What is with the entitlement? (shadzar stay out)

[FatR]

And that isn't a story the player wants to tell.

If he wants to tell just one particular story he can go write a fanfic.

It isn't a story many people even want to HEAR.

Actually I'm pretty sure that stories of amusing and silly PCs deaths are popular forum entertainment.

Because that guy was supposed to amount to something.

If he was playing DnD from level 1... no he wasn't. He was nobody who tried to become somebody by risking his life and, unfortunately, failed. Instead of the hero, he ended up that buddy of the hero who gets killed at the beginning of the story to show that shit just got real. The story goes on, meanwhile.

People want to tell the story of the street rat pick pocket who survived being kicked in the guts by ignoble defeats and then went on to learn wizardry, then killed a dragon then married the princess then became wizard emperor.

Funny, I too want the story of my current character becoming a wizard emperor, and he's sort of have what it takes for such expectations to not be totally unreasonable (level 12 and semi-decent optimization). Except unlike your hypothetic "people" I'm mature enough to not whine in the likely case his story won't end like this due to some of the IC or OOC obstacles I can see. See my first recomendation above.

And THAT is the story you tell when you play "Tragic Tales" and no one cares for it because it's kinda disjoint and there is no character continuity.

Only if your characters suck ass, because in DnD 3.X you're statistically unlikely to permadie in a level 1-20 campaign if your characters do not. But then, suckage requiring coddling of the most insulting proportions seems to be an assumption by the no-death crowd.

[Swordslinger]

I gotta tell you, despite the fact that most of the DMs I've had actively try to not kill the PCs, that hasn't made me any less nervous about dying. In fact, I'm so nervous about it that when the DM starts getting all descriptive about the scary stuff that's happening, my response to break the tension is "X disaster kills everyone. Roll up a new character."

Suspense is in the telling. I know Jason Bourne doesn't die at the end of the The Bourne Identity because there are [at least] two more books written in the series... But that didn't change the action going down one whit.

If you aren't feeling challenged or threatened in your games, it's because the DM doesn't know how to use adjectives.

Well no. The suspense is wondering "How is Bourne going to get out of this one?" and you're waiting to see what brilliant plan or crazy action sequence he comes up with.

In an RPG, that doesn't really apply because you don't need a brilliant plan because any plan means you survive. So there's no feeling of suspense or anticipation, because whether you come up with some crazy machiavellian master scheme or you just go with a thoughtless charge into a hopeless battle, you'll live either way.

It also means you can't feel good about yourself for thinking a clever way out of a situation, because you don't really gain anything. In fact, in K's game, the guy who gets the biggest reward is the guy who dies on round 1 of a one-sided conflict without actually doing anything.

"Hey thanks for killing the orc warlord, here's 200 gold!"
"Got yourself killed by a lone orc bandit, here's 5000 gold for a raise dead!"

[PhoneLobster]

If he wants to tell just one particular story he can go write a fanfic... Actually I'm pretty sure that stories of amusing and silly PCs deaths are popular forum entertainment.

It's called Paranoia. It is an utterly different type of RPG. And it's biggest weakness is STILL that it lacks a coherent and consistent character narrative and it gives out a minimum six spare lives per character ANYWAY as an attempt to ameliorate it's own survival issues.

Oddly enough changing from moron number ones "Tragic Tale" to "nononono... itsa... Comic Tale!" is still an infantile and moronic argument.

Because, no, actually very few if any D&D players find the DM repeatedly killing the characters they spent hours making, playing and shaping very "funny" and you are a drooling imbecile to think pretending they DO find it funny will work as an argument for... whatever this incoherent idiocy you are arguing for might be.

If he was playing DnD from level 1... no he wasn't... Funny, I too want the story of my current character becoming a wizard emperor

Oh looky. A stark contradiction in your demands. Hm. Could it be you are suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance?

He was nobody who tried to become somebody by risking his life and, unfortunately, failed. Instead of the hero, he ended up that buddy of the hero who gets killed at the beginning of the story to show that shit just got real. The story goes on, meanwhile.

What hero? We never even HEARD of the "hero" until AFTER the "nobody" who we described in detail for hours and hours and hours died. And then, "the hero" wasn't someone we started to describe from scratch, he was someone who walks in with all his "early years" described off screen and who HAPPENS to be only incrementally more powerful than his buddy "nobody" who just died.

That is NOT the guy who dies for dramatic impact while his buddy the hero goes on. THAT requires an established buddy hero character already OR for the death to be VERY early and VERY rapid with VERY little time and effort invested by players. NOT hours on end making and then hours on end playing. No. The "dead buddy nobody" of the main hero is a fucking NPC you moron. And no. We do NOT spend hours on end making then hours on end playing the average NPC. And if we did, we would generally be pretty pissed to chuck him down the drain forever because of say, a random encounter with some single random unremarkable orc.

Funny, I too want the story of my current character becoming a wizard emperor, and he's sort of have what it takes for such expectations to not be totally unreasonable (level 12 and semi-decent optimization).

So you apparently feel that being HANDED a character that is in all functional respects a wizard Emperor already is in fact exactly the same as playing a game in which your former street rat character you have invested countless hours of in play back story and adventure into experiencing the adventure of BECOMING a wizard Emperor.

No. Sorry. Not the same thing moron.

Only if your characters suck ass, because in DnD 3.X you're statistically unlikely to permadie in a level 1-20 campaign if your characters do not. But then, suckage requiring coddling of the most insulting proportions seems to be an assumption by the no-death crowd.

Er. No. DnD 3.X is a very fatal system.

And just because a death isn't labeled "permadeath" doesn't mean it isn't for all functional purposes the equivalent to that. Even the availability of death reversal effects in 3.x as they stand are inadequate.

Remember the moronic narrative you people are wanking to repeatedly and explicitly here is the DM as an adversarial bastard TRYING to kill your characters. That is basically guaranteed and constant character death in 3.x D&D.

Have you just not ever DMed successfully before? Because that's what it sounds like.

[RadiantPhoenix]

In fact, in K's game, the guy who gets the biggest reward is the guy who dies on round 1 of a one-sided conflict without actually doing anything.

"Hey thanks for killing the orc warlord, here's 200 gold!"
"Got yourself killed by a lone orc bandit, here's 5000 gold for a raise dead!"

I was kinda agreeing with you on the earlier points, but I want to point something out here: your comparison is misleading.

Yes, the person who lost more was given more after the quest, but that person still ended up behind the other guy, despite starting from approximately the same point.

[A Man In Black]

It's called Paranoia. It is an utterly different type of RPG. And it's biggest weakness is STILL that it lacks a coherent and consistent character narrative and it gives out a minimum six spare lives per character ANYWAY as an attempt to ameliorate it's own survival issues.

For what it's worth, Paranoia is mostly a beer-and-pretzels game, and any narrative is entirely between the players, not the characters, with no greater attachment to the characters than to pawns in Sorry/Pachisi. This doesn't diminish your argument, though.

[TheFlatline]

The really odd thing is that the more I read this thread the more I really want to GM a Parinoia game. The GM wants to kill your character; the other players want to kill your charactrer; heck you probably want to kill your character. Bring out the next clone.

I loved Paranoia. It was great fun. Not a "serious" roleplaying game, although the latest edition does give you the option to play it straight as a highly dystopian nightmare setting, where suddenly your clones aren't "extra lives", they're a grisly reminder of how f*cked up this situation is.

I mean, the rules actually suggest that you have a dark room in every adventure so someone can kill someone else with more or less impunity. Demonstrating any knowledge of the game's rule system beyond a basic understanding is grounds for character execution.

The problem is the GM has to realize that saying "no" to everything isn't fun or funny. You only say "no" to the safe, logical, easily accomplished stuff and say "hell yes" to the crazy, stupid, or just plain dangerous ideas the players have.

So when Paranoia works, it's a blast. When it doesn't work, it's one of the most dreadfully dull and annoying games you can imagine.

[Swordslinger]

I was kinda agreeing with you on the earlier points, but I want to point something out here: your comparison is misleading.

Yes, the person who lost more was given more after the quest, but that person still ended up behind the other guy, despite starting from approximately the same point.

The point isn't from the players point of view, it's from a world verisimilitude point of view.

Yes, from the players point of view, the guy who survived ends up ahead, but from the point of view of everyone else in the world, the bigger benefit went to the guy who died.

And that's the problem I have with K's game, is everything is so metagame. For someone talking about stories and roleplaying, all I've ever heard out of him is that his entire world is based on metagaming. His NPCs immediately know that the PCs have a [PC] tag over their head and immediately get preferential treatment for no story reason at all.

It's one thing to make the story revolve around the PCs, but K actually has his entire world only exist because of the PCs. All the monsters and NPCs take actions as if they were the PCs bitches to the point where orcs are fighting to subdue and angels are coming down from heaven to resurrect 1st level dudes who did nothing.

And that's a huge problem if he's trying to pass himself off as this great storyteller, because that story makes no fucking sense.

[Saxony]

Only if your characters suck ass, because in DnD 3.X you're statistically unlikely to permadie in a level 1-20 campaign if your characters do not. But then, suckage requiring coddling of the most insulting proportions seems to be an assumption by the no-death crowd.

You're both factually and morally incorrect.

[K]

I was kinda agreeing with you on the earlier points, but I want to point something out here: your comparison is misleading.

Yes, the person who lost more was given more after the quest, but that person still ended up behind the other guy, despite starting from approximately the same point.

The point isn't from the wargamers point of view, it's from a wargame point of view.

Yes, from the wargamer's point of view, the guy who survived ends up ahead, but from the point of view of everyone else in the wargame, the bigger benefit went to the guy who died.

And that's the problem I have with K's game, is everything is so story-based. For someone talking about wargaming, all I've ever heard out of him is that his entire wargame is based on storytelling. His NPCs immediately know that the PCs have a [PC] tag over their head and immediately get preferential treatment for no wargame reason at all.

It's one thing to make the wargame revolve around the PCs, but K actually has his entire wargame only exist because of the PCs. All the monsters and NPCs take actions as if they were the PCs bitches to the point where orcs are fighting to subdue and angels are coming down from heaven to resurrect 1st level dudes who did nothing.

And that's a huge problem if he's trying to pass himself off as this great wargamer, because that wargame makes no fucking sense.

Fixed that for you. The way you had it before was incorrect.

[FatR]

It's called Paranoia.

So, it is either Nodeathland or Paranoia. Fuck your strawman.

Oddly enough changing from moron number ones "Tragic Tale" to "nononono... itsa... Comic Tale!" is still an infantile and moronic argument.

Fuck this strawman too.

Because, no, actually very few if any D&D players find the DM repeatedly killing the characters they spent hours making,

Fuck another strawman.

playing and shaping very "funny" and you are a drooling imbecile to think pretending they DO find it funny will work as an argument for...

They do. From the fact that people fucking post in the threads mentioned. You're idiot with no knowledge of RPGs. Or the human race.

Oh looky. A stark contradiction in your demands. Hm. Could it be you are suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance?

Or could it be that I need to fuck another strawman (hint: learn what "demand" means)?

What hero? We never even HEARD of the "hero" until AFTER the "nobody" who we described in detail for hours and hours and hours

I don't tolerate wasting everyone's time with hours of character description. Even in relationship-based LARP with complicated setups a backstory that can't be explained in 10 minutes or less is a sign of extreme egotism and poor taste. In DnD at level 1 no one fucking cares about your character's past, beyond the reason he hangs with other PCs and puts his neck on the line, everything in his life worth including in the story is going to happen on-screen. And it did not yet happen.

died. And then, "the hero" wasn't someone we started to describe from scratch, he was someone who walks in with all his "early years" described off screen

Level 1. Fuck your strawman.

and who HAPPENS to be only incrementally more powerful than his buddy "nobody" who just died.

His buddy was either way less powerful or once-per-campaign unlucky.

That is NOT the guy who dies for dramatic impact while his buddy the hero goes on. THAT requires an established buddy hero character already OR for the death to be VERY early and VERY rapid with VERY little time and effort invested by players. NOT hours on end making and then hours on end playing.

Fuck your strawman. If a character dies after an ilustrious career, his death will be a tragic event, that will probably change his comrades profoundly (assuming they won't raise him, as this is DnDland, where, save for extremely rare circumstances and TPKs you only permadie from level 5 upwards if the players don't want to cough up money for Raise Dead, which experimentally proves that no one cares about the dead character). But at level 1 his death is precisely very early, very rapid, and with very little time and effort invested. Because it is fucking level 1.

No. The "dead buddy nobody" of the main hero is a fucking NPC you moron.

Prove it.

So you apparently feel that being HANDED a character that is in all functional respects a wizard Emperor already is in fact exactly the same as playing a game in which your former street rat character you have invested countless hours of in play back story and adventure into experiencing the adventure of BECOMING a wizard Emperor.

No. Sorry. Not the same thing moron.

If he sucks so much that no one cares to raise him, he should have remained a street rat. Fuck your strawman with a scroll of Resurrection.

Er. No. DnD 3.X is a very fatal system.

You are not qualified to make any statements of DnD 3.X, because you have no knowledge of it

And just because a death isn't labeled "permadeath" doesn't mean it isn't for all functional purposes the equivalent to that. Even the availability of death reversal effects in 3.x as they stand are inadequate.

Only if the DM raises the threat level way above the expected, as represented by adventures, and PCs still play something like the iconics.

Remember the moronic narrative you people are wanking to repeatedly and explicitly here is the DM as an adversarial bastard TRYING to kill your characters.

Fuck your strawman with a phallomorphic manifestation of excluded middle.

Have you just not ever DMed successfully before? Because that's what it sounds like.

You are not qualified to make any judgment about this too, because, as we have seen before, you live in another dimension, completely isolated from RPGs as played here on Earth. And it looks like that's The Dimension of Strawmen and Self-Righteous Idiots.

[K]

I don't think you know what a strawman argument is.

Protip: It's not every argument that makes you look stupid.

[FatR]

And that's a huge problem if he's trying to pass himself off as this great storyteller, because that story makes no fucking sense.

Almost anyone who says "Story goes before the rules" from either GM or player position really means "Shit contrivances used by bad storytellers go before common sense". Scenarios put forth by the no-death crowd strongly remind me of infamous character revivals from Gundam SEED/SEED Destiny (like one guy coming back afer being explicitly blown to very small pieces on-screen), and let me tell you, these still invoke much nerdrage.

[K]

Btw, if you can't figure out a good story reason for an orc to use non-lethal or a angel to raise a character, then you shouldn't be a DM.

I mean, when the need for a non-lethal fight came up because some orc was an unnecessary player killer because it was statted that way, I'd make a new plot thread where the orc was a bloodthirsty cultist who had planned on sacrificing the PCs to some dark orc god. I'd weave this new narrative into the next few stories where the minions of the dark god began to rise in the area and the PCs have to put them down.

If I needed a raise and decided to use an angel, I'd weave into the narrative a whole subplot where the forces of Heaven had chosen that character for a great destiny and have them leave cryptic hints and advice through several adventures, using the raising as a foreshadowing of future events in future adventures. Eventually, it'd culminate in the PCs storming some demonic fortress on the Abyss at the head of an angelic army.

I'd do that because my role as DM is to weave in plot threads introduced by the PCs and by myself into a narrative whole and give story reasons for actions to occur that the narrative requires. I'm not the Team Monster player in a wargame, and pretending that I am is profoundly lazy and a disservice.

[...You Lost Me]

Btw, if you can't figure out a good story reason for an orc to use non-lethal or a angel to raise a character, then you shouldn't be a DM.

I mean, when the need for a non-lethal fight came up because some orc was an unnecessary player killer because it was statted that way, I'd make a new plot thread where the orc was a bloodthirsty cultist who had planned on sacrificing the PCs to some dark orc god. I'd weave this new narrative into the next few stories where the minions of the dark god began to rise in the area and the PCs have to put them down.

If I needed a raise and decided to use an angel, I'd weave into the narrative a whole subplot where the forces of Heaven had chosen that character for a great destiny and have them leave cryptic hints and advice through several adventures, using the raising as a foreshadowing of future events in future adventures. Eventually, it'd culminate in the PCs storming some demonic fortress on the Abyss at the head of an angelic army.

I'd do that because my role as DM is to weave in plot threads introduced by the PCs and by myself into a narrative whole and give story reasons for actions to occur that the narrative requires. I'm not the Team Monster player in a wargame, and pretending that I am is profoundly lazy and a disservice.

The players go on a quest to stop orc bandits. One of them gets a lucky crit and kills a player. All of a sudden, THAT ORC NOW HAS TO BE A BLOOD RITUAL CULTIST instead of a raging barbarian that just wants the PCs dead as soon as possible. Or if a PC dies because he's weak or dumb all of a sudden, HE HAS TO BE SUPER IMPORTANT TO THE GODS instead of just being a weak character, who was going to earn his way up to the top like the DM planned or something.

Obviously the DM needs to kick his planned story in the ass and light it on fire in order to service the needs of a player. Cool beans.

[PhoneLobster]

I don't think you know what a strawman argument is.

More than that I don't think he knows what efficient posting is.

I mean if your response to every single thing in a post is the SAME "Wargle Bargle Strawman BAAAAAW!" you should just reply and write that ONCE in reference to the whole thing.

Attempting, and attempting is the word to use, to do a full point by point quote and, ahem, "refute" when ever damn response is "Wargle Bargle Strawman BAAAAAW!" is just a waste of space and time.

For instance, in response to Fatr's post since it's content is so very poor for it's size let me just say. Holy crap man how stupid are you?.

And then I'll talk about a complete tangent because it's more interesting than talking to FatR about his wargle bargle issues.

This 1st level thing is actually of some interest.

Now IF low level player characters really were a low time investment discarding them like wind blown leaves MIGHT be fine.

But they typically AREN'T a small time investment, and some of the biggest character advancement decisions you will ever make in almost any system are almost always the first ones especially if you take ANY consideration of your potential future advancement.

But even time investment aside there is a big problem with casually killing low level player characters.

And that's the "Street Rats/Farm Boys go on to save the world Good" story.

Arguably the foundation of level based RPGs with advancement systems is the concept that you actually tell that story a story about characters who start out weak and poor and end up strong and rich.

The problem is in order to define "Weak and Poor" and "Strong and Rich" you should reasonably expect that the "Weak and Poor" is going to and should involve a fair amount of having your ass handed to you, if anything almost certainly MORE SO than when you become Strong and Rich.

And if defeat means death, death and death that means you cannot survive to tell the Poor Boys get Powerful story at all.

Worse still the tendency for individual PCs to die but for the group as a whole to advance means that the REPLACEMENT characters are going to then skip the poor street rat phase entirely.

So you really DO end up telling the tale of a sequence of incrementally more powerful street rats who all take turns at dying who are eventually REPLACED by a bunch of Rich Powerful assholes, who will die less, but still a lot.

This is a bad thing.

Not killing PCs like a rampant dick would prevent this. Understanding that "low level" is no excuse is VITAL to allow low level to matter AT ALL.

[K]

Btw, if you can't figure out a good story reason for an orc to use non-lethal or a angel to raise a character, then you shouldn't be a DM.

I mean, when the need for a non-lethal fight came up because some orc was an unnecessary player killer because it was statted that way, I'd make a new plot thread where the orc was a bloodthirsty cultist who had planned on sacrificing the PCs to some dark orc god. I'd weave this new narrative into the next few stories where the minions of the dark god began to rise in the area and the PCs have to put them down.

If I needed a raise and decided to use an angel, I'd weave into the narrative a whole subplot where the forces of Heaven had chosen that character for a great destiny and have them leave cryptic hints and advice through several adventures, using the raising as a foreshadowing of future events in future adventures. Eventually, it'd culminate in the PCs storming some demonic fortress on the Abyss at the head of an angelic army.

I'd do that because my role as DM is to weave in plot threads introduced by the PCs and by myself into a narrative whole and give story reasons for actions to occur that the narrative requires. I'm not the Team Monster player in a wargame, and pretending that I am is profoundly lazy and a disservice.

The players go on a quest to stop orc bandits. One of them gets a lucky crit and kills a player. All of a sudden, THAT ORC NOW HAS TO BE A BLOOD RITUAL CULTIST instead of a raging barbarian that just wants the PCs dead as soon as possible. Or if a PC dies because he's weak or dumb all of a sudden, HE HAS TO BE SUPER IMPORTANT TO THE GODS instead of just being a weak character, who was going to earn his way up to the top like the DM planned or something.

Obviously the DM needs to kick his planned story in the ass and light it on fire in order to service the needs of a player. Cool beans.

Ummm, yes?

If you aren't incorporating player actions into the existing story you provided, you are railroading PCs. There really is no middle ground here.

Your planned story should never get in the way of improvising a better story that includes PC actions. The planned story is just supposed to be a starting point for people to start improvising.

[Swordslinger]

Almost anyone who says "Story goes before the rules" from either GM or player position really means "Shit contrivances used by bad storytellers go before common sense". Scenarios put forth by the no-death crowd strongly remind me of infamous character revivals from Gundam SEED/SEED Destiny (like one guy coming back afer being explicitly blown to very small pieces on-screen), and let me tell you, these still invoke much nerdrage.

Yeah dude, the kind of bullshit K is stressing is awful storytelling.

His NPCs are not believable, The Dues Ex Machina is obvious and the whole thing is worse storytelling than just declaring that the encounter was a dream.

Shadowballs was 100% correct in identifying what the issue is. K and his group are just a bunch of basketweavers. It's seriously that simple. They hate losing, and they just want a bunch of scenarios where they auto-win. K keeps bringing up bullshit about how you can fail an adventure without dying, but that's a load of crap.

K's players don't fail, because he sets up pathetically easy scenarios for them. Like how the fuck would you even lose any of those combats? The lone CR 1 orc against 4 PCs, and the orc can't even get a two handed weapon? It's using some pansy ass shortsword or dagger and it's forced to fight to stun. Yeah, really likely the party fails that one....

And if you do die because of freaky dice or more likely because you fell asleep at the table from boredom, he immediately makes sure you get resurrected by a random angel coming down from heaven. Apparently, you're the fuckin' chosen one and somewhere there's a lone ogre wielding a padded club that needs four 10th level characters to beat it down. You're destined to be one of those guys to kill that ogre. Because obviously with such a dangerous encounter, it has to be someone special like you and not just any random warrior.

That's the kind of lame storytelling people fucking laugh at and if you do it in a movie or series, leaves people thinking how terrible it was.

If I didn't know he was being serious, I'd assume most of his posts were some kind of trolling attempt.

K, your PCs are a bunch of crybaby basketweavers who can't stand losing.

[...You Lost Me]

Ummm, yes?

If you aren't incorporating player actions into the existing story you provided, you are railroading PCs. There really is no middle ground here.

Your planned story should never get in the way of improvising a better story that includes PC actions. The planned story is just supposed to be a starting point for people to start improvising.

Ummmm, no.

"Incorporating Player Actions" =/= "Bending over backwards and pulling new shit about pantheons and fate out of your ass". Perhaps you enjoy rewriting your campaign settings and inventing new fleshed-out protagonist and antagonist NPCs with their own motivations, but that doesn't fly for people who actually plan shit. So your solution is great for you, but not for people who actually try and flesh their world out.

[K]

K, your PCs are a bunch of crybaby basketweavers who can't stand losing.

For those watching at home, that is strawman argument.

You see, he's exaggerating my argument that PCs should not have their stories cut off for no good reason and is trying to pretend that I said that PCs should never fail or that the game should be made pathetically easy.

If I were going to strawman him, I'd point out that his voracious focus on players not having fun and being punished makes him look like a sadist, and his ideal players would have to be masochists to play a heroic fantasy game where they are continually made to feel worthless and powerless at the whim of an all-powerful DM unless they act like pathetic cowards all the time in just the ways that please him.

I won't do that, however.

Still, I think this round of posts has convinced me that they are just wargamers trying to force DnD into a wargame format since the very things they are screaming about are the kinds of things that are common to stories, but would upset people in wargames. I mean, I know that I'd be crazy annoyed if someone interrupted a game of 40K and told me that an enemy unit was brought back to life from a circumstance outside of the established rules, even if we were doing a campaign version of 40K.

I mean, they are expressing huge amounts of dismay that a sub-plot to preserve a character should be added to the narrative of a heroic fantasy story with magic and explicit rules on bringing characters back from the dead? How messed up is that?

The fact that they are driven to frothing madness over the idea that the DM might improvise a part of the story is as laughable as it is pathetic, and I think they have provided enough evidence against themselves to make my arguments for me.

[K]

Ummm, yes?

If you aren't incorporating player actions into the existing story you provided, you are railroading PCs. There really is no middle ground here.

Your planned story should never get in the way of improvising a better story that includes PC actions. The planned story is just supposed to be a starting point for people to start improvising.

Ummmm, no.

"Incorporating Player Actions" =/= "Bending over backwards and pulling new shit about pantheons and fate out of your ass". Perhaps you enjoy rewriting your campaign settings and inventing new fleshed-out protagonist and antagonist NPCs with their own motivations, but that doesn't fly for people who actually plan shit. So your solution is great for you, but not for people who actually try and flesh their world out.

Personally, I find that planning helps a lot with improvising, but I'll accept that there are people who can't improvise.

That being said, they probably shouldn't be DMs. Anyone can be a player, but the hobby doesn't need players for Team Monster.

[DSMatticus]

who can't stand losing.

WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING?

Scenario 1: PC fights NPC. He loses. He dies. His story ends.
Scenario 2: PC fights NPC. He loses. He survives. His story continues.
Scenario 3: PC fights NPC. He wins. His story continues.

K: "Scenario 1 is bad."
Swordslinger: "lol, look at crybaby who can't handle scenario 2."

Stop talking, Swordslinger. Just fucking stop talking. Until you have this basic grasp of the discussion, please, please, please stop talking.

[PhoneLobster]

Still, I think this round of posts has convinced me that they are just wargamers trying to force DnD into a wargame format

I disagree.

While there are a bunch pulling a "fairness" and "you just need to suck less vs impossible odds due to adversarial play" crowd... the angle a lot of the bad GMs in this thread are pulling is one that is fundamentally one of a "realism" argument. To them it is "more real" for bad guys and bad things to totally fucking kill you and screw the story their own personal (and somewhat refutable) squishy mushy gut feelings about "waaah waaaaah realism" are more important.

They ALSO then argue from a strongly authoritarian GM worship cult that GMs should be sadistic assholes and anything less is just not the way things are done.

Then they talk about how players SHOULD and DO enjoy a bunch of crazy bullshit they most certainly DON'T, why? Gecause it fits their batshit insane traditions, "realism" wanking and authoritarian GM cult.

The thing is we have heard all those lines before. This forms a typical style of RPG player, or more accurately RPG forum poster (since no one REALLY plays like that, and if they do the group breaks up with thrown chairs and a restraining order fairly promptly).

We used to encounter this type of poster and their batshit counter productive anti-gaming demands a lot, back in the 90's and early 00's. So much so we gave them a name.

And much to the ironic alarm of Swordslinger that name was Basketweaver. Because seriously they demanded that playing "basket weaving peasants get killed by a fucking godlike dragon" was the way we should all do RPGs or they would shit their realism pants at us.

And oddly even their emergency and co-opting of the name "Basketweaver" into the SAME tired "My friends LURVE it when I kick their masochistic basket weaving behinds for hours on end" demands is ALSO a sign that they really are Basketweavers, a group particularly known for co-opting every single derogatory term ever invented in Role Playing in order to throw it at their opponents. They had to do that, because their argument, that the game would be better if we all just adopted total fucking insanity is fundamentally indefensible with actual logical methods.

So in short. I wouldn't try pulling the basket weaver angle here. Because you don't know what that term means and it is actually the pro death lobby here is actually exposing very specific and well known aspects of the basketweaver agenda. I mean this very argument itself was one of their favorite group wanks over a decage ago! Need I REMIND everyone of how much every single fucking basket weaver ever would say "My campaign will be fixed by being all about social intrigue, less about swords and also dark gritty, fatal and with less resurrection and no magic items that people get to choose." It was practically their fucking mating call on every forum on the internets.

And all those gritty campaigns? Yeah. Every fucking one of them ended poorly if it even got off the ground at all. And the number fucking one reason they ended. Low level PC kills.

[Swordslinger]

Scenario 1: PC fights NPC. He loses. He dies. His story ends.
Scenario 2: PC fights NPC. He loses. He survives. His story continues.
Scenario 3: PC fights NPC. He wins. His story continues.

Dude, were you not paying attention or something when K explained his encounter design philosophy?

Do you think anybody loses in K's campaign? At all? You heard his adventure design. This goes beyond not dying, it goes to not losing at all, because all his fucking monsters are gimped beyond belief. It's not enough for him to throw a single orc at a party of four level 1s, which is an easy encounter by DMG standards. No dude, this isn't easy enough for him, he wants to go and give the fucking thing a shortsword or a dagger. He's chastising me for not having it attack to subdue.

Scenario 2 does not happen in his games, because everything is trivially easy. You do not lose unless you deliberately try to lose.

K can claim bullshit like it was a strawman argument, but the shit about a lone orc fighting to subdue was not something I said, it was something he fucking said.

Dude, here is what he actually said regarding an encounter with 4 1st level PCs against a single CR 1 orc. Not my words. His.

Third, knowing that 1st level PCs are made out of glass he made the choice to not to use a less lethal weapon like a shortsword or a knife.

Fourth, he chose to use an orc when a less lethal monster would be appropriate. How about a goblin? They have a Str of 11 and their crits are lot less lethal for 1st levels.

Fifth, the orc didn't use nonlethal damage or choose to disarm the PC instead. He could have had any number of reasons to do so, but instead the DM chose to risk PC auto-death.

Sixth, he killed a PC and didn't then alter the narrative to bring that PC back. He could have had a noble lord or town mayor or angel or hero in the area hear about the epic orc battle and chose to resurrect the slain PC as a reward or to get the party to do a quest for them. He could have left a magic item that would bring the PC back in the orc's treasure. He could have had the PC rise again as an undead creature and have the eventual return to life earned somehow. He could have had any number of plot threads bring that PC back, but instead he chose to punish the PC for.... why again?

Yeah, that sounds like a strawman argument. But it's not something I made up or a misinterpretation. That's literally what he's actually saying. His argument is that stupid and batshit nuts.

Go to the top of page 29 if you don't believe me, it's right there.

[Fuchs]

I have long since ignored Swordslinger.

[K]

Scenario 1: PC fights NPC. He loses. He dies. His story ends.
Scenario 2: PC fights NPC. He loses. He survives. His story continues.
Scenario 3: PC fights NPC. He wins. His story continues.

Dude, were you not paying attention or something when K explained his encounter design philosophy?

Do you think anybody loses in K's campaign? At all? You heard his adventure design. This goes beyond not dying, it goes to not losing at all, because all his fucking monsters are gimped beyond belief. It's not enough for him to throw a single orc at a party of four level 1s, which is an easy encounter by DMG standards. No dude, this isn't easy enough for him, he wants to go and give the fucking thing a shortsword or a dagger. He's chastising me for not having it attack to subdue.

Scenario 2 does not happen in his games, because everything is trivially easy. You do not lose unless you deliberately try to lose.

When did monsters who could one-shot perma-kill any PC at the level they are expected to meet them, regardless of player stats or build, start counting as "trivially easy encounters?"

That's the result of giving them a battle ax at those levels. It's not a common occurrence, but it is the DM specifically saying "hey, I felt that that all of your choices should be worthless if I roll a 20 and then confirm the crit."

I mean, seriously? You are actually trying to say that this orc is a trivial encounter after a well-armored and high-HP 1st level Fighter gets insta-gibbed in a single shot and there was nothing he could do to prevent it other than running from the encounter like a little girl before the orc could charge?

Dick move, sir. Dick move.

For the record, I'd probably toss a couple of medium spiders at the PCs instead of a greatax orc for a FAR LESS SWINGY AND SHITTY battle that is actually fun and not over in one round, but that's because I actually think PCs should enjoy RPGing and should not feel like shit all the time.

If I had to run an orc because I'd done something stupid like agree to run a module, I'd make an encounter that was intended to be trivial actually trivial and make the orc use a weapon or tactic that won't insta-gib a PC in one shot.