What is with the entitlement? (shadzar stay out)

[Maj]

Demanding a teacher effectively teach their studends for free is unreasonable.

That's crap.

I teach sunday school for free, and I am expected to do it at least partially effectively. I even attend conferences and evaluations on my voluntary job. Why? Because whether I'm paid or not, I accepted a responsibility, and as such, I have an obligation to fulfill - an obligation that is challenging, but that I enjoy.

I spend more time in prep than any of the other teachers, and I do it because I want my classes to be fun and interesting, not because it's a requirement. And I've had students come up to me and mention some of the classes I taught years ago when they were six years old. My students choose the subject matter for each week, and sometimes that means that I get saddled with topics like football and frogs - things that not only do I know nothing about, but that I frequently actively dislike.

But rather than whine and bitch about how I shouldn't have to teach what the students want me to and how hard it is to tie in with the pre-approved curriculum because I'm only doing the job for free, after all, I take it as a challenge and recognize that it's my responsiblity to find the fun.

And I do. Football week was awesome. Frog week kicked ass. We all had fun and I did it for free.

My husband has been the de facto DM for any RPG his friends have picked up since he first started roleplaying two decades ago. He's run a bunch of young girls who wanted to play fairy princess, and he's run a bunch of guys who wanted to play hack and slash. He's run games where the characters just sat in a bar and drank all night. He DMs the same way I teach - he treats what the players want as a challenge, he suits the game to the people at the table, and he finds the fun... For free.

All that being said...

In a good game, the character needs to feel the imminent fear of death, but the player shouldn't. The problem is separating the two because frequently if the player doesn't feel the possibility of failure, their character acts like they're immortal.

That's bad roleplaying.

[...You Lost Me]

Demanding a teacher effectively teach their studends for free is unreasonable.

That's crap.

I teach sunday school for free, and I am expected to do it at least partially effectively. I even attend conferences and evaluations on my voluntary job. Why? Because whether I'm paid or not, I accepted a responsibility, and as such, I have an obligation to fulfill - an obligation that is challenging, but that I enjoy.

I spend more time in prep than any of the other teachers, and I do it because I want my classes to be fun and interesting, not because it's a requirement. And I've had students come up to me and mention some of the classes I taught years ago when they were six years old. My students choose the subject matter for each week, and sometimes that means that I get saddled with topics like football and frogs - things that not only do I know nothing about, but that I frequently actively dislike.

But rather than whine and bitch about how I shouldn't have to teach what the students want me to and how hard it is to tie in with the pre-approved curriculum because I'm only doing the job for free, after all, I take it as a challenge and recognize that it's my responsiblity to find the fun.

And I do. Football week was awesome. Frog week kicked ass. We all had fun and I did it for free.

I do believe that he was talking about schoolteachers. Don't misconstrue the argument and get into another fight, K is all ready being dumb as it is. If anything is true here, it's that you are more of a MC at Sunday School than the "teacher" example shown above.

My husband has been the de facto DM for any RPG his friends have picked up since he first started roleplaying two decades ago. He's run a bunch of young girls who wanted to play fairy princess, and he's run a bunch of guys who wanted to play hack and slash. He's run games where the characters just sat in a bar and drank all night. He DMs the same way I teach - he treats what the players want as a challenge, he suits the game to the people at the table, and he finds the fun... For free.

He is having fun. One of the points two pages ago was that the MC needs to have fun just as the players are having fun. Your husband does well in this area.

In a good game, the character needs to feel the imminent fear of death, but the player shouldn't. The problem is separating the two because frequently if the player doesn't feel the possibility of failure, their character acts like they're immortal.

That's bad roleplaying.

I play with bad roleplayers. We need a better solution.

[K]

Oh for the love of fuck.

K, stop acting like having an imaginary elf die is like burning down a dude's house, taking heroin, kicking your friend in the nuts, or murdering people. It's a damn game where you pretend to be an elf. Maybe you have a stick. Regardless, the only real world result is:

a: an imaginary elf is dead. (Hint: NO ONE CARES).
b: a person has to wait an indefinite amount of time. Maybe he has to play Smash Bros, and being forced to play videogames is like being stabbed in the nuts. Yep.

Now, I agree you shouldn't have the guy sit out the entire session, but for the love of fuck, stop justifying it "because the story said so." Most RPG stories, are, in my experience, not exactly the works of Earnest Hemingway. I don't think anyone is going to give a shit if a different imaginary elf just broke out of the Jail of Evil and break into an armory coincidentally before the PCs arrive. It's probably going to read more like the Sword of Shannara anyway. Stop acting like you're a master storyteller because its a damn game.

I don't really understand why you RPG if you feel like that.

WoW was created for guys like you. You get objective battles where you can show off your skills and no DMs to sandbag encounters, there is almost no story and absolutely no story-related consequences to your actions, and you can grind to your heart's content.

PS. Those three arguments by analogy are a demonstration of probability in action. You missed the point entirely.

[Fuchs]

In a good game, the character needs to feel the imminent fear of death, but the player shouldn't. The problem is separating the two because frequently if the player doesn't feel the possibility of failure, their character acts like they're immortal.

That's why I don't play with people who cannot play a character that is afraid of death, despite knowing as players that the character won't die.

[...You Lost Me]

Oh hai K, the rest of the RPG world would like to have a word with you.

Guess what? Most people don't play in your magic people-die-and-don't-get-to-have-fun universe. When a character dies, the MC gets another character to replace the dead one. Now, I could make up bullshit and say something about how you should go play RIFTS or MTP or something dumb because that's what your line of reasoning is, but I'm not going to say that. Because I don't make false statements. And I'm also stupid.

Please try to understand that your D&D world is not the rule, but the exception to the rule, and a small exception at that. Only total douchebags make their players sit out for an entire session because of character death, and because total douchebags are surprisingly in the minority, people tend to get back into sessions even after they die.

[Fuchs]

Each time a character died in past campaigns it took a few hours to return to the game for the player - effectively keeping him from playing that session.

Given the amount of work I spend on making a character I really do not see a way to get back into playing myself in the same session, even if the DM would let me.

[Username17]

Each time a character died in past campaigns it took a few hours to return to the game for the player - effectively keeping him from playing that session.

Given the amount of work I spend on making a character I really do not see a way to get back into playing myself in the same session, even if the DM would let me.

In the world of OD&D where you could make a character in three minutes, pulling in new characters to replace dead ones in the same session was reasonable. If you're spending 250 points on a Champions character, that is completely unreasonable. If you're spending 400 points and 80,000 Nuyen on a Shadowrun character, the idea is laughable on the face of it. If you're spending over a thousand points on an Eclipse Phase character, people saying that it is even conceivable to make a new one to replace a fallen character within the confines of an evening's game session are just being dishonest.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

And that is just the mechanics - in many campaigns one also has to consider compability of the character's background with the party, and some plot hooks to fit in. "Appears in front of the party since he fell into a teleportation trap" only works so many times.

[Winnah]

PC death is fine if the player controls a troupe of characters, the game incorperates leadership or other systems that grant cohorts or retainers, or there is a convenient DMPC available to control.

When I say 'fine', I'm assuming a rez or rescue mission is next on the groups agenda, assuming the group is incapable of bringing the character back under their own power. The guy running Han usually does not mind playing Lando for a while, so long as the group heads to Tattooine the next game.

Not every DM is going to provide a convenient NPC that offers a free Raise Dead or similar in exchange for a favour to be named later though. Not every player is going to be happy with that style of play, either.

I've had players that refused to play any sort of game other than Hard Mode. Stupid make it Hard on yourself and others Mode. They honestly enjoyed high risk, high reward games. Whether it was an ego thing, or something else, I can't say.

[Shadow Balls]

There's a huge difference between being kicked out a video game you play from your house and being kicked out of a social event with your friends that you drove to attend.

Kicked out? You're still there. You aren't being made to leave the house because your character died. And presumably you're either working on your next character or working with people to determine how your character can be brought back, or doing something to stay involved.

That MMO group is likely to disband after the failed run. Much closer to a kicked out analogy.

I have made the experience that if I have to fear character death, the game loses somethig. I don't play for fun, but for keeps, and minmax/optimize/play cautious and to make sure there's the least risk possible, all to avoid losing a character.

Not that much fun.

I hate to break it to you, but you are only in as much danger as the DM decides you are in and you are not beating objective challenges in a TTRPG.

TTRPGs are not CRPGs. In a TTRPG, the DM is literally deciding who gets targeted and who doesn't, what attacks are being used, and whether or not to throw more monsters or fewer at you. This means that every time the DM has an intelligent Spellcraft-using monster not attack the lightly armored Wizard and attack the heavily armored fighter, he is nerfing the game to make sure the party wins because he's deliberately picking the substandard choice (by the same token, choosing to always target the Wizard because he has the worst AC would be another deliberate choice to kill the PCs).

Heck, the fact that DMs rarely focus fire on single characters is the biggest reason that PCs win fights. I mean, even with a CR-equal threat, focused fire can easily drop a PC every combat (though sometimes they focus fire on the high AC, high HP guy because that means the monsters do almost no damage).

I see this delusion that PCs win objective fights a lot on the Paizo forums. People argue until they are blue in the face that Fighters are "tanks," then backpeddle when they can't name even one ability that actually forces monsters to attack the Fighter and not anyone else. Somehow, they think that the fact that their DM always attacks the fighter first in every combat is some rule in the game and not the DM trying to blunt a monster's potential damage on the party while maintaining the illusion of objectivity.

Now, in a CRPG there are complicated enmity mechanics where the scripting of the game forces the monsters to attack some characters over others and no person is making the fight easier or harder. That's an objective challenge.

But any "danger" or "risk" in an TTRPG is an illusion created by the DM. This means that when a PCs dies in a RPG, it's the DM pronouncing a death sentence on your character for his own reasons.

Yes, K., I know. But that doesn't mean no DM will kill your character - 20 years ago we had DMs in our group who gleefully killed off characters "if the dice rolled right" - and of course that caused me to play in a way to make sure the dice were rolled rarely if at all against us.

To Fuchs: Thing is, due to the way the level system works it's really, really easy to get to the point where at level stuff will never kill you unless it gets really lucky or you really screw up. Higher level stuff will, and you will encounter said higher level stuff often but normal at level encounters? They're a speed bump. No real effort required.

To K: Just because the Paizo boards are dumb does not mean that everyone is dumb. Especially when the reason why they are dumb is because their DMs were protecting them from themselves, whereas I and others are discussing having the enemies do whatever makes the most sense, which means attacking the greatest threat, which most likely means the Wizard. And the Wizard has Mirror Image, so he's the best tank in the party anyways and will be fine.

And focus fire from an at level encounter isn't going to one round anyone. It might two round them, but why is it taking you so long to finish an easy fight?

But then you apparently think that the DM is a dick, out to get his players if anyone dies for any reason and then go on to compare it to things like literal kicks to the balls and murder and grand theft. So either you're using hyperbole, launching into another strawman, or are one of the entitled fucks in question. Whatever the case, I am done with you.

The point of this being that in addition to people dying because they are being stupid, sometimes people die through no fault of their own because they are simply unlucky. People like K are not only saying that it is wrong for characters to die for being dumb, but that it is wrong for them to die for any other reason as well. And that it is wrong for them to fail their saving throw vs Glitterdust. Because all of those things result in a player sitting out for an extended period of time. And I'm not just saying that because of that one post, as he has been fairly consistent in his viewpoint throughout the thread.

You're confusing player incompetence with character stupidity. Sometimes, players just fucking do not know better, including being bad at tactics, being bad at optimization, or just not being very bright in general. Punishing that player to make some sort of abstract point about not being bad isn't fun for anyone but possibly a sadistic or particularly superior GM, and both of those are qualities which discourage fun.

Player: *is about to do something bad*
DM: Are you sure?
Player: *doesn't take the hint* Yes.
DM: Well, what do you know? It's a giant spider. It crushes your tiny body in its jaws.

Is it punishment when they walk into an obviously bad situation and bad things happen? I say hell no. The entitled crowd claims that it is.

As for Glitterdust, it kicks you out of the game for the remainder of the combat. That's 10 minutes at the top end. Death kicks you out of the game until the group gets somewhere that they can take on a new character. That can be weeks. There's possibly a decent discussion in how fun you-lose-your-turn or you're-out-of-the-combat effects are in general, but being told that you're done playing D&D with this group for weeks almost always means that person fucks off and stops coming to D&D night for good.

I want to know why the hell it's taking weeks for them to get back into the game.

A game where there's a significant chance of a PC dying through no fault of their own is a badly-designed game, and a GM that isn't actively working to compensate for that flaw is a bad GM. I don't care what K's saying. That's what I'm saying.

1% chance, if a particular enemy attacks you, and your HP is already half or less. Even considering this happens every time said enemy attacks you, that's still something that's only going to happen once a level if that... and then you have to be at low health already to actually die from it. And you have to be vulnerable to precision damage, which many things reduce or block outright.

So if it happens anyways, that's a case of shit happens. But there isn't a significant chance of that happening even if entirely unprepared.

[echoVanguard]

Another thing that was brought up to me recently is that different TTRPGs take different thematic stances on character death - in White Wolf's Mummy: The Resurrection, actually getting your character destroyed is nigh-impossible; however, in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, character death is generally seen as inevitable and players focus on 'dying well' (particularly if they're Get of Fenris). Additionally, some players enjoy creating characters as much as (if not more than) actively playing them, and thus see character death as an opportunity to trade up for a new character.

echo

[CapnTthePirateG]

Oh for the love of fuck.

K, stop acting like having an imaginary elf die is like burning down a dude's house, taking heroin, kicking your friend in the nuts, or murdering people. It's a damn game where you pretend to be an elf. Maybe you have a stick. Regardless, the only real world result is:

a: an imaginary elf is dead. (Hint: NO ONE CARES).
b: a person has to wait an indefinite amount of time. Maybe he has to play Smash Bros, and being forced to play videogames is like being stabbed in the nuts. Yep.

Now, I agree you shouldn't have the guy sit out the entire session, but for the love of fuck, stop justifying it "because the story said so." Most RPG stories, are, in my experience, not exactly the works of Earnest Hemingway. I don't think anyone is going to give a shit if a different imaginary elf just broke out of the Jail of Evil and break into an armory coincidentally before the PCs arrive. It's probably going to read more like the Sword of Shannara anyway. Stop acting like you're a master storyteller because its a damn game.

I don't really understand why you RPG if you feel like that.

WoW was created for guys like you. You get objective battles where you can show off your skills and no DMs to sandbag encounters, there is almost no story and absolutely no story-related consequences to your actions, and you can grind to your heart's content.

PS. Those three arguments by analogy are a demonstration of probability in action. You missed the point entirely.

Oh, the appeal to WoW, surely the argument of the enlightened.

My point is that, as much as RPGs appeal to story, et al, you really should focus more on the fact that a) it's a game where people try to have fun. So we could whine about how it breaks the story if a dude triggers a teleport trap, or we could get the guy who rolled a natural 1 on his finger of death save back into the game by teleport and prevent people sitting out. Look, the damn game is about getting into lethal combat with strange entities, why should I have to MTP the risk of death when that demon over there shoots fire? Especially if he's smarter than most humans and malevolent? Why wouldn't there be a risk of death? That's just like pretending the 4e necromancer wizard is a better necromancer than the 4e necro cleric, or that monks are worthwhile characters.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Server blew up, double post.

But I'd like to point out that by appealing to probability, you're still comparing the two actions. If I called the cops and told them you'd kicked me in the nuts or murdered my friend, they'd arrest your ass. If I called the cops in tears because you killed my imaginary elf, cruelly ending the story of the farmboy who was going to join an ancient order of knights wiped out by a tyrannical regime (where do you keep coming up with these original ideas?), the cops would probably laugh at me.

[Orion]

a: an imaginary elf is dead. (Hint: NO ONE CARES).

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP

[Doom]

Ah, a classic strip, definitely seems to fit with K's worldview.

Somewhere I have a religious tract that lists the character classes as fighter, wizard, and rapist.

[K]

Server blew up, double post.

But I'd like to point out that by appealing to probability, you're still comparing the two actions. If I called the cops and told them you'd kicked me in the nuts or murdered my friend, they'd arrest your ass. If I called the cops in tears because you killed my imaginary elf, cruelly ending the story of the farmboy who was going to join an ancient order of knights wiped out by a tyrannical regime (where do you keep coming up with these original ideas?), the cops would probably laugh at me.

When I said that you missed the point, did you feel the need to go back and maybe recheck it?

It doesn't seem like you did, so now I will explain it to you like you were a child.

Regardless of the odds, when you do something over and over you approaching certainty that it will happen. This was the drug-use example, the crime example, and the third one. This was to demonstrate that a pattern of risky behavior in other activities also leads to inevitable conclusions, just like small chances of character death lead to character death as time goes on.

Earlier, I made mention of a series of exaggerated dickish actions that would ruin a friendship, drawing an analogy because character death is a dickish thing to do to someone. If you thought that they weren't exaggerated for the purpose of making the analogy, I don't know what to tell you because failing to understand a simple exaggeration for effect is a serious failure of abstract and contextual thinking.

I'll just point out that you should probably go play a MMO and leave the RPGs to people who care at all about character and story and aren't looking for a "fantasy universe simulator." The fact that you value all the things a MMO does well and value none of the things a RPG does well means that you probably should just be playing a MMO. Trying to shoehorn an RPG so that it plays like a more realistic version of an MMO is an activity that is going to put you into direct conflict with people who want to tell a story or explore a character, or just want to have fun.

The enlightened thing to do would be to not inflict yourself on RPGers, so I suggest that you take that into consideration.

[K]

Ah, a classic strip, definitely seems to fit with K's worldview.

Somewhere I have a religious tract that lists the character classes as fighter, wizard, and rapist.

What?

I've been arguing that trying to pretend that an RPG is a real world is a terrible idea, so trying to simulate a real world by doing things like inflicting character death is stupid, and somehow that means I'm lost in a delusional fantasy world?

Realizing that it's just a game is the first step to realizing that there is no reason to be dick to people. I'm actually more worried about the people who are saying things like "You have to play the monsters like they should be played because... that's who they are and it would upset me if they didn't act appropriately" and think they are beating objective challenges.

Troll harder, douche.

[K]

Just to divert the personal attacks, a quick poll:

If a PC died, would you offended if the player scratched off the name on his character sheet and wrote in a new one and came back into the game with the exact same character down to the exact same details like spells and feats for DnD, but new equipment of whatever amount a new character would get and whatever level new characters come in at?

[Red_Rob]

K, you are oscillating between viewpoints so wildly I'm getting dizzy trying to follow you.

So far you have said that the most important thing to a game is that the players have fun. This is so important that preventing a player playing for any length of time (by allowing player death) makes you a bad person who should fucking burn in a fire. But wait! Making a player wait out of the game for long periods is fine, and even expected if introducing a new character would harm the versimilitude of the game world, because thats now the most important thing to a game. Unless, of course, that versimilitude extends to having monsters attack realistic targets, or indeed having monsters regularly trying to kill you occasionally result in them killing you, in which case fuck versimilitude. And now you are saying that people who want the game to seem realistic are delusional and you are worried about them.

What. The. Fuck.

Do you even know what your position is any more?

[echoVanguard]

Just to divert the personal attacks

I note that you're the only person in this thread telling others they shouldn't play RPGs because they don't agree with your opinion.

Context-dependent analogy

This is kind of a silly question.

echo

[RadiantPhoenix]

If a PC died, would you offended if the player scratched off the name on his character sheet and wrote in a new one and came back into the game with the exact same character down to the exact same details like spells and feats for DnD, but new equipment of whatever amount a new character would get and whatever level new characters come in at?

No, but I might be disappointed. I consider it 'legit', but I think it reduces variety.

[K]

K, you are oscillating between viewpoints so wildly I'm getting dizzy trying to follow you.

So far you have said that the most important thing to a game is that the players have fun. This is so important that preventing a player playing for any length of time (by allowing player death) makes you a bad person who should fucking burn in a fire. But wait! Making a player wait out of the game for long periods is fine, and even expected if introducing a new character would harm the versimilitude of the game world, because thats now the most important thing to a game. Unless, of course, that versimilitude extends to having monsters attack realistic targets, or indeed having monsters regularly trying to kill you occasionally result in them killing you, in which case fuck versimilitude. And now you are saying that people who want the game to seem realistic are delusional and you are worried about them.

What. The. Fuck.

Do you even know what your position is any more?

First off, the word is spelled "verisimilitude." I know it's a long word, but there are browsers with a spell check. I'm totally using one now.

Second, it's just a game so punishing players for actions in the game is wrong, so we shouldn't do that. The fact that there are people who care about verisimilitude so much that they'd make a player wait the night out and lose their hundreds of hours of work and ruin their opportunity to play the character they wanted just for the purpose of their own limited view of verisimilitude is messed up, and it honestly makes me think they are taking the whole thing too seriously.

Making the player wait out when their character dies is just a fact because every DM values verisimilitude to some degree, and the minimum seems to account for waiting for a good moment to introduce new characters. I'm not advocating it, but I am accepting it as a fact.

It's a complex position, but not a contradictory one.

[virgil]

If character death is to be truly impossible, what is the point in giving PCs hit points; or really, what is the point in ever making a defensive-style character?

[Damocles]

So, what's the main topic of interest here..? I can tell people are arguing whether characters should die in RPGs or not, but are you arguing the how, or the fact they died to begin with?

A PC should never, under any circumstance, be told 'you're dead' unless they died as a direct result of combat. Sure, this may bring mentality such as 'Y U NO ROLEPLAY, CHARACTER COULDA BEEN DETH PENALTYZ' Except, that seems like the perfect adventure for the remaining PCs to rescue said PC on death penalty, 3 Musketeers style. (winning!)

A PC should never be walking down a corridor and die, without warning, to some bullshit trap. Maybe if you're playing a campaign of a bunch of schmoes who never advance past level 1 and aren't heroic, that sort of thing is acceptable. Building a character through the levels, advancing a story, and being awesome are things that shouldn't be taken away by the invisible pit trap, that's just extremely anticlimactic, and unheroic.

Since people are using the term 'DM', I'll assume D&D, which, in every edition, was described as heroic fantasy, granted our views of 'heroic' changed over the years.

[K]

If character death is to be truly impossible, what is the point in giving PCs hit points; or really, what is the point in ever making a defensive-style character?

Permanent character death should be impossible. Getting knocked out of a fight is just fine.