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Alberic Strein
2014-05-27, 08:46 AM
This is going to be part rant, part questioning.

I recently had two DM's, both of them very clear when they would use a deus ex machina and get the team out of an unmanageable mess.

For some reason, this does not sit well with me. Each time it's like I hear a fancy version of "YOU SUCK".

Part of the reason comes from external factors. Both GM's have issues with balancing difficulty. One throws AC 18 critters with poison attacks doing strength damage at level 2, and gives an enemy with the weakest incidence rating 50 gangers with machine guns, while the second has an immoderate love for the Ares Alpha, an assault rifle with underbarrel grenade launcher, it's forbidden in most places but somehow, most guards we ever fight love to wield it. It's got range, damage, dodge nullifier, grenades... The last incident was when we were ambushed by 4 paramilitary guys, expressingly stated NOT to be manageable enemies, waiting for us atop a 30 meters high and 10 meters wide mine chinmey, with said assault rifles. Of course, since I didn't score any hits on my infiltration skill, they noticed me right as I popped my head to look at the scenery, BEFORE I was done climbing. Meaning dodging things would be rather complicated.

Luckily, at some point the sentence "hands on your head" was uttered, which I was only too happy to oblige, leading me back at the bottom before I got slaughtered. After we survived the following firefight, the DM expressed that we had been lucky he saved our arses.

And indeed, he did. Except that I see absolutely NO WAY for our team of two to have survived against better equipped and better positioned enemies while outnumbered to 2 to 1.

So after we are put in an unmanageable position he bails us out with a deus ex machina, notes he did it, and I feel like I dropped, the ball, that I failed, while I see no way to have succeeded.

The issue is that this particular DM is new to DM'ing, funny, interesting, and downright enjoyable, so I don't know how to bring up the issue without it feeling like a reproach.

EDIT: That, and my fellow other player WHINES. He whines for any and everything. At times we need to stop the game for dozens of minutes during which he WHINES. Which makes my whining (which happens, heh, I'm a player too and I have my bad days) complicated. DM'ing for two whiners in not enjoyable, and when one whines for anything, you have a tendency to dismiss the second whiner, which thinks a little bit more before whining like a spoiled child.

Ok, that was the rant part.

Now, for the questioning.

Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...

I do too, as a DM, and not always subtly. i often tell my players that if they pay some hero points (which do not regen) then something will happen in their favor. Like a surprise cavalry charge from the friends of the hero bethroted to one of my PC's sister. You can't be less subtle than that.

But it's an exchange. I take some of their resources, and they have something nice. My players KNOW I fudge the die and save their arses, but I don't tell them. I don't tell them they are inadequate players. But does it make really a difference?

When I help them in a particularly awesome way, I sometimes gloat about it. Because at that point, it was I who was in a tough spot, and had troubles getting myself out of it.

On particular example was Coco. Coco was the stereotypical parrot of the stereotypical pirate boss they fought to defend their trading ship in a stereotypical scenario. The problem was that one of my players had had a very bad day, and a bad week, and at the time had some very bad rolls. Which meant that she was having a very bad time and was ready to say "screw that" to the campaign. Did I mention she also was my girlfriend at the time? How do you save your relationship and avert the "DM's Girlfriend" syndrome? Well, you pray for a good attack roll, which she got, and some awesome damage, which she didn't get. Her great attack did a grand total of 2 damage. I cannot have a boss without at least 2 points of armor, so she was going to get 0 damage, ragequit this game, potentially the whole campaign, and potentially our entire one year long relationship. What do I do? I sacrifice Coco and make it as hilarious as possible. Getting a good laugh and averting the impending crisis.

Did I save her character back there (and my campaign and my relationship)? Sure thing. Did I unceremonially gloat about it? Betcha I did. Was it VERY heavy handed? Yup. Was it a clear, and assumed right in their faces, Deus Ex Machina? YES. Is it very different from one of my DM's delivering more potent than existing healing potions in bulk to our team in the dead of the night? Err...

What do you say?

Where is the line? When do we, ad DM's who like our players, who sometimes even want (a bit) to be part of the team, go to far when helping them?

Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

Airk
2014-05-27, 09:02 AM
Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

Short answer: No, this is never acceptable, even if they were facing certain death and then lightning smote their foes out of a clear sky. In a nonmagical game.

To be fair, I don't feel like you should, in general, "save" your players, either, unless you blatantly screwed up somehow. But more importantly, you shouldn't PUT your players in situations where the only outcomes are "party wins", "TPK" or "GM rescue." That's just bad GMing, IMHO, unless you're playing some sort of impartial moderator sandbox game. But even in that last situation, it's STILL not appropriate to tell the players "I just saved you."; Either they already KNOW that, and you're rubbing salt in it, or you're just mocking them. None of that is appropriate.

Angel Bob
2014-05-27, 09:08 AM
Bringing in the cavalry is a great way to both save the PCs' sorry arses and reward them for making important NPC connections or actually writing backgrounds. As long as the cavalry doesn't come out of nowhere, and isn't obviously glorified (such as some amazingly beautiful elf soaring in on a golden dragon to toast the evil goblin necromancer boss in a first-level adventure), then I think it's a perfectly valid emergency tactic for a DM in distress.

Now, about fudging rolls. I find this entirely acceptable, and even admirable. It wouldn't do to have bold and glorious PCs cut down in a random encounter with an owlbear, so a DM who fudges a crucial roll to save a PC's life in such a fight is justified.

For example, a session my group played the other day. This particular campaign is run by a friend of mine who sometimes throws too much at us. In this case, after one encounter had drained us of several resources, he immediately introduced us to two flesh golems -- a moderately difficult encounter by itself -- without letting us get a chance to rest and recover.

Anyway, because our tank was low on health and could only focus on one golem at a time, he dropped. This allowed a golem to attack the wizard, and in one turn, reduced him from full hit points to one hit point from death. The other golem then charged across the room towards the other PCs, stomping both the fighter and wizard en route. The fighter survived, but any hit to the wizard would have killed him outright. The DM prepared to roll, and as soon as one player interrupted him with a loud proclamation about a text she'd just received, he "dropped" the die into a blanket and decided not to re-roll it.

Did he blatantly fudge the roll to save the wizard's life? Yes. But he said nothing of that incident, merely mentioning after the fact that "This encounter wasn't really your highest point". That's the kind of fudging that's acceptable.

However, though both of these methods are justified in many circumstances, I don't think the DM should gloat about "saving" the PCs. Such a boast makes the players feel less empowered in a game that should be all about empowering them. Remember, even if you bring in the cavalry, it should be thanks to a meaningful alliance the PCs made in the past -- whether it be a military general who owes them his daughter's life, an old adventuring buddy they rescued from a devil, etc., etc. Even when their might alone can't triumph, their fame and friendships still hold. D&D is all about the PCs, and no DM should ever forget that.

Jay R
2014-05-27, 09:35 AM
Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...?

No, I won't. Players can sometimes die, or it's not a game; it's just wish fulfillment.

I will (occasionally) reduce the number of orcs charging, or some such, when it's clear that I made a huge mistake, but I'm not saving them; I'm cleaning up my mess. And I won't let them catch me at it, for the same reasons that I clean up my house for the game before the gamers show up.

What's the difference? My job is to provide a situation in which, if they mess up, they could die. But it's also my job not to provide a situation in which, even if they do well, they will die.

In your initial scenario, if there was a way for you to realize that you couldn't take that path, and you failed to do anything to find out, then you messed up and he saved you. But if it was impossible for you to reasonably learn that the enemy was too powerful, then the problem isn't that he saved you; it's that he never gave you a challenge. (An unavoidable encounter you must lose is no more a challenge than a weak encounter you can mow over.)

In the last game I ran, the party fled simply fled twice, since the enemy was too powerful there. This was a correct action on their part.


My players KNOW I fudge the die and save their arses, but I don't tell them. I don't tell them they are inadequate players. But does it make really a difference?

Absolutely. Telling them that you saved them is equivalent to Henry Cavill telling us in the Superman movie that he can't really fly; it's a special effect. The DM talking about saving the players is admitting that they aren't actually affecting anything. Both are spoiling the immersion by focusing on how the story is created.

Like OEdipus, I want to believe that I'm in charge of my PC's fate - especially when I'm not.


When I help them in a particularly awesome way, I sometimes gloat about it. Because at that point, it was I who was in a tough spot, and had troubles getting myself out of it.
...
Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

Nope. Every time you say it, you're saying that they weren't really playing.

And by the way, in the situation you describe, one possible solution is for the villain to beat them all, and the party wakes up chained to oars in a ship. The next adventure is attempting to escape from slavery.

Saving the party's lives doesn't mean erasing consequences; it means furthering the story with the consequences.

jedipotter
2014-05-27, 09:36 AM
What do you say?

Where is the line? When do we, ad DM's who like our players, who sometimes even want (a bit) to be part of the team, go to far when helping them?

Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

I don't save characters, I'm a killer DM. If things go bad, then they just go bad. Bad is fun.

Sebastrd
2014-05-27, 09:46 AM
In my opinion:

You should never save your players; they should succeed or fail on their own merits. If the PCs get themselves in over their heads, it's fine to leave them a way out that requires some sacrifices. However, the way out should always be an option, not a requirement, and the players need to know that you aren't afraid to let them fail. On the flipside, failure does not always have to mean death or the end of the adventure.

Your DM friend is doing it wrong. A good DM sets the stage for the players to do cool things. Your DM treats you like his own personal audience while he does the cool things. There is a world of difference between whining a criticizing, and your DM could use a healthy dose of constructive criticism. It sounds like he's a player using his DM powers to do all the cool things he wishes he could do as a player.

ElenionAncalima
2014-05-27, 09:53 AM
I was guilty of this once...but I made it very clear that it wasn't the players fault, it was just bad luck (Max damage+deadly aim longbow crit on the very first round of a boss fight). Also, I wasn't trying to rub it in, she had seen what I rolled and I didn't want to make her sit out the final fight for something that was my fault, if it was anyone's...since I hadn't realized that I had an enemy who could oneshot a PC. I had balanced the encounters based on average rolls, without giving much thought to max and min. This was a lesson in DMing for me, not a lesson in playing for her. However, I think the key was (and why the players didn't seem to mind) is that I never tried to make it seem like I was graciously saving her from a rightful death. I made it very clear that I didn't think it was fair for her to die that way, thus the change. Its certainly not a DMing moment that I gloat about.

Also, that player may just be cursed, because she gets hit by absolutely everything and gets crit pretty much any time there is an enemy with a x3 weapon. Meanwhile, the two other melee PCs never seem to get hurt. Its practically running joke at this point. I think the player has adopted a gotta laugh to keep from crying attitude about it all...and thankfully her luck seems to be improving over the last two sessions, so now she gets really excited whenever something misses her.

Red Fel
2014-05-27, 09:54 AM
Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...

Agree in part, disagree in part.

As a DM, I may fudge some numbers. For example, if I prepare an encounter, and realize before the encounter begins that it is unbalanced, I may rebalance it before it happens. If the encounter is underway, and I realize that it is unbalanced, I will ensure that there are options available to my players (such as terrain tactics or escape routes) that will enable them to survive, escape, or possibly succeed with enough quick thinking. (I will also apologize afterwards for messing up on the balance.) If an enemy gets an outrageously lucky hit that should not have worked and manages to end the encounter in the first round, I will likely fudge that success down to a slightly-less-lethal result, probably causing massive harm but not completely ending the game. But I will not "save" my players. My encounters should be things that the players, acting smartly, can handle in multiple ways. If I did something wrong, I will offer additional options that will enable them to survive if they know to take advantage, but if they're playing stupidly, I'm not going to save them from themselves.

And when I do it, I try to be as subtle as possible. Because it should never be about me saving them. Occasionally, I may have to be blunt (e.g. "You know, this is a cave. There are stalagmites you can hide behind.") but I won't take credit for it; I see having to fudge the numbers as a sign of personal failure, not a sign of my own power as DM.


What do you say?

Where is the line? When do we, ad DM's who like our players, who sometimes even want (a bit) to be part of the team, go to far when helping them?

Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

The short version? The DM should never take credit for the PCs' actions, and that includes their survival. The players should be given every opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merits; that opportunity shouldn't be taken from them. In a case where the DM sets them up against impossible odds and then saves them, he is doubly at fault - first, for creating an unwinnable scenario, and second for taking control of the PCs' fates. But even where the DM doesn't set out to create an unwinnable scenario, and ends up calling the cavalry anyway, he is at fault.

If, as a player, I fought my way to the castle beyond the goblin city to take back the child you have stolen, only to be defeated at the last minute and saved by an army of animated rocks, I'm not going to feel thrilled that the child has been rescued and the goblin king turned into a fluffy white owl. I'm going to feel cheated. I might even feel more frustrated by that outcome than if I had simply died at the hands (or feet, or giant sword) of a giant goblin robot. By contrast, however, if I had been reminded that one of my allies has the ability to animate rocks, and I then chose to employ that ability, thus resolving the encounter in my favor, I'd feel much better about the victory.

Side note, every campaign is more awesome when you add David Bowie.

Moreover, actually announcing it like that - "I just saved you," - as if I should be grateful, is just bad form all around; a DM should neither gloat over thwarting the players nor over making them succeed. A DM should be gloating because the players are praising his skills as a DM, not because he did something awesome and the players need to notice it.

TheCountAlucard
2014-05-27, 10:02 AM
None of my players has died, yet. To my knowledge.

I can safely say, though, that if they were in danger of it, I wouldn't pull a Deus Ex Machina out of nowhere and save them.

Kalmageddon
2014-05-27, 10:16 AM
I usually "save" my players when an enemy scores an incredibly lucky roll, like a triple natural 20 or something like that. Or when my players are having some really bad luck, rolling only faliures turn after turn, I might have the enemy roll just as badly to avoid a curb stomp battle based solely on bad rolls.
Outside of that, I usually don't show any mercy.

JusticeZero
2014-05-27, 11:09 AM
One way to make the rescue hurt less is to make the "cavalry" be people they would rather not see there - another enemy group, or the guy who is going to take credit for the whole thing and get away with it. Or, the enemy just takes prisoners. They aren't dead, but things definitely look bad anyways.

Sartharina
2014-05-27, 11:19 AM
When it comes to DM bailout.. DMs gloating about it is not good. However, a DM that decided to bail players out can admit that he made a mistake in calibrating the encounter, and it wouldn't be worth the loss of player-characters because of that mistake.

Rhynn
2014-05-27, 11:26 AM
I recently had two DM's, both of them very clear when they would use a deus ex machina and get the team out of an unmanageable mess.

Deus ex machina (or cheating at dice, or whatever) is already bad GMing (usually done to fix some earlier bad GMing), but rubbing the players' faces in it is just ridiculous.

Why are the players even there if their choices don't have consequences and you won't let them fail? Some people should write short stories instead.


Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...

Nope. That's cheating. Why would I cheat at a game? I expect my players not to cheat, so I should do the same.

I'll let them save themselves. Never had a problem with this method. (It helps that I don't write myself into single-solution win-or-TPK corners on the rare occasions that my games aren't entirely player-driven.)


To be fair, I don't feel like you should, in general, "save" your players, either, unless you blatantly screwed up somehow. But more importantly, you shouldn't PUT your players in situations where the only outcomes are "party wins", "TPK" or "GM rescue." That's just bad GMing, IMHO

Yes, yes, and yes.


unless you're playing some sort of impartial moderator sandbox game.

Not even then. The players can put themselves in a really bad situation, though, but the power should be with them: playing reasonably okay, they should be perfectly able to avoid such situations.


What's the difference? My job is to provide a situation in which, if they mess up, they could die. But it's also my job not to provide a situation in which, even if they do well, they will die.

This is a great way to put it.

Of course, in almost any campaign, there exist situations that the PCs can force themselves into where they don't really stand a chance, but that a culmination of bad choices and failures, not a single mistake or poor roll.


I don't save characters, I'm a killer DM. If things go bad, then they just go bad. Bad is fun.

This is so very true.

A big part of my player-driven campaigns is that, as the GM, I need to think about consequences for their actions between sessions. It turns out that bad consequences are always the ones that provide more fodder for play. Good consequences are generally just rewards that tend to tie off a particular plotline.


One way to make the rescue hurt less is to make the "cavalry" be people they would rather not see there - another enemy group, or the guy who is going to take credit for the whole thing and get away with it.

This is really kind of a writing classic. "We're saved" turns into "out of the frying pan and into the fire," but the "break" in the situation gives the protagonists a chance to turn things around and find a way out of the situation.

As the GM, you are in control of such coincidences and timings, and it can be a very organic way to give your players a chance without needing to cheat or negate their agency; you shake things up and give them a chance, but also add a new complication or obstacle.

It doesn't have to be people, either. Maybe the pursuers lose the PCs because of a dust storm, but that gets the PCs lost too. Maybe a storm breaks out and the enemy ship is left behind, but now the PCs' own ship is in danger of foundering. Maybe the roof of the burning building collapses, separating the PCs from the enemy - but now they're trapped in a burning building. And so on...

The difference to a deus ex machina is that you're not giving a solution, you're changing the situation - coincidence, luck, or god don't reach down and solve everything neatly, but rather a new complication changes things.

And, of course, if the players were clever enough to make friends or have backup or arrange an extraction, it's often most dramatically satisfying to have the help show up at the nick of time, rather than at a predetermined time.

Airk
2014-05-27, 11:29 AM
This is really kind of a writing classic. "We're saved" turns into "out of the frying pan and into the fire," but the "break" in the situation gives the protagonists a chance to turn things around and find a way out of the situation.

As the GM, you are in control of such coincidences and timings, and it can be a very organic way to give your players a chance without needing to cheat or negate their agency; you shake things up and give them a chance, but also add a new complication or obstacle.

It doesn't have to be people, either. Maybe the pursuers lose the PCs because of a dust storm, but that gets the PCs lost too. Maybe a storm breaks out and the enemy ship is left behind, but now the PCs' own ship is in danger of foundering. Maybe the roof of the burning building collapses, separating the PCs from the enemy - but now they're trapped in a burning building. And so on...

The difference to a deus ex machina is that you're not giving a solution, you're changing the situation - coincidence, luck, or god don't reach down and solve everything neatly, but rather a new complication changes things.

And, of course, if the players were clever enough to make friends or have backup or arrange an extraction, it's often most dramatically satisfying to have the help show up at the nick of time, rather than at a predetermined time.

And to bring the thread back full circle, if you do one of these things, you should never, ever, EVER then say "I saved you!" to the party. WTF?

Vizzerdrix
2014-05-27, 11:54 AM
Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...

No. I respect my players too much to cheat them like that.

SimonMoon6
2014-05-27, 12:17 PM
If failure has no consequence, then victory has no meaning.

So, having a DM save the PCs makes a game ultimately pointless beyond the "let's all tell a story" aspect.

Spore
2014-05-27, 01:30 PM
Please please please do not fudge the last dice. See the general direction of the battle and adjust the difficulty from there. There is something insulting in animal-like intelligence monsters suddenly switching to nonlethal damage. There is something aggravating in not executing the rogue for robbery and treason but instead mutilating his body and forcing his character to stay in the game.

If the battle is meant to be hard but not TPK material, reduce the numbers of assisting waves. Introduce a NPC saving their asses (and after the battle, demanding some loot), give larger than RAW penalties depending on the situation (when a melee kills three orcs in a round, this could either not phase them at all or get them to retreat).

I haven't DMed and I will have a really squishy character (almost no HP, Fort negative, only line of defense is armor class) in my group - possibly forcing me to kill her off in the first sessions. She is the vital character in one of my main plot lines but I will try to adapt my story to not kill her, but incapacitate her to abduct her for the BBEG to marry. But that's a decision I make beforehand. If I would use a poison using assassin to kill her, I might as well just ask the player to roll a different character than going through the hassle of introducing her, killing off and introducing his other character.

But if she dies, she dies. (The player always brings up characters way below the party's optimization level forcing DMs to play around his characters.)

Thrudd
2014-05-27, 03:02 PM
She is the vital character in one of my main plot lines...

This is part of the problem, right here. You've already written yourself into a corner by having a plot which requires a specific character be present. The player might stop making purposefully weak characters if he knew it was a game where the DM wasn't forced to "work around" his character, and instead he needed to solve the game's challenges on his own. At the same time, the DM is responsible for making sure the game's challenges can be solved by the players, where outcomes are not predetermined.

Make sure some of the challenges they face can be solved by means other than combat, so a character with high charisma and intelligence could contribute rather than just having to run away or be saved by the DM. A player should be able to create any sort of character the game allows and have a chance of surviving and contributing, although some choices may make a more difficult game than others.

For example: is there no way for the character in question to avoid having an assassin sent after her? What did the player do that has resulted in powerful people trying to kill or kidnap his character? If the players' choices have not placed his character in this danger, he shouldn't be expected to face consequences for it. In other words, it isn't that the character is too weak to survive, the problem is that the player hasn't had a chance to play the character appropriately. A physically weak character needs to use their other abilities to avoid combat whenever possible, and needs the cooperation of a party that includes some strong fighters to protect them when it can't be avoided. Will the player have the opportunity to use these tactics to avoid getting killed or captured? Was the player told that his character would be facing assassination attempts from the beginning of the game, and he still chose to build his character this way?

sktarq
2014-05-27, 04:05 PM
This is going to be part rant, part questioning.

I recently had two DM's, both of them very clear when they would use a deus ex machina and get the team out of an unmanageable mess.

For some reason, this does not sit well with me. Each time it's like I hear a fancy version of "YOU SUCK".

For me it depends on the definition of "unmanageable" and fault and is very poorly phrased in any case. As a ST/GM/DM i will and have let my players know that if I accidentally screw them over by totally boffing a judgment I will do something to try and give the players an out. My preferred thing is to do is substitute a lesser but more immediate challenge, a situational improvised weapon to help level things up, or storytellingly highlight avenues of retreat and give more than RAW penalties to the pursuer. But only if it is not the players fault. Which means there is a slight addendum. If one player does something totally stupid that has a very high chance to kill another PC, I will fudge and even more than little the other PC's ability to escape. A couple extra rolls on the booby trap setup-a round or three of delays (either by continuing to beat up the corpse of the offending PC, slower blast triggers - whatever) . I'll deux ex machina chances and more than RAW ability to react but not do it for them in general. Id happened a lot more often when I was a teenager and not as good at DMing.


On particular example was Coco. Coco was the stereotypical parrot of the stereotypical pirate boss they fought to defend their trading ship in a stereotypical scenario.I sacrifice Coco and make it as hilarious as possible. Getting a good laugh and averting the impending crisis.

Cool story, and a good bit of DMing-you took a problematic situation and did you fudge the dice? nope. she still didn't cause more than two damage. You just made her, minor, contribution more central to the action and fun of the game in order to keep the social parts of the game working. I'd say its fine to bring this kind of story up in discussions of DMing and the like but very not okay during the game itself. There are cool stories in how movies are made but it shouldn't ever appear during the screening of the movie itself.


Is there a moment when "I just saved you" is an acceptable thing to say to one of your players?

If and ONLY if it is followed by some version of "from my total earlier stupidity, sorry about that."

TheThan
2014-05-27, 04:10 PM
My job is to provide a situation in which, if they mess up, they could die. But it's also my job not to provide a situation in which, even if they do well, they will die.



T he short version? The DM should never take credit for the PCs' actions, and that includes their survival. The players should be given every opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merits; that opportunity shouldn't be taken from them.


Exactly! The PCs should be able to survive on their own merits. If the Gm has to interfere to keep them alive then he’s doing it wrong. Granted GMs make mistakes, it’s easy to misjudge the strength of the party. So fudging dice rolls to prevent a TPK because the Gm made a mistake, that’s reasonable. Ideally, the Dm should never have to fudge rolls or save a party’s tail because he messed up; the reality is that it happens. However, PCs should be allowed to fail, but that failure should be on their heads not the GM’s. If they screw up, and get killed (or fail to save the day, whatever) that’s their fault. Consequences should happen, and the game should continue (unless it’s the end or whatever).

Rhynn
2014-05-27, 04:29 PM
If failure has no consequence, then victory has no meaning.

Yes.

I think my players will appreciate megadungeons like the Undermountain a lot more if they're all actually lost PCs - maybe entire parties - in there. Overcoming something that's hard to beat is so much more satisfying.


So, having a DM save the PCs makes a game ultimately pointless beyond the "let's all tell a story" aspect.

Yes. And that's a perfectly valid thing to do, but if you're going to do it, you should be up front about it, involve your players, and maybe use a game that supports it. There are many.


This is part of the problem, right here. You've already written yourself into a corner by having a plot which requires a specific character be present.

This is absolutely spot-on. It's not egregious bad GMing, but it is bad GMing.

If you create a situation where multiple things can happen (players win, players lose; character lives, character dies; etc.) but only one of those things is acceptable, you've gone way wrong.

If you want to run games where characters don't die because it's not right for their storyline, pick a game where e.g. characters can't die unless the player thinks it's dramatically appropriate, or where players at least have some agency or ability to affect character death. (Resurrection magic is a decent way, too.)

Amphetryon
2014-05-27, 04:41 PM
Short answer: No, this is never acceptable, even if they were facing certain death and then lightning smote their foes out of a clear sky. In a nonmagical game.

To be fair, I don't feel like you should, in general, "save" your players, either, unless you blatantly screwed up somehow. But more importantly, you shouldn't PUT your players in situations where the only outcomes are "party wins", "TPK" or "GM rescue." That's just bad GMing, IMHO, unless you're playing some sort of impartial moderator sandbox game. But even in that last situation, it's STILL not appropriate to tell the players "I just saved you."; Either they already KNOW that, and you're rubbing salt in it, or you're just mocking them. None of that is appropriate.

So, if you know your party will never, under any circumstances to date, run away from a fight that's too strong for them (because DMG guidelines indicate these should probably happen 5% of the time, to make the world feel more alive), how do you run combats so that the above is true? What if an otherwise appropriate fight goes badly due to the RNG tilting wildly in your favor whilst you're doing all the rolls in the open? You know, the party suddenly can't roll above a 5 for two rounds, while your bad guys score lucky Critical Hits on the party members who are closest to them and happen to be the squishiest? Is putting them in a level-appropriate fight, for which they're adequately prepared, that kills them an example of you "blatantly screw[ing] up somehow" as the GM? What should have been done differently?

Rhynn
2014-05-27, 05:32 PM
So, if you know your party will never, under any circumstances to date, run away from a fight that's too strong for them (because DMG guidelines indicate these should probably happen 5% of the time, to make the world feel more alive), how do you run combats so that the above is true? What if an otherwise appropriate fight goes badly due to the RNG tilting wildly in your favor whilst you're doing all the rolls in the open? You know, the party suddenly can't roll above a 5 for two rounds, while your bad guys score lucky Critical Hits on the party members who are closest to them and happen to be the squishiest? Is putting them in a level-appropriate fight, for which they're adequately prepared, that kills them an example of you "blatantly screw[ing] up somehow" as the GM? What should have been done differently?

If TPK is possible in the game, then you have to be willing to run with it. It's not hard to construct campaigns to survive TPK, and there's many different ways. (Or find games that don't have a chance of TPK.)

I'm 100% okay with letting PCs kill themselves with bad decisions. I think "combat encounter" is too narrow a definition of "situation" - it can be part of a situation the PCs get themselves into, and it can go really badly, but so long as the PCs had a chance, choices, options, whatever, it's all cool. So, an unwinnable, unescapable fight can be the end-result of a really poorly handled situation, but you wouldn't force that on the PCs.

If the players are unwilling to retreat, escape, flee, or otherwise use tactics, then you've got two options: let them learn the hard way (I encourage this) or cheat to keep them alive (I think this sucks the point out of the game).

DigoDragon
2014-05-27, 06:14 PM
If the PCs are about to die from a dumb die roll, I'll secretly fudge things so they aren't killed. Death by random chance isn't much fun to me. If the PCs do some bone-headed crazy plan when they obviously know better, then I won't employ the net should they fall to their deaths. :smallsmile: To this day only one PC has died by dice rolls, though at the same time he did go off on his own instead of sticking with the group, so it's indirectly his bad idea that killed him.

Slipperychicken
2014-05-27, 06:15 PM
I will (occasionally) reduce the number of orcs charging, or some such, when it's clear that I made a huge mistake, but I'm not saving them; I'm cleaning up my mess. And I won't let them catch me at it, for the same reasons that I clean up my house for the game before the gamers show up.

As a player, I can get behind this.

Amphetryon
2014-05-27, 06:18 PM
If the players are unwilling to retreat, escape, flee, or otherwise use tactics, then you've got two options: let them learn the hard way (I encourage this) or cheat to keep them alive (I think this sucks the point out of the game).
Both of those options are examples of what Airk previously defined as 'the GM screwing up,' though. I don't think that can be correct.

veti
2014-05-27, 06:20 PM
She is the vital character in one of my main plot lines but I will try to adapt my story to not kill her, but incapacitate her to abduct her for the BBEG to marry.

If a character who's "vital to a plot line" dies, then it seems to me you've got a new plot.

She was the Chosen One, she alone will stand against the vampires, de... (sorry, getting carried away but you get the drift)? Then either you need to find another Chosen One or figure out how to get by without one. Should be possible.

She's the Rightful Heir, best chance of deposing the Evil Usurper? Then either find someone who can impersonate her, or "discover" a whole new heir, or just forget the whole thing and stab King Badman the Unrighteous when he's on the khazi. None of those are impossible, they're just a new plot.

She's the love interest of the 3000-year-old vampire boss, and you were going to use her to convince him to give up his unlife peacefully? Too bad, you'll just have to stake him the old-fashioned way. Might take a few more levels, but hey, that's what quests are all about, right?

Inflexible plots are Bad.


So, if you know your party will never, under any circumstances to date, run away from a fight that's too strong for them (because DMG guidelines indicate these should probably happen 5% of the time, to make the world feel more alive), how do you run combats so that the above is true?

In that game, the players are getting themselves into an unwinnable situation by their refusal to run away. So long as the DM gave them a reasonable chance to assess the level of the fight before they were committed to it, then the TPK is on their heads, not the DM's.

Of course you can still pull the old "wake up chained to an oar" switcheroo, if the enemies are at all intelligent.

Amphetryon
2014-05-27, 06:31 PM
In that game, the players are getting themselves into an unwinnable situation by their refusal to run away. So long as the DM gave them a reasonable chance to assess the level of the fight before they were committed to it, then the TPK is on their heads, not the DM's.

Of course you can still pull the old "wake up chained to an oar" switcheroo, if the enemies are at all intelligent.
The DM - along with the RNG - controls the monsters, not the Players. It still reads as the only options for combat in such a game are "Players win," "TPK," or "GM rescue," from here.


But more importantly, you shouldn't PUT your players in situations where the only outcomes are "party wins", "TPK" or "GM rescue." That's just bad GMing

coupled with:


Deus ex machina (or cheating at dice, or whatever) is already bad GMing (usually done to fix some earlier bad GMing)

So, how does one follow DMG guidelines, while avoiding the above bad outcomes? Saying 'the Players did it to themselves' is avoiding the question, because the Players typically don't have perfect knowledge of what encounters are upcoming, even if they've done recon.

Gamgee
2014-05-27, 06:44 PM
I have a similar problem. Where I plan or use the logical consistencies of my campaign to "save" them even though it makes complete sense. Hell I even build up this help and then they think I'm bailing them out on a whim. No my player friends, this was accounted for as a possibility. They would have shown up even if it wasn't dire straights because they have a score to settle. So then they always accuse me of gm bailing them out, but then have to eat their tongues when I later reveal that the justified reasons for the situation unfolding like that.

I also have a whiny player that complains about everything. I put up with his **** for years, but it's gotten so bad its turned to tantrums. Even his friends don't want to play with him anymore. He hasn't been playing with us much recently. If the game doesn't revolve around him he thinks it sucks. If the game completely revolves around him it's the best game ever. He recently tried to GM a game simply to get people to pay attention to himself and prove he was a better GM than myself. Character creation took 2.5 hours and then he GM'ed for all of 20 minutes before calling it quits. I don't even know why. He just stopped, got up, and left the room with barely a word. No cell phone, no nothing.

Makes me think of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X2AvfSTi6Q).

Rhynn
2014-05-27, 06:56 PM
Both of those options are examples of what Airk previously defined as 'the GM screwing up,' though. I don't think that can be correct.

Sure it can. I'm right, Airk's wrong. :smallamused:

Or the truth is something else altogether. There are opinions, man.

While Airk and I agree on a lot of stuff, we also have some pretty fundamental differences in our views (some of which definitely come into play here; I'm for hardcore old-school player-driven sandboxing and megadungeons, and I'm pretty sure that's not Airk's cup of tea).


The DM - along with the RNG - controls the monsters, not the Players. It still reads as the only options for combat in such a game are "Players win," "TPK," or "GM rescue," from here.

Yep. Like I said, either you cheat (bad) or they learn (good). If they won't learn, you're going to either keep killing them and everyone has a bad time, or you're going to cheat and create a hollow shell of a game and try to make sure they don't realize the illusion. I'd be unsatisfied as all get-out running a game like that, but I guess you can find something to enjoy in it (or despite it).


So, how does one follow DMG guidelines, while avoiding the above bad outcomes? Saying 'the Players did it to themselves' is avoiding the question, because the Players typically don't have perfect knowledge of what encounters are upcoming, even if they've done recon.

"Perfect knowledge" is a strawman. They don't need perfect knowledge. That's not the issue here. The issue is a condition you've put on this: players who refuse to play even halfway decently, nevermind well or smart. That's a problem you either have to solve or live with.

A basic willingness to play sort of smart (gathering information, scouting, retreating and regrouping, etc.) is all players really need. I've only ever had one TPK (a small party vs. really brutally-played psionic illithids who came in with full buffs and escaped as soon as things went bad, only to attack again) in like 20 years, and for probably half of that everyone involved was horrible at playing/GMing.

Again, though, there's many RPGs that completely avoid these issues, if you're willing to try. Narrative control of scenes can be distributed differently, some games don't really have death as a thing that happens, some games have death as a thing that's supposed to happen, and so on...

Thrudd
2014-05-27, 07:37 PM
So, how does one follow DMG guidelines, while avoiding the above bad outcomes? Saying 'the Players did it to themselves' is avoiding the question, because the Players typically don't have perfect knowledge of what encounters are upcoming, even if they've done recon.

It is bad DM'ing if you never give the players any options. They can't avoid fights by stealth or by negotiating, they can't escape once the fight is started. Everything they encounter immediately fights to the death and gives no quarter. If the players have one or more of these options to avoid a lethal fight and they don't take it, the matter was in their hands, not the DM's. The DM can include overpowering encounters some of the time per the DMG recommendation as long as the players have viable non-combat options, such as running away.

Yes, this might mean that the first time a low-level party of new players runs into a troll as a random encounter, they try to fight it and lose a couple people or the whole party, because they didn't know how strong it was. The next time those players run into a troll, they'll know to run away until they are stronger, or come up with some other way to defeat it without fighting it head-on. That's the game.

Fiery Diamond
2014-05-27, 07:42 PM
No, I won't. Players can sometimes die, or it's not a game; it's just wish fulfillment.

I will (occasionally) reduce the number of orcs charging, or some such, when it's clear that I made a huge mistake, but I'm not saving them; I'm cleaning up my mess. And I won't let them catch me at it, for the same reasons that I clean up my house for the game before the gamers show up.

What's the difference? My job is to provide a situation in which, if they mess up, they could die. But it's also my job not to provide a situation in which, even if they do well, they will die.

I take extreme issue with both of the bolded points. It is the first (and probably the second) that leads to the extreme anti-fudging attitudes that some people have, I think. Guess what? There are entire game systems in which the rules EXPLICITLY STATE that the GM cannot kill off the PCs, only the player can choose for his PC to die. And you know what? Those are games too. You know what else? There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking those playstyle assumptions and using them in games which have rules that do support lethality. It doesn't magically mean that someone is playing the game wrong or having "just wish fulfillment."

Second bolded issue: no, that is not your job as a DM/GM. Your job is to provide a situation that is engaging and enjoyable to the players. What this means will vary from game to game depending on players and playstyle. But "potentially lethal situation" is not automatically the default, even in high-lethality rules games.



These people I completely agree with.


*stuff*

Now, about fudging rolls. I find this entirely acceptable, and even admirable. It wouldn't do to have bold and glorious PCs cut down in a random encounter with an owlbear, so a DM who fudges a crucial roll to save a PC's life in such a fight is justified.
*stuff*


Agree in part, disagree in part.

*stuff*

This person: some and some.


Nope. That's cheating. Why would I cheat at a game? I expect my players not to cheat, so I should do the same.

*stuff not relevant to what I want to talk about*

A big part of my player-driven campaigns is that, as the GM, I need to think about consequences for their actions between sessions. It turns out that bad consequences are always the ones that provide more fodder for play. Good consequences are generally just rewards that tend to tie off a particular plotline.

*more stuff I agree with*

Bold: Why do you consider it cheating? In games with lethality built into the rules, doing these specific things is, from my perspective, GOOD DMing. Your task as a DM is not to "play encounters straight," it's "play them in the way that will prove most satisfying to the players."

Pretty much the rest I agree with you on, though.


No. I respect my players too much to cheat them like that.

Again, why do you consider this cheating, or even a bad thing?


If failure has no consequence, then victory has no meaning.

So, having a DM save the PCs makes a game ultimately pointless beyond the "let's all tell a story" aspect.

Um... what if the "let's all tell a story" aspect is, in fact, the defining aspect of the game for the group? To me, that is the defining aspect of role-playing in general. The rest is all seasoning and spices. You act like that's just a minor thing that doesn't matter or something, when in fact it's the ONLY part that is completely essential to all forms of tabletop besides Hack-n-slash. And regardless of what any of you dismissively say, this can be accomplished with practically any game system, so "just use a game system that supports it" is, in fact, dismissive and kind of rude. Yes, there are some game systems which are designed to work without lethality and those designed to work with it. This changes nothing about my point.

Alejandro
2014-05-27, 08:10 PM
If a character who's "vital to a plot line" dies, then it seems to me you've got a new plot.

She was the Chosen One, she alone will stand against the vampires, de... (sorry, getting carried away but you get the drift)? Then either you need to find another Chosen One or figure out how to get by without one. Should be possible.

She's the Rightful Heir, best chance of deposing the Evil Usurper? Then either find someone who can impersonate her, or "discover" a whole new heir, or just forget the whole thing and stab King Badman the Unrighteous when he's on the khazi. None of those are impossible, they're just a new plot.

She's the love interest of the 3000-year-old vampire boss, and you were going to use her to convince him to give up his unlife peacefully? Too bad, you'll just have to stake him the old-fashioned way. Might take a few more levels, but hey, that's what quests are all about, right?

Inflexible plots are Bad.



In that game, the players are getting themselves into an unwinnable situation by their refusal to run away. So long as the DM gave them a reasonable chance to assess the level of the fight before they were committed to it, then the TPK is on their heads, not the DM's.

Of course you can still pull the old "wake up chained to an oar" switcheroo, if the enemies are at all intelligent.

Thank you for causing me to learn what the slang word 'khazi' means. :)

Cikomyr
2014-05-27, 09:10 PM
I take extreme issue with both of the bolded points. It is the first (and probably the second) that leads to the extreme anti-fudging attitudes that some people have, I think. Guess what? There are entire game systems in which the rules EXPLICITLY STATE that the GM cannot kill off the PCs, only the player can choose for his PC to die. And you know what? Those are games too. You know what else? There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking those playstyle assumptions and using them in games which have rules that do support lethality. It doesn't magically mean that someone is playing the game wrong or having "just wish fulfillment."

Second bolded issue: no, that is not your job as a DM/GM. Your job is to provide a situation that is engaging and enjoyable to the players. What this means will vary from game to game depending on players and playstyle. But "potentially lethal situation" is not automatically the default, even in high-lethality rules games.


These people I completely agree with.


This person: some and some.



Bold: Why do you consider it cheating? In games with lethality built into the rules, doing these specific things is, from my perspective, GOOD DMing. Your task as a DM is not to "play encounters straight," it's "play them in the way that will prove most satisfying to the players."

Pretty much the rest I agree with you on, though.



Again, why do you consider this cheating, or even a bad thing?



Um... what if the "let's all tell a story" aspect is, in fact, the defining aspect of the game for the group? To me, that is the defining aspect of role-playing in general. The rest is all seasoning and spices. You act like that's just a minor thing that doesn't matter or something, when in fact it's the ONLY part that is completely essential to all forms of tabletop besides Hack-n-slash. And regardless of what any of you dismissively say, this can be accomplished with practically any game system, so "just use a game system that supports it" is, in fact, dismissive and kind of rude. Yes, there are some game systems which are designed to work without lethality and those designed to work with it. This changes nothing about my point.

Thank-freakkin'-you.

I was wondering if I was doing something absolutely wrong.

When I GM, I see myself as a storyteller first and foremost. I'm here to give a great stories that the players can take control of. The rules of combat are there to provide my players with dramatic tension; a mean for them to be scared of what is or what is coming.

It's no different than trying to cross a dangerous pit filled with spikes. It's all about tension, atmosphere and seeing my players scream of joy when they come out ahead.

Guess what? At times it means fudging against them. At times it means fudging in their favor. A fight that they are completely winning super-easily when it's supposed to be dramatic and climatic is just not fun. A fight that is killing them while it's meant to set the mood that the neighborhood is dangerously patrolled by Zombies is not fun either.

So I fudge. I fudge in many, many ways. Sometimes the cavalry intervenes. Sometimes the enemies are distracted by a little something, or they happen to fail a moral check. One that I love: the mooks (killing the heroes) are stepping back to leave way to a Dramatic Villain who wants to make an entrance. --> that usually give my players a few round to pick up their injured peoples and run the hell away. A fun escape is always fantastic, and players love to eventually get to face and fight the guy they have to run away from.

Sometimes I need to do all of these things at once. When people ask me "how dangerous should my enemies be?", the answer is universally --> just enough.

It makes for great stories in the end, which is what matters. It's not about being "fair", or following the rules. It's about players having great ideas, being creative and overcoming superbe struggles.

I also love WFRP, 'cause that game has the ultimate "fudge" mechanic: the Fate Point. I told my players: when you use your fate point, you are OUT OF THE FIGHT. But I can guarantee you that you will survive. Nothing says that you will have all your gear, all your limbs or all your wits. But you will survive and "the show will go on"

Averis Vol
2014-05-27, 10:13 PM
Thank-freakkin'-you.

I was wondering if I was doing something absolutely wrong.

When I GM, I see myself as a storyteller first and foremost. I'm here to give a great stories that the players can take control of. The rules of combat are there to provide my players with dramatic tension; a mean for them to be scared of what is or what is coming.

It's no different than trying to cross a dangerous pit filled with spikes. It's all about tension, atmosphere and seeing my players scream of joy when they come out ahead.

Guess what? At times it means fudging against them. At times it means fudging in their favor. A fight that they are completely winning super-easily when it's supposed to be dramatic and climatic is just not fun. A fight that is killing them while it's meant to set the mood that the neighborhood is dangerously patrolled by Zombies is not fun either.

So I fudge. I fudge in many, many ways. Sometimes the cavalry intervenes. Sometimes the enemies are distracted by a little something, or they happen to fail a moral check. One that I love: the mooks (killing the heroes) are stepping back to leave way to a Dramatic Villain who wants to make an entrance. --> that usually give my players a few round to pick up their injured peoples and run the hell away. A fun escape is always fantastic, and players love to eventually get to face and fight the guy they have to run away from.

Sometimes I need to do all of these things at once. When people ask me "how dangerous should my enemies be?", the answer is universally --> just enough.

It makes for great stories in the end, which is what matters. It's not about being "fair", or following the rules. It's about players having great ideas, being creative and overcoming superbe struggles.

I also love WFRP, 'cause that game has the ultimate "fudge" mechanic: the Fate Point. I told my players: when you use your fate point, you are OUT OF THE FIGHT. But I can guarantee you that you will survive. Nothing says that you will have all your gear, all your limbs or all your wits. But you will survive and "the show will go on"

It seems like you and fiery prefer a more narrative focused game, whereas the people who consider fudging cheating want one that's more gamist. Nothing is wrong with either, really, but being of the gamist perspective I can absolutely say that the reason we see it as "cheating" is because if you are going to fudge the rolls so I don't die anyways.....What fun is that? If I just wanted a great story I could go read a book, or watch a movie. But I don't want something that is going to fit into the stereotype of hero does stuff and wins because he's just that awesome in my gaming. If I can't lose, winning is worthless. Moreso, I sat down to play a game, not give suggestions for a novel.

Cikomyr
2014-05-27, 10:19 PM
It seems like you and fiery prefer a more narrative focused game, whereas the people who consider fudging cheating want one that's more gamist. Nothing is wrong with either, really, but being of the gamist perspective I can absolutely say that the reason we see it as "cheating" is because if you are going to fudge the rolls so I don't die anyways.....What fun is that? If I just wanted a great story I could go read a book, or watch a movie. But I don't want something that is going to fit into the stereotype of hero does stuff and wins because he's just that awesome in my gaming. If I can't lose, winning is worthless. Moreso, I sat down to play a game, not give suggestions for a novel.

Oh, trust me. You can lose in my game. And lose big.

It's just that losing doesn't mean that the game ends there. Which usually is the normal result of a party's defeat.

Alberic Strein
2014-05-27, 10:33 PM
I wanted to let the thread derail a bit before answering, and man, was I pleased.

I did screw up by claiming that DM's would definitely, during their long careers, cheat the system. It seems a rather sizeable number of you really really like the upfront, lawful (to use a D&D alignment), transparent approach. Which is absolutely fine, and your dedication to this principle is commendable.

I might think that this approach is a bit dependent on the system. D&D has level appropriate encounters, with a clear and understandable combat system, which allows you to get a good idea of how fights will go, and to provide an adequate encounter, which should be solvable without cheating. Shadowrun and Runequest (MRQII) both have some very nice combat, but they are both extremely unpredictable and deadly. Player progression is a bit of a muddled affair and many a character will grow more rounded, if not necessarily more powerful. So crafting an interesting, balanced, and challenging encounter can prove extremely difficult, and lead to some issues which are not imputable to the players.

Now, let's be clear, I'm a bubbling GM, and even if I were Gary Gigax himself, I don't think I would ever be right in saying that Jay R is wrong when he says that his job as a DM, for him, is to provide potentially lethal encounters. He explained his point of view and really, I can't say he is wrong.

That is, however, not the role I take when I GM. To me, my first, foremost, and maybe only concern, is how I can make this an enjoyable game. If it means being stern but fair, then I will. If it means fudging the die like there is no tomorrow, then I will. That does not make me right. Nor mean that I don't see Jay R's point, or that I'm not open to dialogue.

I do take exception to the cheating part.

I'm not cheating, I'm using a rule. Rule 0. Which is even more legit than every subsequent rule, on top of that.

Now, I also raise an eyebrow to the different reactions about killing challenges, and fun and consequences from the situation.

While not wrong per se, it's a cluster of many many different things.

Truth is different from feeling : Yes, at the end of the day, my players are very likely to get out alive. And my players from a 3 year-long campaign start to know and maybe expect it a bit. But when I pull out the monster ambush, they don't KNOW that. They think that. They advance an educated guess based on my previous behaviour. But they don't KNOW that I didn't suddenly decide to start trying to TPK them. So they can't expect their survival, and they don't lose the thrill of the fight. I can also play mind games with them, maybe even a few taunts if I feel they wouldn't be too much, and make them believe that this time they have some very good odds of dying. Yes, in the end, they weren't in any "real" danger, but they can't know that.

Victory is not absolute : Yes, by not killing, or even seriously defeating my players in mortal combat, I push away a number of consequences which could make the game very very fun. But it does not mean that victory is consequence-free. I like complicated settings. What is winning in this situation, they will wonder. And now that it's clear, how can we achieve that? One of the times it backfired spectacularly on me was a Civil War scenario. They could have ended the war in a number of ways, but were at complete loss as to the way to do it while minimizing casualties and accomplishing their mission. So, unable to make the right choice, to "win", they stopped. Unluckily, as a DM, the only thing I could do was to lay them as much relevant info as possible to help them finally choose something. And a few real life months later, they still hear about the countless murders and pillages which happened during the civil war. There were consequences, dire consequences even, even when they had still "won". Consequences, positive and negative, are not limited to screw-ups, and defeats.

Among other things.

Edit :


It seems like you and fiery prefer a more narrative focused game, whereas the people who consider fudging cheating want one that's more gamist. Nothing is wrong with either, really, but being of the gamist perspective I can absolutely say that the reason we see it as "cheating" is because if you are going to fudge the rolls so I don't die anyways.....What fun is that? If I just wanted a great story I could go read a book, or watch a movie. But I don't want something that is going to fit into the stereotype of hero does stuff and wins because he's just that awesome in my gaming. If I can't lose, winning is worthless. Moreso, I sat down to play a game, not give suggestions for a novel.

That's the fun part.

YOU are having your fun trying your darned best not to drown and paddling as well as you can, trying to stave off the impending doom of your situation.

MY fun is watching you squirm.

Airk
2014-05-27, 10:34 PM
It seems like you and fiery prefer a more narrative focused game, whereas the people who consider fudging cheating want one that's more gamist. Nothing is wrong with either, really, but being of the gamist perspective I can absolutely say that the reason we see it as "cheating" is because if you are going to fudge the rolls so I don't die anyways.....What fun is that? If I just wanted a great story I could go read a book, or watch a movie. But I don't want something that is going to fit into the stereotype of hero does stuff and wins because he's just that awesome in my gaming. If I can't lose, winning is worthless. Moreso, I sat down to play a game, not give suggestions for a novel.

Actually, I find it's usually the simulationist people who get DEEPLY OFFENDED when they discover you fudged, because now it's NOT REAL ANYMORE, because you DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT. x.x

Honestly, if you want to play a game that you can lose, there are tons of better games out there. :P The strength of RPGs is in the stuff that you can't do in any other medium.

That said, saying "it's not cheating, it's rule zero" is kinda bull****. :P Rule Zero is basically "Permission to cheat if it makes the game 'better'." Oooookay. Now you've got 'permission'. If it makes the game 'better'. I don't see how THAT could possibly end badly.

Cikomyr
2014-05-27, 10:40 PM
Actually, I find it's usually the simulationist people who get DEEPLY OFFENDED when they discover you fudged, because now it's NOT REAL ANYMORE, because you DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT. x.x

Honestly, if you want to play a game that you can lose, there are tons of better games out there. :P The strength of RPGs is in the stuff that you can't do in any other medium.

That said, saying "it's not cheating, it's rule zero" is kinda bull****. :P Rule Zero is basically "Permission to cheat if it makes the game 'better'." Oooookay. Now you've got 'permission'. If it makes the game 'better'. I don't see how THAT could possibly end badly.

Rule 0 is ignoring the rules to make the game better. 100% agreed.

Just take, for example, the "Multiple Liches per phylactery". I personally believe it's a FANTASTIC idea. You could create an entire campaign around the vendetta between two liches who cannot destroy each other. But there's someone coming to tell you that "rules don't allow 2 liches for a single phylactery", I am going to Rule 0 the hell out of it.

I am not arbitrarily fudging the system 'cause I feel like it. I am fudging the system as to make the game better. Doesn't mean I just throw softballs at the players, or that I don't reward superbe thinking.

Spore
2014-05-27, 10:48 PM
This is part of the problem, right here. You've already written yourself into a corner by having a plot which requires a specific character be present.

Actually my BBEG wants her money. If she is removed I will remove her family and merchants and get this to fund his projects. If she resists he will have significantly less money for his aims. This came off wrong. In some encounters she will be the first target. Not because Con 8 but because her importance.

Deophaun
2014-05-27, 11:59 PM
No, I won't. Players can sometimes die, or it's not a game; it's just wish fulfillment.
If players are dying at your table, someone needs to call an ambulance and maybe the cops.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 12:02 AM
If players are dying at your table, someone needs to call an ambulance and maybe the cops.

Hey. If I wanna play "Saw : The RPG" in my 4th basemen with carefully hand-picked players, it's MY decision damnit

Deophaun
2014-05-28, 12:12 AM
Hey. If I wanna play "Saw : The RPG" in my 4th basemen with carefully hand-picked players, it's MY decision damnit
You're doing it wrong. You don't pick their hands before the game starts as the cuffs won't work.

Kid Jake
2014-05-28, 12:26 AM
Hey. If I wanna play "Saw : The RPG" in my 4th basemen with carefully hand-picked players, it's MY decision damnit

Maybe I'm just old school, but I prefer Misery: The Home Edition!

Thrudd
2014-05-28, 02:51 AM
Actually my BBEG wants her money. If she is removed I will remove her family and merchants and get this to fund his projects. If she resists he will have significantly less money for his aims. This came off wrong. In some encounters she will be the first target. Not because Con 8 but because her importance.

My point was, you have decided to make this character "important" for your plot. The player didn't decide that, did he? Did he make that character knowing there is a good chance she will get killed because she is important and the target of bad guys, but he wants the challenge of having a weak character anyways? If so, then all's fair.
If he did not create the character knowing this, then you may want to reconsider your plot that requires targeting her specifically. Let the player's in-game choices create friends and enemies for the character over the course of play. Then it will actually be meaningful if someone sends assassins after her, because she has a relationship to the game world and to the other characters.

The player may have a problem as well. He may have been spoiled by DM's who go easy on his characters because they are afraid of killing a character. So he continues to play in a way that has been rewarded in the past, which is forcing you to now consider that you either need to fudge to keep him alive or his character will be killed in an early encounter. In this case, I'd say don't pull punches and let the dice fall where they may. You will do both him and yourself a favor in the long run to give him the responsibility of keeping the character alive, rather than trying to design everything around him.

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 03:14 AM
Oh, trust me. You can lose in my game. And lose big.

It's just that losing doesn't mean that the game ends there. Which usually is the normal result of a party's defeat. I am legitimately interested in hearing what losing entitles in your game if you beat every encounter you run into.




That's the fun part.

YOU are having your fun trying your darned best not to drown and paddling as well as you can, trying to stave off the impending doom of your situation.

MY fun is watching you squirm. I enjoy hearing that from a DM, but obviously if you're fudging rolls so I don't die, I don't see why I'd be squirming. If I came to the table knowing whatever I did I would survive, you can bet your ass I would push that limit every session until I learned where your lethal limit is, then that is where I would game for the rest of the campaign.


Actually, I find it's usually the simulationist people who get DEEPLY OFFENDED when they discover you fudged, because now it's NOT REAL ANYMORE, because you DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT. x.x

Honestly, if you want to play a game that you can lose, there are tons of better games out there. :P The strength of RPGs is in the stuff that you can't do in any other medium.

That may be true, but I know that if I found out my DM was fudging rolls to make sure I didn't die, I'd be a little offended. I can understand if I misinterpreted the lethality level of the game, that I'm cool with, I'll roll up another character that fits a bit better. But if my DM instead tried to baby me, instead....yea, I'd be upset. It's a matter of dishonesty, really.

As to the second point, I dunno. DnD serves as a right fine game that has a lot of consequences. And it's not like dying is even the end, by the half way mark of the game it's simply a minor inconvenience. Sure, if everybody dies then its most likely game over (there are some contingencies that could be made, yea.) but that should only happen if someone, whether it be DM or players, royally ****s up.

HighWater
2014-05-28, 05:40 AM
Sometimes a Player Death is the best thing that can happen to them (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=814), especially in games where the DM flat out states they "Saved You" after setting you up for complete failure...

Spore
2014-05-28, 05:55 AM
My point was, you have decided to make this character "important" for your plot. The player didn't decide that, did he? Did he make that character knowing there is a good chance she will get killed because she is important and the target of bad guys, but he wants the challenge of having a weak character anyways? If so, then all's fair.
If he did not create the character knowing this, then you may want to reconsider your plot that requires targeting her specifically. Let the player's in-game choices create friends and enemies for the character over the course of play. Then it will actually be meaningful if someone sends assassins after her, because she has a relationship to the game world and to the other characters.

The player may have a problem as well. He may have been spoiled by DM's who go easy on his characters because they are afraid of killing a character. So he continues to play in a way that has been rewarded in the past, which is forcing you to now consider that you either need to fudge to keep him alive or his character will be killed in an early encounter. In this case, I'd say don't pull punches and let the dice fall where they may. You will do both him and yourself a favor in the long run to give him the responsibility of keeping the character alive, rather than trying to design everything around him.

Advise taken. Thank you. :)

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 06:03 AM
"Perfect knowledge" is a strawman. They don't need perfect knowledge. That's not the issue here. The issue is a condition you've put on this: players who refuse to play even halfway decently, nevermind well or smart. That's a problem you either have to solve or live with.

A basic willingness to play sort of smart (gathering information, scouting, retreating and regrouping, etc.) is all players really need. I've only ever had one TPK (a small party vs. really brutally-played psionic illithids who came in with full buffs and escaped as soon as things went bad, only to attack again) in like 20 years, and for probably half of that everyone involved was horrible at playing/GMing.

Again, though, there's many RPGs that completely avoid these issues, if you're willing to try. Narrative control of scenes can be distributed differently, some games don't really have death as a thing that happens, some games have death as a thing that's supposed to happen, and so on...
Gathering information can fail, sometimes by small enough amounts that the Players won't inherently know that they've not got the correct information. If this is not true in your games, then I'm truly curious as to how you run gathering information such that they're always aware of the quality of the intel.

Off the cuff example before coffee: The Players use a scrying device of some sort - crystal ball, spell, whatever - to gather intel on a magic-using robber who has been targeting the crown jewels of all the nobles in the land, missing the 25 DC by 1, on a roll of 13 (they weren't especially invested in UMD). This lets them see the layout and location of the home base of the magic-using robber, including the fact that the exits' locks and traps are keyed off a device in the robber's desk, but doesn't reveal that the 'robber' is a set of twins. They buy a teleportation scroll, activate it, and go in prepped for a single combatant, and the fight is roughly twice as hard as it was expected to be. They've done their due diligence, they gathered information, they have an exit strategy, but the outcome here has precious few natural outcomes beyond Players win, TPK, or GM meddling to save the party. You and Airk have both said that a situation where these are the only outcomes is because the GM screwed up. Please expand on the screw-up.

This is simply the first example that springs to mind; I've seen similar situations several times, from both sides of the screen. If the above fails to meet your metric of "plays half-way decently," or involves being "horrible at playing," then I'd like to get a better grasp on what standards you're using.

Rhynn
2014-05-28, 07:36 AM
It is bad DM'ing if you never give the players any options. They can't avoid fights by stealth or by negotiating, they can't escape once the fight is started. Everything they encounter immediately fights to the death and gives no quarter. If the players have one or more of these options to avoid a lethal fight and they don't take it, the matter was in their hands, not the DM's. The DM can include overpowering encounters some of the time per the DMG recommendation as long as the players have viable non-combat options, such as running away.

Yes. Not every fight has to be winnable, but there have to be other options.


Why do you consider it cheating? In games with lethality built into the rules, doing these specific things is, from my perspective, GOOD DMing. Your task as a DM is not to "play encounters straight," it's "play them in the way that will prove most satisfying to the players."

If a player lies about what the dice say, that's cheating. If the GM does it, it's still cheating. It works on both sides. Why roll dice at all if I'm just going to lie about it? If I wanted to have no randomness, I'd use a system that didn't use dice (that way).

Deciding things makes for a more boring, unsurprising game for me. Randomness causes things to happen I don't see coming. That's more fun for me, as a GM.

If a game has lethality built into the rules, then PCs are supposed to die sometimes. It makes the game a better experience. We just finished B4 - The Lost City this weekend (after 4-5 sessions), and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun or as interesting if the party hadn't lost 2 PCs and a bunch of henchmen. Hopefully, they also learned a bunch about dungeoneering tactics (they're experienced players, but mostly experienced with games like D&D 3E and RuneQuest and MERP, which play very differently to old-school D&D), like 2nd-rank spears, retreating in time, scouting with a thief, etc. They sure made fewer "mistakes" the further they got into the dungeon, and everyone was very satisfied when they finally found the secret tomb, defeated the guardians, and looted it.


Um... what if the "let's all tell a story" aspect is, in fact, the defining aspect of the game for the group?

Then run a game that doesn't require you to cheat to make that happen. There are many! They work much better for it than more traditional RPGs.

To me, a story is what you have after the session or campaign is done, not something you had going into it.


It seems a rather sizeable number of you really really like the upfront, lawful (to use a D&D alignment), transparent approach.

I actually frequently make really important dice rolls (e.g. "PC dies if this roll comes out high") on the table in front of the players, rather than over on my GM's side-table (weird playing arrangement). Regular rolls the players don't need to see (they trust me not to cheat), but it adds some dramatic tension for the players to get to watch how the important roll comes out.


D&D has level appropriate encounters, with a clear and understandable combat system, which allows you to get a good idea of how fights will go, and to provide an adequate encounter, which should be solvable without cheating. Shadowrun and Runequest (MRQII) both have some very nice combat, but they are both extremely unpredictable and deadly.

Nope. I've played and run RuneQuest for 20 years, and my attitude to it (including MRQ, MRQII, and RQ6) is the same.

The more unpredictable (realistic, deadly) the system is, the more carefully the players have to play. In cyberpunk games, rule #1 is "never get into a fight with two sides." Of course it happens, but it's undesirable, and that's reinforced with deadliness.

Also, you're pretty much incorrect about D&D; people have enormous trouble with the shaky CR/EL systems.

In all systems, the important thing is player agency: they're not forced from unescapable fight to unescapable fight, but rather choose how to approach situations. If they choose to fight, it may be a mistake, and it may be costly.


So crafting an interesting, balanced, and challenging encounter can prove extremely difficult, and lead to some issues which are not imputable to the players.

That thar's vidja game talk, son.

Create actors, locations, and situations, not "encounters." I'm not going to waste my time coming up with rules for disabling the gizmo while fighting the goons when the players might not decide to do that. I'm not going to create battlemaps with complex rules and "interesting terrain" when the players might choose not to fight (or not to fight there).


That said, saying "it's not cheating, it's rule zero" is kinda bull****. :P Rule Zero is basically "Permission to cheat if it makes the game 'better'." Oooookay. Now you've got 'permission'. If it makes the game 'better'. I don't see how THAT could possibly end badly.

People interpret it that way a lot, yes, but I think that's a pretty liberal interpretation.

I hate the meme of it, but the basic fact is that the GM decides what the rules are. That I agree with 100% - I choose which supplements exist, which facts are true in the setting, which spells are available, and so on. But not telling the players what the basic rules are, or changing them around secretly, is cheating, IMO.


Just take, for example, the "Multiple Liches per phylactery". I personally believe it's a FANTASTIC idea. You could create an entire campaign around the vendetta between two liches who cannot destroy each other.

That's a completely irrelevant example. That's in no way related to or comparable to changing numbers on the fly or lying about dice results.

It's ridiculous that someone would even think that it's "Rule 0" to create a new kind of monster or other new or altered content. That's what being a GM has been about for 40 years.


Gathering information can fail, sometimes by small enough amounts that the Players won't inherently know that they've not got the correct information. If this is not true in your games, then I'm truly curious as to how you run gathering information such that they're always aware of the quality of the intel.

Of course it can. Everything can fail. Sometimes the players fail. Running B4 - The Lost City, the party - with no cleric - took on some ghouls, and after a few rounds of combat, only one of the mages was still standing. He was getting ready to book it, but made one last attack and killed the last ghoul. They got super lucky and won by a hair. They might as well have all died. I'd have been okay with that. The players would have grumbled, made new characters, and wanted to get vengeance on the dungeon by beating it. That's awesome! (Every time Hillsfar comes up, one of my players brings up getting vengeance on the city, and this goes back some 15 years to a long-ended campaign in a game we haven't played for years.)

My point is that I am okay with the players failing! But I'm going to let them fail or succeed on their own. I create the parameters, and I give them a fair shake, and what happens, happens. There are so many junctures where they get to affect what happens: before, during, after.


Please expand on the screw-up.

I don't see anything wrong with that scenario. The players did their background work, there was a complication (as there is any good story or game), and something interesting is going to happen. The power is with the PCs. If they can teleport in, they can also prepare to teleport out. If they didn't, they better have some other good plan for getting out.

I'm talking about "one outcome allows the game to go on" situations, like a specific PC or NPC who must survive, locking the PCs in a room they didn't choose to be in with no way out but to defeat the dragon, etc. Those are bad GMing to set up.

The "storyline-based" screw-ups are far more egregious than the "encounter-based," in my opinion. If you create a story that can only go on if the right thing happens at every juncture, you've set yourself up for failure or having to "fudge" to make things go right.


This is simply the first example that springs to mind; I've seen similar situations several times, from both sides of the screen. If the above fails to meet your metric of "plays half-way decently," or involves being "horrible at playing," then I'd like to get a better grasp on what standards you're using.

Well, the very first thing you posted in this thread - what I took to have been the precondition of all we've discussed so far - is the standard for "bad playing" I've been using:


So, if you know your party will never, under any circumstances to date, run away from a fight that's too strong for them

That's horrible playing. Basically anything except that is "decent." Scouting, having a plan for the fight, and being willing to retreat (maybe even having an exit plan) is "good."

My point is that sometimes, even playing well doesn't work out, and the PCs get their asses kicked to them. But that doesn't mean a TPK (I've seen one that I can recall - and a few close calls - in the last 10-15 years or so at my table). I'm okay with that. I think a dungeon is all the better for having claimed many PCs lives over the years.

Your players will have to learn to run away sometimes, or you will have to cheat. That's it. I think they should learn to run away, but if they won't, you have to cheat to keep the game going. (Or you end the game and find smarter/better players.)

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 08:03 AM
I am legitimately interested in hearing what losing entitles in your game if you beat every encounter you run into.


Are your games so empty of meaning that the only way you can possibly lose is for your characters to die? That there is no existing ground between "beating the encounter" and "dying"? :smallconfused:

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 08:11 AM
Yes. Not every fight has to be winnable, but there have to be other options.



If a player lies about what the dice say, that's cheating. If the GM does it, it's still cheating. It works on both sides. Why roll dice at all if I'm just going to lie about it? If I wanted to have no randomness, I'd use a system that didn't use dice (that way).

Deciding things makes for a more boring, unsurprising game for me. Randomness causes things to happen I don't see coming. That's more fun for me, as a GM.

If a game has lethality built into the rules, then PCs are supposed to die sometimes. It makes the game a better experience. We just finished B4 - The Lost City this weekend (after 4-5 sessions), and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun or as interesting if the party hadn't lost 2 PCs and a bunch of henchmen. Hopefully, they also learned a bunch about dungeoneering tactics (they're experienced players, but mostly experienced with games like D&D 3E and RuneQuest and MERP, which play very differently to old-school D&D), like 2nd-rank spears, retreating in time, scouting with a thief, etc. They sure made fewer "mistakes" the further they got into the dungeon, and everyone was very satisfied when they finally found the secret tomb, defeated the guardians, and looted it.



Then run a game that doesn't require you to cheat to make that happen. There are many! They work much better for it than more traditional RPGs.

To me, a story is what you have after the session or campaign is done, not something you had going into it.



I actually frequently make really important dice rolls (e.g. "PC dies if this roll comes out high") on the table in front of the players, rather than over on my GM's side-table (weird playing arrangement). Regular rolls the players don't need to see (they trust me not to cheat), but it adds some dramatic tension for the players to get to watch how the important roll comes out.



Nope. I've played and run RuneQuest for 20 years, and my attitude to it (including MRQ, MRQII, and RQ6) is the same.

The more unpredictable (realistic, deadly) the system is, the more carefully the players have to play. In cyberpunk games, rule #1 is "never get into a fight with two sides." Of course it happens, but it's undesirable, and that's reinforced with deadliness.

Also, you're pretty much incorrect about D&D; people have enormous trouble with the shaky CR/EL systems.

In all systems, the important thing is player agency: they're not forced from unescapable fight to unescapable fight, but rather choose how to approach situations. If they choose to fight, it may be a mistake, and it may be costly.



That thar's vidja game talk, son.

Create actors, locations, and situations, not "encounters." I'm not going to waste my time coming up with rules for disabling the gizmo while fighting the goons when the players might not decide to do that. I'm not going to create battlemaps with complex rules and "interesting terrain" when the players might choose not to fight (or not to fight there).



People interpret it that way a lot, yes, but I think that's a pretty liberal interpretation.

I hate the meme of it, but the basic fact is that the GM decides what the rules are. That I agree with 100% - I choose which supplements exist, which facts are true in the setting, which spells are available, and so on. But not telling the players what the basic rules are, or changing them around secretly, is cheating, IMO.



That's a completely irrelevant example. That's in no way related to or comparable to changing numbers on the fly or lying about dice results.

It's ridiculous that someone would even think that it's "Rule 0" to create a new kind of monster or other new or altered content. That's what being a GM has been about for 40 years.



Of course it can. Everything can fail. Sometimes the players fail. Running B4 - The Lost City, the party - with no cleric - took on some ghouls, and after a few rounds of combat, only one of the mages was still standing. He was getting ready to book it, but made one last attack and killed the last ghoul. They got super lucky and won by a hair. They might as well have all died. I'd have been okay with that. The players would have grumbled, made new characters, and wanted to get vengeance on the dungeon by beating it. That's awesome! (Every time Hillsfar comes up, one of my players brings up getting vengeance on the city, and this goes back some 15 years to a long-ended campaign in a game we haven't played for years.)

My point is that I am okay with the players failing! But I'm going to let them fail or succeed on their own. I create the parameters, and I give them a fair shake, and what happens, happens. There are so many junctures where they get to affect what happens: before, during, after.



I don't see anything wrong with that scenario. The players did their background work, there was a complication (as there is any good story or game), and something interesting is going to happen. The power is with the PCs. If they can teleport in, they can also prepare to teleport out. If they didn't, they better have some other good plan for getting out.

I'm talking about "one outcome allows the game to go on" situations, like a specific PC or NPC who must survive, locking the PCs in a room they didn't choose to be in with no way out but to defeat the dragon, etc. Those are bad GMing to set up.

The "storyline-based" screw-ups are far more egregious than the "encounter-based," in my opinion. If you create a story that can only go on if the right thing happens at every juncture, you've set yourself up for failure or having to "fudge" to make things go right.



Well, the very first thing you posted in this thread - what I took to have been the precondition of all we've discussed so far - is the standard for "bad playing" I've been using:



That's horrible playing. Basically anything except that is "decent." Scouting, having a plan for the fight, and being willing to retreat (maybe even having an exit plan) is "good."

My point is that sometimes, even playing well doesn't work out, and the PCs get their asses kicked to them. But that doesn't mean a TPK (I've seen one that I can recall - and a few close calls - in the last 10-15 years or so at my table). I'm okay with that. I think a dungeon is all the better for having claimed many PCs lives over the years.

Your players will have to learn to run away sometimes, or you will have to cheat. That's it. I think they should learn to run away, but if they won't, you have to cheat to keep the game going. (Or you end the game and find smarter/better players.)
Nice to know that folks who choose to play the game in a way enjoyable to them are having fun wrong and are horrible (and not smart) players, then, I guess.

In the off-the-cuff example I posted, they had an exit plan. It was contingent on getting to the desk, where they knew the method of opening the doors and deactivating any traps was available. They didn't choose to have a contingency plan in case that failed. How many contingency plans do they need, before they cease to be horrible at D&D and stupid. . . I mean, not 'smart'?

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 08:28 AM
Gathering information can fail, sometimes by small enough amounts that the Players won't inherently know that they've not got the correct information. If this is not true in your games, then I'm truly curious as to how you run gathering information such that they're always aware of the quality of the intel.

Off the cuff example before coffee: The Players use a scrying device of some sort - crystal ball, spell, whatever - to gather intel on a magic-using robber who has been targeting the crown jewels of all the nobles in the land, missing the 25 DC by 1, on a roll of 13 (they weren't especially invested in UMD). This lets them see the layout and location of the home base of the magic-using robber, including the fact that the exits' locks and traps are keyed off a device in the robber's desk, but doesn't reveal that the 'robber' is a set of twins. They buy a teleportation scroll, activate it, and go in prepped for a single combatant, and the fight is roughly twice as hard as it was expected to be. They've done their due diligence, they gathered information, they have an exit strategy, but the outcome here has precious few natural outcomes beyond Players win, TPK, or GM meddling to save the party. You and Airk have both said that a situation where these are the only outcomes is because the GM screwed up. Please expand on the screw-up.

This is simply the first example that springs to mind; I've seen similar situations several times, from both sides of the screen. If the above fails to meet your metric of "plays half-way decently," or involves being "horrible at playing," then I'd like to get a better grasp on what standards you're using.

Except that this is not true. There are plenty of possible outcome for the fight where players lose but they aren't TPKed. The "twist" you had was plenty fair on the players, nobody could genuinely feel cheated by this clever idea, and yet it was your responsibility to ensure that the game would go on.

Airk
2014-05-28, 09:37 AM
I hate the meme of it, but the basic fact is that the GM decides what the rules are. That I agree with 100% - I choose which supplements exist, which facts are true in the setting, which spells are available, and so on. But not telling the players what the basic rules are, or changing them around secretly, is cheating, IMO.

I think the reason there's this confusion is that I think you're wrong in your precept; The GM does NOT decide what the rules are. At least, not in a vacuum. The players, as a group, AGREE what the rules are. The GM gets the advantage of PROPOSING the ruleset, but if the players don't agree, they don't play, and they certainly have the right to haggle ("I really want to play X, but I think he needs Y from supplement Z to make sense.") - especially over houserules.

The GM's job with regard to the rules is to apply them, not create them.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 09:54 AM
I think the reason there's this confusion is that I think you're wrong in your precept; The GM does NOT decide what the rules are. At least, not in a vacuum. The players, as a group, AGREE what the rules are. The GM gets the advantage of PROPOSING the ruleset, but if the players don't agree, they don't play, and they certainly have the right to haggle ("I really want to play X, but I think he needs Y from supplement Z to make sense.") - especially over houserules.

The GM's job with regard to the rules is to apply them, not create them.

The rules are a tool to make the game fun. They are not the make-all end-all aspect of the game. They can be broken if it makes the game better.

It's all about trust. My players trust me enough to know that I have a good reason to fudge things. They are allowed to call me out of it if they are annoyed, and I usually explain to them why I did what I did, and guess what? They usually agree with me.

Although, it's much better to fudge things to save your player's ass or make a situation much more difficult with a clever twist, and then make it seem that "it was my plan all along" :smallbiggrin: If done elegantly, that sort of last-minute alteration is actually adding to the fun of everyone rather than subtracting.

DM Nate
2014-05-28, 09:56 AM
To me, a story is what you have after the session or campaign is done, not something you had going into it.

I think this one line here explains the basic reason why we hold such differing opinions.

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 10:05 AM
Except that this is not true. There are plenty of possible outcome for the fight where players lose but they aren't TPKed. The "twist" you had was plenty fair on the players, nobody could genuinely feel cheated by this clever idea, and yet it was your responsibility to ensure that the game would go on.

Please expand on viable outcomes from encountering intelligent adversaries on their home turf. Remember, your group is trying to stop the intelligent adversaries from illegal activities, having underestimated by half how difficult an encounter it would be. The group is working for "all the nobles in the land," and will quite likely be missed on those grounds alone, never mind arguments about relative scarcity of more powerful (able to afford scrying devices is likely an indicator that these folks are special) adventurers in the world.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 10:10 AM
Please expand on viable outcomes from encountering intelligent adversaries on their home turf. Remember, your group is trying to stop the intelligent adversaries from illegal activities, having underestimated by half how difficult an encounter it would be. The group is working for "all the nobles in the land," and will quite likely be missed on those grounds alone, never mind arguments about relative scarcity of more powerful (able to afford scrying devices is likely an indicator that these folks are special) adventurers in the world.

The most obvious outcome of the fight would simply have the players be captured, because the two criminals want to know how they were found out and how the PCs accessed their lair. Clearly, their security measures are not sufficient.

"Being prisoner" is a fantastic plot device that you can use. Especially if the NPCs in a position of power cannot afford to simply dispose of them because they are seeking information. You just said the adversaries are intelligent.

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 10:56 AM
The most obvious outcome of the fight would simply have the players be captured, because the two criminals want to know how they were found out and how the PCs accessed their lair. Clearly, their security measures are not sufficient.

"Being prisoner" is a fantastic plot device that you can use. Especially if the NPCs in a position of power cannot afford to simply dispose of them because they are seeking information. You just said the adversaries are intelligent.

"Being prisoner" in a book is a reasonable outcome; "being prisoner" in an RPG is a deprotagonizing device of GM Fiat, used either as a well-known device to start an adventure (you all wake up in a dungeon cell; what do you do?) or by a DM who is attempting to prevent a TPK caused by 'horrible GMing' or 'not smart Players,' by the metrics established within this thread. Once the PCs are prisoners, an intelligent adversary has no need to ever let them go, or - depending on their moral compass - keep them around once the PCs have divulged whatever information they could/would under duress. PCs who escape from intelligent adversaries do so because the adversaries were not behaving intelligently, or because the Power of Plot (in other words, the GM) arranged things such that it was possible.

That's not what I understand the phrase 'a fantastic plot device' to mean, unless you're using an unusual definition of 'fantastic' within that phrase.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 11:03 AM
"Being prisoner" in a book is a reasonable outcome; "being prisoner" in an RPG is a deprotagonizing device of GM Fiat, used either as a well-known device to start an adventure (you all wake up in a dungeon cell; what do you do?) or by a DM who is attempting to prevent a TPK caused by 'horrible GMing' or 'not smart Players,' by the metrics established within this thread. Once the PCs are prisoners, an intelligent adversary has no need to ever let them go, or - depending on their moral compass - keep them around once the PCs have divulged whatever information they could/would under duress. PCs who escape from intelligent adversaries do so because the adversaries were not behaving intelligently, or because the Power of Plot (in other words, the GM) arranged things such that it was possible.

That's not what I understand the phrase 'a fantastic plot device' to mean, unless you're using an unusual definition of 'fantastic' within that phrase.

Now you are not even trying.

Rhynn
2014-05-28, 11:03 AM
Nice to know that folks who choose to play the game in a way enjoyable to them are having fun wrong and are horrible (and not smart) players, then, I guess.

If you're going to act like a child and lie about what I've written, I'm going to have to stop replying to you.


In the off-the-cuff example I posted, they had an exit plan. It was contingent on getting to the desk, where they knew the method of opening the doors and deactivating any traps was available. They didn't choose to have a contingency plan in case that failed. How many contingency plans do they need, before they cease to be horrible at D&D and stupid. . . I mean, not 'smart'?

Yawn. Again, "refuse to retreat" - the condition you gave to begin with! - is what I explicitly, in the post you just quoted, used as the definition of playing poorly. That's terrible tactics and is going to result in the two-outcome dilemma: they lose or you cheat.


Except that this is not true. There are plenty of possible outcome for the fight where players lose but they aren't TPKed. The "twist" you had was plenty fair on the players, nobody could genuinely feel cheated by this clever idea, and yet it was your responsibility to ensure that the game would go on.

Yes. For one thing, the idea that there has to be a fight is silly to begin with. It could be sneaking, a verbal confrontation, negotiation, whatever. Those could follow a fight that went against them.

Another problem that exacerbates these issues is envisioning all combats as mortal fights to the finish. If you insist on that, yes, you're going to create a more deadly game that has a higher chance of producing "win or die" situations and TPKs.


I think this one line here explains the basic reason why we hold such differing opinions.

Almost certainly! I know my approach is a minority, at least outside the OSR community.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 11:14 AM
Yes. For one thing, the idea that there has to be a fight is silly to begin with. It could be sneaking, a verbal confrontation, negotiation, whatever. Those could follow a fight that went against them.

Another problem that exacerbates these issues is envisioning all combats as mortal fights to the finish. If you insist on that, yes, you're going to create a more deadly game that has a higher chance of producing "win or die" situations and TPKs.


This.

So much this. It's absolutely fantastic to have a chance to have dialogue, banter, threats, blackmail.. All of it helps transforming a Lvl 15 Rogue antagonist into a real character with a name. A personality. Quirks, goals, agenda, etc..

Maybe he can become a potential ally or rival in the future? Maybe he can release the PCs and tell them "You owe me a favor". trust me, "The Favor" can end up being FANTASTICLY AWESOME plot device in the future, really making the rogues come off as manipulative bastards.

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 11:14 AM
These are lies?


That's horrible playing. . .

you end the game and find smarter/better players.


Now you are not even trying.
Yes, I am. I am trying to find a good solution. I have been told many times, by many Players - and seen others make the same argument on this and other forums - that everything I said about being taken prisoner in an RPG is true in their experience. I am trying to reconcile this with the notion that TPKs are always bad, and that DM fiat to save a party is always bad, within a game where some degree of random chance and lethality exists.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 11:25 AM
These are lies?




Yes, I am. I am trying to find a good solution. I have been told many times, by many Players - and seen others make the same argument on this and other forums - that everything I said about being taken prisoner in an RPG is true in their experience. I am trying to reconcile this with the notion that TPKs are always bad, and that DM fiat to save a party is always bad, within a game where some degree of random chance and lethality exists.

Then kill your players randomly, close the book and end the campaign.

'cause that's what seems to be so important to you.


"Being taken prisoner" is a horrible plot device to force on your player because you want them to be prisoner as part of the plot.
"Being taken prisoner" is a fantastic escape clause to prevent a TPK when your players screwed up and you want to keep playing.

I hate when a DM just happen to "capture" the party. but that's not what I am telling you.

edit: to further add as to why most people hate the "captured" subplot is because the DM usually rely on the players being prisonner for his plot to advance. That means that whatever they come up with to escape is inevitably going to fail.

If the DM just happen to capture the players in order to save the game (as a contingency), then he can allow the players to become badass in their clever escape plans. He does not have to keep them there. I never had my players whining about them being captured, because it always have been fair, never been a "railroad prison", and the players actually ended up in control of the situation after thinking fast on their feet.

Hell. The first time it happened, the players actually elected to STAY in the prison rather than take the escape chance because they actually did not wanted to antagonize the Warden and needed him as an ally. and it paid off damn strong in the end.

Alberic Strein
2014-05-28, 11:47 AM
I enjoy hearing that from a DM, but obviously if you're fudging rolls so I don't die, I don't see why I'd be squirming. If I came to the table knowing whatever I did I would survive, you can bet your ass I would push that limit every session until I learned where your lethal limit is, then that is where I would game for the rest of the campaign.

... Somehow, I have the feeling we're not understanding each other.

1) You would NOT come to the table knowing that whatever you would do you would survive. You do not know what I do, or what I am going to do.

2) Even for a DM averse to killing PC's, that kind of behaviour is clear schmuck-bait, and you would end up dead time and time again. Being the DM means being the system. Trying to beat the system while the system is a live human being entitled to changing things on the fly is a good way to lose your character.

3) The fact that I am not killing your PC does NOT mean you are getting away scot-free. If things go well, the rest of the team would have had to save you, meaning they might have issues with your character's behaviour, if not yours, and if things go badly, I can do many, many things to your character besides death. Failing IS an option, and if you rush there, you WILL fail. My games are not, never, consequence-free.


I, for one, am also of the mind that a campaign's story is determined once it's over. What I craft is a premise, and then an interesting environment. What the story of my campaign is is in the hands of my players.

That means that if they decide that they MUST be followed by an assassin, and start searching for 30 real life minutes for an assassin, suddenly, there will be a damn assassin.

It's about the story, not the system. The premise that the DM serves the system is, for me, wrong. The system, like the DM, have to serve the story, and if the system is lacking, then the DM is entitled, empowered even, to dismiss the system.

I also take exception to one of Rhynn's opinions, however. The one about the PC deaths making a better story than otherwise. I'm sorry, but while it can be your opinion, this is not "true". You think that it is true, but you don't actually know. Because the only version you tested was the one with deaths. It was interesting, and you feel that it was made more interesting by the lethal aspect of the game, but you have absolutely no idea if the game would have been less fun with less, or without deaths.

Also, it's not about killing randomness. I had a game yesterday and lo, I fudged absolutely 0 rolls. Because there were no need for those rolls to be fudged. The random factor WAS here. This random factor IS useful, and this is why I use it. But my job is not to simply follow it. When I decide that this action demands a +1, then it does. Because it's cool, because it's fun. Because I like it.

Once again, it's not about randomness being present or not. Randomness, like every single other aspect of the game, is a tool. I use randomness when it is convenient to me (read : when I decide it makes things more interesting) and dismiss it when it doesn't. It does not mean invalidating my players' rolls. The rules demand of me to give some modifiers to some skills depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, said modifier are spelled out after the dice is rolled. Sometimes because I didn't want them to know (how loud, or not, the sound they might have heard is), sometimes because I forgot to tell them, and sometimes because they rolled it before I had time to and don't feel like re-rolling it. For the two later cases however, I don't apply negative modifiers without asking for a re-roll.

Does that mean that the neck-breakingly awesome action one of my PC attempted that would fail by a point will suddenly have a +1 because of it's cool factor and thus succeed? Yes. Is it fudging the dice? Yes. Do I care about the rules at this peculiar instant? Not one bit.

What I fudge is whether or not the reinforcements arrive right now, later, if they are better or worse than the previous waves, their weapons, how well they wield it, and their strength modifier. Because at this moment they are MY specific and individual creatures, and not simply general entries on the monster manual.

Of course, I can (emphasis on can) decide how well they roll and how hard they hit if the initial result displeases me enough for me to say "no".

THIS is why I use randomness and lethality in my games, for the threat and fun factor they represent. For the impact they have on my players. I do not feel compelled to always respect and apply both of these factors. The moment they stop being fun and interesting, on my discretion, they are dismissed.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 11:57 AM
Alberic really said it superbly. Thanks buddy.


Agreed with all that you wrote. Just to give examples of the "consequences" the players had to face..

- A PC was badly injured and started having infectuous disease because of bad healthcare. They party then had to run back to a NPC I knew was a baddy, but he also was the only person they could turn to, and I found a way to make the party even more indebted to him.
- A PC lost the relic-sword that was entrusted in his care by his dying master, that he had to bring back to his Knightly Order of the Blazing Sun. That was a BIG DEAL, at it happened because the PC decided to rush a horde of Zombies in WFRP, thinking "hey, they are only Zombies and I'm a freakkin' Armored Squire".
- A PC almost had his long-lost son killed off because of stupid decision he made during the action scene
- PC almost lost favor with his God
- the Party almost lost a bunch of hired swords they had (one of them being a rather idiotic superstrong guy that they had promised to take care to his GRANDMOTHER). Man, just the fact that they had to talk with the family of their hired sellswords made these near-losses so much more bitter.
- Party members lost nice loot, or resources that they had struggled to earn.

All the sort of stuff that are either story consequences, or "asset" consequences. I prefer story consequences, 'cause it help players bond with their character.

DM Nate
2014-05-28, 12:11 PM
At one point, my party used their Intimidate skill to try to trick a guard into thinking a nearby dead body was exhaling a vengeful ghost. It was right at the end of the session, and it was cool enough that I ignored the nat. 20 the guard had on his Will save.

Angel Bob
2014-05-28, 01:58 PM
At one point, my party used their Intimidate skill to try to trick a guard into thinking a nearby dead body was exhaling a vengeful ghost. It was right at the end of the session, and it was cool enough that I ignored the nat. 20 the guard had on his Will save.

No disrespect to you, but this is barely even relevant to the thread. The party was in no danger, and you didn't bend the rules at all. The DMG itself, in various editions, states that if the DM thinks an idea ought to work, nobody has to roll anything. By definition, you roll when the outcome is uncertain; if you're running on Rule of Cool, then full steam ahead! :smallsmile:

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 05:35 PM
Are your games so empty of meaning that the only way you can possibly lose is for your characters to die? That there is no existing ground between "beating the encounter" and "dying"? :smallconfused:

That isn't what I said at all and you're dodging my question. What does losing mean in your game? Do enemies just defeat your PC's in combat, mock them a bit and walk away, happy that they defeated the heroes and that they definitely wont come looking for revenge? Do they take them hostage and just hold them until they can break out, get their stuff and then kill them? If you don't either kill, or cripple both physically and mentally then you haven't beat the PC's. they're just gonna get up and fight again.

Like I said, I'm legitimately interested in hearing what losing entails in your game.

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 05:43 PM
... Somehow, I have the feeling we're not understanding each other.

1) You would NOT come to the table knowing that whatever you would do you would survive. You do not know what I do, or what I am going to do.

2) Even for a DM averse to killing PC's, that kind of behaviour is clear schmuck-bait, and you would end up dead time and time again. Being the DM means being the system. Trying to beat the system while the system is a live human being entitled to changing things on the fly is a good way to lose your character.

3) The fact that I am not killing your PC does NOT mean you are getting away scot-free. If things go well, the rest of the team would have had to save you, meaning they might have issues with your character's behaviour, if not yours, and if things go badly, I can do many, many things to your character besides death. Failing IS an option, and if you rush there, you WILL fail. My games are not, never, consequence-free.


I, for one, am also of the mind that a campaign's story is determined once it's over. What I craft is a premise, and then an interesting environment. What the story of my campaign is is in the hands of my players.

That means that if they decide that they MUST be followed by an assassin, and start searching for 30 real life minutes for an assassin, suddenly, there will be a damn assassin.

It's about the story, not the system. The premise that the DM serves the system is, for me, wrong. The system, like the DM, have to serve the story, and if the system is lacking, then the DM is entitled, empowered even, to dismiss the system.

I also take exception to one of Rhynn's opinions, however. The one about the PC deaths making a better story than otherwise. I'm sorry, but while it can be your opinion, this is not "true". You think that it is true, but you don't actually know. Because the only version you tested was the one with deaths. It was interesting, and you feel that it was made more interesting by the lethal aspect of the game, but you have absolutely no idea if the game would have been less fun with less, or without deaths.

Also, it's not about killing randomness. I had a game yesterday and lo, I fudged absolutely 0 rolls. Because there were no need for those rolls to be fudged. The random factor WAS here. This random factor IS useful, and this is why I use it. But my job is not to simply follow it. When I decide that this action demands a +1, then it does. Because it's cool, because it's fun. Because I like it.

Once again, it's not about randomness being present or not. Randomness, like every single other aspect of the game, is a tool. I use randomness when it is convenient to me (read : when I decide it makes things more interesting) and dismiss it when it doesn't. It does not mean invalidating my players' rolls. The rules demand of me to give some modifiers to some skills depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, said modifier are spelled out after the dice is rolled. Sometimes because I didn't want them to know (how loud, or not, the sound they might have heard is), sometimes because I forgot to tell them, and sometimes because they rolled it before I had time to and don't feel like re-rolling it. For the two later cases however, I don't apply negative modifiers without asking for a re-roll.

Does that mean that the neck-breakingly awesome action one of my PC attempted that would fail by a point will suddenly have a +1 because of it's cool factor and thus succeed? Yes. Is it fudging the dice? Yes. Do I care about the rules at this peculiar instant? Not one bit.

What I fudge is whether or not the reinforcements arrive right now, later, if they are better or worse than the previous waves, their weapons, how well they wield it, and their strength modifier. Because at this moment they are MY specific and individual creatures, and not simply general entries on the monster manual.

Of course, I can (emphasis on can) decide how well they roll and how hard they hit if the initial result displeases me enough for me to say "no".

THIS is why I use randomness and lethality in my games, for the threat and fun factor they represent. For the impact they have on my players. I do not feel compelled to always respect and apply both of these factors. The moment they stop being fun and interesting, on my discretion, they are dismissed.

See, this part is what I have a problem with. All the other stuff is good and fine, but beyond DM fiat and obscenely high level play, there isn't much just capturing me can do. there's so many options that just trying to lock me in a cage isn't going to stop me. Unless I built a straight 20 core fighter, the second you lock me in that cage and turn around, I'm gone. This is of course, a single scenario, but that's the point. AS A PC I WILL KEEP GETTING FREE. Unless I'm killed, I'll be back up within a session or two and still causing problems for the BBEG.

Alberic Strein
2014-05-28, 06:24 PM
Oh, absolutely.

Luckily, I'm not trying to attack one of my players, but your PC. And at no point, in high level play, would I consider "trapping" your character. Personally, I dislike the whole "you wake up in chains" thing.

No, what I am going to attack is everything that goes beyond your class and race choice. What could a highly suicidal behaviour screw up in your background, or in your goals in the game? A lover might leave you because she fears losing you for good. Your partners in crime might leave you out of crucial information in case you one day screw up and get captured, etc...

Also, let it be said that in games where resurrection is a thing, and more particularly a 3rd level spell, I don't think I would be so reluctant in killing your character, knowing it will be back for a fee. And who knows, I might houserule a geass-like spell (with a save of course, the whole point is for you to save against it and not want risking it again) which might put your character in a very awkward position.

If all else fails, see point 2.

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 06:43 PM
Oh, absolutely.

Luckily, I'm not trying to attack one of my players, but your PC. And at no point, in high level play, would I consider "trapping" your character. Personally, I dislike the whole "you wake up in chains" thing.

No, what I am going to attack is everything that goes beyond your class and race choice. What could a highly suicidal behaviour screw up in your background, or in your goals in the game? A lover might leave you because she fears losing you for good. Your partners in crime might leave you out of crucial information in case you one day screw up and get captured, etc...

Also, let it be said that in games where resurrection is a thing, and more particularly a 3rd level spell, I don't think I would be so reluctant in killing your character, knowing it will be back for a fee. And who knows, I might houserule a geass-like spell (with a save of course, the whole point is for you to save against it and not want risking it again) which might put your character in a very awkward position.

If all else fails, see point 2.

All it seems that does is advance my roleplaying opportunity, which gives me more to do really. I don't consider that losing.

Amphetryon
2014-05-28, 07:00 PM
Then kill your players randomly, close the book and end the campaign.

'cause that's what seems to be so important to you.


"Being taken prisoner" is a horrible plot device to force on your player because you want them to be prisoner as part of the plot.
"Being taken prisoner" is a fantastic escape clause to prevent a TPK when your players screwed up and you want to keep playing.

I hate when a DM just happen to "capture" the party. but that's not what I am telling you.

edit: to further add as to why most people hate the "captured" subplot is because the DM usually rely on the players being prisonner for his plot to advance. That means that whatever they come up with to escape is inevitably going to fail.

If the DM just happen to capture the players in order to save the game (as a contingency), then he can allow the players to become badass in their clever escape plans. He does not have to keep them there. I never had my players whining about them being captured, because it always have been fair, never been a "railroad prison", and the players actually ended up in control of the situation after thinking fast on their feet.

Hell. The first time it happened, the players actually elected to STAY in the prison rather than take the escape chance because they actually did not wanted to antagonize the Warden and needed him as an ally. and it paid off damn strong in the end.
I can think of no scenario where "DM's NPCs capture the party" is not reasonably perceived as a railroad to either play 'Deal with the DM's Prison Guards' or 'Escape from the DM's Prison,' regardless of whether that's the game the Players thought they were signing up for. Note that if it is the game they signed up for, they're unlikely to complain about this particular railroad.

See also the posts above mine dealing with the relative absurdity of holding a reasonably competent D&D Character prisoner for any length of time.

Alberic Strein
2014-05-28, 07:01 PM
Yes.

You don't lose, and I keep the versimilitude of my world. it's not a fight between you and me, or between DM's and players.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 09:16 PM
That isn't what I said at all and you're dodging my question. What does losing mean in your game? Do enemies just defeat your PC's in combat, mock them a bit and walk away, happy that they defeated the heroes and that they definitely wont come looking for revenge? Do they take them hostage and just hold them until they can break out, get their stuff and then kill them? If you don't either kill, or cripple both physically and mentally then you haven't beat the PC's. they're just gonna get up and fight again.

Like I said, I'm legitimately interested in hearing what losing entails in your game.

Sure thing. Please know that all these things are in my bag of tricks, and I usually apply the one that seems the most appropriate for the situation. Not all defeat scenario are applicable at the same time.

1- There's the classic "give the PC an opening to get the **** out of there".

I gave the example earlier of mooks stepping back to let a Big Bad Villain make his entrance. Think of the Balrog's entrance in The Fellowship of the Ring; the party was utterly screwed, and the screenwriter saved their ass with Daemonic Dramatic Entrance. The "dramatic entrance" will give a few rounds for the PCs to pick up their injured parties and get a headstart.

There's plenty of upside to this solution. You get to give an early glimpse to your players of a potentially Very Menacing Villain without fearing for them to casually dispatching him with a lucky shot. You are allowed to let the bad guys really let go their superpowers without it being a stand-up fight. and trust me, your players will only taste victory all the sweeter when they will get to, eventually, defeat that Big Bad.

2- "You have been defeated, but are now prisoners"

It's always up to you to figure out why the PCs have been left alive. I know a poster above said it's illogical, but it's only because he thinks too narrowly. There's always something the baddies will want out of the PCs. Maybe it's information? Like.. how did they got here? How did they learned about this place? Who sent them? Where MacGuffin Z?

Maybe it's because someone among the PC happens to be important, and they want to leverage this through ransom or blackmail.

Maybe the Baddies actually respect the PCs, and want to recruit them to their cause? Maybe it gives a chance for the baddies to finally make a case for themselves, and stop being faceless antagonists?

The advantage of being captured is to have the opportunity of face-to-face nonviolent interaction with potentially interesting villainous NPCs. Especially if you have some less-than-moral PCs in your party, you can use the opportunity for a temporary "deal with the devil".

3- Losing something, or someone

I gave the example in an earlier post. A group of PC managed to escape from a horde of Zombies on their own (no fudging on my part), but one of the PC lost a plot-relevant magic sword in the process.

Basically, this option is meant to hurt the players. For some reason, a player is going to feel much deeper the loss of a precious magic asset than, let's say, half of his hit points. Hit points heal on their own while property/contacts/ressources are costly. One of my previous GM was big on that; he said "death is too easy an end" and loved to hit us in stuff and relationships we had struggled to build over the course of the game.


There's probably more means to make sure a party's defeat doesn't turn into a TPK while keeping verisimilitude, and still feeling painful to the players.

veti
2014-05-28, 09:24 PM
I can think of no scenario where "DM's NPCs capture the party" is not reasonably perceived as a railroad to either play 'Deal with the DM's Prison Guards' or 'Escape from the DM's Prison,' regardless of whether that's the game the Players thought they were signing up for. Note that if it is the game they signed up for, they're unlikely to complain about this particular railroad.

See also the posts above mine dealing with the relative absurdity of holding a reasonably competent D&D Character prisoner for any length of time.

So... any "reasonably competent" character has many ways of escaping from a prison, but being put in a prison is automatically a railroad plot? How do you maintain those two thoughts at the same time?

And railroading is in the eye of the players. If they know that their DM is a railroader, then yes, they'll perceive "thrown in jail" as a railroad. Just like everything else in the campaign. But if they know they're given freedom and agency, they won't automatically come to that opinion. They might even think "oh, so that was our saving throw against a TPK".

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 09:25 PM
Sure thing. Please know that all these things are in my bag of tricks, and I usually apply the one that seems the most appropriate for the situation. Not all defeat scenario are applicable at the same time.

1- There's the classic "give the PC an opening to get the **** out of there".

I gave the example earlier of mooks stepping back to let a Big Bad Villain make his entrance. Think of the Balrog's entrance in The Fellowship of the Ring; the party was utterly screwed, and the screenwriter saved their ass with Daemonic Dramatic Entrance. The "dramatic entrance" will give a few rounds for the PCs to pick up their injured parties and get a headstart.

There's plenty of upside to this solution. You get to give an early glimpse to your players of a potentially Very Menacing Villain without fearing for them to casually dispatching him with a lucky shot. You are allowed to let the bad guys really let go their superpowers without it being a stand-up fight. and trust me, your players will only taste victory all the sweeter when they will get to, eventually, defeat that Big Bad.

2- "You have been defeated, but are now prisoners"

It's always up to you to figure out why the PCs have been left alive. I know a poster above said it's illogical, but it's only because he thinks too narrowly. There's always something the baddies will want out of the PCs. Maybe it's information? Like.. how did they got here? How did they learned about this place? Who sent them? Where MacGuffin Z?

Maybe it's because someone among the PC happens to be important, and they want to leverage this through ransom or blackmail.

Maybe the Baddies actually respect the PCs, and want to recruit them to their cause? Maybe it gives a chance for the baddies to finally make a case for themselves, and stop being faceless antagonists?

The advantage of being captured is to have the opportunity of face-to-face nonviolent interaction with potentially interesting villainous NPCs. Especially if you have some less-than-moral PCs in your party, you can use the opportunity for a temporary "deal with the devil".

3- Losing something, or someone

I gave the example in an earlier post. A group of PC managed to escape from a horde of Zombies on their own (no fudging on my part), but one of the PC lost a plot-relevant magic sword in the process.

Basically, this option is meant to hurt the players. For some reason, a player is going to feel much deeper the loss of a precious magic asset than, let's say, half of his hit points. Hit points heal on their own while property/contacts/ressources are costly. One of my previous GM was big on that; he said "death is too easy an end" and loved to hit us in stuff and relationships we had struggled to build over the course of the game.


There's probably more means to make sure a party's defeat doesn't turn into a TPK while keeping verisimilitude, and still feeling painful to the players.

Then I have reached the reason for our disagreement. Because to me, none of this is losing. When you lose, by my definition, the game is over. These examples are more of a bonus RP segment or key plot movement. Also, I'm the guy who "thinks too narrowly" and said that baddies shouldn't leave PC's alive, and I stick by that saying that PC's are too dangerous and volatile of people to intentionally bring to your base, probably the place they were headed anyways, so they can break your things and mess up your guys before either coming for you or taking an obscene amount of your evil guy wealth and bolting.

And I may have sounded a little off putting above, that wasn't my intention, I was legitimately confused due to our obvious game type differences.

Cikomyr
2014-05-28, 09:39 PM
Then I have reached the reason for our disagreement. Because to me, none of this is losing. When you lose, by my definition, the game is over. These examples are more of a bonus RP segment or key plot movement. Also, I'm the guy who "thinks too narrowly" and said that baddies shouldn't leave PC's alive, and I stick by that saying that PC's are too dangerous and volatile of people to intentionally bring to your base, probably the place they were headed anyways, so they can break your things and mess up your guys before either coming for you or taking an obscene amount of your evil guy wealth and bolting.

And I may have sounded a little off putting above, that wasn't my intention, I was legitimately confused due to our obvious game type differences.

We are not playing video games.
We are playing Role Playing Games. Which mean the game can go on after losing.
In fact, the example of what's tolerable in term of being captured is probably the best dichotomy you can have between video games and Role playing games. Something that I HATE in Video Games, for example, is if you are scripted to "lose the fight and be captured", but you still need to BEAT THE GODDAMN MOOKS AND BOSS TO REACH THE POINT WHERE YOU HAVE TO LOSE. :smallfurious: Because God forbid that you happen to "lose" before the time the script says you should lose, 'cause that's a gameover and not the way to the next plot point.


--------

Sorry, i went on a berserker tangent

Your reasoning regarding "baddies shouldn't leave PCs alive" is horrendeously metagaming thinking. Unless you play in a world akin to Order of the Stick where everyone know who is a PC and who isn't, it's a really silly way of making decisions for the baddies.

And the PCs don't have to be prisoners in their main HQ base. I mean, you make a good point; why bring them in the very place they might want to go? But that's why there are alternate prison sites you can make up. But never have the baddies take the PC prisonners "just 'cause they want to capture them". Because I agree with what I think you meant: exceptional individuals (like PCs) are notoriously hard to keep prisoners. Hence why there should be a purpose to their capture that should make it worth the hassle.

Capturing the PC isn't like capturing POW as the "human thing to do". It's a dangerous undertaking that you do because you have a goal in mind. As a good GM, it's your job to come up with that reason, and try to feed the players their next plot point through that opportunity. Always turn setbacks into story points that you can exploit.

Airk
2014-05-28, 10:32 PM
All it seems that does is advance my roleplaying opportunity, which gives me more to do really. I don't consider that losing.

Yeah. Remember when we said "There's no winning and losing in roleplaying games"? Now you've figured out WHY. A "loss" is a roleplaying opportunity. Which means it shouldn't be a loss for the players, even if it is for their characters. (Aside: The amount of failure regarding the difference between "player" and "character" in this thread is EPIC.)

Averis Vol
2014-05-28, 11:21 PM
We are not playing video games.
We are playing Role Playing Games. Which mean the game can go on after losing.
In fact, the example of what's tolerable in term of being captured is probably the best dichotomy you can have between video games and Role playing games. Something that I HATE in Video Games, for example, is if you are scripted to "lose the fight and be captured", but you still need to BEAT THE GODDAMN MOOKS AND BOSS TO REACH THE POINT WHERE YOU HAVE TO LOSE. :smallfurious: Because God forbid that you happen to "lose" before the time the script says you should lose, 'cause that's a gameover and not the way to the next plot point.


--------

Sorry, i went on a berserker tangent

Your reasoning regarding "baddies shouldn't leave PCs alive" is horrendeously metagaming thinking. Unless you play in a world akin to Order of the Stick where everyone know who is a PC and who isn't, it's a really silly way of making decisions for the baddies.

And the PCs don't have to be prisoners in their main HQ base. I mean, you make a good point; why bring them in the very place they might want to go? But that's why there are alternate prison sites you can make up. But never have the baddies take the PC prisonners "just 'cause they want to capture them". Because I agree with what I think you meant: exceptional individuals (like PCs) are notoriously hard to keep prisoners. Hence why there should be a purpose to their capture that should make it worth the hassle.

Capturing the PC isn't like capturing POW as the "human thing to do". It's a dangerous undertaking that you do because you have a goal in mind. As a good GM, it's your job to come up with that reason, and try to feed the players their next plot point through that opportunity. Always turn setbacks into story points that you can exploit.

Hey, no worries, it happens.

It may not be a vidya game, but it's still a game, and you have to be able to lose. If you take the game out of video game, you have a video, and if you take the game out of roleplaying game, you get roleplaying. I don't play to act out a story, as I have said before.

Your insinuation that video games are worlds different from roleplaying games speaks volumes about where this debate is going. Just know that why I play is for the game, matching my wits against the DM's. I don't do hardcore roleplaying, when my characters sad, I don't burst out in tears. My roleplaying, in the games I currently participate in, is much a secondary point. This isn't to say that I don't do my fair share of RP'ing my character, but it doesn't dominate the game.

EDIT: the prison thing was more of an example, I admit. To be completely fair, if I was a DM, I would logically have the PC's locked up in a place with my first in command, someone I absolutely trust to not let them get away. But after they did break out, were I inclined to merely capture them again, they definitely would be locked up where the big bad could personally keep an eye on them.



Yeah. Remember when we said "There's no winning and losing in roleplaying games"? Now you've figured out WHY. A "loss" is a roleplaying opportunity. Which means it shouldn't be a loss for the players, even if it is for their characters. (Aside: The amount of failure regarding the difference between "player" and "character" in this thread is EPIC.)

There's a big difference between failing and losing. I have failed quite a lot in my gaming career, but I've never lost, only had games die. It sounds weird, which is honestly why I don't even bring it up often. As to your aside, I am very much my character as much as my character is an extension of me. I cannot create a 100% new person. At some point I have to base their knowledge on what I know, This doesn't mean my character knows everything I know, that would be a vicious bit of cheating on my part. If I'm a lightning specced sorcerer who only ever uses lightning bolt, I'm not going to start only using fireball if we come up against a troll and none of us make our knowledge checks.

Airk
2014-05-29, 08:50 AM
It may not be a vidya game, but it's still a game, and you have to be able to lose. If you take the game out of video game, you have a video, and if you take the game out of roleplaying game, you get roleplaying. I don't play to act out a story, as I have said before.

Don't make me drag out some sort of systematic analysis of what 'game' means please. Suffice to say that losing is not a requirement.



Your insinuation that video games are worlds different from roleplaying games speaks volumes about where this debate is going.

He shouldn't have to insinuate, it's fairly obvious that they have entirely different goals.


Just know that why I play is for the game, matching my wits against the DM's.

I'm never understood this school of thought. The DM can crush you summarily at any time. The only reason you have a chance in hell is because he lets you. This is like "When I was five, I really enjoyed the challenge of boxing with my Dad." Ooookay.



There's a big difference between failing and losing. I have failed quite a lot in my gaming career, but I've never lost, only had games die. It sounds weird, which is honestly why I don't even bring it up often.

You are correct, there is a big difference, which is again, why I said: "There is no losing in roleplaying games." What exactly are you even debating here?


As to your aside, I am very much my character as much as my character is an extension of me. I cannot create a 100% new person. At some point I have to base their knowledge on what I know, This doesn't mean my character knows everything I know, that would be a vicious bit of cheating on my part. If I'm a lightning specced sorcerer who only ever uses lightning bolt, I'm not going to start only using fireball if we come up against a troll and none of us make our knowledge checks.

I don't care. You are NOT YOUR CHARACTER. There is no dark dungeons "If you die in D&D, you die in real life" crap going on here. Players and characters are DIFFERENT. They have different goals, different abilities, and different life spans. The two terms are NOT interchangeable, not matter how much you suck at differentiating yourself from the imaginary fighter.

Averis Vol
2014-05-29, 11:17 AM
Don't make me drag out some sort of systematic analysis of what 'game' means please. Suffice to say that losing is not a requirement.



He shouldn't have to insinuate, it's fairly obvious that they have entirely different goals.



I'm never understood this school of thought. The DM can crush you summarily at any time. The only reason you have a chance in hell is because he lets you. This is like "When I was five, I really enjoyed the challenge of boxing with my Dad." Ooookay.



You are correct, there is a big difference, which is again, why I said: "There is no losing in roleplaying games." What exactly are you even debating here?



I don't care. You are NOT YOUR CHARACTER. There is no dark dungeons "If you die in D&D, you die in real life" crap going on here. Players and characters are DIFFERENT. They have different goals, different abilities, and different life spans. The two terms are NOT interchangeable, not matter how much you suck at differentiating yourself from the imaginary fighter.

Woah, calm down dude. Seriously. Leaving the massive butthurt of the bolded part aside, I still hold that at the end of the day a game is a game. You can lose games and you can win games. It doesn't have to be one where every encounter is a fight to the death between you and the DM, hell, it doesn't have to even be a common thing. All I want in a game is a straightforward challenge that is to the mutual enjoyment of all involved. ****, It doesn't even have to be competitive.

EDIT: and while the DM can just say "Hurr durr, Pelor comes and kills you,"......where is the fun in that? Level appropriate challenges are spelled out in the DMG. DM's play by different rules, they need to act as enemy and mediator, so while they could bring out something brokenly over powered, to continue having a group, he generally needs to use the level appropriate challenges against his party.

Airk
2014-05-29, 12:16 PM
Woah, calm down dude. Seriously. Leaving the massive butthurt of the bolded part aside, I still hold that at the end of the day a game is a game.

Hey man, you're the one who took the ridiculous "No no, I'm the same as my character!" stance. :P


All I want in a game is a straightforward challenge that is to the mutual enjoyment of all involved. ****, It doesn't even have to be competitive.

It seems like your idea of what you want gets more muddled everytime you post.



EDIT: and while the DM can just say "Hurr durr, Pelor comes and kills you,"......where is the fun in that? Level appropriate challenges are spelled out in the DMG. DM's play by different rules, they need to act as enemy and mediator, so while they could bring out something brokenly over powered, to continue having a group, he generally needs to use the level appropriate challenges against his party.

He can kill you easily enough without even resorting to that. The DM is setting up challenges for you to win. He is NOT bound by any sorts of rules that keep him from setting up challenges that will kill you.

If you are looking for an honest, good, battle-of-wits-and-may-the-best-man win competitive game, RPGs are not really a good choice.

Cikomyr
2014-05-29, 12:51 PM
Hey man, you're the one who took the ridiculous "No no, I'm the same as my character!" stance. :P



It seems like your idea of what you want gets more muddled everytime you post.



He can kill you easily enough without even resorting to that. The DM is setting up challenges for you to win. He is NOT bound by any sorts of rules that keep him from setting up challenges that will kill you.

If you are looking for an honest, good, battle-of-wits-and-may-the-best-man win competitive game, RPGs are not really a good choice.

Agreed. Unless it's a massive PvP with one super-GM administrating it all. I've had a friend doing this.

RPG is the perfect medium to onleash your wits and fast-thinking. But damn it, the attitude is not "beating the GM". It should not be to set your intelligence against the GM's. The best plans happened when my players have cooperated with me and actually told me their plans before hand, so I can think of a few logical curveballs to throw at them without endangering the fruit of their labor.

I reward clever, smart thinking, but only if it's meant to actually make the game funnier, not meant to screw me over.

Arbane
2014-05-29, 04:53 PM
Excuses not to kill someone in D&D (and similar settings):

They might have friends who will want revenge.
They might know something important.
A corpse is a snack, a Charm Person gets out a minion.
Dominate Person, ditto.
You can clap them in irons and set them to work digging a new level of the dungeon.
Death is too good for them, and the torture-demon is getting dangerously bored.
Oh, goodie, you needed some volunteers for the mass human sacrifice!
You can hold them for ransom.
You won't spill blood in this holy place. Drag them outside, THEN kill them.
The monster in the pit likes its meat fresh and running.
Tattooing something embarrassing on their foreheads and dumping them naked in the woods is FUNNIER.

More:
"Oh, good! More test subjects for my experiments! BWAHAHAHAHA!"
"We can sell them into slavery. I know a guy who knows a guy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0171.html)"

Mr Beer
2014-05-29, 07:31 PM
I never tell players I saved them, even if I did. I want them to fear death.

Amphetryon
2014-05-29, 07:32 PM
Excuses not to kill someone in D&D (and similar settings):

They might have friends who will want revenge.
They might know something important.
A corpse is a snack, a Charm Person gets out a minion.
Dominate Person, ditto.
You can clap them in irons and set them to work digging a new level of the dungeon.
Death is too good for them, and the torture-demon is getting dangerously bored.
Oh, goodie, you needed some volunteers for the mass human sacrifice!
You can hold them for ransom.
You won't spill blood in this holy place. Drag them outside, THEN kill them.
The monster in the pit likes its meat fresh and running.
Tattooing something embarrassing on their foreheads and dumping them naked in the woods is FUNNIER.

More:
"Oh, good! More test subjects for my experiments! BWAHAHAHAHA!"
"We can sell them into slavery. I know a guy who knows a guy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0171.html)"

The issue that most often crops up in trying to capture and maintain a prisoner in D&D, is that the prisoner(s) are allowed by the rules to resist their captivity every single Round until they succeed or you knock them unconscious or dead. Extended captivity all but forces those playing to ignore that facet of the rules. Yes, Charm/Dominate is arguably a way around that. . . except defenses against Mind-Affecting Spells are plentiful at most levels of play, particularly once Charm/Dominate start to represent "Level-Appropriate Challenges" and not an outlier.

TheCountAlucard
2014-05-29, 07:37 PM
One PC in a game I ran actually relished the time he spent as a hostage/prisoner of a warlord.
He managed to influence the warlord and his lieutenants from behind bars far more effectively than he'd been able to do in diplomatic meetings.
It gave him a plausible excuse to sell out his evil bosses.
It gave him a plausible excuse to not attend a mandatory meeting his bosses were holding.
Because he could magically hear any prayer uttered to him, he was still capable of staying in communication with the rest of the party.
Once the warlord let him out of his cell, he got ample opportunity to study the warlord's defenses and capabilities.


All in all, turning a standard "DM punishment/railroading/contrivance" into a fun story arc took only a little willingness between the DM and player to work together.

zinycor
2014-05-29, 08:20 PM
The issue that most often crops up in trying to capture and maintain a prisoner in D&D, is that the prisoner(s) are allowed by the rules to resist their captivity every single Round until they succeed or you knock them unconscious or dead. Extended captivity all but forces those playing to ignore that facet of the rules. Yes, Charm/Dominate is arguably a way around that. . . except defenses against Mind-Affecting Spells are plentiful at most levels of play, particularly once Charm/Dominate start to represent "Level-Appropriate Challenges" and not an outlier.

While i don't agree with the point of view that says that "players should always live, so they can continue having fun" (Because i don't think is such a bad thing that the character dies, the player can still make a new character and the death of a character can be very meaningful for the others members of the party) I think that now you are saying that imprisoning a PC is something no bad guy would do, which is very silly, as the others have said the evil dude may have very good reasons to not kill the PC, most things that the PCs may try to escape depend on they having equipment or spells to escape (or at least being very strong), and in a world with all of these clases prisons should be adapted for these things (not giving a rogue any equipment should be enough once he fails his escape artist check, a wizard would be useless without a spellbook, and you can simply mute sorcerers and bards and they would be useless too, and so on) and even if they manage to escape their cells, they still must escape the prison itself with very few resources.


Going back to the main topic, i think that the Dm shouldn't save the his players as long as he hasn't done anything stupid, if he set a challenge much more difficult that he thought then he may do it, after all he screwed up and the players don't need to suffer for it. OTHER THING is saying that you NEVER KILL ANY PC, if you do that i think that you are missing amazing oportunities for development and immersion.

Example: the other day me and player A were playing, charater A (CA) is the best friend of My Character (MC), so when MC died (and desintegrated, damn liches xD), CA and the rest of the party were so upset that they went into a revenge frenzy against the lich. It was awesome to see the skeleton bitch die when CA screamed MC name in anger.

And then i made a new character and everything was fine with me and my fun of the game, but the rest of the party had a very awesome revenge and hate story to tell :D.

In the end death is good :D, TPK not so much, i think normally it does mean that you set an encounter much more hard that you intetended too. (On the other hand if the party just walked into it then they deserve it*).





* by walking into it i mean very stupid things like trying to kill the king in front of everyone in the kingdom

Knaight
2014-05-29, 08:33 PM
Let's face it, as a DM, you WILL save your players. You will even the damage on each member instead of focusing the squishies, when things get hard for them you will focus the tank, when you should have just enough damage to take down one vital party member you will do 1 less point of damage, etc, etc, etc...
That's really not the case. I don't do this - I don't tend to have very high character mortality rates in my game (which is a mix of system preferences, tending to favor low combat games, and having players who are willing to cut their losses and thus not lose characters as much), but it's not because of fudging. That's not to say that I'll use optimal tactics at all time - I generally assume that if combat happens the vast majority of those in it have their number 1 goal as not dying, with killing the opponents secondary to that. If an enemy has a chance to run up and shank a more squishy character, but knows full well that it's going to end with them getting killed they usually won't do it. Occasionally there are exceptions (e.g. the guy who was basically on magical PCP), but that just seems to make more sense.


No, I won't. Players can sometimes die, or it's not a game; it's just wish fulfillment.

...

What's the difference? My job is to provide a situation in which, if they mess up, they could die. But it's also my job not to provide a situation in which, even if they do well, they will die.

Despite my unwillingness to save characters, I'd consider this nonsense. Even if I use a relatively restricted definition of a game that absolutely requires a loss condition, losing and dying are not the same thing. Say the PCs have a particular goal - they're trying to form a political coalition and get some unification between a group of militaries, before an outside group comes in. Maybe it's a group of city states that aren't getting along but have an empire knocking at their door, maybe it's more like a group of good kingdoms being overrun by some great evil. Now say that this goal ends up hinging on one aspect, and the PCs go about it violently - a general needs their reputation smashed so that their objection won't prevent the coalition, their reputation is built partially on being a great warrior all by themselves, and thus getting publicly defeated by a handful of vagabonds looks bad enough to tip the scales.

If the PCs attack and all die, they have obviously lost. If they attack, the general makes a fighting retreat with his guard with minimal losses, and they manage to spin the public understanding into a brave and capable commander escaping an ambush, the PCs still lose, even if they've technically won the fight. If they attack, and are forced to retreat, that's still very much a loss. That coalition they've been building collapses, the invading forces quickly conquer the area, and the campaign probably shifts to some sort of resistance movement - quite possibly involving said general as a major figure in it, which is the salt in the wound of the loss.

It's easy to build not dying into the rules of the game, and it even emulates the fiction to some extent. Adventure stories are full of things like protagonists falling off cliffs and somehow surviving, being left with wounds that are by all accounts mortal and somehow surviving, etc.

zinycor
2014-05-29, 08:43 PM
That's really not the case. I don't do this - I don't tend to have very high character mortality rates in my game (which is a mix of system preferences, tending to favor low combat games, and having players who are willing to cut their losses and thus not lose characters as much), but it's not because of fudging. That's not to say that I'll use optimal tactics at all time - I generally assume that if combat happens the vast majority of those in it have their number 1 goal as not dying, with killing the opponents secondary to that. If an enemy has a chance to run up and shank a more squishy character, but knows full well that it's going to end with them getting killed they usually won't do it. Occasionally there are exceptions (e.g. the guy who was basically on magical PCP), but that just seems to make more sense.


Despite my unwillingness to save characters, I'd consider this nonsense. Even if I use a relatively restricted definition of a game that absolutely requires a loss condition, losing and dying are not the same thing. Say the PCs have a particular goal - they're trying to form a political coalition and get some unification between a group of militaries, before an outside group comes in. Maybe it's a group of city states that aren't getting along but have an empire knocking at their door, maybe it's more like a group of good kingdoms being overrun by some great evil. Now say that this goal ends up hinging on one aspect, and the PCs go about it violently - a general needs their reputation smashed so that their objection won't prevent the coalition, their reputation is built partially on being a great warrior all by themselves, and thus getting publicly defeated by a handful of vagabonds looks bad enough to tip the scales.

If the PCs attack and all die, they have obviously lost. If they attack, the general makes a fighting retreat with his guard with minimal losses, and they manage to spin the public understanding into a brave and capable commander escaping an ambush, the PCs still lose, even if they've technically won the fight. If they attack, and are forced to retreat, that's still very much a loss. That coalition they've been building collapses, the invading forces quickly conquer the area, and the campaign probably shifts to some sort of resistance movement - quite possibly involving said general as a major figure in it, which is the salt in the wound of the loss.

It's easy to build not dying into the rules of the game, and it even emulates the fiction to some extent. Adventure stories are full of things like protagonists falling off cliffs and somehow surviving, being left with wounds that are by all accounts mortal and somehow surviving, etc.


but, why would you build not-dying into the rules of the game? I get that not every encounter has to be lethal, and that's even if the encounter is a combat at all, but if you are going to put your characters in some situation where it seems that they are risking their lives, 90% of the time THEY SHOULD BE RISKING THEIR LIVES. I really don't see the problem with that.

PS: i know you said that you don't save your characters, so i guess you have death in your system but i really have a problem understanding why would anyone want to implement the not-dying rules.

Knaight
2014-05-29, 09:09 PM
but, why would you build not-dying into the rules of the game? I get that not every encounter has to be lethal, and that's even if the encounter is a combat at all, but if you are going to put your characters in some situation where it seems that they are risking their lives, 90% of the time THEY SHOULD BE RISKING THEIR LIVES. I really don't see the problem with that.

It depends on what the game is intended to do. Some games are clearly made to encourage the emergence of certain stories, and having ways for characters to avoid death - or even having character death be the prerogative of the player playing the character and not the GM - makes sense within that conceptual space. It's been done and it's worked.

zinycor
2014-05-29, 09:18 PM
It depends on what the game is intended to do. Some games are clearly made to encourage the emergence of certain stories, and having ways for characters to avoid death - or even having character death be the prerogative of the player playing the character and not the GM - makes sense within that conceptual space. It's been done and it's worked.

i guess you are right, i think am looking at it from a DnD/pathfinder point of view, but on other kind of games it would make more sense for players not to die.

BUT i still think that if an encounter it's shown as a life risking thing, it should be life risking (at least 90% of the time)

Knaight
2014-05-29, 09:24 PM
BUT i still think that if an encounter it's shown as a life risking thing, it should be life risking (at least 90% of the time)
Let me put it this way - was there really any doubt that the characters in The Lord of The Rings that survived would survive? The fellowship came through fine, with the notable exception of Boromir who died in a borderline morality-play fashion. Within the type of stories being emulated much of the fighting isn't conceptualized as a life risking thing, and thus not having death on the table makes a lot of sense if the goal is emulating that, with the obvious caveat that the player having the option to kill the character makes sense. It makes little sense under the goals of D&D/Pathfinder, but games are made with all sorts of goals.

It's also worth noting that this is hardly the only treatment of character death. There are also games where it's not a matter of whether a character dies, but of when. Dread is a game that flat out assumes that either every PC or all but one PC ends up dead, with death around the corner at any minute. There's a very good chance that it won't even be to something heroic - a blaze of glory is vanishingly unlikely unless the player chooses to kill their character before the game mechanics do. This wouldn't work at all in D&D, but Dread is a horror game focused on character psychologies, and so it makes perfect sense in that context.

zinycor
2014-05-29, 09:31 PM
Let me put it this way - was there really any doubt that the characters in The Lord of The Rings that survived would survive? The fellowship came through fine, with the notable exception of Boromir who died in a borderline morality-play fashion. Within the type of stories being emulated much of the fighting isn't conceptualized as a life risking thing, and thus not having death on the table makes a lot of sense if the goal is emulating that, with the obvious caveat that the player having the option to kill the character makes sense. It makes little sense under the goals of D&D/Pathfinder, but games are made with all sorts of goals.

It's also worth noting that this is hardly the only treatment of character death. There are also games where it's not a matter of whether a character dies, but of when. Dread is a game that flat out assumes that either every PC or all but one PC ends up dead, with death around the corner at any minute. There's a very good chance that it won't even be to something heroic - a blaze of glory is vanishingly unlikely unless the player chooses to kill their character before the game mechanics do. This wouldn't work at all in D&D, but Dread is a horror game focused on character psychologies, and so it makes perfect sense in that context.

This forum really needs a +1

veti
2014-05-29, 10:51 PM
The issue that most often crops up in trying to capture and maintain a prisoner in D&D, is that the prisoner(s) are allowed by the rules to resist their captivity every single Round until they succeed or you knock them unconscious or dead.

The reason we're discussing this - the premise of the thread - is that we're talking about a starting position where everyone is unconscious or dead. Then "you wake up in a cell". What you do next? Absolutely up to you. If you want to start executing your escape plan on the very round you wake up (on 1HP), go for it.


Let me put it this way - was there really any doubt that the characters in The Lord of The Rings that survived would survive?

That's a question of perspective. I'm pretty sure, from the perspective of a new reader who doesn't know anything of the story in advance - if you could find such a person, which frankly wouldn't be easy nowadays - there is indeed considerable doubt. When I first read LotR (aged - maybe 11? - I'm not sure), I remember being horrified when Gandalf died, and fearful for most of the Fellowship at various points. I mean, I never really imagined that "Frodo becoming a wraith" (after Weathertop) was on the cards, but "Frodo being eaten (by the Watcher outside Moria)", "Frodo being eaten (by Shelob)", and "Frodo being hurled into Mt Doom by Gollum" all seemed like real enough dangers to my childish imagination.

Arbane
2014-05-29, 11:10 PM
That's a question of perspective. I'm pretty sure, from the perspective of a new reader who doesn't know anything of the story in advance - if you could find such a person, which frankly wouldn't be easy nowadays - there is indeed considerable doubt. When I first read LotR (aged - maybe 11? - I'm not sure), I remember being horrified when Gandalf died, and fearful for most of the Fellowship at various points. I mean, I never really imagined that "Frodo becoming a wraith" (after Weathertop) was on the cards, but "Frodo being eaten (by the Watcher outside Moria)", "Frodo being eaten (by Shelob)", and "Frodo being hurled into Mt Doom by Gollum" all seemed like real enough dangers to my childish imagination.

Well, there's the problem - you were too young and ignorant to properly ruin your own fun.

Thrudd
2014-05-29, 11:14 PM
I want to make a point I'm not sure anyone has actually mentioned. A dead character, even a TPK, is not the end of the game. At worst, it means you make a new character and start again. You wouldn't even necessarily need to start over at level 1, depending on the DM and the game.
The game only ends when the players decide to stop playing.

Cikomyr
2014-05-29, 11:22 PM
I want to make a point I'm not sure anyone has actually mentioned. A dead character, even a TPK, is not the end of the game. At worst, it means you make a new character and start again. You wouldn't even necessarily need to start over at level 1, depending on the DM and the game.
The game only ends when the players decide to stop playing.

It is the end of THIS game. You start another one.

Which means all the work, all the stories you've built. All the characters created. All of this is for naught.

And yes. I don't play "let's just roam the countryside killing faceless monsters and get loot". All of my games have important locations, NPCs and plot meant to engage my players, so as to try to make them become more than what they think they are.

Hell. I just love when I managed to hook a player who's always been a rather "me & myself" selfish manipulator into finally charging headfirst against the BBEG, because he discovered that he cared whether or not the BBEG would win, and whether or not his friends and allies (as fictional as they were) would suffer the price of Evil's Victory. It's literally the case of a player being carried away by his own character. And it only happens when players are engaged in my game. Them dying meaninglessly just breaks that fun for everyone. Them dying for a reason; for an act of self-sacrifice or a desperate act of "trying to do the right thing" is the kind of stuff that everybody cheers and talk about.

zinycor
2014-05-30, 12:12 AM
It is the end of THIS game. You start another one.

Which means all the work, all the stories you've built. All the characters created. All of this is for naught.

And yes. I don't play "let's just roam the countryside killing faceless monsters and get loot". All of my games have important locations, NPCs and plot meant to engage my players, so as to try to make them become more than what they think they are.

Hell. I just love when I managed to hook a player who's always been a rather "me & myself" selfish manipulator into finally charging headfirst against the BBEG, because he discovered that he cared whether or not the BBEG would win, and whether or not his friends and allies (as fictional as they were) would suffer the price of Evil's Victory. It's literally the case of a player being carried away by his own character. And it only happens when players are engaged in my game. Them dying meaninglessly just breaks that fun for everyone. Them dying for a reason; for an act of self-sacrifice or a desperate act of "trying to do the right thing" is the kind of stuff that everybody cheers and talk about.

the only point i don't agree is that even if the whole party dies, all of the time invested playing was not for naught, after all, you still have a very epic story so far, and the characters won't be forgotten, nor will the world. After all, if you are playing to have a very good story, well, if you die in it, it doesn't make it a worse story, and the fact that it has to end, well, everything ends, valar morghulis (even for PC, and their whole story or world if it comes to that).

besides, if you decide to play another game, the story would end anyway, so why not have some very dramatic moments (like for example your loved character dying to powerfull and evil sorcerer/dragon/super-evil-dude) while it lasts

Thrudd
2014-05-30, 12:16 AM
It is the end of THIS game. You start another one.

Which means all the work, all the stories you've built. All the characters created. All of this is for naught.



Why? Who says you have to start all over? I think a DM could figure out a way to continue with new characters in the same campaign, if they really wanted to, or to bring the original ones back to life. They've been doing it in comics for decades. A new guy with slightly different abilities takes on the mantle of Captain America, or Captain America from an alternate timeline crosses over to take the place of his dead counterpart, or everyone finds themselves in some kind of pocket-dimension afterlife, and then figures out how to escape back to the material world.

But I get what you're saying. In a narrative game that has a plot designed around particular characters, your story is over when those characters are gone. I just think D&D doesn't really work great as a narrative/story telling game.

This is why I feel most of 2e and 3e's (and really some from 1e, too) adventure modules aren't so great...authors have been trying to force the square peg of plot-driven narrative into the round hole of D&D's sandbox dungeon-crawl mechanics for a long time. You can make it work if you hit hard enough, but it clearly doesn't fill the hole properly. No one has been willing to alter the game significantly enough to turn it into a real narrative game and they also haven't been willing to give up trying to make a D&D adventure that is planned out like an exciting movie or dramatic novel. So in the end, you get a system half-way used and adventures that half-way meet their dramatic expectations. 4e might get the closest to enabling the sort of narrative people expect, it certainly made the biggest changes to the game of any edition; though I think it's extremely detailed tactical combat takes up so much game time that sometimes drama and narrative fall to the background.

Note: I am not saying it is wrong-fun to play D&D in whatever way people like. People have fun playing D&D as a makeshift story game, and that is great.

I prefer to use other systems if I want to tell an interactive story. D&D is the home for persistent and living fantasy worlds where players can insert themselves as characters to explore, interact, and alter it.

Arbane
2014-05-30, 02:30 AM
besides, if you decide to play another game, the story would end anyway, so why not have some very dramatic moments (like for example your loved character dying to powerfull and evil sorcerer/dragon/super-evil-dude) while it lasts

The problem with that is, of course, when you die in some really anticlimactic way (blew a saving throw, Orc #7 rolled a crit and max damage, whoops that trap was a bit much, etc).

zinycor
2014-05-30, 03:35 AM
The problem with that is, of course, when you die in some really anticlimactic way (blew a saving throw, Orc #7 rolled a crit and max damage, whoops that trap was a bit much, etc).

but that orc was a super evil dude xD, even if he was lvl 1 he could be very evil :smallbiggrin:

Amphetryon
2014-05-30, 05:41 AM
While i don't agree with the point of view that says that "players should always live, so they can continue having fun" (Because i don't think is such a bad thing that the character dies, the player can still make a new character and the death of a character can be very meaningful for the others members of the party) I think that now you are saying that imprisoning a PC is something no bad guy would do, which is very silly, as the others have said the evil dude may have very good reasons to not kill the PC, most things that the PCs may try to escape depend on they having equipment or spells to escape (or at least being very strong), and in a world with all of these clases prisons should be adapted for these things (not giving a rogue any equipment should be enough once he fails his escape artist check, a wizard would be useless without a spellbook, and you can simply mute sorcerers and bards and they would be useless too, and so on) and even if they manage to escape their cells, they still must escape the prison itself with very few resources.

That's really not at all what the passage you quoted said. I said that getting them imprisoned in the first place requires that you stop allowing the PCs to do something every Round, because as long as they have actions, they can try to resist unless they WANT to get inside the prison - and they could break in, if that's the desire. The part about the Wizard being 'useless without a spellbook' is amusing, given how paranoid a competent Wizard who is played with an appropriate INT score is going to be in protecting and duplicating that resource; you'd basically have to have the Wizard in a position where she's already at your mercy to take total spellbook access away, at which point the Speak With Dead and/or Illusion lines can fill many of the functions nominally cited for keeping the Wizard alive. Muting casters is cute, but Silent Spell (and Still Spell, before you bring up their being bound somehow) is a thing that exists in the SRD, so they have no excuse for not having access except personal choice. . . and in most games I have played or seen discussed, those particular Feats are easily available via items.

For PCs in D&D to be taken prisoner, they have to stop resisting the efforts of their captors; once they do that, it's almost always easier and more practical to simply kill them in a world where magic exists. What method would you suggest for taking them prisoner that isn't dependent on their being helpless in the first place (or on a cut scene, which is 'helpless by fiat'), and what reason would you suggest for keeping them prisoner that doesn't have a more straightforward solution in the magic baked into the system?

DM Nate
2014-05-30, 06:27 AM
For that matter, throw out all those silly dice. They put players at the mercy of random numbers, and removes their options!

zinycor
2014-05-30, 06:41 AM
That's really not at all what the passage you quoted said. I said that getting them imprisoned in the first place requires that you stop allowing the PCs to do something every Round, because as long as they have actions, they can try to resist unless they WANT to get inside the prison - and they could break in, if that's the desire. The part about the Wizard being 'useless without a spellbook' is amusing, given how paranoid a competent Wizard who is played with an appropriate INT score is going to be in protecting and duplicating that resource; you'd basically have to have the Wizard in a position where she's already at your mercy to take total spellbook access away, at which point the Speak With Dead and/or Illusion lines can fill many of the functions nominally cited for keeping the Wizard alive. Muting casters is cute, but Silent Spell (and Still Spell, before you bring up their being bound somehow) is a thing that exists in the SRD, so they have no excuse for not having access except personal choice. . . and in most games I have played or seen discussed, those particular Feats are easily available via items.

For PCs in D&D to be taken prisoner, they have to stop resisting the efforts of their captors; once they do that, it's almost always easier and more practical to simply kill them in a world where magic exists. What method would you suggest for taking them prisoner that isn't dependent on their being helpless in the first place (or on a cut scene, which is 'helpless by fiat'), and what reason would you suggest for keeping them prisoner that doesn't have a more straightforward solution in the magic baked into the system?

first of all, why would a wizard have his spellbook if he's imprisoned? I do asume that when you are imprisoned your captors take all of your posetions you may be carrying, so yeah, no spellbook. as for muting casters, yeah you are right, they could always cast using silent spell, that's my bad, then the way to make them prisoners could be as simple as having one dude ready to kill them if they try anything or (if the baddies are high level enough) they could have no-magic zone in the prison.

as for how did they get into such situation, well it might be as you say that they are trying to be in the prison(which would be very fun) or that they simply got defeated and left unconcious, and grabbed them to their prison. You don't even have to have the whole party unconcious, you can just defeat 1 or 2 and ask the players to surrender and come with you or else (kill them inmediatly, finish right now their fallen companions). other methods simply implie letting them into a ****ing trap when someone poisons their food and they fall asleep, and bingo bango.

as for reasons for the baddies to capture them, Arbane did a good list of reasons for them to take the players prisoners, there is the fact that maybe you are on a evil party and got captured by the lawful good guys, so you are taken prisoner until you face your trial, or maybe they want to sell you as a slave, or the baddie wants to torture you instead of killing you.

Besides all your arguments are made with meta knowledge, YOU KNOW how magic works, you know the players have acces to this and this feat at ths and this level, you know that every character has a chance every turn to try and break free BECAUSE YOU ARE A PLAYER WHO KNOWS EXACTLY HOW THIS WORK, the bad guys don't really need to know all this, so even if taking prisoners is not as a good idea within the rules set for the game, if it's a logical thing to do (meaning logical from the baddies perspective, which isn't necessarily aware of all these options) they might as well do it.

TheCountAlucard
2014-05-30, 10:39 AM
Considering this is under general roleplaying games, instead of neatly tucked into one of the D&D subforums, I'm a little annoyed at how D&D-centric this whole thread has been. There have been a couple posts here and there from other perspectives, and I offer Knaight a brofist for the Dread reference, but seriously... :smallsigh:

Averis Vol
2014-05-30, 11:22 AM
I want to make a point I'm not sure anyone has actually mentioned. A dead character, even a TPK, is not the end of the game. At worst, it means you make a new character and start again. You wouldn't even necessarily need to start over at level 1, depending on the DM and the game.
The game only ends when the players decide to stop playing.

Completely agreed. Honestly in my games, death isn't even necessarily the end of that character. There's a primordial being, a dead god with the power akin to a demigod, that is essentially the grim reaper. When you die, your spirit remains in a sort of fugue that is his realm, and if you can beat him in a challenge of your choice, you get sent back to your body.

I think this point is an incredibly important one. I understand being invested in a character, but if it dies it doesn't invalidate all your work, because someone knew and potentially* equally important is going to come along and pick up the torch so to speak. The story must go on, I think the saying is.

*It depends I guess, I've seen DM's that basically had characters start the game with some weird unique mcguffin power and refuse to give it to new characters after the other died.

Angel Bob
2014-05-30, 12:07 PM
Considering this is under general roleplaying games, instead of neatly tucked into one of the D&D subforums, I'm a little annoyed at how D&D-centric this whole thread has been. There have been a couple posts here and there from other perspectives, and I offer Knaight a brofist for the Dread reference, but seriously... :smallsigh:

Well, in a forum attached to a D&D-based webcomic, and given that D&D is possibly the most well-known and frequently-played tabletop RPG of all, it's natural to assume that most of the forumgoers who bothered to post in this topic would be more acquainted with D&D than other games.

If you want discussion about the do's and don't's of saved-by-GM-fiat situations in games other than D&D, by all means, bring up the subject. But complaining that a thread on a predominantly D&D-based forum is predominantly discussing D&D, without making an effort yourself to change things, is not really going to bring about the change you want to see. :smallsmile:

Amphetryon
2014-05-30, 12:15 PM
Considering this is under general roleplaying games, instead of neatly tucked into one of the D&D subforums, I'm a little annoyed at how D&D-centric this whole thread has been. There have been a couple posts here and there from other perspectives, and I offer Knaight a brofist for the Dread reference, but seriously... :smallsigh:

I suspect that this is largely because the OP chose to use "DM" rather than "GM" or another more generic designation for the chief story-teller in the game. Yes, I recognize that some systems are devoid of a 'chief story-teller' role, instead relying on a communal approach, but those systems largely bypass the issue the OP brings up, in my experience.

@zinycor: As far as I can tell, your response is predicated on the imprisonment being successful in the first place, without addressing how this happens in a Round-based combat system where Readied Actions, Teleportation magic, the nature of the Coup de Gras Action, and Initiative (just to name a few mitigating factors) make threats of "surrender or the [insert Character] gets it!" largely empty. Meanwhile, Raise Dead, Speak With Dead, et al make Character death functionally a status effect, so the surviving party members can generally get you back just fine, and the bad guys won't glean any information from a living Character that they couldn't get from a living one unless the DM is choosing to ignore vast swathes of the available Spells in the game.

Cikomyr
2014-05-30, 01:12 PM
To go back to the original question:

Saving your character by a plot device like I gave examples: that is 100% fine.

Saying to your players "I saved you" is a douchy move meant to outline how fail-filled the players are, and it breaks story immersion because it outlines that you can arbitrarily change stuff. If you want to give out a warning, just tell them "be more careful next time", or "you didn't tought of X". You know, try to be helpful.

I prefer to hide my tricks to my players, and I often try to give off the appearance that I am in 100% control and that "I planned for everything!! MWAHAHAHA!! YOU ARE PLAYING RIGHT INTO MY PLOT" while they derailed everything six times in the last 10 minutes. It's just good showmanship, and prevents a GM-player antagonism that is detrimental to the overall game experience.


Only time I am genuinely left speecheless because of a truly brilliant/stupid idea, I usually ask my players for a mulligan with the implied reasoning that someone "owes a favor" to the other party. But I really, really try to avoid using that as it breaks the "storytelling spell" I try to put my players under.

Thrudd
2014-05-30, 01:57 PM
To go back to the original question:

Saving your character by a plot device like I gave examples: that is 100% fine.

Saying to your players "I saved you" is a douchy move meant to outline how fail-filled the players are, and it breaks story immersion because it outlines that you can arbitrarily change stuff. If you want to give out a warning, just tell them "be more careful next time", or "you didn't tought of X". You know, try to be helpful.

I prefer to hide my tricks to my players, and I often try to give off the appearance that I am in 100% control and that "I planned for everything!! MWAHAHAHA!! YOU ARE PLAYING RIGHT INTO MY PLOT" while they derailed everything six times in the last 10 minutes. It's just good showmanship, and prevents a GM-player antagonism that is detrimental to the overall game experience.


Only time I am genuinely left speecheless because of a truly brilliant/stupid idea, I usually ask my players for a mulligan with the implied reasoning that someone "owes a favor" to the other party. But I really, really try to avoid using that as it breaks the "storytelling spell" I try to put my players under.

Yes, if you are playing a game where fudging results to spare the players is acceptable, it is a poor GM that would break immersion to tell everyone that they did so.
If you're going to bother doing it, the players don't need to know; embrace the illusionism. If you are telling them because you feel like they need to play better in the future, just let the game's natural consequences apply, that's the only way they'll learn.

Rhynn
2014-05-30, 02:05 PM
It is the end of THIS game. You start another one.

Which means all the work, all the stories you've built. All the characters created. All of this is for naught.

Nonsense. You still have every last story. Your outlook is ridiculously fatalistic - a game is only worth anything if it goes on for ever? What? That's impossible.

The value of the game is temporary entertainment and the experiences and stories that came out of it. If the stories are cool, satisfying, emotional, awesome, or even terrible (those are some of the best ones), then it's been well worth it.

And I take it you scrap the entire campaign setting when the game ends? I don't. That's why my campaigns can absorb TPKs. Everyone died in the Undermountain? Well, the players are going to go back with a vengeance, and nothing their previous PCs did is going to be undone. They might even find some bones in a familiar location, and maybe some monsters hoarding familiar treasure. Those border realms the PCs founded before being devoured by a dragon? They're still there, being run by someone. That prince they killed? Still dead (with succession affected). That time the PCs reduced Hillsfar to a smoking crater? Still smoking. ("Seriously, $#&% Hillsfar!" - My Players) A great campaign setting is a world created by years of play and player interaction.

Cikomyr
2014-05-30, 06:51 PM
Nonsense. You still have every last story. Your outlook is ridiculously fatalistic - a game is only worth anything if it goes on for ever? What? That's impossible.

The value of the game is temporary entertainment and the experiences and stories that came out of it. If the stories are cool, satisfying, emotional, awesome, or even terrible (those are some of the best ones), then it's been well worth it.

And I take it you scrap the entire campaign setting when the game ends? I don't. That's why my campaigns can absorb TPKs. Everyone died in the Undermountain? Well, the players are going to go back with a vengeance, and nothing their previous PCs did is going to be undone. They might even find some bones in a familiar location, and maybe some monsters hoarding familiar treasure. Those border realms the PCs founded before being devoured by a dragon? They're still there, being run by someone. That prince they killed? Still dead (with succession affected). That time the PCs reduced Hillsfar to a smoking crater? Still smoking. ("Seriously, $#&% Hillsfar!" - My Players) A great campaign setting is a world created by years of play and player interaction.

Did I say that? I never ran a game that did not ended at a natural point. I never run a plot farther than I feel it relevant, and it's important that there is a satisfying conclusion; successful or defeat, to a game.

But that's the point; the game much reach a natural conclusion. A random TPK by a random encounter is an anticlimax that ruins the entire plot that have been played so far. The conclusion can be positive or negative, depending on the player's action. My players know very well they can fail and have the Bad Guys take over the world, because or leading to their death. Or they can win the day.

Angelalex242
2014-05-31, 03:38 AM
I believe it's best to simply roll the dice in front of the players. Perhaps through a 'boot' that eliminates all odds of the dice being fudged one way or the other. I make a point of being as computerlike as possible. The computer doesn't pull punches, it just rolls the dice and lets the numbers fall where they may. If bad luck kills the party, then the game over screen appears, and I'm okay with that. Indeed, the last time that happened, I actually physically sent the players home for the rest of the evening, and told them we'd be beginning a new game with new characters next week. I kinda wanted the brutality of the game over screen stamped into their waking thoughts for the week. If the recurring villain I had in mind gets ganked in the first encounter, so be it, thus spake the dice. I let them know when that happened too. "By the way, he would've been the major villain for the next 5 episodes. You killed him in one. Well done. The world shall change for the better..."

But I never skew probability for or against players. I am a machine, and I am proud of it.

Cikomyr
2014-05-31, 08:44 AM
I believe it's best to simply roll the dice in front of the players. Perhaps through a 'boot' that eliminates all odds of the dice being fudged one way or the other. I make a point of being as computerlike as possible. The computer doesn't pull punches, it just rolls the dice and lets the numbers fall where they may. If bad luck kills the party, then the game over screen appears, and I'm okay with that. Indeed, the last time that happened, I actually physically sent the players home for the rest of the evening, and told them we'd be beginning a new game with new characters next week. I kinda wanted the brutality of the game over screen stamped into their waking thoughts for the week. If the recurring villain I had in mind gets ganked in the first encounter, so be it, thus spake the dice. I let them know when that happened too. "By the way, he would've been the major villain for the next 5 episodes. You killed him in one. Well done. The world shall change for the better..."

But I never skew probability for or against players. I am a machine, and I am proud of it.

The game over screen appears, you are okay with that. And you reload the game, because it's a freakkin' video game.

If you can "reload" in a tabletop RPG game, please tell me.

Slipperychicken
2014-05-31, 09:09 AM
If you can "reload" in a tabletop RPG game, please tell me.

[picks the pieces up, sighs, wipes off the map]

GM: "All right, let's try this again. Remember the monsters might not be in the same places as before. Maybe you'll even make it out with some of your limbs this time."

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 09:20 AM
The game over screen appears, you are okay with that. And you reload the game, because it's a freakkin' video game.

Real gamers play roguelikes (and don't scum). :smallcool:

Cikomyr
2014-05-31, 09:29 AM
[picks the pieces up, sighs, wipes off the map]

GM: "All right, let's try this again. Remember the monsters might not be in the same places as before. Maybe you'll even make it out with some of your limbs this time."

And THAT is acceptable, while fudging dice roll is not?!?! :smallfurious:

Making a "re-do" is, in my opinion, infinity worse than fudging with the rolls or outcomes. That's the biggest break you can have from the game's narrative.


Real gamers play roguelikes (and don't scum). :smallcool:

And guess what? A roguelike has 0 character. 0 motivations. 0 plot. It's just going out, killing stuff, and gaining loot. The perfect video game dungeoncrawler. A horrible role-playing game. I don't care about my roguelike character dying as much as I care about a PC around which I've spent 6 months building a world, backstory, allies and intrigues around.

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 09:38 AM
I don't care about my roguelike character dying as much as I care about a PC around which I've spent 6 months building a world, backstory, allies and intrigues around.

I don't get why you're so upset. There's nothing wrong with storygaming, even if it's not everybody's preference.

It's just a bit silly to use a system that doesn't support it - and, in fact, actively hinders it - and it's a bit weird to pretend you're doing one thing and then actually do another. And if you don't tell your players, you're kinda dishonest.

Cikomyr
2014-05-31, 09:45 AM
I don't get why you're so upset. There's nothing wrong with storygaming, even if it's not everybody's preference.

It's just a bit silly to use a system that doesn't support it - and, in fact, actively hinders it - and it's a bit weird to pretend you're doing one thing and then actually do another. And if you don't tell your players, you're kinda dishonest.

Okay I am curious.

Which system actually hinders storygaming? I mean, beside FATAL

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 09:58 AM
Which system actually hinders storygaming? I mean, beside FATAL

Any game where random character death is possible, which is what this whole thing is basically about - GMs changing dice results and otherwise cheating to make things go the way they wanted instead of the way the dice went.

There's many, many ways to make random character death not possible if it's undesirable. You can put the power in player hands, you can just take death off the table, you can just give players some kind of "story tokens" to affect things (and specifically avoid death; see WFRP fate points, etc.). You can even remove dice and have a system based on, say, resource allocation or choices instead.

So many approaches that work better than the one that was developed from wargames to be, originally, a game where things happen and you have a story afterwards.

If your system requires you to cheat to get the results you desire, you should try a different system (or change the system). Deceiving players about the degree of their agency is just weird. (As a good side effect, a lot of those more story-based systems would increase player agency in the story, often making their participation more explicit.)

Slipperychicken
2014-05-31, 11:02 AM
And THAT is acceptable, while fudging dice roll is not?!?! :smallfurious:

Making a "re-do" is, in my opinion, infinity worse than fudging with the rolls or outcomes. That's the biggest break you can have from the game's narrative.

I mean, not if you force the re-do. You can just be like "Hey, I really wanted to run that dungeon, and it's sad that your characters died before you could see all of it. Would you like to try it again?"

Amphetryon
2014-05-31, 11:44 AM
Okay I am curious.

Which system actually hinders storygaming? I mean, beside FATAL

Spawn of Fashan

Geostationary
2014-05-31, 12:32 PM
I mean, not if you force the re-do. You can just be like "Hey, I really wanted to run that dungeon, and it's sad that your characters died before you could see all of it. Would you like to try it again?"

I think part of the issue with the dungeon crawl is that it greatly de-emphasizes the characters. I mean, they still exist and do things, but the fact that you can just "reboot" with a new party and try to run the dungeon again places a lot more emphasis on player-level interactions and play. The goal is for the players to get through the dungeon; the characters surviving is just a precondition to success- and even then it's not necessary for them all to survive, if any. While the characters have narratives associated with them, they're generally somewhat disposable, interfering with continuity.

Whereas Cikomyr (apologies if I'm wrong) emphasizes the narrative elements of the game and focus on the characters, which makes the traditional dungeon crawl a pretty suboptimal experience. In this case the dice rolls can be secondary to the perceived narrative flow of the game; I do agree that D&D isn't a very good system for this sort of thing, but so long as their players are in the know and have a voice there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Cikomyr
2014-05-31, 12:37 PM
I think part of the issue with the dungeon crawl is that it greatly de-emphasizes the characters. I mean, they still exist and do things, but the fact that you can just "reboot" with a new party and try to run the dungeon again places a lot more emphasis on player-level interactions and play. The goal is for the players to get through the dungeon; the characters surviving is just a precondition to success- and even then it's not necessary for them all to survive, if any. While the characters have narratives associated with them, they're generally somewhat disposable, interfering with continuity.

Whereas Cikomyr (apologies if I'm wrong) emphasizes the narrative elements of the game and focus on the characters, which makes the traditional dungeon crawl a pretty suboptimal experience. In this case the dice rolls can be secondary to the perceived narrative flow of the game; I do agree that D&D isn't a very good system for this sort of thing, but so long as their players are in the know and have a voice there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Nah, you got it straight. Although there are dungeoncrawls in my games, occasionally, they are usually heavily story-dependent. The point is not "get in, kill everything, get their stuff, and then leave"

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 01:07 PM
Nah, you got it straight. Although there are dungeoncrawls in my games, occasionally, they are usually heavily story-dependent. The point is not "get in, kill everything, get their stuff, and then leave"

The thing is, while I definitely like a good dungeon-crawl, my campaigns aren't about going around looting and killing. Usually, they're about politics or a community. (But not so much the characters, I guess, mostly because none of my players is that much of a tabletop-improv-actor.) The previous one was about these guys who got tangled up in a succession conflict and killed a Prince, then buggered off. I think that was probably their part done (partially because that was the first game in that system, and we found the mechanics need some adjustment for better play), but the next characters may very well stumble into the next stage of that same conflict, which has been dramatically altered by the previous PCs (who killed one of the three claimants, who had primogeniture going for him).

The current campaign is more old-school D&D (ACKS), which will involve a lot of dungeon-crawling and hex-crawling, but ultimately it is (probably; I don't know, the players haven't gotten that far yet!) about politics, warfare, the struggle against entropic sorcery, and the fate of the entire region on a short scale. I'm hopeful the PCs will be overthrowing tyrants and liberating cities and making allies and compromises and mistakes and paying the price for their choices, but it's all up to them, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be a fun ride.

The next one I hope to run is going to start out being about dungeon-crawling in the Undermountain, then hopefully transition to hex-crawling on the Savage Frontier, and then probably into ruling border realms and defending them against orc hordes and giants while playing politics and intrigues with the Lords' Alliance and against the Kraken and Zhentarim, and maybe eventually running the GDQ module series and - if the players are clever (and lucky) enough - slaying the Demoness Lolth. That'd be awesome. But after I introduce the premise of "you're in Waterdeep, there's treasure in the Undermountain" most of it's going to be up to my players and the dice. As a GM, I riff off what they do more than anything.

I just think that more random and (on the GM's part) reactive gameplay generates a story that's more fun for the GM (because I don't know what's going to happen ahead of time) and for the players (because they play a bigger part in shaping it and focusing it).

And those campaigns can absorb deaths and TPKs, and things just move on or start over from a different angle. "Okay, so the Lords of the Northern Frontier were killed by giants? Well, it's now six months later, the border realms are being over-run, and you're refugees on the road to Waterdeep, hoping to find safety and shelter..." "Okay, so the Liberators of Tyr were all killed or crippled when they attacked Hamanu in his palace. Hamanu's armies overrun Tyr and sack it. Several months later, in the slave-pits of Urik..."

It's a story about a world that my players are shaping with me. They get to be its heroes or villains or whatever they want to make themselves into.

I like my game to be deadly, and we're all okay with that. A character dying unexpectedly or ingloriously is just as much part of the game as a PC intentionally going off into a heroic death. It shakes things up, lets the player try something new, maybe experience a different aspect of the game, but always leaves a mark on the campaign world - even if it's just a new skeleton in the dungeon and some relocation of treasure... (Although I find that, in most games I play, the bigger a hero a PC is and the longer their story is, the less likely they are to die, without any need for my intervetion as GM.)

Angelalex242
2014-05-31, 04:34 PM
For those of us who do 'everything on the up and up', well, I like making sure my players have an extra character sheet completely filled out. The rules are always thus: You may never be the same race or class as your current character. To prevent 'identical twin brother' syndrome. It prevents me from having to be as extreme as I was the first time I did a TPK.

The XP of the new character is always Identical to the XP of the old character, however. Magic Items are simply whatever WBL allows.

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 09:08 PM
The XP of the new character is always Identical to the XP of the old character, however. Magic Items are simply whatever WBL allows.

I'm a bit more hardcore, which makes sense since I run ACKS... new PCs start with 0 XP, with one by-the-book exception: you can build up an XP reserve with conspicuous consumption (spending gold on things that are of no real benefit, e.g. orgies, anonymous donations to temples, building great big statues of yourself, etc.). It's almost trivial for a 9th-level PC to build a reserve big enough to start at 4th level if they die, and a 4th-level PC is very survivable and will be raking in the levels from treasure shares for the first few adventures.

It wouldn't ever work in D&D 3.5, obviously, because of the huge difference levels make and the way challenges scale. In ACKS (and AD&D, too), a 5th-level fighter and a 9th-level fighter can be in the same party just fine, IME, and even high-level old-school modules feature a lot of low-HD humanoids.

I'm probably going to also allow posthumous XP reserves for elaborate burials, including converting buried magic items into their GP value. Anyone looting such a burial within the first 100 years or so is turned into a wight immediately, no save... (Thanks, Alexander Macris!)

For other games, I tend to do something like 20% of whatever the previous character had (more for a biological heir sired during the campaign) - although in a lot of games I like, the difference between a by-the-book new PC and an experienced one isn't big enough to warrant any help.

In D&D 3.5 (if I were to run it again), I'd probably just start new PCs 1 level below the lowest level in the party. The way the XP table works, they'll catch up (and might, in rare cases, jump ahead, since XP is tallied and levels advanced at the end of an adventure/session).

Thrudd
2014-05-31, 09:35 PM
I'm a bit more hardcore, which makes sense since I run ACKS... new PCs start with 0 XP, with one by-the-book exception: you can build up an XP reserve with conspicuous consumption (spending gold on things that are of no real benefit, e.g. orgies, anonymous donations to temples, building great big statues of yourself, etc.). It's almost trivial for a 9th-level PC to build a reserve big enough to start at 4th level if they die, and a 4th-level PC is very survivable and will be raking in the levels from treasure shares for the first few adventures.

It wouldn't ever work in D&D 3.5, obviously, because of the huge difference levels make and the way challenges scale. In ACKS (and AD&D, too), a 5th-level fighter and a 9th-level fighter can be in the same party just fine, IME, and even high-level old-school modules feature a lot of low-HD humanoids.

I'm probably going to also allow posthumous XP reserves for elaborate burials, including converting buried magic items into their GP value. Anyone looting such a burial within the first 100 years or so is turned into a wight immediately, no save... (Thanks, Alexander Macris!)

For other games, I tend to do something like 20% of whatever the previous character had (more for a biological heir sired during the campaign) - although in a lot of games I like, the difference between a by-the-book new PC and an experienced one isn't big enough to warrant any help.

In D&D 3.5 (if I were to run it again), I'd probably just start new PCs 1 level below the lowest level in the party. The way the XP table works, they'll catch up (and might, in rare cases, jump ahead, since XP is tallied and levels advanced at the end of an adventure/session).

I also give the option of promoting a henchman to PC status, if the character was high enough level to have some henchmen with levels. Sometimes people have almost as much connection to their long-lived henchmen as to their original character.

Slipperychicken
2014-05-31, 10:58 PM
I'm probably going to also allow posthumous XP reserves for elaborate burials, including converting buried magic items into their GP value. Anyone looting such a burial within the first 100 years or so is turned into a wight immediately, no save... (Thanks, Alexander Macris!)


Just use the money to build a massive, elaborate dungeon tomb to house his body, magic items, and install various traps to protect the contents :smallbiggrin:

Rhynn
2014-05-31, 11:03 PM
I also give the option of promoting a henchman to PC status, if the character was high enough level to have some henchmen with levels. Sometimes people have almost as much connection to their long-lived henchmen as to their original character.

Oh, absolutely. Totally blanked on mentioning that. That's the gold standard, really, since it's an established character that the player's been playing at least in part (generally, my players play their henchmen but I veto anything I need to, often based on loyalty rolls). If the henchman has been along with the PC the whole time, he's basically going to be about one level lower (unless the PC was above 9th level, or the henchman was a thief, etc.).

I freaking love henchmen. They solve so many problems...

I've not gotten to do it yet, but I also expect that in campaigns that run long enough, my players may just end up with multiple concurrent PCs at wildly different levels who are basically separate parties. Once PCs hit the level cap (14th for humans in ACKS), there's less to achieve (no mechanical advancement, and they're probably kings or emperors by then), and honestly any time after 9th may be good for at least semi-retiring them (once they've established their own domain, anyway). Playing another party in those PCs' realm, or eventually playing the 1st-level sons and daughters of those PCs, is a great way to start from the bottom without losing all that work - and when the army of giants comes calling, the old PCs are still there, ready to get back to work...

Thrudd
2014-05-31, 11:44 PM
Oh, absolutely. Totally blanked on mentioning that. That's the gold standard, really, since it's an established character that the player's been playing at least in part (generally, my players play their henchmen but I veto anything I need to, often based on loyalty rolls). If the henchman has been along with the PC the whole time, he's basically going to be about one level lower (unless the PC was above 9th level, or the henchman was a thief, etc.).

I freaking love henchmen. They solve so many problems...

I've not gotten to do it yet, but I also expect that in campaigns that run long enough, my players may just end up with multiple concurrent PCs at wildly different levels who are basically separate parties. Once PCs hit the level cap (14th for humans in ACKS), there's less to achieve (no mechanical advancement, and they're probably kings or emperors by then), and honestly any time after 9th may be good for at least semi-retiring them (once they've established their own domain, anyway). Playing another party in those PCs' realm, or eventually playing the 1st-level sons and daughters of those PCs, is a great way to start from the bottom without losing all that work - and when the army of giants comes calling, the old PCs are still there, ready to get back to work...

Oh yeah, that totally works. I've always wanted to have a campaign go on long enough that this was a possibility. You can run a domain management session occasionally to keep up with the old characters, or spent a few turns on domain management at the start of a session before moving on to the new adventuring party.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-01, 09:05 PM
This is what I get for waiting almost a week before coming back to this thread. I'm replying as I go along.

Spoilered for length.


If a player lies about what the dice say, that's cheating. If the GM does it, it's still cheating. It works on both sides. Why roll dice at all if I'm just going to lie about it? If I wanted to have no randomness, I'd use a system that didn't use dice (that way).

The system exists as an aid and framework to the game, the system itself is not the game. How do you respond to that attitude? Because that's the one I take.

Deciding things makes for a more boring, unsurprising game for me. Randomness causes things to happen I don't see coming. That's more fun for me, as a GM.

Okay. That's great for you. How does this have relevance to anyone other than just you and what occurs at your table? Not everyone feels the same way, and some people like to have a mix of both.

If a game has lethality built into the rules, then PCs are supposed to die sometimes. It makes the game a better experience. We just finished B4 - The Lost City this weekend (after 4-5 sessions), and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun or as interesting if the party hadn't lost 2 PCs and a bunch of henchmen. Hopefully, they also learned a bunch about dungeoneering tactics (they're experienced players, but mostly experienced with games like D&D 3E and RuneQuest and MERP, which play very differently to old-school D&D), like 2nd-rank spears, retreating in time, scouting with a thief, etc. They sure made fewer "mistakes" the further they got into the dungeon, and everyone was very satisfied when they finally found the secret tomb, defeated the guardians, and looted it.

I'm glad you enjoy that. However, I still disagree with your first sentence. There is no "supposed to." The system is a chosen framework, existing to be modified as the play group prefers. It is not the game itself, and it cannot, and must not, be allowed to dictate the play groups preferences.

Then run a game that doesn't require you to cheat to make that happen. There are many! They work much better for it than more traditional RPGs.

Did you even read what I wrote earlier about "playing nonlethal games with lethal systems is in no way a wrong way to play?"

To me, a story is what you have after the session or campaign is done, not something you had going into it.

I... cannot even fathom this thought. Suffice to say it sounds nonsensical to me. To me, the story is what you have DURING play.

Responses in blue.


Nice to know that folks who choose to play the game in a way enjoyable to them are having fun wrong and are horrible (and not smart) players, then, I guess.

Yeah, that's what that post sounded like to me, too.


The rules are a tool to make the game fun. They are not the make-all end-all aspect of the game. They can be broken if it makes the game better.

It's all about trust. My players trust me enough to know that I have a good reason to fudge things. They are allowed to call me out of it if they are annoyed, and I usually explain to them why I did what I did, and guess what? They usually agree with me.

Although, it's much better to fudge things to save your player's ass or make a situation much more difficult with a clever twist, and then make it seem that "it was my plan all along" :smallbiggrin: If done elegantly, that sort of last-minute alteration is actually adding to the fun of everyone rather than subtracting.

Completely agreed. The first paragraph is what I was getting at with "The system is not the game" above.


If you're going to act like a child and lie about what I've written, I'm going to have to stop replying to you.

That wasn't a lie about what you wrote, it's exactly how it came across.


*Good things*

It's about the story, not the system. The premise that the DM serves the system is, for me, wrong. The system, like the DM, have to serve the story, and if the system is lacking, then the DM is entitled, empowered even, to dismiss the system.

*Even more good things*

All of this post was excellent. I especially liked the part I left there and the part about randomness.


Don't make me drag out some sort of systematic analysis of what 'game' means please. Suffice to say that losing is not a requirement.



He shouldn't have to insinuate, it's fairly obvious that they have entirely different goals.



I'm never understood this school of thought. The DM can crush you summarily at any time. The only reason you have a chance in hell is because he lets you. This is like "When I was five, I really enjoyed the challenge of boxing with my Dad." Ooookay.

Good stuff. Better to commend you on putting things well than try to respond on my own.

Also, because I'm running out of time and space: I agree with Knaight and Cikomyr on what they say at the bottom of page 3 and on page 4. Cikomyr has pretty much identical outlook to mine, judging on the posts. Part of the reason I feel no need to comment on the conversation on page 4.


Yes, if you are playing a game where fudging results to spare the players is acceptable, it is a poor GM that would break immersion to tell everyone that they did so.
If you're going to bother doing it, the players don't need to know; embrace the illusionism. If you are telling them because you feel like they need to play better in the future, just let the game's natural consequences apply, that's the only way they'll learn.

Completely agreed.


I don't get why you're so upset. There's nothing wrong with storygaming, even if it's not everybody's preference.

It's just a bit silly to use a system that doesn't support it - and, in fact, actively hinders it - and it's a bit weird to pretend you're doing one thing and then actually do another. And if you don't tell your players, you're kinda dishonest.

I do have to comment on this though. It's not silly to use a system that doesn't perfectly mesh mechanically with your playstyle. It happens all the time. It's not even BAD; what if I like (for example) vancian casting, the exact specific character classes and class features that exist in D&D, and so on, but want to do what you call "storygaming"? What's your answer to that? Also, I don't pretend I'm doing one thing and actually do another. And so far as telling players: here's how I pitch it when I run D&D: "This is a collaborative story-making game. Any time there's uncertainty, dice rolls randomly determine outcome. The system tells how to go about undertaking activities in game, but the system is there as a guideline, so if necessary it can be tweaked (and I have some houserules already for you to see before we actually start). I love it when players do things I don't expect, so please feel free to think creatively - I don't want to force you to take only one choice. [If they're familiar with "dying to random crit" concept] I prefer to have consistency and focus on characters, so if the dice gods decide they hate us, I may adjust things to prevent meaningless character death, but that doesn't mean you can just do stupid stuff; there will be consequences for that.




Oh, and final response to Rhynn (prompted by the first page 5 post): I think a big part of our disagreement is that I prefer stories to be character driven, not event or situation driven.

Lord of Shadows
2014-06-01, 09:42 PM
A few coppers for the collection plate:

1) DM's aren't supposed to gloat. At least not in-game. DM''s are supposed to be NEUTRAL and IMPARTIAL. That being said, there is nothing wrong with a believable in-game mechanism, such as friendlies who happen to become aware of their allies' predicament, to gloat about saving the party's bacon. The difference is in the presentation by the DM. Whether it's cavalry, or a surprise attack by another group, or whatever, let THEM do the gloating. Keep everything in the game, so to speak.

2) In the example the OP cited about his party of two being confronted by a well-armed team of four, what could have happened was this:


NPC's take party prisoner, lock them up in a nearby room/building/area for later interrogation, perhaps because the NPC's have some important mission to finish. Either (a) they leave the party guarded by lower-level grunts, who the party CAN overcome and escape, or (b) they leave the party unguarded and the party engineers its own escape. Both of these solutions will show the players that there are forces out there that they don't want to mess with just yet, but that it is also possible to evade the consequences of messing with them. Of course, if the same party later comes across the same NPC's, and said NPC's remember them, they are perfectly fine in opening fire. Avoiding this group could become another plot element in the party's overall campaign.

There are other ways of extricating a group from a bad situation than by "letting" them beat an overpowering NPC force. And ways that are reasonable and believable.

Geostationary
2014-06-01, 11:01 PM
A few coppers for the collection plate:

1) DM's aren't supposed to gloat. At least not in-game. DM''s are supposed to be NEUTRAL and IMPARTIAL. That being said, there is nothing wrong with a believable in-game mechanism, such as friendlies who happen to become aware of their allies' predicament, to gloat about saving the party's bacon. The difference is in the presentation by the DM. Whether it's cavalry, or a surprise attack by another group, or whatever, let THEM do the gloating. Keep everything in the game, so to speak.


So while I understand and totally agree with this, I disagree on the impartiality of the DM/GM/HG/ST/etc. I am hella biased towards my players doing cool things and the narrative doing crazy (coherent) backflips. I'm not impartial because I want to see what the PCs will get up to. I'll try to be fair about it, don't get me wrong, but I cannot promise impartiality or neutrality. While we are running the game we aren't just referees; we're players too.

For reference, I tend to run things like Nobilis that have more focus on narrative and player agency.

But yes. Gloating = Bad. Don't do it.

Rhynn
2014-06-01, 11:49 PM
This is what I get for waiting almost a week before coming back to this thread. I'm replying as I go along.

You're really hard to reply to when your replies are inside quotes, I have to manually copy-paste them over from another tab...


The system exists as an aid and framework to the game, the system itself is not the game. How do you respond to that attitude? Because that's the one I take.

I think you should use a system that doesn't result in lying to or deceiving your players about what is going on, mechanically. (Giving their characters false information is fine.) If you make a change to how the system works - which is just fine - or have to decide whether to use some part of it or not, that's fine. GM discretion. But fudging numbers on the fly to get the result you want isn't part of my philosophy.


Okay. That's great for you. How does this have relevance to anyone other than just you and what occurs at your table? Not everyone feels the same way, and some people like to have a mix of both.

Wait, are you saying people shouldn't explain how and why they play? Shouldn't give and justify their opinions?

That's the dumbest thing I've read in this thread.


The system is a chosen framework, existing to be modified as the play group prefers.

Yes, it is. But unless you modify out random death, then random death is part of the system.

Again, the point is being open and honest with your players, and not deceiving them about how the game and the rules work. Give players narrative control over death, make random death impossible, give player fate points to avoid death, whatever. Don't fudge numbers.


Did you even read what I wrote earlier about "playing nonlethal games with lethal systems is in no way a wrong way to play?"

See above. Remove or change any part of a system you want - I do it all the time - but don't lie about it or pretend you didn't to the players.


I... cannot even fathom this thought. Suffice to say it sounds nonsensical to me. To me, the story is what you have DURING play.

During play, there's a bunch of stuff that happens.

Afterwards, if it was interesting or cool or even horrible, someone tells a story about it. Then you've got a story.

It's a difference of approaches: I don't go into the game with a story (the way, say, all modern adventure modules that drag you from encounter to encounter, scene to scene, do). I come out of the game with a story.


what if I like (for example) vancian casting, the exact specific character classes and class features that exist in D&D, and so on, but want to do what you call "storygaming"? What's your answer to that?

Change the things you need to change to make the game run the way you want, and tell your players. Don't fudge numbers. (Are you as sick of reading that as I am of writing it?)

Also, read other systems, there's either one that's going to work better for you, or a bunch of ideas that can be used to modify the system you're using to work better.


Also, I don't pretend I'm doing one thing and actually do another.

So why are you acting like you've been attacked? If you're not fudging numbers and cheating at dice and deceiving your players, how have I been talking about what you're doing? The red threads of this thread were/are 1. fudging numbers and 2. gloating about it to the players.


I think a big part of our disagreement is that I prefer stories to be character driven, not event or situation driven.

Nope, pretty much everything that happens in my games is driven by the PCs' choices and actions and their consequences. The players decide where to go, what to focus on, and so on.

The difference between me and apparently most people is that I don't go into a game with an idea of what should happen. If that's not the difference between me and you, then the only difference is that I like randomness because that way, I get to enjoy knowing less about what's going to happen when I GM.

Although I suppose you may mean "character-driven" in the sense that PCs have to have a written background or something? Then you'd be right, because I don't go in for that; I think anything that happened before play began is so much less important that my players don't need to spend time on it. (If they want to, for their own benefit, cool. But ultimately, I'm mostly interested in what they do during play. Coming up with some background hooks is cool, but even motivations are really easy to develop organically in play, IME.)

Thrudd
2014-06-02, 12:08 AM
This is what I get for waiting almost a week before coming back to this thread. I'm replying as I go along.

Spoilered for length.



Responses in blue.



Yeah, that's what that post sounded like to me, too.



Completely agreed. The first paragraph is what I was getting at with "The system is not the game" above.



That wasn't a lie about what you wrote, it's exactly how it came across.



All of this post was excellent. I especially liked the part I left there and the part about randomness.



Good stuff. Better to commend you on putting things well than try to respond on my own.

Also, because I'm running out of time and space: I agree with Knaight and Cikomyr on what they say at the bottom of page 3 and on page 4. Cikomyr has pretty much identical outlook to mine, judging on the posts. Part of the reason I feel no need to comment on the conversation on page 4.



Completely agreed.



I do have to comment on this though. It's not silly to use a system that doesn't perfectly mesh mechanically with your playstyle. It happens all the time. It's not even BAD; what if I like (for example) vancian casting, the exact specific character classes and class features that exist in D&D, and so on, but want to do what you call "storygaming"? What's your answer to that? Also, I don't pretend I'm doing one thing and actually do another. And so far as telling players: here's how I pitch it when I run D&D: "This is a collaborative story-making game. Any time there's uncertainty, dice rolls randomly determine outcome. The system tells how to go about undertaking activities in game, but the system is there as a guideline, so if necessary it can be tweaked (and I have some houserules already for you to see before we actually start). I love it when players do things I don't expect, so please feel free to think creatively - I don't want to force you to take only one choice. [If they're familiar with "dying to random crit" concept] I prefer to have consistency and focus on characters, so if the dice gods decide they hate us, I may adjust things to prevent meaningless character death, but that doesn't mean you can just do stupid stuff; there will be consequences for that.




Oh, and final response to Rhynn (prompted by the first page 5 post): I think a big part of our disagreement is that I prefer stories to be character driven, not event or situation driven.

I agree, it is not wrong to modify or ignore the game system to play in whatever way you like. But this does not change the facts of the game itself. For D&D, at least original through 3e/PF, the rules describe a game which is not a story game. I think it is justified to say the game is "supposed" to be played according to the rules as written.

See the section titled "DM Cheating and Player Perceptions and "When bad things happen to good characters" in the 3.5e DMG. It pretty much says everything we've been saying here.

Quotes: "Both the DM and the players take the bad with the good. That’s a perfectly acceptable way to play, and if there’s a default method of DMing, that’s it."

"Characters suffer setbacks...and die (sometimes repeatedly). Unfortunate events are part of the game, almost as much as success...and attaining greatness. But players don’t always take it well when something bad happens to their characters. Remind players that sometimes bad things happen. Challenges are what the game’s all about."

Not saying that the 3.5 DMG, or 3.5 in general, always has the best advice for running games. It does have an earlier paragraph where it mentions "deep-immersion storytelling" as a style of play, where you may want to change rules to serve the story and roleplaying needs. "Rules become less important in this style." But it does not give any recommendations as to what those changes might be...which I think is probably because they recognized this style of story gaming really ignores most of the game system as written. The DMG acknowledges you might want to play this way, and also that the game as written mostly does not support this style of play (therefore why you need to change or ignore the rules).

So no, it is not wrong to modify D&D to use as a story game. But acknowledge that it is, in fact, a modification of the game rather than the default way it was designed to be played. This is even more true of earlier editions of the game.

Fudging dice rolls by the DM is referred to as "cheating", even as late as 3.5e, and they encourage you to make sure your players at least believe that their characters face real consequences for their actions. (I hate the bit where they actually recommend lying to the players if you decide to fudge the dice to save them - but the following paragraph they contradict that stance and say you will probably have more fun if you accept the good with the bad on both sides of the DM screen, and let bad things happen.)

Rhynn
2014-06-02, 01:57 AM
So no, it is not wrong to modify D&D to use as a story game. But acknowledge that it is, in fact, a modification of the game rather than the default way it was designed to be played. This is even more true of earlier editions of the game.

I think the key is openness and consistency - they make the game better for the players in the long run - and fudging numbers when you don't feel they're right is neither open nor consistent.

FWIW, fudging numbers for the players' benefit is more acceptable than fudging them against the players. (That includes "dang, I thought this fight would last longer, better raise this thing's hit points." No! Bad GM! Let the players at least succeed on their own, even if you won't let them fail on their own.) I don't do either, though.

Alberic Strein
2014-06-02, 07:41 AM
Thrudd :

I respectfully disagree.

Let's take an example!

When you work for a company, you sign a contract, a definite set of rules to which the particular rules of the workplace will be added. Extensive care will be put in the crafting of those rules so everyone can understand them and abide by them.

The company will also have rules for the parking lot. But they will be way lighter, even maybe consisting only of a few guidelines like "don't park your car like a douchebag" and "don't crash your car on the premices", depending on the situation. Same with colleagues interaction. There are some definite do's and dont's but between those, you are free.

Likewise, there will be rules in your neighborhood, and your community, which will be extensive and all, but nobody will put great effort into crafting rules as to how you should mow your lawn. It's your business, and nobody has anything to say about it, as long as you don't do it in an offensive manner.

Yet, would one consider the rules-extensive part to be superior the the rules-light part?

Nope. It's just that the rules need to be extensive for some points, and light for some others.

D&D is the same. You NEED to put some real effort into the combat rules, even making them the bulk of the system, because they are what define the identity of the game compared to its rivals. However, social interactions for example, need to be rules-light, as each situation is different and can change extremely quickly. The cleric can cast bestow curse, targeting will, after the fighter attacked the AC, without the mechanics changing. The AC and Will save remain the same. However, trying to woo the princess after the barbarian brutally verbally assaulted her so she would stop b*tching about the quality of the cart is going to be a tad more difficult. In such situations common sense needs to take precedence over the rules, and enter the magnificent realm of DM-fiat.

So no, the subject of the rules, and how extensive or not they are on a subject, the mechanics they present and the general "feel" of those rules do not determine the nature of the game. It's just that the combat rules need a different treatment from social encounter rules (for example).

Also, the combat rules serve to determine specifically in what capacity things are possible, and provide reference so as to let a player know where exactly he is on the grand scheme of things. In other words, it gives landmarks to let people explore the world around them, and they are needed (and they need to be so extensive) because otherwise the DM would have to constantly pull out numbers from his arse and players wouldn't know where they stand powerwise.

While "skill test" rules are extremely simple, even simplistic, because the DM will be extremely prompt to exclaim "this is bullsh*t!" in front of a situation which breaks his suspension of disbelief, while he won't have that reaction with combat, since it's fantasy anyway, and it entails some willing suspension of disbelief.

Also, I sense something a bit weird in your argumentary, it's almost as though you place the DM as a player.

I think it is justified to say the game is "supposed" to be played according to the rules as written.
But acknowledge that it is, in fact, a modification of the game rather than the default way it was designed to be played

(italics and emphasis mine)

In the whole thread, it was never about players deciding that "yeah, doing a submission hold is at a stupidly high DC, screw that, let me do it as a simple reflex based test". It was always about DM's deciding that no, actually the next reinforcements of orcs would not come every turn, but every other turn, that they would have half stats and HP, and that they would be wielding spears. And no, that peculiar orc did not just score a critical hit. And at no moment in those examples is the DM "playing". He is hosting the game. He is here to let his players have fun. That's his responsibility. A monster is not a DMPC, the DM does not "play" through his creatures. He does not play the game, he creates the game.

I agree it would be different in situations where the DM could step back from his DM work, as in a hosting a pre-created module, in which the heavy lifting was already done and the DM's job in this situation is, with the level appropriate encounter he has been given, to give an interesting and challenging encounter.

I would go even further, by claiming that D&D is not even a game. It's a system. The game is what the DM, or the module's creator cooks up thanks to rules from this system.

D&D has no way it should be played. It is a system with a number of guidelines, all of them susceptible to DM-fiat.

tl;dr : A DM is not playing with you at a D&D game, he is playing you and uses the D&D system to pass you messages you can decrypt.


Rhynn : The key is for it to be fun. An open and consistent boring game is just a boring game. An interisting game in which you don't know what the DM just rolled behind is screen is an interesting and thrilling game.

Being open is a tool, an useful tool even. I personnally used "Ok guys, I'm at a loss for what to do" a number of times. Because I had amended the rules to make sense before and that in the new case the rules (amended or not) still did not make sense. I am also sometimes very open towards my players as far as propositions go "Hey, how about..." and letting my players decide if they want it in the game or not. Of course, afterwards, the bad guys are going to benefit from this rule as well.

However, between keeping my policy of being open and making the game even a tad bit better for a single one of my players, then I will choose the players.

Idem with consistency. It can be useful, but if it's detrimental to the enjoyment from a player... Then to hell with it.

The view of fudging die being cheating operates on a wrong basis, that players and DM operate on the same level and are even playing the same game. Which, from a certain point of view, which I agree with, they are definitely not.

Thrudd
2014-06-02, 05:04 PM
I would go even further, by claiming that D&D is not even a game. It's a system. The game is what the DM, or the module's creator cooks up thanks to rules from this system.

D&D has no way it should be played. It is a system with a number of guidelines, all of them susceptible to DM-fiat.

tl;dr : A DM is not playing with you at a D&D game, he is playing you and uses the D&D system to pass you messages you can decrypt.


Everyone, the DM and the players together, are playing a game of D&D. This is what I meant by the word "played". The DM has a different role in the game than the players do, yes, but I still consider it "playing". It is still a game, with rules. When those rules are followed, it creates a certain type of game experience.

It is not wrong to play it differently than was intended, to change or ignore rules. By the time of 3e, the designers knew that it was played in a wide variety of ways by different people, they addressed this in the DMG chapter I was quoting. Yet they still never included in the game alternative rules to the "default" way of playing, which is an impartial DM that uses the game mechanics to describe the results of the players' actions, and allows both good and bad. The designers acknowledge that the game doesn't work so well if the players don't feel like their characters are really in danger.

The purpose of the thread was essentially addressing what this chapter of the DMG addresses...DM "cheating" and how to handle it when the dice give bad results for the players. The advice of this chapter is to let both good and bad results stand, in order to maintain the players' sense that there are real consequences for their actions. While you may be tempted to "cheat" and fudge rolls, both to keep the players from dying ignominiously or to keep them from winning too easily (both normally done for "story reasons"), doing so will require that you lie to them about it in order to maintain their immersion in the game.

My position, and that of Rhynn and some others, is that lying to the players in this way is unacceptable.

If you want a game where it is possible to avoid the situations caused by poor die rolls, there are ways to do that without cheating the game. It is fine to alter the rules to make it less lethal, and to enable the DM or the players themselves to have narrative fiat when random results would be unacceptable for the story. But everyone should know this at the beginning of the game. The DM could say "I will only have you roll the dice when there should be a question of the outcome, so sometimes we will just decide the results of your actions without rolling." Or "I have added a "fate point" mechanic to the game, which you will be able to spend at any time during each session in order to succeed at any task or save your character from being killed". Or "I am changing the rules on death, your character can only die if you want them to. Otherwise, any amount of negative HP will mean that your character is unconscious for a while."

In the situation where the DM does not want his players to have a difficult fight, but it turns out the enemies they selected are too tough, you get into some other issues dealing with differences of adventure/encounter design. There is no right or wrong answer to this situation, it depends on the style of the game being played. The only "wrong" thing, in my eyes, is to deceive the players regarding the nature of the game.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-02, 06:25 PM
Thrudd :

I respectfully disagree.

Let's take an example!

When you work for a company, you sign a contract, a definite set of rules to which the particular rules of the workplace will be added. Extensive care will be put in the crafting of those rules so everyone can understand them and abide by them.

The company will also have rules for the parking lot. But they will be way lighter, even maybe consisting only of a few guidelines like "don't park your car like a douchebag" and "don't crash your car on the premices", depending on the situation. Same with colleagues interaction. There are some definite do's and dont's but between those, you are free.

Likewise, there will be rules in your neighborhood, and your community, which will be extensive and all, but nobody will put great effort into crafting rules as to how you should mow your lawn. It's your business, and nobody has anything to say about it, as long as you don't do it in an offensive manner.

Yet, would one consider the rules-extensive part to be superior the the rules-light part?

Nope. It's just that the rules need to be extensive for some points, and light for some others.

D&D is the same. You NEED to put some real effort into the combat rules, even making them the bulk of the system, because they are what define the identity of the game compared to its rivals. However, social interactions for example, need to be rules-light, as each situation is different and can change extremely quickly. The cleric can cast bestow curse, targeting will, after the fighter attacked the AC, without the mechanics changing. The AC and Will save remain the same. However, trying to woo the princess after the barbarian brutally verbally assaulted her so she would stop b*tching about the quality of the cart is going to be a tad more difficult. In such situations common sense needs to take precedence over the rules, and enter the magnificent realm of DM-fiat.

So no, the subject of the rules, and how extensive or not they are on a subject, the mechanics they present and the general "feel" of those rules do not determine the nature of the game. It's just that the combat rules need a different treatment from social encounter rules (for example).

Also, the combat rules serve to determine specifically in what capacity things are possible, and provide reference so as to let a player know where exactly he is on the grand scheme of things. In other words, it gives landmarks to let people explore the world around them, and they are needed (and they need to be so extensive) because otherwise the DM would have to constantly pull out numbers from his arse and players wouldn't know where they stand powerwise.

While "skill test" rules are extremely simple, even simplistic, because the DM will be extremely prompt to exclaim "this is bullsh*t!" in front of a situation which breaks his suspension of disbelief, while he won't have that reaction with combat, since it's fantasy anyway, and it entails some willing suspension of disbelief.

Also, I sense something a bit weird in your argumentary, it's almost as though you place the DM as a player.

I think it is justified to say the game is "supposed" to be played according to the rules as written.
But acknowledge that it is, in fact, a modification of the game rather than the default way it was designed to be played

(italics and emphasis mine)

In the whole thread, it was never about players deciding that "yeah, doing a submission hold is at a stupidly high DC, screw that, let me do it as a simple reflex based test". It was always about DM's deciding that no, actually the next reinforcements of orcs would not come every turn, but every other turn, that they would have half stats and HP, and that they would be wielding spears. And no, that peculiar orc did not just score a critical hit. And at no moment in those examples is the DM "playing". He is hosting the game. He is here to let his players have fun. That's his responsibility. A monster is not a DMPC, the DM does not "play" through his creatures. He does not play the game, he creates the game.

I agree it would be different in situations where the DM could step back from his DM work, as in a hosting a pre-created module, in which the heavy lifting was already done and the DM's job in this situation is, with the level appropriate encounter he has been given, to give an interesting and challenging encounter.

I would go even further, by claiming that D&D is not even a game. It's a system. The game is what the DM, or the module's creator cooks up thanks to rules from this system.

D&D has no way it should be played. It is a system with a number of guidelines, all of them susceptible to DM-fiat.

tl;dr : A DM is not playing with you at a D&D game, he is playing you and uses the D&D system to pass you messages you can decrypt.


Rhynn : The key is for it to be fun. An open and consistent boring game is just a boring game. An interisting game in which you don't know what the DM just rolled behind is screen is an interesting and thrilling game.

Being open is a tool, an useful tool even. I personnally used "Ok guys, I'm at a loss for what to do" a number of times. Because I had amended the rules to make sense before and that in the new case the rules (amended or not) still did not make sense. I am also sometimes very open towards my players as far as propositions go "Hey, how about..." and letting my players decide if they want it in the game or not. Of course, afterwards, the bad guys are going to benefit from this rule as well.

However, between keeping my policy of being open and making the game even a tad bit better for a single one of my players, then I will choose the players.

Idem with consistency. It can be useful, but if it's detrimental to the enjoyment from a player... Then to hell with it.

The view of fudging die being cheating operates on a wrong basis, that players and DM operate on the same level and are even playing the same game. Which, from a certain point of view, which I agree with, they are definitely not.

This person speaks truth. All the points that I feel are in contention that I think Rhynn disagrees with but I hold to be not only true but self-evident I emphasized in bold.

And so, with that in mind...


Everyone, the DM and the players together, are playing a game of D&D. This is what I meant by the word "played". The DM has a different role in the game than the players do, yes, but I still consider it "playing". It is still a game, with rules. When those rules are followed, it creates a certain type of game experience.

It is not wrong to play it differently than was intended, to change or ignore rules. By the time of 3e, the designers knew that it was played in a wide variety of ways by different people, they addressed this in the DMG chapter I was quoting. Yet they still never included in the game alternative rules to the "default" way of playing, which is an impartial DM that uses the game mechanics to describe the results of the players' actions, and allows both good and bad. The designers acknowledge that the game doesn't work so well if the players don't feel like their characters are really in danger.

The purpose of the thread was essentially addressing what this chapter of the DMG addresses...DM "cheating" and how to handle it when the dice give bad results for the players. The advice of this chapter is to let both good and bad results stand, in order to maintain the players' sense that there are real consequences for their actions. While you may be tempted to "cheat" and fudge rolls, both to keep the players from dying ignominiously or to keep them from winning too easily (both normally done for "story reasons"), doing so will require that you lie to them about it in order to maintain their immersion in the game.

My position, and that of Rhynn and some others, is that lying to the players in this way is unacceptable.

If you want a game where it is possible to avoid the situations caused by poor die rolls, there are ways to do that without cheating the game. It is fine to alter the rules to make it less lethal, and to enable the DM or the players themselves to have narrative fiat when random results would be unacceptable for the story. But everyone should know this at the beginning of the game. The DM could say "I will only have you roll the dice when there should be a question of the outcome, so sometimes we will just decide the results of your actions without rolling." Or "I have added a "fate point" mechanic to the game, which you will be able to spend at any time during each session in order to succeed at any task or save your character from being killed". Or "I am changing the rules on death, your character can only die if you want them to. Otherwise, any amount of negative HP will mean that your character is unconscious for a while."

In the situation where the DM does not want his players to have a difficult fight, but it turns out the enemies they selected are too tough, you get into some other issues dealing with differences of adventure/encounter design. There is no right or wrong answer to this situation, it depends on the style of the game being played. The only "wrong" thing, in my eyes, is to deceive the players regarding the nature of the game.

Point by point (each thing I put in bold or underlined):

1) Once again, D&D is not a game, it's a system, existing to facilitate a game (and can, and I argue should, be modified and tailored to the individual group and their playstyle - note that I'm not just talking about changing the rules, I'm also talking about ignoring them). This is not semantics on my part, it fundamentally alters the way we see the situation. The rules are NOT the be-all-and-end-all, absolute and sacred. They are the agreed-upon framework and guidelines. The rules exist to serve the game, not the other way around.

2) And my position is that fudging for the sake of group enjoyment ISN'T LYING. As I mentioned in my previous post, I AM up front with players about the goals of the game and the fact that the dice are not the gods of what happens. I just don't tell my players the specific instances when fudging happens. "Illusionism," as I've seen it called on this forum, especially when it comes down to things like risk, is NOT a bad thing. Now, illusionism for things like whether the players choices matter and stuff like that is terrible, but that's a completely different kettle of fish.

3) We're not cheating the game. THE SYSTEM IS NOT THE GAME. There is no game to cheat when it comes to things like this. A REAL example of the GM cheating the game is doing something like "Oh, I don't want my players to get access to the special artifact that the enemy they killed was using. Uh... A wizard teleports in and grabs the artifact, leaving before you have a chance to react!" That's cheating the game.

4) For the underlined bit: Agree and disagree. Agree in that this is an entirely valid way of handling it. Disagree that this is the only valid way of handling it.

5) I think you're operating on a different definition of "deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game" than I am. I agree with the statement, I just think you mean something different with it than I do. To me, giving "illusion of risk" is not deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game. Telling someone that the campaign would be about badasses kicking *** and taking names in the military and then playing a super gritty military campaign where every conflict carries real risk of death and demise for the PCs is deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game, even if you chose a system with gritty death rules and the players knew that from the start. Because... the system is not the game. Game trumps system when the intent and nature of the game conflicts with the rules of the system.

Amphetryon
2014-06-02, 06:40 PM
Everyone, the DM and the players together, are playing a game of D&D. This is what I meant by the word "played". The DM has a different role in the game than the players do, yes, but I still consider it "playing". It is still a game, with rules. When those rules are followed, it creates a certain type of game experience.

It is not wrong to play it differently than was intended, to change or ignore rules. By the time of 3e, the designers knew that it was played in a wide variety of ways by different people, they addressed this in the DMG chapter I was quoting. Yet they still never included in the game alternative rules to the "default" way of playing, which is an impartial DM that uses the game mechanics to describe the results of the players' actions, and allows both good and bad. The designers acknowledge that the game doesn't work so well if the players don't feel like their characters are really in danger.

The purpose of the thread was essentially addressing what this chapter of the DMG addresses...DM "cheating" and how to handle it when the dice give bad results for the players. The advice of this chapter is to let both good and bad results stand, in order to maintain the players' sense that there are real consequences for their actions. While you may be tempted to "cheat" and fudge rolls, both to keep the players from dying ignominiously or to keep them from winning too easily (both normally done for "story reasons"), doing so will require that you lie to them about it in order to maintain their immersion in the game.

My position, and that of Rhynn and some others, is that lying to the players in this way is unacceptable.

If you want a game where it is possible to avoid the situations caused by poor die rolls, there are ways to do that without cheating the game. It is fine to alter the rules to make it less lethal, and to enable the DM or the players themselves to have narrative fiat when random results would be unacceptable for the story. But everyone should know this at the beginning of the game. The DM could say "I will only have you roll the dice when there should be a question of the outcome, so sometimes we will just decide the results of your actions without rolling." Or "I have added a "fate point" mechanic to the game, which you will be able to spend at any time during each session in order to succeed at any task or save your character from being killed". Or "I am changing the rules on death, your character can only die if you want them to. Otherwise, any amount of negative HP will mean that your character is unconscious for a while."

In the situation where the DM does not want his players to have a difficult fight, but it turns out the enemies they selected are too tough, you get into some other issues dealing with differences of adventure/encounter design. There is no right or wrong answer to this situation, it depends on the style of the game being played. The only "wrong" thing, in my eyes, is to deceive the players regarding the nature of the game.
The following situation came up one week while I was DMing 3.5e; it is not intended as a strawman argument, and I have seen similar situations come up enough that, if it represents a statistical outlier, then my experiences over the years are so atypical as to essentially embody the outlier personally:

Taking into account the party's offense, defenses, and typical tactics, I selected a combat that was weighted toward the Players; the number of enemies was equal to the number of party members, so the action economy was not an issue, while those party members who roll attacks needed a 7 or more in order to do hit and damage the enemy, who needed to roll a 14 or better to hit the party or defend against spells cast offensively by the party. None of the enemies were using weapons with a high Crit range, or deliberately targeting weaker saves. First, do you agree this represents what should be a fight that favors the party?

Three rounds into the fight, and none of the party has rolled above a 5, while none of the enemy has rolled below a 16 - rolled in the open. A fight that was supposed to be easy has the party staring down the barrel of a TPK. Your commentary, above, indicates this must be because "the enemies [the DM] selected are too tough." In what way was the selection of enemies, rather than the RNG, at fault?

Thrudd
2014-06-02, 07:21 PM
This person speaks truth. All the points that I feel are in contention that I think Rhynn disagrees with but I hold to be not only true but self-evident I emphasized in bold.

And so, with that in mind...



Point by point (each thing I put in bold or underlined):

1) Once again, D&D is not a game, it's a system, existing to facilitate a game (and can, and I argue should, be modified and tailored to the individual group and their playstyle - note that I'm not just talking about changing the rules, I'm also talking about ignoring them). This is not semantics on my part, it fundamentally alters the way we see the situation. The rules are NOT the be-all-and-end-all, absolute and sacred. They are the agreed-upon framework and guidelines. The rules exist to serve the game, not the other way around.

2) And my position is that fudging for the sake of group enjoyment ISN'T LYING. As I mentioned in my previous post, I AM up front with players about the goals of the game and the fact that the dice are not the gods of what happens. I just don't tell my players the specific instances when fudging happens. "Illusionism," as I've seen it called on this forum, especially when it comes down to things like risk, is NOT a bad thing. Now, illusionism for things like whether the players choices matter and stuff like that is terrible, but that's a completely different kettle of fish.

3) We're not cheating the game. THE SYSTEM IS NOT THE GAME. There is no game to cheat when it comes to things like this. A REAL example of the GM cheating the game is doing something like "Oh, I don't want my players to get access to the special artifact that the enemy they killed was using. Uh... A wizard teleports in and grabs the artifact, leaving before you have a chance to react!" That's cheating the game.

4) For the underlined bit: Agree and disagree. Agree in that this is an entirely valid way of handling it. Disagree that this is the only valid way of handling it.

5) I think you're operating on a different definition of "deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game" than I am. I agree with the statement, I just think you mean something different with it than I do. To me, giving "illusion of risk" is not deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game. Telling someone that the campaign would be about badasses kicking *** and taking names in the military and then playing a super gritty military campaign where every conflict carries real risk of death and demise for the PCs is deceiving the players regarding the nature of the game, even if you chose a system with gritty death rules and the players knew that from the start. Because... the system is not the game. Game trumps system when the intent and nature of the game conflicts with the rules of the system.

Fair enough, that you disagree about lying/illusionism being bad for the game. I feel like it will only work so long as the players never figure out that you are doing it. If the system has gritty combat rules, and you want a game that is not gritty, then you need to modify the system to fit how you want to play, or choose a different system. Just tell the players in the beginning that you are doing this.

The dichotomy of system/game is a matter of semantics which you guys are getting hung up on. We can just as easily call it a game system, which is what it is. A game system is designed to allow certain types of play, if it is used as written. Some types of play will not naturally emerge from any given system, and can only happen when certain elements are ignored or changed. What is published by the designers of the game regarding how it should be played is good evidence of what sorts of play their system is meant to be good at doing, and what it can't really do well. D&D does dungeoncrawl sandbox and immersive interaction with a persistent game world pretty well. It does not do narrative-focused, plot-driven storytelling very well. The system, or game, whatever you want to call it, requires a fair amount of DM modification to work as a storytelling game (or it requires a high amount of illusionism/cheating).

Whether you call it cheating or illusionism or DM fiat, I feel that lying to the players about how the game works detracts from the game, both for me as DM and for my players. If you tell them, up front, that you will ignore dice rolls whenever you see fit in order to further your plot, then there is no lying going on. I would say, in this case, why even bother rolling the dice at all if you don't want a random outcome? But I suppose people have their reasons.

A game of D&D where you almost never roll the dice is a valid way to play, certainly. But I would categorize such a game as "ignoring most of the rules", and not contradictory to my point about D&D not being a good storytelling game/system. It isn't right or wrong to play this way, but it makes the game system almost irrelevant. You could free-form role play without any system at all and have results as good or perhaps even better.

veti
2014-06-02, 07:26 PM
The following situation came up one week while I was DMing 3.5e; it is not intended as a strawman argument, and I have seen similar situations come up enough that, if it represents a statistical outlier, then my experiences over the years are so atypical as to essentially embody the outlier personally:

Taking into account the party's offense, defenses, and typical tactics, I selected a combat that was weighted toward the Players; the number of enemies was equal to the number of party members, so the action economy was not an issue, while those party members who roll attacks needed a 7 or less in order to do hit and damage the enemy, who needed to roll a 14 or better to hit the party or defend against spells cast offensively by the party. None of the enemies were using weapons with a high Crit range, or deliberately targeting weaker saves. First, do you agree this represents what should be a fight that favors the party?

Three rounds into the fight, and none of the party has rolled above a 5, while none of the enemy has rolled below a 16 - rolled in the open. A fight that was supposed to be easy has the party staring down the barrel of a TPK. Your commentary, above, indicates this must be because "the enemies [the DM] selected are too tough." In what way was the selection of enemies, rather than the RNG, at fault?

OK, I know from my own experience that that sort of thing can happen. (I think you may be overstating either how one-sided it was, or how often it happens. Crunching the numbers for a party of 4, each making 1 attack per round, I get odds of just under 2 in one trillion. If the party is larger than that, or get more than one attack per round, the odds go rapidly down from there. If that's happening regularly, you may want to think about replacing your dice.)

But setting that aside: assuming the PCs would expect to have dispatched the enemy in two rounds, they would still expect to take (0.35 * 4 * 2 =) about 3 hits - and that's assuming, according to your description, that the enemy aren't fighting intelligently. Would you, as a small-unit leader, lead your troops blithely into a confrontation where you expected at least half of them to get wounded even if the enemy fight like idiots?

I wouldn't. I'd do my best to avoid that combat. Even if I expect to polish off the enemy quickly and cleanly, I'll still take every tactical advantage I can get. "Fighting fair" is for kids.

Thrudd
2014-06-02, 07:48 PM
The following situation came up one week while I was DMing 3.5e; it is not intended as a strawman argument, and I have seen similar situations come up enough that, if it represents a statistical outlier, then my experiences over the years are so atypical as to essentially embody the outlier personally:

Taking into account the party's offense, defenses, and typical tactics, I selected a combat that was weighted toward the Players; the number of enemies was equal to the number of party members, so the action economy was not an issue, while those party members who roll attacks needed a 7 or less in order to do hit and damage the enemy, who needed to roll a 14 or better to hit the party or defend against spells cast offensively by the party. None of the enemies were using weapons with a high Crit range, or deliberately targeting weaker saves. First, do you agree this represents what should be a fight that favors the party?

Three rounds into the fight, and none of the party has rolled above a 5, while none of the enemy has rolled below a 16 - rolled in the open. A fight that was supposed to be easy has the party staring down the barrel of a TPK. Your commentary, above, indicates this must be because "the enemies [the DM] selected are too tough." In what way was the selection of enemies, rather than the RNG, at fault?

We have all seen these situations. Nobody/nothing is at fault in this scenario. The odds did favor the party in the fight, but sometimes the odds don't pan out. If you wanted no chance of player failure in the fight, then the dice should not even be rolled. If there is 5% chance of failure, or even 1%, then failure will sometimes happen.

I would say, this scenario is really a lesson in adventure planning and in DM expectations. It is a bad idea to plan for a particular outcome in any given situation, when random results are involved. In a game/system where life and death are determined by rolls of the dice, you can't depend on any or all characters surviving any given combat, or succeeding at a specific skill challenge.

I have been there, too. Many years ago, I fudged rolls to save my players from death in fights I didn't expect them to lose. I now feel like doing so is inappropriate and wouldn't do that again. Instead, I'd plan my campaign and adventures in a manner taking into account the nature of the system I'm using. If the system has death as a possible consequence of any fight, design the campaign anticipating that characters will sometimes die.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-02, 08:16 PM
Fair enough, that you disagree about lying/illusionism being bad for the game. I feel like it will only work so long as the players never figure out that you are doing it. If the system has gritty combat rules, and you want a game that is not gritty, then you need to modify the system to fit how you want to play, or choose a different system. Just tell the players in the beginning that you are doing this.

The dichotomy of system/game is a matter of semantics which you guys are getting hung up on. We can just as easily call it a game system, which is what it is. A game system is designed to allow certain types of play, if it is used as written. Some types of play will not naturally emerge from any given system, and can only happen when certain elements are ignored or changed. What is published by the designers of the game regarding how it should be played is good evidence of what sorts of play their system is meant to be good at doing, and what it can't really do well. D&D does dungeoncrawl sandbox and immersive interaction with a persistent game world pretty well. It does not do narrative-focused, plot-driven storytelling very well. The system, or game, whatever you want to call it, requires a fair amount of DM modification to work as a storytelling game (or it requires a high amount of illusionism/cheating).

Whether you call it cheating or illusionism or DM fiat, I feel that lying to the players about how the game works detracts from the game, both for me as DM and for my players. If you tell them, up front, that you will ignore dice rolls whenever you see fit in order to further your plot, then there is no lying going on. I would say, in this case, why even bother rolling the dice at all if you don't want a random outcome? But I suppose people have their reasons.

A game of D&D where you almost never roll the dice is a valid way to play, certainly. But I would categorize such a game as "ignoring most of the rules", and not contradictory to my point about D&D not being a good storytelling game/system. It isn't right or wrong to play this way, but it makes the game system almost irrelevant. You could free-form role play without any system at all and have results as good or perhaps even better.

Firstly, I wanted to thank you for being civil and apologize if anything I say/have said comes across less than so (it is not my intent). You're so much easier to talk to than certain others who disagree on this thread. It's... actually kind of amazing-feeling to have someone disagree with me and not being mean when they do so. People get mad at rudeness, but you rarely see thanks for non-rudeness, so... thanks.

Bolded stuff: Yes, this is true. I've never debated this. What I've debated is the contention that it is contrary to default expectation to have extensive modification/ignoring of rules/adjustments on the fly such as fudging. To me, that such things are commonplace and that whatever system is chosen is going to be modified for the sake of the game the group is playing is, in fact, not only the default, but also makes for better games. What things get modified, what kinds of adjustments are allowed (and on the flip side, what kind of adjustments are NOT allowed) are not system dependent. They are playgroup dependent. So: "fudging is bad" is an acceptable stance for a group to take, but not an acceptable stance to impose as being group-independent. "Choosing a system whose rules require the least modification to fit playstyle and mood is a good decision while choosing a system that requires a complete overhaul to do so just because of familiarity and liking some mechanics is a bad one" is also something that a group can agree on and act on, but it is not a universal truth and shouldn't be treated like it is the default assumption either.

Also, on the issue of semantics: I feel that you've got blinders on. Not intentionally, but they're there nonetheless. In your view, you have conflated "playing a game of D&D" "playing D&D" and "playing a role-playing game using the system known as D&D" as being interchangeable rewording of the same concept, and therefore can't understand the distinction that we're making because you don't SEE a distinction. Correct me if I'm wrong; that seems to be the case based on what you've said.

In your statement above, you commented that a game system is designed to allow certain types of play if used as written. What I've been saying is that in practice, using the system exactly as written isn't going to happen, and not only that, but it's not even a good thing to do (unless you've deliberately chosen a system in order to play the system itself rather than play a game using the system - which, I guess, there are some people who do. TO is a form of that, as an example).

If you conflate the system and the game, the following statements become nonsensical:

"The system is a set of rules. The game is the actual play that happens at the table (or away from it, if you have things like in-between session planning and such). The rules exist to serve the game. The game is not a slave to the rules. When the established rules oppose the game (for example, a player has come up with a scheme that, by the rules, is impossible, but all around the table agree would be awesome and serve their enjoyment) the game takes precedence, and those rules can be ignored, bent, or broken. The system is a framework, and the rules are more guidelines to guide the game."

But those statements? I stand by them as un-opposable and true.

These? Not so much.

-Rules exist to be followed. [Counter: rules exist to prevent controversy. If not following a rule would not prevent controversy, the rule may be broken.]
-The nature of the game is determined by the system. [Counter: although certain systems more readily allow certain types of games, and so the game will be certainly influenced by the system, the players and GM (if there is one) are the ones who determine the nature of the game; one cannot assume that a certain specific type of game will be played simply because of the system used.]
-Those who alter the rules are not playing as intended. [Counter: there is no "intended." This is not a competition. Once the creators of the system have churned out the system, their opinions and goals for the system are rendered completely irrelevant. Only those playing the game have any input.]


Analogy:
Playing tabletop role-playing games in a non-competitive, non-testing, non-convention way is more akin to a group of neighborhood kids getting together to "play ball" than it is to a professional sporting match. Rules of the sport are tweaked or ignored, rules from different sports might be mixed together, new rules might be added... the point is to have a good time. As long as none of the things the kids do cause arguments or detract from their good time, they are "doing it right." The exact rules of the professional sports that they aren't slavishly following? Irrelevant. In this analogy, the "sport" is the "system," while the actual get-together of "playing ball" is the "game." Does this analogy make it clearer the distinction that I'm trying to make in the use of those words?

sktarq
2014-06-02, 08:32 PM
I think one of the problems with this conversation is that there is a range of "fudging" and a range of when DM's consider it okay to fudge. For example of a range of fudging consider. A group of say goblins is chasing the party across a rickety bridge-some goblins fail their balance roll and fall but when a player does the dm has them roll to catch themselves and dangle....that's a fudge-the DM gave the players a break in order to prevent the characters from dying. Others could be suddenly having options appear (such as improvised weapons, situational advantages, obvious escapes etc). Or opponents using less than optimal tactics, or giving them opportunities to try "crazy" things at lower DC's than is really defensible. Others could be giving opponents penalties on some things-to chase or find them when the characters retreat (from a battle that has gone against them or whatnot). All these are less obvious ways of "fudging" than rerolling a die that came up with a number that doesn't suit the DM's preference.
Also there are DM's who will fudge or not fudge depending on situation. In a rough kind of order various levels on this continuum: Avoid any character death, Avoid TPK, character death only at boss-fights, character death on a boss or sub-boss fights only, avoid TPK on random encounters, character deaths only on planned encounters, TPK on random encounters. Often with a sliding scale for good drama and being willing to let the dice fall where they may if players are stupid (charging obviously superior opponents, taunting possible enemies to attack all at once etc)

For an example from my own history. The basic idea was that in the frontier barony of a group of semi allied counties, baronies, and earldom a BBEG has taken over an war threatens blah blah....so as the party approaches the militarized boarder they get attacked by Kobold raiders. This was done for several plot reasons. I wanted to show that the cold war was drawing troops away from things they needed to do, that things were far worse than they had been led to believe at the start, that there was a LE dragon who lives on the boarder with the barony they want to get in (and who they could try and sneak through his territory or even try and ally with him), that since the kobolds were here taking slaves and their nest will keep doing so they have to think about taking their time as time is hurting Innocent people, was to make them feel heroic for freeing slaves in order to set the mood, and that they are no longer just talking about it but are in a war zone. . . never did that encounter exist to really challenge the players who were 5th level. Well it didn't work out that way. I apparently misjudged my players tactical acumen, the kobolds seemed to have a channel strait to Tiamat for the number of 19's and 20's they rolled and pretty soon a situation had developed where the party was at risk of TPK. It was near the beginning of the adventure, it was kobolds, and if the characters ended on such an event it would stain the fun we had already had with them. So i fudged it...hard. Traps didn't go off right when the players stumbled into them, critical confirmation rolls were never taken and poisons were giving maximum ability damage of (I think 3) before they automatically cleared....I had to fudge at least a half dozen rolls and it killed one of the PC's right and put 2 others (out of 5) out of commission. Do I feel bad about it-no. There was no payoff in them dying there, they had no way of avoiding or prepping for the battle as it was part of their introduction to the region, and there would be a social and in game issues to deal with. But later when faced with dangers that were known I wasn't going to pull punches-and didn't.
And should I have just skipped all the die rolls since i didn't want them to die. Again i think no because there is a range of possible subdeath possibilities that the dice could produce. Retreats, a bruising, and PC trounce, etc...and letting the dice work these things I think aid the fun of the game. Sometimes character death and the risk of it aid the fun. . . but not always.
so fudging isn't an all or nothing thing. Sure some people exist at both extremes but it isn't a black and white issue it has lots of shades of grey.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-02, 08:56 PM
We have all seen these situations. Nobody/nothing is at fault in this scenario. The odds did favor the party in the fight, but sometimes the odds don't pan out. If you wanted no chance of player failure in the fight, then the dice should not even be rolled. If there is 5% chance of failure, or even 1%, then failure will sometimes happen.

I would say, this scenario is really a lesson in adventure planning and in DM expectations. It is a bad idea to plan for a particular outcome in any given situation, when random results are involved. In a game/system where life and death are determined by rolls of the dice, you can't depend on any or all characters surviving any given combat, or succeeding at a specific skill challenge.

I have been there, too. Many years ago, I fudged rolls to save my players from death in fights I didn't expect them to lose. I now feel like doing so is inappropriate and wouldn't do that again. Instead, I'd plan my campaign and adventures in a manner taking into account the nature of the system I'm using. If the system has death as a possible consequence of any fight, design the campaign anticipating that characters will sometimes die.

@bold: No. See the following post.


I think one of the problems with this conversation is that there is a range of "fudging" and a range of when DM's consider it okay to fudge. For example of a range of fudging consider. A group of say goblins is chasing the party across a rickety bridge-some goblins fail their balance roll and fall but when a player does the dm has them roll to catch themselves and dangle....that's a fudge-the DM gave the players a break in order to prevent the characters from dying. Others could be suddenly having options appear (such as improvised weapons, situational advantages, obvious escapes etc). Or opponents using less than optimal tactics, or giving them opportunities to try "crazy" things at lower DC's than is really defensible. Others could be giving opponents penalties on some things-to chase or find them when the characters retreat (from a battle that has gone against them or whatnot). All these are less obvious ways of "fudging" than rerolling a die that came up with a number that doesn't suit the DM's preference.
Also there are DM's who will fudge or not fudge depending on situation. In a rough kind of order various levels on this continuum: Avoid any character death, Avoid TPK, character death only at boss-fights, character death on a boss or sub-boss fights only, avoid TPK on random encounters, character deaths only on planned encounters, TPK on random encounters. Often with a sliding scale for good drama and being willing to let the dice fall where they may if players are stupid (charging obviously superior opponents, taunting possible enemies to attack all at once etc)

For an example from my own history. The basic idea was that in the frontier barony of a group of semi allied counties, baronies, and earldom a BBEG has taken over an war threatens blah blah....so as the party approaches the militarized boarder they get attacked by Kobold raiders. This was done for several plot reasons. I wanted to show that the cold war was drawing troops away from things they needed to do, that things were far worse than they had been led to believe at the start, that there was a LE dragon who lives on the boarder with the barony they want to get in (and who they could try and sneak through his territory or even try and ally with him), that since the kobolds were here taking slaves and their nest will keep doing so they have to think about taking their time as time is hurting Innocent people, was to make them feel heroic for freeing slaves in order to set the mood, and that they are no longer just talking about it but are in a war zone. . . never did that encounter exist to really challenge the players who were 5th level. Well it didn't work out that way. I apparently misjudged my players tactical acumen, the kobolds seemed to have a channel strait to Tiamat for the number of 19's and 20's they rolled and pretty soon a situation had developed where the party was at risk of TPK. It was near the beginning of the adventure, it was kobolds, and if the characters ended on such an event it would stain the fun we had already had with them. So i fudged it...hard. Traps didn't go off right when the players stumbled into them, critical confirmation rolls were never taken and poisons were giving maximum ability damage of (I think 3) before they automatically cleared....I had to fudge at least a half dozen rolls and it killed one of the PC's right and put 2 others (out of 5) out of commission. Do I feel bad about it-no. There was no payoff in them dying there, they had no way of avoiding or prepping for the battle as it was part of their introduction to the region, and there would be a social and in game issues to deal with. But later when faced with dangers that were known I wasn't going to pull punches-and didn't.
And should I have just skipped all the die rolls since i didn't want them to die. Again i think no because there is a range of possible subdeath possibilities that the dice could produce. Retreats, a bruising, and PC trounce, etc...and letting the dice work these things I think aid the fun of the game. Sometimes character death and the risk of it aid the fun. . . but not always.
so fudging isn't an all or nothing thing. Sure some people exist at both extremes but it isn't a black and white issue it has lots of shades of grey.

I agree very much with this. However, when someone says something is always black when I think it has lots of shades of gray, ranging from blinding white to pitch black, I'm not going to argue about the grayness of it. I'm going to argue that it isn't by nature black, and point to what I see as the white examples. (Argument fact: if someone states a view that leans heavily on one end of a spectrum, it causes people in the center of the spectrum to lean harder the opposite way. Yay polarization. :smallannoyed:)

Thrudd
2014-06-02, 11:49 PM
Firstly, I wanted to thank you for being civil and apologize if anything I say/have said comes across less than so (it is not my intent). You're so much easier to talk to than certain others who disagree on this thread. It's... actually kind of amazing-feeling to have someone disagree with me and not being mean when they do so. People get mad at rudeness, but you rarely see thanks for non-rudeness, so... thanks.

Bolded stuff: Yes, this is true. I've never debated this. What I've debated is the contention that it is contrary to default expectation to have extensive modification/ignoring of rules/adjustments on the fly such as fudging. To me, that such things are commonplace and that whatever system is chosen is going to be modified for the sake of the game the group is playing is, in fact, not only the default, but also makes for better games. What things get modified, what kinds of adjustments are allowed (and on the flip side, what kind of adjustments are NOT allowed) are not system dependent. They are playgroup dependent. So: "fudging is bad" is an acceptable stance for a group to take, but not an acceptable stance to impose as being group-independent. "Choosing a system whose rules require the least modification to fit playstyle and mood is a good decision while choosing a system that requires a complete overhaul to do so just because of familiarity and liking some mechanics is a bad one" is also something that a group can agree on and act on, but it is not a universal truth and shouldn't be treated like it is the default assumption either.

Also, on the issue of semantics: I feel that you've got blinders on. Not intentionally, but they're there nonetheless. In your view, you have conflated "playing a game of D&D" "playing D&D" and "playing a role-playing game using the system known as D&D" as being interchangeable rewording of the same concept, and therefore can't understand the distinction that we're making because you don't SEE a distinction. Correct me if I'm wrong; that seems to be the case based on what you've said.

In your statement above, you commented that a game system is designed to allow certain types of play if used as written. What I've been saying is that in practice, using the system exactly as written isn't going to happen, and not only that, but it's not even a good thing to do (unless you've deliberately chosen a system in order to play the system itself rather than play a game using the system - which, I guess, there are some people who do. TO is a form of that, as an example).

If you conflate the system and the game, the following statements become nonsensical:

"The system is a set of rules. The game is the actual play that happens at the table (or away from it, if you have things like in-between session planning and such). The rules exist to serve the game. The game is not a slave to the rules. When the established rules oppose the game (for example, a player has come up with a scheme that, by the rules, is impossible, but all around the table agree would be awesome and serve their enjoyment) the game takes precedence, and those rules can be ignored, bent, or broken. The system is a framework, and the rules are more guidelines to guide the game."

But those statements? I stand by them as un-opposable and true.

These? Not so much.

-Rules exist to be followed. [Counter: rules exist to prevent controversy. If not following a rule would not prevent controversy, the rule may be broken.]
-The nature of the game is determined by the system. [Counter: although certain systems more readily allow certain types of games, and so the game will be certainly influenced by the system, the players and GM (if there is one) are the ones who determine the nature of the game; one cannot assume that a certain specific type of game will be played simply because of the system used.]
-Those who alter the rules are not playing as intended. [Counter: there is no "intended." This is not a competition. Once the creators of the system have churned out the system, their opinions and goals for the system are rendered completely irrelevant. Only those playing the game have any input.]


Analogy:
Playing tabletop role-playing games in a non-competitive, non-testing, non-convention way is more akin to a group of neighborhood kids getting together to "play ball" than it is to a professional sporting match. Rules of the sport are tweaked or ignored, rules from different sports might be mixed together, new rules might be added... the point is to have a good time. As long as none of the things the kids do cause arguments or detract from their good time, they are "doing it right." The exact rules of the professional sports that they aren't slavishly following? Irrelevant. In this analogy, the "sport" is the "system," while the actual get-together of "playing ball" is the "game." Does this analogy make it clearer the distinction that I'm trying to make in the use of those words?

Oh, I'm not upset about anything. We're just chatting about a game.

I do disagree about your insistence on separating the terms game and system in any strict way. But I don't think that's really important to the overall point.

Yes, people can have a good time playing fast and loose with the rules. If everyone is having fun, who cares? I wouldn't want to stop anyone playing however they want.

My beef is not that people change the rules, I have changed many many rules in my time. I would only recommend that the game, anyone's game, will go more smoothly when the rules are clear, and support what you want to get out of the game. These questions about whether or not the DM should fudge rolls or alter their story plan with impromptu saves to keep the players and the plot on track would be rendered irrelevant if the system supported the game being played. They would be addressed by the system, and the DM/GM would have a clear answer how to deal with them.

I recognize a lot of these problems come from game designers themselves, who have for a long time been writing linear railroad-plot adventures for D&D. This has created much confusion regarding how D&D is meant to be played: how to both follow the rules of the system and plan out a good story? The answer, almost universally, has been illusionism: fudge rolls, use DM-fiat and plot-armor saves to keep the story on track while lying to the players about it to preserve their belief that they have real agency and real consequences for their characters.

I do not disagree with altering the rules of the game so it can be played whatever way you like. But make those rules known to the players. To use your baseball analogy: It is fine, if the neighborhood ball players decide that they get four strikes instead of three strikes. But the DM fudging the dice or ignoring rules during play would be equivalent of the umpire deciding in the middle of the game that it is too hard for some of the kids and calling balls that are obvious strikes, or calling them safe even though their fly-ball was caught. Of course, D&D is not a competitive game, as you said, so no one is really losing out if the DM is doing this. But authenticity is losing out, player agency and accomplishment is losing out. Those things aren't important to everyone, I know.
Even if those things aren't important, wouldn't it be easier to play a game where the system clearly supported the game you wanted to play? I feel like it could only make the game better.

Rhynn
2014-06-03, 02:41 AM
My beef is not that people change the rules, I have changed many many rules in my time. I would only recommend that the game, anyone's game, will go more smoothly when the rules are clear, and support what you want to get out of the game. These questions about whether or not the DM should fudge rolls or alter their story plan with impromptu saves to keep the players and the plot on track would be rendered irrelevant if the system supported the game being played. They would be addressed by the system, and the DM/GM would have a clear answer how to deal with them.

I recognize a lot of these problems come from game designers themselves, who have for a long time been writing linear railroad-plot adventures for D&D. This has created much confusion regarding how D&D is meant to be played: how to both follow the rules of the system and plan out a good story? The answer, almost universally, has been illusionism: fudge rolls, use DM-fiat and plot-armor saves to keep the story on track while lying to the players about it to preserve their belief that they have real agency and real consequences for their characters.

I do not disagree with altering the rules of the game so it can be played whatever way you like. But make those rules known to the players. To use your baseball analogy: It is fine, if the neighborhood ball players decide that they get four strikes instead of three strikes. But the DM fudging the dice or ignoring rules during play would be equivalent of the umpire deciding in the middle of the game that it is too hard for some of the kids and calling balls that are obvious strikes, or calling them safe even though their fly-ball was caught. Of course, D&D is not a competitive game, as you said, so no one is really losing out if the DM is doing this. But authenticity is losing out, player agency and accomplishment is losing out. Those things aren't important to everyone, I know.

I agree with every bit of this (especially the party about railroad adventures and their unfortunate effect on RPGs in general). Heck, I even think the analogy is decent (even though we're now going to see at least a full page's worth of just arguing about the details of the analogy and completely ignoring the point it was trying to convey).

Cikomyr
2014-06-03, 09:59 AM
I agree with every bit of this (especially the party about railroad adventures and their unfortunate effect on RPGs in general). Heck, I even think the analogy is decent (even though we're now going to see at least a full page's worth of just arguing about the details of the analogy and completely ignoring the point it was trying to convey).

Except that "fudging" should not occur at every single occurrence in order to keep the game on rail. I personally hate these pre-made stories, because they, effectively, leave no agency to the players.

I only "fudge" when.. well, when it's necessary for the game to keep on going. If you need fudging to keep your story on track, then maybe your story isn't engaging enough to the players. I've had my players COMPLETELY derail my games.. both on the short-term ("wait.. THAT is your plan to get into the secret base?") to the long-term ("so you want to provoke an industrial revolution in the city's trading fleet in order to give them an advantage over the sea elves.. hmm...").

My players have all the agencies they want. As long as their personal freedom doesn't lead the game to an unsatisfactory end.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-03, 04:51 PM
RE: PC Imprisonment

Often infeasible, poor choices reducing immersion, and (if played intelligently) taking away PC agency. They usually need to be saved. Also, in D&D in particular, they probably lose their gear. And it's not just going to be in a convenient box on the way out. I try to avoid this when I can. It's a possibility that's maybe better than a TPK, but I'd MUCH rather the PCs retreat. This is where PCs who optimize and use versatile classes/abilities can be a good thing, because you know they're going to have a "GTFO" button.

RE: The RNG turned a supposedly easy encounter into a TPK

Have you considered the 3d6 variant? Whether or not you support fudging, it's easier to not have to fudge. Also, I don't see the tension/narrative purpose of a random encounter if it's not to entail risk. I would, in fact, just take out the dice and narrate it. The texture of "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised up" is... boring. To me, anyway.

RE: I can maintain the illusion of risk.

In my experience, DMs overestimate their own ability to bluff and maintain this illusion. Players will eventually make their will saves, after all. I had a DM for a 4e game, who was otherwise great, who wanted every fight to be interesting and balanced, so he made sure the paladin barely stayed alive in the front lines, and he made sure monsters always made saves against any big effect my wizard threw on them. These two things are related; if he didn't fudge away my effects, he wouldn't have had to fudge in favor of the paladin.

At first I figured it was good/bad luck, respectively... but as the trend continued we all caught on. It was immensely frustrating for me, since I was basically wasting my time, but it became frustrating and boring for everyone, since player choice ended up not mattering. The paladin using all of his abilities to just barely stay alive and draw attention away from the other players turned from heroic self sacrifice (and an interesting character build) to... a DM decision to make the narrative go a certain way. Bleh.

If everyone's cool with a game where the rules get bent and broken a lot for the sake of a certain playstyle, then it's fine. As long as you're setting expectations for the game ahead of time, and people are fine with the expectations, you're good to go. I personally wouldn't like the parts of a game where my character is functionally immortal as long as he isn't an idiot, but I get that some players and DMs do like that sort of game. Character continuity and all that (there are plenty of resurrection-style spells in D&D, though). But don't lie to your players. Trust is a delicate and important part of the DM-Player exchange. If the players trust the DM to fudge only when he screwed up, or when a ten sigma event occurs (on the order of some of the RNG craziness described here), then it can work. But if the DM overuses it and lies about it, the illusion is broken and the game is forever tainted. Possibly the DM as well.

Thrudd
2014-06-03, 06:14 PM
RE: PC Imprisonment

Often infeasible, poor choices reducing immersion, and (if played intelligently) taking away PC agency. They usually need to be saved. Also, in D&D in particular, they probably lose their gear. And it's not just going to be in a convenient box on the way out. I try to avoid this when I can. It's a possibility that's maybe better than a TPK, but I'd MUCH rather the PCs retreat. This is where PCs who optimize and use versatile classes/abilities can be a good thing, because you know they're going to have a "GTFO" button.

RE: The RNG turned a supposedly easy encounter into a TPK

Have you considered the 3d6 variant? Whether or not you support fudging, it's easier to not have to fudge. Also, I don't see the tension/narrative purpose of a random encounter if it's not to entail risk. I would, in fact, just take out the dice and narrate it. The texture of "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised up" is... boring. To me, anyway.

RE: I can maintain the illusion of risk.

In my experience, DMs overestimate their own ability to bluff and maintain this illusion. Players will eventually make their will saves, after all. I had a DM for a 4e game, who was otherwise great, who wanted every fight to be interesting and balanced, so he made sure the paladin barely stayed alive in the front lines, and he made sure monsters always made saves against any big effect my wizard threw on them. These two things are related; if he didn't fudge away my effects, he wouldn't have had to fudge in favor of the paladin.

At first I figured it was good/bad luck, respectively... but as the trend continued we all caught on. It was immensely frustrating for me, since I was basically wasting my time, but it became frustrating and boring for everyone, since player choice ended up not mattering. The paladin using all of his abilities to just barely stay alive and draw attention away from the other players turned from heroic self sacrifice (and an interesting character build) to... a DM decision to make the narrative go a certain way. Bleh.

If everyone's cool with a game where the rules get bent and broken a lot for the sake of a certain playstyle, then it's fine. As long as you're setting expectations for the game ahead of time, and people are fine with the expectations, you're good to go. I personally wouldn't like the parts of a game where my character is functionally immortal as long as he isn't an idiot, but I get that some players and DMs do like that sort of game. Character continuity and all that (there are plenty of resurrection-style spells in D&D, though). But don't lie to your players. Trust is a delicate and important part of the DM-Player exchange. If the players trust the DM to fudge only when he screwed up, or when a ten sigma event occurs (on the order of some of the RNG craziness described here), then it can work. But if the DM overuses it and lies about it, the illusion is broken and the game is forever tainted. Possibly the DM as well.

That's a really clear example of the consequence of having illusionism-style DM'ing found out by the players. It ruins the game.

sktarq
2014-06-03, 06:28 PM
RE: The RNG turned a supposedly easy encounter into a TPK
.... Also, I don't see the tension/narrative purpose of a random encounter if it's not to entail risk. I would, in fact, just take out the dice and narrate it. The texture of "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised up" is... boring. To me, anyway.
...
But don't lie to your players. Trust is a delicate and important part of the DM-Player exchange. If the players trust the DM to fudge only when he screwed up, or when a ten sigma event occurs (on the order of some of the RNG craziness described here), then it can work. But if the DM overuses it and lies about it, the illusion is broken and the game is forever tainted. Possibly the DM as well.

On the first part I must disagrees with you. Risk is not just a perish/survive binary issue, at least in my games. In fact I generally consider death the most boring outcome...people have to wait around. we spend time resurrecting characters or having to break and develop new characters...their motivation for join the group an wanting to run an extension or related adventure etc and that is if the group avoids TPK-I don't mind paying that price if there a narrative punch to it and/or it doesn't detract from the fun of the get together but TPK pulls people out of game too at least as much as fudging does and so both must be treated with care.
as for the later point. I'd disagree with this too. I'll be the first to say that fudging can be and often is the most abused tool in the DM's toolbox, but that doesn't mean the tool is bad. A well placed and played fudge can be a player as well as a character saver but isn't something to be done continuously. Like a safety net that the players can't see that is only intermittently there so that the only logical response is to play like it isn't there. And about if a DM should lie to their players about it....I think there are a variety of possibilities. Telling players that the DM may and will fudge at times and will lie about it when it is being done covers many a DM....they are asking their players to trust them not to abuse the tool but raising the stakes if they do. There are lots ways the DM tweek play to keep it fun for everybody-even moving fights and events to account for time- fudging is a tool (a dangerous one) but just a tool

Cikomyr
2014-06-03, 07:32 PM
That's a really clear example of the consequence of having illusionism-style DM'ing found out by the players. It ruins the game.

It's also the consequence of incompetent and heavy-handed illusionism.

the GM should not fudge regularily, for hell's sake. He should fudge when it's necessary, otherwise the game BECOMES predictable.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-03, 07:50 PM
On the first part I must disagrees with you. Risk is not just a perish/survive binary issue, at least in my games. In fact I generally consider death the most boring outcome...people have to wait around. we spend time resurrecting characters or having to break and develop new characters...their motivation for join the group an wanting to run an extension or related adventure etc and that is if the group avoids TPK-I don't mind paying that price if there a narrative punch to it and/or it doesn't detract from the fun of the get together but TPK pulls people out of game too at least as much as fudging does and so both must be treated with care.Risk entails consequences. In D&D, at least, taking hit point damage is not a real consequence. If you're playing FATE and literally taking consequences, then that's a thing. If you're playing Battletech, and damage means you have to repair your mech, that's a thing. But "oh, now I have to spend effectively 50 GP in charges of this healing wand" is not a significant consequence. In a plot-important fight, there can easily be consequences that are much more dramatic than player death... but I'm talking about a random encounter. What's going to happen in a random encounter, in D&D, that is of consequence other than the PCs dying? This might just be my bias against random encounters speaking, but please enlighten me.
as for the later point. I'd disagree with this too. I'll be the first to say that fudging can be and often is the most abused tool in the DM's toolbox, but that doesn't mean the tool is bad. A well placed and played fudge can be a player as well as a character saver but isn't something to be done continuously. Like a safety net that the players can't see that is only intermittently there so that the only logical response is to play like it isn't there.I'm basically with you so far...
And about if a DM should lie to their players about it....I think there are a variety of possibilities. Telling players that the DM may and will fudge at times and will lie about it when it is being done covers many a DM....they are asking their players to trust them not to abuse the tool but raising the stakes if they do. There are lots ways the DM tweek play to keep it fun for everybody-even moving fights and events to account for time- fudging is a tool (a dangerous one) but just a toolThis is exactly what I'm saying. Let the players know what's up beforehand. Don't lie about what the game is going to be like. If you have to pull some "theatrics" to avoid some kind of RNG-based derail, it's going to be a lot easier to maintain immersion your players have already bought into that play-style. Again, it's all about setting expectations.

Let's put it this way: If I buy a ticket to a magic show, I know the magician is there to trick me for my own entertainment. That's fine (though in this analogy magic shows aren't my cup of tea). But if I'm watching a documentary, any attempt to trick the viewer is going to ruin the whole thing.

sktarq
2014-06-03, 08:15 PM
Risk entails consequences. In D&D, at least, taking hit point damage is not a real consequence. If you're playing FATE and literally taking consequences, then that's a thing. If you're playing Battletech, and damage means you have to repair your mech, that's a thing. But "oh, now I have to spend effectively 50 GP in charges of this healing wand" is not a significant consequence. In a plot-important fight, there can easily be consequences that are much more dramatic than player death... but I'm talking about a random encounter. What's going to happen in a random encounter, in D&D, that is of consequence other than the PCs dying? This might just be my bias against random encounters speaking, but please enlighten me.

It is an issue of setting the field for other encounters for one. Now I'm not a big fan of random encounters myself but there are also plot driving encounters in which DM's want bounded consequences. Bounded consequences can usually be created by careful construction and planning but sometimes RNG's throw post-consumer food into rotary air driving cooling devices. Now these encounters, random or not, can still have consequences. They can set the game in a new direction, they can drain resources, they can provide(or not) advantages in later battles or even social situations that are considered more central to the narrative. Now there isn't a mechanic to make certain parts of the story more consequential than other parts and fudging extreme reactions in these less prominent scenes is one way of providing that. So can that be abused to create railroading? yes it can and that must be guarded against but having a tippy tower in your bag is way of dealing with the crimson permanent assurance moments when the dice, not the DM or Players is driving the plot into a way none of the humans wants to go.

and as for the issue with the magic show. I'd disagree with interpretation. You know that in a Boxing or MMA fight there are bounded consequences (there are refs and surrenders etc) but that doesn't stop people from caring. And there are times when the fighters have the opportunities to kill each other but don't so there are not "going all out" and "ripping into each other with all they have" and other phrases I hear spouted about the fight. . . so while those statements are technically a lie, it doesn't take away from most people's enjoyment of the spectacle. It is a limited exception and supports most viewers enjoyment of the show (as many would not want to watch a sport where they think people will die-not all mind you see 1970's formula 1 for example). Careful fudging is like that in that it supports the enjoyment of the event while not lowering the impression of the consequences. So it doesn't have to invalidate player agency, consequences, by just being used in the game...those are a consequence of abuse of that tool.

also I wasn't just thinking of DnD here. I mostly play WoD these days and I think of that as my baseline. In a vampire game a hunting roll/vignette goes bad-and missing a plot aiding scene, or being unable to use blood during a scene that they may want to, or any number of other things. But if the dice really don't cooperate then the vignette goes bad, then worse, then worse the player gets frustrated and reacts emotionally not intelligently, and then either the storyteller skips the dice rolls (which some players would take as a much more blatant "fiat save") or the ST rolls the dice and perhaps fudges it to rescue a character. In oWoD I know the issue was that the rule set allowed for enough critical fails often enough that play could end up being dominated by fixing the results of various botches. It was rare but it happened and dropping a botch/critical fail or an exceptional/critical success to a normal one on occasion smoothed the issue out pretty well. It was enough of an issue that in the nWoD they made the chances of critical fails much lower. So much lower my players have at times asked me to put the old rules back in because the playing the consequences of those critical fails was often fun but wanted some sort of control to prevent it taking over the game.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-03, 08:50 PM
So, aside from providing actual risk, random encounters can...
- Set the stage for future encounters.
- Drain resources.
IMO you can narrate both of these things.

As far as the boxing analogy... I'm not sure what you're conveying here. It seems very similar to my analogy, in that you set up the right expectations - people fight, but only in a certain way - and as long as you follow through people generally enjoy the fight. Everyone knows that the commentator is simply using colorful metaphors. And while people do die in the ring, the point of boxing is that people are aware of the more limited consequences. People are not there to see a fight to the death.

In D&D, if you advertise an in-game fight to the death, but you only deliver boxing, that's lying to your players. It's not colorful metaphor. It's lying. If you advertise "bounded consequences," where your fights to the "death" aren't really deadly, then you're being honest. Boring for me, but honest.

sktarq
2014-06-03, 09:16 PM
So, aside from providing actual risk, random encounters can...
- Set the stage for future encounters.
- Drain resources.
IMO you can narrate both of these things.
You can, some people prefer to have the degree of such things have a random element of a random encounter. It is a matter of taste. Hell they can also just be used to get a combat if the DM things that the talking/hacking ratio is off for the groups tastes in the session.



As far as the boxing analogy... I'm not sure what you're conveying here. It seems very similar to my analogy, in that you set up the right expectations - people fight, but only in a certain way - and as long as you follow through people generally enjoy the fight. Everyone knows that the commentator is simply using colorful metaphors. And while people do die in the ring, the point of boxing is that people are aware of the more limited consequences. People are not there to see a fight to the death.
What I am trying to convey is that limiting some aspects of the game to boxing doesn't have to mean that consequence and gravitas is automatically reduced to none.


In D&D, if you advertise an in-game fight to the death, but you only deliver boxing, that's lying to your players. It's not colorful metaphor. It's lying. If you advertise "bounded consequences," where your fights to the "death" aren't really deadly, then you're being honest. Boring for me, but honest. This is one of those times where there can be a big difference in when and how much. If sometimes it is boxing, and sometimes it is a fight to the death but you don't tell the players they have to treat every fight like it is deadly. If there are no deadly fights in the game then yes you'd be lying but not every fight that appears deadly has to actually carry that level of consequence.

also to go back, not every failure fudged has to be about literally saving the PC in combat. A really poorly timed critical fail in a social role may be fudged and it just as much as a save. Success works, Failure works and has consequences and a critical fail may well be inappropriate for the general fun of the game following this story....so because a critical failure is to be fudged it this something to just be narrated? Not necessarily, success vs fail is still highly valid and still has meaning so it can still be worth rolling even if the ST/DM has bounded the level of failure.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-03, 09:57 PM
Except that "fudging" should not occur at every single occurrence in order to keep the game on rail. I personally hate these pre-made stories, because they, effectively, leave no agency to the players.

I only "fudge" when.. well, when it's necessary for the game to keep on going. If you need fudging to keep your story on track, then maybe your story isn't engaging enough to the players. I've had my players COMPLETELY derail my games.. both on the short-term ("wait.. THAT is your plan to get into the secret base?") to the long-term ("so you want to provoke an industrial revolution in the city's trading fleet in order to give them an advantage over the sea elves.. hmm...").

My players have all the agencies they want. As long as their personal freedom doesn't lead the game to an unsatisfactory end.

Have I mentioned that everything you say sounds identical to the way I think about this stuff? Man, you and I would get along really well in the same gaming group.


Also, I don't see the tension/narrative purpose of a random encounter if it's not to entail risk. I would, in fact, just take out the dice and narrate it. The texture of "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised up" is... boring. To me, anyway.

...


If everyone's cool with a game where the rules get bent and broken a lot for the sake of a certain playstyle, then it's fine. As long as you're setting expectations for the game ahead of time, and people are fine with the expectations, you're good to go. I personally wouldn't like the parts of a game where my character is functionally immortal as long as he isn't an idiot, but I get that some players and DMs do like that sort of game. Character continuity and all that (there are plenty of resurrection-style spells in D&D, though). But don't lie to your players. Trust is a delicate and important part of the DM-Player exchange. If the players trust the DM to fudge only when he screwed up, or when a ten sigma event occurs (on the order of some of the RNG craziness described here), then it can work. But if the DM overuses it and lies about it, the illusion is broken and the game is forever tainted. Possibly the DM as well.

Addressing the stuff I put in bold:

1) I see, and I can respect that. But... that's not how I enjoy play. To me, the "texture," as you put it, which is much more than "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised some" but includes all kinds of details, like which spells they used and what tactics, how the enemy fought, what dialogue occurred during the combat, and all kinds of little details, are the main meat of combat, not the risk factor. The actual risk factor is much less important in general (though in plot-critical things like boss fights and stuff risk factor may matter more) than the actual "what happens." In other words, the results aren't necessarily the point - it's not the destination, but the journey. The journey can be thrilling even if you already know you'll reach the destination. That's... probably the best explanation I can offer to explain why actually playing out combats and using the dice can be infinitely more desirable than just narrating events even when a given combat happens to be intended as a foregone conclusion that the PCs will win. I'm not saying that every combat should be a foregone conclusion, though, obviously, I'm just rebutting something people have said earlier.

2)Right. It's all about trust and using the tool properly rather than just abusing it to get whatever predetermined result the DM decided they wanted. Your example DM clearly used the tool badly to try to manipulate the tension.


On the first part I must disagrees with you. Risk is not just a perish/survive binary issue, at least in my games. In fact I generally consider death the most boring outcome...people have to wait around. we spend time resurrecting characters or having to break and develop new characters...their motivation for join the group an wanting to run an extension or related adventure etc and that is if the group avoids TPK-I don't mind paying that price if there a narrative punch to it and/or it doesn't detract from the fun of the get together but TPK pulls people out of game too at least as much as fudging does and so both must be treated with care.
as for the later point. I'd disagree with this too. I'll be the first to say that fudging can be and often is the most abused tool in the DM's toolbox, but that doesn't mean the tool is bad. A well placed and played fudge can be a player as well as a character saver but isn't something to be done continuously. Like a safety net that the players can't see that is only intermittently there so that the only logical response is to play like it isn't there. And about if a DM should lie to their players about it....I think there are a variety of possibilities. Telling players that the DM may and will fudge at times and will lie about it when it is being done covers many a DM....they are asking their players to trust them not to abuse the tool but raising the stakes if they do. There are lots ways the DM tweek play to keep it fun for everybody-even moving fights and events to account for time- fudging is a tool (a dangerous one) but just a tool

Point on fudging being a tool, which must be used appropriately, agreed upon.


It's also the consequence of incompetent and heavy-handed illusionism.

the GM should not fudge regularily, for hell's sake. He should fudge when it's necessary, otherwise the game BECOMES predictable.

Well said.


Risk entails consequences. In D&D, at least, taking hit point damage is not a real consequence. If you're playing FATE and literally taking consequences, then that's a thing. If you're playing Battletech, and damage means you have to repair your mech, that's a thing. But "oh, now I have to spend effectively 50 GP in charges of this healing wand" is not a significant consequence. In a plot-important fight, there can easily be consequences that are much more dramatic than player death... but I'm talking about a random encounter. What's going to happen in a random encounter, in D&D, that is of consequence other than the PCs dying? This might just be my bias against random encounters speaking, but please enlighten me.I'm basically with you so far...This is exactly what I'm saying. Let the players know what's up beforehand. Don't lie about what the game is going to be like. If you have to pull some "theatrics" to avoid some kind of RNG-based derail, it's going to be a lot easier to maintain immersion your players have already bought into that play-style. Again, it's all about setting expectations.

Let's put it this way: If I buy a ticket to a magic show, I know the magician is there to trick me for my own entertainment. That's fine (though in this analogy magic shows aren't my cup of tea). But if I'm watching a documentary, any attempt to trick the viewer is going to ruin the whole thing.

@Underlined: Well, I don't use random encounters, so I can't really say. I do, however, run encounters which have no "plot importance," but they're always tailored and have a purpose. And... as I said above, it isn't always ABOUT risk. The journey for the journey's sake is a thing. I get that some people might not like that. For those people, I would suggest not running fights that aren't mega-important. Besides that, there ARE consequences in non-plot-critical encounters besides death, even in D&D. They just usually aren't mechanical, but situational, such as a combat on a bridge destroying the bridge and forcing the party to try another route, or earning the respect of an enemy orc who might become plot important later simply because of this one fight and its specific results. Sometimes they are mechanical, such as getting cursed or blinded (when you don't have the ability within your party to fix that right away). It's not just death.

@Bold: Oh, absolutely. I agree. I think where my disagreement with some here lies is that I think you're being just as wrongful to your players if you don't tell them there won't be such theatrics up front and then proceed to always obey the dice regardless of circumstance as you are if you don't tell them there will and then proceed to have them. The former isn't a default that's assumed unless stated; it needs to be stated just as much up front. As a player, I would assume that there would be some form of the latter if nothing was said, and would probably inquire "to what extent? What kinds?" rather than assuming the former. I actually wouldn't want to be a player in a campaign where "dice fall where they may, no accounting for circumstance" was how it was played, and I would feel just as deceived and mistreated by a DM who took that attitude without telling me as I would with a DM who fudged everything and didn't say anything.


It is an issue of setting the field for other encounters for one. Now I'm not a big fan of random encounters myself but there are also plot driving encounters in which DM's want bounded consequences. Bounded consequences can usually be created by careful construction and planning but sometimes RNG's throw post-consumer food into rotary air driving cooling devices. Now these encounters, random or not, can still have consequences. They can set the game in a new direction, they can drain resources, they can provide(or not) advantages in later battles or even social situations that are considered more central to the narrative. Now there isn't a mechanic to make certain parts of the story more consequential than other parts and fudging extreme reactions in these less prominent scenes is one way of providing that. So can that be abused to create railroading? yes it can and that must be guarded against but having a tippy tower in your bag is way of dealing with the crimson permanent assurance moments when the dice, not the DM or Players is driving the plot into a way none of the humans wants to go.

and as for the issue with the magic show. I'd disagree with interpretation. You know that in a Boxing or MMA fight there are bounded consequences (there are refs and surrenders etc) but that doesn't stop people from caring. And there are times when the fighters have the opportunities to kill each other but don't so there are not "going all out" and "ripping into each other with all they have" and other phrases I hear spouted about the fight. . . so while those statements are technically a lie, it doesn't take away from most people's enjoyment of the spectacle. It is a limited exception and supports most viewers enjoyment of the show (as many would not want to watch a sport where they think people will die-not all mind you see 1970's formula 1 for example). Careful fudging is like that in that it supports the enjoyment of the event while not lowering the impression of the consequences. So it doesn't have to invalidate player agency, consequences, by just being used in the game...those are a consequence of abuse of that tool.

Good points and well said.




On an entirely different note, I wanted to clarify something.


Nope, pretty much everything that happens in my games is driven by the PCs' choices and actions and their consequences. The players decide where to go, what to focus on, and so on.

Although I suppose you may mean "character-driven" in the sense that PCs have to have a written background or something? Then you'd be right, because I don't go in for that; I think anything that happened before play began is so much less important that my players don't need to spend time on it. (If they want to, for their own benefit, cool. But ultimately, I'm mostly interested in what they do during play. Coming up with some background hooks is cool, but even motivations are really easy to develop organically in play, IME.)

I'm not talking about backstories.

You and I are operating on slightly different meaning for "character-driven." As I understand it, you mean it to mean "the focus of the game is dealing with the results of player actions. These results then lead to new player choices, which lead to new consequences, which lead to new choices, etc." What I mean it to mean is "the game is about the characters and their choices. It's not about the situations that their choices create - it's about the fact that the characters are who they are, having the dialogue that they're having, forming the relationships that they're forming, enjoying the things they enjoy, pursuing the things they pursue, all the while dealing with the consequences of choices they've made and the world around them." Random character death is bad for this.

So if, for example, Joe (who is just beginning to get into his groove with the other characters in the party) dies to a giant spider in the woods while the characters are on their way to the Woods Temple, where a secret treasure that Joe has been after for a while lies hidden (and also his nemesis is there after the same treasure, but he doesn't know that yet) as well as several other things that other characters are interested in, it's very jarring and doesn't fit with the tone or narrative at all. Doubly so if everything has been pretty lighthearted and "make witty quips during combat" so far. A massive shift in things must take place, one way or another. Joe's player is very attached to Joe, and doesn't want to create a new character, since Joe is one of the protags and not just some random guy in a random adventuring party. The party is too low level and too far away from civilization to raise Joe, and they also don't have enough money outside of there items anyway yet. Killing off the character here does not fit the kind of character-driven story that I'm talking about.


Aaaaaand checking what's been posted while I've been typing.... Back to the discussion:


So, aside from providing actual risk, random encounters can...
- Set the stage for future encounters.
- Drain resources.
IMO you can narrate both of these things.

In D&D, if you advertise an in-game fight to the death, but you only deliver boxing, that's lying to your players. It's not colorful metaphor. It's lying. If you advertise "bounded consequences," where your fights to the "death" aren't really deadly, then you're being honest. Boring for me, but honest.

Two things: First text block- you can. In my opinion, that's pretty boring to do. It's much more fun to play it out. Otherwise, why not just freeform the whole thing? Why narrate those and not narrate boss battles? Why are you people so hung up on risk as the only thing randomness achieves? Hint: it's not.

Second text block: Yes, this is true. It's a matter of taste. It might be boring for you, and you probably would not enjoy the same games I would, and would not enjoy gaming with me as DM. I don't find it boring, while you do. The point is that just because you find it boring doesn't mean that others might not find it preferable to having "actual" "fights to the death."

Also these things:


What I am trying to convey is that limiting some aspects of the game to boxing doesn't have to mean that consequence and gravitas is automatically reduced to none.

This is one of those times where there can be a big difference in when and how much. If sometimes it is boxing, and sometimes it is a fight to the death but you don't tell the players they have to treat every fight like it is deadly. If there are no deadly fights in the game then yes you'd be lying but not every fight that appears deadly has to actually carry that level of consequence.

also to go back, not every failure fudged has to be about literally saving the PC in combat. A really poorly timed critical fail in a social role may be fudged and it just as much as a save. Success works, Failure works and has consequences and a critical fail may well be inappropriate for the general fun of the game following this story....so because a critical failure is to be fudged it this something to just be narrated? Not necessarily, success vs fail is still highly valid and still has meaning so it can still be worth rolling even if the ST/DM has bounded the level of failure.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-03, 10:00 PM
Okay, so we have a third thing that random encounters provide aside from risk:
- The ability to roll dice and do something similar to a fight to the death, because the players want combat, but we secretly prevent PC death because deaths are meant for more important scenes.

I... guess... that works. I still think you should be able to shoehorn in a more important fight scene if your PCs are hankering for more combat. Honestly, I find that PCs looking for encounters are successful in doing so all by themselves, in a very non-random way.

As far as the boxing analogy goes, the way you're taking it, it seems less like an in-game fight to the death and more like an actual in-game equivalent of a boxing match. An honor duel to the blood has bounded consequences that are dictated by the circumstances in the story itself. And indeed, such a duel can have lots of fun consequences and gravitas and all that. But limiting the consequences only in the metagame means there's a disconnect between the character's experience and the player's experience that can be jarring. Again, the boxers (with rare exceptions) don't think of it as a fight to the death, but the characters in a random encounter do.

As far as critical failure goes, it doesn't actually exist in D&D. Saving throws automatically fail on a 1, but you were probably going to fail on a 1 anyway. Same goes for attacks automatically missing. Many other systems are different, and there can be degrees of failure in D&D regarding skill checks, but again in D&D there are ways for you to succeed on things like diplomacy on a 1.

This reminds me - a good way to get around this problem is to have a mechanic like Shadowrun's Edge. The players have built-in mechanical resources to get around their own bad dice luck, no fudging required.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-03, 10:21 PM
1) I see, and I can respect that. But... that's not how I enjoy play. To me, the "texture," as you put it, which is much more than "maybe they own it, maybe they get bruised some" but includes all kinds of details, like which spells they used and what tactics, how the enemy fought, what dialogue occurred during the combat, and all kinds of little details, are the main meat of combat, not the risk factor. The actual risk factor is much less important in general (though in plot-critical things like boss fights and stuff risk factor may matter more) than the actual "what happens." In other words, the results aren't necessarily the point - it's not the destination, but the journey. The journey can be thrilling even if you already know you'll reach the destination. That's... probably the best explanation I can offer to explain why actually playing out combats and using the dice can be infinitely more desirable than just narrating events even when a given combat happens to be intended as a foregone conclusion that the PCs will win. I'm not saying that every combat should be a foregone conclusion, though, obviously, I'm just rebutting something people have said earlier.What about conflict resolution mechanics is necessary/adds to that scene? You can still say what happens. If the outcome is pre-determined, sure, you can still act out the scene. But the mechanical dice rolling is there to randomly adjudicate the outcome.

@Underlined: Well, I don't use random encounters, so I can't really say.Yay, goodrightfun :smallwink:
I do, however, run encounters which have no "plot importance," but they're always tailored and have a purpose. And... as I said above, it isn't always ABOUT risk. The journey for the journey's sake is a thing. I get that some people might not like that. For those people, I would suggest not running fights that aren't mega-important. Besides that, there ARE consequences in non-plot-critical encounters besides death, even in D&D. They just usually aren't mechanical, but situational, such as a combat on a bridge destroying the bridge and forcing the party to try another route, or earning the respect of an enemy orc who might become plot important later simply because of this one fight and its specific results. Sometimes they are mechanical, such as getting cursed or blinded (when you don't have the ability within your party to fix that right away). It's not just death.True, there are ways fights can hamper low level characters without killing them. In that case, sure, play 'em out.
@Bold: Oh, absolutely. I agree. I think where my disagreement with some here lies is that I think you're being just as wrongful to your players if you don't tell them there won't be such theatrics up front and then proceed to always obey the dice regardless of circumstance as you are if you don't tell them there will and then proceed to have them. The former isn't a default that's assumed unless stated; it needs to be stated just as much up front. As a player, I would assume that there would be some form of the latter if nothing was said, and would probably inquire "to what extent? What kinds?" rather than assuming the former. I actually wouldn't want to be a player in a campaign where "dice fall where they may, no accounting for circumstance" was how it was played, and I would feel just as deceived and mistreated by a DM who took that attitude without telling me as I would with a DM who fudged everything and didn't say anything.Of course, you have to set the expectations either way. As a minor quibble, if I say "I'm DMing [system], with the following house rules" then the default is that I'm using that rule set. I should also say I'm rolling out in the open, true, but for me the default is resolving outcomes in the way the book says.
Two things: First text block- you can. In my opinion, that's pretty boring to do. It's much more fun to play it out. Otherwise, why not just freeform the whole thing? Why narrate those and not narrate boss battles? Why are you people so hung up on risk as the only thing randomness achieves? Hint: it's not.Because random encounters are the boring part that you can skim over (honestly I'd rather skim them over even with a "dice out in the open" GM), and boss battles aren't. If the DM makes encounters that are interesting or important in some way, sure, let's play 'em out. I'm actually very much in favor of quickly narrating as much as possible to get to the good scenes, and I'm also in favor of either narrating or outright avoiding scenes where I'm not fond of a particular die outcome. For the former, if the PCs are destroying the enemies, they can narrate the cleanup. If the PCs need to pass a sense motive check to figure out a clue in the murder mystery, I either just let them know something is up or, much more likely, give them more opportunities for clues.

Honestly, RPGs are slow enough. Let's skip to the good stuff.
Second text block: Yes, this is true. It's a matter of taste. It might be boring for you, and you probably would not enjoy the same games I would, and would not enjoy gaming with me as DM. I don't find it boring, while you do. The point is that just because you find it boring doesn't mean that others might not find it preferable to having "actual" "fights to the death."We're in agreement, aside from taste.

sktarq
2014-06-03, 10:38 PM
As far as the boxing analogy goes, ... But limiting the consequences only in the metagame means there's a disconnect between the character's experience and the player's experience that can be jarring. Again, the boxers (with rare exceptions) don't think of it as a fight to the death, but the characters in a random encounter do.
That is one of the main keys why I've been harping on a fudges inconsistent nature. If a protective fudge is to be used and not is not something the players should be able to know. IBH the dm well not know before-it is a judgment call. Forces a presumption of fatal.



As far as critical failure goes, it doesn't actually exist in D&D. Saving throws automatically fail on a 1, but you were probably going to fail on a 1 anyway. Same goes for attacks automatically missing. Many other systems are different, and there can be degrees of failure in D&D regarding skill checks, but again in D&D there are ways for you to succeed on things like diplomacy on a 1.

This reminds me - a good way to get around this problem is to have a mechanic like Shadowrun's Edge. The players have built-in mechanical resources to get around their own bad dice luck, no fudging required.

Critical failure...in some forms of DnD it does by rolling a 1 is a fumble which is effectively similar...and enemies natural 20 can be an effective equivalent...and there are other game systems besides DnD that do. Yes that is one plus in Shadowrun

Thrudd
2014-06-03, 11:01 PM
The whole issue really comes down to game expectations. Players expect a certain type of game, the system implies a different type of game. I completely understand the issues that come up when using D&D to tell a pre-planned narrative with specific characters.

If you play D&D and want to have a plot-driven narrative game, there is going to have to be fudging or modifications to significant portions of the system, and likely some degree of railroading for the players. If you and your players are all happy with this, then keep having fun.

I only suggest, to anyone who assumes these issues are unavoidable, that this is not the only way to design and play a game.

The only reason I keep posting what I do is because I feel like many people do not have any experience with the alternative to plot-driven linear adventures (this based on how people post in the forum and the types of questions which keep coming up from new DM's). It is assumed by many (I know not everyone) that an RPG, any RPG, must require the GM to create a story and then guide the players through that story, with a narrative structure similar to one found in novels or movies or video games. That's not the case, and the issues people cite in their games often revolve around attempting to run these types of narratives in a system that doesn't support them (almost always D&D). The solution to reducing and eliminating fudging, DM fiat-saves, and railroading, is to use a different philosophy in creating your games, and have different expectations.

Cikomyr
2014-06-03, 11:15 PM
Have I mentioned that everything you say sounds identical to the way I think about this stuff? Man, you and I would get along really well in the same gaming group.

Following this comment, and going back to read some more of your argumentations, I think that would certainly be the case. :smallbiggrin: If you were in Montreal, I would be happy to try to host a game with you as a player, or join a game you are hosting.

If you like reading certain campaign Log, here's a few links to posts I made relating parts of the last game I GMed

Session 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14622997&postcount=596)

Parts of Session 2 and 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14774512&postcount=702)

Actually, here's when I actually started writing session-by-session logs. I am just backtracking the entire blodoy Warhammer RPG thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14776106&postcount=713)

Session 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14777868&postcount=716)

Session 4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14783496&postcount=725)

Session 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14793373&postcount=733) (I know it said "session 4", I was in england at the time. so probably drunk)

I stopped being interested in writing session report after seeing how little feedback I had following that. But I know I've written the story's final wrap-up somewhere. All in all, everyone had load of fun except Ire Bron's character. No idea why.

sktarq
2014-06-04, 01:05 AM
If you play D&D and want to have a plot-driven narrative game, there is going to have to be fudging or modifications to significant portions of the system, and likely some degree of railroading for the players. If you and your players are all happy with this, then keep having fun.

I only suggest, to anyone who assumes these issues are unavoidable, that this is not the only way to design and play a game.

The only reason I keep posting what I do is because I feel like many people do not have any experience with the alternative to plot-driven linear adventures (this based on how people post in the forum and the types of questions which keep coming up from new DM's). It is assumed by many (I know not everyone) that an RPG, any RPG, must require the GM to create a story and then guide the players through that story, with a narrative structure similar to one found in novels or movies or video games. That's not the case, and the issues people cite in their games often revolve around attempting to run these types of narratives in a system that doesn't support them (almost always D&D). The solution to reducing and eliminating fudging, DM fiat-saves, and railroading, is to use a different philosophy in creating your games, and have different expectations.

That's my beef in the last sentence. Everything else I agree with. That last sentence assumes fudging is bad and that a philosophical change can aid that. I play games that are highly reactionary. I don't plan them. I build other characters that exist in their world and roughly what their plans are if the PC's don't interfere. I screwed up too many other DM's plans to assume my players will do things I predict. So they could do just about anything-with a couple gerenal prohibition of the kind of game I agreed to play at the start. I also consider a fudge to be important tool to maintain the fun of the game. Why because we are all telling a story. It has elements of randomness to it. Fudging may be as much about pulling out an inexperienced player (or one having trouble playing against type), getting the players to an emotional payoff they have been working toward, even maintaining party cohesion (when players doing what their characters would do start pushing the bounds of they really want to do with other players and game direction), or keeping the game focused on the story the players are interested if not the one that drives the plot. Fudging to hammer players along a railroad is obviously bad DMing and being tied to a plan. But never overriding, or setting limits on outcomes to pool of the possibilities described by the rules (which is what fudging is-if often retroactively) is just as limiting. While fudging abuse is classically more common with certain types of stylistic preplanned plot choices it isn't just a tool in that part of the spectrum.

Rhynn
2014-06-04, 01:06 AM
I'm not talking about backstories.

You and I are operating on slightly different meaning for "character-driven." As I understand it, you mean it to mean "the focus of the game is dealing with the results of player actions. These results then lead to new player choices, which lead to new consequences, which lead to new choices, etc." What I mean it to mean is "the game is about the characters and their choices. It's not about the situations that their choices create - it's about the fact that the characters are who they are, having the dialogue that they're having, forming the relationships that they're forming, enjoying the things they enjoy, pursuing the things they pursue, all the while dealing with the consequences of choices they've made and the world around them." Random character death is bad for this.

So if, for example, Joe (who is just beginning to get into his groove with the other characters in the party) dies to a giant spider in the woods while the characters are on their way to the Woods Temple, where a secret treasure that Joe has been after for a while lies hidden (and also his nemesis is there after the same treasure, but he doesn't know that yet) as well as several other things that other characters are interested in, it's very jarring and doesn't fit with the tone or narrative at all. Doubly so if everything has been pretty lighthearted and "make witty quips during combat" so far. A massive shift in things must take place, one way or another. Joe's player is very attached to Joe, and doesn't want to create a new character, since Joe is one of the protags and not just some random guy in a random adventuring party. The party is too low level and too far away from civilization to raise Joe, and they also don't have enough money outside of there items anyway yet. Killing off the character here does not fit the kind of character-driven story that I'm talking about.

That makes sense. We don't really do dialogue ("I tell them that..." is just fine) or any kind of deep character development (well, the way Artesia: AKW incentivizes it - by making it possible to advance your character's abilities through events/processes 100% internal/mental to the character - might chance that when we play it more, but I don't mind either way). But it definitely sounds to me like you'd be best off with games where PC death is (at least partially) in player hands, to give them dramatic control of it, and avoid all the potential problems with illusionism.

I guess it's some kind of fundamental storytelling difference. I feel the meat of a story (not just a RPG) is actions and consequences, some people think it's what people say and think. Also, I think the first is a lot easier for a bunch of people who aren't great writers to make interesting... I honestly don't think I'd want to read a lot of dialogue or internal narration written by any of the people at my table. :smalltongue:

Cikomyr
2014-06-04, 06:53 AM
That makes sense. We don't really do dialogue ("I tell them that..." is just fine) or any kind of deep character development (well, the way Artesia: AKW incentivizes it - by making it possible to advance your character's abilities through events/processes 100% internal/mental to the character - might chance that when we play it more, but I don't mind either way). But it definitely sounds to me like you'd be best off with games where PC death is (at least partially) in player hands, to give them dramatic control of it, and avoid all the potential problems with illusionism.

I guess it's some kind of fundamental storytelling difference. I feel the meat of a story (not just a RPG) is actions and consequences, some people think it's what people say and think. Also, I think the first is a lot easier for a bunch of people who aren't great writers to make interesting... I honestly don't think I'd want to read a lot of dialogue or internal narration written by any of the people at my table. :smalltongue:

I literally have no idea how you can combine the two bolded part together.

Like. No idea. How can you not have a strong plot without character interaction?

Red Fel
2014-06-04, 08:47 AM
I literally have no idea how you can combine the two bolded part together.

Like. No idea. How can you not have a strong plot without character interaction?

I can see it.

Not everyone wants to wax Shakespearean with their characters. Not everyone wants to adopt a series of grunts and scowls for their Barbarian, or a Scottish accent for their Dwarf - at least, not at all times. Not everyone wants to think out every detail of what their characters say.

So they simplify. "I tell him everything we've learned about our mission." "I ask him what he knows about the Temple." "I make a rude joke about his mother and a Half-Ogre." These work fine, and still constitute character interaction.

Frankly, if your goal is to keep the story moving, I can understand the desire to lighten up on detail-oriented dialogue. My personal preference is to speak in character, but that's not everyone's speed, and I don't see it as necessary to strong plot. Certainly, it supports immersion, but you could have a plot with very little dialogue. (If you don't believe me, go watch one of those beautiful animated shorts without a single line of dialogue. They tell a story quite successfully.)

Rhynn
2014-06-04, 09:27 AM
Not everyone wants to wax Shakespearean with their characters. Not everyone wants to adopt a series of grunts and scowls for their Barbarian, or a Scottish accent for their Dwarf - at least, not at all times. Not everyone wants to think out every detail of what their characters say.

So they simplify. "I tell him everything we've learned about our mission." "I ask him what he knows about the Temple." "I make a rude joke about his mother and a Half-Ogre." These work fine, and still constitute character interaction.

Yup, exactly.

Sometimes someone wants to be more detailed and speak in character - usually when they really care about how what their character says is received - but honestly, a lot of the time I feel that a nerd hemming and hawing and pausing his way through hastily improvised dialogue is probably just slowing down play and taking everyone out of the moment.

And the internal lives of characters are pretty much totally opaque to everyone at the table, possibly even their players. It really doesn't make a difference, for us; it's not about how the PCs feel about killing the prince, it's about how they get out of that mess, and how the consequences echo down the campaign.

veti
2014-06-04, 05:20 PM
And the internal lives of characters are pretty much totally opaque to everyone at the table, possibly even their players. It really doesn't make a difference, for us; it's not about how the PCs feel about killing the prince, it's about how they get out of that mess, and how the consequences echo down the campaign.

This. So much this. As Ben Franklin said: "Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning."

Speaking in character? Pretty much requires you to be that character. If you, the player, don't have 18 WIS or CHA - and let's face it, you don't, or you'd be doing something more productive with your time - how can you possibly hope to speak like someone who does?

Consequences, that's the key word. The things your characters do have effects, they attract blame or admiration or both, and dealing with those effects will pretty much dictate the shape of the campaign. I, as a player, don't give a damn' about how my fellow PCs feel about killing the prince - unless they make a big deal of it, I'll assume they feel pretty much as I do, most likely either "oopsie" or "good riddance". But how to get out of the palace afterwards - that's a real and present challenge.

Amphetryon
2014-06-04, 05:36 PM
This. So much this. As Ben Franklin said: "Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning."

Speaking in character? Pretty much requires you to be that character. If you, the player, don't have 18 WIS or CHA - and let's face it, you don't, or you'd be doing something more productive with your time - how can you possibly hope to speak like someone who does?

Consequences, that's the key word. The things your characters do have effects, they attract blame or admiration or both, and dealing with those effects will pretty much dictate the shape of the campaign. I, as a player, don't give a damn' about how my fellow PCs feel about killing the prince - unless they make a big deal of it, I'll assume they feel pretty much as I do, most likely either "oopsie" or "good riddance". But how to get out of the palace afterwards - that's a real and present challenge.

I don't disagree with the above - and I'll note that neither you nor Rhynn appear to be pointing this argument in this particular direction - but I've seen several folks use reasoning like the above as the rationale forbidding specific Players from playing specific Classes. In other words, several folks have previously reasoned that if a Player is not able to roleplay an 18 in a mental stat sufficiently while 'speaking in Character,' that Player should be choosing a different Class.

No doubt others will find the decision to describe interactions out-of-Character, rather than via in-Character speech, to be detrimental to their immersion.

Thrudd
2014-06-04, 08:39 PM
This new topic points to another area I think there some misunderstanding and differing expectations for RPGs. "Immersion". People mean different things by this term. I think a lot of people assume that "immersion" means exploring a characters' psychology and acting out their personality, as a method actor might for a film or theater role.

What I mean by "immersion" in a D&D game is to have the players feel as though they are in the imaginary world by the DM describing what their characters can see and hear, and they react and interact with that world. A player may describe their characters' motives for their actions if they want, but it isn't necessary. It isn't necessary to act or speak as the character, just to make decisions about actions as though you are the character. "Immersed" in the game world, not the character's head.

Rhynn
2014-06-04, 10:57 PM
What I mean by "immersion" in a D&D game is to have the players feel as though they are in the imaginary world by the DM describing what their characters can see and hear, and they react and interact with that world. A player may describe their characters' motives for their actions if they want, but it isn't necessary. It isn't necessary to act or speak as the character, just to make decisions about actions as though you are the character. "Immersed" in the game world, not the character's head.

Same. Our thinking lines up pretty well.

To me, my players are immersed in the game when they are taking an active interest in the world (because it feels real and reacts to their actions and decisions in, if not predictable, then understandable ways). I probably get the most out of watching my players engage the world in unexpected ways, at their own initiative - I was stunned and delighted when, one session into our first game of Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, my players were taking time to stop at a roadside shrine to leave an offering and make a prayer. (There was a small mechanical incentive, but that's not a bad thing - indeed, that's a triumph of the system, using little mechanics to get players to interact with the world in different ways.)

Immersed in the character? Well, that may come with time - organically, as events and experiences and adventures accumulate. Or not. Whatever.

Cikomyr
2014-06-04, 11:16 PM
I think I just like my sandboxes to be more active, story-wise. I do shape my stories to fit the player's interests and desires, but I keep pitching at them to see what they try to swing and what they don't.

Eventually, it becomes kind of obvious where their interests lies.

Jay R
2014-06-04, 11:43 PM
Here is my aesthetic problem with fudging.

I recognize that there are lots of special cases and exceptions, but in a general way, here's the general flow of a game:

The DM creates a problem. The players create a solution. That's what it means to play the game; each person is involved.

The flow of a game in which the DM fudges is:

The DM creates a problem. The DM creates a solution. The players aren't necessary for this scenario; the DM is really playing with himself.

That's why I don't like fudging in general. I recognize that this is an emotional response, and I recognize that others can reasonably have a different view.

But the question wasn't whether we should fudge, but whether we should brag about it later, by saying, "I just saved you."

To consider that question at all, we must assume for the moment that sometimes the situation calls for it anyway. (If the situation calls for it more often than once every several games, then the real problem isn't fudging; it's that the DM cannot consistently create a problem that the players can solve.) Some people believe that the situation never calls for it; I think it very rarely calls for it. But I'm avoiding that debate. For the sake of this post, please assume for the moment that the situation can, theoretically, under some rare conditions, call for it.

So we assume that, even with well-crafted scenarios, it is possible that fudging will be necessary. We now consider whether it is ever reasonable to say, "I just saved you."

On that assumption, compare two different scenarios.

A. The DM creates a problem. The players try to solve it, and for some reason, they fail. The DM creates a solution, disguised as a planned plot twist, related to an action the players took. The players believe that they had an effect on the situation as usual, even if (in this rare case) they did not.

B. The DM creates a problem. The players try to solve it, and for some reason, they fail. The DM creates a solution. He tells them, "I just saved you." The players have been put on notice that they had no input in what just happened, and really have no effect in general, since the DM will save them any time he chooses.

A is vastly superior to B. I may occasionally fudge a result, but when I do, I consider it good form to hide it, and allow the PCs the dignity of believing in their characters.

Rhynn
2014-06-05, 06:50 AM
I think I just like my sandboxes to be more active, story-wise. I do shape my stories to fit the player's interests and desires, but I keep pitching at them to see what they try to swing and what they don't.

Eventually, it becomes kind of obvious where their interests lies.

No idea why you think I don't do that...

WarKitty
2014-06-06, 08:49 PM
I do have to say, there is one exception to mentioning it to the players. I've had times where I've wanted to get across to the players that what they just did was dumb and should have killed them, without actually killing them. Most typically this is done with new players who aren't familiar with the game, and so may not realize the stupidness of their action.

Thrudd
2014-06-06, 09:56 PM
I do have to say, there is one exception to mentioning it to the players. I've had times where I've wanted to get across to the players that what they just did was dumb and should have killed them, without actually killing them. Most typically this is done with new players who aren't familiar with the game, and so may not realize the stupidness of their action.

That sort of situation has been mentioned. In the case of new players, you ask them before you allow their action: "are you SURE you want to do that?", or give them hints "if you do X, then Y could happen, are you sure you want to take that chance?". That is better than lying about the results, and much better than telling them that you fudged the results. If you want them to learn not to make bad decisions, you have to allow the game's consequences to stand, otherwise they are just learning that you will save them whenever they make a mistake. Not a good precedent to set for new players.

WarKitty
2014-06-06, 10:07 PM
That sort of situation has been mentioned. In the case of new players, you ask them before you allow their action: "are you SURE you want to do that?", or give them hints "if you do X, then Y could happen, are you sure you want to take that chance?". That is better than lying about the results, and much better than telling them that you fudged the results. If you want them to learn not to make bad decisions, you have to allow the game's consequences to stand, otherwise they are just learning that you will save them whenever they make a mistake. Not a good precedent to set for new players.

I've actually found that sets a far worse precedent than a little fudging to save them does. In my experience letting them go through with it and then fudging a little gets the lesson as to why you don't do that across. Just telling them it's a bad idea creates players who feel like they don't get to do cool stuff because of the DM. You end up with players who won't research and make a plan without DM approval, or on the other side players who are shocked later on when you allow them to go through with an ill thought out plan. Fudging, especially if they still suffer some consequence, just doesn't seem to create the same sort of bad expectations in my experience. Plus as a DM I find it easier to let them do it and see if they come up with a plan, penalizing but not killing them if they don't, than heading them off at the pass.

Thrudd
2014-06-06, 11:00 PM
I've actually found that sets a far worse precedent than a little fudging to save them does. In my experience letting them go through with it and then fudging a little gets the lesson as to why you don't do that across. Just telling them it's a bad idea creates players who feel like they don't get to do cool stuff because of the DM. You end up with players who won't research and make a plan without DM approval, or on the other side players who are shocked later on when you allow them to go through with an ill thought out plan. Fudging, especially if they still suffer some consequence, just doesn't seem to create the same sort of bad expectations in my experience. Plus as a DM I find it easier to let them do it and see if they come up with a plan, penalizing but not killing them if they don't, than heading them off at the pass.

True, you don't want to get in the habit of giving advice or making them second guess their decisions, either. If you give help to new players in any way, you need to make sure they know it is only a temporary thing.
Personally, I prefer not to give any such help, even for new players, since it does set a bad precedent. I would just let them do what they want and the dice fall where they may. That's how you learn to play. If they are very new to the game and their first expedition ends early with a TPK, well they have learned and will be more careful the next time around (though I don't think I have ever really seen that happen).

The best choice, if you don't want death to be a possibility, is just to change the rules of the game so it isn't a possibility.

WarKitty
2014-06-06, 11:08 PM
True, you don't want to get in the habit of giving advice or making them second guess their decisions, either. If you give help to new players in any way, you need to make sure they know it is only a temporary thing.
Personally, I prefer not to give any such help, even for new players, since it does set a bad precedent. I would just let them do what they want and the dice fall where they may. That's how you learn to play. If they are very new to the game and their first expedition ends early with a TPK, well they have learned and will be more careful the next time around (though I don't think I have ever really seen that happen).

The best choice, if you don't want death to be a possibility, is just to change the rules of the game so it isn't a possibility.

How long does it take to create your characters, how much backstory do they have, and how linked are they to the world? This sort of approach in my games would simply guarantee you wouldn't have players anymore. We want a world where you can die, just not one where you die to some random arrow because lines got crossed and you didn't realize how things were going to play out. Waste of character creation time, for one.

Edit: I think this has been mentioned before, but in my experience players want to feel like heroes, at least in D&D. That's the type of genre it is. They want death to be a possibility, but they want it to be a heroic death. They don't want to die on the spear of Random Kobold 179328 because someone got confused about how obscuring mist works. It's a different sort of game than, say, paranoia, where everyone expects to die often and for silly reasons or no reason at all. And D&D isn't the sort of game that's really well built for meaningless deaths - players dislike feeling like they lost their characters for no good reason, character creation takes a while, and it's super awkward to introduce new PC's.

DM Nate
2014-06-06, 11:35 PM
In my campaign, I actually state that I will never kill off a player's character until they want me to. However, that doesn't mean I can't poison/disease/curse/enervate the crap out of them to the point they WISH they were dead. I still punish stupidity.

Giddonihah
2014-06-07, 02:30 AM
I usually protect my players from casual deaths, though Player Stupidity and bosses are where I shrug and let them die where the dies roll. Course I often have time critical missions going on, and being forced to retreat and heal is punishment enough plotwise. Or atleast that was before they got access to raise dead, now I just save TPKs for Bosses and Player Stupidity.

While its usually rather rude to say "I just saved you" I suspect there are a few RPGs where it may be appropriate to do so. Afterall in paranoia Gm Fiat is an actual Armor. :smallwink:

Thrudd
2014-06-07, 03:25 AM
How long does it take to create your characters, how much backstory do they have, and how linked are they to the world? This sort of approach in my games would simply guarantee you wouldn't have players anymore. We want a world where you can die, just not one where you die to some random arrow because lines got crossed and you didn't realize how things were going to play out. Waste of character creation time, for one.

Edit: I think this has been mentioned before, but in my experience players want to feel like heroes, at least in D&D. That's the type of genre it is. They want death to be a possibility, but they want it to be a heroic death. They don't want to die on the spear of Random Kobold 179328 because someone got confused about how obscuring mist works. It's a different sort of game than, say, paranoia, where everyone expects to die often and for silly reasons or no reason at all. And D&D isn't the sort of game that's really well built for meaningless deaths - players dislike feeling like they lost their characters for no good reason, character creation takes a while, and it's super awkward to introduce new PC's.

Yes, different play assumptions, which we have discussed thoroughly over the last several pages. D&D is, in fact, built for meaningless deaths, or at least random ones. The amount of damage that things deal and the rules about how and when you die mean that any time there is a fight, someone could die. If someone doesn't like that idea, of course they can change the rules so it is harder or impossible to die.
Players may dislike when their characters die, but if they are playing D&D by the rules in the book, it is going to happen sometimes.

In AD&D or Basic/Rulescyclopedia It takes about 5 min to make a new character. Backstory should not be more than a couple sentences, at least until they have survived for a few levels. "A thief who is looking to get rich" or "a fighter ready to test his mettle and who wants to become famous" is plenty. The characters are linked to the game world inherently, by the fact of their existence. The players will learn everything they need to know about the world as they play, and develop their characters' personalities as they go.

One problem with 3e+ is how long character creation can take compared to the potential deadliness implied by the rules, especially if you are having your players start above level 1. It certainly is an issue if you spend an hour or more designing a character only to have them die ignominiously ten minutes later. Which is why I would not encourage my players to spend that long making their character.

Your choice of how to play the game is valid, but it is not the only way or the way implied by the rules (which allows for death caused by random kobolds). Nowhere in the game does it say that damage and death rules are different except at certain appropriate story times. If you play that way, it's fine, but you are changing the rules of the game (which is also fine and I understand many people feel is an activity that is expected of all DM's). It can't be the default assumption for playing of the game, if the books have no rules or guidelines to support it (and in some places they actually advise against it).

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 03:59 AM
Yes, different play assumptions, which we have discussed thoroughly over the last several pages. D&D is, in fact, built for meaningless deaths, or at least random ones. The amount of damage that things deal and the rules about how and when you die mean that any time there is a fight, someone could die. If someone doesn't like that idea, of course they can change the rules so it is harder or impossible to die.
Players may dislike when their characters die, but if they are playing D&D by the rules in the book, it is going to happen sometimes.

In AD&D or Basic/Rulescyclopedia It takes about 5 min to make a new character. Backstory should not be more than a couple sentences, at least until they have survived for a few levels. "A thief who is looking to get rich" or "a fighter ready to test his mettle and who wants to become famous" is plenty. The characters are linked to the game world inherently, by the fact of their existence. The players will learn everything they need to know about the world as they play, and develop their characters' personalities as they go.

One problem with 3e+ is how long character creation can take compared to the potential deadliness implied by the rules, especially if you are having your players start above level 1. It certainly is an issue if you spend an hour or more designing a character only to have them die ignominiously ten minutes later. Which is why I would not encourage my players to spend that long making their character.

Your choice of how to play the game is valid, but it is not the only way or the way implied by the rules (which allows for death caused by random kobolds). Nowhere in the game does it say that damage and death rules are different except at certain appropriate story times. If you play that way, it's fine, but you are changing the rules of the game (which is also fine and I understand many people feel is an activity that is expected of all DM's). It can't be the default assumption for playing of the game, if the books have no rules or guidelines to support it (and in some places they actually advise against it).

To be quite fair, I'm pretty sure that D&D's rules frequently imply things that contradict what other rules imply or even say outright. I'm not sure you can coherently say that the rules imply one thing or another in 3.5 The fluff at least seems to encourage the sort of heroic fantasy I've described, even though the rules don't always support that fluff very well. Especially given the utter contrast between the heavy lethality of early levels, and the near-meaninglessness of death later on.

Thrudd
2014-06-07, 04:16 AM
To be quite fair, I'm pretty sure that D&D's rules frequently imply things that contradict what other rules imply or even say outright. I'm not sure you can coherently say that the rules imply one thing or another in 3.5 The fluff at least seems to encourage the sort of heroic fantasy I've described, even though the rules don't always support that fluff very well. Especially given the utter contrast between the heavy lethality of early levels, and the near-meaninglessness of death later on.

Very true. Especially in 2e and later, there are many contradictions between the fluff and the mechanics as well as in the advice given for running the game. Sometimes this is on purpose, they are trying to give everyone what they want in an RPG, so suggest that the game can be played at different extremes (even though the rules don't actually reflect this). Sometimes, I think they were just in denial about what sort of play the rules actually support (dungeoncrawl sandbox) vs what people had come to expect (narrative storytelling). That started as far back as 1e, with some of the authors of adventure modules.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 04:58 AM
Seriously, D&D is only lethal for a few levels. Somewhere around 6th a party should be able to afford a simple raise dead, and a few levels later resurrection comes on the table. Even before that, with characters not dying until -10, past level 2 or 3 I've found lethality rarely comes into play. Only a truly vindictive enemy will take the time to coup de grace a fallen player mid-battle, and healing magic is abundant enough that it's not hard to stabilize a dying character before he bleeds out. Even without it you can try heal checks once per round as long as the character isn't dead.

Thrudd
2014-06-07, 05:18 AM
Seriously, D&D is only lethal for a few levels. Somewhere around 6th a party should be able to afford a simple raise dead, and a few levels later resurrection comes on the table. Even before that, with characters not dying until -10, past level 2 or 3 I've found lethality rarely comes into play. Only a truly vindictive enemy will take the time to coup de grace a fallen player mid-battle, and healing magic is abundant enough that it's not hard to stabilize a dying character before he bleeds out. Even without it you can try heal checks once per round as long as the character isn't dead.

Right. So why are we fudging the dice again? Even at low levels, a TPK is rare. Losing a 1st or 2nd level character is no big deal, easily replaced and still at the beginning of the campaign. If you want a low-lethality D&D game, one option is just to start at the levels where it doesn't come into play as much, then you don't even need to change the rules.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 05:30 AM
Right. So why are we fudging the dice again? Even at low levels, a TPK is rare. Losing a 1st or 2nd level character is no big deal, easily replaced and still at the beginning of the campaign. If you want a low-lethality D&D game, one option is just to start at the levels where it doesn't come into play as much, then you don't even need to change the rules.

Short answer: Because this way works. Same reason I don't play with multiclass penalties - as far as I can tell they don't add anything to the game and they take away from things we do want.

In my case? Because it's easier to start new players at level 1 than level 3, and "easily replaced" may not always be the case, especially if the characters come with long, complex backstories, or if new players have to be guided through character creation to create reasonably effective characters that do what they want. I'd say it takes a week or so to build such characters, maybe more?

Thrudd
2014-06-07, 05:48 AM
Short answer: Because this way works. Same reason I don't play with multiclass penalties - as far as I can tell they don't add anything to the game and they take away from things we do want.

In my case? Because it's easier to start new players at level 1 than level 3, and "easily replaced" may not always be the case, especially if the characters come with long, complex backstories, or if new players have to be guided through character creation to create reasonably effective characters that do what they want. I'd say it takes a week or so to build such characters, maybe more?

A week!? Holy moly. Ok, well you and I play very different D&D games. Long, complex backstories and plots based around them are not really compatible with a game where characters can be killed by random rolls of the dice. So yes, I see why you don't want your characters to die. Have you made a house rule that describes how and when characters can die (if at all), and do the players know that their characters can't die except in certain situations? If so, there shouldn't be any problems with deceiving the players. The situation where you save the characters with fudging and then have to debate telling them about it should never come up.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 06:08 AM
A week!? Holy moly. Ok, well you and I play very different D&D games. Long, complex backstories and plots based around them are not really compatible with a game where characters can be killed by random rolls of the dice. So yes, I see why you don't want your characters to die. Have you made a house rule that describes how and when characters can die (if at all), and do the players know that their characters can't die except in certain situations? If so, there shouldn't be any problems with deceiving the players. The situation where you save the characters with fudging and then have to debate telling them about it should never come up.

I've made clear I was being nice because people were new. The encounters I'm giving really shouldn't be lethal short of mistakes (e.g. a single warrior 1 vs. a party of 4). At the same time it's been clear that certain things WILL be lethal - I had my party running scared of a deadline lest they have to deal with the hunters that wake at dawn...

I generally don't actually fudge just for RNG errors; I rather bias lower levels towards trap/skill encounters or other sorts of encounters that can be solved without such risk. Fudging is for understandable player mistakes and for GM error.

sktarq
2014-06-07, 01:20 PM
Long, complex backstories and plots based around them are not really compatible with a game where characters can be killed by random rolls of the dice.

Right here. When pushed to pick many people will prefer to those backstories and related character investment and thus the random die roll may have to give.

Airk
2014-06-07, 10:41 PM
A week!? Holy moly. Ok, well you and I play very different D&D games. Long, complex backstories and plots based around them are not really compatible with a game where characters can be killed by random rolls of the dice. So yes, I see why you don't want your characters to die. Have you made a house rule that describes how and when characters can die (if at all), and do the players know that their characters can't die except in certain situations? If so, there shouldn't be any problems with deceiving the players. The situation where you save the characters with fudging and then have to debate telling them about it should never come up.

Yeah, but you know what's also not compatible with a game where characters can be killed with a few random rolls of the dice? Any real sense of attachment or having a place in the world. In spite of what a lot of games striving for "Realism" would have you believe, high mortality rates often result in very gamey games.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 10:56 PM
Yeah, but you know what's also not compatible with a game where characters can be killed with a few random rolls of the dice? Any real sense of attachment or having a place in the world. In spite of what a lot of games striving for "Realism" would have you believe, high mortality rates often result in very gamey games.

I actually think a gritty game is better achieved by a system that makes HP damage mean something rather than by a game that just makes death easy. Not a system like D&D where healing magic is cheap and being down half your health doesn't make you any less effective. And really high mortality rates actually seem to go best with silly games than anything else.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-09, 05:52 PM
What about conflict resolution mechanics is necessary/adds to that scene? You can still say what happens. If the outcome is pre-determined, sure, you can still act out the scene. But the mechanical dice rolling is there to randomly adjudicate the outcome.
Honestly, RPGs are slow enough. Let's skip to the good stuff.We're in agreement, aside from taste.

Well, it's definitely a matter of taste. You seem to be thinking of outcome as the important bit. I think getting from the start to the finish is the important bit for many, if not most combats - and not just in terms of story and characters, but also in terms of mechanics. Just because you know that Party A is going to defeat Enemies B doesn't mean you know what special abilities Enemies B are going to use (even if you know what abilities they have, which might not be the case for the players), or which spells Party A is going to be required to expend, or any number of other things that are mechanics-related. Essentially what I'm saying is, even if you prefer narration to playing it out (which I don't), it makes no sense to advocate narration when mechanical aspects are involved that are going to have consequences of their own beyond the scope of "are we going to win?"


Following this comment, and going back to read some more of your argumentations, I think that would certainly be the case. :smallbiggrin: If you were in Montreal, I would be happy to try to host a game with you as a player, or join a game you are hosting.

If you like reading certain campaign Log, here's a few links to posts I made relating parts of the last game I GMed

Session 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14622997&postcount=596)

Parts of Session 2 and 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14774512&postcount=702)

Actually, here's when I actually started writing session-by-session logs. I am just backtracking the entire blodoy Warhammer RPG thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14776106&postcount=713)

Session 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14777868&postcount=716)

Session 4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14783496&postcount=725)

Session 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14793373&postcount=733) (I know it said "session 4", I was in england at the time. so probably drunk)

I stopped being interested in writing session report after seeing how little feedback I had following that. But I know I've written the story's final wrap-up somewhere. All in all, everyone had load of fun except Ire Bron's character. No idea why.

Unfortunately I live in Virginia. :( But it's nice to have a kindred mind!


This new topic points to another area I think there some misunderstanding and differing expectations for RPGs. "Immersion". People mean different things by this term. I think a lot of people assume that "immersion" means exploring a characters' psychology and acting out their personality, as a method actor might for a film or theater role.

What I mean by "immersion" in a D&D game is to have the players feel as though they are in the imaginary world by the DM describing what their characters can see and hear, and they react and interact with that world. A player may describe their characters' motives for their actions if they want, but it isn't necessary. It isn't necessary to act or speak as the character, just to make decisions about actions as though you are the character. "Immersed" in the game world, not the character's head.

Now that we've all gotten around to explaining ourselves pretty well (I'm not making any specific responses to your or Rhynn's comments before this, but suffice to say they were pretty enlightening), it's easier to talk about specifics. For me, these two types of immersion are intrinsically linked: I am incapable of the latter type unless I also have the former type. Getting into characters' heads is what drives stories for me, both in actual literature and gaming. To reference the thing about killing the prince earlier: I couldn't care less what they do to kill the prince, how they react to it, and what the consequences are unless I also know things like why they killed the prince, how they feel about it, and what drives the consequences and their response to the consequences.


Same. Our thinking lines up pretty well.

To me, my players are immersed in the game when they are taking an active interest in the world (because it feels real and reacts to their actions and decisions in, if not predictable, then understandable ways). I probably get the most out of watching my players engage the world in unexpected ways, at their own initiative - I was stunned and delighted when, one session into our first game of Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, my players were taking time to stop at a roadside shrine to leave an offering and make a prayer. (There was a small mechanical incentive, but that's not a bad thing - indeed, that's a triumph of the system, using little mechanics to get players to interact with the world in different ways.)

Immersed in the character? Well, that may come with time - organically, as events and experiences and adventures accumulate. Or not. Whatever.

For example, I agree that it's awesome when they interact and engage the world in unexpected ways on their own initiative... but a large part of that is immersion in the character. To use your specific example: if the players just said, "we stop at the roadside shrine and pray, leaving 15 gold as an offering," my response would be to inwardly go "boooooooriiiiing!" But if it went something like this...

DM: You spot a roadside shrine up ahead.
Kent: I turn to Sain and say, "Hey, we're going on a pretty difficult journey, you think we should pray for luck at the shrine or something?"
Sain: I shrug. "I'm not really a big believer in luck. But what's the harm?"
Lyn: "Yes, let's pay our respects. I'll leave an offering." We go up to the shrine when we reach it and I stop by the altar. Is there like a collection box or something?
DM: Yeah, right by the altar. You can also see that the shrine is dedicated to the god of travel, which is pretty expected. Doesn't look like there's anyone else here at the moment.
Lyn: Okay. I place 15 gold in the collection box and kneel to pray for safe journey.
Kent: So do I.
Sain: I sigh and mimic their actions, but I'm not really praying, I just don't want Lyn to chew me out since she's so big on respecting the gods.

Then I'd find it awesome.


Right here. When pushed to pick many people will prefer to those backstories and related character investment and thus the random die roll may have to give.

Precisely.


Yeah, but you know what's also not compatible with a game where characters can be killed with a few random rolls of the dice? Any real sense of attachment or having a place in the world. In spite of what a lot of games striving for "Realism" would have you believe, high mortality rates often result in very gamey games.

I also concur with this, hence some of my confusion about how people can be immersed in the game world when they aren't able to be immersed in the character due to all the random death.

Thrudd
2014-06-09, 06:59 PM
I also concur with this, hence some of my confusion about how people can be immersed in the game world when they aren't able to be immersed in the character due to all the random death.

As was pointed out, after the first few levels the chance of random death is really quite low, even in older editions of D&D. Those first few levels are the time when a player begins to connect to a character, becomes immersed in the game world, and develops their personality through actual play. If a character dies at this point, not much time or investment has been put into them yet.

It is harder to outright kill higher level characters, because they have so many ways of saving themselves and even being resurrected from death. They have wealth enough to buy almost anything that can be bought, they have access to spells, they have better saving throws and more HP so they can recover or retreat from a surprise attack. And hopefully they have learned, through those early deadlier levels, good gaming practices and habits that will keep them from making many bad mistakes which get characters killed.

Level 1-3 are learning levels where the players get an idea how my game works and how to survive when the odds are against them, and to learn some about the fictional world and what part their characters can have in it. After those early levels, the players know about the world and have characters which have developed some personality through interacting with it, and have developed some personal goals related to it. They have earned the right to be heroes (or villains) and eventual world-shakers through hard won experience.

I feel like spending pre-game time on character background, personal history, and personality are premature and actually hinder the way my D&D game is played. I don't demand detailed pre-defined personalities because I want the player to develop that as they play. They can have a vague idea of who the character is at the start, it will become more defined over time. I also don't want to pressure the players into trying to be good actors. The game isn't about improvisational acting. So if their character's personality is basically the same as their own personality, that's ok. If another player is predisposed as a method actor and wants to ham it up, that's fine, too. For some, creating detailed backgrounds and personalities for fictional characters comes easily and naturally, and I won't stop them from being as dramatic as they want.

I definitely will not give any advantages or special treatment for something they invented as the character's background, no matter how detailed. You can't say "my character is from a rich family, so I can always get money when I need it and call on servants and family connections to do favors for me". In D&D, everyone starts out on the same page. You've decided to begin the life of an adventurer, you are near-broke and have come to a town you are mostly unfamiliar with in a mostly unfamiliar region to seek adventure and fortune. You can decide how your character got to that point and what their ultimate goals and motives are, but the only thing that is relevant is what happens now.

Jay R
2014-06-10, 12:35 PM
Yeah, but you know what's also not compatible with a game where characters can be killed with a few random rolls of the dice? Any real sense of attachment or having a place in the world. In spite of what a lot of games striving for "Realism" would have you believe, high mortality rates often result in very gamey games.

Sure. The ideal is the constant threat of danger and potential death, which never or almost never materializes, but always could.

What players most want at the table is to succeed at their plans without being threatened. But what they most want the next day is to know that they almost died, but survived due to their cleverness and heroism.

This is why my answer to the original question, which everybody else seems to be ignoring, is this:

Perhaps sometimes you need to save the party. But the problems that can potentially come from this don't come from the fact of being saved by the DM, they come from the knowledge that they have been saved by the DM. Therefore, if you save the party, do it as subtlely as possibly, so they don't realize it. And never say, "I just saved you."

sktarq
2014-06-10, 03:44 PM
What players most want at the table is to succeed at their plans without being threatened. But what they most want the next day is to know that they almost died, but survived due to their cleverness and heroism.


I'd take issue with this. It varies a lot...even game to game with the same players. I know that I've had plenty of players for whom the above is true but I've probably had more who are okay with character death if it creates a fun, emotionally compelling story. That may be the crew I like to play with but the success of Call of Cthulu (in which almost every character will die/go stark raving nuts) seems to show otherwise. And I know that the CoC characters I run into seem to be deeply back-storied, emotionally detailed, and subject to large time investments even though their playable spans are bound to be short.

Otherwise I agree with the rest.

Lord of Shadows
2014-06-10, 08:24 PM
(edited)

Perhaps sometimes you need to save the party. But the problems that can potentially come from this don't come from the fact of being saved by the DM, they come from the knowledge that they have been saved by the DM. Therefore, if you save the party, do it as subtly as possible, so they don't realize it. And never say, "I just saved you."

This is the answer to the OP's post in a nutshell. I would only add that DM's should never say "I just saved you," unless it is speaking as an NPC who did just that, and to whom the party is now in debt. Even that, if it happens "all the time," will have the same effect that the above poster warns against. Many "old timers" recall vividly how early D&D games were "meat grinders," and even today some modern clones are "lovingly" (?) described as a "funnel:" take in 20 or so 0-levels and come out with 5 1st-levels, who then become "the party."

If nothing else, this discussion has shown the wide variety of styles of play and the many ways of creating those styles.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-11, 07:49 PM
Well, it's definitely a matter of taste. You seem to be thinking of outcome as the important bit. I think getting from the start to the finish is the important bit for many, if not most combats - and not just in terms of story and characters, but also in terms of mechanics. Just because you know that Party A is going to defeat Enemies B doesn't mean you know what special abilities Enemies B are going to use (even if you know what abilities they have, which might not be the case for the players), or which spells Party A is going to be required to expend, or any number of other things that are mechanics-related. Essentially what I'm saying is, even if you prefer narration to playing it out (which I don't), it makes no sense to advocate narration when mechanical aspects are involved that are going to have consequences of their own beyond the scope of "are we going to win?"The outcome is the bit that the dice adjudicate, and it's also the part that generates the tension of risk. Players choose what resources they expend, and they can choose to expend whatever resources they'd like with or without the dice. To this you might say, well, if the players don't have to roll the dice they're going to balk at spending resources, even if they know the enemy has some weird ability. But this temptation exists either way, since they're going to win either way. Unless you get into the strange area that you only save the PCs when they do the "smart" thing... Anyway, what other consequences (i.e. things that directly affect the PCs going forward) are there, that can't be narrated, other than death and resource expenditure? I'm not seeing a lot.

Remember that we're talking about a random encounter. No plot importance, nothing really connected to characters, just a scene-setter and a chance to roll some dice. In a story, when the reader knows that this is just a bump in the road with no chance of actually impacting the main characters beyond some resource expenditure, that's called filler. Filler is okay in a TV show or a book because it doesn't take that long to read it, but RPG time is more precious.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-14, 09:15 PM
The outcome is the bit that the dice adjudicate, and it's also the part that generates the tension of risk. Players choose what resources they expend, and they can choose to expend whatever resources they'd like with or without the dice. To this you might say, well, if the players don't have to roll the dice they're going to balk at spending resources, even if they know the enemy has some weird ability. But this temptation exists either way, since they're going to win either way. Unless you get into the strange area that you only save the PCs when they do the "smart" thing... Anyway, what other consequences (i.e. things that directly affect the PCs going forward) are there, that can't be narrated, other than death and resource expenditure? I'm not seeing a lot.

Remember that we're talking about a random encounter. No plot importance, nothing really connected to characters, just a scene-setter and a chance to roll some dice. In a story, when the reader knows that this is just a bump in the road with no chance of actually impacting the main characters beyond some resource expenditure, that's called filler. Filler is okay in a TV show or a book because it doesn't take that long to read it, but RPG time is more precious.

The idea of using mechanics in a slice-of-life situation would sound nonsensical to you, wouldn't it?

1. The outcome is not the only thing the dice adjudicate, and that's part of the point I've been trying to make. Why would you think that this was the case? You keep coming back to the same refrain: "If the players aren't going to lose/die, why do you need a random element?" To which I answer: why do you need a random element at all? Why not freeform the whole thing, even when there is a lose/die situation? If you don't understand what I'm saying, I'll see if I can break it down after this numbered section.

2. The rolling of the dice are the generators of tension of risk in combat situations, yes. This can be true even if non-death is assured in a supposedly potentially lethal situation, even if everyone already knows that their characters won't be dying in this conflict. If you've read the Harry Potter books, did you ever think, in the first 6 books anyway, that Harry, Ron, or Hermione would die? Like, seriously expect on a rational level that it might happen? I didn't. That didn't stop me from feeling tension when Harry faced off against the Basalisk, or when Snape cornered Sirius and Lupin with the trio in the Shack, or when Harry faced Voldemort in the graveyard, or when ... you get the idea. The same principle can hold with RPGs.

3. People make choices based on perception, not on reality, even if they know the reality and it doesn't match the perception. The choices people might make on resource expenditure will be different if something is narrated versus if something is played out, even if they know that they'll eventually achieve victory regardless.

4. It's not about "saving" the characters, it's about preventing an undesirable (from a table, not in-game, standpoint) outcome. So... a combat that is intended as a scene setter and the expectation is a relatively easy win could very well turn into "left for dead by the enemy" if they don't make choices to expend resources and play "smart" (whatever that might mean for the group in question). And it creates an entirely different story and experience. So.... yes, despite the fact that they're going to survive anyway, their choices in combat can make a difference - a difference that might not be even touched on if it were left entirely up to narration and their combat choices had no consequences.

5. How many times do I have to repeat that internal consequences can be just as important to a playgroup as external consequences? That is, the [round to round] can be just as important from a "are we having fun playing the game and making an interesting story" perspective as the [outcome of fight] is. Why is this so hard to comprehend? That there is randomness involved in the round to round means that what round to round is happening can be worlds apart from what it would be if we narrated it.

6. It has nothing to do with what can or can't be narrated. As I pointed out, EVERYTHING can be narrated. So why are you hung up on "can" rather than "want to," which is the only bit that matters. Randomness influences choice in a way that narration does not. This alone can be a reason to prefer playing it out to narrating it.

7. Series of things in response to the last paragraph:
-"No plot importance" can change into "has plot importance" completely by accident and the decisions made within the combat very easily. I'm not writing a book and then playing it out, the story is generated as it goes along, based on the actions the party takes.
-Same with connection to characters. On player took the leadership feat later in the game because in the introductory combat, he ran down one of the kobolds and knocked him out instead of killing him, a decision that I am 100% sure he would not have made if we had been narrating. This lead to nameless, no-personality mook kobold being kidnapped by party, fed, and generating Stockholm Syndrome. This kobold was trained, and eventually became a cohort after leadership was taken. If we had been narrating, this excellent bit of story and characterization on the part of the PC would not have taken place.
-There is no such thing as "just" a scene-setter. Scene-setters are incredibly important, sometimes even more influential on the storyline than the fights with the BBEG!
-There is no such thing as something having no chance to impact the characters... unless you decide you're just going to handwave and narrate instead of playing it out in order to speed things up. If you do that, then much of the time the players will be much less involved in what's happening and much less likely to care, especially since narrating something like combat in a game with lots of rules for combat is very difficult, especially with regard to dividing up the roles of player versus GM.
-Once you're thinking of it in terms of how much time it's taking, you're no longer caring about what's going on. If you're thinking about it in those terms before even starting it? Why is anyone going to care about it?




Breakdown of a few points:
-Nothing is binary. Ever.
-Randomness is not necessarily about outcomes, and it certainly is not restricted to long-term outcomes, or even mid-term or short-term. Immediate outcomes can matter too, EVEN IF THEY DON'T AFFECT THE LONG-TERM OUTCOMES.
-Narration can be undesirable regardless of feasibility.
-Pretense can be as influential as truth for many purposes.
-The detail can be just as important for its own sake as the result of the process.
-Expectations going into a situation can be very different from what actually happens, and randomness can help with that. I see this as a good thing.


Edit: Also, another point: if you're playing a game that uses a battlegrid and/or miniatures, how are you doing the narration? With or without drawing on the grid and moving the miniatures around? Because... it seems really pointless to do it without the dice but with the map. Yet, the entire experience is vastly different if we use the map than if we don't, and this also influences what decisions people make.


Besides, I already said I don't do purely random encounters, but I do have purposeful encounters that aren't intended to be important to the greater plot. Intended is key, you know. So...

Amphetryon
2014-06-14, 09:47 PM
Fiery Diamond, as I read your last response, you contradicted yourself. Could you please clarify the apparent contradiction in the following two statements:


I'm not writing a book and then playing it out, the story is generated as it goes along, based on the actions the party takes.


Besides, I already said I don't do purely random encounters, but I do have purposeful encounters that aren't intended to be important to the greater plot.

How can you claim to make purposeful encounters - geared to be important OR unimportant to the greater plot - while simultaneously claiming the plot ("the story," in your words) is the result of emergent gameplay, rather than planning it in advance? If you're planning it in advance, you are, in essence, writing at least the notes to a book.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-14, 10:08 PM
Fiery Diamond, as I read your last response, you contradicted yourself. Could you please clarify the apparent contradiction in the following two statements:





How can you claim to make purposeful encounters - geared to be important OR unimportant to the greater plot - while simultaneously claiming the plot ("the story," in your words) is the result of emergent gameplay, rather than planning it in advance? If you're planning it in advance, you are, in essence, writing at least the notes to a book.

Quite easily, and they aren't in conflict at all.

"The Shark nation has significant turmoil amongst the ruling class. The princess has run away, and I plan to introduce her (undercover) to the players. They can either listen to her request ("I'm on the run from mercenaries from the Shark nation, and I need help. Will you escort me to the Lion nation capital? I'll pay you when we get there.) or not, and can choose to agree or not. Meanwhile, she really is being chased, and they'll run into Shark nation mercenaries regardless of whether they help her or not. I haven't decided whether they'll run into the mercs first or her first, it'll depend on what they do, but given their current location both will end up happening if they keep traveling in the direction they are (and I have no reason to think they won't, since they already want to go to the capital). What will happen after that? I dunno, I'll figure it out as I go along and improvise. My choices will depend on what the player's choices are, and I'll come up with some encounters in between sessions based on what the players are in the process of doing as of the end of the last encounter.

Some of them will be things like "and this here is a field infested with Ankhegs, your horses aren't battle trained, and they got a surprise round due to being underground and popping up underfoot. Let's find out what happens!" (example of a non-plot-related, or intended to be such, encounter, which has the purpose of demonstrating the effects of traveling on non-combat mounts. If they have the princess, there's also the bit about finding out how they prioritize in protection versus neutralization of threats. If a horse bucks them off and runs, will they try to track it down after combat or double-up riders?) and others might be something like "A village is in flames! The Shark nation sacked it when they thought their target might be hiding there? Oh, will you help? If yes, suddenly MERCENARIES! How will you handle this fight, and the subsequent handling of the town that's, you know, ON FIRE." (example of a plot-related encounter)"

"The specifics of the encounters will be based on what players have done before and what ideas they've given me, since I'll never plan more than two or three sessions ahead at the very most, and when I do that I may need to make changes or scrap my plans and come up with new ones. For example, if they anger the town by being trigger happy and accidentally shooting a civilian that ran away when they tried to help because she thought they were raiders (a situation I obviously wouldn't have prepared for)... new encounters, both combat and non, can arise. They might be thought out, if this happens at the end of the session, or improvised, if this happens in the middle of the session."


In this example, I've taken stock of the current situation and set a scenario (Shark nation princess bit). So far, I've done nothing with the actual story until either the mercs or the princess meets the party. What happens in the background, or plot hooks, aren't actually plot or story unless they interact with the players. Based on player action, I introduce these elements to the players in one form (the princess first) or another (the mercs first). Based on their choice (help princess or not, or some third option) I have further situations I may set. So far, I don't have any, but in the example I gave some that I might come up with after they make their decision. For example, if they ignore the princess, I might still come up with and run the Ankheg fight, but I might decide not to bother with something like the Merc attack on the town and I'll come up with something else as a scenario to draw them in. Then I give an example of a specific unexpected action that a player might take and how that will require a response, which will drive the story in a different way.



Edit: I suppose the confusion is mostly my fault, since I use "story" and "plot" to mean slightly different things. "Story" to me includes all the little detours and curiosities, the bits of characterization that don't have major effects, the events that are self-contained... basically, I don't believe in filler in games, by which I mean I think if I'm doing it right, the players won't consider anything to be filler, even if it doesn't have an impact on anything major down the line. Plot, on the other hand, is the stuff that is overarching and connects major events together. Conversing with a shopkeeper in one town that you'll never see again is story, but recruiting a new party member is plot. Fending off a wolf pack at night in the wilderness is story, fighting the raiders that have been plaguing the towns you've been visiting and tracking them down and eliminating them, possibly finding links to something else in the process, is plot. All plot is story, not all story is plot. Plot can be partially prepared or spontaneous, the same as non-plot, but I never plan an entire plot arc, which is what I'm talking about with writing it beforehand and then just playing it out like writing a book and then playing it out.

Amphetryon
2014-06-15, 08:10 AM
Quite easily, and they aren't in conflict at all.

"The Shark nation has significant turmoil amongst the ruling class. The princess has run away, and I plan to introduce her (undercover) to the players. They can either listen to her request ("I'm on the run from mercenaries from the Shark nation, and I need help. Will you escort me to the Lion nation capital? I'll pay you when we get there.) or not, and can choose to agree or not. Meanwhile, she really is being chased, and they'll run into Shark nation mercenaries regardless of whether they help her or not. I haven't decided whether they'll run into the mercs first or her first, it'll depend on what they do, but given their current location both will end up happening if they keep traveling in the direction they are (and I have no reason to think they won't, since they already want to go to the capital). What will happen after that? I dunno, I'll figure it out as I go along and improvise. My choices will depend on what the player's choices are, and I'll come up with some encounters in between sessions based on what the players are in the process of doing as of the end of the last encounter.

Some of them will be things like "and this here is a field infested with Ankhegs, your horses aren't battle trained, and they got a surprise round due to being underground and popping up underfoot. Let's find out what happens!" (example of a non-plot-related, or intended to be such, encounter, which has the purpose of demonstrating the effects of traveling on non-combat mounts. If they have the princess, there's also the bit about finding out how they prioritize in protection versus neutralization of threats. If a horse bucks them off and runs, will they try to track it down after combat or double-up riders?) and others might be something like "A village is in flames! The Shark nation sacked it when they thought their target might be hiding there? Oh, will you help? If yes, suddenly MERCENARIES! How will you handle this fight, and the subsequent handling of the town that's, you know, ON FIRE." (example of a plot-related encounter)"

"The specifics of the encounters will be based on what players have done before and what ideas they've given me, since I'll never plan more than two or three sessions ahead at the very most, and when I do that I may need to make changes or scrap my plans and come up with new ones. For example, if they anger the town by being trigger happy and accidentally shooting a civilian that ran away when they tried to help because she thought they were raiders (a situation I obviously wouldn't have prepared for)... new encounters, both combat and non, can arise. They might be thought out, if this happens at the end of the session, or improvised, if this happens in the middle of the session."


In this example, I've taken stock of the current situation and set a scenario (Shark nation princess bit). So far, I've done nothing with the actual story until either the mercs or the princess meets the party. What happens in the background, or plot hooks, aren't actually plot or story unless they interact with the players. Based on player action, I introduce these elements to the players in one form (the princess first) or another (the mercs first). Based on their choice (help princess or not, or some third option) I have further situations I may set. So far, I don't have any, but in the example I gave some that I might come up with after they make their decision. For example, if they ignore the princess, I might still come up with and run the Ankheg fight, but I might decide not to bother with something like the Merc attack on the town and I'll come up with something else as a scenario to draw them in. Then I give an example of a specific unexpected action that a player might take and how that will require a response, which will drive the story in a different way.



Edit: I suppose the confusion is mostly my fault, since I use "story" and "plot" to mean slightly different things. "Story" to me includes all the little detours and curiosities, the bits of characterization that don't have major effects, the events that are self-contained... basically, I don't believe in filler in games, by which I mean I think if I'm doing it right, the players won't consider anything to be filler, even if it doesn't have an impact on anything major down the line. Plot, on the other hand, is the stuff that is overarching and connects major events together. Conversing with a shopkeeper in one town that you'll never see again is story, but recruiting a new party member is plot. Fending off a wolf pack at night in the wilderness is story, fighting the raiders that have been plaguing the towns you've been visiting and tracking them down and eliminating them, possibly finding links to something else in the process, is plot. All plot is story, not all story is plot. Plot can be partially prepared or spontaneous, the same as non-plot, but I never plan an entire plot arc, which is what I'm talking about with writing it beforehand and then just playing it out like writing a book and then playing it out.

While I don't agree with your distinction between 'story' and 'plot,' I appreciate the explanation.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-15, 01:25 PM
While I don't agree with your distinction between 'story' and 'plot,' I appreciate the explanation.

No problem.

Out of curiosity, is your disagreement purely semantics-related (as in, you don't think the terms "story" and "plot" should be used like that) or are the concepts I'm talking about and the distinction between them something you disagree with? If the former, well, that makes sense, but I can't really think of any other terms to use to convey the concepts and would actually appreciate suggestions since having to explain it every time I bring it up is not really super conducive to fluid conversation. If the latter, could you tell me why? They are distinct concepts. I like my games to have, well, "slice of life" elements and segments as well as self-contained events that don't have anything to do with greater course of events, though I have no problems at all (and in fact love) when such parts DO end up influencing things down the line, often in unexpected ways. The idea of having only "important" things happen is actually kind of abhorrent to me. Yet, there ARE things that are going to be more "important" than other things, as well as elements and events that are designed to be more influential on the greater course of events, and I think that there is merit in making the distinction between those types of things and the previous kind.

Amphetryon
2014-06-15, 07:52 PM
No problem.

Out of curiosity, is your disagreement purely semantics-related (as in, you don't think the terms "story" and "plot" should be used like that) or are the concepts I'm talking about and the distinction between them something you disagree with? If the former, well, that makes sense, but I can't really think of any other terms to use to convey the concepts and would actually appreciate suggestions since having to explain it every time I bring it up is not really super conducive to fluid conversation. If the latter, could you tell me why? They are distinct concepts. I like my games to have, well, "slice of life" elements and segments as well as self-contained events that don't have anything to do with greater course of events, though I have no problems at all (and in fact love) when such parts DO end up influencing things down the line, often in unexpected ways. The idea of having only "important" things happen is actually kind of abhorrent to me. Yet, there ARE things that are going to be more "important" than other things, as well as elements and events that are designed to be more influential on the greater course of events, and I think that there is merit in making the distinction between those types of things and the previous kind.

The terms "story" and "plot," in my personal opinion, are synonymous. I would feel entirely disingenuous arguing otherwise. Because of this, when you say things like
"The Shark nation has significant turmoil amongst the ruling class. The princess has run away, and I plan to introduce her (undercover) to the players. They can either listen to her request ("I'm on the run from mercenaries from the Shark nation, and I need help. Will you escort me to the Lion nation capital? I'll pay you when we get there." or
"and this here is a field infested with Ankhegs, your horses aren't battle trained, and they got a surprise round due to being underground and popping up underfoot. Let's find out what happens!" in both cases you're describing both plot, and story, from my perspective; in both instances, the Characters' actions will determine future events, and in both cases, the Characters' actions will inform their development on multiple levels. Also in both cases, the Characters are set on this path by the things set before them (and hidden from them) by the DM (which is not me accusing you of railroading). Any distinction you choose to make between which one is "plot" and which one is "story" is either entirely semantic, or entirely determined after the fact, or both. . . UNLESS you've predetermined the main thrust of the plot/story, rather than allowing the Players to decide which bits are important or interesting to their Characters.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-15, 09:19 PM
The terms "story" and "plot," in my personal opinion, are synonymous. I would feel entirely disingenuous arguing otherwise. Because of this, when you say things like or in both cases you're describing both plot, and story, from my perspective; in both instances, the Characters' actions will determine future events, and in both cases, the Characters' actions will inform their development on multiple levels. Also in both cases, the Characters are set on this path by the things set before them (and hidden from them) by the DM (which is not me accusing you of railroading). Any distinction you choose to make between which one is "plot" and which one is "story" is either entirely semantic, or entirely determined after the fact, or both. . . UNLESS you've predetermined the main thrust of the plot/story, rather than allowing the Players to decide which bits are important or interesting to their Characters.

@bold: yes, that's correct. I... just don't see that as a bad thing. Semantics isn't a dirty word, nor does it mean "irrelevant."

Let's take an analogy to show what I mean. Say that Tom is an artist. He draws pictures. Sometimes he just draws what he calls a "sketch," which doesn't have any coloring. Sometimes he draws what he calls "works," which he colors in completely. He calls both of them "pictures." There's definitely a distinction between the two categories, right? Well, sometimes he halfway colors in a picture with the intent to fill it in the rest of the way later. He calls this an "unfinished work." And occasionally he'll go back and color in a sketch and it changes category into a work. Can we agree that all his distinctions are actual distinctions, even though all of them are "pictures?" And what was once called a sketch might change into a work, right?

Similar idea, I just didn't have a word for my "sketch"-equivalent category; I simply said "those are pictures but not works, though depending on PC action could turn into works." I think the intent of the DM/GM in crafting the scenario that the players find themselves in matters to the classification. And a classification can obviously change as the players interact with the scenario. (In case it's not clear: "picture"="story", "work"="plot", with me talking about "sketches, which are a subcategory of story" when I'm calling something "story but not plot"... see my "all plot is story, not all story is plot" comment in my explanation before.)

For example, as stated earlier, the Ankheg scenario isn't about driving forward with the princess-related arc in its intention, despite the possibility of it happening during it if they choose to escort the princess (and if so, it's possible interaction with what happens such as if they let the Ankhegs kill her by accident or something). It's not about creating a wilderness tracking adventure of find-that-horse that takes them into a hidden dryad grove (or something) even though that might happen if a horse manages to get away. So... it's intention is as a "sketch," which doesn't mean that it's irrelevant and should just be skipped, since it can be an interesting encounter and reveal characterization based on what the PCs do. And if something like one of the previously mentioned things happens, or they get slowed down too much dealing with the fallout and pursuers catch up to them, or something else like that... then it can turn into a "work," even though that wasn't its design.

And all my "works" are actually "unfinished works," ALWAYS, until they interact with the players, whose actions then complete them, often in completely unexpected ways. In other words, I never decide on how the plot proceeds in full, but rather set plot scenarios and situations up and then follow them up with whatever response I come up with to player action.

TL;DR: just because you don't care about the distinction doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I won't deny that having better, more distinctive words would be extremely beneficial, though. Any suggestions?

Amphetryon
2014-06-15, 09:30 PM
Let's take an analogy to show what I mean. Say that Tom is an artist. He draws pictures. Sometimes he just draws what he calls a "sketch," which doesn't have any coloring. Sometimes he draws what he calls "works," which he colors in completely. He calls both of them "pictures." There's definitely a distinction between the two categories, right? I acknowledge the difference between 'sketch,' 'works,' and 'pictures.' I do not see a similar distinction between 'plot' and 'story.' I'm sorry, I simply do not.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-15, 09:54 PM
I acknowledge the difference between 'sketch,' 'works,' and 'pictures.' I do not see a similar distinction between 'plot' and 'story.' I'm sorry, I simply do not.

Forget what I had typed in this post before. I just thought of a way to explain it that might make sense.

Imagine that you were going to novelize a campaign, or better yet just a single story arc from a game. In order to make it less rambling and unfocused than the play actually was, you decide to cut portions of it out. In looking at what there is that you might cut, you decide to look at what's in various parts.

1) Some parts are absolutely crucial. You have to include them, though you might alter them some for the sake of making it flow better as a novel.
2) Some parts are important to note, but you don't need to devote more than a sentence or two to them, even though they might have taken up entire gaming sessions. This might include something like the week they spent in town, chatting up the natives and purchasing supplies. Since none of the natives show up again, it's only important to note what they did in general, not specific. Perhaps the supplies they bought saved their skins later on, and that's why you can't just omit it entirely.
3) Some parts develop the characters, but don't actually include anything that's NECESSARY for the story. Sure, it deepens the characters, but if you cut it out entirely it wouldn't make any difference to what else happens.
4) Some parts are just interesting and entertaining, but utterly irrelevant to anything else. This obviously gets cut.

What I'm defining as PLOT: #1, and whatever is left of #2 after you cut the details.
What I'm saying is STORY, but not PLOT: the details you could cut from #2, #3, and #4.

As a DM, I can actually design particular scenarios, hooks, encounters, and background details to fit into one of those categories. Typically, the level of granularity for design category is: "#1" or "#2/3/or 4." Which category it ACTUALLY falls under will depend on what the players decide to do. A "2-4" might end up being a "1," and it's possible that because they choose to head in a different direction with what they do that a "1" ends up being a "2-4." I don't plan a bunch of "1"s in a row, because I don't know what they'll do, and what they do will change what happens next.

Amphetryon
2014-06-16, 05:33 AM
I understand the distinction that you're trying to make. I do not agree that it is more than an arbitrary 'line in the sand' with no predetermined function, except in cases where the DM is railroading. . . which, again, I'm not saying you do.

Jay R
2014-06-17, 11:24 AM
I understand the distinction that you're trying to make. I do not agree that it is more than an arbitrary 'line in the sand' with no predetermined function, except in cases where the DM is railroading. . . which, again, I'm not saying you do.

The pre-determined distinction between plot and story has been an accepted part of literary analysis since at least the time of Aristotle. The other components of a story are character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song." [Note that he's talking about a play. For a role-playing game, the equivalent of song is any role-playing embellishment.]

"Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality- namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song." (Poetics)

"...by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents." (Poetics)

"The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait." (Poetics)

Amphetryon
2014-06-17, 11:31 AM
The pre-determined distinction between plot and story has been an accepted part of literary analysis since at least the time of Aristotle. The other components of a story are character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song." [Note that he's talking about a play. For a role-playing game, the equivalent of song is any role-playing embellishment.]

"Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality- namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song." (Poetics)

"...by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents." (Poetics)

"The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait." (Poetics)

Did I misread the part in any of the above quotes from Poetics where the word "story" was used? I mean, setting aside differences in language - and evolution of language - that can make distinctions in terminology nebulous and/or difficult in moving (for the obvious example) from Ancient Greek to 21st century English?

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-17, 01:19 PM
I understand the distinction that you're trying to make. I do not agree that it is more than an arbitrary 'line in the sand' with no predetermined function, except in cases where the DM is railroading. . . which, again, I'm not saying you do.

All distinctions are arbitrary. All of them. Consider: if you are a native English speaker, it seems obvious that Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, White, and Black are distinct colors, and not differentiating between them when describing what something looks like (such as, say, an article of clothing) would be baffling. The distinction has a function that seems self-evident, in this case.

Except... we have a bunch of ways of splitting hairs and being even more precise, don't we? Different shades of blue can have different names, we acknowledge in-between colors, and so on. On some level, we could acknowledge these more precise distinctions as having the same, just as obvious function. But there will be some who say, "we don't need thirty different words for blue, that's crazy. If you MUST, you can say 'light blue' or 'dark blue,' but all this azure, cerulean, sky blue, etc. is purposeless and pointless unless you just want to be some kind of pedant. Not to mention that different people might classify the coloration slightly differently!"

Except... it works the OTHER direction, too. Not all languages have our R, O, Y, G, B, W, B. There are languages that have FEWER basic color words. I think that some use the same word for Green and Blue is pretty well known. People with that language might point to English and say, "Why are you acting like this distinction between Green and Blue is a thing? It's pointless and doesn't have any purpose. Sure, you show me a green on one end and a blue on the other and I can see the difference, it's just 'an arbitrary line in the sand with no predetermined function'. Besides, what about the colors you call blue-green, like teal?"

And if you want to get even more ridiculous, consider this: there's a language that has only TWO color words. Just how absurd is our spectrum of color words going to appear to them? See: this wikipedia page. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color#Color_naming)

Basically, saying that you don't understand the point is fine. Disagreeing that there is a point is not an opinion, it's asserting a falsehood.

Jay R
2014-06-17, 06:03 PM
Did I misread the part in any of the above quotes from Poetics where the word "story" was used? I mean, setting aside differences in language - and evolution of language - that can make distinctions in terminology nebulous and/or difficult in moving (for the obvious example) from Ancient Greek to 21st century English?

OK. let's try quotes in modern English, that use the precise word "story" so you can't hide from its meaning:

"Aristotle defines plot as 'the arrangement of the incidents': i.e., not the story itself but the way the incidents are presented to the audience, the structure of the play."
http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html
Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy in the POETICS, Barbara McManus, Professor of Classics Emerita, College of New Rochelle

Gustav Freytag considered plot a narrative structure that divides a story into five parts, like the five acts of a play.
A plot device is a means of advancing the plot in a story
Wikipedia, Plot (narrative)

West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet have the same plot. They are different stories.

The Lion King and Hamlet have the same plot until the ending. They are different stories.

The words are not synonyms; they are used differently. The distinction is more than an arbitrary 'line in the sand', and it has a predetermined function.

dramatic flare
2014-06-17, 06:08 PM
Random person bit that was along this Vein happened to me yesterday.

In essence, we ran into an elder Baobhan Sith (Banshee) and every single member of our party failed our will saves, repeatedly. A lot of it was bad rolling, and some of it was due to it having a high will save to resist.
After the third round of failure, the blood sucking fey was about to murder our cleric due to constitution damage. Even with chance to fight after being bitten, we were probably screwed. While we're contemplating this, the DM just went, "well my options are TPK or significant fudging. Summoner, you say you have a way out of this? **** it. Have a roll with a +16 DM's favor to resist."

Amphetryon
2014-06-17, 06:33 PM
West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet have the same plot. They are different stories.

The Lion King and Hamlet have the same plot until the ending. They are different stories.

The words are not synonyms; they are used differently. The distinction is more than an arbitrary 'line in the sand', and it has a predetermined function.
I have had professors of English, and professors of Theatre (not intended as some sort of battling Appeal to Authority), both disagree with the above and call these examples the same stories, with different window dressing.

I respect your opinion. I disagree with it.

Thrudd
2014-06-17, 07:25 PM
Random person bit that was along this Vein happened to me yesterday.

In essence, we ran into an elder Baobhan Sith (Banshee) and every single member of our party failed our will saves, repeatedly. A lot of it was bad rolling, and some of it was due to it having a high will save to resist.
After the third round of failure, the blood sucking fey was about to murder our cleric due to constitution damage. Even with chance to fight after being bitten, we were probably screwed. While we're contemplating this, the DM just went, "well my options are TPK or significant fudging. Summoner, you say you have a way out of this? **** it. Have a roll with a +16 DM's favor to resist."

How did that make you feel, were you all cool with it?
Also, what happened to the "run like hell" option? That's what I would have done after the first couple failed saves. Though I suppose a banshee may have been too fast to actually escape by running.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-17, 07:49 PM
I have had professors of English, and professors of Theatre (not intended as some sort of battling Appeal to Authority), both disagree with the above and call these examples the same stories, with different window dressing.

I respect your opinion. I disagree with it.

Interesting. I think this gets to the heart of why you don't understand the point of my distinction. (Note that the distinction I've made is also not the exact same one that Jay R is talking about; I simply don't have better words to use (though Jay R's distinction is probably related to WHY I ended up using the words that I did).)

Basic Structure of Events: These plays/movies have the same basic structure of events. The events which occur, while not identical, are the same in their essence: you break them down enough and they are the same.

Characters: These plays/movies have characters that can (and, certainly in the former case and possibly in the latter case, SHOULD) be seen as analogues. The characters are not identical, but they share enough similarities in form and function that the parallels are unmistakeable (or at least undeniable once pointed out).

To me, neither of these things, nor even both of these things combined, make up the story. Hamlet wasn't about lions and hyenas. Romeo and Juliet wasn't about finger-snapping, singing gangs. The "window dressing," as you put it, is PART OF THE STORY. It is, in fact, an essential aspect of the story. The following is not a story:

"A young boy, who has poor beginnings, finds a powerful magical artifact. A wise mentor arrives and teaches him in how to use the artifact. He travels, undertaking a series of related tasks, culminating in a fight against the evil overlord who controls the nation. Upon defeating this powerful overlord, he takes his place as rightful benevolent ruler of the land."

That's not a story. From Aristotle's view, that might be a plot (not sure I completely understand the explanation). From mine, that's not even a plot. It's a plot structure - it includes a particular structure of series of events involving certain character archetypes. There is nothing new under the sun, as they say. Boiling a story down to something like this and comparing it to another story that also boils down to the same thing and saying "they're the same story," or even "they're basically the same story" is absolutely absurd. If you can't understand that, then it's no wonder that you can't understand why it makes sense to say "events and interactions that occur in this story that don't directly tie into the plot structure are qualitatively different than events and interactions which do so."

And for the record, if I were in your professors' classes, I would have called them out on making those statements. I've always hated the sanctimonious literary analysis BS. It's perfectly fine, and from an academic standpoint, good, to understand the form of things and see patterns and similarities. But from a real-world standpoint, stories are about the experience, all the parts in all their details fitting together, not about the form of them.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2014-06-17, 07:51 PM
The idea of using mechanics in a slice-of-life situation would sound nonsensical to you, wouldn't it?

1. The outcome is not the only thing the dice adjudicate, and that's part of the point I've been trying to make. Why would you think that this was the case? You keep coming back to the same refrain: "If the players aren't going to lose/die, why do you need a random element?" To which I answer: why do you need a random element at all? Why not freeform the whole thing, even when there is a lose/die situation?You answered your own question. The dice adjudicate the outcome (and, in your opinion, other vague things). That's the point of the mechanics. What I don't see is how this tool, the mechanics, are useful to you in the case where you are going to change things you don't like post-hoc anyway.
2. The rolling of the dice are the generators of tension of risk in combat situations, yes. This can be true even if non-death is assured in a supposedly potentially lethal situation, even if everyone already knows that their characters won't be dying in this conflict. If you've read the Harry Potter books, did you ever think, in the first 6 books anyway, that Harry, Ron, or Hermione would die? Like, seriously expect on a rational level that it might happen? I didn't. That didn't stop me from feeling tension when Harry faced off against the Basalisk, or when Snape cornered Sirius and Lupin with the trio in the Shack, or when Harry faced Voldemort in the graveyard, or when ... you get the idea. The same principle can hold with RPGs.J.K. Rowling wasn't rolling dice to determine the outcome. She was narrating the scene. I agree that narration, when artfully done, can be quite interesting, even if I know the author of the scene has decided a main character won't die. But she didn't need to provide some sort of abstract numbers-based illusion that the character might die; she just painted the scene and let me immerse myself.
3. People make choices based on perception, not on reality, even if they know the reality and it doesn't match the perception. The choices people might make on resource expenditure will be different if something is narrated versus if something is played out, even if they know that they'll eventually achieve victory regardless.We have different experiences. The presence of dice rolling by itself does not seem to keep players immersed, and the absence of dice rolling doesn't remove that immersion. Narration can actually improve immersion by giving full narrative control to the players for a moment.
4. It's not about "saving" the characters, it's about preventing an undesirable (from a table, not in-game, standpoint) outcome. So... a combat that is intended as a scene setter and the expectation is a relatively easy win could very well turn into "left for dead by the enemy" if they don't make choices to expend resources and play "smart" (whatever that might mean for the group in question). And it creates an entirely different story and experience. So.... yes, despite the fact that they're going to survive anyway, their choices in combat can make a difference - a difference that might not be even touched on if it were left entirely up to narration and their combat choices had no consequences.So you are punishing poor decisions by refusing to fudge? That opens up another can of worms, namely the appearance of bias. Why did you save Player A in situation 1, when you didn't save Player B in situation 2? Well, Player B made a poor decision... in your opinion. You don't even have to be biased per se; merely the perception of bias can erode trust.
5. How many times do I have to repeat that internal consequences can be just as important to a playgroup as external consequences? That is, the [round to round] can be just as important from a "are we having fun playing the game and making an interesting story" perspective as the [outcome of fight] is. Why is this so hard to comprehend? That there is randomness involved in the round to round means that what round to round is happening can be worlds apart from what it would be if we narrated it.I think the reason my poor little brain is failing to comprehend is that there is no real example of one of these "internal consequences" that can't just be narrated, as long as the group is willing to do so. Maybe it can't, or won't, be narrated by your group. Maybe your group likes the illusion of mechanical structure as a way to motivate their in-combat choices. But not all groups need that sort of illusion. Some groups can recognize when the dice aren't needed or wanted, set aside that tool for later, and focus on the scene.
6. It has nothing to do with what can or can't be narrated. As I pointed out, EVERYTHING can be narrated. So why are you hung up on "can" rather than "want to," which is the only bit that matters. Randomness influences choice in a way that narration does not. This alone can be a reason to prefer playing it out to narrating it.Sure, your group doesn't want to narrate because it feels different. Great. As long as you recognize that feeling is an illusion that specifically helps your group do what they do. When I throw a die and accept where it falls, I'm using that tool to create tension and enhance the narrative. If I throw a die and declare I'm only accepting the rolls that I like, that doesn't enhance the narrative unless the I pretend that the dice are doing something they're not. Which is fine, but I'd rather save my limited suspension of disbelief for the fireballs and the fey.
7. Series of things in response to the last paragraph:
-"No plot importance" can change into "has plot importance" completely by accident and the decisions made within the combat very easily. I'm not writing a book and then playing it out, the story is generated as it goes along, based on the actions the party takes.Example?
-Same with connection to characters. On player took the leadership feat later in the game because in the introductory combat, he ran down one of the kobolds and knocked him out instead of killing him, a decision that I am 100% sure he would not have made if we had been narrating.Why wouldn't he have made that decision?
-There is no such thing as "just" a scene-setter. Scene-setters are incredibly important, sometimes even more influential on the storyline than the fights with the BBEG!IME the effectiveness of setting a scene relies a lot on description and player buy in, and less on how much damage Grog took from the enemy before inevitably winning.
-There is no such thing as something having no chance to impact the characters... unless you decide you're just going to handwave and narrate instead of playing it out in order to speed things up.Or if it's an encounter against a random beast in the forest and there is no chance of death or mutilation.
If you do that, then much of the time the players will be much less involved in what's happening and much less likely to care, especially since narrating something like combat in a game with lots of rules for combat is very difficult, especially with regard to dividing up the roles of player versus GM.I think this is part of the issue; of course the GM doesn't just tell them what happens. When they're going to win, let the players have fun describing it!
-Once you're thinking of it in terms of how much time it's taking, you're no longer caring about what's going on. If you're thinking about it in those terms before even starting it? Why is anyone going to care about it?Well, sometimes you do want to handwave certain scenes. Everyone does that, or so I hope. "Your night goes undisturbed" is a handwaved scene. Pacing is important, unless you want to make bland checks all day. It's not the end-all be-all, and if you want the scene to have a chance of import you should give the PCs a chance to act in the scene one way or another... but sometimes it's not important.

-Nothing is binary. Ever.By your logic, everything is at least a little binary :smallwink: I'm just saying, the golden mean doesn't always exist. Sometimes taking the middle road is half-hearted.
-Randomness is not necessarily about outcomes, and it certainly is not restricted to long-term outcomes, or even mid-term or short-term. Immediate outcomes can matter too, EVEN IF THEY DON'T AFFECT THE LONG-TERM OUTCOMES.But not in ways that couldn't be narrated; your group may not want to narrate them... but they could.
-Narration can be undesirable regardless of feasibility.Sure, same with fudging.
-Pretense can be as influential as truth for many purposes.As long as the players are more inclined to compartmentalize than they are to just take command of the narrative for a moment.
-The detail can be just as important for its own sake as the result of the process.Detail only obtained through a particular method?
-Expectations going into a situation can be very different from what actually happens, and randomness can help with that. I see this as a good thing.I suppose if the players are less likely to imagine an odd, flavorful moment than they are to roll it out, then semi-randomness can help.
Edit: Also, another point: if you're playing a game that uses a battlegrid and/or miniatures, how are you doing the narration? With or without drawing on the grid and moving the miniatures around? Because... it seems really pointless to do it without the dice but with the map. Yet, the entire experience is vastly different if we use the map than if we don't, and this also influences what decisions people make.Yeah, no map for narrated stuff. Theater of the mind and all that.
Besides, I already said I don't do purely random encounters, but I do have purposeful encounters that aren't intended to be important to the greater plot. Intended is key, you know. So...I was mostly griping about purely random encounters.

Fiery Diamond
2014-06-17, 09:32 PM
Light blue is my previous, black is yours.


1. The outcome is not the only thing the dice adjudicate, and that's part of the point I've been trying to make. Why would you think that this was the case? You keep coming back to the same refrain: "If the players aren't going to lose/die, why do you need a random element?" To which I answer: why do you need a random element at all? Why not freeform the whole thing, even when there is a lose/die situation?


You answered your own question. The dice adjudicate the outcome (and, in your opinion, other vague things). That's the point of the mechanics. What I don't see is how this tool, the mechanics, are useful to you in the case where you are going to change things you don't like post-hoc anyway.

I wasn't saying that I didn't see the point of rolling the dice; I was pointing out that your division of when it made sense to roll the dice and when you "can" narrate was... not making sense. You can always narrate. What I'm really asking is why you think randomness is useful in one situation but not in another. Let's give an analogy to illustrate how the mechanics are useful in the situation you don't see them as useful in. Let's say someone else has generated a list of possible activities for me to do in real life; a list of 10 of them. I haven't decided which one I want to do yet, so I assign each one to a number result on a die. I roll to decide, and it comes up a six, so I do that. The next day I roll again, and it comes up a 4, so I do that. The next day I roll again, and it comes up a ten. But I decide that I really don't feel like doing 10 today, so I pick one of the numbers on the faces adjacent instead. Would you really argue that over the course of those three days, there was no point to using the die to make my decisions?


2. The rolling of the dice are the generators of tension of risk in combat situations, yes. This can be true even if non-death is assured in a supposedly potentially lethal situation, even if everyone already knows that their characters won't be dying in this conflict. If you've read the Harry Potter books, did you ever think, in the first 6 books anyway, that Harry, Ron, or Hermione would die? Like, seriously expect on a rational level that it might happen? I didn't. That didn't stop me from feeling tension when Harry faced off against the Basalisk, or when Snape cornered Sirius and Lupin with the trio in the Shack, or when Harry faced Voldemort in the graveyard, or when ... you get the idea. The same principle can hold with RPGs.


J.K. Rowling wasn't rolling dice to determine the outcome. She was narrating the scene. I agree that narration, when artfully done, can be quite interesting, even if I know the author of the scene has decided a main character won't die. But she didn't need to provide some sort of abstract numbers-based illusion that the character might die; she just painted the scene and let me immerse myself.

That's... utterly irrelevant to my point. The point has NOTHING to do with Rowling. It has to do with the events of the story and any uncertainty on the part of the reader. It's not about objective uncertainty, it's about the reader's uncertainty. If the reader was truly uncertain, that would be akin to die rolling, fall where they may. That is, the reader is uncertain and acknowledges the possibility of that result happening. However, I was pointing out that tension and immersion can be had by the reader even if he is completely certain that that result will NOT happen. The same is true of tabletop RPGs. The painting of the scene, as you put it, is the illusion. Because it's presented in a way where it seems they truly might die, even though you as a reader know that they won't. The fact that one was numbers and the other was narrative is completely irrelevant. The existence and acknowledgment of the illusion is the key. You might be saying that narration can do it successfully but if you're using dice that's a no-go. This might be true for you. It's most certainly not true for everyone.


3. People make choices based on perception, not on reality, even if they know the reality and it doesn't match the perception. The choices people might make on resource expenditure will be different if something is narrated versus if something is played out, even if they know that they'll eventually achieve victory regardless.


We have different experiences. The presence of dice rolling by itself does not seem to keep players immersed, and the absence of dice rolling doesn't remove that immersion. Narration can actually improve immersion by giving full narrative control to the players for a moment.

It all boils down to expectations. If "the specifics of the course of events are uncertain" and "uncertainty must include dice to assist in making the decision" are both accepted by the players as true when dealing with combat, then yes, narration WILL reduce immersion, because it will feel cheap. Secondly, if you defy expectations, players are often unsure of what they are can do. They already know that their characters can say whatever they want, but is Urgast the Strong allowed to close the indeterminate gap between himself and those enemies, slicing of the heads of two of them in one solid swing? He's got cleave, and a high attack and damage, after all. But is the player allowed to just declare that? What if one of them survives, or he actually misses? Who gets to decide that? When do other players get to chime in? What about the DM? Does he get any say on what the enemies are doing? Can he declare that an enemy wounds a player character? When expectations of how narration works for things like combat are built into the way a group knows how the gameplay works from the very beginning, this isn't a problem, which is why things like freeform can actually work. But in a mechanics-heavy game system without these kind of expectations set up already, it breaks away from the flow of the game drastically and can lead to disagreements.


4. It's not about "saving" the characters, it's about preventing an undesirable (from a table, not in-game, standpoint) outcome. So... a combat that is intended as a scene setter and the expectation is a relatively easy win could very well turn into "left for dead by the enemy" if they don't make choices to expend resources and play "smart" (whatever that might mean for the group in question). And it creates an entirely different story and experience. So.... yes, despite the fact that they're going to survive anyway, their choices in combat can make a difference - a difference that might not be even touched on if it were left entirely up to narration and their combat choices had no consequences.


So you are punishing poor decisions by refusing to fudge? That opens up another can of worms, namely the appearance of bias. Why did you save Player A in situation 1, when you didn't save Player B in situation 2? Well, Player B made a poor decision... in your opinion. You don't even have to be biased per se; merely the perception of bias can erode trust.

Actually, no. In that particular example, I'm MORE likely to be fudging if they're playing stupidly, because it's more likely to be required to keep them alive. Smart playing = only a little fudging, maybe, if the dice contrast sharply with acceptable results (such as a random crit killing a player). Deliberately stupid playing because "we'll win anyway so why waste resources" = PCs likely overwhelmed by enemy that should have been easy even without random high crits, so fudging may be necessary to keep from TPK, ending in "utter defeat" rather than "everybody dies." Still an unfavorable result, and one that could have happened even if they were playing smart because the dice just hated them that day, but much more likely if they aren't actually trying because of metagaming.


5. How many times do I have to repeat that internal consequences can be just as important to a playgroup as external consequences? That is, the [round to round] can be just as important from a "are we having fun playing the game and making an interesting story" perspective as the [outcome of fight] is. Why is this so hard to comprehend? That there is randomness involved in the round to round means that what round to round is happening can be worlds apart from what it would be if we narrated it.


I think the reason my poor little brain is failing to comprehend is that there is no real example of one of these "internal consequences" that can't just be narrated, as long as the group is willing to do so. Maybe it can't, or won't, be narrated by your group. Maybe your group likes the illusion of mechanical structure as a way to motivate their in-combat choices. But not all groups need that sort of illusion. Some groups can recognize when the dice aren't needed or wanted, set aside that tool for later, and focus on the scene.

As I've mentioned, you need to get away from this "can it be narrated? If yes, then narrate!" thing you seem so hung up on. Your playstyle may include that mindset. Others, mine included, DO NOT. As I've mentioned, EVERYTHING can be narrated, if the group is so inclined. It's a matter of whether the group thinks it should be. The actual effects will be different if the group narrates than if they don't. This is pretty much indisputable. The questions are 1)what differences will there be, 2) are those differences are significant or important, 3) are the narration effects are preferable to the playing it out effects or vice-versa. Your school of thought seems to be that regardless of the answer to 1, the answer to 2 is no and the answer to 3 is narration is preferable in situations where the general overall outcome (whether this means "no death" or "success") is already known. My school of thought is that the answer to 2 is always yes and the answer to 3 is "usually playing it out." Neither is wrong, they're different playstyles, but I don't understand why it's hard for you to understand my school of thought. It may be contrary to yours, but it's not alien and mysterious. It's not as though yours is somehow more obvious or true or default or something. Your way of thinking is yours, and mine is mine. I never said that all groups should follow mine, I was defending mine from you, because you seemed to be saying "I don't understand your thoughts at all. Why? Why does that make sense?" no matter how many times I spelled it out for you.



6. It has nothing to do with what can or can't be narrated. As I pointed out, EVERYTHING can be narrated. So why are you hung up on "can" rather than "want to," which is the only bit that matters. Randomness influences choice in a way that narration does not. This alone can be a reason to prefer playing it out to narrating it.


Sure, your group doesn't want to narrate because it feels different. Great. As long as you recognize that feeling is an illusion that specifically helps your group do what they do. When I throw a die and accept where it falls, I'm using that tool to create tension and enhance the narrative. If I throw a die and declare I'm only accepting the rolls that I like, that doesn't enhance the narrative unless the I pretend that the dice are doing something they're not. Which is fine, but I'd rather save my limited suspension of disbelief for the fireballs and the fey.

That's fine. You have a different approach and playstyle. I never said "my way or the high way." I wasn't on the assault, I was on the defense. You've been saying "the let the die fall where it may approach is the only way using the dice can create tension! Why would you even use the dice if that's not what you're going to do?", or at least that's how it came across. I've been responding "no, even if there are certain cases where the result is not accepted as it is, tension can still be created." Maybe that's not true for you, personally. But it certainly is true for at least some other people, which I was explaining.



7. Series of things in response to the last paragraph:
-"No plot importance" can change into "has plot importance" completely by accident and the decisions made within the combat very easily. I'm not writing a book and then playing it out, the story is generated as it goes along, based on the actions the party takes.


Example?

Read any of the intervening posts. Or look further down. If you already have and you don't see it, I don't know what to say to you.


-Same with connection to characters. On player took the leadership feat later in the game because in the introductory combat, he ran down one of the kobolds and knocked him out instead of killing him, a decision that I am 100% sure he would not have made if we had been narrating.


Why wouldn't he have made that decision?

Because the combat would have played out differently. You seem to be drastically underestimating how much even the smallest of details can influence people's decisions. Even things such as "which square is the kobold in at this moment" and "how many kobolds are still alive" and "what is the exact placement of characters" and "who has done how much damage to which characters", all things that are not predetermined and would be different, even if slightly, if narration happened can have HUGE impacts on the decisions that players make. If you don't think this is true... well, I'll be happy to inform you that people are more complicated than you think they are. Combats, and decisions made in it, are much more REACTIVE when actually being played out then they would be if narrated, where, depending on how you split up the roles of narration and how much control you gave people and many other things that would need to be decided on beforehand or it would cause a huge mess, it would likely be much more intention-driven. Reactive vs. proactive makes a huge difference in what decisions might be made. Combat, by it's nature, has more complexity built into it automatically when there is a larger reactive element, which opens up more choices that, and this is important, the players wouldn't necessarily have thought of otherwise.


-There is no such thing as "just" a scene-setter. Scene-setters are incredibly important, sometimes even more influential on the storyline than the fights with the BBEG!


IME the effectiveness of setting a scene relies a lot on description and player buy in, and less on how much damage Grog took from the enemy before inevitably winning.

Detail, not description. Simply describing is one way of having details, yes. But I think it works far better when it is more engaged and interactive. Hint: you can do describing in combat and use dice in combat at the same time. Player buy-in I'll not argue. But I will say that for many people, player buy-in is greater in combats when the dice are rolled and "how much damage Grog took from the enemy" is actually determined rather than arbitrarily decided.


-There is no such thing as something having no chance to impact the characters... unless you decide you're just going to handwave and narrate instead of playing it out in order to speed things up.


Or if it's an encounter against a random beast in the forest and there is no chance of death or mutilation

False. Categorically. "I got knocked fifteen feet across the gap and landed on the other side of the pit, slamming into a tree. As a result, I had to pepper the beast with arrows instead of using my magic sword, which was somewhat difficult with all the trees, and one of my friends almost got killed. From now on, I'm going to be more careful and also slightly paranoid about creatures that can send me flying. I also feel guilty about my friend, because even though he lived, it was a close call and I promised him that I would protect him." There, bam, example right off the top of my head that fits your scenario.

I
f you do that, then much of the time the players will be much less involved in what's happening and much less likely to care, especially since narrating something like combat in a game with lots of rules for combat is very difficult, especially with regard to dividing up the roles of player versus GM.


I think this is part of the issue; of course the GM doesn't just tell them what happens. When they're going to win, let the players have fun describing it!

Who said anything about the GM telling them what happens? The question is "who gets to decide what, and how much?" Because we're not rolling dice, does the GM suddenly completely lose any control at all over the enemies? Do the players get to decide whether they get hit or not? The dynamic COMPLETELY changes. You just jumped from mechanics-heavy to freeform all of the sudden. What if we don't like freeform and that's why we're playing a mechanics-heavy game in the first place?

What you seem to me to be saying is "if the ultimate general outcome is already known, there's no point to determining with a method rather than just deciding." Is that your playstyle? Because is sure isn't mine. I find that line of thought to be really, really jarring and contrary to everything I believe about tabletop role-playing. If you want to freeform, then freeform.


-Once you're thinking of it in terms of how much time it's taking, you're no longer caring about what's going on. If you're thinking about it in those terms before even starting it? Why is anyone going to care about it?


Well, sometimes you do want to handwave certain scenes. Everyone does that, or so I hope. "Your night goes undisturbed" is a handwaved scene. Pacing is important, unless you want to make bland checks all day. It's not the end-all be-all, and if you want the scene to have a chance of import you should give the PCs a chance to act in the scene one way or another... but sometimes it's not important.

Well, yeah. How is this in conflict with anything I've said? I've just said that, in the VAST majority of cases, combat is emphatically NOT one of the scenes that not important and that we want to handwave. "Unrelated to the plot at large" and "gonna just handwave" are in no way synonymous. Look at some of my posts on the subject.



-Nothing is binary. Ever.


By your logic, everything is at least a little binary. :smallwink: I'm just saying, the golden mean doesn't always exist. Sometimes taking the middle road is half-hearted.

:smalltongue: You know what I meant. But yes, that's true. If the characters are level 20 and they run into a trio of level 1 thieves that don't know who they're dealing with, playing it out would be kind of unneeded. If you're having a castle siege and your melee level 15s are battling their way through a sea of melee level 1s, I don't see a point in rolling the dice. The point is that these are edge cases. The majority of times where you're bothering to have combat at all, rolling the dice can have a significant impact on the scene even if winning is practically assured.


-Randomness is not necessarily about outcomes, and it certainly is not restricted to long-term outcomes, or even mid-term or short-term. Immediate outcomes can matter too, EVEN IF THEY DON'T AFFECT THE LONG-TERM OUTCOMES.


But not in ways that couldn't be narrated; your group may not want to narrate them... but they could.

I was going to reiterate my point about "can narrate" being a completely useless criterion for anything since everything can be narrated if you want, but I'll bite. Give me a detailed example, of say, a fight that might last five rounds if they played it out, with at least 3 PCs and 2 foes. Complete with which player/GM is saying what.


-Narration can be undesirable regardless of feasibility.


Sure, same with fudging.

No arguments there.


-Pretense can be as influential as truth for many purposes.

As long as the players are more inclined to compartmentalize than they are to just take command of the narrative for a moment.
Explain what you mean.


-The detail can be just as important for its own sake as the result of the process.

Detail only obtained through a particular method?
If you want freeform, that's fine. But at least acknowledge that freeform and actually rolling it out will produce different results.


-Expectations going into a situation can be very different from what actually happens, and randomness can help with that. I see this as a good thing.

I suppose if the players are less likely to imagine an odd, flavorful moment than they are to roll it out, then semi-randomness can help.
If you're playing a rules-heavy game, this is very likely to be the case, at least when it comes to things that could actually interact with the rules that the players are accustomed to using. Players who play such games usually use the rules as a guide and stimulant for creativity and are more likely to come up with novel situations that even they didn't expect if they have some kind of framework, even if it's just the GM giving responses to what they say. Note that "things didn't go as planned... for anyone" is a positive result and very difficult to achieve in a combat unless the combat is highly reactive rather than just driven by what the players say that they want at the time.



Edit: Also, another point: if you're playing a game that uses a battlegrid and/or miniatures, how are you doing the narration? With or without drawing on the grid and moving the miniatures around? Because... it seems really pointless to do it without the dice but with the map. Yet, the entire experience is vastly different if we use the map than if we don't, and this also influences what decisions people make.

Yeah, no map for narrated stuff. Theater of the mind and all that.
You seem to have missed the point I was making; but perhaps with some of what I said earlier in this post this makes more sense now.


Besides, I already said I don't do purely random encounters, but I do have purposeful encounters that aren't intended to be important to the greater plot. Intended is key, you know. So...

I was mostly griping about purely random encounters.
Then why do you keep disputing what I'm saying about non-random encounters?

Jay R
2014-06-19, 10:17 AM
I have had professors of English, and professors of Theatre (not intended as some sort of battling Appeal to Authority), both disagree with the above and call these examples the same stories, with different window dressing.

I respect your opinion. I disagree with it.

So somebody you will not name said something you will not quote, in a source you will not cite.

Meanwhile, you will not respond to the people, quotes, and sources I have cited.

OK, you disagree. But "I disagree with it" has no content about the subject, just about you. You've provided no basis for continued discussion.

I guess we're done.