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View Full Version : How would you respond to a campaign when you have 10 sessions to live



scurv
2012-11-26, 10:29 AM
I played in a campaign when we found out on session one that we had ten session to live, solve the whodunit, and maybe have a crapshot at a cure.

Personally I loved it, but most of the other players had issues with it. Everyone elses opinion on playing in such a campaign

Totally Guy
2012-11-26, 10:40 AM
Sounds focussed!

In reality every campaign has a finite number of sessions. Making it explicit is no bad thing but the mystery illness sounds pretty scary. Would you be increasing the ways it affects you as the game progresses?

hymer
2012-11-26, 10:41 AM
I really rather wouldn't have it like that. I prefer more open ended campaigns. I don't like singleshot adventures much either.
But if the DM invited me to the campaign, I'd play if I had the time. Better than not playing.

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-11-26, 11:40 AM
That sounds awesome.

Badgerish
2012-11-26, 01:11 PM
I'm not fond of the meta 'sessions' limit, but a time limit can kick things up a notch.

What if you cancel a session? What if it's mid-session?
What if some of the players can't attend a session?
What if people spend an hour discussing TV?

I'd be interested with a focused, competent group. Not a beer & pretzels group or one with too many muppets.

NikitaDarkstar
2012-11-26, 02:07 PM
I wouldn't appreciate the meta-ness either, but a game focused on only having X amount of time to solve problem Y? Sure it could be interesting, not my normal cup of tea, but I'd give it a try.

Friv
2012-11-26, 02:31 PM
I would generally prefer to have such a time limit be in-game, and then note that we're going to do our best to hold to an out-of-game time limit but if things slip by a session in either direction, it happens.

But it's an interesting idea.

Water_Bear
2012-11-26, 02:53 PM
Find a way to extend my character's life, then go do real stuff. :smallcool:

That kind of Plot Wall is the sort of thing which really bugs me in games, especially if it's married to a "this is the main plot, go do this" set-up. No thanks, my terminally ill character is going to actually spend time doing something to fix that, or at least go out in style, rather than solving some random mystery.

Seriously, if you can't come up with a real reason to motivate the characters then just step aside and let someone else GM for a while.

Jerthanis
2012-11-26, 03:29 PM
Seriously, if you can't come up with a real reason to motivate the characters then just step aside and let someone else GM for a while.

Wow, harsh.

Honestly, 10 sessions is about an average length game, and the setup seems to allow different characters to react differently, some maybe interested in learning about the disease to hopefully cure it, others might seek revenge, others might just try to get the most out of the time they have left.

Sounds like an interesting motivation that allows for an open-ended, character directed plot about investigation and research while also exposing a chief character indicator, that of how the characters face their own mortality.

This is the kind of thing RPGs are made for.

scurv
2012-11-26, 03:36 PM
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhodunnitToMe

It is not an unknown troupe. But that aside. wtf is with the lawyering over details of what if someone can't make it to a session? Or if we get distracted by tv? That is life and it happens and is what DM judgement is for.

Waterbear. ummm it is the solve your own murder so you have a chance to live concept. But as i tell the players who come over. There is the door. Apparently it is something you do not like to do so simply say so, No need to disparage what you do not like. It shows ill on your own person.

Thialfi
2012-11-26, 03:46 PM
As Captain Kirk would say, "I don't believe in the no win scenario".

This kind of set up would be a very large turn off for me. Then again, my playing group never has fixed time limits on anything and we don't roll up new characters to go with new adventures. Every character stays around forever to be played with at a time of the player's choosing. No character ever starts above the minimum level for any reason. Been that way for us since 1979.

I would also play this campaign as if finding a cure was my only concern and solving the DM's whodunit would only draw interest at all if it related to finding a cure.

Totally Guy
2012-11-26, 03:59 PM
There are two things happening here.

One is the campaign premise. You've got a a problem to deal with. If the players buy into the scenario it's cool. That's pretty much the same with all games. I'd say you're cool!

Second is the campaign length. You've said 10 sessions. That's cool too. I do the same thing. I don't ask for players to commit for an wildly unknown or indefinite quantity of game because it's not necessarily reasonable. So you're good here too. Give it a casual margin of error if the pacing doesn't work out how you anticipate though.

Triaxx
2012-11-26, 04:08 PM
Depends. Is it a pre-agreed to thing, or is it make characters, get to setting, then Oh, yeah, you only have ten sessions?

If it's the former, I'm up for it. If it's the latter, the DM is going to have to talke very fast or find a new member.

NichG
2012-11-28, 08:00 AM
I'd be fine with going along with something like this if it does this at the start. Generally I'm used to longer campaigns, so I'd be even more likely to go along with such a premise even if its one that could be mishandled.

I'd be a little more hesitant if this were the next arc of a pre-existing campaign though. This is mostly because I'm not sure how a DM could reasonable expect to get everyone if the scenario is being played out fairly. However, having this happen to a valued NPC, the world in general (meteor will hit in 10 sessions, fix it or everything dies), etc would all be business as usual - sometimes the DM needs to put various pressures on the players to help focus the game, otherwise sessions start with 4 hour discussions of 'what do we do today?' and the campaign story tends to sort of lose coherence (we did this, then that, then the other thing because we were bored!). I guess some people would call it railroading, but I think of that as the 'good' kind of railroading, in that there are certain things in the world that are important and the world moves on without the PCs if they let it do so.

For what its worth, I've ended up with doom counters on my characters due to my own actions. Its true that it can be a little stressful and annoying, but it also I think tightens connections with the game (as long as there is hope of a solution): basically, it can strip away a little of the PC plot armor and 'the PCs generally always win' assumptions that are built into most systems by providing a distinct point of failure that the DM has committed to ahead of time: 'If you haven't fixed it by X, you die/fail/lose/whatever'.

EccentricCircle
2012-11-28, 09:43 AM
Sounds like a really nice idea to me. I do like long ongoing games as some of the earlier posters have said, but frequently an open ended game isn't a possibility. Most RPG clubs i've seen have a fixed length of between 8-10 sessions for each campaign and then new stuff gets pitched (which allows you to pitch a sequal to a previous game and so carry it on that way). This kind of concept would give you a clear reason why the game had to be that long and would allow everyone to stay focused without ending up feeling rushed or railroaded.

Wyntonian
2012-11-28, 11:47 AM
That sounds like fun! It's a creative way of adding some intensity that might otherwise be lacking. And honestly, they don't need to go solve the mystery. If their own inevitable mortality makes them decide to go save puppies, hey, run with it.

I know my character would get pretty stupid towards the end. "Oh, burning building with a child inside? Hey, it's not like I'm risking much, right?"

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-11-28, 02:43 PM
Come to think of it, this is the same thing that helps Fiasco to work so well: intentional length of game means that you've got nothing to lose, which makes things way better.

But definitely get players onboard with it.

prufock
2012-11-28, 06:29 PM
I'd aim to have as much fun as I could for those ten sessions. It's an interesting idea, as long as it was executed well. I'd want to know WHY I'm going to die.

Knaight
2012-11-29, 03:51 AM
This sounds extremely fun to me, though there is one caveat - the 10 sessions to live detail really needs to be in the campaign concept, given up front. It coming up mid-session without warning really seems improperly done, and undercuts the fun. Among other things, it would heavily influence character creation - I'd be a bit miffed about missing out on the opportunity to create a character who would really shine under the time pressure due to illness scenario, and I doubt I'm the only one.

Socratov
2012-11-29, 03:56 AM
wow, I'd love to play in something like this: it gives you the need to build for the now, rather then the future, it keeps the pace strong. However, I'd make it a certain timespan in game. If people have to leave early or the session gets cancelled half way through (if a complete session is cancelled it can't have taken place can it?) you're stuck with the question what to do: extra time or work with halves?

LibraryOgre
2012-11-29, 11:31 AM
I think it would be interesting, with the right group. But, then, one of my friends LOVES the Fourthcore, tournament-style adventures, and tends to run them a lot. They're fun, and you sometimes get a little bit crazy... but you don't play them with a character you love. You play them with a character who is there to do the job of interacting with the world for you, not your lovingly crafted personal avatar.

Sipex
2012-11-29, 02:58 PM
This sounds like a great idea, and as long as it's presented clearly from the start of things (yes, even before char gen) and everyone who decides to play agrees on the terms, I see no problems.

Jerthanis
2012-11-29, 03:47 PM
This sounds like a great idea, and as long as it's presented clearly from the start of things (yes, even before char gen) and everyone who decides to play agrees on the terms, I see no problems.

I find it kind of interesting that everyone seems to be in concordance in that the players need to be warned before even sitting down to character creation.

My group is far more permissive about stuff like this. In one game, the DM told us to come to the table with a reason to hate undead in our backstories. In mine, I said my entire family was killed by a vampire, and then in my prologue segment, I was also killed by that vampire... and woke up in a frozen creek the next day.

Figuring out what had happened led each character to the group, each sharing a similar strange story of dying and awaking somewhere cold and wet. We eventually discovered that we were Simulacrums, illusions made of ice and shadows, but implanted with the souls of our dead bodies by a god. The spell had a duration though, and we would melt away soon. My character, discovering this, realized that her previous body was being inhabited by a Vampire, and her own personality and skills being used in service of the individual who had killed her. Stopping herself became her primary purpose. Others made peace, tried to understand the Simulacrum-making machine, tried to finish books or even find the Vampire my character had mentioned to see if their infection could extend our pale-shadow selves.

It was one of our most memorable and cool games... and we weren't told ahead of time about what was going on, so we could be genuinely surprised and make the preparations for death that real people have to do. No one knows when we're going to have to prepare for death, so why should your characters in an RPG? The idea of sitting down with a meaningless shell of a character so that you can't get hurt by what happens to that character, or of creating a character to inorganically suffer in a way you know of ahead of time just seems to lose something about the concept.

Toy Killer
2012-11-29, 06:27 PM
I'm actually starting a campaign like this soon. Sort of... at least.

My campaign is called Thirteen Dusks, and is about a world where Holy energy has been sealed from entering the plane. The plane is doomed to fall into a 'higher' region of Hell if the process isn't stopped by the thirteenth dusk, and they're starting on day four. As the game progresses, the more and more familiar things of a standard D&D world are going to fade into nightmares.

So, likewise, the sword of Damocles is hung and the mystery is set to figure out how and who and such. Hopefully, my adventurers will start shortly.

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-11-29, 06:50 PM
Side thought: what if you ran a game where you had three days before the moon fell? :smallwink:

The Random NPC
2012-11-29, 07:01 PM
What if you cancel a session? What if it's mid-session?
What if some of the players can't attend a session?
What if people spend an hour discussing TV?

I swear to god, I only have 3 more sessions to live. I've said my goodbyes, got my will in order, and bought large life insurance policies. If you waste my time again, I'm going to stab you in the face. What are they going to do, arrest me? But seriously, if the time limit was an in-game concept and not an out of game one, and if I was warned, I'd like to do it. Personally, I would try to get the cure or otherwise extend my life.

Water_Bear
2012-11-29, 07:04 PM
No one knows when we're going to have to prepare for death, so why should your characters in an RPG? The idea of sitting down with a meaningless shell of a character so that you can't get hurt by what happens to that character, or of creating a character to inorganically suffer in a way you know of ahead of time just seems to lose something about the concept.

To me, and I'm guessing a lot of the people here, there is quite a bit of room between "DM has full control over your backstory" and "meaningless shell of a character." And another equally large gap between "your character's fate is decided before the ink is dry on the character sheet" and "suffering inorganically."

People aren't saying to fill the players in beforehand because they hate surprise or want to know the exact moment and mechanisms of their inevitable deaths, but because the default expectation in an FRPG is that your death is not inevitable.

In pretty much any FRPG the default expectation is that you are playing a hero who is capable of defying the odds, even defying fate, as long as you play smart and the dice are on your side. If you really can't win, your character is doomed and you're just looking at the character's last moments, that's not Heroic/High Fantasy but another different animal entirely and Players need to be prepped for that. That's the reason why Railroading and "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" endings are synonymous with Bad GMing; they violate basic expectations both about the kind of story being told and the relationship between the GM and the Players.

Besides, this kind of "You have 1 week to live, what's really important to you?" plot isn't exactly high art; it's just as trite a cliche these days as the all-conquering heroes, just with an extra dose of smug pseudo-intellectualism. It's not any more noble or tragic a death than the Adventurer cut down by an Orc's lucky crit, just more predictable and less exciting.

Jerthanis
2012-11-30, 12:59 PM
To me, and I'm guessing a lot of the people here, there is quite a bit of room between "DM has full control over your backstory" and "meaningless shell of a character." And another equally large gap between "your character's fate is decided before the ink is dry on the character sheet" and "suffering inorganically."

I was indeed admit to taking a bit of an implication from the general trend and slippery sloping it up. The closest reference to "meaningless shell" would be Mark Hall's comment about character as utility rather than lovingly crafted avatar.

However, I think the potential of this idea comes partly from its unexpectedness and the fact that you could lose a character you didn't create with the idea of losing in mind.



People aren't saying to fill the players in beforehand because they hate surprise or want to know the exact moment and mechanisms of their inevitable deaths, but because the default expectation in an FRPG is that your death is not inevitable.

I wouldn't suggest doing it in every game, or very often but... isn't the idea of playing with default expectations what keeps the game interesting? I mean, I've heard ideas like "PCs start at level 20 and lose levels until the final showdown as 1st level characters" or "PCs play both the heroes and the villains they face" or whatever... the idea that your death is not inevitable is another default expectation of RPGs and the idea of playing with that is WHY this is an interesting idea.


In pretty much any FRPG the default expectation is that you are playing a hero who is capable of defying the odds, even defying fate, as long as you play smart and the dice are on your side. If you really can't win, your character is doomed and you're just looking at the character's last moments, that's not Heroic/High Fantasy but another different animal entirely and Players need to be prepped for that. That's the reason why Railroading and "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" endings are synonymous with Bad GMing; they violate basic expectations both about the kind of story being told and the relationship between the GM and the Players.

Besides, this kind of "You have 1 week to live, what's really important to you?" plot isn't exactly high art; it's just as trite a cliche these days as the all-conquering heroes, just with an extra dose of smug pseudo-intellectualism. It's not any more noble or tragic a death than the Adventurer cut down by an Orc's lucky crit, just more predictable and less exciting.

Your criticism of the art level of this type of game aside, why is it automatically assumed that you sit down to a game always knowing success and survival is within your grasp rather than to sit down and accept that not every story ends with all its characters intact and some cannot be saved?

I'm not trying to say you should always violate basic assumptions of gaming, but to treat it like a violation to play with these expectations without explaining exactly how you plan to do so ahead of time seems a little strange to me.

Thialfi
2012-11-30, 01:46 PM
I'm not trying to say you should always violate basic assumptions of gaming, but to treat it like a violation to play with these expectations without explaining exactly how you plan to do so ahead of time seems a little strange to me.

Playing with expectations is one thing, removing any possibility of survival is quite another. You might as well ask me to buy a ticket to a baseball game after telling me that my team is going to lose 7-1. I'd have no interest in this type of scenario. For me ALL of the fun of a game is overcoming the obstacles put before the characters and succeeding in the end. I have been a part of TPKs before and still managed to have fun in the game, but the chance of success was there.

Telling me up front that there is zero chance my character would live is equivalent to telling me there is zero chance I'll have fun in the game that you are running.

Geostationary
2012-11-30, 03:03 PM
Playing with expectations is one thing, removing any possibility of survival is quite another. You might as well ask me to buy a ticket to a baseball game after telling me that my team is going to lose 7-1. I'd have no interest in this type of scenario. For me ALL of the fun of a game is overcoming the obstacles put before the characters and succeeding in the end. I have been a part of TPKs before and still managed to have fun in the game, but the chance of success was there.

Telling me up front that there is zero chance my character would live is equivalent to telling me there is zero chance I'll have fun in the game that you are running.

So, what I see happening is a conflation of characters dying with characters failing. You can die but still win in the end. Even if you fail you still fought- you don't leave the world quietly but with a bang, dragging your opponents down with you. You still impact the world and change things, which is not somehow invalidated by your dying. Death often means failure in rpgs, but this is hardly always the case.

Thialfi
2012-11-30, 03:25 PM
You can die but still win in the end.

Not in my opinion. Death is never victory. As Dylan Thomas said "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Death is something we will all face, but it is nothing I ever wish to prepare for or seek value in. I want to fight and claw for every ounce I can scrape out of life and spit in the face of the Grim Reaper when he claims me. No amount of "well, at least look at what you accomplished and what you left behind" will ever come close to compensating for losing our most precious gift.

hymer
2012-11-30, 04:05 PM
DT wasn't writing about RPGs, but about RL, though.

As I've said early in the thread, I really rather wouldn't want to have that death sentence over my character and the campaign. But I agree you can still 'win' if your character dies - and I also agree that the victory would be a lot more likely to feel hollow if it were so.
Anyway, keeping your PC alive is, for some, an important game-in-the-game. For me, it's about control. I want as much control as I can get over my PC (what else do I have the final say in if not this), and the DM deciding my PC dies in ten sessions seems distinctly uninteresting to me. I'd be always thinking about the next PC I'd make, and hoping this silly campaign would be over so we could play a real game. I'd be having the most fun the times I forget the premise of the campaign.

Water_Bear
2012-11-30, 05:59 PM
So, what I see happening is a conflation of characters dying with characters failing. You can die but still win in the end. Even if you fail you still fought- you don't leave the world quietly but with a bang, dragging your opponents down with you. You still impact the world and change things, which is not somehow invalidated by your dying. Death often means failure in rpgs, but this is hardly always the case.

Except in this case the whole campaign revolves around the Death Countdown, so stopping the clock is automatically the primary challenge.

If it was a case of "stop the Demonic Invasion by sacrificing yourself," or even just a death due to poor die rolls in a battle, that character would have likely died an awesome death and everyone here would be satisfied. But dying purely by DM Fiat is pathetic; that might work for a Horror game where the characters are supposed to be powerless in the face of an uncaring universe, but Heroic Fantasy means your characters punch the uncaring universe in the face until it cries uncle or their fists wear down into stumps.

Hanuman
2012-11-30, 06:24 PM
http://www.zeldadungeon.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Moon.png

NichG
2012-11-30, 06:43 PM
I'm not sure why 'having a death clock in the campaign' and 'knowing you will die' are being considered the same thing here. After all, the whole pressure of the death clock is the idea that you have a known amount of time to stop it, then its over. I read the OP as more 'within ten sessions, either you will have solved the plot and might survive, or you will die' with the idea being that in either case, the campaign is over in that amount of time.

That is very distinct from a campaign where you know ahead of time that you will fail or die or whatever (which could either be stringently timed or a death spiral sort of scenario where the precise timing is unknown).

I think a time limit is perfectly legit, it focuses the game, etc. At that point no assumption has been made about success or failure, but you have a warning of 'succeed by X time or you fail'. Beyond that the main matter of taste is the nature of the time limit - is it the impersonal 'in 3 days the BBEG completes a ritual that ends the world, including you' or the personal 'in 3 days the poison will kill you'. The personal version is really at worst just awkward to do mid game if the DM is not skilled about it (e.g. the DM needs to specify that yes, you did consume the poison no matter how careful you are or what your actions were). But aside from that awkwardness its basically equivalent to the impersonal version, but with a much stronger push of 'yes, this actually is your problem, you cant leave it to someone else'. If a DM wants to put in a time limit, I'm not going to complain if they don't tell me ahead of time - I consider it a standard tool in the DM's toolkit.

An initial absolute assertion of failure or death on the other hand is a very different matter. That would be the kind of thing I'd want to know before joining the campaign, because it may not be the kind of game I'm in the mood for and it can kind of be distasteful to end up this way after investing a lot of time if its not the style of game for you. Then again, some types of campaigns I'd just expect this: Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, etc, and it could go unsaid since its pretty much implied by choice of system.

I personally don't really think much of a game whose entire point is for the players to show off their reactions to a premise (e.g. 'everyone plays out their characters bucket list'), but what I get out of games is to engage in 'figuring things out' and 'figuring out how to make things happen', which would involve trying to buck that fate. If its just the motions and OOC I knew it would fail, I would feel that there's no point in the game for me (unless I thought I could play a game of manipulating the DM and forcing them via their own logic to accept that I had found a solution, but thats a bit antagonistic). I could see other players having more fun with such an idea than me though.

Jerthanis
2012-12-01, 04:32 AM
Not in my opinion. Death is never victory. As Dylan Thomas said "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Death is something we will all face, but it is nothing I ever wish to prepare for or seek value in. I want to fight and claw for every ounce I can scrape out of life and spit in the face of the Grim Reaper when he claims me. No amount of "well, at least look at what you accomplished and what you left behind" will ever come close to compensating for losing our most precious gift.

EXACTLY! It's something we don't ever want, but acknowledge that we must face. How we face it defines who we are as a person and as a culture. It's like... not every book or movie made is a life affirming romp through self discovery, leading to an affirmation of humanity and free will. Some of them are sad, and represent people who don't have hope. What the Grim Reaper asks in the Seventh Seal "Was it worth it?" is something that resounds with our humanity... even though we don't want it to.

For me, RPGs aren't a lesser medium than cinema or literature... it's a superior one.

Personally, I swing for the fences in every RPG I ever run or play in. I do this because I recognize that if I am lucky enough to play weekly until I'm 85 years old, and each campaign is 10-15 sessions long, I only have 200-250 campaigns left. I want most of those campaigns to be art. Something truly special for me to experience and to add to what I had in the hiccup of time I have here. To say that we cannot change our assumptions to include the no win scenario limits an art form in a way that no other art form has endured long.


Except in this case the whole campaign revolves around the Death Countdown, so stopping the clock is automatically the primary challenge.

If it was a case of "stop the Demonic Invasion by sacrificing yourself," or even just a death due to poor die rolls in a battle, that character would have likely died an awesome death and everyone here would be satisfied. But dying purely by DM Fiat is pathetic; that might work for a Horror game where the characters are supposed to be powerless in the face of an uncaring universe, but Heroic Fantasy means your characters punch the uncaring universe in the face until it cries uncle or their fists wear down into stumps.

A lot of Heroic Fantasy has characters powerless to stop their misfortunes. Heroic Fantasy is littered with the corpses of mighty laid low by their shortcomings, the fates, or betrayal. The history of mankind's mythology is written in tragedy. What you describe is Pulp Fantasy, which IS admittedly the primary inspiration for D&D. But I think RPGs deserve more respect than to constrain them to their origins.

You describe the idea of infecting the PCs with a fatal poison to be DM Fiat, while the idea of, say, a Demon Invasion which can conveniently be stopped through self-sacrifice is not? Everything within a game should exist to help tell the story. If the story is about mortality, the elements should reinforce the story. If the story is about punching demons in the face until they call uncle, the elements should reinforce THAT story. Either they're both DM Fiat and it's acceptable in their own stories or they're both DM Fiat and both aren't acceptable in their own stories.

Water_Bear
2012-12-01, 04:48 PM
A lot of Heroic Fantasy has characters powerless to stop their misfortunes. Heroic Fantasy is littered with the corpses of mighty laid low by their shortcomings, the fates, or betrayal. The history of mankind's mythology is written in tragedy. What you describe is Pulp Fantasy, which IS admittedly the primary inspiration for D&D. But I think RPGs deserve more respect than to constrain them to their origins.

Except even in a tragedy (excepting some of the early Greek tragedies) the point is that the Hero is laid low by their own poor choices, usually dealing with a tragic flaw. Without the possibility of victory the tragedy is just meaningless suffering, and until recently few people have been interested in seeing that in fiction.

I don't have a problem with character death; I love it, the actuality and the threat, but it's got to be fair. The player screws up, or the dice go against them, and their PC pays the price. That's Tragic Flaws and Fate leading to a heroic death, as opposed to a DM dropping rocks on the PCs.


You describe the idea of infecting the PCs with a fatal poison to be DM Fiat, while the idea of, say, a Demon Invasion which can conveniently be stopped through self-sacrifice is not? Everything within a game should exist to help tell the story. If the story is about mortality, the elements should reinforce the story. If the story is about punching demons in the face until they call uncle, the elements should reinforce THAT story. Either they're both DM Fiat and it's acceptable in their own stories or they're both DM Fiat and both aren't acceptable in their own stories.

The difference is that one is a player choice and one is a DM Fiat. If you want to stand at the portal with your sword drawn and die fighting, if you want to activate the Macguffin and be martyred to save the world, if you want to run away an leave the Demon problem to someone else, or even if you want to switch sides, all of those are possible choices that situation gives. The other situation has no choice; you die, no save, the end.

That's why the second is DM Fiat, and why it's unacceptable, and why it doesn't make for a good story or a fun game.

Wyntonian
2012-12-01, 05:16 PM
That's why the second is DM Fiat, and why it's unacceptable, and why it doesn't make for a good story or a fun game.

... except when it does. DM Fiat isn't a bad thing. It can easily be used in bad ways, but if the DM doesn't roll the dice to go "yup, there's a god in our setting. Cleric, you're good". does that mean he's doing terrible DM Dictatorial Railroading?

No, he's making for a fun game for everyone. If the players agree that yeah, they'd like to see this restriction placed on them to see what happens and how it makes them rethink things, I know I won't be the one to stand on a soapbox and tell them that they're having BadWrongFun.

This isn't an arcade game. It's not like they'll get a *GAME OVER* sign and have to put in more quarters. They're telling a story together, and doing it in a creative way. Telling them that they have no ability, period, to make their character's death mean anything simply because of where it's coming from is, frankly, condescending and rude.

Draz74
2012-12-02, 01:24 AM
I think for me, this would depend on the DM. If it's a DM that I trust to have cool stories in his campaigns, I would be cool with the 10-session-defined time limit with death attached.

scurv
2012-12-02, 02:34 PM
Understand, When we played that game, This was a group of players who were on active duty So to us there was some other benefits of exploring that aspect.

But sometimes the challenge is to see what you can do with the cards that are dealt to you. Can you cope with unfairness? Can you turn a loss into a win? Can you manage to make a victory? Or will you cry about the unfairness of it?

But quite frankly i never understood this. Back then and now. Why do people bish about it when they knew upfront what the terms of the game was. I can not count the rants I heard from it. But darn it was the one that was talked about the most for years afterwards.

I mean seriously, How can you not call it heroic the five chars sit in the sewer entrance to the necromancers stronghold. Debating how they will use the last of their serum to hold off on their stat decay and juggle magic items to their best advantage

And hours of game time later The paladin who now has a con and str of 6 strikes down the necromancer while in the other room the rogue, druid and wizard is attempting to use his books to find an antidote/cure to their situation. While the inept fighter who is the only one left who can fully move attempts to follow there instructions to brew the antidote

That was one of the best sessions of my life Granted my char died, But I still loved it!

scurv
2012-12-02, 02:46 PM
Understand, When we played that game, This was a group of players who were on active duty So to us there was some other benefits of exploring that aspect.

But sometimes the challenge is to see what you can do with the cards that are dealt to you. Can you cope with unfairness? Can you turn a loss into a win? Can you manage to make a victory? Or will you cry about the unfairness of it?

But quite frankly i never understood this. Back then and now. Why do people bish about it when they knew upfront what the terms of the game was. I can not count the rants I heard from it. But darn it was the one that was talked about the most for years afterwards.

I mean seriously, How can you not call it heroic the five chars sit in the sewer entrance to the necromancers stronghold. Debating how they will use the last of their serum to hold off on their stat decay and juggle magic items to their best advantage

And hours of game time later The paladin who now has a con and str of 6 strikes down the necromancer while in the other room the rogue, druid and wizard is attempting to use his books to find an antidote/cure to their situation. While the inept fighter who is the only one left who can fully move attempts to follow there instructions to brew the antidote

That was one of the best sessions of my life Granted my char died, But I still loved it!

hymer
2012-12-02, 03:17 PM
But sometimes the challenge is to see what you can do with the cards that are dealt to you. Can you cope with unfairness? Can you turn a loss into a win? Can you manage to make a victory? Or will you cry about the unfairness of it?

Well, I don't have your admirably steely resolve in the face of adversity. What's more, I don't come to the gaming table with the objective of working on my weak and failing personality to suit your standards. I come to have fun. And that's entirely subjective, of course.


I played in a campaign when we found out on session one that we had ten session to live, solve the whodunit, and maybe have a crapshot at a cure.


But quite frankly i never understood this. Back then and now. Why do people bish about it when they knew upfront what the terms of the game was.

Well, not quite up front, it would seem. My underlining.


I mean seriously, How can you not call it heroic the five chars sit in the sewer entrance to the necromancers stronghold. Debating how they will use the last of their serum to hold off on their stat decay and juggle magic items to their best advantage

I never called it unheroic as far as I know. Just not fun, not exciting, not interesting, because however worked up you get, you'll lose the campaign soon. And the longer the campaign runs, the less interesting it gets, as there's less and less reason to invest time, energy or emotion in it and its PCs and NPCs.

"You don't dryclean a rented tuxedo. You don't redecorate a hotel room. You don't order cable TV for a port-a-potty. Unless you're really, really drunk."

- Charles F. Harper, quoted by memory

scurv
2012-12-02, 10:55 PM
Not bad, Pleasantly on the other-side of a personal attack hymer. But why is it the people who dislike this premise for a game, seem to go there? If something is not your idea of fun, fine. just no need to be a bag about it

Geostationary
2012-12-02, 11:23 PM
I never called it unheroic as far as I know. Just not fun, not exciting, not interesting, because however worked up you get, you'll lose the campaign soon. And the longer the campaign runs, the less interesting it gets, as there's less and less reason to invest time, energy or emotion in it and its PCs and NPCs.


How so? Plenty of games have doom-track type mechanics, and in this case it adds a lot more importance to managing your time for the resource-management aspect of d20 systems. Why does the game get less interesting as you head towards the end (assuming one doesn't entirely botch pacing)? This is like saying, "oh, we're approaching the climax, the most boring and unengaging part of the scenario". Sure, you'll die, but that doesn't mean you lose the campaign- even in the example given they managed to defeat the necromancer.

hymer
2012-12-03, 05:23 AM
Let me just say I'm not as angry as I may have sounded. Just sarcky. :smallsmile:
It's obviously not always easy to explain why you feel the way you do. But let me give it a go:

One thing is the letdown after the climax. The better the climax, the more fun you had along the way, the more annoying is the premise that it must end now for an arbitrary reason. On the other hand, if you weren't having fun along the way, there's no letdown, just no fun while you play.

Another is what you get out of the game. Some people like a game where they can jump in quickly, get to the action, and have fun almost immediately.
I often find myself deciding against going directly for victory, because I want the game to go on longer. I'm having too much fun with this nation/base/character I've built, I don't want to end it just yet, and I want to build more. I'm gonna harvest all I can from this map, or gather all the gold coins, or let the enemy base stand so I can rack up a huge killscore or see my units gain experience I've never seen before.
And of course, if you lean strongly to one particular of those, it's hard to explain why you think this is inherently amusing. It just is. The other may be amusing too, but not everyone feels that way.

So in a roleplaying game, I see the possibility of building something that will last, a character with connections to other PCs and the world, and with powers that gradually grow. And then there are singleshot adventures, which just seem to be things that have to happen, so I can move on to actually playing the game I really want to play.
And the more limited the scope, the harder it is to get into building (not just the game technical side of things) the game or character.

Knaight
2012-12-03, 11:43 PM
So, what I see happening is a conflation of characters dying with characters failing. You can die but still win in the end. Even if you fail you still fought- you don't leave the world quietly but with a bang, dragging your opponents down with you. You still impact the world and change things, which is not somehow invalidated by your dying. Death often means failure in rpgs, but this is hardly always the case.

I don't see why being doomed to eventual failure and ruin is necessarily a problem, though that certainly should be known upfront.

Socratov
2012-12-04, 07:04 AM
ehm... plase tell me if I'm being stupid or anything, but in what way does your GM have complete control ver you, your backstory or anything in these sorts of campaigns?

I mean. the only requirement is that you have only X time to live becuase Y happened. Beyond that your character is all yours. (if need be you can have thathappen in the first minute, session 1 finding a way to cure, sessions2-10 getting it and staying alive. the only thing you get railroaded into (if it qualifies in any way) is seeking a cure/soluton and having a goal thought up for you.

Knaight
2012-12-04, 09:44 AM
ehm... plase tell me if I'm being stupid or anything, but in what way does your GM have complete control ver you, your backstory or anything in these sorts of campaigns?

I mean. the only requirement is that you have only X time to live becuase Y happened. Beyond that your character is all yours. (if need be you can have thathappen in the first minute, session 1 finding a way to cure, sessions2-10 getting it and staying alive. the only thing you get railroaded into (if it qualifies in any way) is seeking a cure/soluton and having a goal thought up for you.

The GM doesn't have this control, the necessity to seek a cure isn't even necessarily there, as other goals are still very much an option, and in general the backstory argument is specious.