Moderator: Moderators
Which is true every time combat music starts playing in my game.DSMatticus wrote: I don't think you understand what the word versus means. When you describe D&D as "versus the DM," that implies that D&D is a game where the DM's goal is to beat you, and the player's goal is to beat the DM.
Believe what you want, dude. If you don't want to see the real world, I can't force you to.DSMatticus wrote:Even the talk about 'handicap' and 'challenge' is a bullshit smokescreen, because
Sounds like you're playing a bastardized version of backyard brawl, not a roleplaying game.FatR wrote:Which is true every time combat music starts playing in my game.DSMatticus wrote: I don't think you understand what the word versus means. When you describe D&D as "versus the DM," that implies that D&D is a game where the DM's goal is to beat you, and the player's goal is to beat the DM.
And when you lose time in a TTRPG, you are playing again, immediately after your failure, because character generation is a part of play experience no less than doing the same thing all over again is a part of Doom's play experience. In that you likely would have preferred not to do it, but if you fail, you must.Damocles wrote: except when you lose time in doom, or any game of going back to a save point, youre playing again, immediately after your failure,
I don't know of any RPG that have "waiting 6 hours with a pen and paper" as a penalty for death.Damocles wrote: you arent waiting 6 hours with a pen and paper.
6 hours is greatly exaggerated, sure. Also, you cant compare character generation to resuming from a save point. Save points bring you right back into the pulse-pounding action that killed you. Character generation brings you to a boring lull in fun. Unless you enjoy making characters more than actually playing them, but then youre fucking weird.FatR wrote:And when you lose time in a TTRPG, you are playing again, immediately after your failure, because character generation is a part of play experience no less than doing the same thing all over again is a part of Doom's play experience. In that you probably would have preferred not to do it, but you must.Damocles wrote: except when you lose time in doom, or any game of going back to a save point, youre playing again, immediately after your failure,
I don't know of any RPG that have "waiting 6 hours with a pen and paper" as a penalty for death.Damocles wrote: you arent waiting 6 hours with a pen and paper.
If you think that a disruptive player will correct his way if there are no consequences for not doing so, you are deeply deluded. If he was willing to listen to gentle criticism or explanations of what is expected from players, he wouldn't be disruptive in the first place. Your solution to players who don't want to play in a way that fits the game is apparently to kick them out of the group right away (which was impossible in the case mentioned, anyway). I'm not quite as harsh, and prefer to start with letting consequences of their characters' action to fall upon their characters.DSMatticus wrote: This is a dumb example. Your group had a disruptive player who wasn't taking the game seriously. Instead of talking to this person, or the group, or the DM, you're supposing this: "we can use PC death as a way to tell this person take it seriously or leave, without having to go through a potentially awkward social confrontation." If there's any better example of misuse of PC death, I cannot think of it. "We don't like you the way you're playing, but we can't balls up to say it so... you die, you die, you die. Get the hint? You die, you die, you die."
What this has to do with character death, though?DSMatticus wrote:But I still get the feeling nobody's paying any fucking attention at all to the core premise here: any mechanic which leads to the exclusion of a player and adds nothing else to the game is a bad mechanic.
Ability to have consequences for failure less severe than "LOL, your entire group is now stripped of ability to act for fuck knows how long because they are imprisoned and is unplayable thereafter because their equipment got stolen". Without making the bad guys total idiots, too.DSMatticus wrote:So, what's the problem? When someone hits -10 hitpoints, is there any desirable reason to say "you're dead!" instead of "you're bleeding out indefinitely until the fight's over and you get whatever standard treatment your party has available"? What are we adding to the game when we do that?
DSMatikus won it for me already:Damocles wrote: Also, way to entirely ignore the point about generic awesome shooter online, guess you realized you couldn't win that one.
god youre so dumb about that particular pointFatR wrote:DSMatikus won it for me already:Damocles wrote: Also, way to entirely ignore the point about generic awesome shooter online, guess you realized you couldn't win that one.
"But it gets even better, because when I'm playing Generic Awesome Shooter 3! online, and my team loses, do you know what happens? I stick around for the next round and keep playing. "
This. This summarizes my arguments in one paragraph. Sure occasionally people die to bad luck but mostly it was something that was their fault, be it running a bad class after being advised against it, running low saves after being advised against it, or splitting the party after being advised against it.FatR wrote:And why should failure be fun? I'm fully serious here, because the most common observed cause for character death in my experience is the player not being willing an effort in the game, including listening to good advice. I can remember a couple of games which suffered immensely because a player like this was plot-shielded for OOC reasons (like, being the key group member's significant other). So why in the Nine Hells should a GM positively reinforce failure? Why should a GM reward stupidity and lack of effort?
And also this. Even when you are fighting a CR + 4 encounter that is supposedly equal to you... it really isn't. Either it is one big enemy which you beat because of getting 4 actions to its one or it's something like a rival adventuring party, but NPCs have substantially less wealth so it's much easier to beat your "mirror matches" than vice versa. The default fight is CR = your average party level which is really just going to be a 4 on 1 style bully beatdown. Or a mook mowdown.And it is not like the penalty for death in DnD is actually severe. Probability is stacked in favor of PCs' survival on "normal mode" - I generally see about 1 character death for level 1 to 10 campaign on average (hard to say for higher levels, campaigns tend to not last that long), even taking presence of bad players like outlined above into account. Considering that reviving dead is available from, like, level 6-7, if anyone in the group cares, the situation where a character death will cause a player to miss rest of the session is hard to imagine, and the average amount of "death downtime" per campaign is likely less that the total time you'll spend looking at loading screens during a single CRPG playthrough. If you want immediate gratification so much that this is unacceptable to you, you'll probably a bad player anyway, because you don't invest your time into learning either the rules or the setting.
Sir Virtuous is fighting those heathen Orcs, over there. They are resenting being faced with a Holier Than Thou Murdering Hobo, and are trying to kill him and take his stuff. You are playing Sir Virtuous. You are trying to make the decisions for him that make him put down the foul Orcs (that curiously seem to have committed no crimes other than pinging evil) and are trying to avoid the actions that get him stabbed in the face.deanruel87 wrote:FatR What you are mistaking is a desire to believe that you are "winning" in DnD. That isn't true. You are cooperating in a group social event for fun. If you and your group play squash you could win but you can't "win" in DnD. Who is your opponent? Who are you defeating? Who is making an attempt to be victorious against you that you are succeeding against?
So all of those fights were just my imagination? Not in the sense of being imaginary to me, but in the sense of being imaginary even from the perspective of my character?The other players are on your side and are here for social entertainment and the DM is an fun-referee who is trying to make an evening fun for you and his players. No one is against you so how can you win.
That sounds like what the anti death people think. That would explain why they get so mad about their own mistakes. But you weren't saying that.No I think this is another example, and don't take this personally because I honestly don't mean it as such, of players wanting to think that they are special. They want death to be a thing that exists but that happens to somebody else out there, because they are just too good. It is my belief that this is just a lack of understanding that that is the ILLUSION DnD has been trying to create for decades. It is not real. You don't die because no one here is trying to kill your character. That is why. Not because of your leet skills and sweet rule-fu. DnD is about, in it's current iteration, creating an illusion that death is possible and results from failure but this is simply not true. It is an illusion, and an intentional one.
To even get to this point he had to receive advice multiple times and ignore it. I am not seeing learning that he really should have listened to the people that are trying to help him as a bad thing. And if such a person, who meets the definition of a basket weaver reacts to this by either leaving the game or becoming a power gamer, that is a good thing. The former because they will stop bothering everyone with their inept characters and story lawyering and the second for the same reason and hey, +1 good player.K wrote:I guess it just seems like punishing weaker players seems pointlessly punitive. At worst, it causes someone to just leave the game and at best it creates a power-gamer.
I must admit, that was a funny one....Or you have no friends who want to play with you and that's why you're so worried about offending every whiny bitch of an immature player whose imaginary dwarf got killed by a minotaur's critical hit?
And this as well. It's been my experience that the anti death crowd just doesn't want to put forth any effort. I'm not just talking about in terms of getting their character up to par mechanically to deal with combat, I mean in general. You'd think the basket weaver sorts would at least be involved more in non combat scenarios, but they'll sit there with around 15 skills maxed and have very little to say. Even though they should by all rights be having a field day with the situation. That would require effort though.FatR wrote:And now I'm finding myself siding with Shadow Balls more and more because it really seems that the "anti-death" crowd is actually against the "applying effort" part in TTRPGs (well, apparently, except if you are GM, in which case you are supposed to do any amount of extra work necessary to coddle your players).
Even here though, a lot of WoW players are getting frustrated because things are getting so easy now. They can just go into new content and start beating it easily. They don't want their own group destroyed, and yet a reduced chance of that happening is severely dampening their enjoyment of the game.Well, duh, bad outcome happening to somebody else, but not himself if what every player who plays games with failure conditions, whether cooperative or competitive, want, so I don't know why you think I can be offended by this. Just ask any raider in WoW if he wishes the potential threat of being wiped by the boss to disappear - yet he surely does not want this to happen with his group. This does not mean that every such player is also a sore loser who can't accept that this time he got defeated.
System mastery, active thought, and listening to those trying to help you. In the case of someone new to the game, that help is likely to involve being directed to be a Druid, as they are strong enough to be hard to mess up even in inexperienced hands. If someone who already doesn't understand things sets the handicap slider all the way over by playing "Fighter" or something on top of that, they are going to get destroyed.Stubbazubba wrote:Applying effort in an RPG? All you're talking about is system mastery. A player who has never played the game before is worthless to you and should just let other people control all his significant actions until he just catches on, and if he has the gall to play his made-up character in a made-up fantasy world in a collaborative storytelling activity, then he should be punished if that's not also the most tactically optimal thing to do by killing his character and being told, "Go away and come back when you've learned to not be stupid, newb."
They can do it anyways. Just it won't end well for them. Especially if they lack effort.There is no effort measured here, only an accumulated mastery of the system. While I can understand that some DMs are all about that, the story and characters be damned, why is it not OK for players to go against the odds, make the sub-optimal choice, in the name of staying true to their character concept or even just to realize said character concept in the first place? Why is killing monsters objectively better than playing your character? System mastery is not the only kind of effort going on when a bunch of nerds get together to enjoy social entertainment. The effort to contribute to the collaborative narrative through making interesting characters and then playing them faithful to that should not be punished in order to 'teach' them how to play the game properly.
It probably was made underpowered intentionally actually. Ivory Tower Design. But either way when someone says "play a Tome Monk, it's much better" and they get ignored, then whatever happens happens. The DM isn't setting out to punish them for playing a 3.5 Monk, but the world will nonetheless punish them as he has a character that can neither hit nor hurt things despite hitting and hurting things being his primary function.The Monk class was not made to be the class that you learn to not play, it was made underpowered on accident. Punishing anyone who plays one for not applying the "effort" to know that they're just unplayable is simply ridiculous. The game designers made mistakes, why are we compounding them by strictly coloring within the lines they inadvertently made, punishing anyone who leaves the framework made by mistake? No, system mastery is not "player effort," not by a long shot. You're considering the whole game very narrowly when you think of it that way.
PoliteNewb wrote:D&D is a fucking game. Sometimes you lose games. D&D is better than most, in that losing is a.) not necessarily going to happen and b.) not permanent. But the possibility of loss is there. It should be there. In the opinion of many (myself included), it's part of what makes the game fun.
If your attitude is "I spent my valuable time to come here, so I better be able to play every minute, regardless of what I do or what my dice rolls are"...fuck that, and fuck you.
Maxus wrote:Shadzar is comedy gold, and makes us optimistic for the future of RPGs. Because, see, going into the future takes us further away from AD&D Second Edition and people like Shadzar.
FatR wrote:If you cannot accept than in any game a noob inherently has less worth than an experienced player, go to your special olympics.
"You didn't let me make and play your character, so I'm going to kill your character until you do or until you leave."Shadow Balls wrote:To even get to this point he had to receive advice multiple times and ignore it. I am not seeing learning that he really should have listened to the people that are trying to help him as a bad thing. And if such a person, who meets the definition of a basket weaver reacts to this by either leaving the game or becoming a power gamer, that is a good thing. The former because they will stop bothering everyone with their inept characters and story lawyering and the second for the same reason and hey, +1 good player.K wrote:I guess it just seems like punishing weaker players seems pointlessly punitive. At worst, it causes someone to just leave the game and at best it creates a power-gamer.
The easiest way to avoid permanent character death at the hands of a neophyte or Gygaxian DM is to be level-appropriate. Also, being level-appropriate helps the DM create challenges that affect everyone equally and don't strain the DM trying to keep some characters alive.Shadow Balls wrote:
But what I find most shocking about this thread is how many are against the concept. This forum was the one that invented the Same Game Test. That thing that codifies whether or not a given character is level appropriate. K's name is on the fucking Tomes, which were written so that Fighters and Monks and Barbarians etc could be level appropriate. And yet he is the biggest one railing against death, which generally comes from not being level appropriate. What the fuck?
I've thus far not had one newbie who sat down at my table and died repeatedly. This does not speak for idiots I've had that have died repeatedly at my table.Orion wrote:No contradiction. I want a newbiw to be able to join my game and play whatever he wants without repeatedly dying. That means rewriting classes to be viable is good, as is secretly giving someone playing a bad character overpowered magic items or arranging coincidences and enemy behavior ot keep them alive.
We often shorten our arguments by omitting commonly expected clauses (like the words "his character" as in this case) and without them they often can mean something completely different.MGuy wrote:I've thus far not had one newbie who sat down at my table and died repeatedly.Orion wrote:No contradiction. I want a newbiw to be able to join my game and play whatever he wants without repeatedly dying.
That is your stupidest fucking straw man ever. Especially when you go from making most of the material for the classes in question, that are designed to be level appropriate, and then pull that basket weaver blame shunting that is claiming that level appropriateness is only required when dealing with neophyte or Gygaxian DMs. Ignoring that a new DM would most likely not be playing the opponents in a level appropriate manner (they'd be easier). Ignoring that a Gygaxian DM would certainly not be playing the opponents in a level appropriate manner (they'd be much harder, or just have random kill abilities that have no basis in the rules). Ignoring that logically, the guy between those extremes, that is neither neophyte nor setting out to deliberately kill people would also be between the extremes of "enemies are easier than normal" and "enemies are harder than normal". And that it is quite likely that that means that level appropriate enemies are indeed level appropriate. Or at least much closer to being such. Which means it is up to the player to have the abilities they are expected to have.K wrote:"You didn't let me make and play your character, so I'm going to kill your character until you do or until you leave."
PoliteNewb wrote:D&D is a fucking game. Sometimes you lose games. D&D is better than most, in that losing is a.) not necessarily going to happen and b.) not permanent. But the possibility of loss is there. It should be there. In the opinion of many (myself included), it's part of what makes the game fun.
If your attitude is "I spent my valuable time to come here, so I better be able to play every minute, regardless of what I do or what my dice rolls are"...fuck that, and fuck you.
Maxus wrote:Shadzar is comedy gold, and makes us optimistic for the future of RPGs. Because, see, going into the future takes us further away from AD&D Second Edition and people like Shadzar.
FatR wrote:If you cannot accept than in any game a noob inherently has less worth than an experienced player, go to your special olympics.
Basically.Orion wrote:This is really simple: If I believed that the players have a responsibility to do their research and make sure their characters are level-appropriate, I wouldn't want or need the Tomes. The suckness of Monks wouldn't be a problem if someone chose to play them he'd deserve the horrible death he gets.
However, because I *don't* believe the players have a duty to research and construct a level-appropriate character, I *do* see the value in house rules designed to make every base class and popular archetype level-appropriate.
A part of being level appropriate could very well be "Use Tome Monk." "Sure." I even specifically mentioned that as an example on multiple occasions. It does not necessarily have to be a long and involved process. It just requires effort. Ultimately the people that say no to this are doing so because they are basket weavers. Their means of attention whoring is to have a useless character. So when you provide them an easy means of having a character that is not useless, they don't like that.Orion wrote:This is really simple: If I believed that the players have a responsibility to do their research and make sure their characters are level-appropriate, I wouldn't want or need the Tomes. The suckness of Monks wouldn't be a problem if someone chose to play them he'd deserve the horrible death he gets.
However, because I *don't* believe the players have a duty to research and construct a level-appropriate character, I *do* see the value in house rules designed to make every base class and popular archetype level-appropriate.
Most DMs will not think twice about allowing a pure classed Druid with a particular animal companion and yet will flip the fuck out if someone has x levels, x/2 classes, and 0 spellcasting ability. Even if the likely overworked DM was willing to put forth even more effort to protect them from themselves, the judgment of most DMs cannot be trusted regarding class balance.K wrote:Basically.
The amount of system mastery is takes to reliably not make a suck character is non-trivial. ACTUAL DESIGNERS OF THE GAME CAN'T DO IT, so expecting some random people I choose to game with to be able to do it is simply unrealistic.
Punishing them for not doing it is equally pointless. Punishing them for not letting someone else make their character is just bizarrely cruel.
This is why the DM has to adjust things. Redesigning classes is actually less work overall than favoring some players with loot drops or implementing plot immunity for weaker characters.
PoliteNewb wrote:D&D is a fucking game. Sometimes you lose games. D&D is better than most, in that losing is a.) not necessarily going to happen and b.) not permanent. But the possibility of loss is there. It should be there. In the opinion of many (myself included), it's part of what makes the game fun.
If your attitude is "I spent my valuable time to come here, so I better be able to play every minute, regardless of what I do or what my dice rolls are"...fuck that, and fuck you.
Maxus wrote:Shadzar is comedy gold, and makes us optimistic for the future of RPGs. Because, see, going into the future takes us further away from AD&D Second Edition and people like Shadzar.
FatR wrote:If you cannot accept than in any game a noob inherently has less worth than an experienced player, go to your special olympics.
You mean, two levels in a single non-caster class?Shadow Balls wrote:x levels, x/2 classes, and 0 spellcasting ability.
I mean characters that have a large number of class dips, but all of those classes are non magical.RadiantPhoenix wrote:You mean, two levels in a single non-caster class?Shadow Balls wrote:x levels, x/2 classes, and 0 spellcasting ability.
PoliteNewb wrote:D&D is a fucking game. Sometimes you lose games. D&D is better than most, in that losing is a.) not necessarily going to happen and b.) not permanent. But the possibility of loss is there. It should be there. In the opinion of many (myself included), it's part of what makes the game fun.
If your attitude is "I spent my valuable time to come here, so I better be able to play every minute, regardless of what I do or what my dice rolls are"...fuck that, and fuck you.
Maxus wrote:Shadzar is comedy gold, and makes us optimistic for the future of RPGs. Because, see, going into the future takes us further away from AD&D Second Edition and people like Shadzar.
FatR wrote:If you cannot accept than in any game a noob inherently has less worth than an experienced player, go to your special olympics.
