Healing surges and other such fail.

[Elennsar]

I'm saying that the game is currently not designed to encourage this specific brand of heroism, and I think that's a shame. It's the 5-minute adventuring day writ large. PCs stop to rest - or retreat - because their level-appropriate powers are diminshed, and it often kills the drama.

What makes this really terrible is that it is not merely a mechanical thing, but one isn't encouraged to look upon it as "the more arduous the struggle, the more glorious the triumph".

One is actively discouraged from that, because the increased rewards (such as they are) from a harder fight are rarely worth the risk, and a deeper accomplishment isn't even assumed to be relevant.

[Kaelik]

In my opinion, "heroes" don't say "screw the quest" and retreat when they get a little banged up; they press on and fight.

Except, nobody is talking about that. We are talking about the fact that if you have none of your highest level of spells left, or are at half health, or whatever, that you are not "a little banged up" you are definitely going to die next fight, greater then 50% chance. And so, if you actually want to save the damn princess, it's time to rest, and hope in 2 hours, she's still okay, because you seriously aren't more heroic or better off if you charge in there and die like a damn fool.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that you don't have the chance in two hours, and Lago and all are saying "well, then fuck that! Fuck having unfavorable odds to overcome!"

The times you have a chance to rest are one thing. The times that you are forced to choose between possibly (or even probably) dying and having a chance at saving the princess/blowing up the bridge/jamming the gates vs. surviving and not being able to do any of those things.

Heroes say "Okay. Let me catch my breath."

Not "Oh well, she's doomed, no use us going to any trouble."

[Kaelik]

The problem is that you don't have the chance in two hours, and Lago and all are saying "well, then fuck that! Fuck having unfavorable odds to overcome!"

The times you have a chance to rest are one thing. The times that you are forced to choose between possibly (or even probably) dying and having a chance at saving the princess/blowing up the bridge/jamming the gates vs. surviving and not being able to do any of those things.

Heroes say "Okay. Let me catch my breath."

Not "Oh well, she's doomed, no use us going to any trouble."

No, heroes don't go in when they have a 70% chance of dieing. Heroes might say let me catch my breath, they do not say (and this is the actual choice, stop pretending that they just have a minor boo boo) "just hand me a crutch, because I can't do anything on this broken leg, and I'm still going to try to fight a guy who has a pretty good shot of killing me when I can walk and run. Oh no, hand it to my left arm, my right arm is broken too."

Because then they aren't heroes, because they die, every damn time, they don't accomplish any goal, and everyone says, "Man what a fucking retard, I hope the next group of passers by who decide to help free us from our plight are smart enough to not end up on the gallows because they realize they can't fight a world shattering badass without being in good condition."

[Elennsar]

No, heroes don't go in when they have a 70% chance of dieing. Heroes might say let me catch my breath, they do not say (and this is the actual choice, stop pretending that they just have a minor boo boo) "just hand me a crutch, because I can't do anything on this broken leg, and I'm still going to try to fight a guy who has a pretty good shot of killing me when I can walk and run. Oh no, hand it to my left arm, my right arm is broken too."

And thusly instead of actually facing the challenge and actually dealing with the fact that either they go in or they fail to save the day, 100%, whether they live or die, and being heroes or martyrs who did everything they could even if it would cost them their lives, they choose "be prudent" and don't bother. And so the princess is sacrificed. And it was possible you could have done something about that, though you might have been killed in the attempt. Maybe that would have cost you victory, maybe not.

And the problem is that whether we speak of 70%, 90%, or 20%, you can always say "Oh no, too high." for anything in which the odds are worse than "almost certainly not" if its merely "Hey I don't want to die here."

Because then they aren't heroes, because they die, every damn time, they don't accomplish any goal, and everyone says, "Man what a fucking retard, I hope the next group of passers by who decide to help free us from our plight are smart enough to not end up on the gallows because they realize they can't fight a world shattering badass without being in good condition."

That's not "being smart enough". That's saying "Sure, we'll let you suffer because we don't want to risk dying in something that might still make a difference." and being at worst a coward or an asshole who doesn't give a shit for sacrificing for others and at best a mercenary.

If the choice is "Save the Princess but be mortally wounded in the attempt." and "Screw the Princess, we're at 40% health.", a hero will not take B seriously.

If you refuse to fight except when the odds are in your favor, you may be a lot of things, some of which are even benevolent and praiseworthy, but heroic is not one of them.

Or brave.

So a question. Assuming the goal is NOT to be heroes (which may or may not come up under some unusual circumstances but the idea of being a Hero isn't part of "Playing a character in this game" to any great degree), how much (simply as a challenge thing) should one have to worry about being worn down from previous encounters?

I can think of four basic things.

#1: Not at all. One is at full except for specific exceptions if that.

#2: Never severely unless you got something truly nasty in the past fight. Otherwise, pretty much as #1.

#3: If something truly nasty comes up or you are hit in a weak spot or the like.

#4: Regularly, one should be stopping to rest after most encounters.

[Kaelik]

And thusly instead of actually facing the challenge and actually dealing with the fact that either they go in or they fail to save the day, 100%, whether they live or die, and being heroes or martyrs who did everything they could even if it would cost them their lives, they choose "be prudent" and don't bother. And so the princess is sacrificed. And it was possible you could have done something about that, though you might have been killed in the attempt. Maybe that would have cost you victory, maybe not.

No, they come back the next day and get a partial success for killing the bastard and freeing the people, instead of a zero success for dieing and having the princess killed anyway.

That's not "being smart enough". That's saying "Sure, we'll let you suffer because we don't want to risk dying in something that might still make a difference." and being at worst a coward or an asshole who doesn't give a shit for sacrificing for others and at best a mercenary.

Or dumb fuck, you can realize that taking a 2 day break isn't going to result in the oppressed masses all dieing. They just feel really bad for 2 fucking days, instead of 2 months waiting for the next band of adventurers who are smart enough to know that starting a fight when you already have two arrows in each lung is a bad fucking idea.

If the choice is "Save the Princess but be mortally wounded in the attempt." and "Screw the Princess, we're at 40% health.", a hero will not take B seriously.

See, again. You are fundamentally incapable of understanding what people actually say.

The actual choice is: Die, and not save the princess. Or come back tomorrow, kill the guy, and cast Raise Dead on the princess. (Or not.)

There is no way that choosing option one makes you more heroic. It makes you more dead.

[Elennsar]

No, they come back the next day and get a partial success for killing the bastard and freeing the people, instead of a zero success for dieing and having the princess killed anyway.

A partial success if they actually get the balls to take a risk this time, instead of avoiding it.

Or dumb fuck, you can realize that taking a 2 day break isn't going to result in the oppressed masses all dieing. They just feel really bad for 2 fucking days, instead of 2 months waiting for the next band of adventurers who are smart enough to know that starting a fight when you already have two arrows in each lung is a bad fucking idea.

Who are cowardly enough to refuse to give their lives under any circumstances for anyone, whether it would make a difference or not.

See, again. You are fundamentally incapable of understanding what people actually say.

The actual choice is: Die, and not save the princess. Or come back tomorrow, kill the guy, and cast Raise Dead on the princess. (Or not.)

There is no way that choosing option one makes you more heroic. It makes you more dead.

Die (and actually be a goddamn hero who actually gives a fucking shit about something than his own survival), chicken out and come back when you can claim the odds are better (even though what you were trying to prevent from happening already happened) and be too late, or have a scenario where "too late" isn't a problem so there's no obligation to act now more than later.

If there is such an obligation, then the heroic thing to do is to have the balls to deal with the fact that risking dying is part of what makes heroes heroic.

I'm perfectly capable of understanding what people say, I'm also pointing out that you assume that taking the coward's way out will work just fine, even though the point is that sometimes it doesn't and that heroes are willing to die to get the mission accomplished.

If its a choice between "Death" and "failure to save the princess", no self respecting hero chooses B.

If "Death and failure vs. postponing until rescue would work (which won't cause any irrepairable consequences", that's a different case then "If we don't save her in three hours the Great Evil One will eat her soul." to begin with.

Since you're more interested in being insulting than a serious discussion, the fact that such is the scenario being refered to as where heroes go in anyway is apparently not relevant to you.

[Username17]

The reward matrix is set based on the objective strength of the opposition, not the subjective strength. If you are at half strength and fight the toughest thing you can beat you will literally get half as much reward as if you had popped out, rested to full, and then fought the toughest thing you could fight.

Hell, even if resting up causes the bad guys to reinforce such that your chances of beating them while full up are no better than your chances of doing it now while depleted - you should still wait. Because defeating a stronger enemy gives you greater rewards.

If the reward matrix was based on how dangerous a task was for you, then risk taking would be encouraged. But it's not. The reward curve maximizes not at the point of maximum acceptable risk, but at the point of greatest enemy power at no appreciable risk. Which means that the game's reward matrix always encourages people to not press ahead when damaged or depleted in any way.

That's just a fact. Getting butt hurt about how that doesn't "feel" heroic does not change those facts in any way. If you want people to do things that feel heroic, damn well set the reward matrix to encourage behavior that feels heroic to you.

You could set the rewards based on quest completion, so doing things "now" would be rewarded because people would accomplish more quests per gaming evening. You could set rewards based on relative difficulty, so pressing on would give you a relative benefit that would be conditionally attractive. You could set rewards based on initial difficulty levels, thereby discouraging players from taking actions that would allow reinforcements.

There are lots of things you can do. But just bitching about how what the players are doing isn't "cool" doesn't change the inputs at all.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

I'd rather have people actually accept that playing a hero risks getting their character killed, instead of looking for the way they can get all the perks of being a big damn hero without ever putting their character's life at significant risk (with or without significant pay off).

In D&D, that kind of behavior is neither encouraged mechanically or thematically.

And that sucks. If people like Kaelik and Lago don't want to risk having to tear up their character sheets because being big damn heroes isn't something they really want to play, both the good points and the dangers, that's fine.

But saying "So we need to give them rewards for doing so." is not altering the fact they don't want to do an act puts their character at risk or a disadvantage.

Since its pretty clear D&D isn't about doing big damn heroes because that would require a functional definition of how Good people are actually doing good, the next question is whether or not taking risks is given a proper reward (whatever that is) for what it is doing.

No point encouraging taking risks in a game about playing it safe and hedging all your bets because the kind ofcharacters represented aren't especially brave and foolhardy. That would be counter intuititive at best.

[Username17]

I'd rather have people actually accept that playing a hero risks getting their character killed, instead of looking for the way they can get all the perks of being a big damn hero without ever putting their character's life at significant risk (with or without significant pay off).

So you'd rather that people played their characters irrationally, irrespective of whether they get their characters or the characters of the other players killed?

-Username17

[Kaelik]

A partial success if they actually get the balls to take a risk this time, instead of avoiding it.

What part of "rest up and fight at full str, when the risk is 50% death instead of 100%" is too fucking advanced for you. I mean besides your contractual obligation to never ever understand anything that anyone says.

Who are cowardly enough to refuse to give their lives under any circumstances for anyone, whether it would make a difference or not.

Or you can actually pay attention, and realize that they are choosing to only risk death when it actually could mean something, instead of dieing like a damn fool.

Let's try it this way Elennsar, you are a big damn hero (or so you think) and you are going to rescue the princess.

You have 10 VP, each time you fight, you lose either one VP, or 2 VP, flip a coin. When you reach 0 VP, you die and fail. Each time you rest, you go back to 10 VP, but lose one point of your 4 point reward. There are 10 unavoidable fights before the final fight.

The final fight is different from all others. Roll a 1d6, you lose two times the rolled number in VPs. If you go below 0, you get 0 reward. (IE the fucking princess still dies), if you go down to 0, you die, but the princess lives, giving you the full RP minus rest RP (because she convinces someone to raise you).

Now, play that game 10 times. Let me know how many times pushing on with a 10% chance of success came up with better results then resting. How many times did it come up with a better result then resting in between each fight?

Dieing means you are dead, and you don't accomplish anything. That is bad. This is apparently fucking rocket science that is way to advanced for Elennsar to understand.

[Elennsar]

I'd rather have people play characters who were willing to die to be heroic instead instead of either eliminating risk or increasing rewards to legendary level.

What part of "rest up and fight at full str, when the risk is 50% death instead of 100%" is too fucking advanced for you. I mean besides your contractual obligation to never ever understand anything that anyone says.

What part of "if they're actually willing to take the risk that a fight that can kill them offers" are you assuming will always go away there?

Or you can actually pay attention, and realize that they are choosing to only risk death when it actually could mean something, instead of dieing like a damn fool.

Which, curiously, means any time that risking death is actually at all likely, whatever the consequences of "not acting" are. That's not heroic. That's not brave. That's "he who fights and runs away will look to avoid fighting another day".

Now, play that game 10 times. Let me know how many times pushing on with a 10% chance of success came up with better results then resting. How many times did it come up with a better result then resting in between each fight?

Dieing means you are dead, and you don't accomplish anything. That is bad. This is apparently fucking rocket science that is way to advanced for Elennsar to understand.

No, this is "You may not HAVE ten chances, or the time to do it when you're perfectly prepared, and you if you're actually a hero should go in anyway and do your best, instead of saying 'oh well, no skin off my nose if she dies."

If it was always possible to be at full health and it wouldn't hurt anything to wait to be at full health, there would be very little reason to not wait.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of times when that's not an option and even more times when it doesn't appear like an option, and the times when your death may make the difference because you held the pass long enough or whatever.

And that is the situation that a hero will say "Okay. I'll do it." and not "FUCK THIS! I never signed up to fucking die for anything!"

One of the reasons the world (ours or the one of the characters) needs heroes is that there are times when the rational, prudent, calculated, whatever is not viable or not possible.

Sometimes, things are beyond your ability to make "safe" (short of avoiding the situation to begin with, which is also not always an option), and the best outcome is "successful even though it killed you"

A game that never puts the PCs in a situation where they have to pick between risking their necks and worrying that they're letting bad things happen they could interfer with if they did has no claim to being heroic fantasy, or heroic anything else, however awesome and playable and fun it may be in every other way for everything else.

[Kaelik]

No, this is "You may not HAVE ten chances, or the time to do it when you're perfectly prepared, and you if you're actually a hero should go in anyway and do your best, instead of saying 'oh well, no skin off my nose if she dies."

Then play the game fucking once. You still get a fucking score of zero if you think that fighting when you have a 90% chance of dieing is an option.

Elennsar, please go be a big damn hero in real life. Why are you not on a plane to Gaza right now? Please go do that instead of constantly ignoring what people actually are saying to explain for the four millionth time in the four million thread that you really want good heroic bullshit to be the only thing anyone ever does in any RPG ever, but you also don't want any RPG ever to actually incentivize that behavior, because if the characters aren't doing stupid shit that doesn't make sense in game for no reason and with no possibility of gain, then it's a bad game.

I can only assume that Lago's lack of posting shows that he's learned your nature, so I'm going to go back to exercising self control so that every thread in the gaming den can consist of you and Talisman slapping each other on the back and agreeing how much you like good guys and hate bad guys until someone shows up who doesn't realize what a waste of time it is to try to talk with you, or someone lets go and tries to drive something through that mile and a half thick skull of yours.

[Username17]

I'd rather have people play characters who were willing to die to be heroic instead instead of either eliminating risk or increasing rewards to legendary level.

Tough shit. Seriously.

Players are going to act rationally. You can increase the penalties for waiting, and you can increase the rewards for pressing on, and that's it. Perceived costs vs. perceived benefits is how decisions are made. And players will make rational decisions based on their perceptions of costs and benefits.

You can make character generation faster, for example. That reduces th perceived cost of character death and makes players more willing to take risks. You can put some sort of horrible time limit on things, which increases the costs of regrouping. But no matter what you do, you're just changing the perceived costs and benefits. People will always react to the costs and benefits in a rational fashion based on their perceptions of the costs and benefits.

What you want is for people to consider taking risks as a benefit. You want people to do things because they are risky. With no other benefits that are perceivable. That's... retarded. In almost every case, players who actually do that are considered disruptive. You're seriously talking about players who drop fireballs into melee here.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

Please go do that instead of constantly ignoring what people actually are saying to explain for the four millionth time in the four million thread that you really want good heroic bullshit to be the only thing anyone ever does in any RPG ever, but you also don't want any RPG ever to actually incentivize that behavior, because if the characters aren't doing stupid shit that doesn't make sense in game for no reason and with no possibility of gain, then it's a bad game.

No, good heroic stuff is what I want in a rpg, instead of say, cyberpunk and laser weapons. Its a preference, not a demand.

And I don't want the game to reward characters for doing something that is done because heroes believe doing the thing in question is more important than reward or their self interest.

...so I'm going to go back to exercising self control so that every thread in the gaming den can consist of you and Talisman slapping each other on the back and agreeing how much you like good guys and hate bad guys until someone shows up who doesn't realize what a waste of time it is to try to talk with you, or someone lets go and tries to drive something through that mile and a half thick skull of yours.

If you want to play a mercenary, then go play a mercenary. It doesn't ruin the hobby for either of us.

Since being a jackass is your goal rather than an actual discussion on this, I somehow doubt you're going to exercise anything like self control in regards to posting in response at all any more than you've shown in avoiding exageration to the point of deliberate dishonesty.

Players are going to act rationally. You can increase the penalties for waiting, and you can increase the rewards for pressing on, and that's it. Perceived costs vs. perceived benefits is how decisions are made. And players will make rational decisions based on their perceptions of costs and benefits.

And if playing characters who would say "Is this going to benefit us? Do we think we'll live through this?", that's fine. The fact I'd rather not play with those kind of people doesn't mean I want them to disappear from the hobby.

People will always react to the costs and benefits in a rational fashion based on their perceptions of the costs and benefits.

Cost: Risk to character. Benefit: Character is a hero, which at least some people enjoy playing.

What you want is for people to consider taking risks as a benefit. You want people to do things because they are risky. With no other benefits that are perceivable. That's... retarded. In almost every case, players who actually do that are considered disruptive. You're seriously talking about players who drop fireballs into melee here.

No, what I want is people to do things because it is the kind of thing the character would do.

If its a hero, heroes do heroic stuff even if it hurts them. If its a mercenary, there's no particular reason to pressure them to attack now, later, or at all.

So. Ye Standard D&D Character won't save the princess if they have to risk dying to save her, so Ye Standard D&D Character isn't a hero.

Doesn't hurt the game other than in terms of any claims it has to being "about heroes who are selfless and self sacrificing".

Exagerating my sense that people should deal with the fact risky things come up in adventuring to thinking people should be "OH BOY! WE COULD GET KILLED HERE! AWESOME!" is just absurd.

[Fuchs]

If you want people to press on, then it has to be mechanically better to press on than to rest. So, the game mechanics have to make it a better choice. That could be done by increasing the reward (aka XP and treasure) for risky actions, could be done by rewarding risky actions with advantages in play (action points, modifiers, etc.) or by penalising resting.

Personally, I think the key is to split character and player knowledge. If one grants mechanical advantages for pressing on that change the risk from 99,9% chance of failure to something more rational, but makes sure that those advantages are not known to the characters one can still have heroic characters who brave almost certain death (as they know it) to save an innocent, even though their death is actually, mechanically, not at all certain.

But insisting that both player and character take actions that result almost certainly in death makes neither player nor character a hero, just a fool.

[Elennsar]

No more so than people who do heroic things in our world are "just fools".

I am fine with rewarding people who play their characters faithfully (whatever kind those are), but I am not fine with "Be a hero. Have the points to make 'against the odds' a joke so that you don't actually risk a damn thing."

The possibility for a temporary ignore-the-penalties-long-enough-to-make-one-desperate action (or the like) is one thing, but heroes being stronger with a broken arm than without it is giving my suspension of disbelief rope burn.

If the choice is "risk your life to destroy the bridge or let the enemy do all sorts of horrible things with the bridge under their control", a hero will have the balls to risk their life.

I don't want to encourage risky behavior. I want to have people who are playing actual goddamn heroes actually being playing characters actually taking risks.

People do stupid and irrational things for far worse reasons than it being the right thing to do, morally.

Insisting that your character will always be 100% practical is inhuman.

Here's an example. There is no benefit mechanically to refusing to reload after a defeat in say, Rome: Total War. However, it is a more interesting and true-to-the-situation-represented challenge, which are more appealing than "more likely to win" to me.

In a rpg, I can easily have the same mindset and adding Mojo for having brass big ones IC doesn't help.

The only penalty needed for resting is that there are times that's not an option if I want to do it (it being say, saving the princess). Sometimes I can rest and should rest because I don't need to go in right away - it won't make a difference whether I wait or not - but I'd rather not have the game set up so that the Big Boss waits until I approach to start his Spell of Doom so that I always can arrive fully prepared.

Suspension of disbelief issues again.

Again, assuming we are doing normal profit-motivated types:

How much (simply as a challenge thing) should one have to worry about being worn down from previous encounters?

I can think of four basic things.

#1: Not at all. One is at full except for specific exceptions if that.

#2: Never severely unless you got something truly nasty in the past fight. Otherwise, pretty much as #1.

#3: If something truly nasty comes up or you are hit in a weak spot or the like.

#4: Regularly, one should be stopping to rest after most encounters.

No one that I can see is arguing against characters taking rests when that's a legitimate option and pressing on doesn't meet the objectives better. So how often should rests be necessary/desirable simply in terms of "how long can you go on a tank of Limited Resources"?

That's the relevant question to this thread.

Do we want "go all day, every day"? Do we want the possibility for really nasty things to screw with that, but for it otherwise not be too big a deal?

What?

Note: Specific exceptions means that while you may never have to worry about being down hit points, you might still have to keep an eye on ammo, for instance. Otherwise you have no depletable resources to worry about.

[Draco_Argentum]

So let me get this straight...Elennsar's a horrible person because he has differing game ideas? I mean, I know he thew a shitstorm about the whole health care thing, but that's a little harsh.

I was wondering who the arsehole who disagreed with the idea that health care is a right was, fbmf removed the posts before I read them.

---

Frank has already added everything that I'd add to my post. This is really basic stuff. If the game mechanics make acting heroic result in failure and character death then they are poor mechanics for a heroic fantasy rpg. Being heroic will just result in constant new characters until the group either stops playing heroically or gets a new game.

Note that the heroes in the source material are not heroes by Elennsar's definition. They are definitely going to succeed so they are not fighting against odds. This is Lago's entire point and he is right. In a novel the outcome is determined by the author. In an rpg its the mechanics plus player choice. If the mechanics don't make success overwhelmingly likely then the heroes don't succeed. Simple as that.

[Elennsar]

Which means that either

a) you get big damn invulnerable butchers like Achilles, who take no risks worth mentioning and who are unstoppable...and kind of boring.

b) you accept that the characters may actually be at risk and may actually get hurt despite their best efforts and deal with that as one of those things that may or may not go your way.

The heroes are only "definately going to succeed" if the author ensures they do. There is the chance that the heroes will fail. Not the certainty that the mechanics are written to make it so heroes never are actually battling "overwhelming odds" or even something that really appears to be overwhelming, because we always know that nothing more than a 50-50 chance is thrown at the characters.

As for health care, that was PR, but that's another damn topic.

So either you deal with game mechanics not favoring your every move and act as your character would act (and there are people who think more danger = better irrationally, some are even skilled enough to get away with it for a while, and this in our world) or you decide your character only acts as would be logical and prudent and never dare and never go out with a bang like oh, Leonidas.

[Username17]

Taking great risks for great rewards is rational. Taking a 10% chance of winning 20 times is a winning proposition. People will do it rationally. Taking a 10% chance on a double or nothing is bad odds. Only those who are bad at risk assessment or irrational will do that.

You can have a game set up where the stakes are high enough that taking long odds is worth it. You just have to accept that long odds usually don't pan out.

If you're a suicide bomber, taking a 100% chance that you'll lose to have a chance of taking out a couple dozen enemies may be worth it. If you're a ambulance medic, taking any meaningful chance of going down isn't worth saving a life. You need to save lives all day, and taking risks jeopardizes your ability to do that.

The D&D assumption is that you will face ~260 enemies sequentially. This means that you are more akin to the ambulance medic than the suicide bomber. There will be more battles, so losing now has an implied cost that is very high. While just letting one battle slip through your fingers while you fuck off and rest up does not.

-Username17

[norms29]

Elenssar, do you get the distinction between the players and the player characters that everyone else is making? because several people have mentioned mechanisms by which we can give incentive to the PLAYERS to take risky actions without the CHARACTERS haveing any apparent mecenary motivation and you keep railing against the idea of rewarding the characters because that makes things "less heroic"


For that matter, do you understand that when "heros" in other works of fiction are doing things "against the odds" they mean what the odds would be in realworld? because in the fictional narritive they are actually garuanteed victory.

do you get why if a game is mean't to emulate a genre, the rules have to support the conventions of the genre, and make acting in a genre approriate manner a neutral if not benifical choice?

because if you want a game were people regularly ironman their way through six encounters without rest, then the game SHOULDN'T PENALISE DOING THAT!!!!!

and another thing; while there is clearly a genuine disagreement here, it's not being debated at all. because you keep clinging to this redicules strawman of " rested characters have 100% chance of success VS. unrested have 80%" while everyon else is starting from the position that adventurers are risking death ALL THE TIME and a sufficiently worndown character has a 0%chance of success.

No, this is "You may not HAVE ten chances,

playing Kaelik's game 10 times over wasn't 10 chances to save the princess, it was 10 different princesses which you are trying to save at different points in your adventuring career. although given the playstyle you've been advocating it might be more accurate to say 1 princess receiving 10 failed rescue attempts from 10 differant characters.

[Elennsar]

Which means that characters ever really risking losing (whether that means "having to retreat against what would otherwise be your wishes" or "dying") is not supported by the game's attitude on your adventuring career.

Unfortunately, that does not work for characters who live dangerously for one reason or another.

I don't want "this is perfectly rational" to be The determinating factor in character decisions, because people aren't perfectly rational. People misjudge situations, assume that something being "a bad thing" such as oh, "shameful" is relevant to a greater degree than is strictly logical, and so on.

Since no given battle in D&D really matters (in terms of levelling up), you face no consequences for avoiding an unfavorable risk vs. reward scenario, because you have no reason to care about any other scenariot han a favorable one.

Bad representation of any genre where characters are meant to dare, because daring is not merely "unfavorable", it isn't even useful.

0% chance of heroic death making a difference, 100% chance of it being very dead, and 0% chance of consequences you mind by avoiding any given situation you wish to avoid (and are able to).

The "raid dungeons, loot corpses, and kil people who try and stop you" game works fine with that. The "battle bandits, oppose tyrants, and spit defiance at the Prince of Darkness" game is not playable without there being a reason that "running away and playing it safe" is a form of defeat, even if it is more practical for you, personally.

So, now that we know D&D really can't represent heroism as written and intended, what do we do about the thing it does claim to represent and the amount of time spent taking breaks to make that acceptable?

you keep railing against the idea of rewarding the characters because that makes things "less heroic"

Because it DOES. It says "If you do something 'selfless', you get rewarded. You are stronger for avoiding seeking power." Which is fucking bullshit.

because if you want a game were people regularly ironman their way through six encounters without rest, then the game SHOULDN'T PENALISE DOING THAT!!!!!

People ironman their way through things like that in our world for reasons as stupid as being too proud to believe the odds are really that bad.

For that matter, do you understand that when "heros" in other works of fiction are doing things "against the odds" they mean what the odds would be in realworld? because in the fictional narritive they are actually garuanteed victory.

do you get why if a game is mean't to emulate a genre, the rules have to support the conventions of the genre, and make acting in a genre approriate manner a neutral if not benifical choice?

Only if the author refuses to have the situation actually risk hurting the characters. Sure, the author decides if it actually does, but if he never actually hurts them and they never get anything worse than a 'close' call, then it isn't against the odds in any sense that phrase makes any sense.

And acting in genre should not be "you are safer being a daredevil than if you are prudent", because that is contradictory to the point of insane. Daredevils are daredevils because they -want- to (or are -willing-) to go for longshots.

because you keep clinging to this redicules strawman of " rested characters have 100% chance of success VS. unrested have 80%" while everyon else is starting from the position that adventurers are risking death ALL THE TIME and a sufficiently worndown character has a 0%chance of success.

0% chance of survival =/= 0% chance of success. And the "chance of death" that characters have at 100% health is minimal unless you design the system a lot more harshly than I see anyone who is screaming about how they don't want their characters to be worn down or weakened promoting.

50-50 as "the harshest the system gets" is not very harsh at all. As "long" odds go, that's pretty good.

I don't want to punish people for being true to a given genre, but nor do I want characters to be stronger with a broken arm then without it.

Heroes win despite the obstacles, and overcome injuries, but "Pain only makes me angry." leads to the boring story of the Invulnerable Killing Machine Who No Villain Could Threaten.

And regardless of heroism, it is definately boring to have a chance of defeat that is too low. There's no thrill or satisfaction in a win that you're certain to achieve.

[norms29]

you keep railing against the idea of rewarding the characters because that makes things "less heroic"

Because it DOES.

Fine, it does, it's still a fucking strawman, which you would know I was saying If you had read the sentence before that.
Are you, or are you not, on the same page when I say that rewarding the player =/= rewarding the character.

because if you want a game were people regularly ironman their way through six encounters without rest, then the game SHOULDN'T PENALISE DOING THAT!!!!!

People ironman their way through things like that in our world for reasons as stupid as being too proud to believe the odds are really that bad.

and why is the PLAYER going to make that decisian, with the benifit of all his player knowledge?

I may be the only one raising this point, although I doubt it ( made Frank a very similar point earlier) but I'm NOT asking you why the character is risking his life. I'm asking you why the Player is risking his character. which represents hours of tedious paperwork (maybe one hour depending on the system) in character creation, and Days, weeks or even months of game time to make the character more then that paperwork.

because honestly, there's a catch-22 in that, the only way the player is going do things genuinly irrational (as opposed to seeming irrational to the characters) is if he's emotionally invested in whatever's at stake. but if the player is that invested, then he has more invested in the character and has less reason to accept letting him die.

For that matter, do you understand that when "heros" in other works of fiction are doing things "against the odds" they mean what the odds would be in realworld? because in the fictional narritive they are actually garuanteed victory.

do you get why if a game is mean't to emulate a genre, the rules have to support the conventions of the genre, and make acting in a genre approriate manner a neutral if not benifical choice?

Only if the author refuses to have the situation actually risk hurting the characters. Sure, the author decides if it actually does, but if he never actually hurts them and they never get anything worse than a 'close' call, then it isn't against the odds in any sense that phrase makes any sense.

now this is an interesting point, but I'm not familiar with any work of fiction that ends with the hero taking THE BIG RISK and failing. one-in-a-million chances in the realworld actually are 1/1000000 , one-in-a-million chances in single author fiction have an actual probability of 1. The gameworld is a fictional one, but the game mechanics are resolved in the realworld.

[RandomCasualty2]

If you want people to press on, then it has to be mechanically better to press on than to rest. So, the game mechanics have to make it a better choice. That could be done by increasing the reward (aka XP and treasure) for risky actions, could be done by rewarding risky actions with advantages in play (action points, modifiers, etc.) or by penalising resting.

Yeah, really if you take away resting as a way to reset all your spells, then the problem is fixed.

[virgil]

I don't see how repeating the same thing, over and over, is actually contributive like you always think you are; especially when you're almost every other post on this thread for the last couple pages.

We get the point. You think perceived risk for characters should be actual risk, and they must be hero characters.

Now that we got that point, maybe you should get ours, that we consider you horribly wrong. Perceived character risk should not be actual risk, using many of the options given here to at least maintain the illusion.

Lago wants the stark realities of the gaming system in your face, and you want a Gygaxian pile of dead stupid people.