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Nooo, RPGs are where Elennsar is a hero cause he doesn't have the guts to be a fireman or some other actual hero. Stop destroying E's only chance to be the hero he imagines himself as you mean jerk.Ice9 wrote:So given that only the characters can be heroes, it only matters whether the characters think they can die. It's fine for the players to know that they're not risking anything, because they never are.
Die hard is Die hard.Elennsar wrote: It does change whether or not Die Hard is "it didn't happen" or "it couldn't happen to begin with".
As I already showed, when you're talking about a movie or a novel, there is no real possibility of death.Battling your own inner demons might be heroic, but its not the kind of heroic that we want Aragorn to be doing when he's fighting the uruk-hai to try and battle his way to Boromir.
Not quite no.Eliminate deadliness as a possibility and you announce that any (player) character thinking he or she is at risk of dying is delusional.
No, it wouldn't be heroic. It would be me facing a nonexistant threat that I believed was real.It's like in real life, if you Elennsar, suddenly gained plot immunity by God, and no attack could kill you, there's no way you'd ever know that. And if you decided to do something dangerously heroic, it would still be heroic, because you wouldn't know that you're invulnerable. If people started shooting at you, but thanks to Divine luck, the bullets all seemed to miss, you're still going to be scared as hell. You're not going to reach the conclusion that you're unkillable. You're going to say "Damn I got lucky there..."
I wouldn't call that delusional.
Aragorn hasn't read the script and neither has your character. To them, the risk is very real.
Okay... so let me get this straight.Elennsar wrote: No, it wouldn't be heroic. It would be me facing a nonexistant threat that I believed was real.
Unless you want to get into the courage of fighting my inner demons, that is not brave.
Facing risk that is all in your head is not facing an actual life threatening challenge.
In effect, the PCs cannot lose. The overwhelming probability is that they will walk over any opposition.The princess has been captured by evil goblins, and taken to a dungeon somewhere. (in game)
Since the DM wants the players to win, he's decided to have all the encounters have an EL of 1 lower than the party level, use sub-optimal tactics and possibly fudge rolls. (metagame)
Don't you understand!?Psychic Robot wrote:This is seriously one of the stupidest fucking arguments I've ever read.
For players who want to risk things in their RPGs, I offer a play-by-email DMing service where every time their character dies, they pay me a thousand dollars. If Elennsar craves bodily risk rather than financial risk, I'm sure there are other Denners who would be happy to shoot him in the head instead of the wallet.Ice9 wrote:It's fine for the players to know that they're not risking anything, because they never are.
Ok.Elennsar wrote:As a one time incident? I wouldn't mind calling that heroic.
But you just said you'd call the aforementioned incident heroic, when there was clearly no risk since the mugger's bullets were just duds.Simply percieving there to be risk does not make it heroic.
Plus Fucking One. *offers cookie*Maj wrote:Screw this... People are repeating what I said three and four pages back (in addition to themselves). At this point, I'm just going to say it: Elennsar, your definition of "hero" sucks. You are a death scene junkie, and I am not interested in playing your idea of an RPG.
Yeah, Elennsar isn't interested in simulating cinematic or literary heroes at all. He basically wants a complete simulation of reality, where people who do dangerous things eventually die.Maj wrote:Screw this... People are repeating what I said three and four pages back (in addition to themselves). At this point, I'm just going to say it: Elennsar, your definition of "hero" sucks. You are a death scene junkie, and I am not interested in playing your idea of an RPG.
And if the mechanics support this, then yes, they are heroic. If the PCs can be careless and clumsy - then no.Your thinking is that the PCs aren't brave or heroic because of this, right? You are focusing on the metagame aspects.
Whereas I would say that in the cooperative story they are heroic, because they are fighting against a large number of goblins who could easily kill them if they aren't careful and fight well in order to save the princess. I'm focusing on the in game aspects.
Which needs to be represented by the rules. The rules need to represent the reality of the characters - if I'm supposed to find falling off a cliff to be potentially deadly, it needs to be capable (however unlikely) of killing my character, or my character will discover it isn't as deadly as he thought it was.And saying that over time the characters will realise that goblins can't hurt them is also retarded. They will still get hit, and they will get hurt by their wounds. Pain, bleeding etc. And if they can be hurt, then there is the chance they can get killed.
Firefighters are not heroic, because they have the training and equipment to go into burning buildings to save people with little risk of personally dying in the process. And that's why firefighters going into burning buildings to save people is such a let down and totally uninteresting.
In the sense of overcoming danger! YES!Honestly are you going to call #2 more heroic than #1 because there was more danger involved?
Screw this... People are repeating what I said three and four pages back (in addition to themselves). At this point, I'm just going to say it: Elennsar, your definition of "hero" sucks. You are a death scene junkie, and I am not interested in playing your idea of an RPG.
I am interested in simulating that if Aragorn is supposed to find ten orcs to be potentially able to kill him, that ten orcs can kill him. If Aragorn isn't supposed to find ten orcs deadly, then that should be apparent to the character - not purely metagame we can't stand to have our precious PCs killed under any circumstances.Yeah, Elennsar isn't interested in simulating cinematic or literary heroes at all. He basically wants a complete simulation of reality, where people who do dangerous things eventually die.
Wrong. I want characters who are supposed to be doing something where they can die to be capable of dying.Because he doesn't want John McClanes or Luke Skywalkers. He wants people to play Star Trek red shirts or a miscellaneous background soldier in Saving Private Ryan that isn't even mentioned in the script.
Maj, you don't get the genius of Elennsar.Maj wrote:Screw this... People are repeating what I said three and four pages back (in addition to themselves). At this point, I'm just going to say it: Elennsar, your definition of "hero" sucks. You are a death scene junkie, and I am not interested in playing your idea of an RPG.
What you don't understand is that deadly mechanics doesn't support heroism. It supports tactical cowardice.Elennsar wrote: And if the mechanics support this, then yes, they are heroic. If the PCs can be careless and clumsy - then no.
To some degree. Yes. You want the rules to discourage actions you don't want PCs to take. So if you don't want PCs leaping off tall buildings, you want to make long drops deadly. When you make something deadly, you discourage PCs from doing it.Which needs to be represented by the rules. The rules need to represent the reality of the characters - if I'm supposed to find falling off a cliff to be potentially deadly, it needs to be capable (however unlikely) of killing my character, or my character will discover it isn't as deadly as he thought it was.
You're trying to play both sides again.In the sense of overcoming danger! YES!
In the sense of being willing to risk his life (the noble aspect)? NO.
The problem is that Aragorn can't be killed by ten orcs. The character you're trying to simulate is effectively unkillable, for the very same reason we got into with McClane and Die Hard.I am interested in simulating that if Aragorn is supposed to find ten orcs to be potentially able to kill him, that ten orcs can kill him. If Aragorn isn't supposed to find ten orcs deadly, then that should be apparent to the character - not purely metagame we can't stand to have our precious PCs killed under any circumstances.
That's the role of the combat extra cast. All the soldiers in the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan are not actually in the script. So whether one guy makes it to cover or not is actually uncertain. No rule says that he has to or not, and whether he dies or not, the story remains pretty much the same, because the character really doesn't matter to the story. You could cut the scene where the random soldier dives for cover and makes it or dies trying and probably nobody would notice. In fact, about the only time these guys register on the radar for the movie is if their death is memorable. Like we all remember that guy who bounced off the propeller in Titanic. But that guy isn't remotely needed to tell the story.Wrong. I want characters who are supposed to be doing something where they can die to be capable of dying.
If you don't want that, then you don't want cinematic heroes.That removes doing something where my character has something to honestly fear and turns into something where the difference between Invulnerable Demigod and Mortal Hero is fluff text.
Because RPGs are a different medium that doesn't use scripts, and in fact let players make decisions for their favorite heroes to tell the story. However the goal of an RPG is still to tell a story similar to fantasy novels and movies, not to generate a list of red shirt PCs who all die in a big pile.Something funny. I don't see anyone volunteeering for strictly scripted/railroaded campaigns in order to better represent literary/cinematic heroes. I'm sure there's a good reason for wanting to have the heroes kept alive by the plot without having their actions influenced or directed or compeled by it, but its still funny.
Because you don't want to actually be a hero - you want to look like a hero while actually being perfectly safe.Kicking down the door and being a tough guy is out. Nope, you're going to use your decanters of endless water to just flood the dungeon (or use something to collapse it), or you're going to spend most of your time trying to talk others into fighting for you.
And of course, the only reason for Luke to do it is because its perfectly safe and - wait, what? Why does Luke fight Vader again? As I recall, it wasn't because in terms of getting rid of him, blowing him up on the Death Star was a bad idea.To some degree. Yes. You want the rules to discourage actions you don't want PCs to take. So if you don't want PCs leaping off tall buildings, you want to make long drops deadly. When you make something deadly, you discourage PCs from doing it.
However, in a heroic fantasy game, you want PCs to engage in combats. You want there to be a big face off between the bad guys and the good guys. Return of the Jedi ends with a light saber duel, not with Luke saying "Hell no, I'm not confronting Vader, lets just blow him up while he's on the death star."
The guy who believes he can be hurt -who is actually in danger of being hurt- is more heroic than either of them.You're trying to play both sides again.
Well what's more important to heroism? Overcoming danger or willingness to risk your life?
Is the guy under the delusion that he's invulnerable who runs into danger more heroic than the guy who believes he can be hurt but is actually invulnerable?
Then McClane feeling he's in danger is purely delusional and is not actually defying death in any way shape or form - no kudos for being brave for him (besides the inner demons thing).McClane feels like he's in danger because you can hear the gunshots, you can see other people getting killed, and McClane himself seems afraid of death. In D&D you don't have all those visual cues and a character's fears are as good as the players put into them. But it doesn't make them different. Plenty of people are capable of suspending disbelief for RPGs.
Borrrrringgggggggg.That's the role of the combat extra cast.
No, I'm looking to simulate that if Aragorn is supposed to find ten orcs threatening, that ten orcs ARE threatening.If you don't want that, then you don't want cinematic heroes.
You're looking to simulate reality, not film or novels.
What you proved is that McClane survived - not that we couldn't tell the exact same story with an actual possibility of death that McClane happened to overcome instead of never had to face to begin with.You don't want to accept that, but I logically proved it. The story could not be Die Hard without McClane surviving. Cinematic heroes aren't at risk.
Obviously, it is impossible to play something where there's a real risk of death and yet the characters overcome that and don't die.Because RPGs are a different medium that doesn't use scripts, and in fact let players make decisions for their favorite heroes to tell the story. However the goal of an RPG is still to tell a story similar to fantasy novels and movies, not to generate a list of red shirt PCs who all die in a big pile.
