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View Full Version : DM Help Can combat be exciting if there's no chance of PC death?



Larkas
2014-07-16, 09:08 AM
Howdy there, Playground! I've been wanting to GM a campaign heavily centered on the PCs for some time now. My idea is to have a reduced party (2, at most 3 characters), where the focus is on their story and achievements, and where their actions will have deep repercutions in the realm around them. I wanted to throw a hard spotlight on them primarily to get the players more interested in RPGs again, but also to test a few narrative techniques and see if they can be applied successfully to our hobby.

However, I feel that in order to achieve all that, PCs have to be more or less immune to silly deaths. Sacrificing themselves to stop an evil tide should be okay, as should being sacrificed by the BBEG for some obscure reason, but I don't want the characters to die to a lucky swing by standard mook #319. This doesn't mean, however, that they are to be immune to defeat: immunity to death is not immunity to unconsciousness, and a very videogame-y "you respawn somewhere else, all your items lost" is also not entirely out of the picture (and as this is no videogame, don't expect to find your items where you dropped them).

I don't mind combat taking the back seat in a RPG, but I fear that this change might remove too much of the tension from it. What do you guys think? Do you have any experience with a campaign like this? Any ideas about the subject would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, and I've mostly played/GMed D&D (1E up to 3.X) and a little GURPS. If something like this is modeled in any other system, I'd also be glad to know!

Cowardly Griffo
2014-07-16, 09:40 AM
FATE kind of works like this already. Defeat doesn't mean death, it means being 'taken out.'

Various iterations give players and GMs differing degrees of control over what that means, but a pretty common version is that PCs can concede a conflict early (if they feel they are going to lose anyway, for example) and dictate the terms of their defeat. If they choose to fight on to the bitter end, the terms of their defeat are up to the GM. Character death, specifically, generally only happens if the PC allows it. And if you choose to concede, you generally get some degree of narrative control over the scene as a result; e.g., you might say that your surrender is sufficiently distracting to allow your friends to escape, or that you throw yourself in front of the explosion to save someone or whatever the scene allows.

In any event, I'm pretty sure the character gets a fate point when they lose–which can be pretty helpful, if you end up in prison or something and need a bit of a benny to help you get out. You might only get one if you concede? I forget; this might be another system variation thing.

This is still tense, because it means that players have to make a hard choice when things look grim: narrative will and definite defeat, or the possibility of victory alongside the possibility of having their fate dictated for them. It also allows for the possibility of failure while weeding out stupid and anticlimactic failure; you won't have your head chopped off by a kobold's boomerang unless you want to.

You can probably weld the basic principle onto any system. It would work as a substitute for the consequences of going into negative hit points or failing versus a save-or-suck spell for 3.5, for example. You could reward players with hero points instead of fate points, if you're using that system.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-07-16, 09:53 AM
It's called "you get captured and stuck in a deathtrap". Works for Bond. :smallbiggrin:

draken50
2014-07-16, 09:59 AM
It can be exciting, but you'll have to work at making it that way.

Also, the players absolutely cannot know how safe they are.

Make retreat an option, and its generally better to use enemies, that even if they beat the party, aren't as motivated to kill them. Enemies might beat them up, steal the magic item or mcguffin they were fighting over and toss their mundane weapons in the ocean.
As opposed to say, an animal that's trying to eat them. Cause if it wins, someone is getting eaten.

Give avenues of retreat. Use encounters that the players can circumnavigate, or even recover and retry if they're getting beaten.

If the players feel there is no danger, combat is boring, and just rolling dice for no reason. You can fudge behavior, just try to have it make sense. Character was knocked prone, maybe the beast just uses it's bite attack the next round instead of claw/claw/bite. Little things but they add up.

BWR
2014-07-16, 12:47 PM
1. As long as there are serious drawbacks to losing combat, risk of death is not necessary to maintain excitement. Failing to protect people they should, losing strategically important resources, failing personal goals etc. - even if they are guarenteed to survive combat and get away, failure can weigh heavily.

2. Good action. A good action movie has exciting combat scenes not because we believe the Hero will die (generally they won't) but because there's enough "whoa! cool!" in the scene to distract us. Doing similar stuff with combat can work. If combat is exciting enough players will not care that they are breezing through combat and there is no real chance of or penalty for failure.

3. Complications. The ever-popular Bond death trap. Bond doesn't die but his mission becomes a bit more difficult when he has to get out of an overly complicated easily escapable death trap. Too many and it gets annoying or you autofail bigger goals (see pt 1).

Sith_Happens
2014-07-16, 12:57 PM
FATE kind of works like this already. Defeat doesn't mean death, it means being 'taken out.'

At the other end of the system spectrum, M&M 3E is the one d20 game I know of where getting yourself killed is more difficult than not. The key is that it's designed for superhero games (though it works for plenty of other kinds) and therefore assumes that there's generally something besides just the PCs' own lives at stake. Which is really the key.

IAmTehDave
2014-07-16, 01:15 PM
there's generally something besides just the PCs' own lives at stake. Which is really the key.

Very much this. If you want the combat to not be deadly, the way to make it exciting and meaningful is to have something else be involved. In a (non-final) climactic battle, the monster (or LBEG) is trying to get THROUGH the PCs, who have to hold the line. The PCs might not be at risk so much, but their failure is meaningful.

Alternatively, I like Fantasy Craft's "Cheat Death" system, where if your character dies, and you can come up with a way for your character to not have died, then you can come back with some (mostly social) penalties at the start of the next "scene". Think Aragorn in The Two Towers, where he goes over the cliff with the Warg. Or Gandalf and the Balrog. Except that the latter doesn't show up until a good while later.

Amphetryon
2014-07-16, 01:34 PM
It's called "you get captured and stuck in a deathtrap". Works for Bond. :smallbiggrin:

Devil's Advocate: I have known players who find getting captured to be an order of magnitude more de-protagonizing than being straight up slaughtered by a lucky swing. The argument goes that, in general, capture means they had to either voluntarily stop taking actions every round/turn/game-segment, or they were knocked unconscious or otherwise rendered helpless by a BBEG who failed to read any of the Evil Overlord List and therefore didn't just kill them when given the best opportunity possible.

Friv
2014-07-16, 02:08 PM
Also, the players absolutely cannot know how safe they are.

I would say the opposite - if you're doing this, you have to be upfront about it, or the players will feel betrayed. Make sure they know that failure doesn't equal death, but that it will have consequences, and the players will treat it with the appropriate level of seriousness.

IAmTehDave
2014-07-16, 02:49 PM
Devil's Advocate: I have known players who find getting captured to be an order of magnitude more de-protagonizing than being straight up slaughtered by a lucky swing. The argument goes that, in general, capture means they had to either voluntarily stop taking actions every round/turn/game-segment, or they were knocked unconscious or otherwise rendered helpless by a BBEG who failed to read any of the Evil Overlord List and therefore didn't just kill them when given the best opportunity possible.

Agency. The players, in general, want some level of Agency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)) over their characters' story. Removing choice (by kidnapping them, capturing them, etc.) removes that power. Often times this results in a very not-fun time for the players. At least if their character is dead, there's a reason they can't control the character. (Dead characters, in general, have no actions they can take) It also gives an impetus for new ideas (replacement character, resurrection side-quest, etc.) where "being captured" is just... "Well, now my character is stuck in X's control, until something other than myself changes that."

PCs-as-Prisoners plots can be done, and they can be done well.* It just requires a lot more trust on the part of the players that the DM is going to give them a good payoff.*

*-in the one campaign I'm in now, the party has been imprisoned no less than twice by different factions of the antagonist forces. Both times ended up having significant revelations and important plot points. (Though the implications in the first one haven't been clear until just recently) Also, the combination of the two (as well as blowing up an airship that took the first half of the campaign-so-far for them to build) has led to the party being pretty much Public Enemies Number 1-6 for the antagonist force.

veti
2014-07-16, 06:08 PM
If there's one thing I've learned from wargaming - the context of a battle is all-important.

Occasionally, it's just about survival. But 95% of the time, there's something else at stake. (Otherwise, why would you even be there?)

Maybe it's important to destroy a particular enemy (army or individual), rather than allowing them to escape - if they manage to run away with only light casualties, they win.

Maybe you need to hold up/occupy the enemy long enough to allow your friends to get away. If the enemy goes through or around you, they win.

Maybe you've got no real healing ability, and you're in a dangerous area, so you can't afford to take significant damage even if it's well short of death. If the enemy can inflict more than about 30% damage on more than about 30% of the party, they win.

It's all in the setup.

Sith_Happens
2014-07-16, 06:26 PM
"Well, now my character is stuck in X's control, until something other than myself changes that."

Or you could just go with the tried-and-true "letting the PC(s) break out of confinement themselves" trick. I suppose that falls under "good payoff" though.

jedipotter
2014-07-16, 06:44 PM
I don't mind combat taking the back seat in a RPG, but I fear that this change might remove too much of the tension from it. What do you guys think? Do you have any experience with a campaign like this? Any ideas about the subject would be greatly appreciated!


I thik that for an RPG to be good, you have to always have death with no strings attached. To make combat exciting, death must happen at any time.

Once you go down the road of ''well death will only happen at important times'', there is no turning back. Combat is then pointless. Your just rolling to see how the players win the combat. It's like watching a TV show or movie...you know the random minion won't kill the hero at the start of the show or movie. So you know the hero won't be killed, but you ''pretend'' like the action is real, when it is not. It's even worse for kids stuff, as they still pretend to fight and have weapons, but nothing happens

One of the best things about an RPG is the ''death any time''.

ReaderAt2046
2014-07-16, 07:41 PM
As mentioned above, the FATE system and its variants have a very interesting way of handling this. There are two ways to "lose" in this system, conceding and being taken out. Being taken out occurs when someone inflicts more damage than your remaining stress and consequences can absorb. This means that not only do you lose, but the person who took you out decides how you lose. So if someone took you out by hitting you with a sword, they could simply say that the sword cut your head off and you died.

At any time prior to being taken out, you can concede. Conceding means that you still lose, but you get to decide exactly how you lose. So if you were fighting a guy with a sword and conceded, you could say that your arm was slashed to the bone, but you survive and escape alive.

Jay R
2014-07-16, 08:27 PM
... or otherwise rendered helpless by a BBEG who failed to read any of the Evil Overlord List and therefore didn't just kill them when given the best opportunity possible.

Of course, we need to remember that the purpose of the Evil Overlord's list is to subvert the narrative model. All real evil overlords fail to read the list.

--------------

Excerpts from Jay R's personal Evil Overlord list:

1. I will not line the walls of my flammable chateau with torches.

2. My carpets will be nailed down.

7. The letter “Z”, the sign of the bat, the scarlet pimpernel, or any other symbol invented by my enemy will be immediately used as a trademark for a brand of disposable diapers or fat-free yogurt. Carved into a wall, it will neither inspire the peasantry nor terrify my guards.

17. Any tall, ruggedly handsome man who is too mild-mannered or effete to carry a sword or gun will be put to death. Real wimps look like wimps.

19. I will never use the fatally ambiguous phrase “the only one I can trust,” which blurs the crucial distinction between “loyal servant” and “competent servant”.

21. I will not sneer at or insult any of my servants. It always comes back to haunt you.

22. All merchants will be instructed to report any man who buys black bridal satin, or any other girly fabric that real men only wear to fight injustice.

29. I will always show a proper appreciation for the literary requirements. When the hero is captured and about to die, I will not make a speech about my triumph. That just marks the climax of an adventure story, when the hero is about to win. I will let him make a speech, as required by the poetic structure of a tragedy, in which the hero dies a noble death.

34. If one of my servants really wants to tell me something before I light the fuse, then I will listen before I light the fuse.

44. I will not wait for the music to crescendo before pulling the switch.

48. My legions will be taught to shoot straight. My legions will be taught to shoot straight. My legions will be taught to shoot straight.

49. I will not build a secret tunnel into my headquarters. It's my headquarters - I’m allowed to walk in the front gate.

ChaosArchon
2014-07-16, 11:47 PM
49. I will not build a secret tunnel into my headquarters. It's my headquarters - I’m allowed to walk in the front gate.
49 is magnificent, also I've read the EO List but I've never seen this version before, do you have a source so I can read for my enjoyment? :smallbiggrin:

IAmTehDave
2014-07-17, 12:28 AM
49 is magnificent, also I've read the EO List but I've never seen this version before, do you have a source so I can read for my enjoyment? :smallbiggrin:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList

Just remember that YOU ASKED! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife)


Or you could just go with the tried-and-true "letting the PC(s) break out of confinement themselves" trick. I suppose that falls under "good payoff" though.

Alternatively, if the forces capturing the PCs are competent enough to keep them in a cell built around a dead magic zone, with their equipment scattered around the rest of the cells which are consequently filled with monsters, use the time to have their captors taunt them. Let them feel the hopelessness of their situation.

And then have the (questionably) lovable rogue they rescued 6 (in-game AND IRL) months ago from those same forces show up, gather the PCs' equipment in a convenient cell, knock out the guard, and hand over the key with a "I'll meet you guys outside town with your camels" and a grin.
(Okay, so we knew it was a trap walking into it, got captured on purpose to break someone else out, but underestimated the lengths they were going to go for us. Thank Bahamut for making friends with the hometown cat burglar.)

Sith_Happens
2014-07-17, 03:28 AM
I thik that for an RPG to be good, you have to always have death with no strings attached. To make combat exciting, death must happen at any time.

Once you go down the road of ''well death will only happen at important times'', there is no turning back. Combat is then pointless. Your just rolling to see how the players win the combat. It's like watching a TV show or movie...you know the random minion won't kill the hero at the start of the show or movie. So you know the hero won't be killed, but you ''pretend'' like the action is real, when it is not. It's even worse for kids stuff, as they still pretend to fight and have weapons, but nothing happens

One of the best things about an RPG is the ''death any time''.

Uh, you know just knocking someone out is a thing, right?:smallconfused:

Jay R
2014-07-17, 06:33 AM
49 is magnificent, also I've read the EO List but I've never seen this version before, do you have a source so I can read for my enjoyment? :smallbiggrin:

Thank you. You haven't seen these before because they are from my own personal extension of the list, and the only actual source is my own computer.

I only wrote them for my own amusement, but if you want to see them, here they are (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362296-Additions-to-the-Evil-Overlord-list).

prufock
2014-07-17, 07:58 AM
Most superhero systems are non-lethal by default. Defeat in combat results in not realizing a goal, rather than death. This probably makes more sense in the superhero genre than the fantasy one though.

Another idea is to give the PCs "nine lives" so to speak. For some in-game reason, they have the grace of the gods, hardiness, or just plain good luck to be able to recover even from apparent death, it just takes a while.

Finally, I use a "death save" rule in my game to allow PCs to be taken out, and still give them a chance of death, but with lower in lethality than normal. In negative HPs, you get a save each round. From 0 to -(your con score), you are staggered and a failed save means you go unconscious. At -(your con score) and lower you automatically go unconscious and die if you fail your save. The save DC is equal to your negative hit points.

Another idea I have is "death throes." When you fail that save vs death, you get one action that is treated as if you rolled a natural 20. So you can make your heroic last strike. Immediately following that, you die regardless of what that action was (even healing yourself).

Jay R
2014-07-17, 08:04 AM
I thik that for an RPG to be good, you have to always have death with no strings attached. To make combat exciting, death must happen at any time.
...
One of the best things about an RPG is the ''death any time''.

Not quite. They don't have to die to be excited. They have to believe that they could die.

Today, nobody wants to see the character to die. But tomorrow, they will want to believe that their character almost died.



Also, the players absolutely cannot know how safe they are.I would say the opposite - if you're doing this, you have to be upfront about it, or the players will feel betrayed. Make sure they know that failure doesn't equal death, but that it will have consequences, and the players will treat it with the appropriate level of seriousness.

You're not disagreeing; you're talking about different things. Draken50 is saying that if nothing bad is going to happen to them, then they should not know it. I agree.

Friv is saying that if, when something bad happens, it won't be death, then they should know. I agree with this as well.

Cowardly Griffo
2014-07-17, 08:18 AM
Today, nobody wants to see the character to die. But tomorrow, they will want to believe that their character almost died.Hear, hear. Best definition of 'reasonable challenge' I've seen.

Tengu_temp
2014-07-17, 08:27 AM
For over a decade now I've been playing games where PCs are immune to random combat death almost exclusively. If you fall, you're simply unconscious, or narratively dying but not in danger of bleeding out until combat is over and someone can help you. Hell, I mostly play games where combat is non-lethal by default, like Mutants and Masterminds, so this doesn't even require any houserules.

Combat remains exciting - better even, because without the frustration of dying to a random encounter, players are willing to take more risks. What matters is the stakes - if everyone falls, the bad guys will accomplish what they want, and you're invested in making sure that won't happen! In general a random dungeon crawl where the only thing at stake is your survival is not a very compelling game to begin with, from my experience. Also, the PCs know that they can technically die, if everyone falls and the enemies are not of the merciful type; it's just that a TPK never happened in my games, the players are too good for that.

Bhaskara
2014-07-17, 09:10 AM
Death is not needed to make conflict exciting*. What is required is threat of loss. While threat of death is definitely a powerful threat, it isn't the only one. The key is to make loss cost the PCs something meaningful. Their goals could be set back, NPCs view them more negatively, or even just gaining obvious scars. Of course this depends a lot on the PC/player valuing goals, NPC, or character looks.

*And there in lies the problem. Some people only feel threat of death as making conflict meaningful. There's very little you can do about this except try to help them form in game attachments that you can then threaten instead. And even then they could resent you for threatening those attachments (it's why so many PCs have no family connections)

I recommend being fairly up front with your players about the low risk of death tone for your game and explain you will need their character to have goals, connections, and things they take pride in.

Ravens_cry
2014-07-17, 09:30 AM
While a certain amount of risk (death is not the only risk) is often needed, there is also something to be said of the cathartic bliss of mowing down uglies with little risk to yourself.

Jay R
2014-07-17, 09:51 AM
... because without the frustration of dying to a random encounter, players are willing to take more risks.

I'm trying to be precise here. I am agreeing with your main point (for some games), but pointing out that how you defended it is not true.

Player A with character B in game X might be killed in combat. Player C with character D in Game Y will not be killed in combat.

Therefore, player A is taking more risks than player C. Taking a risk means risking losing something important.

I suspect that you mean that players are willing to take more flamboyant actions in the game, precisely because in game Y, those actions entail less risks than they would in game X.

That's a good thing for some games, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've run a Champions game that way. I told the players that their characters would not die to run-of-the-mill situations, just to get them to take the heroic actions that superheroes should actually take. Even if it doesn't appeal to everyone, that's a perfectly reasonable way to play.

But don't confuse it with taking more risks.

Arbane
2014-07-17, 10:01 AM
I thik that for an RPG to be good, you have to always have death with no strings attached. To make combat exciting, death must happen at any time.

(SNIP)

One of the best things about an RPG is the ''death any time''.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you play D&D, right? The game where death is a temporary inconvenience for anyone with a big enough diamond and a friendly 9th level cleric?

Death in D&D isn't necessarily any more permanent than being knocked unconscious in a superhero game is.

Amphetryon
2014-07-17, 10:25 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you play D&D, right? The game where death is a temporary inconvenience for anyone with a big enough diamond and a friendly 9th level cleric?

Death in D&D isn't necessarily any more permanent than being knocked unconscious in a superhero game is.

If memory serves, jedipotter uses houserules that make death a mite more inconvenient than that.

Tengu_temp
2014-07-17, 10:42 AM
@Jay_R: I'm approaching it from an IC/OOC separation point of view. Because a player knows that the DM won't just kill his character in a random encounter, he's willing to take actions that are more risky in the game world, even though from an OOC point of view there is little risk.

draken50
2014-07-17, 12:10 PM
The two systems I run right now are 3.5 E6, where getting a player raised is very rare and difficult, and Earthdawn, where it's impossible without GM FIAT.

Now Earthdawn has exploding die, and a few other thing that make it more dangerous, but I prefer it's handling of consciousnesses vs. death. Basically, you don't continue to lose health after falling unconscious, and the amount of hit points between increases as the characters hit points increase. I'm trying to determine what houserules I'd like to use to work unconsciousness into 3.5/E6, I haven't played 4th ed, but I was thinking I could get rid of the subdual damage penalty or the like... but I digress.

My point was, when I had an Alligator latch onto my players windling(basically foot tall fairy) and go to drag it under the water, I knew the players were quite capable of stopping it, and that I had a number of ways of buying them time before the player was actually dragged back into a deep river, drug to the bottom and drowned. Here's the thing.

They didn't know that, what they knew was that if that alligator drug their little buddy under the water she was going to die, and that they needed to act fast to keep that from happening.

If my players knew I didn't want any of them getting killed in a cheesy fight with some gators, they wouldn't have been invested and wouldn't have been thinking of it as a close call. I didn't tell my party, "I knew you had "Stick Together" in your matrix and could use it to stop the gator from getting further, or that the Troll would be able to pin it, or that the NPC scout you're traveling with happens to be amphibious (due to race, players knew this) and that even if it went under-water he could have pried the windling free."

No, my players left that encounter exhilarated and wary, but ready to face tougher things in the jungle they were trekking through.

Basically, pick fights the characters should be able to win by a decent margin. Give yourself an out or two, and then go all out with those enemies. It'll make that margin seem smaller. It's a lot better than nerfing stronger enemies, like a Wyvern that never uses it's poison tail, or rogues that avoid opportunities to sneak attack.

Is it harder? Yeah, but man is it satisfying.

Jay R
2014-07-17, 02:40 PM
@Jay_R: I'm approaching it from an IC/OOC separation point of view. Because a player knows that the DM won't just kill his character in a random encounter, he's willing to take actions that are more risky in the game world, even though from an OOC point of view there is little risk.

You're still stretching the language to pretend he's accepting more risk when the point is that he isn't. What he's doing is cool enough as it is; you don't have to pretend it's something else. He's willing to take more flamboyant, heroic actions because they are less risky than in other games.

Frozen_Feet
2014-07-17, 03:39 PM
Answer to the title question: Sure. Just have there be a threat to the wealth and resources they have accumulated. Even better: a threat to wealth and resources they are yet to accumulate. One character of a player of mine committed suicide to escape a debt that would've left him and his comrades in poverty. See if you can get someone do that as well. :smallamused:

Stellar_Magic
2014-07-17, 04:13 PM
Wow, that's an extreme and rather awesome example. Maybe he/she should have faked their death instead.

Anyway, the short answer to this is yes... The loss of treasure, equipment, or other things can be one way to substitute straight up death as penalties.

Imagine you're playing a random combat encounter (low-level pathfinder) and the GM rolls up a bunch of bandits. One by one your party is cut down by these bandits (for whatever reason) but the GM insists everyone make their stabilization rolls instead of just saying you're dead.

Everyone's down, combat ends... Maybe one or two of your party fail the stabilization rolls and die. Then the GM says...

"An hour passes... roll constitution... Okay, you're now disabled. You wake up completely naked, everything you own is gone and you're in the middle of the forest... it's getting cold. What do you do?"

"Damn, couldn't you just have killed us."

tomandtish
2014-07-17, 06:10 PM
As others have basically said in a variety of forms, the important thing is that the players feel they have something at stake that they can "lose". This may be life, but it could be possessions, territory, companions, respect, rank and privilege, etc. The important thing is that the players will feel a sense of loss if they lose.

Barring gross stupidity, they should never be placed in unwinnable situations, but there should always be the possibility of loss. And note that winning and losing can be subjective things. It may be possible for both sides in a conflict to feel they won, or to feel they lost. It will be your players' perception that matters.

Example: An evil army attacks a city where a mystical relic is held. The players believe the army is coming for the relic. After defending the city for several days, they manage to escape with the relic. To the players, this is a victory. But the army had no interest in the relic at all. Their goal was to capture the town. To them, this is a victory.

Example 2: Army lead by one of the greatest generals ever attacks a city. Players attempt to defend the city. By the end, the city is lost but the general is killed. Players feel they lost because they lost the city. But the invaders feel it is a loss because they lost one of their great generals.

SiuiS
2014-07-17, 06:19 PM
Yes. You just need the fights to be about something. Losing must carry an alternate price; time lost, resources gone, or something you're trying to protect getting killed or destroyed.


You're still stretching the language to pretend he's accepting more risk when the point is that he isn't. What he's doing is cool enough as it is; you don't have to pretend it's something else. He's willing to take more flamboyant, heroic actions because they are less risky than in other games.

Aye. This is a thing. This is directly separate from wen a person doesn't take heroic and flamboyant because they fear they'll be actively punished, in which case lack of lethality allows the player to attempt these actions anyway. I've been in games where instead of an action merely being dangerous, it's heavily penalized because the DM doesn't want to allow that sort of thing.


As others have basically said in a variety of forms, the important thing is that the players feel they have something at stake that they can "lose". This may be life, but it could be possessions, territory, companions, respect, rank and privilege, etc. The important thing is that the players will feel a sense of loss if they lose.

Barring gross stupidity, they should never be placed in unwinnable situations, but there should always be the possibility of loss. And note that winning and losing can be subjective things. It may be possible for both sides in a conflict to feel they won, or to feel they lost. It will be your players' perception that matters.

I disagree. I actually like the heroism involved in a no-win situation, where the world is going to burn and the players decide how much or how little survives. I allow for the possibility of success anyway, though, I just stack the deck.

Think the last iron man movie, you've got 13 people falling to their deaths, and the guy can save 4, and he saves them all at risk.

Kaeso
2014-07-18, 04:59 AM
I think there are two elements that make a campaign worth playing or not: having multiple options and actually having something at stake. The first is obvious, nobody wants to be railroaded. The second is akin to the first: not every encounter should be a cakewalk. Sure, two hoodlums who try to rob you in some dark alley should be dispatched with ease by an experienced warrior or spellcaster, but when fighting one of the BBEGs lieutenants there should be some risk of defeat. This doesn't mean death per se, but something needs to be at risk.

If there's no choice and there are no stakes, you might as well be listening to the DM telling you a story while you sit there and do nothing. Storytellers can be fun, but the DM isn't a storyteller. DM is cooperative storytelling, in which the players should have the possibility to contribute, whether willing (choices) or unwilling (consequences for their actions, perhaps including death).

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 05:57 AM
As mentioned above, the FATE system and its variants have a very interesting way of handling this. There are two ways to "lose" in this system, conceding and being taken out. Being taken out occurs when someone inflicts more damage than your remaining stress and consequences can absorb. This means that not only do you lose, but the person who took you out decides how you lose. So if someone took you out by hitting you with a sword, they could simply say that the sword cut your head off and you died.

At any time prior to being taken out, you can concede. Conceding means that you still lose, but you get to decide exactly how you lose. So if you were fighting a guy with a sword and conceded, you could say that your arm was slashed to the bone, but you survive and escape alive.

I realize I'm in the minority here but.. How is this ok? :smallconfused:
This seems like an invitation to god modding.

arcane_asp
2014-07-18, 08:38 AM
I think that combat CAN be exciting if all the PC's are aware there is no chance of death.

I do, however, think it is MORE exciting if they are all aware there is a chance of death. Like gambling, the risk creates the thrill...

Segev
2014-07-18, 09:00 AM
So if someone took you out by hitting you with a sword, they could simply say that the sword cut your head off and you died.

At any time prior to being taken out, you can concede. Conceding means that you still lose, but you get to decide exactly how you lose. So if you were fighting a guy with a sword and conceded, you could say that your arm was slashed to the bone, but you survive and escape alive.

What does "conceding" mean, though? If I "concede" by saying "he cuts me to the quick so I retreat with the noble's daughter," but his goal was killing the girl, haven't I just robbed him of his victory?

Conversely, what if his goal is "kill my character?" How do I "concede" and still decide how I lose without robbing him of his victory (when his goal was explicitly to cause my PC's death)?

neonchameleon
2014-07-18, 09:05 AM
Devil's Advocate: I have known players who find getting captured to be an order of magnitude more de-protagonizing than being straight up slaughtered by a lucky swing. The argument goes that, in general, capture means they had to either voluntarily stop taking actions every round/turn/game-segment, or they were knocked unconscious or otherwise rendered helpless by a BBEG who failed to read any of the Evil Overlord List and therefore didn't just kill them when given the best opportunity possible.

It is in D&D especially if you have enough magic items to make you look like a Christmas Tree. If you had a fair chance to win - and gained a bonus (a couple of Fate Points will do) for letting yourself get captured it's fine. Or you take another route. (In Tenra Bansho Zero you can only die if you allow it - but you get bonusses for putting your life on the line).


I realize I'm in the minority here but.. How is this ok? :smallconfused:
This seems like an invitation to god modding.

Because we generally play as adults.

Tengu_temp
2014-07-18, 09:05 AM
I realize I'm in the minority here but.. How is this ok? :smallconfused:
This seems like an invitation to god modding.

The DM has the final say in deciding what is and what isn't a good condition for conceding, obviously.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 09:18 AM
What does "conceding" mean, though? If I "concede" by saying "he cuts me to the quick so I retreat with the noble's daughter," but his goal was killing the girl, haven't I just robbed him of his victory?

Conversely, what if his goal is "kill my character?" How do I "concede" and still decide how I lose without robbing him of his victory (when his goal was explicitly to cause my PC's death)?

Exactly...


The DM has the final say in deciding what is and what isn't a good condition for conceding, obviously.
So, basically, it's doing the same thing every other system does? Leaving consequences of defeat for the GM to decide?

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-07-18, 09:50 AM
I realize I'm in the minority here but.. How is this ok? :smallconfused:
This seems like an invitation to god modding.
If you're talking about the victory condition, well...it's something you've earned. You can say "I decapitate them" if you win, because you've earned it. (As long as that's something everyone knows is on the table.)

jedipotter
2014-07-18, 12:05 PM
Not quite. They don't have to die to be excited. They have to believe that they could die.

Today, nobody wants to see the character to die. But tomorrow, they will want to believe that their character almost died.


Right, but it's all fake.

When you know, for a fact that your character won't die, and that your just pretending they might die...it's all fake. It's like playing a game of football and not keeping score...it's pointless.

No one wants a character to die....that is why it's important. To just be knocked out or caught or to fall is nothing. The danger and the death is what is exciting.[/QUOTE]

But notice how special death is: Everyone comes up will all sorts of ways to avoid it or have it in their game. You don't see them avoiding other types of ''loss'', just death.

And notice how other types of loss just don't have the same impact:

Obi-One dies and leads Luke on the path of becoming an adult and a jedi

Obi-One gets ''knocked down'' or suffers some kind of meaningless loss, and escapes with Luke and Luke stays a boy and keeps ''learning the ways of the force'', and might be a jedi someday

Gee, what one made a better movie.

How about:

Wormwood Kills Cedric on a whim....zap, young boy dead. Harry sees this and is determined to stop Voltermort(as he does not want to see any other good people die.

Wormood ''knocks out'' or makes Cedric ''loose his wand'' or something. Harry is there....

Er, wow, what drama.


[QUOTE=Bhaskara;17784271]Death is not needed to make conflict exciting*. What is required is threat of loss. While threat of death is definitely a powerful threat, it isn't the only one.

Amphetryon
2014-07-18, 12:09 PM
Right, but it's all fake.

When you know, for a fact that your character won't die, and that your just pretending they might die...it's all fake. It's like playing a game of football and not keeping score...it's pointless.

No one wants a character to die....that is why it's important. To just be knocked out or caught or to fall is nothing. The danger and the death is what is exciting.

But notice how special death is: Everyone comes up will all sorts of ways to avoid it or have it in their game. You don't see them avoiding other types of ''loss'', just death.

And notice how other types of loss just don't have the same impact:

Obi-One dies and leads Luke on the path of becoming an adult and a jedi

Obi-One gets ''knocked down'' or suffers some kind of meaningless loss, and escapes with Luke and Luke stays a boy and keeps ''learning the ways of the force'', and might be a jedi someday

Gee, what one made a better movie.

How about:

Wormwood Kills Cedric on a whim....zap, young boy dead. Harry sees this and is determined to stop Voltermort(as he does not want to see any other good people die.

Wormood ''knocks out'' or makes Cedric ''loose his wand'' or something. Harry is there....

Er, wow, what drama.



Death is not needed to make conflict exciting*. What is required is threat of loss. While threat of death is definitely a powerful threat, it isn't the only one.
The whole of RPGs are about pretending, in one form or another. Your point?

charcoalninja
2014-07-18, 12:09 PM
It can be exciting, but you'll have to work at making it that way.

Also, the players absolutely cannot know how safe they are.

Make retreat an option, and its generally better to use enemies, that even if they beat the party, aren't as motivated to kill them. Enemies might beat them up, steal the magic item or mcguffin they were fighting over and toss their mundane weapons in the ocean.
As opposed to say, an animal that's trying to eat them. Cause if it wins, someone is getting eaten.

Give avenues of retreat. Use encounters that the players can circumnavigate, or even recover and retry if they're getting beaten.

If the players feel there is no danger, combat is boring, and just rolling dice for no reason. You can fudge behavior, just try to have it make sense. Character was knocked prone, maybe the beast just uses it's bite attack the next round instead of claw/claw/bite. Little things but they add up.

I disagree that the players need not know how safe they are. My players for example are very aware of the fact that I don't want to kill them, and we're very story focused and play very powerful characters. Combat for us is less about survival and more about displaying our badassery and mowing down hordes of enemies while we craft stories of our awesome. When I enter combat in most games I do not assume that I'm actually at risk of death and my level of optimization generally means that I'm not, however I still find combat incredibly satisfying.

For me I tend to play support characters as well, so when my party enters a fight and its clear that the enemy can't outright kill us, I smile to my usually Clerical self in a job well done and bask in making my party invincible forces of nature.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 12:49 PM
If you're talking about the victory condition, well...it's something you've earned. You can say "I decapitate them" if you win, because you've earned it. (As long as that's something everyone knows is on the table.)

I'm talking about choosing how you lose when you concede, which can be used to minimize the consequences of facing unprepared even the most deadly of opponents. Sometimes even a defeat can be a victory, moral or otherwise, if there is sufficent disparity between the contenders.
It also completly strips the game of any tension, since, assuming that the "concede" get out of jail free card can't be called upon during your opponent turn, you only need to last one round or equivalent and then you are effectively immortal, so trying out stupid things just to see how it goes is not only viable, it's smart, since it allows you to determine how strong your opponent is and to potentially have him waste resources trying to kill you and failing to do so in a situation that would otherwise spell death for any character.

There are systems that do something similar, like Dark Heresy, allowing you to burn a fate point to save your ass, but this doesn't mean the fight is over, it just means that you'll probably burn another one very soon if you don't GTFO of whatever situation you've put yourself into. Also, fate points are a finite resource, while conceding sounds like something you can do at any time.

Gravitron5000
2014-07-18, 01:48 PM
I'm talking about choosing how you lose when you concede, which can be used to minimize the consequences of facing unprepared even the most deadly of opponents. Sometimes even a defeat can be a victory, moral or otherwise, if there is sufficent disparity between the contenders.
It also completly strips the game of any tension, since, assuming that the "concede" get out of jail free card can't be called upon during your opponent turn, you only need to last one round or equivalent and then you are effectively immortal, so trying out stupid things just to see how it goes is not only viable, it's smart, since it allows you to determine how strong your opponent is and to potentially have him waste resources trying to kill you and failing to do so in a situation that would otherwise spell death for any character.

There are systems that do something similar, like Dark Heresy, allowing you to burn a fate point to save your ass, but this doesn't mean the fight is over, it just means that you'll probably burn another one very soon if you don't GTFO of whatever situation you've put yourself into. Also, fate points are a finite resource, while conceding sounds like something you can do at any time.

From the Fate Core rule book on Conceding the Conflict.
1) You can't retroactively concede. Once the dice have been rolled, you're stuck with the outcome of that roll.
2) The conflict continues after you concede (unless you're the last one on your side of the conflict standing), so all your comrades are worse off without your character active.
3) You're still stuck with all the stress and consequences that you accrued during the conflict before you conceded, which is a deterrent from acting like a loon.
4) Conceding explicitly gives the person you conceded to what they wanted from you. The only conflicting case I can see is if the goal of your antagonist is "I want you dead".
5) Most importantly, and I quote "Yes, you lost, and the narration has to reflect that. But you can’t use this privilege to undermine the opponent’s victory, either—what you say happens has to pass muster with the group"

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 01:54 PM
5) Most importantly, and I quote "Yes, you lost, and the narration has to reflect that. But you can’t use this privilege to undermine the opponent’s victory, either—what you say happens has to pass muster with the group"

This is so vague it doesn't even make sense. As long as conditions for the opponent's victory includes your death, conceding does nothing. When the opponent's victory doesn't include your death, the opponent wasn't trying to kill you in the first place. So it's either irrelevant or unnecessary, depending on the situation. :smallconfused:

Amphetryon
2014-07-18, 01:59 PM
This is so vague it doesn't even make sense. As long as conditions for the opponent's victory includes your death, conceding does nothing. When the opponent's victory doesn't include your death, the opponent wasn't trying to kill you in the first place. So it's either irrelevant or unnecessary, depending on the situation. :smallconfused:

Sounds like FATE is not the system for you. That's probably useful information.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 02:15 PM
Sounds like FATE is not the system for you. That's probably useful information.

There's no dobut about that, but I'd still like to know how that mechanic makes any sense whatsoever.
As a concept, surrendering to minimize damage is obviously a thing. For example you could negotiate with your opponent and have him spare your life in exchange for something, if he agrees. But a mechanic that makes you choose the consequence of surrendering, when your opponent wouldn't even want to give you a chance, doesn't make sense.
And from that quote, it really doesn't. Since it's based, as anything on FATE, on vague wording and loose concepts. How do you not see it? It's telling you that if you concede, you get to choose how you are defeated. Ok. But then, it says "uh-oh, we screwed up, better write a couple of lines to explain it away" and tells you that you can't choose anything that "undermines your opponent victory", which based on simple logic, means that you can't actually choose anything other than what your opponent would choose, since he's the one that decides what constitutes a statisfying victory!
And if the opponent is not the one deciding his victory condition then we go back at the beginning, where conceding is god modding that allows you to get away with anything, since you can simply say "oh, the opponent would totally be satisfied with stabbing my leg when he swore that he was going to chop my head off! I concede!", meanwhile the opponent hates his life as a FATE npc and cries in a corner.

This is not a game mechanic, people! :smallconfused: This is not knowing what to do with a concept and therefore trusting it, in its incomplete form, in the hands of the players, which at that point have to figure this **** out on their own without any real guidelines outside of "make it work in a way that makes everyone happy! ^_^".

Friv
2014-07-18, 02:16 PM
This is so vague it doesn't even make sense. As long as conditions for the opponent's victory includes your death, conceding does nothing. When the opponent's victory doesn't include your death, the opponent wasn't trying to kill you in the first place. So it's either irrelevant or unnecessary, depending on the situation. :smallconfused:

In the majority of lethal conflicts, both in narrative and in real life, killing your opponent is a requirement for your goal, not a goal in and of itself. Your goal is to take and hold a piece of terrain, or to acquire money or a rare artifact, or to shut up that reporter *cracks knuckles*, or to impress your boyfriend with how tough you are, or to stop a bomb from going off, or to delay until a bomb goes off...

Fights in which both sides start off by saying, "I want all of you DEAD and that is all that matters" are pretty rare.

It is probably also worth noting that major NPCs in Fate are also allowed to offer up concessions, which the players approve or deny.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-18, 02:19 PM
But notice how special death is: Everyone comes up will all sorts of ways to avoid it or have it in their game. You don't see them avoiding other types of ''loss'', just death.

And notice how other types of loss just don't have the same impact:

Obi-One dies and leads Luke on the path of becoming an adult and a jedi

Obi-One gets ''knocked down'' or suffers some kind of meaningless loss, and escapes with Luke and Luke stays a boy and keeps ''learning the ways of the force'', and might be a jedi someday

Gee, what one made a better movie.

How about:

Wormwood Kills Cedric on a whim....zap, young boy dead. Harry sees this and is determined to stop Voltermort(as he does not want to see any other good people die.

Wormood ''knocks out'' or makes Cedric ''loose his wand'' or something. Harry is there....

Er, wow, what drama.

You know, some people might call these deaths climactic, plotted to happen and meaningful and as such the kind of death that just about everyone has said they're including.

A better example would be such classic scenes as that random imperial stormtrooper shooting Han while they're escaping the Death Star and that time Ron drowns because Harry doesn't know how to save him from being trapped underwater...Which, of course, is to say scenes that never happened because they don't fit the dramatic curve.

There's nothing wrong with preferring lethality in random encounters, but completely misrepresenting the opposition is pretty bad form, just like it suggests a lack of awareness of how the works you're citing work and why events happen in them.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-18, 02:23 PM
In the majority of lethal conflicts, both in narrative and in real life, killing your opponent is a requirement for your goal, not a goal in and of itself. Your goal is to take and hold a piece of terrain, or to acquire money or a rare artifact, or to shut up that reporter *cracks knuckles*, or to impress your boyfriend with how tough you are, or to stop a bomb from going off, or to delay until a bomb goes off...

Fights in which both sides start off by saying, "I want all of you DEAD and that is all that matters" are pretty rare.

It is probably also worth noting that major NPCs in Fate are also allowed to offer up concessions, which the players approve or deny.

Then conceding, as a game mechanic, does nothing.
Because you could simply roleplay your way out of this situation, or use a diplomacy (or equivalent) skil check to convince your opponent to let you live in exchange for whatever they want. Unless by conceding (as a FATE game mechanic) you also get to choose how the opponent wins outside of combat, in which case, we're back at the start! You are now either giving your opponent exactly what he wants (and thus conceding did nothing) or you are denying, one way or another, what he wants, in which case conceding is god modding.

You see what I mean?

Unless you actually believe that the simple concept of conceding, of seeking a compromise with your opponent in exchange for less harsh consequences, is a FATE game mechanic (even when it's not covered by an actual mechanic). Which would be utterly stupid, wouldn't it? No, this can't be what you are saying. :smallconfused:

Also: it doesn't matter how rare an opponent that wants you dead is in your opinion. It depends on the campaign. In the typical fantasy dungeon crawling, your opponent always wants you dead. Or enslaved. Or turned into a zombie. And all it takes is for the GM to decide that your opponent wants you dead, which can be more than reasonable and realistic in a lot of settings and situations, and BAM, the so called game mechanic doesn't do anything at all.

tomandtish
2014-07-18, 02:27 PM
I disagree. I actually like the heroism involved in a no-win situation, where the world is going to burn and the players decide how much or how little survives. I allow for the possibility of success anyway, though, I just stack the deck.

Think the last iron man movie, you've got 13 people falling to their deaths, and the guy can save 4, and he saves them all at risk.

So there was a chance at winning, and thus not a no-win scenario...

And remember, it's as much about perception as reality. Do the players (and through them the characters) FEEL they have a shot at victory? And what are they defining as victory? If the game scenario defaults to "the world is going to burn", then victory may be defined as "saving those we wanted to save".

For a good example, let's look at The Walking Dead (spoiled for those who may not be caught up):

(And your interpretation may vary on people's motivations, success, etc. That's OK).

Season 1: Get to the CDC and presumed safety, possibility of a cure. The possibility of a victory is there right up to the end. Even then, only Ric finds out how bad it really is. CDC is not the solution they are hoping for, but they have a definable, meaningful goal.

Season 2: Various - Find a safe place to heal Carl, find Sophia, convince Hershel to let them stay longer, make the farm a safe place, help our suicidal members, resolve group tension caused by Shane/Rick conflict over Lori (Undoubtedly others). Well, Carl is healed (win for Lori and Rick). Shane is dealt with (really depends on your point of view). Sophia is technically found (major loss for Carol and group), Hershel let's the stay (victory) but place is lost in zombie attack (loss), etc. Again, some victories, some losses. There's always a perceived chance of victory though (by some at least). After all, even Carol will eventually bounce back.

Season 3: Fine a secure place to live, have a baby, deal with new psychopath, welcome new group members, be not so welcoming to old group members, rescue captured group members, etc. Well, Season starts rough, with Rick hitting as low a point as ever after Lori's death. On the other hand, it ends with the group having a secure location and their enemy has retreated. They are in the strongest position they've been in for a while. Overall, they probably call the end of the season a victory.

Season 4: Illness causes problems, new members cause problems, Carol deals with problems, 10yo becomes new psychopath, old psychopath returns wih new followers, loss of prison, Rick badly hurt, Daryl and Beth bond, Glen makes new friends, Maggie doesn't give up for Glen, there's a shiny new beacon (with a forboding name). First half of the season is really two big fights: the outbreak (which they are just starting to win) and return of the Gov (which they certainly feel they lose, even though at least 3 people get to help kill him). Second half is everyone scattered and trying to find a new safe haven while working through challenges. Carol deals with crazed teen. is it a victory? Not sure she'd see it as one. On the other hand, Beth is probably becoming stronger. Carl's realizing that he's not quite the adult he thought he was. Michone's realized she does need other people around her now. ANd everyone had a bright shiny hopeful plce to go to that they made it to (victory) but wasn't what they thought (we'll see how it plays out).

The important thing about this is that at no time is there a point at which all (or even most) of the characters have given up or feel there's no point anymore. You do have times where one or some have a temporary checkout, but they all keep coming back, fighting for a chance at something better. Even if there isn't actually a chance, they all feel there is one.

Gravitron5000
2014-07-18, 02:57 PM
This is so vague it doesn't even make sense. As long as conditions for the opponent's victory includes your death, conceding does nothing. When the opponent's victory doesn't include your death, the opponent wasn't trying to kill you in the first place. So it's either irrelevant or unnecessary, depending on the situation. :smallconfused:

It depends on how the NPCs goals are set up. Not all adversaries are homicidal maniacs. There are plenty of scenarios in which violence might break out in which death is not the main objective.

The guards do not want you dead. They want to protect whatever they happen to be guarding.
Brigands do not want you dead. They just want your stuff.
The thief you caught does not want you dead. They just want to get away.
The military unit you engaged does not want you dead. They want you wounded so that you are a liability to the rest of your army.
The seal team you ambushed does not want you dead. They are only here to blow up the hydro dam.
The duellist does not want you dead. They want to prove their skill against yours.
The cop does not want you dead. They want you incarcerated.

oxybe
2014-07-18, 02:58 PM
A few weeks ago, my pathfinder fighter died.

We had stormed the enemy base and mowed down their troops. We took a few bumps, but we were still OK to fight though. To avoid further damage, I tried to parlay with one of the more powerful enemies in the area we knew of when we reached him, as they had holed themselves up in an exit-less room.

We knock at the door, request parlay and put away our weapons. I wasn't too keen on letting them go alive as their men, well goblins, had caused us problems more then a few times before but we were expecting something MUCH worse then these guys deeper in the area so letting these guys leave now, reducing the potential harm the party might be inflicted immediately so we can deal with the real threat with more resources, and then dealing with them proper later was a solid plan.

Then the rogue decided to muck up parlay and attack the leader with a crossbow, which missed, of course.

This threw parlay into a futile effort.

The enemy leader, a goblin riding a lizard then charges my character and crits with his sword. Backed by his Spirited Charge feat. Though my fighter had only taken a little bit of damage beforehand, the 32 damage he took was more then enough to sever my leg off and cause my fighter to die of shock (IE it dropped me exactly to negative con).

Now, where, in all this is the tension? It wasn't combat. One dice roll and my fighter is dead. It didn't even faze me as I was fully expecting to have died several sessions ago, and there is the problem.

I was more invested in the parlay and, some might agree, rightfully peeved off at the rogue.

D&D isn't a very physical game. You don't get the same kind of thrill playing D&D as you do say, riding a roller coaster. Both can be exciting, but D&D is a very passive game for the most part, and any excitement requires some emotional investment in the game/situation.

It's the same reason kids don't go pale in fright when you start explaining basic subtraction to them "you have 5 apples and I take away 3..." the kid doesn't really care much because he's got no investment in those fictional apples.

My fighter had 18 hit points and we took away 32... yup I don't have a fighter anymore. Shrug. I had a bigger investment in the success of the group's then my individual fighter, and our failure can definitely happen without death. If we would have been routed, bad things would end up happening to NPCs and a town we were invested in.

Now, can combat be exiting if there is no chance of death? Sure! If there is something the player is invested in that there is a chance of losing, excitement will be found.

Threatening an NPC the players don't care for probably won't make them rush to his rescue, nor would holding a town they've never heard of hostage under threat of nuke make them think twice in and of itself. A paladin might try to save both the NPC and the town, while a less scrupulous character might wait to see if someone offers a reward.

In this case the combat is more of a vehicle for :

"Can I save the ones I hold dear?"
"Can I uphold the vows I made?"
"Can I come out of this with a profit?"

These are far more exciting narratively then "welp, it's me or them" as failure means you have to live,, or at least continue playing, with the consequences.

A PC that dies is dead. While that sounds like a un-motivational poster strait from the Department of Redundancy Department it's a very true statement.

A PC that dies no longer really needs to deal with any consequences of his actions, or should I say the Player is no longer accountable/has to deal with those consequences. The PC might be toiling in hell, but Johnny Gamerguy has already rolled up a new PC. Johnny is no longer invested in his old PC, though his new one might have to deal with the fallout.

If Johnny's PC had lived, however, but still failed:

"My loved one is dead because I couldn't save them in time"
"I broke the vows I swore upon"
"I came out of this hurt and broke"

There are consequences that the player is invested in and will most likely play through. Life and death is definitely one way of adding some excitement, but there are better ways IMO, to get the player invested in what's going on then threatening to take away 3 theoretical apples.

Gravitron5000
2014-07-18, 03:11 PM
It depends on how the NPCs goals are set up. Not all adversaries are homicidal maniacs. There are plenty of scenarios in which violence might break out in which death is not the main objective.

The guards do not want you dead. They want to protect whatever they happen to be guarding.
Brigands do not want you dead. They just want your stuff.
The thief you caught does not want you dead. They just want to get away.
The military unit you engaged does not want you dead. They want you wounded so that you are a liability to the rest of your army.
The seal team you ambushed does not want you dead. They are only here to blow up the hydro dam.
The duellist does not want you dead. They want to prove their skill against yours.
The cop does not want you dead. They want you incarcerated.

Edited to add


Then conceding, as a game mechanic, does nothing.
Because you could simply roleplay your way out of this situation, or use a diplomacy (or equivalent) skil check to convince your opponent to let you live in exchange for whatever they want. Unless by conceding (as a FATE game mechanic) you also get to choose how the opponent wins outside of combat, in which case, we're back at the start! You are now either giving your opponent exactly what he wants (and thus conceding did nothing) or you are denying, one way or another, what he wants, in which case conceding is god modding.

You see what I mean?

Unless you actually believe that the simple concept of conceding, of seeking a compromise with your opponent in exchange for less harsh consequences, is a FATE game mechanic (even when it's not covered by an actual mechanic). Which would be utterly stupid, wouldn't it? No, this can't be what you are saying. :smallconfused:

Also: it doesn't matter how rare an opponent that wants you dead is in your opinion. It depends on the campaign. In the typical fantasy dungeon crawling, your opponent always wants you dead. Or enslaved. Or turned into a zombie. And all it takes is for the GM to decide that your opponent wants you dead, which can be more than reasonable and realistic in a lot of settings and situations, and BAM, the so called game mechanic doesn't do anything at all.

Conceding means less harsh consequences than death. Any other consequences are still on the table, as long as they make narrative sense. Also, the moment you concede, you are out of the conflict. There are no skill checks you can make at this time.

You are correct in that it depends on the campaign. I would not use Fate to run a dungeon crawl heavy campaign.

Friv
2014-07-18, 03:12 PM
Unless you actually believe that the simple concept of conceding, of seeking a compromise with your opponent in exchange for less harsh consequences, is a FATE game mechanic (even when it's not covered by an actual mechanic). Which would be utterly stupid, wouldn't it? No, this can't be what you are saying. :smallconfused:

Conceding isn't something that a character does, though. It's an agreement between the player and the GM. The player's character doesn't say, "Hey, bad guy, bash me on the head and leave me for dead, claiming the villagers, and I'll wake up in an hour and swear revenge", because that would be silly. The player says that, because it's a more interesting outcome than the story straight-up ending.

You're coming at this from a D&D perspective, whereas conceeding is really, really heavily rooted in the nature of Fate as a narrative system. In D&D, it's essentially impossible to have a situation in which someone is left for dead, or falls into the river and re-appears later, or someone steals the gemstone and runs away, because the mechanics don't allow for it. All confrontations need to be solved in-character. Concession is a mechanic for finishing a conflict out-of-character, giving up a narrow chance of success in exchange for mitigating, but not removing, the consequences of failure in a way which leads to an interesting continuation of the story and its challenges.


Also: it doesn't matter how rare an opponent that wants you dead is in your opinion. It depends on the campaign. In the typical fantasy dungeon crawling, your opponent always wants you dead. Or enslaved. Or turned into a zombie. And all it takes is for the GM to decide that your opponent wants you dead, which can be more than reasonable and realistic in a lot of settings and situations, and BAM, the so called game mechanic doesn't do anything at all.

I've never run or played in a dungeon crawl, even in D&D, in which most enemies wanted me dead as a primary concern. And technically, the GM has to do more than decide that your enemy wants you dead. They have to decide that your enemy ONLY wants you dead, and then craft an encounter around that premise, which is quite frankly boring as a default play assumption.

Sartharina
2014-07-18, 03:18 PM
Then conceding, as a game mechanic, does nothing.
Because you could simply roleplay your way out of this situation, or use a diplomacy (or equivalent) skil check to convince your opponent to let you live in exchange for whatever they want. Unless by conceding (as a FATE game mechanic) you also get to choose how the opponent wins outside of combat, in which case, we're back at the start! You are now either giving your opponent exactly what he wants (and thus conceding did nothing) or you are denying, one way or another, what he wants, in which case conceding is god modding.

You see what I mean?

Unless you actually believe that the simple concept of conceding, of seeking a compromise with your opponent in exchange for less harsh consequences, is a FATE game mechanic (even when it's not covered by an actual mechanic). Which would be utterly stupid, wouldn't it? No, this can't be what you are saying. :smallconfused:

Also: it doesn't matter how rare an opponent that wants you dead is in your opinion. It depends on the campaign. In the typical fantasy dungeon crawling, your opponent always wants you dead. Or enslaved. Or turned into a zombie. And all it takes is for the GM to decide that your opponent wants you dead, which can be more than reasonable and realistic in a lot of settings and situations, and BAM, the so called game mechanic doesn't do anything at all.Everything in FATE is roleplaying. It's mechanics back up roleplaying, though, and give it weight and meaning. When you "Simply roleplay your way out" or into a situation with FATE, you engage the mechanics - Simply roleplaying your way out of the situation is another way to say you concede. Also - not everything is spoken. Conceding is a way to escape. And - you can't concede if you run out of the appropriate stress, from what I understand.

And yes, the concept of conceding IS a mechanic in FATE - that's EXACTLY what the conceding mechanic is. No, it's not stupid - FATE doesn't have a divide between combat and any other interaction with the world. Its rules cover everything involving interfacing with the world, as light as they are. Inncluding conceding. It provides the framework to have the involved players interact with the involved characters to resolve a situation. Players are not their characters.

The typical fantasy dungeon crawl, your opponent wants you to "Get off my Turf" more than want you dead. Also... if I remember, accepting a concede gives a Fate point as well (Or not accepting one can cost a fate point, if it's driven by a Compel) - does the enemy want you dead more than he wants a fate point/not wants to lose a fate point?


But notice how special death is: Everyone comes up will all sorts of ways to avoid it or have it in their game. You don't see them avoiding other types of ''loss'', just death.

And notice how other types of loss just don't have the same impact:

Obi-One dies and leads Luke on the path of becoming an adult and a jedi

Obi-One gets ''knocked down'' or suffers some kind of meaningless loss, and escapes with Luke and Luke stays a boy and keeps ''learning the ways of the force'', and might be a jedi someday

Gee, what one made a better movie.How about:

Wormwood Kills Cedric on a whim....zap, young boy dead. Harry sees this and is determined to stop Voltermort(as he does not want to see any other good people die.

Wormood ''knocks out'' or makes Cedric ''loose his wand'' or something. Harry is there....

Er, wow, what drama.All your examples have non-protagonists dying.

Counterpoints:
Frodo not dying in Shelob's lair, but getting injured and captured by Orcs. Sam has to fight and sneak through Shelob and the orcs to rescue him again, and then they have to deal with complications from that setback throughout their ordeals in Mordor - Had Frodo died, the stronger, healthier, and less ring-corrupted Sam could have mourned Frodo's death, then stroll to Mount Doom with much greater ease to throw the ring in, go home to his girlfriend, then cry a bit because Frodo's dead and gone. Instead, we have Sam having to struggle to keep the weakened and wounded Frodo alive and safe throughout the journey, deal with the greater hassle of two being harder to hide from goblins than one, and then we get the whole showdown in the caldera because Frodo wasn't mentally strong enough to just toss it in.

And Star Wars counterpoints: Empire Strikes Back.
How about instead of Han being encased in Carbonite, he's simply killed by Boba Fett for a bounty. Just a bunch of angst, and no daring rescue in the sequel. And, once it became clear Luke couldn't be captured and turned to the Dark Side, Vader kills Luke in the sword duel. No reveal that Vader is actually Luke's father. No loss of a hand requiring Luke to get a new one (And later empathize with his father in the sequel, because he's dead), The empire is never overthrown in the sequel because the hero's dead. And other stuff that didn't happen.

Even then, Obi-Wan's death was a Concede, not death (As evidenced by him making that weird stance and vanishing when slain, instead of getting killed by a decisive blow that left him enough time to stare in shock like Darth Maul's death). The tradeoff was "Sure, I'll die, but I'll be able to manifest and guide Luke on his way to becoming a Jedi anyway", instead of "Oops, I died, I'm out of the game and need to roll up a new character."

Furthermore - players are not NPCs or supporting characters. Then again, it may have been possible for Wedge Antilles to be Obi-Wan's new character for the rest of the session, and could have gone for the rest of the Campaign, with a focus on Luke and Wedge's friendship (They knew each other since before the series started) and becoming leaders of the Rebellion, instead of going all Mystic Knight mode from talking to green puppets (Because Obi Wan never would have directed Luke to Yoda, because Obi Wan was dead).

draken50
2014-07-18, 03:42 PM
I don't think anyone is saying that there aren't other ways of increasing tension, or things that can be valued outside of life or death. However, while we can think of ncps and plenty of situations where death is not a foregone conclusion, ultimately the initial question really seemed to be around whether you can have "Plot armored" pcs and still have tension in combat.

Personally, i don't think you can unless you specifically set each encounter with enemies who would not want to kill the PCs. Most monster designs and the like seem to be based around an "Evil" or "Ravenous" concept with no particular reason to leave a defeated PC alive. The PCs I've seen in those sort of games get less up to "awesome" stuff and more stupidity.

I have personally had a game where the player a rogue, having watched a character get killed by an elven mad-man with a flaming dagger, after the barbarian grappled the very dexterous SOB proceeded to "kick him in the nuts" for two rounds, to no benefit by the way, so deliberately avoiding using sneak attack for his d3 +0 damage, for two rounds before the madman escaped from the barbs clutches and killed him. All done strictly by the dice, and proceed to be frustrated at me because "He's never had a DM that would kill someone off in the first session." The madman in case you were wondering had a whole 6 hit points.

I'm sure there are players who can role-play that very very well, and really try to stay in character, and do what they're character would do. Most players I've found though, if they think they're safe they act like idiots.

@oxybe Dude, that sucks. You're character getting killed in one hit after trying to role-play the situation as it seems it was set up and another player pissing off the NPCS seems like complete bull. Personally as the GM, the NPCs would have jumped the rogue first, and after stomping him to paste would probably have offered a chance a terms to the rest, using the rogue as an example as to what happens when people try to cross him.

By the same token, I would think the game would have lost a lot of drama if an NPC showed up and froze everyone in place so nobody died, and the situation was magically resolved, or if everyone woke up with headaches and a handy new plot hook near by.

NichG
2014-07-18, 06:00 PM
I would say that running at least one campaign like this is a good DMing exercise. It forces you to think more about why a given conflict is occurring rather than just slapping down a bunch of creatures and having a combat, and to have fights centered around particular goals rather than 'side left standing' sorts of things. You can do a lot with that even in games where there is a chance of PC death, so its a good skill to learn.

Example combats:

- Minimize deaths of secondary participants (e.g. protect civilians)
- Minimize damage to an area under attack (e.g. saboteur/boarders on a ship, where if the ship goes down then the game ends up taking a different direction)
- Conflict to obtain an object that multiple people want
- Conflict to reach a certain place first (first side to have someone arrive there wins)
- Conflict to stay up until reinforcements arrive (in this variant, getting taken out during the fight means unconscious, but a TPK is still possible if the overall fight is lost)
- Conflict to capture a particular target, while their allies run interference and help them escape
- Delaying conflict - hold the enemy's attention for a certain period of time so that something else can be done without interference

Part of this is to make it so the characters have something on the line more important than themselves, and the tension derives from threatening that. In order to exploit this for tension, you have to spend a lot of effort ahead of time building it up. Also, any one combat may not directly put it at risk, but it could put at risk the entire pattern of activity centered around that thing. For example:

- Sir Frederick's family name has been dragged through the mud and his line has been branded traitors due to the actions of his brother. His children will not inherit his noble title as things stand, and his family will fall into ruin. He fights to restore his good name. His victory condition is achieving something in a fight which makes his family look good or makes up for his brother's crimes. His loss condition is acting in such a way that further dishonors his name or places him further from being able to earn back his noble titles. So, for example, a hunt for a spy can have tension for him if someone suggests that if he succeeds, they will intervene on his family's behalf. This is a sort of positive tension - loss means a lost opportunity, not a setback.

- Narine the Mage has a goal of learning the secrets of a lost form of magic. At one point she held much of the puzzle and was on the threshold of solving it, but prior to the start of the campaign she ended up using that knowledge as collateral to a demon with whom she was bartering for a few of the missing pieces. In order to get back her collateral, she has to fulfill her end of the bargain. Anything that threatens the bargain threatens her goal, and so there is tension in conflicts where that failure is at risk. This is a negative tension - loss means failing in her life's ambition, or at least being set back severely.

The issue of course is that its hard to deal with a character like:

- Borl the Barbarian is a Barbarian and likes to kill things. He would like to kill some things soon.

Helping Borl's player flesh that out and decide what goals he wishes he could die for (but fate will deny him the chance) is a good thing to learn how to do as a DM.

oxybe
2014-07-19, 01:39 AM
@draken50
The shock was more in the rogue doing his "I attack during parlay" then my fighter getting splatted. The crit was just an anti-climax to the whole thing as it came out of nowhere and nobody could react to it. GM just tossed the dice and the 20 was there, confirmed it and rolled damage. I did the math and it came to a very clean negative con score.

Now, as I said: I wasn't too invested in the character. Just a bog-standard human fighter with a big weapon or two, working as the party's tracker/survivalist. Sol Fightmann,

And secondary conscience, when I think back on it. I wasn't nearly as rigid on how to deal with certain situations as the pally of the group, and don't get me started on the pally/rogue dynamic... those two will come to blows at some point in time, but my fighter's stance when it comes to good/evil/lawful/chaos is that he would much rather live next to a guy who would pet his (theoretical) dog then a guy who would kick the animal. In short : "don't be a ****".

But I did side with the pally on many a topic though, which probably didn't endear me to the rogue.

I will note that the GM has also hinted that after several sessions, the rogue is going down the CN > CE path and the player is fully conscious of this.

Another thing to note is that when parlay started my fighter was covered in goblin innards from the waist down. While these goblins weren't known for their deep camaraderie, I'm certain that it's still a bit jarring to see a man wanting to talk peace and looking like he just waded through your fellows. I can safely say that while I was looking for peace, I left a rather contrasting impression.

Then again, I might just be looking for conspiracies where none in specific are: this is kind of standard operating procedure for the rogue's player and he will eventually self-destruct. I've seen it happen and I've heard stories of it. S'pretty funny. Disruptive at times, but funny.

Oddly enough he's not the worst I've seen when it comes to self-destructing, but those are stories for another time.

The main issue I have with "By the same token, I would think the game would have lost a lot of drama if an NPC showed up and froze everyone in place so nobody died, and the situation was magically resolved, or if everyone woke up with headaches and a handy new plot hook near by." is that it makes no sense in the context of the encounter. The PCs getting beaten and thrown out on their arses without gear, captured, left unconscious if the enemies are in a hurry, etc... are all other methods to resolve a fight without killing anyone, while still moving the game along in a new direction.

A group of people who just murder everyone they come across will eventually draw some unwanted attention. If you're going to rob people, it's probably better to leave people alive if possible... theft generally has more lenient penalties then murder.

Getting captured and either having the PCs break out or having them sold off as slaves is definitely a handy new plot hook that can fit in many settings and campaigns. Being press-ganged into the Dark Army of the Evil Emperor Vorpal von Hackenslash and either kowtowing until they can escape or cause a rebellion is again, a plot hook ready for use.

It's just that, like many on-the-spot plot twists (often due to PCs doing things you didn't expect them to), it requires the GM to have an extra bit of awareness of the campaign setting and knowing what major NPC groups are doing and their motivations and quickly connecting the current PC-related events to something else going on in the game. Heck, it might cause the current mission to progress forward but with more difficulty.

The PCs being hired to stop a cult but getting captured, might end up with them not just being made into potential sacrifices, but also have more guards/cultists then previously expected in that area, or having to fight without some of their gear for a bit.

the flipside to the previous statement would be "But would your fights really be made much more exciting if every other round there's a 50-50 chance of an NPC teleporting in, insta-killing a random PC, then teleporting out?" of course not... it makes no sense in context, doesn't it?

Again: we are not saying that combat should magically end with the PCs safe and sound in their beds, with hot cocoa by their side and their mummy telling them bedtime stories. We're just saying that deadly combat does not make combat exciting in and of itself, but rather the context of "why" the fight is occurring is more important for excitement and setting up encounters that focus on goals rather then a hard life-or-death situation, even if it is armed combat, can make for a much better experience.

I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying "yes combat can be exciting without the threat of death, just as much as fighting with only the threat of death can be the least exciting thing in the world". Everything needs context.

Cronocke
2014-07-19, 03:48 AM
Consider Superman.

Superman basically can only be killed in very specific, nominally hard to come by methods. Kryptonite, which these days seems to be manufactured in factories considering how much of the stuff there is, moving him to a planet in orbit of a red sun and trapping him there long enough that he loses his powers (so you can kill him normally), or sending someone of equally demigodlike power at him, such as Doomsday.

Yes, tension can come in the form of a possible death for Superman, by throwing one of the aforementioned threats at him. But it's just as likely that the tension and drama comes from Superman possibly not making it to the right place in time to stop whatever disaster is happening, or being forced to choose between bad options which will result in something horrible happening - does he toss the man in front of the magical Superman-proof train, or let the six people tied to the tracks get run over?

Failure results not in Superman dying, but in Superman failing to prevent a tragedy from happening to someone else.

You can do something similar with a typical adventuring party. Even a chaotic neutral character typically has someone or something he cares about. Holding that for ransom gives them new challenges and major consequences.

And that's just if you want the downsides to be big. It could always be something simpler, like, "We're not paying you if you burn down the cottage to save it!"

SiuiS
2014-07-19, 04:35 AM
So there was a chance at winning, and thus not a no-win scenario...

Oh. No. No, we occasionally play at the level where it's possible for a player to change the rules. Not always for the better, mind, but there have been some pretty damn dramatic moments. I'm currently removing secrecy from reality by finagling a way to use magic to get an enemy to a place magic cannot locate, contact, view. Or interact with in any way even tangentially. Sure, it's possible I create an eternally growing wormhole but that's a price I'm willig to pay to make vecna bugger off
But if I can't effect multiple interlocking changes in a sweeping fashion to make it possible, it remains still not possible and I still fail at something that can't be done.

I'm a wizard. There is no such thing as impossible, only insufficient grasp of resources.


A few weeks ago, my pathfinder fighter died.

We had stormed the enemy base and mowed down their troops. We took a few bumps, but we were still OK to fight though. To avoid further damage, I tried to parlay with one of the more powerful enemies in the area we knew of when we reached him, as they had holed themselves up in an exit-less room.

We knock at the door, request parlay and put away our weapons. I wasn't too keen on letting them go alive as their men, well goblins, had caused us problems more then a few times before but we were expecting something MUCH worse then these guys deeper in the area so letting these guys leave now, reducing the potential harm the party might be inflicted immediately so we can deal with the real threat with more resources, and then dealing with them proper later was a solid plan.

Then the rogue decided to muck up parlay and attack the leader with a crossbow, which missed, of course.

This threw parlay into a futile effort.

The enemy leader, a goblin riding a lizard then charges my character and crits with his sword. Backed by his Spirited Charge feat. Though my fighter had only taken a little bit of damage beforehand, the 32 damage he took was more then enough to sever my leg off and cause my fighter to die of shock (IE it dropped me exactly to negative con).

Now, where, in all this is the tension? It wasn't combat. One dice roll and my fighter is dead. It didn't even faze me as I was fully expecting to have died several sessions ago, and there is the problem.

I was more invested in the parlay and, some might agree, rightfully peeved off at the rogue.

D&D isn't a very physical game. You don't get the same kind of thrill playing D&D as you do say, riding a roller coaster. Both can be exciting, but D&D is a very passive game for the most part, and any excitement requires some emotional investment in the game/situation.

It's the same reason kids don't go pale in fright when you start explaining basic subtraction to them "you have 5 apples and I take away 3..." the kid doesn't really care much because he's got no investment in those fictional apples.

My fighter had 18 hit points and we took away 32... yup I don't have a fighter anymore. Shrug. I had a bigger investment in the success of the group's then my individual fighter, and our failure can definitely happen without death. If we would have been routed, bad things would end up happening to NPCs and a town we were invested in.

Now, can combat be exiting if there is no chance of death? Sure! If there is something the player is invested in that there is a chance of losing, excitement will be found.

Threatening an NPC the players don't care for probably won't make them rush to his rescue, nor would holding a town they've never heard of hostage under threat of nuke make them think twice in and of itself. A paladin might try to save both the NPC and the town, while a less scrupulous character might wait to see if someone offers a reward.

In this case the combat is more of a vehicle for :

"Can I save the ones I hold dear?"
"Can I uphold the vows I made?"
"Can I come out of this with a profit?"

These are far more exciting narratively then "welp, it's me or them" as failure means you have to live,, or at least continue playing, with the consequences.

A PC that dies is dead. While that sounds like a un-motivational poster strait from the Department of Redundancy Department it's a very true statement.

A PC that dies no longer really needs to deal with any consequences of his actions, or should I say the Player is no longer accountable/has to deal with those consequences. The PC might be toiling in hell, but Johnny Gamerguy has already rolled up a new PC. Johnny is no longer invested in his old PC, though his new one might have to deal with the fallout.

If Johnny's PC had lived, however, but still failed:

"My loved one is dead because I couldn't save them in time"
"I broke the vows I swore upon"
"I came out of this hurt and broke"

There are consequences that the player is invested in and will most likely play through. Life and death is definitely one way of adding some excitement, but there are better ways IMO, to get the player invested in what's going on then threatening to take away 3 theoretical apples.

I'm gonna quote this whole thing for future reference.

ReaderAt2046
2014-07-19, 08:30 PM
I realize I'm in the minority here but.. How is this ok? :smallconfused:
This seems like an invitation to god modding.

The Narrator (or the other players) can refuse to accept your choice if it's too ridiculous. So you can't say that someone suffers an apoplexy and dies just because you took them out in a social combat.

And if you concede, you decide how you lose. If you don't suffer some significant disadvantage or failure for conceding, the Narrator is well within his rights to reject it.

draken50
2014-07-19, 08:46 PM
There's very good points being brought up here, and I absolutely agree with the majority of them... on an encounter by encounter basis.

For individual encounters, there are numerous ways to have death not be the punishment for failure.

That being said, having an entire campaign were no player feels like there is a chance of death for their character still leaves me on the wary side, if many types of encounters are used.

Basically, going back to my alligator example, I'm not going to tell my player "Even if the gator drags you under and you would drown and be eaten or left to soften up, you will not die, and this fight provides no danger to you." anymore than I'm going to tell them "I set up three fail-safes so that if the dice went wrong you wouldn't end up dead." I told them Alligators were trying to kill them, and they decided to prevent that from happening.

Airk
2014-07-20, 12:21 AM
There's very good points being brought up here, and I absolutely agree with the majority of them... on an encounter by encounter basis.

For individual encounters, there are numerous ways to have death not be the punishment for failure.

That being said, having an entire campaign were no player feels like there is a chance of death for their character still leaves me on the wary side, if many types of encounters are used.

Basically, going back to my alligator example, I'm not going to tell my player "Even if the gator drags you under and you would drown and be eaten or left to soften up, you will not die, and this fight provides no danger to you." anymore than I'm going to tell them "I set up three fail-safes so that if the dice went wrong you wouldn't end up dead." I told them Alligators were trying to kill them, and they decided to prevent that from happening.

Here's your problem sir; The gator fight is fundamentally boring regardless of whether the PCs lives are at stake. "A wild animal wants to eat you!" is amoung the least interesting possible conflicts I can imagine. The gator fight serves no purpose, unless you are trying to announce "This place is dangerous!" But even THAT can be spiced up somehow. Presumably the PCs are going to this dangerous place for a reason. Perhaps getting gnawed by a gator will cost them time. Or perhaps it will give the a nasty fever that makes it harder for them to do what they actually want to do.

The point is that the GAME has to have stakes beyond "Do the PCs live? (And get treasure)". If it doesn't, frankly, your "encounters" aren't going to interest me much even if my PC's life is on the line. If it does, then there are plenty of ways that even pretty stupid conflicts like the gator fight can be relevant if they're not overused. But if you're just rolling for wandering monsters every day though, forget it, your encounters have already lost all meaning. Basically: If your PCs are fighting lots of mindless stuff, you're having encounters that are already basically stupid, and there's not much you can do. Actually, if you're viewing this stuff as "encounters" at all, you're probably looking at it the wrong way if you want your players to have actual like, emotional connection to your game.

My favorite game right now makes it impossible for the PCs to die unless they themselves open up the option. It does not have "encounters" - it has scenes, which may or may not be fights, but most of them probably won't be. If the PCs choose not to allow the option of death in a given fight, that fight probably isn't one that character is willing to die for. It's a "low stakes" fight from both an IC and OOC perspective. When the PCs do allow the option, the stakes are "doubled down" because the fight is already important enough that they are willing to risk death... and they ARE risking it.

Cronocke
2014-07-20, 02:16 AM
The Narrator (or the other players) can refuse to accept your choice if it's too ridiculous. So you can't say that someone suffers an apoplexy and dies just because you took them out in a social combat.

And if you concede, you decide how you lose. If you don't suffer some significant disadvantage or failure for conceding, the Narrator is well within his rights to reject it.

Legends of the Wulin also has this mechanic. It actually tends to make fights more interesting rather than less - you can end them when someone wants to surrender, rather than when they're knocked unconscious or killed. And this tends to be more problematic in-character and provide more roleplaying opportunities for the player than just getting that character killed off.


Here's your problem sir; The gator fight is fundamentally boring regardless of whether the PCs lives are at stake. "A wild animal wants to eat you!" is amoung the least interesting possible conflicts I can imagine. The gator fight serves no purpose, unless you are trying to announce "This place is dangerous!" But even THAT can be spiced up somehow. Presumably the PCs are going to this dangerous place for a reason. Perhaps getting gnawed by a gator will cost them time. Or perhaps it will give the a nasty fever that makes it harder for them to do what they actually want to do.

The point is that the GAME has to have stakes beyond "Do the PCs live? (And get treasure)". If it doesn't, frankly, your "encounters" aren't going to interest me much even if my PC's life is on the line. If it does, then there are plenty of ways that even pretty stupid conflicts like the gator fight can be relevant if they're not overused. But if you're just rolling for wandering monsters every day though, forget it, your encounters have already lost all meaning. Basically: If your PCs are fighting lots of mindless stuff, you're having encounters that are already basically stupid, and there's not much you can do. Actually, if you're viewing this stuff as "encounters" at all, you're probably looking at it the wrong way if you want your players to have actual like, emotional connection to your game.

My favorite game right now makes it impossible for the PCs to die unless they themselves open up the option. It does not have "encounters" - it has scenes, which may or may not be fights, but most of them probably won't be. If the PCs choose not to allow the option of death in a given fight, that fight probably isn't one that character is willing to die for. It's a "low stakes" fight from both an IC and OOC perspective. When the PCs do allow the option, the stakes are "doubled down" because the fight is already important enough that they are willing to risk death... and they ARE risking it.

It's my opinion that death is a cheap way of raising tension in a tabletop game, since all it really means is "roll up another character" ultimately. It's not like you're kicked out of the game or anything. If it happens it should be at a time the player and GM agree makes sense, when that player wants to change characters or feels the current one has reached a good dramatic ending.

Drascin
2014-07-20, 03:53 AM
You're still stretching the language to pretend he's accepting more risk when the point is that he isn't. What he's doing is cool enough as it is; you don't have to pretend it's something else. He's willing to take more flamboyant, heroic actions because they are less risky than in other games.

...I dunno, it really seems to me the one stretching language here is you. There is risk IC and risk OOC, and the word risk is perfectly valid for both things.

I mean, let's take a random movie. Star Wars. We know that Han Solo is NOT going to just get shot to death by the huge pack of stormtroopers he just aggroed. It's not, from the OOC point of view, a risky business, because he literally can't die there, because it would be terribly dumb. It's there to be funny and framed as such. But are you really going to say that, since there is no OOC risk, it's not an incredibly risky, boneheaded move IC?

That is generally the thing. Knowing you can afford to have your character do completely stupid (but genre) decisions because you know that even if you're out you're going to be left alive enough for your party to carry you out, rather than instadie, changes the way you play immensely.

For example, I play Mutants and Masterminds very differently than I play, say, D&D or Exalted. In M&M, I will storm the bad guy's evil lair through the front door while making a speech about Truth and Justice. Would I do that in Exalted, where a surprise attack can take out my character faster than I can say "what?" if I don't have a paranoia combo at the ready? AHAHAHAHA NO. I'm going to come quietly and try to BE the one making the surprise, or try to have incredible firepower advantage, or some other sort of backup plans. Or nuke it from seven miles away if I am at all able. I'm sure to make some dumb decisions, but unintentionally - I'm not going to go around making decisions I know are dumb when I know they could cost me another four hours out of the game and in the Character Creation mill coming up with a new character and building it.

Arbane
2014-07-20, 11:49 AM
Funny, I would've thought Exalted would be perfect for the 'walk in the front door, make a speech, then kill everything that moves' style of play. Guess you just don't have that combo yet?

Segev
2014-07-20, 12:57 PM
Okay, I think a good way to illustrate the problem here is to point out how "conceding" is no different than "being defeated by your opponent." The example given earlier was that, if you don't concede and are defeated, your foe could cut off your head, but if you conceded, you could decide you ran away (or something). It has been stated since that, if your foe's goal was to kill you, then you can't "concede" and get away with your life. So the question is thus begged: why did he decide to kill you after defeating you rather than just taking what he wanted? He obviously wants you dead. So how can your concession NOT undermine his victory if you deny him your death?

Let's follow some other examples given:


It depends on how the NPCs goals are set up. Not all adversaries are homicidal maniacs. There are plenty of scenarios in which violence might break out in which death is not the main objective.

The guards do not want you dead. They want to protect whatever they happen to be guarding.Then why would they kill you when you refuse to concede? They get to dictate your loss, so they arrest you. Oh, but your concession would have been "okay, fine, I do'nt get the thing, but I get away." No, that's not acceptable to the guards; they know you'll just try again, so their victory condition is your arrest. Therefore, you've undermined their victory.

Brigands do not want you dead. They just want your stuff.So when they defeat you, they don't kill you. They just take your stuff. How is this different than if you concede?

The thief you caught does not want you dead. They just want to get away.Again, then, if they defeat you, why do they kill you? They just wanted to get away, so your concession that you let them get away should be little different than their defeating you and deciding they get away.

The military unit you engaged does not want you dead. They want you wounded so that you are a liability to the rest of your army.In which case, you're going to be wounded when they decide your fate upon defeating you, whereas if you concede...you're wounded, because that's what it takes to avoid undermining the military unit's victory.

The seal team you ambushed does not want you dead. They are only here to blow up the hydro dam.Then when they declare victory by defeating you, they describe how they blow up the dam. When you concede defeat, you allowed them to blow up the dam. What's the difference?

The duellist does not want you dead. They want to prove their skill against yours.Here's one of the few where I could see a reasonable difference; if you're defeated, he describes a humiliating display of disarming you and showing you up, possibly carving his initials into your fancy jacket. If you concede, you get to undermine the totality of his victory by saying that you graciously concede after he gets a good touch in on you. This, however, is fluff, with no real consequences beyond the immediate "you were shown to be of inferior skill," no matter whether you concede or are defeated.

The cop does not want you dead. They want you incarcerated.Then obviously, when the cop defeats you, you're incarcerated. There is no way for you to concede without having the condition he would inflict on you if he defeats you come to pass.

This really isn't a useful mechanic, as written. It is a very good guideline for how to set up scenarios so that actual mechanics and the decisions behind them can create sliding scales of victory.

The guards who want to keep you from stealing something might want to kill you or arrest you once they know you're a threat, but will settle for driving you off if you use the mechanics of the system to enable your escape once things are going against you. Moreover, the crunchiness of the system permits you to resolve things if the guards disagree with you on what "concession" means; they have actual resources to evaluate the chances of actually catching and arresting you.

The duelist has to make called attacks in order to attempt to perform his humiliating maneuvers; if you're good enough to thwart those, he resorts to the "skilled touch," and it's up to you whether you concede at that point or press it to show that it was a fluke and that you're actually the better duelist, or that you're matched in skill (by touching him back).

The seal team wants to blow up the dam, and doesn't care if you live or die. You could therefore defeat them by managing to pull the bomb off the dam and running away with it at the sacrifice of your own life. Mechanics may conspire to force you to risk this to get the bomb away from the dam, which would be a lose condition for both you and the seal team, in a way. Sure, you made them fail and saved the dam, but you're dead, which is hardly a complete victory.

The idea of "concession" as a mechanical state that allows you to dictate HOW you lose is meaningless OR will undermine the other side's victory (which means the other side wants to keep pressing it). The proper way to handle it in mechanics is to actually leave off the assault (if you can) or to raise the stakes so that the other side has to invest too much in pressing it to make it worthwhile. Mechanics need to actually resolve things to be worthwhile as mechanics.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-20, 01:13 PM
*lots of examples*
The idea of "concession" as a mechanical state that allows you to dictate HOW you lose is meaningless OR will undermine the other side's victory (which means the other side wants to keep pressing it). The proper way to handle it in mechanics is to actually leave off the assault (if you can) or to raise the stakes so that the other side has to invest too much in pressing it to make it worthwhile. Mechanics need to actually resolve things to be worthwhile as mechanics.

Thank you! Thank you!
This is exactly the point, I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing this.

Actana
2014-07-20, 02:06 PM
*examples and stuff*

In all of the examples, if you don't concede you're actively opposing the enemy, and as such are under threat of serious injury or even death, despite their objective not being death. Police might not always manage to get someone alive or with minimal injuries. Brigands, while they mainly want your stuff, won't shy away from maiming or killing if they'd be killed themselves in combat. I highly doubt the SEAL team would shy away from killing either if the situation warrants it. Just because lethal force isn't the main objective for the enemy it doesn't mean the enemy is not a threat (a severe consequence is long-lasting and problematic too). Since you can concede at any point (before dice are rolled), it allows you to surrender in a reliable fashion, knowing that the GM doesn't just go "Okay, you surrender, the enemy slices your throat", justifying it as "that's how the enemy would act".

Failure and failing is an important part of stories, and conceding allows for a far more fair resolution system for surrendering/losing than pure GM fiat. When the players have a say in what happens, ending a conflict in failure suddenly becomes a far likelier prospect. Sure, it requires slightly more mature players and some more understanding of genre conventions, but maturity is something I personally would like in all my players and for the latter that's the reason everyone is involved in the decision so it's not unsatisfactory for anyone (or at least as satisfactory as possible).


On the general topic, death is one of the blandest, most boring "threats" a player (distinct from their character) can face in an encounter. Since there's very little other threat than that, the assumption for each and every encounter is that the PCs win, because otherwise the game ends, or at least shifts onto some other characters, be it an entirely new group in case of a TPK, or just a new character who in all likelyhood fills the exact same niche the old character did. A death threat isn't very narratively satisfying as it leads to only a single resolution in case of failure: death. And while death certainly has its place, excessive threats of death don't really encourage players to grow attached to their characters since it's entirely possible that they're going to fall down dead in the next encounter.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-20, 02:27 PM
In all of the examples, if you don't concede you're actively opposing the enemy, and as such are under threat of serious injury or even death, despite their objective not being death. Police might not always manage to get someone alive or with minimal injuries. Brigands, while they mainly want your stuff, won't shy away from maiming or killing if they'd be killed themselves in combat. I highly doubt the SEAL team would shy away from killing either if the situation warrants it. Just because lethal force isn't the main objective for the enemy it doesn't mean the enemy is not a threat (a severe consequence is long-lasting and problematic too). Since you can concede at any point (before dice are rolled), it allows you to surrender in a reliable fashion, knowing that the GM doesn't just go "Okay, you surrender, the enemy slices your throat", justifying it as "that's how the enemy would act".


How do you not underst-*ARRRGH!*

Ok, let's try this again:
What you are describing is just the act of surrendering to your enemy. Which is not explicitly forbidden in any system that I know of, meaning that even in D&D you can simply tell those guards that are trying to arrest you "I give up, take me in". If that's their objective anyway, they have no reason to say "nope" and try to kill you, do they? Why would you need your game syistem to explicitly tell you that surrendering is a possibility?
So basically, this "game mechanic" is completly unnecessary.

What you are effectively saying, and the reason I'm starting to getting really bothered by this, is that FATE has the mindblowing possibility of letting the characters surrender if they want.
Are you serious? This is not a game mechanic, that's basic common ****ing sense! :smalleek:

Actana
2014-07-20, 02:48 PM
How do you not underst-*ARRRGH!*

Ok, let's try this again:
What you are describing is just the act of surrendering to your enemy. Which is not explicitly forbidden in any system that I know of, meaning that even in D&D you can simply tell those guards that are trying to arrest you "I give up, take me in". If that's their objective anyway, they have no reason to say "nope" and try to kill you, do they? Why would you need your game syistem to explicitly tell you that surrendering is a possibility?
So basically, this "game mechanic" is completly unnecessary.

What you are effectively saying, and the reason I'm starting to getting really bothered by this, is that FATE has the mindblowing possibility of letting the characters surrender if they want.
Are you serious? This is not a game mechanic, that's basic common ****ing sense! :smalleek:

I really don't see why this is such a frustrating topic. Might be because I have no real stakes in this conversation beyond explaining my own view on the topic, but getting as frustrated as you seem to be over someone "not understanding" what you mean is just a bit... I don't really know how to put it. That's just me, having a fairly distant relationship to the topic in general.

As I said, conceding allows for a far fairer resolution of surrender that does not rely solely on GM fiat (the GM suddenly deciding to kill the PCs who just surrendered because it's what the enemy would do; those GMs exist). Yeah, sure, it might seem obvious that the GM shouldn't kill characters who surrender, but in practice? Not so much, from what I've seen and experienced. The rules for conceding aren't in the way of anything, taking them out doesn't hurt the game in any way and their inclusion only benefits it: it gives characters an incentive to surrender in terms of Fate points. It's not forcing the game into a specific path, it just guides the players into showing them more options in how to deal with situations.

And, again, if you don't concede those guards who have the "objective" (which, in-game, translates into orders, something they might not follow to the letter) to capture you might do more than that. If you keep resisting (which is the assumption if you don't concede), you put yourself at a greater risk of getting seriously injured or even killed. The threat is there, but also an immediate way out by conceding if you feel you're at serious risk.

In essence, the rules are explicitly telling the player that surrender is an entirely viable option and encourage it over prolonging an inevitable conclusion (if there's a chance to win, most of the time the PCs are going to try it, conceding taking a second place). I don't see how this is a bad thing. Most games don't give surrendering a glance in terms of mechanics or even humor the entire concept of surrender non-mechanically. "Victory" seems to be the default assumption of almost every game out there, and having rules for conceding helps in getting away from that.

Required? No, not really. Useful to have? Absolutely.

SiuiS
2014-07-20, 03:09 PM
On FATE and concessions:

Try it.

You're not going to understand how a cooperative game wherein players frequently give the bad guys good ideas for the sake of an interesting story works if you fundamentally come from the "this character is my sole investment and I must protect it at all costs" D&D campaigning mentality. Stop armchair debating. Get out in the field, do dome Tests. Approach it with an open mind. It may not be for you, but then it may be great and you're just biased.

"This isn't a mechanic, it's common sense" is an asinine stance. FATE has mechanics which give rules-weight to concepts. Just because D&D doesn't do that does not mean it isn't a mechanic, it means the difference between fluff and crunch is much less concrete. This quibble is like complaining that el toro Rojo doesn't mean the red bull, it means the bull red. That is, clearly missing the point of differences existing.


There's very good points being brought up here, and I absolutely agree with the majority of them... on an encounter by encounter basis.

For individual encounters, there are numerous ways to have death not be the punishment for failure.

That being said, having an entire campaign were no player feels like there is a chance of death for their character still leaves me on the wary side, if many types of encounters are used.

What is the difference between a game where the players have enough optimization skill to avoid death entirely, and a game where the players have plot armor?

I suggest the difference is zero at the user end.

Look at the death flag mechanic in D&D e6. The basis of it is that a player cannot die normally. When defeated, the plot saves them somehow; they get knocked into a river, they look dead but aren't, they're captured. But they can raise their death flag. They can declare "I am going all in", get some exta powers, and really, truly risk death. This creates even more dramatic moments than when a die-slip can kill someone. It's more story oriented, but it allows a player to declare implicitly that the results of this engagement are very personally important, and can cause the flow of the conflict to change because of it.


Basically, going back to my alligator example, I'm not going to tell my player "Even if the gator drags you under and you would drown and be eaten or left to soften up, you will not die, and this fight provides no danger to you." anymore than I'm going to tell them "I set up three fail-safes so that if the dice went wrong you wouldn't end up dead." I told them Alligators were trying to kill them, and they decided to prevent that from happening.

See any basic show, movie or video game for the rebuttal here.
Sometimes this is good. Rarely, though, and only early on. Afterwards, this sort of fight should become routine. There is no tension in alligators trying to kill them. This is because alligators are a localized threat, an unintelligent threat. Alligators are dangerous terrain, a trap. They should serve the same purpose of a trap; to slow down or force a detour of the party.

You also yourself admit that they aren't a direct threat. Unlike actual conflicts of value, the alligator just sits there. The players must actively choose to risk themselves for the drama before gators become. Problem. They must enter into the gator's territory. This does not map to an actual fight where an opponent will follow them, Harry them, hunt them, incapacitate them, swear revenge on them.


Alligators are, then, a terrible example. Alligators are obfuscation.



It's my opinion that death is a cheap way of raising tension in a tabletop game, since all it really means is "roll up another character" ultimately. It's not like you're kicked out of the game or anything. If it happens it should be at a time the player and GM agree makes sense, when that player wants to change characters or feels the current one has reached a good dramatic ending.

Aye. Death like this (for effect) is the mark of a bad DM. "Oh my gosh he killed someone, better take him serious you guys!" And all that.


I've had a game where the big bad decided to drop a power word: kill on a fourth level PC because the DM was tired of the players joking about being puppeteers by the end boss. The DM was pissy, the DM killed a player, no drama in game. Only OOC.

I've had a game where the risk of death was minimal because the enemy wanted to humiliate the party and specifically their duskblade. The result was the duskblade running away before the fight started, the party samurai holding off a squadron of mooks on a stone bridge before engaging in a duel with the enemy leader, having some hilarious banter, getting his ancestral spear sundered, and then routing the strongest individual unit the enemy military had. The story repurcussions were far reaching.

Contrasts to "you died because The Power! And now I bet you just want revenge" and you'll see that the fight where there's an actual, human goal aside from murderhobo for the XP was a hell of a lot more interesting.

NichG
2014-07-20, 03:24 PM
Somehow I think the concession mechanic t is being very severely mishandled in this argument, and I'm not even familiar with it. Let me use an example of a game that has a very well-defined 'concession' mechanic of a sort, to give an idea of where this thing can be useful and significant. It also happens to be a computer game: Europa Universalis.

In Europa Universalis, you explicitly state your goals when starting a war. It is almost never permitted to be 'full annexation of the other guy' - you have to have a reason for war that your population can accept, and thats usually something smaller like taking a couple provinces or getting them to release a subject nation or whatever. Otherwise, your population thinks 'this guy is insane' and your stability drops, which hurts quite a bit in that game. Now, based on alliances and the like, other nations may be drawn into the war. You don't have a specific war goal with respect to them, aside from stopping them from helping their ally win. It is possible to make peace treaties on the side in order to get those countries to bow out of the war, and often they want to do that because while they're obligated by treaty to participate in the war, they're not obligated by treaty to stay in the war. So often they'll offer you a chunk of money to get you to let them bow out.

This is, effectively, a concession system where the concession doesn't undermine the victory. The reason its so simple here is that there is a mechanically defined, concrete victory condition - Take Alsace, or something like that. Any compromise that doesn't involve failing at that goal would constitute 'not undermining the victory', because there are degrees of victory involved. I honestly think this works best when its possible to do a lot of long-term harm to someone even when its clear you're going to lose - e.g. in Europa, you can siphon off a country's reserve of manpower through attrition even if you aren't winning individual battles, which leaves them weak to their other enemies after the war is done, so concession wins them something (they get to retain a high manpower) in exchange for something (they leave you alone and don't finish the conquest for a few years at least).

In a system with no long-term resources and no real risk of sudden death or turnarounds once the battle is mostly decided, it'd be much harder to justify a concession in-character. Thats why the concession mechanic must be a meta-game one in those cases - you aren't bargaining with your enemies in character, you're basically bargaining with the GM and the system (or if you want to spin it in character, with 'destiny'). The system itself has a 'victory condition' as well, which is to get the players to be able to accept a loss and move on with the game rather than dwelling on it, which is enhanced if the players self-declare their loss rather than being crushed by mechanical inevitability. When players self-declare their loss and set their own terms, the result is that they're going to be more willing to see set-backs as part of the game rather than as a complete failure on their part (or the GM's part even, which often happens when there's a TPK in something like D&D)

So yes, the concession mechanic actually does serve a purpose, but its more nuanced than just being a mechanic to let you do things in character you could do already - its a meta-game manipulation to alter the perceptions of the players towards the possibility of setbacks and defeats.

Segev
2014-07-20, 03:30 PM
In all of the examples, if you don't concede you're actively opposing the enemy, and as such are under threat of serious injury or even death, despite their objective not being death.

This is irrelevant when the rules explicitly state that the victor, upon defeating his foe, chooses the consequences that befall the foe. All of your examples are good, and in a system where the mechanics actually enforce such consequences should you win via those means without taking extraordinary precautions, they're valid. In such systems, your foes can "concede" by simply withdrawing/ceasing to oppose you and using the time you take to achieve your goal to get away. In the system being discussed, this is not the case.

Segev
2014-07-20, 03:34 PM
In Europa Universalis, you explicitly state your goals when starting a war. It is almost never permitted to be 'full annexation of the other guy' - you have to have a reason for war that your population can accept, and thats usually something smaller like taking a couple provinces or getting them to release a subject nation or whatever. Otherwise, your population thinks 'this guy is insane' and your stability drops, which hurts quite a bit in that game.

This is all well and good...for modeling leading a population of people with their own motives and motivations that may differ from yours as the immortal dictator whose real life is not seriously impacted by choices which are life-or-death for these (fictional) beings.

But the game being discussed involves conflict as small as 1v1, and trying to tell somebody that they can't be seeking the demise of their foe is silly. Furthermore, if the player DOES declare his victory condition to be, say, "keeping the thief from stealing the treasure I'm guarding," why is the guard going to choose to kill the thief if he actually defeats him rather than simply driving him off as he would have anyway? If "kill the thief" is the desirable outcome, why is he stopping short of it in his goal-declaration?

Sartharina
2014-07-20, 04:04 PM
But the game being discussed involves conflict as small as 1v1, and trying to tell somebody that they can't be seeking the demise of their foe is silly. Furthermore, if the player DOES declare his victory condition to be, say, "keeping the thief from stealing the treasure I'm guarding," why is the guard going to choose to kill the thief if he actually defeats him rather than simply driving him off as he would have anyway? If "kill the thief" is the desirable outcome, why is he stopping short of it in his goal-declaration?He has no reason not to kill the thief if he wins. Also - if you're defeated, you're not in a condition to do anything, much less make any intent of surrendering known (On the contrary - you've made it clear you WON'T surrender). If you do surrender, it implies you're accepting a form of defeat when you still have survival resources available, which means you're engaging the concession mechanic.

Also - the negotiation of the concession is between the Player and DM, not the Thief and Guard. They are not the same entities in FATE.

NichG
2014-07-20, 05:11 PM
This is all well and good...for modeling leading a population of people with their own motives and motivations that may differ from yours as the immortal dictator whose real life is not seriously impacted by choices which are life-or-death for these (fictional) beings.

But the game being discussed involves conflict as small as 1v1, and trying to tell somebody that they can't be seeking the demise of their foe is silly. Furthermore, if the player DOES declare his victory condition to be, say, "keeping the thief from stealing the treasure I'm guarding," why is the guard going to choose to kill the thief if he actually defeats him rather than simply driving him off as he would have anyway? If "kill the thief" is the desirable outcome, why is he stopping short of it in his goal-declaration?

The point is that the logical fallacy here is that enemies should want to seek the demise of their foe. If they do actually wish this, then the concession system wouldn't protect the target - much like how if your war goal is Full Annexation in EU...

In most cases, the goal of those involved in a fight should not actually be the total annihilation of one of the sides, even if total annihilation would let them accomplish their goal. That's the key point - total annihilation of the other side is an inconvenience that most of the participants would suffer in order to attain their real goal, but it should not in general be their goal in engaging in a battle. This is something that is on the DM to do correctly - if they have every encounter be rabid animals who want nothing more than to kill everything around them, then they're not taking advantage of what the concession system in principle allows them to do.

So if the player declares their victory condition to be 'keep the thief from stealing the treasure I'm guarding' then they're saying that keeping control of the treasure is more important than killing the thief. In a system in which goals are concrete, explicitly defined mechanical things that can only belong to a limited list of choices, the player would explicitly be saying 'I give up my right to kill the thief by declaring this goal; in exchange, I am protected from the loss of the item being a satisfactory condition of a concession'. Since the player is negotiating with the system, not the thief, this makes sense. Lets take a look at what happens if the player does it another way and declares that their goal is 'killing anyone who dares to try to steal this item'.

In such a case, a valid concession from the thief would be 'I am mortally wounded, but manage to steal the item and flee before my wounds take me. I will die somewhere in the streets, but the item will be lost'. If the system forces parties to accept concessions that don't undermine the goal, then there's a tradeoff in the choice of goal which is mechanically meaningful.

Sith_Happens
2014-07-20, 05:37 PM
So yes, the concession mechanic actually does serve a purpose, but its more nuanced than just being a mechanic to let you do things in character you could do already - its a meta-game manipulation to alter the perceptions of the players towards the possibility of setbacks and defeats.

This. A lot of people seem to be thinking of conceding as literally surrendering in-character when it's pretty clearly been described as a metagame mechanic. At its most basic level, it's the difference between being stabbed in the gut but pulling through (conceding) versus being stabbed in the gut and hoping your teammates can stop the bleeding in time (being taken out). The closest analogy in D&D 3.5 is probably the Diehard feat; if you have that feat and go into the negatives, you have the choice of fighting to certain death or dropping but automatically stabilizing.

Segev
2014-07-20, 07:21 PM
The point is that the logical fallacy here is that enemies should want to seek the demise of their foe. If they do actually wish this, then the concession system wouldn't protect the target - much like how if your war goal is Full Annexation in EU...

That's just the point, though: what is the difference between conceding and being defeated if the concession does not undermine the victory of the winner? If the winner didn't want to kill you anyway, why does he do so now? What does conceding let you escape that you couldn't escape if you were defeated, keeping in mind that the victor wouldn't have wanted something you got out of the concession, because if he wanted it, you'd be undermining his victory by trying to claim it.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-20, 08:17 PM
The point is that being defeated means that you're going to sustain far worse injuries for no gain, making whoever you were fighting like you less and quite possibly getting killed without the enemy making a conscious decision to do so or because they think it's their only realistic option for making you stop trying to injure them.

It's the different between surrendering after the police shoots you somewhere aimed at disabling you and having them shoot you somewhere more lethal to avoid getting killed by the madman who keeps charging them with an axe even after getting shot.

Waddacku
2014-07-20, 08:26 PM
Winning doesn't mean getting EVERYTHING you want. It's achieving your stated win condition. If the opposition concedes, they get to set some terms for your victory, but you get that thing you were after. If you just beat them down (or the relevant equivalent for the conflict type) you get that thing AND you're in an advantageous position (i.e. you get to shape the narrative further in ways that benefit you). The win condition is separate, conceding vs total defeat is a matter of cutting your losses/finagling some kind of advantage to compensate for the loss (for the conceding party) or garnering further benefits (for the winning party).

Also, of course, the NPCs are NPCs. They are not of equal narrative status to PCs. Their motivations don't matter for the mechanics, what's interesting is what happens to the PCs in context of the narrative, and the mechanism only serves to point out which player/s (including the GM) who gets to pick that.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-21, 12:24 AM
Also - the negotiation of the concession is between the Player and DM, not the Thief and Guard. They are not the same entities in FATE.

This. A lot of people seem to be thinking of conceding as literally surrendering in-character when it's pretty clearly been described as a metagame mechanic.


Also, of course, the NPCs are NPCs. They are not of equal narrative status to PCs. Their motivations don't matter for the mechanics, what's interesting is what happens to the PCs in context of the narrative, and the mechanism only serves to point out which player/s (including the GM) who gets to pick that.

Allright, this clears things up a little.
So basically the mechanic is there to legitimize the players to argue what the NPC should want with the GM, instead of having it established beforehand. It's negotiating for an improvisation that somehow saves the PCs.

I... absolutely despise this on so many levels. But I get it.
One has to wonder why is the GM even necessary in FATE, you might as well roll on some random adventure table found on the Internet and make things up between players as you go along.

Sartharina
2014-07-21, 12:47 AM
Allright, this clears things up a little.
So basically the mechanic is there to legitimize the players to argue what the NPC should want with the GM, instead of having it established beforehand. It's negotiating for an improvisation that somehow saves the PCs.

I... absolutely despise this on so many levels. But I get it.
One has to wonder why is the GM even necessary in FATE, you might as well roll on some random adventure table found on the Internet and make things up between players as you go along.The NPC is not the one driving the adventure. The Players and DM are. You still have the NPC want to have unchanging goals, but the point of conceding is a way to "Quit while you're alive" in a more flexible manner than hoping the mechanics give the dramatically appropriate non-lethal failure.

The DM is not the NPC. The DM is the arbiter of the game world. And, even then, the DM can negotiate with PCs as well to save a Villain.

For example, Player John controls Captain Heroman. It's a big showdown between Captain Heroman and Dastardly Villain atop a nuclear missle flying toward NYC - and Captain Heroman is winning the knock-down, drag-out brawl between the two.

The DM request that Dastardly Villain concedes the fight by getting knocked off the missile before Captain Heroman can Defeat him once and for all, leaving Captain Heroman free to keep the nuke from arming, and Dastardly Villain survives to another day, and our hero gets a Fate point as well. In D&D, you have to jump through a lot of rules to get this sort of result. The player's desire for a Fate Point, expediency, and perhaps a return encounter with Dastardly Villain trump Captain Heroman's desire to see Dastardly Villain get brought to justice.

What the NPCs and players want have nothing to do with conceding. It's entirely what the Players and DM want. You can still concede to a villain that wants you nothing less than dead and escape with your life. But if the DM wants your character dead, it's a different kettle of fish.

Segev
2014-07-21, 02:28 PM
The point is that being defeated means that you're going to sustain far worse injuries for no gainBut why? What is it that makes this the case? If the goal of the enemy was not those awful injuries, why do they dictate those injuries when they defeat you?


It's the different between surrendering after the police shoots you somewhere aimed at disabling you and having them shoot you somewhere more lethal to avoid getting killed by the madman who keeps charging them with an axe even after getting shot.

Nonsense. In this system the police can dictate that they arrested you without harm to you or them and have you securely locked up if they defeat you. Why would they inflict more damage on you than their player wanted them to? Why would their player accept as "victory" a concession that had you less harmed than HE wanted you to be?

Sartharina
2014-07-21, 02:35 PM
But why? What is it that makes this the case? If the goal of the enemy was not those awful injuries, why do they dictate those injuries when they defeat you?



Nonsense. In this system the police can dictate that they arrested you without harm to you or them and have you securely locked up if they defeat you. Why would they inflict more damage on you than their player wanted them to? Why would their player accept as "victory" a concession that had you less harmed than HE wanted you to be?It's not the enemy/police dictating the injuries that make defeat differ from conceding. It's the DM/The Universe dictating what happens in the first case - and without the restraint of a Concession, the perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum.

A player would accept as 'victory' a concession that's less than all of what their character wants for any of the following reasons off the top of my head:
1. It makes the story more interesting - recurring villains, etc.
2. They get a Fate point - a chance to take control of the narrative.
3. Continuing the fight risks the enemy inflicting long-term complications on the character or cost the player Fate Points, even if the enemy ultimately completely loses.

Waddacku
2014-07-21, 02:40 PM
You're apparently laboring under two misconceptions.

One is that PvP is the intended usage for FATE. It isn't. If intra-party conflict occurs, the concessions and defeat are there for the players to decide on an outcome that they both find satisfactory on a narrative level.

The second is that you don't seem to realize damage is also sustained during combat. In addition to your stress tracks, there are also consequences. Getting taken out without conceding means you've taken at least three Consequences. The least consequences only last until the next scene, normally, but you're also saddled with one that lasts at least a session, and one that lasts an entire story arc. This means all your opposition now has more weaknesses in you to exploit for that duration, but also that taking you out again will be far, far easier. It is by no means a small deal, to the point where it may often be worth conceding even if you would have eventually won, so as to not have to live with that.

ReaderAt2046
2014-07-22, 09:24 PM
Okay, I think a good way to illustrate the problem here is to point out how "conceding" is no different than "being defeated by your opponent." The example given earlier was that, if you don't concede and are defeated, your foe could cut off your head, but if you conceded, you could decide you ran away (or something). It has been stated since that, if your foe's goal was to kill you, then you can't "concede" and get away with your life. So the question is thus begged: why did he decide to kill you after defeating you rather than just taking what he wanted? He obviously wants you dead. So how can your concession NOT undermine his victory if you deny him your death?


No, you've completely misunderstood how concessions work. Yes, you CAN "'concede' and get away with your life". That's the entire reason you're conceding in the first place. You just have to accept that you're going to have to take some kind of loss or disadvantage in exchange for surviving. Basically, you're trading the possibility of either a victory or a complete loss for the certainty of a partial loss.

So if your opponent is trying to kill you, then conceding might mean that you escape, but automatically take an additional "consequence" (consequences are bad things that you get when you take too much damage, and they take a while to heal). You still lose, but you don't completely lose. Your opponent still wins, but he doesn't fully win.

Cronocke
2014-07-23, 04:23 AM
No, you've completely misunderstood how concessions work. Yes, you CAN "'concede' and get away with your life". That's the entire reason you're conceding in the first place. You just have to accept that you're going to have to take some kind of loss or disadvantage in exchange for surviving. Basically, you're trading the possibility of either a victory or a complete loss for the certainty of a partial loss.

So if your opponent is trying to kill you, then conceding might mean that you escape, but automatically take an additional "consequence" (consequences are bad things that you get when you take too much damage, and they take a while to heal). You still lose, but you don't completely lose. Your opponent still wins, but he doesn't fully win.

It's worth reiterating that conceding doesn't take place between the PCs and the NPCs, but rather between the players and the GM. The NPCs may have "kill the PCs" as the goal, but that shouldn't be the goal of the GM. The example given earlier with a superhero and supervillain was very good about this - just because the characters wanted certain things, that didn't mean the player and GM had the same desires.

Segev
2014-07-23, 09:12 AM
So what's to stop me from "conceding" every time in a way that doesn't actually cost me, because the consequences won't matter when I plan to "concede" every time and get what I really wanted as my "how I lose" condition?

ReaderAt2046
2014-07-23, 09:25 AM
So what's to stop me from "conceding" every time in a way that doesn't actually cost me, because the consequences won't matter when I plan to "concede" every time and get what I really wanted as my "how I lose" condition?

It's very rare that you can get what you actually wanted as your "loss condition". Usually if you try that, the Narrator will refuse to accept it because, well, you didn't lose.

I think you're looking at the whole concession mechanic through a very rules-based lens, where it's a story-based mechanic. Each concession is a negotiation with the Narrator.

Kalmageddon
2014-07-23, 09:54 AM
It's worth reiterating that conceding doesn't take place between the PCs and the NPCs, but rather between the players and the GM. The NPCs may have "kill the PCs" as the goal, but that shouldn't be the goal of the GM. The example given earlier with a superhero and supervillain was very good about this - just because the characters wanted certain things, that didn't mean the player and GM had the same desires.

Doesn't that screw with the narrative, though?
In superhero comics we are willing to put up with inconsistencies in the behaviour of the characters, because it's something that is part of the genre, what with most mainstream comic books being decades old and having passed through multiple writers and reboots.

But in a roleplaying game, I feel it would be awkward to have a charater, who obviously wants to kill you, spare you only because you negotiated with the GM OOC. Which I'd like to point out is something you can do in literally any roleplaying game that has a GM, but whatever, I know this one complaint falls to deaf ears.
Anyway, I'm just saying that it feels really cheap and immersion breaking when you have to talk OOC in order to have your PC survive.

Beside, if this is specifically about trivial encounters going badly because of bad luck, most of the times this is a non-issue: the GM can already fudge the dices if he deems it appropriate. Or just figure some deus ex machina on the spot... Which is essentialy what this "mechanic" is, only the system legitimizes it and gives it a name. And tells the players to break character in order to make it work...

Segev
2014-07-23, 09:58 AM
I think, personally, I'd be better off using an even more rules-lite game if I wanted what FATE is trying to deliver, then. Such as Risus. FATE sounds too much like it goes into too much detail on generation and then passes resolution off to narration. Which defeats the purpose of detailed generation.

Admittedly, I haven't looked into FATE beyond what others have told me about it. It could turn out to be much better in practice than it sounds, to me. But I have yet to hear anything about it that sounds like it's going to deliver either the mechanical depth needed to pay off for the effort that goes into building a character in it, nor the ease of entry and simplicity of the narrative system it seems to want to be.

Waddacku
2014-07-23, 11:33 AM
Doesn't that screw with the narrative, though?
In superhero comics we are willing to put up with inconsistencies in the behaviour of the characters, because it's something that is part of the genre, what with most mainstream comic books being decades old and having passed through multiple writers and reboots.

But in a roleplaying game, I feel it would be awkward to have a charater, who obviously wants to kill you, spare you only because you negotiated with the GM OOC.

They don't just spare you. Events somehow conspire to spare your life. The character that defeats you doesn't choose what happens, the player controlling them does, with an explicit goal in the rules to make the story more satisfying for everyone at the table.


I think, personally, I'd be better off using an even more rules-lite game if I wanted what FATE is trying to deliver, then. Such as Risus. FATE sounds too much like it goes into too much detail on generation and then passes resolution off to narration. Which defeats the purpose of detailed generation.

Admittedly, I haven't looked into FATE beyond what others have told me about it. It could turn out to be much better in practice than it sounds, to me. But I have yet to hear anything about it that sounds like it's going to deliver either the mechanical depth needed to pay off for the effort that goes into building a character in it, nor the ease of entry and simplicity of the narrative system it seems to want to be.

FATE barely has more effort involved in character generation than Risus does. The main part of it is literally making up short phrases that somehow relate to your character (descriptions, quotes, whatever). Then you stuff the skills into whatever spots on the chart that have the numbers you want, and maybe (or save it for later) decide on a couple really simple stunts (most are along the lines of "+2 if using Skill X in Context Y". But that last one is really just for a bit more crunch and mechanical specialization.

FATE Accelerated is even simpler, but I don't like it. Far too vague.

Sartharina
2014-07-23, 01:13 PM
So what's to stop me from "conceding" every time in a way that doesn't actually cost me, because the consequences won't matter when I plan to "concede" every time and get what I really wanted as my "how I lose" condition?You'll probably be safe, but you'll never win, either. At the very least, you lose your chance at victory. You usually concede after already losing something, as well - so you essentially rack up stress and consequences prior to conceding without any payoff from them.


Beside, if this is specifically about trivial encounters going badly because of bad luck, most of the times this is a non-issue: the GM can already fudge the dices if he deems it appropriate. Or just figure some deus ex machina on the spot... Which is essentialy what this "mechanic" is, only the system legitimizes it and gives it a name. And tells the players to break character in order to make it work...While this is a common practice, it is actually not part of the rules of the systems. These practices require the DM to cheat and break rules. FATE merely codifies this behavior into the rules.

kyoryu
2014-07-23, 01:45 PM
So what's to stop me from "conceding" every time in a way that doesn't actually cost me, because the consequences won't matter when I plan to "concede" every time and get what I really wanted as my "how I lose" condition?

Well, that's a matter of why you're fighting. You're supposed to be upfront with what you're trying to get, and the GM is supposed to be upfront with what the opponents are trying to get.

"I want to kill them" isn't *usually* what people are trying to get - it's a way to achieve a goal, not the goal itself.

As an example, if you want to get in a hobgoblin fortress, and there are guards, there's gonna be a fight. Each side wants to kill each other, right?

Not really. The PCs want to get in, and the hobgobs want to prevent that. If the hobgobs weren't guarding the fortress, the PCs wouldn't care about them, and if the PCs weren't trying to get in, the hobgobs wouldn't care about them. If there weren't these conflicting goals, neither party would go out of their way to try and track down the other.

To put it a different way - there's lots of hobgoblins in the world. Why are you fighting *these specific* ones, and not others?

So if you're trying to get into the fortress, and you concede, you *don't get into the fortress*. Similarly, if the hobgobs concede, they *don't keep you out of the fortress*. That's the limit of the negotiations. You can't concede your way into victory.

kyoryu
2014-07-23, 01:55 PM
BTW, the answer to whether combat can be exciting with no chance of PC death is an emphatic YES!

But what you need is to have something at stake. Something that can be lost. PC death is an easy way to get this, since it's obvious and straightforward and pretty much everybody understands and cares about it.

Let's say you're going into the Lethal Labyrinth to get the Goblet of Good to cure Princess Perky of the Corrupting Curse. And in the Labyrinth, you come upon the Mighty Minotaur.

Okay, great. So if you defeat him, you can go on and get the Goblet and cure the Princess and everyone lives happily ever after.

But... what if you *don't*? And then you *don't* get the Goblet. What happens? That's the interesting question here, and that's what is going to create tension and excitement even in cases where the PCs aren't likely to die.

If they just don't get some reward.... so what? I mean, really, who cares?

If that means that Princess Perky becomes the evil Princess Pain, and summons a million demons to infest the land, then the players are going to care a bit more.

Waddacku
2014-07-23, 01:55 PM
To be succinct, you can't concede in such a way that you "really win" because conceding by definition means you lose.

Cronocke
2014-07-23, 02:45 PM
So what's to stop me from "conceding" every time in a way that doesn't actually cost me, because the consequences won't matter when I plan to "concede" every time and get what I really wanted as my "how I lose" condition?

Because that's not conceding. When you concede, you accept that your primary goal failed - whether that was "get the microfilm back to the general" or "get into the demon castle" or "rescue the princess from the bandits" or whatever. You get out of the fight, but not with what you came for. Similarly, they get what they wanted - they keep the microfilm, blockade your entrance into the castle, or keep the princess - but don't get to finish you off.


Doesn't that screw with the narrative, though?
In superhero comics we are willing to put up with inconsistencies in the behaviour of the characters, because it's something that is part of the genre, what with most mainstream comic books being decades old and having passed through multiple writers and reboots.

This has nothing to do with the concession mechanic.


But in a roleplaying game, I feel it would be awkward to have a charater, who obviously wants to kill you, spare you only because you negotiated with the GM OOC. Which I'd like to point out is something you can do in literally any roleplaying game that has a GM, but whatever, I know this one complaint falls to deaf ears.
Anyway, I'm just saying that it feels really cheap and immersion breaking when you have to talk OOC in order to have your PC survive.

The thing is that they don't randomly decide to spare you against their own characterization - events play out that you escape with your life. You're fighting to the death, and just when he was about to strike the killing blow, a dragon flew overhead and in the ensuing chaos of panic you were able to escape - now the question is, why did that dragon appear? Or you're fighting to the death, and he's winning, but then a misstep sends you falling down a ravine at the edge of the arena, and he refuses to follow, thinking you're surely dead... but you're miraculously not, and there's something hidden in this ravine that you can then find to advance the plot a little. Or you're fighting to the death, and he's winning, but then another party member fires off a distracting shot from his bow, and you use that moment to flee from him - and he won't pursue you because he has other things to do that would probably be better uses of his time.

It's a way of advancing the narrative, having the winner achieve their main objective, and keeping a PC from being killed by bad luck or a single hasty decision at a bad time.

A lot of games have OOC chatter, this is just a way to make such a thing useful in the continuing narrative.


Beside, if this is specifically about trivial encounters going badly because of bad luck, most of the times this is a non-issue: the GM can already fudge the dices if he deems it appropriate. Or just figure some deus ex machina on the spot... Which is essentialy what this "mechanic" is, only the system legitimizes it and gives it a name. And tells the players to break character in order to make it work...

The thing is, what you're talking about is breaking or bending the rules of the game to get a desired result. Instead, the game actually tells you, do this thing to get the results you want at your gaming table.


To be succinct, you can't concede in such a way that you "really win" because conceding by definition means you lose.

Ahh, Xanatos, you slippery jerk... :smallwink:

Kalmageddon
2014-07-23, 05:51 PM
A lot of games have OOC chatter, this is just a way to make such a thing useful in the continuing narrative.
Uhm... No? Most roleplaying games frown upon OOC, sure you have to use the appropriate terminology for actions and special attacks, but it's basically a sentence, which, unless the game uses some very abstruse terminologies (like D&D), comes down to simply describing what you are doing IC. No gaming system that I know of encourages the players to actually argue with the GM.
FATE does, under a guise of cooperative storytelling, and prides itself in it.

When I'm a player, as opposed to a GM, I don't want to decide where the narrative is going OOC, I don't want to come up with excuses for things to happen. I certanly don't want to break character and negotiate with the GM on what happens when I screw up.


The thing is, what you're talking about is breaking or bending the rules of the game to get a desired result. Instead, the game actually tells you, do this thing to get the results you want at your gaming table.

GM can't break the rules. They decide when to apply them and when not to. By definiton a GM can't cheat, expecially if there is no way to find out,like when you fudge a roll, something virtually any GM does sooner or later. If I trust my GM I don't need the game to tell me anything.
In fact, what FATE does is taking a commonplace practice and instead of just explicitly legitimizing it (Look guys, the GM can and should save you from cheap TPKs, but don't press your luck <-- There, I've done it.) it makes it intrusive and "in your face", impossible to ignore.
If I want to avoid having my character killed by a few bad rolls, I have to Concede then I have to talk to my GM OOC and then I have to come up with some excuse to save my character.
All of this instead of just trusting the GM.
A bad GM wont' save you even if the rules say you can negotiate with him. A good GM doesn't need negotiations to save you from cheap and anti-climactic death, unless of course the campaign is survival focused, but that's another matter...

I'll be honest, I've read the manual, I've argued about it on this forum and yet I still don't think FATE does anything well. The mechanics are either samey or undeveloped concepts based around metagame and OOC communication.

At this point we simply have to agree to disagree. I can't be bothered with the same arguments over and over again. I point out that something in FATE is simply a commonplace concept and not a real mechanic and people reply by basically saying "no, it's in the manual, it's written down and it has a name, therefore it's a legit game mechanic". Doesn't matter if what is being described is as basic and obvious as breathing, FATE has given it a capital letter name, so now FATE legit owns that concept.

I really had enough. If you enjoy playing it, fine. Nobody is trying to stop you.
But for the love of God at least stop posting how great FATE game mechanic are, it's insulting to games where the designers actually came up with something that has crunch and balance and doesn't rely on OOC discussion and agreement to work.

kyoryu
2014-07-23, 06:11 PM
In fact, what FATE does is taking a commonplace practice and instead of just explicitly legitimizing it (Look guys, the GM can and should save you from cheap TPKs, but don't press your luck <-- There, I've done it.) it makes it intrusive and "in your face", impossible to ignore.
If I want to avoid having my character killed by a few bad rolls, I have to Concede then I have to talk to my GM OOC and then I have to come up with some excuse to save my character.

From my perspective, that's a misunderstanding of how Concessions work.

Succeeding in Fate is often a matter of whether you're willing to pay the price or not. I've described Fate conflicts as a combination of a bidding war and chicken. Conceding isn't "saving your butt". It's swerving the car/dropping out of the bidding war. Sometimes you'll do that only at the last second. Sometimes you'll do it relatively quickly, even if you could have succeeded if you were willing to spend enough Consequences/Fate Points.

I'll certainly acknowledge that it's one of the more OOC bits of Fate. And it's not for everyone. But I don't really see it as a mechanized way of fudging to avoid a TPK.

Cronocke
2014-07-23, 06:38 PM
Uhm... No? Most roleplaying games frown upon OOC, sure you have to use the appropriate terminology for actions and special attacks, but it's basically a sentence, which, unless the game uses some very abstruse terminologies (like D&D), comes down to simply describing what you are doing IC. No gaming system that I know of encourages the players to actually argue with the GM.

And... neither does FATE, it just tells you that when a fight is about to end, everyone involved should agree what the ending is, and gives you a way to achieve that without either hoping the dice work out that way or that GM fiat fits what everyone wants.


When I'm a player, as opposed to a GM, I don't want to decide where the narrative is going OOC, I don't want to come up with excuses for things to happen. I certanly don't want to break character and negotiate with the GM on what happens when I screw up.

I can't speak for you, but I've frequently had the situation where my character is presented with "you're at this place, what do you do" and I ask the GM, out of character, what is going on in the area, or if I see something that might interest my character, or things like that. Now, you may not think of this as "out of character" since I'm describing what my character wants and is seeking, but I'm not doing it in the first person. "Bob would be looking for fellow soldiers to share a drink with, are there any around?" is technically you, the player, asking the GM to throw you a bone. It's not exactly concession, but that's similar to how I would work it into a game.


GM can't break the rules. They decide when to apply them and when not to. By definiton a GM can't cheat, expecially if there is no way to find out,like when you fudge a roll, something virtually any GM does sooner or later. If I trust my GM I don't need the game to tell me anything.
In fact, what FATE does is taking a commonplace practice and instead of just explicitly legitimizing it (Look guys, the GM can and should save you from cheap TPKs, but don't press your luck <-- There, I've done it.) it makes it intrusive and "in your face", impossible to ignore.
If I want to avoid having my character killed by a few bad rolls, I have to Concede then I have to talk to my GM OOC and then I have to come up with some excuse to save my character.
All of this instead of just trusting the GM.
A bad GM wont' save you even if the rules say you can negotiate with him. A good GM doesn't need negotiations to save you from cheap and anti-climactic death, unless of course the campaign is survival focused, but that's another matter...

You are reading way too much into this. This isn't - and shouldn't be used as - something where you stop the game for 30 minutes and have a debate on the relative merits of one resolution versus another. This is something as simple as,

Player: Wow, I really screwed up.
GM: Hey, don't sweat it. I've got an idea for how Ronath the Ranger can survive this. You down with that?
Player: Sure, yeah, as long as it makes sense.

and then the GM tells the player his idea, and if they both think it makes sense, that's what happens. And the player gets a consolation prize to help offset the loss they just suffered.


At this point we simply have to agree to disagree.

I agree with you on this. You've clearly made up your mind already, and had done so from the start, frankly.


I'll be honest, I've read the manual, I've argued about it on this forum and yet I still don't think FATE does anything well. The mechanics are either samey or undeveloped concepts based around metagame and OOC communication.
[snip]
I can't be bothered with the same arguments over and over again. I point out that something in FATE is simply a commonplace concept and not a real mechanic and people reply by basically saying "no, it's in the manual, it's written down and it has a name, therefore it's a legit game mechanic". Doesn't matter if what is being described is as basic and obvious as breathing, FATE has given it a capital letter name, so now FATE legit owns that concept.
I really had enough. If you enjoy playing it, fine. Nobody is trying to stop you.
But for the love of God at least stop posting how great FATE game mechanic are, it's insulting to games where the designers actually came up with something that has crunch and balance and doesn't rely on OOC discussion and agreement to work.

But here is where you lose me. You are calling the game worthless because one of its mechanics is something you do not like on principle. You are saying that it is insulting to games and designers, and saying that it has neither crunch nor balance. You are saying that something written in the rules is pointless because you can houserule it in other games.

To be honest, I could make such arguments about D&D 3.5 - that its rules are clunky, its concept of balance is hilarious and wrong, its crunch heavily favors one set of character concepts over all others, it has no way to resolve encounters besides a simple pass/fail mechanic unless you houserule it heavily, insulting to games and designers, etc.

Am I right in saying those things? Maybe, maybe not. The fact remains that a lot of people continue to play the game in spite of what I perceive as failings. Clearly they see something in it that I don't. And the existence of countless spinoffs and heartbreakers derived from the same rules and concepts means something.

FATE isn't your cuppa. That's fine. But don't talk about it like it's a broken, worthless thing when clearly loads of people find a lot to love about it.

Waddacku
2014-07-23, 09:27 PM
"Has to rely on"... FATE is designed with the philosophy that this is desirable, not a crutch. Storygames in general are. Not enjoying storygames is perfectly fine (in fact, I find them less interesting than normal roleplaying games), but decrying them as worthless and insulting? That's absolutely ridiculous.

Tanuki Tales
2014-07-30, 01:54 PM
Kalm only made such comments regarding FATE, not Storytelling games in general, so you really shouldn't put words in his mouth. I don't have a dog in this discussion, but I felt like saying that.

thematgreen
2014-07-30, 02:14 PM
I recently ran a Homebrew Pathfinder campaign involving a zombie outbreak. All zombies had 1 health, but used a D6 to attack 1-3 for the first attack roll and you were grabbed, 5-6 and you were bitten, and d4 for damage. Easy to kill, but when ther are 40 of them it can get bad.

There was a fight where the goal was to save 10 NPCs trapped outside the inn. Each NPC was trapped by 2-6 zombies. The group easily crushed the first group and saved the NPC. One of the players was like "this is easy".

I would roll a d6 ever round and never explained why. Then I rolled a 1 and the first NPC died.

So it went from "let's mow down some ezmode zombies" to "Uhh, we have to hurry" all in all they lost 3 NPC's, which effected their standing with that area of the city.

The whole campaign was like that, easy enemies that were easy to kill but that didn't matter when trying to save a city.

The group loved it. It went from fight fight fight to having to think during combat, always being rushed. If they stopped to chat and I rolled a 1-3 on my d6 they were attacked by zombies. If they messed around then people would die.

(Side Note: Certain actions and quest results effected the standing of the players in the city. For example, the best result of one quest rewarded the group with disposing of the need for diplomacy checks to get information in that part of the city, the worst result meant that the group was always lied to)

DawnQuixotic
2014-07-30, 03:02 PM
I seldom go with PC death.
If it's not a TPK, everyone is considered to have scraped by, with 1 hit point, and just in need of a reviving.
Like Pokémon or something.

Because my way of thinking is... what's really the *consequence* of dying?
In real life, the consequence of dying is you are dead. You don't exist anymore. (You might believe otherwise, but there's still enough uncertainty and attachment to your life in this world that it's not something you're just going to be apathetic about).

In a RPG, it means your character is gone. But this isn't Dark Dungeons, you aren't going to be kicked out of the campaign because your character died. You just roll up a new character.
And if you're playing a shallow campaign, and your dwarf fighter Foirin Cleavestone dies, there's really nothing stopping you from making his identical twin brother Austin Cleavestone to take his place. (The GM might roll his eyes at you and protest, but this invites hard feelings).
If it's a deeper game, then it's a waste of the character and their story arc to just end with no real point.

So I try to come up with other things they might lose. If the part really screws up and suffers a TPK in a fair encounter, they might get looted and lose some items. One of their favorite NPCs might die.


A lot of this is dramatic story building tension. You players might not fear death, either because they know their character won't die or won't care. But they surely fear failure. The specifics of it depend on how they are invested in the game.

Airk
2014-07-30, 03:52 PM
That was quite aptly summarized. I agree.

I think the whole 'there has to be the threat of death!!' camp flows from early D&D games where, really, the threat of death was "you lose all your levels (and probably your stuff)." and since the whole point of the game was to get levels and stuff, there were stakes. But in most games these days? Not so much.