What is with the entitlement? (shadzar stay out)

[ckafrica]

Of course, in anything less than a TPK situation you don't even need that. The enemies will just turn and focus on the standing enemies after a PC drops.

Well yes, assuming you allow in your combat system for a high probability of a PC being dropped but alive, like in 4E, then TPKs are about the only situations you have to worry about in general, but you have to accept it as a possible outcome, even if it's a rare one.

Gelatinous cubes ain't gonna be taking prisoners dude.

My question is why would ever have a cube in a situation where it could actually kill your party? I mean that is never cool. Who the fuck wants to tell a story about some guys killed by a toxic jello cube? It a puzzle monster. You make part of a puzzle that they have to solve to get some extra loot or they skip. If your putting them into an adventure where it could actually kill your party, your a pretty awful adventure designer.

[Shadow Balls]

What's the Paizo way, anyway?

Assbackwards.

The rest of that post, and the dumbfuckery about all mental stat 26 Pit Fiends that are somehow not tactically inclined, and somehow not murderous despite being literally made of fucking evil and having all of eternity to fight the Blood War is too stupid to reply to. I feel less intelligent for reading it, and you should slap yourself as hard as you possibly can for typing it.

Something the game needs: A game-mechanical way for the PCs to determine when something is over their heads. Maybe it can even tie in to {the/a better} intimidate mechanic!

Didn't one of the splatbooks have that as a use for Sense Motive?

It does. But:

It only works on one target.
That target has to be within 30 feet of you.
It takes your entire round.
It is based on HD, not CR.
It isn't very accurate.

So you spend your action consulting your scouter and being asked by Nappa what it says about their power level. They take advantage of their free round of actions to show you how strong they are, which corrects the false reading you most likely got but still means you wasted a round.

[A Man In Black]

The rest of that post, and the dumbfuckery about all mental stat 26 Pit Fiends that are somehow not tactically inclined, and somehow not murderous despite being literally made of fucking evil and having all of eternity to fight the Blood War is too stupid to reply to. I feel less intelligent for reading it, and you should slap yourself as hard as you possibly can for typing it.

It's perfectly reasonable to believe that all pit fiends are murderous tactical geniuses. As a GM, you just need to make sure you're not placing a pit fiend as a challenge unless the party can reasonably handle that. I think you're attributing K's talk about pit fiends with different levels of tactical mastery or intelligence to me, here.

In any case, I don't think you have anything to contribute to a conversation other than spittle and bluster.

[Swordslinger]

My question is why would ever have a cube in a situation where it could actually kill your party? I mean that is never cool. Who the fuck wants to tell a story about some guys killed by a toxic jello cube? It a puzzle monster. You make part of a puzzle that they have to solve to get some extra loot or they skip. If your putting them into an adventure where it could actually kill your party, your a pretty awful adventure designer.

Uh... what?

Dude, the only situation you'd ever encounter a gelatinous cube is in a combat situation. Unless it happens to be where you're overlooking a cliff and can shoot the thing from above while it blobs around helplessly, the cube has a chance of killing the party. If you designed the adventure pretty well, that chance is probably very low, but it's something non-zero. But through a combination of player stupidity and bad rolls, the party can quite possibly lose.

I'm not sure what you people actually expect the DM to do. The guy is not some prescient psychic who can predict exactly what the PCs are going to do and how the dice will fall. If he wants to maintain the illusion of risk at all, he has to put the PCs into combat. So yeah, you're playing a combat simulation and happen to be in combat. You're playing with dice. If there's to be any excitement in that game whatsoever, there's going to be a chance you can lose.

That's just an acceptable fact. It's impossible to remove the chance of death entirely unless you flat out ignore the rules. But at that point, why have rules at all? Why not just MTP the entire thing? Why waste your money on rules when in fact they don't even matter?

[Strung Nether]

My question is why would ever have a cube in a situation where it could actually kill your party? I mean that is never cool. Who the fuck wants to tell a story about some guys killed by a toxic jello cube? It a puzzle monster. You make part of a puzzle that they have to solve to get some extra loot or they skip. If your putting them into an adventure where it could actually kill your party, your a pretty awful adventure designer.

Uh... what?

Dude, the only situation you'd ever encounter a gelatinous cube is in a combat situation. Unless it happens to be where you're overlooking a cliff and can shoot the thing from above while it blobs around helplessly, the cube has a chance of killing the party. If you designed the adventure pretty well, that chance is probably very low, but it's something non-zero. But through a combination of player stupidity and bad rolls, the party can quite possibly lose.

I'm not sure what you people actually expect the DM to do. The guy is not some prescient psychic who can predict exactly what the PCs are going to do and how the dice will fall. If he wants to maintain the illusion of risk at all, he has to put the PCs into combat. So yeah, you're playing a combat simulation and happen to be in combat. You're playing with dice. If there's to be any excitement in that game whatsoever, there's going to be a chance you can lose.

That's just an acceptable fact. It's impossible to remove the chance of death entirely unless you flat out ignore the rules. But at that point, why have rules at all? Why not just MTP the entire thing? Why waste your money on rules when in fact they don't even matter?

...ummm...really?
The idea that there is always a small chance of death in every encounter is SO OBVIOUS IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE STATED.

The guy who you quoted obviously meant that a gel cube should not actually be a CREDIBLE threat to the party. Several ways to do this:
Make is slow so that players can run away (done)
make its only dangerous atack obvious (done)
make it weak to almost every strategy besides melee(done)

what more do you want in a puzzle monster?

With all of those, if your players actually die to a gel cube they were ether put in a really bad situation or are too simple to understand a game like D&D.[/u][/b]

[ckafrica]

My question is why would ever have a cube in a situation where it could actually kill your party? I mean that is never cool. Who the fuck wants to tell a story about some guys killed by a toxic jello cube? It a puzzle monster. You make part of a puzzle that they have to solve to get some extra loot or they skip. If your putting them into an adventure where it could actually kill your party, your a pretty awful adventure designer.

Uh... what?

Dude, the only situation you'd ever encounter a gelatinous cube is in a combat situation. Unless it happens to be where you're overlooking a cliff and can shoot the thing from above while it blobs around helplessly, the cube has a chance of killing the party. If you designed the adventure pretty well, that chance is probably very low, but it's something non-zero. But through a combination of player stupidity and bad rolls, the party can quite possibly lose.

I'm not sure what you people actually expect the DM to do. The guy is not some prescient psychic who can predict exactly what the PCs are going to do and how the dice will fall. If he wants to maintain the illusion of risk at all, he has to put the PCs into combat. So yeah, you're playing a combat simulation and happen to be in combat. You're playing with dice. If there's to be any excitement in that game whatsoever, there's going to be a chance you can lose.

That's just an acceptable fact. It's impossible to remove the chance of death entirely unless you flat out ignore the rules. But at that point, why have rules at all? Why not just MTP the entire thing? Why waste your money on rules when in fact they don't even matter?

You were talking about a TPK and then about cubes. I'm questioning that you would ever arrange a situation where a cube would be a real threat to the entire party. Sure you could do it, but why would you? It is so lame.

If every encounter you run has a real risk of resulting in a TPK, it means your going to have TPKs regularly. Now I think TPKs always suck but even if you accept the idea that they should be a possibility, do you really make it possible to happen during any encounter rather than only during the pivotal battles? I might accept a TPK during BBEG battle but if a cube did it I would be seriously pissed off at the DM.

Most encounters are simply meant to consume resources, not kill the party. The challenge of these encounters for players is to complete them with as few resources as possible so they will have enough for the big battles. That's adventure development 101. If you don't understand that, you have no business running a game.

[A Man In Black]

I'm not sure what you people actually expect the DM to do. The guy is not some prescient psychic who can predict exactly what the PCs are going to do and how the dice will fall. If he wants to maintain the illusion of risk at all, he has to put the PCs into combat. So yeah, you're playing a combat simulation and happen to be in combat. You're playing with dice. If there's to be any excitement in that game whatsoever, there's going to be a chance you can lose.

That's just an acceptable fact. It's impossible to remove the chance of death entirely unless you flat out ignore the rules.

Or if you change the definition of "lose" to something other than "irrevocable death."

[Swordslinger]

The idea that there is always a small chance of death in every encounter is SO OBVIOUS IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE STATED.

The guy who you quoted obviously meant that a gel cube should not actually be a CREDIBLE threat to the party. Several ways to do this:
Make is slow so that players can run away (done)
make its only dangerous atack obvious (done)
make it weak to almost every strategy besides melee(done)

I'm not sure what exactly "credible" threat means in this case, because it seems that they want a 0% of character death.

While I totally agree that gelatinous cubes are pretty easy to handle if you know what you're doing, that's not going to stop inexperienced players from trying stupid stuff.

And the entire point of the thread is if killing characters is okay. I'm not stating anywhere that the gelatinous cube encounter is supposed to be some meatgrinder deathtraps. It's not. The point is that through bad tactics (like meleeing it) and bad luck, the characters can die here.

And what then? What should the DM do here? I say that you have to have the PCs die. Some people are just dodging that question by saying the cube shouldn't be a credible threat and others are vaguely claiming you somehow make it so getting devoured by a cube of acidic goo instead a death condition.

So seriously guys, your PCs decide to melee a gelatinous cube, get some bad rolls and get devoured. What do you do as the DM? Do you just tell them they're dead, do you fudge rolls so the cube eventually dies, or do you do something else? I want to know.

[Shadow Balls]

The rest of that post, and the dumbfuckery about all mental stat 26 Pit Fiends that are somehow not tactically inclined, and somehow not murderous despite being literally made of fucking evil and having all of eternity to fight the Blood War is too stupid to reply to. I feel less intelligent for reading it, and you should slap yourself as hard as you possibly can for typing it.

It's perfectly reasonable to believe that all pit fiends are murderous tactical geniuses. As a GM, you just need to make sure you're not placing a pit fiend as a challenge unless the party can reasonably handle that. I think you're attributing K's talk about pit fiends with different levels of tactical mastery or intelligence to me, here.

In any case, I don't think you have anything to contribute to a conversation other than spittle and bluster.

I don't remember if that was meant as a direct response to you, or a general remark to all the talk about it. Either way, if your level is 16 or higher, you should expect there to be a non 0 chance that you will fight at least one pit fiend, and if you do fight a pit fiend, you should expect them to behave in a manner according to the top minions of the ruthless Lords of the Nine.

As for the cube thing, it's very unlikely that it will kill everyone. It's quite possible that someone will walk into it.

[Strung Nether]

I'm not sure what exactly "credible" threat means in this case, because it seems that they want a 0% of character death.

While I totally agree that gelatinous cubes are pretty easy to handle if you know what you're doing, that's not going to stop inexperienced players from trying stupid stuff.

And the entire point of the thread is if killing characters is okay. I'm not stating anywhere that the gelatinous cube encounter is supposed to be some meatgrinder deathtraps. It's not. The point is that through bad tactics (like meleeing it) and bad luck, the characters can die here.

And what then? What should the DM do here? I say that you have to have the PCs die. Some people are just dodging that question by saying the cube shouldn't be a credible threat and others are vaguely claiming you somehow make it so getting devoured by a cube of acidic goo instead a death condition.

So seriously guys, your PCs decide to melee a gelatinous cube, get some bad rolls and get devoured. What do you do as the DM? Do you just tell them they're dead, do you fudge rolls so the cube eventually dies, or do you do something else? I want to know.

If the players are in narrow straights because they tried something new or stupid, then that is perfectly ok. If a player dies because he tried to melee a gel cube, that is also ok. There is a difference between "you should use your 1rd/lv buffs and open with high level spells to kill this obviously dangerous monster" and "oh...is one of those...how do you plan to get past it while expending the least amount of resources."

[Red_Rob]

The idea that there is always a small chance of death in every encounter is SO OBVIOUS IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE STATED.

Strung, I appreciate the thread is fairly long now, but please at least skim it before posting.

This thread is about whether or not there should be a small chance of death in every encounter. That's literally what we have spent the last 17 pages debating.

I think it's worth remembering that the options are not "All death all the time" and "No death ever". In D&D as it stands every lost fight doesn't have to end in character death. If people feel that the lack of retreat rules lead to a higher chance of death perhaps they should be suggesting some kind of "disengage" mechanic.

[Strung Nether]

I have no excuse. I was just being really lazy. (and you guys will argue FOREVER about ANYTHING)

[Chamomile]

and you guys will argue FOREVER about ANYTHING

No we won't!

[ckafrica]

I'm not sure what exactly "credible" threat means in this case, because it seems that they want a 0% of character death.

While I totally agree that gelatinous cubes are pretty easy to handle if you know what you're doing, that's not going to stop inexperienced players from trying stupid stuff.

And the entire point of the thread is if killing characters is okay. I'm not stating anywhere that the gelatinous cube encounter is supposed to be some meatgrinder deathtraps. It's not. The point is that through bad tactics (like meleeing it) and bad luck, the characters can die here.

And what then? What should the DM do here? I say that you have to have the PCs die. Some people are just dodging that question by saying the cube shouldn't be a credible threat and others are vaguely claiming you somehow make it so getting devoured by a cube of acidic goo instead a death condition.

So seriously guys, your PCs decide to melee a gelatinous cube, get some bad rolls and get devoured. What do you do as the DM? Do you just tell them they're dead, do you fudge rolls so the cube eventually dies, or do you do something else? I want to know.

If the players are in narrow straights because they tried something new or stupid, then that is perfectly ok. If a player dies because he tried to melee a gel cube, that is also ok. There is a difference between "you should use your 1rd/lv buffs and open with high level spells to kill this obviously dangerous monster" and "oh...is one of those...how do you plan to get past it while expending the least amount of resources."

There should be no chance of dying (or at least no TPK, but again no death if you can't easily rez) during trivial encounters if you have planned your adventure well. How the players deal with the encounter should dictate how many resources they will use, not whether they survive the encounter in the first place.

The point of playing an RPG is for you and your friends to partake in a cool story. If you are killing them off with cubes, you are not preparing a cool story.

Saying that players made a bad decision and should be punished is dumb. The fact that the players don't know what is the best way to handle an encounter is due to the fact that THEY ARENT THE DM and don't have the intimate knowledge of the adventure that you have. If they have never encountered a cube (probably because all previous DMs had recognized it is a lame monster) and they encounter yours and decide to try meleeing it, are you saying you would seriously kill one or all of them to prove a point?

[tussock]

There should be no chance of dying (or at least no TPK, but again no death if you can't easily rez) during trivial encounters if you have planned your adventure well. How the players deal with the encounter should dictate how many resources they will use, not whether they survive the encounter in the first place.

There are no "trivial" encounters because I cannot predict how or when players will encounter things, what state they will be in, how many other monsters will be chasing them, what the local alert state has changed to, or anything else. Things are what they are as the players find them, the area having reacted to the PC's presence, and what monsters they face are going to do a fair approximation of trying to eat all their brains for breakfast.

Sure, if players do things even half-pai, they will almost always win, but I'm busy doing my best to obfuscate that fact by trying to kill them with the weaksauce anyway.

The point of playing an RPG is for you and your friends to partake in a cool story. If you are killing them off with cubes, you are not preparing a cool story.

I don't "prepare stories". I set up areas full of shit the players might like finding, and the monsters who are guarding it, and a whole bunch of dressing besides. But if they get killed by the wandering monster (#8: 1 Gelatinous Cube) while running for their lives, that's going to make an awesome story, to laugh about for years to come. Eh.

Saying that players made a bad decision and should be punished is dumb. ... they encounter yours and decide to try meleeing it, are you saying you would seriously kill one or all of them to prove a point?

I'm saying if PCs all get themselves killed by the cleaning crew joke, then that really is what killed them, and that becomes their "story". If they don't like that story, they really should have made themselves a different one, like how they almost died and then woke up ran the other way.

If players are to have a good sense of agency, their decisions must be allowed to create logical consequences, including bad ones, all the way up to and including unexpected TPKs if they all go cube-diving.

[ckafrica]

The point of playing an RPG is for you and your friends to partake in a cool story. If you are killing them off with cubes, you are not preparing a cool story.

I don't "prepare stories". I set up areas full of shit the players might like finding, and the monsters who are guarding it, and a whole bunch of dressing besides. But if they get killed by the wandering monster (#8: 1 Gelatinous Cube) while running for their lives, that's going to make an awesome story, to laugh about for years to come. Eh.

See I can't understand why you would throw a random encounter at a team that are running for their lives. If they are running for their lives it means they are probably out of resources. It means even some half ass opponent is going to be more than likely to wipe them out. Why the fuck would you intentionally fuck your players like that?

As for not "preparing stories", yes you are. You are preparing multiple stories that the players get to choose from but each "area full of shit" is in fact a story no matter how immaterial an inane you have managed to make them sound in your above description. And as much as I accept that players will invariably skip the plot threads I thought most interesting or manage to take the adventure in a completely separate direction than I foresaw, I still can't see how it will ever be cool to have them drop by some insignificant random encounter. When I'm a player i certainly don't think its cool and as a DM I make sure it never happens.

[Red_Rob]

And as much as I accept that players will invariably skip the plot threads I thought most interesting or manage to take the adventure in a completely separate direction than I foresaw, I still can't see how it will ever be cool to have them drop by some insignificant random encounter. When I'm a player i certainly don't think its cool and as a DM I make sure it never happens.

Wow, so random encounters in your games are pointless wastes of time that only occur when the players have no hope of losing them? And the strong suggestion that you fudge dice rolls if things start to go south? Let's just say I don't think i would enjoy your game overmuch.

Yes, every game of D&D is a story, but the thing about emergent games like RPGs is that the story is what happens during the game, not that you make things happen to fit a story you already decided was cool. The game style tussock is describing sounds like a sandbox, players-vs-the-enviroment "old school" game, which is a totally valid style of play that relies on the impartiality of the DM and the high danger level to make player choices meaningful. If you are altering the challenge level down when the players make bad decisions, where is the feeling of satisfaction when you make a good decision?

I don't think you really understand the distinction between a story and an RPG. If you want to be able to decide how the story starts and ends, write a novel. Otherwise, when the players get hammered deep in the Bane Mire and met three encounters on the way in, it is sure as hell going to destroy any sense of verisimilitude (Thanks K!) when they mysteriously make it all the way out without seeing a soul.

[tzor]

Wow, so random encounters in your games are pointless wastes of time that only occur when the players have no hope of losing them? And the strong suggestion that you fudge dice rolls if things start to go south? Let's just say I don't think i would enjoy your game overmuch.

I've come full circle on random encounters so many times in my life that just going through all the arugments makes my head spin. So let's do the spin. In any given location of level X there exists a stable subset of level X encounters + an unknown (but stable within the overall system) subset of random encounters. If the overall system is level stable, then these random encounters must, by their very nature interact with the standard encounters within the location. Depending on their random influence factor, the amount of random inflence they exert on the PC's is (with minor exceptions) the potential random influence they exert on the regular encounters in the system.

If they then come up to that level X, the result is that the entire level of the location would be vastly reduced as a result of those random encounters on the stable encounters. Therefore the level of random encounters (barring the OMG we're in the wrong location for our level) must be lower than the party's level. That doesn't mean they can't reduce resources, waste precious time, or annoy the hell out of the characters. It also doesn't mean they can't be fatal, as shit can in fact happen.

This is different from the random "DO NOT DISTURB" encounter. The appropriate level for this encounter can be massively high because you aren't supposed to disturb this encounter. If the ranger tracks the wrong dragon and the party finds a HUGE GREEN DRAGON that's sleeping (actually he's not really sleeping, that's merely the discarded skin of the dracoliche that's not paying attention to you) then it's only a problem if the party is stupid enough to attack a non threat that looks like it is way over their heads.

[K]

I don't think you really understand the distinction between a story and an RPG. If you want to be able to decide how the story starts and ends, write a novel. Otherwise, when the players get hammered deep in the Bane Mire and met three encounters on the way in, it is sure as hell going to destroy any sense of verisimilitude (Thanks K!) when they mysteriously make it all the way out without seeing a soul.

So to make sure the PCs meet random encounters on their way out of the Bane Mire, you are going to add encounters to the adventure even if the random monster checks say "No Monster." to make sure they don't get out and to please your own sense of verisimilitude?

As a MC, you are free to add story elements at any time that have nothing to do with rolling dice that can have all kinds of effects on the story and those elements can either help or hurt the players.

Maybe the noise of the first three encounters scared away the other monsters or drew them to another part of the Mire? Maybe there is an intelligent creature controlling the undead of the Bane Mire and he wants the PCs to escape because they picked up a cursed item/possessing spirit/disease/whatever that it wants released into the world? Maybe someone else is nearby and the local monsters are fighting them instead, someone who is going to want revenge on the PCs for riling up the local fauna earlier?

The number of potentially cool and fun additions to the cooperative storytelling game are infinite, and that fact that some people think that some delusion of impartiality conceals the failings of an uncreative and adversarial MC is kind of pathetic.

I mean, the instant the PCs say "hey, why did we escape the Bane Mire without any more random encounters?" the MC should be already setting into motion an answer to that question that preserves verisimilitude and already has the PCs worried about an unexpected turn in the narrative.

Impartiality is only available in a MC-less game, and the biggest weakness to an MC-less game is the impartiality itself and all the problems that come with it.

[Swordslinger]

Impartiality is only available in a MC-less game, and the biggest weakness to an MC-less game is the impartiality itself and all the problems that come with it.

Yeah we can't get 100% impartiality because humans are humans, so why bother? Why not have the referee in a football game just always decide in favor of his own team instead of even trying to be impartial? So long as there's a human element at all making decisions, we can't have 100% impartiality. So why bother right?

[K]

Impartiality is only available in a MC-less game, and the biggest weakness to an MC-less game is the impartiality itself and all the problems that come with it.

Yeah we can't get 100% impartiality because humans are humans, so why bother? Why not have the referee in a football game just always decide in favor of his own team instead of even trying to be impartial? So long as there's a human element at all making decisions, we can't have 100% impartiality. So why bother right?

Way to strawman the point. Makes me glad I took you off ignore for a post.

Of course, maybe you don't think there are any flaws to actual impartiality in a cooperative storytelling game?

That'd be a weird thing to think considering the MCs job is to run all the monsters and create challenges, stories, and rewards, effectively having 100% control over which player choices are good or bad or meaningful at all. Impartiality would make all that impossible.

I mean, why even have a MC if he's impartial? You can easily go with a MC-less game and just have monsters on combat scripts like in Arkam Horror and then have the advantage that the game won't adapt in any way to PC actions and objective victories and losses are possible. You can randomly generate dungeons off a table and toss down map tiles and never have story elements or thoughts of a fair or enjoyable play experience interfering with the way the game unfolds.

Still, I think you believe that some measure of impartiality is even possible in an RPG like DnD. That's an adorably naive position, and I'm powerless to disprove it to you just as I am as powerless to disprove the ideas of creationists and flat-earthers when they so fervently want to believe.

[Daiba]

You can randomly generate dungeons off a table and toss down map tiles and never have story elements or thoughts of a fair or enjoyable play experience interfering with the way the game unfolds.

Off topic, but I would really love to have a game like this for the times when we want to do a hack'n'slash dungeon crawl but no one wants to be DM.

[Swordslinger]

That'd be a weird thing to think considering the MCs job is to run all the monsters and create challenges, stories, and rewards, effectively having 100% control over which player choices are good or bad or meaningful at all. Impartiality would make all that impossible.

The impartiality comes when you're running an adventure, not designing one.

I mean, why even have a MC if he's impartial?

Because you want to be able to think outside the box and you need someone to adjudicate. Also, someone has to control the monsters.

Why would you want a DM that's biased? At the point the DM is on the PCs side and plays the monsters like morons, you might as well not have a DM at all, and let the PCs control the monsters against them. Since they can't die anyway in your game, it won't even matter. But that point it just feels like a big old circle jerk and less like a real game.

And what's the story with this MC stuff? I've heard storyteller or GM before, but since when did we start working on the D&D rap?

[K]

That'd be a weird thing to think considering the MCs job is to run all the monsters and create challenges, stories, and rewards, effectively having 100% control over which player choices are good or bad or meaningful at all. Impartiality would make all that impossible.

The impartiality comes when you're running an adventure, not designing one.

It's impossible to impartially run an adventure in any sense. The MC is choosing which tactics the monsters use based on his own knowledge of PC strengths and weaknesses, is deciding which PC actions have a chance of success, and is altering the narrative to fit his own preferences and sense of verisimilitude.

That's the whole game. Sure, the individual combat rounds may be determined by dice rolls and the overall options may be limited by character builds, but at the end of the day all meaningful results are determined by the MC. You don't have a chance to Diplomacize NPCs the MC doesn't want you to make friends with, you don't get to fight monsters the MC has not planned for you to fight, you don't get treasure he hasn't placed for you or decided you can buy, and even character advancement is subject to the material he wants to let into the game.

RPGing is circle-jerking, even if it is an extremely formalized form of circle-jerking designed to craft enjoyable cooperative stories in the same manner as improv games designed for stage improvisational acting. That you can even compare it to a game like football is hilarious because it has no objective reality at all, has no rules enforcing fairness of play or even the boundaries of play, and it's not adversarial.

Trying to pretend that it's adversarial, is fair, and has some kind of objective reality just leads to the MC punishing players for not jerking him off well enough by catering to his personal sense of how they should play, and that's not useful for producing fun or a cooperative story.

You only find that kind of thing in video games or MC-less games. Anything with an MC is just an elaborate exercise in the MC crafting a story around the specific PC actions he has decided will have a chance for success.

[ckafrica]

Wow, so random encounters in your games are pointless wastes of time that only occur when the players have no hope of losing them? And the strong suggestion that you fudge dice rolls if things start to go south? Let's just say I don't think i would enjoy your game overmuch.

Random encounters are always a waste of time and i never use them. If the players have gone off the rails, as they invariably do, I will come up with encounters on the fly to entertain them with. As for fudging, you hardly need to. You are the DM and you can make the monsters be and do whatever you choose. If an encounter goes south you figure out a way to let them through. As K suggested, its actually a great way to add a new plot seed. Which to me sounds like a hell of a better solution than, "Sorry guys, you all died. Time to roll up some new ones". Considering there are many times the DM feels like the solution is obvious yet it is not to the players why should they be punished because they didn't read your mind? Why not just change your mind so the session can continue and they can continue to have fun.

Yes, every game of D&D is a story, but the thing about emergent games like RPGs is that the story is what happens during the game, not that you make things happen to fit a story you already decided was cool. The game style tussock is describing sounds like a sandbox, players-vs-the-enviroment "old school" game, which is a totally valid style of play that relies on the impartiality of the DM and the high danger level to make player choices meaningful. If you are altering the challenge level down when the players make bad decisions, where is the feeling of satisfaction when you make a good decision?

I don't think you really understand the distinction between a story and an RPG. If you want to be able to decide how the story starts and ends, write a novel. Otherwise, when the players get hammered deep in the Bane Mire and met three encounters on the way in, it is sure as hell going to destroy any sense of verisimilitude (Thanks K!) when they mysteriously make it all the way out without seeing a soul.

The distinction between an rpg and a novel is that novels typically have a single author while the story of an rpg has the entire group. DM sets the setting the players choose how to interact with it. I agree that what Tussock and West Marches does is valid, its actually what I do in the sense that I give the players different choices of what they do and go with their decisions. If they decide to totally decide to skip a tread that I left for them to follow, than I discard or find another place to weave it in if it suits. But if you are suggesting that an RPG should simply include a selection of encounter areas where the players go in clean them out and move on to the next one without there being any effect on the world by what they choose to do or not do, than I know for certain that neither I nor anyone I've played with regularly would want to play in a campaign you run. That's what CRPGs and MMOs are for.

edited for tags