How great should the risk of dying be?

[kyoryu]

I would say a game where one character died a year and a half ago, is not a game where I would consider the stakes life or death. I've run games where a PC died literally every session, and people still enjoyed themselves. It's just a question of playstyle goals and stakes. I've also run games that players did not die in at all. It's a different kind of game.

There's an interesting aside here that the stakes of character death are generally based on investment - the longer you play the character, the more investment there is. If you're running "everyone dies, all the time", then you might have a stronger use case for "character creation as death penalty", though I'm still not a fan. If you're having characters die that you've played for months... I think that investment would be much higher than the "make a character penalty".

But, yeah, totally agree on "one character died a year and a half ago" as being not a particularly lethal campaign. It's more like the style where people like to feel they're in a hardcore campaign, but really aren't. Which is a thing.

[AMFV]

There's an interesting aside here that the stakes of character death are generally based on investment - the longer you play the character, the more investment there is. If you're running "everyone dies, all the time", then you might have a stronger use case for "character creation as death penalty", though I'm still not a fan. If you're having characters die that you've played for months... I think that investment would be much higher than the "make a character penalty".

Certainly true! But the "make a character penalty" has the advantage of being relatively static. Whereas investment can vary over time, you can get tired of a character as easily (in some cases) as you can get more emotionally attached to one. Also the nature of a character's death can help mollify or mitigate that particular cost. If your character dies in a way that you think is gratifying or fulfilling or character appropriate, then that may reduce the penalty from death due to investment to almost nil. But the other penalty is a relatively static and constant penalty.

Also often in many older games, that resulted in a loss of power (since you don't have all the rad equipment) and often because you'd come in at the lowest possible level. So that's additional cost as well. Although that particular sort of thing was far less popular as I understand it.

[kyoryu]

Also often in many older games, that resulted in a loss of power (since you don't have all the rad equipment) and often because you'd come in at the lowest possible level. So that's additional cost as well. Although that particular sort of thing was far less popular as I understand it.

In old-school, open-table games it was definitely a thing. But that was somewhat ameliorated by the fact that you'd have multiple characters (though generally you played one at a time).

It's also worth noting that if a lowbie did survive with more experienced adventurers, they'd catch up fairly quickly in terms of xp.

[JAL_1138]

In old-school, open-table games it was definitely a thing. But that was somewhat ameliorated by the fact that you'd have multiple characters (though generally you played one at a time).

It's also worth noting that if a lowbie did survive with more experienced adventurers, they'd catch up fairly quickly in terms of xp.

The XP tables were different than they are now, too. They differed by class, and also weren't consistent patterned increases. There were bumps where certain levels took a long time to get out of even compared to later levels, and others you could breeze through. My memory's really fuzzy, but something like by the time the party Fighter went from 9th to 10th, a thief or mage starting at 1st could be caught up (if they survived)--their similarly-delaying levels happened later.

[Rakaydos]

Ironclaw is a game where weapons are scary. If the other guy knows how to use a weapon better than you, you are better off surrendering at gunpoint than fighting somene who can END you. Whereas if you know how to use a weapon better, you can stand in front of your cowering allies and DEMONSTRATE why graveyards are filled with middling swordsmen.

On the other hand, I play FFG's Star wars: Force and Destiny with full on episode 2 cheese, where dangerous results are set on the expectation that it's actually just a green screen- there'll be setbacks, and things that look like danger, but leaping int traffic to catch your enemy is entirely plausable.

[Tanarii]

Obviously this is highly table dependent. But after DMing a super-heroic 3e campaign for years, and extensively playing (and sometimes DMing) official play in 4e, I'm thoroughly burned out on low-lethality. As well as combat-as-sport play and battle-mat play.

Combat-as-war as a term was made popular during the 5e ramp-up, and after reading about it I realized that's what I wanted. High lethality combat-as-war play. It's possible to re-introduce that in 5e, especially if you can get an old-semi-sandbox style campaign with level-appropriate zones where the PCs choose their own difficulty. Even more so if you can get multiple sessions with different groups going. So far I've found that if you advertise it as a high-lethality campaign, players will sign up in droves to see if they can hack it. It's in high demand after so many years of easy-mode D&D being the default.

No one should have to play that way if that's not what they want. Sometimes we just want to faff around and relax. But lots of people also really want a challenge to overcome.

[Tanarii]

The XP tables were different than they are now, too. They differed by class, and also weren't consistent patterned increases. There were bumps where certain levels took a long time to get out of even compared to later levels, and others you could breeze through. My memory's really fuzzy, but something like by the time the party Fighter went from 9th to 10th, a thief or mage starting at 1st could be caught up (if they survived)--their similarly-delaying levels happened later.

There's a degree of that still depending on edition. In most of them you'll shoot up to approximately 5th level in the time the higher level guys gain a level. Then gain 1-2 levels per level they gain after that. Of course, depending on edition, being level 5 with a group of (for example) level 10s will mean different levels of ability to contribute.

[icefractal]

In "come up with a concept" I spend less time, and therefore less risk, hell, I could have come up with my character before session and then just used that.

You know you can also come up with a build before the session also, right? I think a fair number of people build more characters than they end up using.

Also, to the extent that you're right, and "wasting time" is as much a penalty as paying the DM $10 ... I'd point out that there are no games where you have to pay the DM when your character dies. Or where you get punched. This would suggest that most players do not, in fact, want real world penalties for in-game death.

[AMFV]

You know you can also come up with a build before the session also, right? I think a fair number of people build more characters than they end up using.

Right, but they're just paying the cost in advance. Like people who save money in preparation for a rainy day. It's still the same cost investment. It's just made beforehand which means that there's less loss during the actual game.

Edit: Also you can restrict players from doing that, one way to do that is to tie their characters to die rolls that they roll in the session. So that works. Ergo there are probably plenty games where you can come up with the basic idea of how the character is developed, but you can't really do much.

Also, to the extent that you're right, and "wasting time" is as much a penalty as paying the DM $10 ... I'd point out that there are no games where you have to pay the DM when your character dies. Or where you get punched. This would suggest that most players do not, in fact, want real world penalties for in-game death.

My argument wasn't that it was the same. Also can you categorically state that there are no tables that have no monetary penalties for loss of character? That actually sounds really fun. You throw the players into a high lethality dungeon, then you have everybody pay into a pool everytime their character dies, the last player to die gets the pool. If all the characters die, then the DM gets the pool. Of course there would have to be a high degree of trust between the player and the DM (but that's really true of all gambling)

Also Boffing... that's a game where when you get hit, you get hit. So that's clearly something that some people want. And I suspect that if you look to fringe communities you'd find communities that were harsher with the penalties. But again, it's a pretty presumptuous assumption to suggest that because YOU don't want something nobody wants it.

[Tanarii]

It really all comes down to: do you view not (permanently) dying as one of the primary challenges of the game? If so, then the 'penalty' of losing your character fits. If not, then it doesn't.

I generally do. Although I've moved more towards it as time passed.

[RazorChain]

Well that's true certainly. But in my scenario this would be like your wife deciding that the stakes were high enough to risk wagering her Grandmother's plates. See there's advantages to that increased emotional risk as well. Because then you can risk more on higher stakes.

I actually think we are agreeing here. Most of the time players go for greater risk, it is no fun killing goblins at level 20. But then again not everybody is playing D&D and some system are much more lethal and you don't have a bloated HP blanket that keeps you warm and safe.

That depends entirely on the context of the game, the involvement of character creation, and how you play. So again, playstyle and gamestyle matters more. I've played games that did not have any risk of character death where I had zero involvement in my character. And I've played games with actual high risk of death where I loved my characters. The risk doesn't determine how emotionally invested you get generally.

If the risk of death is high then frequency of death should be high as well, else the risk is an illusion or a matter of percepiton. High Risk: High Frequency, that means you'll be burning through lots of characters. I've played in such campaigns and they can be fun but I rarely form any attachments to characters that live through a session or two. But boy oh boy do I remember my Super Swede, Sven Gustav, from a blackops campaign my group had running. He was the only character that survived through all the missions. In fact in my group when discussing how tough characters are, the saying is "He's pretty survivable but he's no Super Swede". In a high risk campaign the characters that do survive become memorable.

That's not really relevant to the discussion at hand though. That's you killing a character for metagame reasons that weren't particularly involved in the whole high-lethality game thing.

No but I was starting GMing for a new group and in my experience player perception of mortality is far more important than actual risk. So at the start I had established that characters can die and that makes the risk seem more real.

I would say a game where one character died a year and a half ago, is not a game where I would consider the stakes life or death. I've run games where a PC died literally every session, and people still enjoyed themselves. It's just a question of playstyle goals and stakes. I've also run games that players did not die in at all. It's a different kind of game.

6 months actually, but then again I'm not trying to run an high lethality game, but the system we use is rather deadly so the risk is always there. But as I have mentioned earlier in the post player perception is more important than the actual statistical risk.



After decades of playing different systems and settings with various degrees of lethality, I for one have come to the conclusion that high risk of dying has nothing to do with how exciting the game is.

Some have likened this to gambling where you risk losing money, if nothing is at stake the excitement is less. Yes could be if you are playing a combat simulation, where the narrative only exists to lead the party from one fight to another.

But if yo are playing a narrative or a character driven game then players are excited about what happens next...not about how their dice land in next combat

[AMFV]

I actually think we are agreeing here. Most of the time players go for greater risk, it is no fun killing goblins at level 20. But then again not everybody is playing D&D and some system are much more lethal and you don't have a bloated HP blanket that keeps you warm and safe.

To be fair, I wasn't discussing D&D, in particular, or in specific. Most of my discussion was aimed at games like Rolemaster or GURPS Fantasy, which have both complex character creation and high lethality. AD&D and older D&D which had higher lethality did not have complex character creation. It's a virtue in certain systems to have certain kinds of risk.

I think that part of the difficulty is that everybody treats risk a little differently, and so their perception of the risk will be different.

No but I was starting GMing for a new group and in my experience player perception of mortality is far more important than actual risk. So at the start I had established that characters can die and that makes the risk seem more real.

Not to me, it wouldn't. Now if it does to your players, that's one thing, and that's fine. But you can't assume that everybody's perceptions and reactions are the same. I know enough statistics and enough game theory to have a reasonable idea of when things are starting to get increasingly fudged in my favor. Not that I'm necessarily opposed to that. In a game where heroic fantasy is the goal, and focusing on my character's heroism is the objective, it's good to be able to act more heroically than I often would. Of course, that means that my character doesn't really get the whole benefits of the heroism though. It's an expectation, rather than something with real risk.

6 months actually, but then again I'm not trying to run an high lethality game, but the system we use is rather deadly so the risk is always there. But as I have mentioned earlier in the post player perception is more important than the actual statistical risk.

Well that depends on how astute your players are to the statistical perceptions. If your players are particularly savvy they'll even notice that you're pulling punches to avoid character death, since statistically it should be happening more often. Again, you're making broad strokes about general perception of all players based on a very small sample size.

Also, part of the virtue of high lethality games is that you as DM will sometimes be surprised by death. Sometimes characters can die in shocking and unexpected ways. It creates a very different tone and atmosphere. If I were playing a game set in a wartime setting, that's the kind of feeling I would want. The same holds true for Horror games. Although it doesn't work for everything.

After decades of playing different systems and settings with various degrees of lethality, I for one have come to the conclusion that high risk of dying has nothing to do with how exciting the game is.

Some have likened this to gambling where you risk losing money, if nothing is at stake the excitement is less. Yes could be if you are playing a combat simulation, where the narrative only exists to lead the party from one fight to another.

But if yo are playing a narrative or a character driven game then players are excited about what happens next...not about how their dice land in next combat

Well it's a different kind of excitement. I can be excited reading a novel or watching a movie. But if there's actual risk to me, then it's much more exciting. You can get some enjoyment out of a narrative like The Fast and the Furious, but it's not the same rush or excitement as you would get from actual drag racing. The stakes do matter. Of course, higher stakes also means that eventually worse things will happen.

Also, high lethality isn't necessarily opposed to narrative development. If anything high lethality inspires a degree of paranoia and nervousness that forces people to consider non-combat options. A game where there's a high risk of death will have less combat than a game where death is reasonably uncommon. Compare D&D 1st Edition to D&D Fourth Edition. OD&D was very very risky, particularly at low levels. Players actively tried to avoid fighting as much possible, sneaking or talking their way out whenever they could. Fourth Edition didn't have as much risk of death, and had many ways to avoid dying, it's basically a straight-up combat simulator.

Not that there's anything wrong with either course, naturally, but I think you're drawing correlations where none exist, and worse drawing some correlations in reverse of what actually tends to happen.

[RazorChain]

To be fair, I wasn't discussing D&D, in particular, or in specific. Most of my discussion was aimed at games like Rolemaster or GURPS Fantasy, which have both complex character creation and high lethality. AD&D and older D&D which had higher lethality did not have complex character creation. It's a virtue in certain systems to have certain kinds of risk.

I think that part of the difficulty is that everybody treats risk a little differently, and so their perception of the risk will be different.



Not to me, it wouldn't. Now if it does to your players, that's one thing, and that's fine. But you can't assume that everybody's perceptions and reactions are the same. I know enough statistics and enough game theory to have a reasonable idea of when things are starting to get increasingly fudged in my favor. Not that I'm necessarily opposed to that. In a game where heroic fantasy is the goal, and focusing on my character's heroism is the objective, it's good to be able to act more heroically than I often would. Of course, that means that my character doesn't really get the whole benefits of the heroism though. It's an expectation, rather than something with real risk.



Well that depends on how astute your players are to the statistical perceptions. If your players are particularly savvy they'll even notice that you're pulling punches to avoid character death, since statistically it should be happening more often. Again, you're making broad strokes about general perception of all players based on a very small sample size.

All I have to draw upon is experience, I can't access the collective experience of all roleplayers. Most players are savy and know if the GM is pulling punches which is why I roll in front of my players. I think most important is balancing combat encounters. I'm running low powered Gurps fantasy at the moment and often the characters kiss the ground after a being hit once or twice, losing conciousness is often the great redeemer of Gurps, else character death would probably be more frequent.

Now I'm going to say that in my experience player perception is mainly based on the GM's portrayal. So in combat scenarios if the GM says "the beastman hits you and you take 14 points of damage to the chest, that means knockback so roll DX and roll HT to see if you stay concious" vs "The beastman's maul crashes into your chest, breaking some of your ribs, the blow is so hard that it staggers you backwards but you manage to keep your balance. It's a miracle that the blow doesn't stun you but the pain is so intense that you are barely holding on to conciousness"

This is easier in system like Gurps where characters don't get hit as often as in DnD. I must admit I had harder time of describing combat in Dnd as it was often death by a thousand cuts on higher levels.

Also, part of the virtue of high lethality games is that you as DM will sometimes be surprised by death. Sometimes characters can die in shocking and unexpected ways. It creates a very different tone and atmosphere. If I were playing a game set in a wartime setting, that's the kind of feeling I would want. The same holds true for Horror games. Although it doesn't work for everything.



Well it's a different kind of excitement. I can be excited reading a novel or watching a movie. But if there's actual risk to me, then it's much more exciting. You can get some enjoyment out of a narrative like The Fast and the Furious, but it's not the same rush or excitement as you would get from actual drag racing. The stakes do matter. Of course, higher stakes also means that eventually worse things will happen.

As can be said that being in real combat is much more exciting than rolling dice.

[Pex]

For myself I can't quantify the variable but I'll know when it's too lethal when I see it. Foremost is the DM's attitude about it. If he boasts of his PC kill count, he won't be my DM. If he fondly remembers past PC deaths as a personal accomplishment as opposed to congratulating great play of heroic sacrifice, he won't be my DM. If he relishes the prospect of killing a PC, he won't be my DM. If he boasts PCs can only survive if they're very smart and can make no mistakes whatsoever, he won't be my DM. If he declares there's no Raise Dead/Resurrection and tells potential players to suck it up, he won't be my DM. Clarification: it's the "suck it up" that's the deal breaker, not the lack of Raise Dead itself. If a PC dies every or almost every session and it's not of the same player who's just being stupid, he's no longer my DM.

[Tanarii]

Apart from the Raise Dead thing, I'd line up, along with many players I regularly game with, to play with a DM like you described. I'll even play a no Rez game with a killer DM once in a while, because that's a crazy harder challenge. Of course, those usually end up being one shots by nature.

Speaking of Raise Dead, that really is a game changer in conversations about lethality. It's a major safety net for lethality vs investment in a character. Usually DMs make it relatively trivial to find someone to cast it, even in fairly lethal games. The questions become: have you made sufficient allies to care about recovering your body, or otherwise made sufficient contingency plans; can you afford the cost; did you screw up enough so that it's not possible to recover your body.

So yah, when I think of high lethality, I'm usually thinking of getting to the level where you can afford the ability to Rez, after which you really have to screw up pretty bad to permanently die. Which isn't really the same thing. Those are 'low level lethal' game, not a generally highly lethal game.

[Cozzer]

My personal rule is "if a character dies, I should be able to trace back to the mistake (or string of mistakes) that caused it". If the characters approach a situation in an optimal way (or at least, a way that looks optimal to me as GM), the risk of dying should be zero. Of course the chance of "failure" (defined as "the characters don't accomplish what they want") can be higher, even much higher in some situations.

To accomplish this I usually relax the rules for death a fair bit. For example, in Pathfinder (where I play lowish-level settings with no resurrection), I houserule that when you reach -CON HP you're "seriously injured". In that state you need medical attention or you'll die in minutes, even healing magic can't heal you quickly, and you'll have to spend days or weeks in bed before you're ready to adventure again. This means that if a character becomes "seriously injured", the party has probably failed their goal unless they're willing to let him die AND they're able to complete their task without him.

Also, I try to create fights where if the characters fight at their best (the tank tanks, the archer stays out of trouble, the wizard plays smart) the odds of losing are extremely small, but the enemies punish every mistake as much as they can (if the wizard leaves himself unprotected, the enemies will NOT waste part of their attacks on the fighter).

[nrg89]

Also, I try to create fights where if the characters fight at their best (the tank tanks, the archer stays out of trouble, the wizard plays smart) the odds of losing are extremely small, but the enemies punish every mistake as much as they can (if the wizard leaves himself unprotected, the enemies will NOT waste part of their attacks on the fighter).

This is meta gaming, and not something I would condone. If I'm a wizard and leave myself unprotected when facing off against leopards or something it would break verisimilitude if they somehow figured out that I was more dangerous than the person hacking away at them right now.

And if I'm playing a game like Pathfinder, I aim to please those with some Munchkin tendencies. If they are the engineering type (aka, my circle of friends) they could be combining their interest of math and role playing at the same time and I will not play hardball if they do. I won't allow them every splat book ever printed, but I will acknowledge the player's enjoyment of trying out a new build and eagerly listen to the character story behind it.
And you please them by rolling fairly.

[Cozzer]

This is meta gaming, and not something I would condone. If I'm a wizard and leave myself unprotected when facing off against leopards or something it would break verisimilitude if they somehow figured out that I was more dangerous than the person hacking away at them right now.

I disagree. Even wild animals have to have some sort of survival instinct that makes them think "reducing enemy numbers as soon as possible means surviving", otherwise evolution would have kicked them out of the universe in a world filled with dangerous creatures. I mean, real-world animal have pretty good pack tactics when they go after bigger and sturdier opponents, don't they? Of course their reasoning will be extremely simple and straightforward, but I still don't like to play them purely as "I roll a dice to see who they attack" or "they always attack the nearest opponent". If somebody, especially a frail looking character, leaves himself completely open, they will definitely try to exploit it by ganging up on him, for example. (Of course the characters are free to exploit it, for example by making it so the frail looking character is a Monk with Magic Armor and Cat's Grace, or something).

That said, it's a problem that doesn't come up very often, since I like to play stories where most important opponents are human or at least sentient creatures.

[Jay R]

If poor play rarely leads to character death, then the game is too easy. If excellent play often leads to character death, then the game is too lethal.

This would help us answer the question if we had any agreement on what the terms "poor play" and "excellent play" mean.

[kyoryu]

If poor play rarely leads to character death, then the game is too easy. If excellent play often leads to character death, then the game is too lethal.

This would help us answer the question if we had any agreement on what the terms "poor play" and "excellent play" mean.

I'd substitute "character death" with "loss", where character death is one type of loss.

[RazorChain]

If poor play rarely leads to character death, then the game is too easy. If excellent play often leads to character death, then the game is too lethal.

This would help us answer the question if we had any agreement on what the terms "poor play" and "excellent play" mean.

Ok I'm a strategy buff that knows the game rules inside out. I've been playing for almost 3 decades. I control all the opponents and can make them act in cohesion whereas my players,who have 4 years playing experience between them, don't always agree on tactics.

I guess given equal or even inferior foes I should manage either TPK or at least kill half the party if I play optimally.

[Tanarii]

I guess given equal or even inferior foes I should manage either TPK or at least kill half the party if I play optimally.

Which is why modern D&D with systems to balance encounters define balanced combat encounters as (considerably) less than equal to the party. If you assume partity, you'd be talking about a 50/50 for the players losing each fight. That's going to result in a TPK pretty rapidly.

YMMV in other game systems or intended approach to combat. For example, in combat as war, you might assume 'balance' for any combat situation is primarily defined by player skill, especially in regards to pre combat prepreration, not the thing(s) being fought.

[AMFV]

All I have to draw upon is experience, I can't access the collective experience of all roleplayers. Most players are savy and know if the GM is pulling punches which is why I roll in front of my players. I think most important is balancing combat encounters. I'm running low powered Gurps fantasy at the moment and often the characters kiss the ground after a being hit once or twice, losing conciousness is often the great redeemer of Gurps, else character death would probably be more frequent.

True, but if you were playing with some more of the optional injury rules... then that might not go the same way. Of course, different sorts of things are important for different games.

Now I'm going to say that in my experience player perception is mainly based on the GM's portrayal. So in combat scenarios if the GM says "the beastman hits you and you take 14 points of damage to the chest, that means knockback so roll DX and roll HT to see if you stay concious" vs "The beastman's maul crashes into your chest, breaking some of your ribs, the blow is so hard that it staggers you backwards but you manage to keep your balance. It's a miracle that the blow doesn't stun you but the pain is so intense that you are barely holding on to conciousness"

This is easier in system like Gurps where characters don't get hit as often as in DnD. I must admit I had harder time of describing combat in Dnd as it was often death by a thousand cuts on higher levels.

Well in higher level D&D, it's not really the hits that kill you. It's the being status effected and then stabbed while unconscious.

As can be said that being in real combat is much more exciting than rolling dice.

Certainly true.

If poor play rarely leads to character death, then the game is too easy. If excellent play often leads to character death, then the game is too lethal.

This would help us answer the question if we had any agreement on what the terms "poor play" and "excellent play" mean.

I'm not sure I agree with that... It again depends on your style of game. For a certain style of game, then death from randomness is a big part of the tone and nature of the game. Randomness inherently cannot be a result of excellent or poor play. It's also worth noting that there are different ways to be excellent in play OD&D, for example, tended to reward outside the book type solutions that weren't present on character sheets. 3.5 on the other hand, tends to reward system master in character optimization. 4E tends to reward tactical acumen.

Ok I'm a strategy buff that knows the game rules inside out. I've been playing for almost 3 decades. I control all the opponents and can make them act in cohesion whereas my players,who have 4 years playing experience between them, don't always agree on tactics.

I guess given equal or even inferior foes I should manage either TPK or at least kill half the party if I play optimally.

Well that depends on the skill of your players, if you were playing with players who had more strategic acumen, then you might find a higher lethality game more enjoyable, since it's more of a contest. Another option is to put constraints on your playstyle that make complete domination more difficult.

Which is why modern D&D with systems to balance encounters define balanced combat encounters as (considerably) less than equal to the party. If you assume partity, you'd be talking about a 50/50 for the players losing each fight. That's going to result in a TPK pretty rapidly.

YMMV in other game systems or intended approach to combat. For example, in combat as war, you might assume 'balance' for any combat situation is primarily defined by player skill, especially in regards to pre combat prepreration, not the thing(s) being fought.

Well it's worth noting that a 50% chance of a failed encounters is not a 50% of a TPK. Or even a 50% chance of a single character dying. It's a 50% chance that the PC's lose the fight. And it's worth noting that retreating counts as losing in this case. Or bypassing the fight in some other not advantageous way (bribery tends to work fairly well as well).

[Vitruviansquid]

Sorry this reply comes a bit late. Had a lot on my plate at work these past few days.

But that's not something I can CHOOSE to do. I can't CHOOSE to care about something, more than I would logically care about it. I can choose to be somewhat competitive, but real failure consequences are much more significant to me than any kind of psychological supposition that you're implying. Chess is the wrong comparison point for this. Let's compare this to say Poker with no stakes, I'm not going to care nearly as much or be as emotionally invested as I would be in a Poker game for actual money. That's human nature, our brains are smart they can see the difference between real consequences and fake ones and nothing we can do, can change that. This is the game leveraging these things. It's tapping into that to make a more distinct emotional experience. But I can understand that the real risk might be uncomfortable or not fun for some people. But you conversely should be able to understand that a real risk is going to be pronouncedly more involved, especially if you recognize the differences.


Why?

In a Poker game if I lose money, it's certainly a loss of enjoyment. But Poker is FAR FAR more popular than Chess. It's because the added risk raises the feelings of achievement after you succeed. Even chess has a certain feeling of achievement because you have to learn a huge amount to be competent at it, so you're pitting all those hours of knowledge and practice and research on the line.

The so-called "reduction in fun" makes the game more fun, because you know that you are beating real odds, it's a very different feeling when you know that there are stakes at hand. Of course, there are certain things that would be difficult or too high stakes, but me having to spend a half-hour making a new character (or heck, even an hour) isn't that a big a stake for me. If I value my time at 20 an hour, that's only like 20 dollars lost, which would piddling as compared to any kind of actual gambling stakes.

Okay, so you said you can't CHOOSE to care about losing... then you say you can choose to be somewhat competitive. Well which is it?

I don't think you quite understand about Poker and Chess.

Chess is merely an example I used to show that games are played without stakes and people fear loss and failure in those games. Chess is itself not exactly a niche, marginalized game. But other chess-like games include pretty much every video game you can imagine, and they're pretty popular. And also almost every board and non-gambling card game you can imagine, and those are fairly popular. And also pretty much any sport not played at a professional level. Given the popularity of all these games, and the seriousness with which they are played, I don't really think a case that people don't care about failure in those games can be made.

And then you say Poker with stakes is more fun than Poker without stakes, and I agree with that. But are people actually more engaged in Poker because losing is so dramatic and meaningful in it? I don't think so. I think the attraction of Poker come from three sources. First, it offers the prospect of winning a lot of money. Second, it's considered an interesting intellectual challenge. Third, many people also consider it an emotional challenge. The ability for players to lose money in Poker *only exists to allow the other mechanic of other players being able to win a lot of money*. The failure consequence is in fact a factor that repulses people from the game. The only reason it is included is because the prospect of winning money is a factor of attraction that outweighs the prospect of losing a lot of money.

Consider this: Your friends Alice and Bob are both hosting a poker game and both have invited you to play on the same day. Alice's game is simply Poker without stakes at all. You would play using some chips which are equally distributed to all players at the beginning of the game, and then the game stops when one player ends up with all the chips, at which point everyone calls it a night. In Bob's game, everyone has to bring fifty dollars with which to play. After one person ends up with all the money, he goes home with only his fifty dollars while every other player who has lost will take their fifty dollars and throw it into a fire. So Alice's game depends on your willingness to arbitrarily choose to believe that winning and losing matters while Bob's game has the drama of real life consequences, but does not have the positive factor of real poker that wasn't present in Alice's game. Which game would you rather play? So does giving real life consequences for in game failure seem like a good idea?

[Tanarii]

Well it's worth noting that a 50% chance of a failed encounters is not a 50% of a TPK. Or even a 50% chance of a single character dying. It's a 50% chance that the PC's lose the fight. And it's worth noting that retreating counts as losing in this case. Or bypassing the fight in some other not advantageous way (bribery tends to work fairly well as well).

Right. But eventually after losing many fights (even if it's just a forced retreats) at that extreme rate, eventually one of those losses is extremely likely to TPK. But yeah, I associated 'losing' too strongly with TPK by putting them adjacent like that.

Also the party will contantly attrition down by individual losses, and need to constantly recruit replacements. Running high lethality campaign, even one with a far less than 50/50 loss rate per battle, both of that and TPKs occur pretty regularly. Setting up contingencies funds for Rez, and henchmen knowing where your party went with instructions to send in body recovery & extraction missions if needed, are both important aspects of that kind of game.

[ImNotTrevor]

Sorry this reply comes a bit late. Had a lot on my plate at work these past few days.



Okay, so you said you can't CHOOSE to care about losing... then you say you can choose to be somewhat competitive. Well which is it?

I don't think you quite understand about Poker and Chess.

Chess is merely an example I used to show that games are played without stakes and people fear loss and failure in those games. Chess is itself not exactly a niche, marginalized game. But other chess-like games include pretty much every video game you can imagine, and they're pretty popular. And also almost every board and non-gambling card game you can imagine, and those are fairly popular. And also pretty much any sport not played at a professional level. Given the popularity of all these games, and the seriousness with which they are played, I don't really think a case that people don't care about failure in those games can be made.

And then you say Poker with stakes is more fun than Poker without stakes, and I agree with that. But are people actually more engaged in Poker because losing is so dramatic and meaningful in it? I don't think so. I think the attraction of Poker come from three sources. First, it offers the prospect of winning a lot of money. Second, it's considered an interesting intellectual challenge. Third, many people also consider it an emotional challenge. The ability for players to lose money in Poker *only exists to allow the other mechanic of other players being able to win a lot of money*. The failure consequence is in fact a factor that repulses people from the game. The only reason it is included is because the prospect of winning money is a factor of attraction that outweighs the prospect of losing a lot of money.

Consider this: Your friends Alice and Bob are both hosting a poker game and both have invited you to play on the same day. Alice's game is simply Poker without stakes at all. You would play using some chips which are equally distributed to all players at the beginning of the game, and then the game stops when one player ends up with all the chips, at which point everyone calls it a night. In Bob's game, everyone has to bring fifty dollars with which to play. After one person ends up with all the money, he goes home with only his fifty dollars while every other player who has lost will take their fifty dollars and throw it into a fire. So Alice's game depends on your willingness to arbitrarily choose to believe that winning and losing matters while Bob's game has the drama of real life consequences, but does not have the positive factor of real poker that wasn't present in Alice's game. Which game would you rather play? So does giving real life consequences for in game failure seem like a good idea?

I'll also add the following:

1. What basically breaks down to "Some math homework" is not really much of a consequence. Also, what was said above about how Poker IS high-risk outside the game but also high-reward outside the game. Unless the players in your campaign get some kind of reward outside of a cool story (all games that don't suck can provide this, risk or no) then the additional risk is pointless.

2. Regarding Time Cost: I'm already at the session. What else am I gonna do? If it happens at the very end, well, I'll do it at the next session. I'm not losing any time I wouldn't already be spending. So no functional loss of time. Oh, and if I have to roll in the GMs presence I can guarantee I'm gonna make him split his attention between me and the game he's GMing and then we'll see who's feeling punished and annoyed. *shrug* If this is my tabletop time, I'm gonna make use of it. I'm not going to take time dedicated to other things and do tabletop stuff with it. Real life takes priority, always. So you can count on me to spend as many sessions as necessary bugging the GM throughout until my character is done. (And I'm also still present for the session, so you can't even give the non-participatory thing any real teeth.)

3. It doesn't make me FEAR death. It makes death an annoyance. Sure, I want to avoid death... but I was already avoiding it because the point is to not die.

Basically, leveraging character creation isn't just not useful, it's actually ineffective because at the WORST it's annoying. Hence why people in the thread are confused about why you'd use it as a threat. It's like threatening someone with a mild pinch on the bottom. For most that's not really a problem, and for some it's a turn-on. :P

[Psikerlord]

The first RPG most of you guys probably heard of that I played was D&D 3.5, but before that i played some Swedish RPGs and one thing always stood out to me; the Swedish RPGs were far more deadly than 3.5 was. As in, 3.5 on first level was a cake walk. I've learned from some old timers that the Swedish RPGs are much closer to Old School D&D than modern D&D, which is not so surprising since the engines of the Swedish RPGs haven't changed much in 20-odd years. In both of them, you just have to expect a TPK to occur or you'll be baffled way too often.

And, as you all know, as the players progress beyond tenth level in 3.5 the CR of a monster reveals absolutely nothing. It can be CR 17, facing off against four PCs on level 12, and most of the time they barely break a sweat. To me, this is something that hurts the game and it touches on something that makes me grind my gears when it comes to fiction; no threats, no suspense.
When I watch Indiana Jones with it's lighthearted tone, I don't mind that he can take on two truckloads of nazis on a tank. But in Lord of the Rings, where I'm supposed to fear for the inhabitants of Rohan as the orcs are barreling down on Helms Deep, all of that clashes with Legolas surfing on a shield against an entire regiment of orcs, or Aragorn and Gimli fighting hundreds of orcs on a ramp and living to tell the tale. All the suspense is gone, and if the tone is supposed to be light, I don't mind it but if it's supposed to be dark and serious, like some D&D settings try to be, it just feels silly. I think Kurt Wiegel said it best when he explained why he didn't like Ravenloft; "you can do all this amizingly powerful **** ... what are you scared of?"
So, when a game is not that deadly, I feel there's limits on how much engagement and suspense GMs can ask for.

What do you guys think? Does the added risk of dying make Dark Sun better or is it not something to worry too much about?

I completely agree it is something to worry about. Making it too hard to die, eg 5e default, makes the game lack suspense/danger, and consequently (for me at least) any sense of real achievement.

D&D has not always been this way, of course. In the OSR systems, death often occurs at zero hp automatically, or requires an immediate save or check of some kind, or death, or there is a buffer such as -3 hp or -10 hp, then death. It is quite worlds apart from 5e and 3 death saves and -full hp to die....

Personally I think the old style zero hp = dead is a bit toooo harsh, and I prefer something like DCC where you get a death save of some kind at zero hp, at least.

I vastly prefer too much danger to too little.

[Psikerlord]

Apart from the Raise Dead thing, I'd line up, along with many players I regularly game with, to play with a DM like you described. I'll even play a no Rez game with a killer DM once in a while, because that's a crazy harder challenge. Of course, those usually end up being one shots by nature.

Speaking of Raise Dead, that really is a game changer in conversations about lethality. It's a major safety net for lethality vs investment in a character. Usually DMs make it relatively trivial to find someone to cast it, even in fairly lethal games. The questions become: have you made sufficient allies to care about recovering your body, or otherwise made sufficient contingency plans; can you afford the cost; did you screw up enough so that it's not possible to recover your body.

So yah, when I think of high lethality, I'm usually thinking of getting to the level where you can afford the ability to Rez, after which you really have to screw up pretty bad to permanently die. Which isn't really the same thing. Those are 'low level lethal' game, not a generally highly lethal game.

Interesting, I prefer no raise dead by PCs at all, instead making resurrection a major plot device, if available at all. I feel raise dead trivializes death otherwise.

[Tanarii]

2. Regarding Time Cost: I'm already at the session. What else am I gonna do? If it happens at the very end, well, I'll do it at the next session. I'm not losing any time I wouldn't already be spending. So no functional loss of time. Oh, and if I have to roll in the GMs presence I can guarantee I'm gonna make him split his attention between me and the game he's GMing and then we'll see who's feeling punished and annoyed. *shrug* If this is my tabletop time, I'm gonna make use of it. I'm not going to take time dedicated to other things and do tabletop stuff with it. Real life takes priority, always. So you can count on me to spend as many sessions as necessary bugging the GM throughout until my character is done. (And I'm also still present for the session, so you can't even give the non-participatory thing any real teeth.):P

Interesting threats. How does that work when the DM tells you "You're dead. Go home. Get in touch with me later, and we'll talk about rolling stats for your next character." ?

(edit: nm it looks like you were responding to the specific context of Time Cost of making a new character at a session vs playing at a session.)

Interesting, I prefer no raise dead by PCs at all, instead making resurrection a major plot device, if available at all. I feel raise dead trivializes death otherwise.

For D&D specifically (as the origin of the hobby), it pretty clearly was a "save my end-game character" safety net intentionally introduced to the original game. Especially when you consider that it comes online exactly at name level. In other words, if you got a character to the point it was time to retire her and only bust her out for special occasions, then you had this get-out-of-jail-free card in your back pocket.

Of course, as time went on and perception of "end-game" crept up from name level to mid-teens to 20, this changed. In theory it still serves the same purpose: once you've invested a certain amount of time in a character you get a safety net. It's just the amount of time (generally speaking) had dropped dramatically, and likely-hood of surviving to that level has (generally speaking) become very high. Unless the DM intentionally makes her game a killer game.

[Cozzer]

Interesting, I prefer no raise dead by PCs at all, instead making resurrection a major plot device, if available at all. I feel raise dead trivializes death otherwise.

I agree with this, but I also feel you can't just take resurrection away without taking into account SOMEHOW the fact that the rules are based on the possibility of resurrection (see all the instant death spells that start appearing in D&D more or less at the same level).

I mean, the fact that you're always a failed save away from death trivializes death at least as much as resurrection does. I won't get attached to something that can be arbitrarily taken away from me in any moment.