehere]

From a DMing perspective, I need my players to work for their gains. To DM a campaign with little risk of death, DM fiat to save characters from death, and players developing bad (read, risky) habits because of the minimal risk, makes me unexcited.
From a player perspective, I tell my DMs all the time that I really don't mind my character dying; I've got a hundred other ideas to play. Granted, I'm a seasoned player. Most beginner role-players get fairly attached to characters.

In either case, find the happy medium. Oakspar (poster from wizards.com) once suggested polling your players (and DM) for preferences pre-campaign. Find the happy medium for all involved. For example, DMs can feel free to be harsher with my characters, as I've given permission, while being a bit softer on the others', if that is their preference.

Happy gaming,

[rubycona]

From a DMing perspective, I need my players to work for their gains. To DM a campaign with little risk of death, DM fiat to save characters from death, and players developing bad (read, risky) habits because of the minimal risk, makes me unexcited.
From a player perspective, I tell my DMs all the time that I really don't mind my character dying; I've got a hundred other ideas to play. Granted, I'm a seasoned player. Most beginner role-players get fairly attached to characters.

In either case, find the happy medium. Oakspar (poster from wizards.com) once suggested polling your players (and DM) for preferences pre-campaign. Find the happy medium for all involved. For example, DMs can feel free to be harsher with my characters, as I've given permission, while being a bit softer on the others', if that is their preference.

Happy gaming,

As a DM, I like players to earn it, but I don't find permanent character death to be a necessary risk. Risks, yes, are paramount, but I love RP related risks most.

As a player, I've been playing for years, but I still get super attached to my characters :P Rather, when I expect a game will last a while, I'll spend a long time carefully detailing my backstory, choosing my build to suit my concept (not for power), and fleshing out a deep personality. These characters, if they die, it pisses me off.

However, for games that I know will be heavy combat, like our frequent arena matches (make a character fresh, or an old one, whatever, at the specified level for each session), they could die by the dozens without me so much as blinking an eye.

I suppose, I just hate being shoehorned in with no ingame history, no attachments to the NPCs, nothing. I guess I could be a major NPC's sister, or something, but it feels contrived to do stuff like that after the game's been going.

[Lonely Tylenol]

A combination of 1, 2, and 3, with even a smattering of 4, depending on scale but ultimately connected:

1. This should be the centerpiece of a particularly harrowing adventure, after the party been weakened by various trials and tribulations. Essentially, this should be the climax that follows the rising action of your adventure.

2. The bulk of most adventures should follow in this vein. Over successive battles, traps, and other dangerous situations, the party should feel that there is no immediate risk of death or dismemberment from any single one--save for certain situations that end especially poorly--but that the total weight of these cumulative situations bears heavily on them over time. This strain is the rising action that leads to the climax described in 1., although the climactic action of some adventures falls under this category as well; usually this is occurs when the party is running "the gauntlet", or experience the gamut of dangers that create an increasing sense of danger through to the finish (for example, characters that are deafened by a creature with shout as a spell, spell-like, or supernatural ability, or an evil sorcerer with the blindness/deafness spell, who must then fight trained assassins in a room shrouded in magical darkness, or spiders in a room shrouded in obscuring mist.

3. This strain should include the consequences of anything that happens in an adventure involving strain 1. or strain 2. Moreover, it should be the thing that connects multiple adventures involving strains 1. and 2. together, giving them a sense of plot and direction. This strain can be featured in the rising action, climax, or resolution of any given adventure, but should probably feature most prominently in the denouement.

4. This should be used sparingly, as adventuring without a sense of danger creates boredom. It can, however, be used to connect ideas, or even adventures under the strain of the first 3. As such, this strain does not fall under the categories of rising action, climax, or resolution, but works to connect self-contained stories into a larger arc as a supplement to 3.

All four of these can be connected to create a grander story arc. For instance, if the party is sent on a mission to collect intelligence on a marauding orc camp to determine the cause of the recent raids, and discovers that several warlords of smaller Orc bands have been united under a mysterious spellcaster, then the party might be sent on a mission to try and break up the war camps through force (accompanying a war party) or through subterfuge.

The following night (a separate adventure from the recon, perhaps?), the party interrupts an Orc raiding party on their way back to the camp, gets into scuffles with the Orcs, and eventually fights the warlord in charge of the war party, but two things aren't right about this situation: First, the warlord doesn't seem to be fully in control of himself, and second, the warlord is accompanied by strange monsters the party hasn't seen before (such as chaos beasts). Throughout the battle, the warlord fights as if possessed, and is speaking mostly gibberish throughout, but seems to be repeating some phrase in broken common amongst it all.

After killing (or capturing) the Orc warlord and dispatching the chaos beasts and lesser demons accompanying them, the party returns to town, where, upon conferring with the council, gathering information, and maybe a few Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (religion) rolls, they find out that the phrase the Orc warlord was babbling (let's say it was something like "find Ogdoad and Ennead") refers to an ancient Hermetic text that is believed to carry the teachings of Thoth, a long-forgotten deity of empires past. The Hermetica, a compilation of texts containing such teachings, are each believed to carry great gnostic secrets, foster a more intimate connection with the cosmos, and--some believe--grant the way to longevity. The spellcaster's motives are made clear--he has been using the orc war bands to raid cities and plundering the knowledge hidden within their libraries in the hopes of finding The Ogdoad and the Ennead--but little is actually known about this mysterious spellcaster.

This information does you little good in the immediate future, however, as a full-scale Orc invasion has broken out! The spellcaster's hand has been forced by the disappearance of his scouting party, and he's launched a full-scale attack against your fair city. Depending on the extent of the party's success in their earlier recon mission, the city defense may be prepared for this--or they may not--and your party should plan accordingly. (If their initial recon mission was done poorly, then they should expect to find a much larger force than they initially bargained for, or seige weaponry that they did not expect the Orcs to have, or something.) After a number of skirmishes and all-out battles (in all likelihood, the party is leaving most of the rabble to the city's defense while they attempt to eliminate greater threats, such as war elephants, or dispatch the Orc warlords commanding their respective tribes), the BBEG makes his first appearance. You recognize him as Gregor Aurinheim, aging enchanter and former advisor to the king, who is renowned for his charm and charms. He is also known for collecting strange beasts from all about the land, and would curry favor with the king by giving him exotic pets for his own collection. After making a token gesture of resistance (by which I mean as soon as he sees that this assault is ill-fated), he teleports out, leaving a few of his prized pets to distract you. (Use your imagination.)

The battle is ultimately won or lost (depending on the cumulative successes and/or failures of past missions), but the war is not over: Aurinheim achieved his ends by subduing entire armies with wills weaker than he, and there's nothing stopping him from trying again unless the party strikes the decisive final blow. Fortunately, you know where you might be able to find him--the location of his manse is not entirely secret, after all. After gearing up and making any necessary preparations, the party departs in search of their aggressor.

The manse itself should be well-fortified with traps both arcane and mundane in nature, and filled with strange and exotic beasts from all corners of the earth, from monstrous scorpions to rhinoceros to manticore and beyond. There may even be some creations of Aurinheim's own to be found here (constructs and undead, for example). All of these invariably lead to the final confrontation with Aurinheim, who is now fighting in his own element--after all, this is his sanctuary; he built it, he knows the "in"s and "out"s of it, and he controls nearly everything therein. Fortunately, the party also knows a few things from all that they've gathered about Aurinheim through previous adventures (such as his reputation as an enchanter, his collection of bizarre beasts, and his tendency to teleport out of an unseemly situation), and have prepared accordingly. Perhaps the party arcanist prepared Dimensional Anchor to keep him tied down for the fight, and all casters involved prepared Protection from X or Magic Circle Against X to defeat attempts at mind control. Their successes (or their failures) depend on it.

What you have as a result of the above is a string of four (or more!) ECL 7-8 adventures that involve all strains listed above. Can you spot the instances of each?

Here's a list:

1. This strain occurs during the fights with the Aurinheim himself, as well as possibly during the interception of the first war party, when the party fights the possessed Orc warlord and the chaos beasts (and supplementary creatures). It may also occur during any "demi-boss" battles that the party encounters in the Orc invasion on the city, or in Aurinheim's mansion.

2. This strain likely makes up the bulk of every adventuring strain save the first: it should be incorporated heavily in the attack on Gregor Aurinheim's mansion, as well as the attack against your city. It may also occur in the interception of the Orc warlord's band, in skirmishes leading up to the fight with the warlord himself, depending on how organized the war party itself is.

3. This strain is incorporated into every mission, but mostly in the storytelling elements and in the quality of execution. For instance, the degree of success with which the party does reconnaissance on the war party has serious implications as to how prepared the city is for the coming Orc invasion; to further expound on that, the party's success in both the scouting mission and their involvement in the invasion heavily influence whether or not the city successfully repels the invading Orcs, or crumbles under the weight of the invading force. The party's capacity to follow up on the gibberings of the Orc warlord affect their ability to discover the intentions behind Gregor Aurinheim's plot (a revelation which may be an adventure seed in and of itself, or even the introduction to an overarching plot that is greater than Aurinheim himself), and the party's resolve to defeat Aurinheim determines whether or not he is defeated outright, or he manages to amass another army and lay waste to the countryside yet again.

4. Let's face it--by EL 7 or 8, Orcs are mostly filler. Most encounters in the first reconnaissance mission are likely to fall under this category, though only vacuously so; while they offer little in the range of difficulty (nor do they pretend to, being minor skirmishes in a scouting adventure), they still help to advance the plot and offer long-term consequences, so they fall largely under strain 3. Where this is likely to show up the most is in the party's skirmishes leading up to the fight with the first Orc warlord, since it's an Orc scouting party with little going for it other than the backing of a powerful Orc warlord and some of Aurinheim's beasts (an encounter which itself likely falls under strain 1). The battles leading up to that climax are likely just an expenditure of resources unless you specifically differentiate to make it more terrifying.

By the by - I'm sorry if this adventure is bland, or drab, or cliche, or whatever. Keep in mind that I came up with the whole thing in a little over an hour to illustrate a point. If any of you is ever feeling shy on ideas, though, you can feel free to use it. :smallbiggrin:

[Ernir]

1-2 are my preferred, 3 is... okay, and 4 is just bleh. IMO.

[Othesemo]

My personal preference is for the third option- both because it avoids the risk of death (dying sucks), and because it is guaranteed to further the story. If you succeed, the story goes as planned. But if you fail, you're still alive, you can roleplay how your character acts, and the DM likely has a contingency plan available which means the the game can keep on going. It's rare to find a DM with a plot available in the event of your death.

[rubycona]

cut for length

Wow, that's lengthy XD

While I don't object to the plot, I'd not enjoy if the battles were hard enough that I'd be likely to die by the end of it. I don't object to dying by stupidity, but truthfully, I prefer the difficulty to be such that I can create a young, naive, foolish character, and slowly grow her into someone to respect and fear.

One of my absolute favorite adventures ever, our friend (NPC) went missing. Long story, we found that he was in this place full of zombies of NPCs that we'd somewhat known (and it was our fault that knowledge of necromancy had been made public. That wasn't our intention...) We realized, if we didn't move fast, our friend would also be killed and turned.

The zombies were numerous, but not especially life-threatening - but only if we took our time. Proceeding with haste, desperately trying to reach our friend in time, drained our power and resources at a dangerous rate, and we had to make risky moves (such as my sorc jumping in the middle of the fray to blast with an AOE).

We finally get to the BBEG, and she's draining the lives of four NPCs, including our friend, to strengthen herself. We could kill her easily enough, but if we attack her directly, our friend dies. So we had to dance around, dodging attacks while trying to free all 4 of the NPCs. Nearly dead, we were, but that was Our choice to take that risk, we turned to the BBEG and ripped her to bloody shreds.

We did it, though. We managed to save everyone who wasn't dead when we arrived, and we earned it. And THAT is what I love most. I hate feeling forced into death, by an overpowering enemy. We could have abandoned our friend to die, if we were too close to death ourselves. Given the choice, I chose to risk my character's life, honestly, to save an NPC I'd grown close to. It wasn't 'risk your character, or don't play," it was, "play it safe, and pay the price, or risk your character to win it all." That's the difference. For me, anyway.

[Jeff the Green]

I prefer 2 or 3. I get attached to my characters, but as long as Death is Cheap, anything short of a TPK is only a drain on treasure. And social/RP penalties for losing is sufficient incentive to avoid stupidity and actually strive for something.

[Curmudgeon]

1 & 2, sometimes 3. Not 4.

[DoctorGlock]

1 and 3 usually. Combat in my games is nasty, brutish and short, the consequences to failure are often alot harsher than the loss of a few HP. You mess up in a social encounter, depending on how sensitive, you can have a quarrel with someone very powerful. One of the long term quarrels. And by powerful I mean Odysseus vs Poseidon, not versus a mere duke. My games tend to look like exalted.

that is not to say that all social encounters are like that. But the risk is proportionate to status. If you are meeting a death god in his own throneroom the consequences to messing things up are going to be huge. If your social encounter is telling a child not to pull his sister's hair, the consequences are far less. Consequence is proportionate to danger.

[NichG]

I prefer #3 and less frequently a modified version of #1/#2. To be clear on that, I don't believe that mid to high level D&D actually has strain of types 1 or 2. Because of the availability of resurrection, dying just means a bit of extra resource consumption, so it really turns into #4 on your list.

My preferred version of #1/#2 is the possibility of permanent or long-term character damage (rather than necessarily permanent character death). For instance, if you can always take a consequence in order to evade death: permanently drop your Con by 1, pay 10% of a level's worth of xp, become indebted to a demon, or something along those lines. It means you can keep playing your character even if you fail, but you also have a strong push not to. It also makes it so that the thing at risk isn't your ability to continue participating at the table, since you'll still have a character and they may even be upright once the fight's done.

[Alefiend]

I prefer a campaign that includes all of the listed options, and others besides. A true TPK is bad, but one where the PCs sacrifice themselves to accomplish an important goal can be great. Having one character get away to continue on is also potentially awesome. I recently (last month) got to have a terrific heroic death striking the final blow against a major villain, and my group is still talking about it. We've rescued important individuals and groups of folks who are unimportant in the larger story, gaining allies and occasionally losing others—my new character comes from one of those new ally groups. We have cut bloody streaks through weak groups of enemies and found ourselves wondering if we could survive major obstacles, and it's all been fun.

That said, the problem isn't with your game, but with the mix of people who make up the group. When one person is unable to take the game seriously unless PCs are constantly at significant risk of permadeath, and another is threatening to give up gaming altogether if a PC dies, you have what is known in the divorce world as irreconcilable differences. The group should split, or find a game that doesn't hit those particular hot buttons.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Hi! Sorry for the late response - had a busy day or two. Trying to set in place the finishing touches for my campaign. :smallsmile:


One of my absolute favorite adventures ever, our friend (NPC) went missing. Long story, we found that he was in this place full of zombies of NPCs that we'd somewhat known (and it was our fault that knowledge of necromancy had been made public. That wasn't our intention...) We realized, if we didn't move fast, our friend would also be killed and turned.

The zombies were numerous, but not especially life-threatening - but only if we took our time. Proceeding with haste, desperately trying to reach our friend in time, drained our power and resources at a dangerous rate, and we had to make risky moves (such as my sorc jumping in the middle of the fray to blast with an AOE).

We finally get to the BBEG...

The problem that I have with this, which I think is as much of a problem of game design as it is my personal problem, is thus:

In order for it to ever work, the campaign almost undoubtedly has to remain fixed on the rails. That's just a point of fact. The reason for this is that the adventure design is contingent on you making a particular choice, so you had better make that choice or the adventure just isn't going to work.

I know it's bad to speak ill of the DM (though that hasn't stopped anyone else here before, much less myself), but given the nature of the elaborate setup regarding the final fight, I can't imagine that the fight would have started any other way, regardless of how well or poorly you fought against the zombies, nor how quickly: you would have gotten the same "cut-scene intro" of the BBEG draining the four NPCs even if you had taken your dear, sweet time killing every single zombie leading up to this, and thus there was no need for expediency. The DM wouldn't have killed the NPCs unless the party did something phenomenally stupid (like rest for the night to restore spells leading up to the BBEG), which means that even if you fought cautiously, you would likely have eventually reached the station on time regardless.

Unfortunately, this robs the zombie fights of all consequence, since there's no real chance of PC death or dismemberment (strains 1 and 2) or social consequences (strain 3) unless you did something phenomenally stupid (see above). The encounter itself fits into strain 4; any allusions to the contrary are likely because the gaps were filled in by PC roleplay, meaning the players had to meet the DM more than halfway in assuming time was truly of the essence, ergo a railroad.

Not that that is in and of itself a bad thing; clearly, you didn't mind, and you were able to involve yourself emotionally in the buildup, so it worked all the same. I, however, personally detest it. (In my mind, the PCs are off to embark on a grand adventure and the DM is there to fill in the void, not the other way around.)


We finally get to the BBEG, and she's draining the lives of four NPCs, including our friend, to strengthen herself. We could kill her easily enough, but if we attack her directly, our friend dies. So we had to dance around, dodging attacks while trying to free all 4 of the NPCs. Nearly dead, we were, but that was Our choice to take that risk, we turned to the BBEG and ripped her to bloody shreds.

This, on the other hand, strikes me as a good use of emotional involvement and social consequences to your combat decisions. I mean, strictly speaking from a metamage perspective it's your run-of-the-mill "hostage situation", AKA "don't move or the puppy gets it", right up until the DM actually involves freeing the adventurers as part of the combat mechanics. This actually strikes me as good encounter design in the third strain; social consequences and ethical dilemmas are the driving force of the combat, in a way that keeps it unique and interesting. You might even call it a justification for the first part, although I still think that could have been handled more intelligently to feel like a real race against the clock (though I wasn't there, so who am I to judge?).

[u-b]

My CHARACTERS generally prefer not to risk their lives too much, so if they are railroaded into too much risk too often with too little reason it just seems like not as good game as it could be. Generally, the longer game I expect, the less risk I expect (like because short games usually have some pre-set circumstances warranting those risks, but in longer games players should be able to organize the circumstances etc.).

Overall, I am somewhat uncomfortable with 1 and 2 if that's not one-shot AND cannot be mitigated with smart tactics (whether the players have the ability to implement such tactics or not), don't care too much about 3 and just fine about 4.

[Manave_E_Sulanul]

I think that my preference has a great deal to do with the sort of campaign and the sort of character I am running.

Right now I am playing a game in Eberron that is highly dependent on our individual characters and their noble families, so I enjoy a pretty moderate risk all around and am happy to know that, should my allies be able to pull together their funds, we can afford to resurrect at least one of us, should things go bad. It would just be terrible if a large portion of our story literally collapsed just because one of us had an unlucky day.

Though, someone above did make a very good point, and it does tend to motivate me to be a little riskier than I otherwise might. Fortunately, cooler heads in the gaming group prevail.

Now, when I run games, I'm into the drama of the world saving big damn heroes, one and only chance tension, so I tend to make revivification a rare thing, and fudge the dice for players, as long as they arn't being completely stupid, if it would ruin the game. That said, at least one person tends to die before the end game.

[darksolitaire]

In order for it to ever work, the campaign almost undoubtedly has to remain fixed on the rails. That's just a point of fact. The reason for this is that the adventure design is contingent on you making a particular choice, so you had better make that choice or the adventure just isn't going to work.

I know it's bad to speak ill of the DM (though that hasn't stopped anyone else here before, much less myself), but given the nature of the elaborate setup regarding the final fight, I can't imagine that the fight would have started any other way, regardless of how well or poorly you fought against the zombies, nor how quickly: you would have gotten the same "cut-scene intro" of the BBEG draining the four NPCs even if you had taken your dear, sweet time killing every single zombie leading up to this, and thus there was no need for expediency. The DM wouldn't have killed the NPCs unless the party did something phenomenally stupid (like rest for the night to restore spells leading up to the BBEG), which means that even if you fought cautiously, you would likely have eventually reached the station on time regardless.

Unfortunately, this robs the zombie fights of all consequence, since there's no real chance of PC death or dismemberment (strains 1 and 2) or social consequences (strain 3) unless you did something phenomenally stupid (see above). The encounter itself fits into strain 4; any allusions to the contrary are likely because the gaps were filled in by PC roleplay, meaning the players had to meet the DM more than halfway in assuming time was truly of the essence, ergo a railroad.


I used a but similar setup on my sandbox-y game, where time is a resource for players. They didn't do certain things quick enough, which enabled assassins to murder certain important NPC. That didn't ruin the game, as there's plenty of other content. World stops for no PC.

One of my players, on the other hand, complained that it feels like they feel rushed. The moral in this is that the players complain either way. I'm a player too, so I know.

[SowZ]

When I DM, the level of risk is largely in the hands of the players. I can't really DM things when I feel the story doesn't make sense and the NPCs actions don't make sense. So a squad of soldiers or police officers are competent at fighting, (a part of their job,) and tactics. So if the players don't play smart by either choosing to fight a group of them OR by not using equally sound tactics, a normal scenario can easily become number one. It makes no sense to me that this should be easy and the players wouldn't expect it to be.

But if they avoid combat when possible, (like real humans do,) plan out well the combats they do have, (like smart humans do,) and use what they have at their disposal, they can easily turn some combats into number four. Many plot points, if chosen to be resolved by combat, can be somewhere between one and two, (serious risk of death but little risk of TPK.) But times when I really expect combat or see very few ways out? I try and keep it at two.

Number three is always on the table as far as possible ramifications of serious decisions.

Because of this, I usually run super-powered games. The players rarely run into other supers. So the players still have an advantage. And if they are in a scenario where they are really outgunned? A clever use of a power or the environment the enemies weren't expecting can turn it around. I love combat as a problem solving game more than just a shoot 'em up. (There is room for shoot 'em up, though, since some people always love that.)

But PC death is reasonably common. Our group has me and another guy who will DM on request and I get asked to GM by the group occasionally, but less often then the other GM. I think this is because my games, while I hope exciting, can be exhausting if they go on too long. (I try and keep campaigns pretty short so as to not exhaust players AND so that someone doesn't get attached to a player after a year of gaming and then poof! They are dead. Six to eight sessions for a story depending on what direction the players take it.)

Everything I've said applies less so to D&D/other fantasy games where I am very traditional. No idea why. I think I am less comfortable with it.

[Yahzi]

When I DM, the level of risk is largely in the hands of the players.
I agree.

If the players want near-death experiences, they pick fights with big foes.

If they want to casually murder basically helpless individuals, they pick fights with little foes.

If they want political consequences, they engage in politics.

Now, obviously, all of the above will tend to intertwine: casually murdering the political friends of big foes will lead scenarios other than what the players desired.

But the point is, in a sand-box world, the players chose the level of risk (and commensurate reward). That's why I run sandbox. An adventure, to me, is a political situation or organization or monster lair. I make up lots of those. What the players do with them is their business.

[Ernir]

The problem that I have with this, which I think is as much of a problem of game design as it is my personal problem, is thus:

In order for it to ever work, the campaign almost undoubtedly has to remain fixed on the rails. That's just a point of fact.
No, it isn't a point of fact.

It's contingent on your campaign design. If you have designed all your encounters to be event-triggered, then yes, it's going to lead to cut-scene boss fights. But if you're running a game where time is of the essence, then of course you should make the encounters time-triggered. And it's not much harder.

See, I've run a scenario that is (encounter-wise) similar to what rubicona described. Only my players took their sweet time. When the PCs finally met the boss, said boss was at the height of her power and figuratively wiping the NPC's grease off her chin. I don't think the players' emotional response was much weaker that way.

[rubycona]

In order for it to ever work, the campaign almost undoubtedly has to remain fixed on the rails. That's just a point of fact. The reason for this is that the adventure design is contingent on you making a particular choice, so you had better make that choice or the adventure just isn't going to work.

I know it's bad to speak ill of the DM (though that hasn't stopped anyone else here before, much less myself), but given the nature of the elaborate setup regarding the final fight, I can't imagine that the fight would have started any other way, regardless of how well or poorly you fought against the zombies, nor how quickly: you would have gotten the same "cut-scene intro" of the BBEG draining the four NPCs even if you had taken your dear, sweet time killing every single zombie leading up to this, and thus there was no need for expediency. The DM wouldn't have killed the NPCs unless the party did something phenomenally stupid (like rest for the night to restore spells leading up to the BBEG), which means that even if you fought cautiously, you would likely have eventually reached the station on time regardless.

Unfortunately, this robs the zombie fights of all consequence, since there's no real chance of PC death or dismemberment (strains 1 and 2) or social consequences (strain 3) unless you did something phenomenally stupid (see above). The encounter itself fits into strain 4; any allusions to the contrary are likely because the gaps were filled in by PC roleplay, meaning the players had to meet the DM more than halfway in assuming time was truly of the essence, ergo a railroad.


Actually, it was entirely the opposite. The entire situation was the result of us doing something completely unexpected (we were the ones who accidentally released knowledge of necromancy into the game world). This was actually my second time playing this campaign, and the first time went so completely differently, it was barely recognizable. Partially because it was my second time, and because it was a new group, the decisions forced the game world in entirely new directions.

While it's true that, barring insane stupidity, our major NPC ally would have been yet alive, the DM would have happily and readily killed the other NPC hostages. And if we'd really pushed it, then our NPC ally would have been in far more dire straits. This DM is good with going off the rails, and is perfectly okay with massive social consequences, including NPC death.

So the whole thing was full of #3, just harder to overtly see in the beginning. And the DM is my husband - I know full well what he's willing to do to his characters.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I used a but similar setup on my sandbox-y game, where time is a resource for players. They didn't do certain things quick enough, which enabled assassins to murder certain important NPC. That didn't ruin the game, as there's plenty of other content. World stops for no PC.

In that case, the consequences were enacted, so I really can't say anything otherwise. I could ask the question of, "what if the PCs had gotten there in time?" (the premise being, if they had acted expediently, would it have made a difference to the outcome, or was the NPC doomed to die from the start?), but that just introduces a Schrodinger's Cat scenario where you've already stated that it's a consequence of their actions.


One of my players, on the other hand, complained that it feels like they feel rushed. The moral in this is that the players complain either way. I'm a player too, so I know.

I hear that. :smallamused:


No, it isn't a point of fact.

It's contingent on your campaign design. If you have designed all your encounters to be event-triggered, then yes, it's going to lead to cut-scene boss fights. But if you're running a game where time is of the essence, then of course you should make the encounters time-triggered. And it's not much harder.

I'm well aware of the fact that events can be time-triggered. I've done so myself.

What I'm saying is that, given the nature of the encounter that was described, the encounter seems event-triggered, which means events have to transpire in a certain way for the encounter to make sense in the environment the players have created for themselves. Basically, the encounter was designed such that the challenge involved killing the BBEG in a way that doesn't harm the NPCs. The challenge wasn't killing the BBEG himself; it was freeing the NPCs before the BBEG was felled.


See, I've run a scenario that is (encounter-wise) similar to what rubicona described. Only my players took their sweet time. When the PCs finally met the boss, said boss was at the height of her power and figuratively wiping the NPC's grease off her chin. I don't think the players' emotional response was much weaker that way.

I can't speak to your game world from the limited scope of the information given, but from the sounds of it, draining the NPCs' power actually increased the challenge of the game in some way (namely, the BBEG was simply stronger, which made fighting him more challenging). This would make the reward for their expediency the promise of a generally weaker BBEG.

But in a game world where there is typically no real risk of player death or dismemberment (as described in previous posts), and the social consequences have already been had (the NPCs died because the PCs took their dear, sweet time), the boss fight is actually made weaker by the NPC death. The BBEG itself is described as weak, with the social consequences being the driving force behind player motivation. If you take away the social consequences of that encounter without adding the very real risk of death from the challenge itself, then the boss fight is robbed of all consequence. Basically, either the BBEG fight is event-triggered (you walk in on the ritual being initiated, cut-scene into boss fight), which robs the lead-in fight of significance, or it is time-triggered, which runs the real risk of the climactic BBEG fight being robbed of significance. If the BBEG being stronger has real metagame implications (like, say, it runs the real risk of being a killer to your party), then the consequences are still there, but otherwise one fight maintains relevance at the expense of the other.


While it's true that, barring insane stupidity, our major NPC ally would have been yet alive, the DM would have happily and readily killed the other NPC hostages. And if we'd really pushed it, then our NPC ally would have been in far more dire straits. This DM is good with going off the rails, and is perfectly okay with massive social consequences, including NPC death.

The problem I keep running into is that the first sentence of the above paragraph looks similar to, or even the same as, the paragraph below:


4. Do you enjoy situations with little risk of any significant consequences? IE, you're mostly looking at losing some arrows and potions, but unless you do something suicidally retarded, you're coming away clean.

I suppose the question that needs answering is: Would have he killed the NPC ally if you acted too slowly?

If not, the encounter is event-triggered, and everything I've said about an event-triggered encounter applies.

[rubycona]

...
What I'm saying is that, given the nature of the encounter that was described, the encounter seems event-triggered, which means events have to transpire in a certain way for the encounter to make sense in the environment the players have created for themselves. Basically, the encounter was designed such that the challenge involved killing the BBEG in a way that doesn't harm the NPCs. The challenge wasn't killing the BBEG himself; it was freeing the NPCs before the BBEG was felled.



I can't speak to your game world from the limited scope of the information given, but from the sounds of it, draining the NPCs' power actually increased the challenge of the game in some way (namely, the BBEG was simply stronger, which made fighting him more challenging). This would make the reward for their expediency the promise of a generally weaker BBEG.

But in a game world where there is typically no real risk of player death or dismemberment (as described in previous posts), and the social consequences have already been had (the NPCs died because the PCs took their dear, sweet time), the boss fight is actually made weaker by the NPC death. The BBEG itself is described as weak, with the social consequences being the driving force behind player motivation. If you take away the social consequences of that encounter without adding the very real risk of death from the challenge itself, then the boss fight is robbed of all consequence. Basically, either the BBEG fight is event-triggered (you walk in on the ritual being initiated, cut-scene into boss fight), which robs the lead-in fight of significance, or it is time-triggered, which runs the real risk of the climactic BBEG fight being robbed of significance. If the BBEG being stronger has real metagame implications (like, say, it runs the real risk of being a killer to your party), then the consequences are still there, but otherwise one fight maintains relevance at the expense of the other.



The problem I keep running into is that the first sentence of the above paragraph looks similar to, or even the same as, the paragraph below:



I suppose the question that needs answering is: Would have he killed the NPC ally if you acted too slowly?

If not, the encounter is event-triggered, and everything I've said about an event-triggered encounter applies.

The situation was far more involved than I described. The whole scenario was an escalating consequence, actually.

Details:
Event started with some girls falling, one per day, and screaming in incurable agony. We pursue this, but we're cautious. Consequences of this caution, it takes longer to find the bastard, and some of our NPC allies are caught.

We find the bastard, and he's selling the girls' souls to a demon in exchange for knowledge of necromancy, which in the campaign history, is previously unknown. We are taking it seriously, so get there in time to save their lives, if not their minds, but other NPCs are dead and now are zombie guards.

We decide, instead of killing him, turning him in for public interrogation and execution, in the hopes that the brutality of the events would discourage others from trying it. Foolishly. In the interrogation, the key to necromancy is revealed, and now it is public knowledge.

The way we handled him pissed off some people in power, and we are warned, if we push it too far, we'll be killed ourselves. We also find out that just after the interrogation, some people have gone missing, but we instead try to support the system, in hopes of not earning our own executions.

The system fails - it takes too long, and after several days (we play each day individually - this wasn't the result of a single choice to wait), we find out that the numbers of missing have been growing each day, and now our major ally is among them.

We bolt, heedless of the warning given to us. We find where they're at, and realize that, due to our caution, the missing are now zombie guards. We realize that more are being captured, and we don't know how long the assault will take, so we gather what allies we can find in under an hour and position guards to prevent reinforcements.

They are successful, and prevent another 10 people from getting captured during our attack.

We rush through and the rest of the event is as described.



The entire thing was by the seat of our pants. That entire dungeon wasn't supposed to happen - it was originally designed for something else entirely, and the DM just took it (he told us about the original plan after). NPCs lived and died by our choices, and had we taken our time, Rowen - our major ally - would have died.

But he's fair. If we're fast, clever, and determined, we can always avoid almost any major consequences. We just didn't know how to act without pissing off the politicians. If we had... who knows? We played very long (10-15 hours) sessions, and all of the above (starting with the fateful interrogation) happened in just one.

In this campaign setting, everything's at risk, and very little (except for world events) is set in stone. We make or break the world, by our choices and actions.

So in short, it was a real risk - by being there at all, as hastily as we'd arrived, yes, Rowen was somewhat safe, but the others were not.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

so many 1's (only overcome with optimization) it becomes a 2