The Difficulty in RPGs thread

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

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Post by K »

echoVanguard wrote: If you really think that "let's explore the ocean" can't be an exciting story, a seminal author of science fiction would like to have a few words with you.

echo
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is about the hubris of Nemo. It's a character-driven story to the core that happens to include ocean exploration as a backdrop.

Actual exploration stories are boring as shit. It's all "It's May 5th, and then we got dysentery and some people died. On May 6th, we found some berries. On the 7th, little Timmy fell into a creek."

Random events are not stories even if you talk about those events in an entertaining way.
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Post by Wrathzog »

I'd like to bring up Game Of Thrones again and note that that story doesn't really take off until one of the PC's gets his head chopped off. And it only gets more exciting when Ned's Player's
grabbed Rob as his next character and managed to get him killed too.
With that said, I've never seen a game with a high death rate that also had players that were super invested in the stories of their own characters... let alone that of other party members. In fact, I can't even remember the last time a party member died and the party's immediate response wasn't to immediately loot the corpse and toss it in a ditch.
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Post by Whatever »

Gilgamesh loses the plant of immortality (it is stolen by a snake), and realizes that his great work was not becoming immortal, but rebuilding the city of Uruk.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Yo, so this thread is about difficulty in RPGs in general, right?

There's been a few times now when I've run D&D games where there's reasonably clear ideas what the power level and type of the opposition is. One of my players generally reacts by building a PC who is immune to most of the iconic enemy abilities and can reliably take out the highest-end opponents in a round or two. They go for the most favorable possible interpretations of houserules and generally don't submit completed characters until the last moment.

From all this, I assume that they want their PC to have an easy time against the opposition. So I don't go out of my way to target their weaknesses, I fudge rolls in their favor when they are fighting enemies and things get complicated, and once groups of antagonists get reports back and realize that they are fighting something that could easily solo them, they tend to cut their losses and run.

However, the player who built their PC for easiest possible defeat of the enemies tends to come off as upset when they realize that most monsters will retreat as soon as they realize how damaging one attack from the PC is and organized antagonists will respond to PC attacks with a methodical evacuation, merely leaving disposable rearguards and traps. The player doesn't seem to like it when antagonists recognize they are clearly outclassed and immediately concede.

In summary, when I see a PC optimized to be as effective as possible, I generally assume they want to go through the adventure on easy mode. Especially if it's pretty established that their opposition has mostly been determined in advance. But I seem to be missing something in their motivation, since the player doesn't seem to like it when enemies cut and run when it is clear the PC outclasses them. Thoughts?
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Avoraciopoctules: It seems likely that what this player wants to do is cackle madly while slaughtering their enemies in droves. If the enemies run away, less slaughtering happens. If they really want to feel all-powerful and stuff, increasing the number of enemies until it's almost hard, without targeting their weaknesses, would be the way to please them.
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Post by Wrathzog »

Avoraciopoctules wrote:In summary, when I see a PC optimized to be as effective as possible, I generally assume they want to go through the adventure on easy mode. Especially if it's pretty established that their opposition has mostly been determined in advance. But I seem to be missing something in their motivation, since the player doesn't seem to like it when enemies cut and run when it is clear the PC outclasses them. Thoughts?
Foxwarrior's probably right about this, but I'd recommend making sure and straight asking the dude what he wants out of the game. Pretty sure that you can't read minds so why bother trying?

RE: Spoilers
huh.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Cool, thanks.
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Post by infected slut princess »

I heard that series starts sucking after Book 3.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

I got an official warning on Gamefaqs for saying Jesus dies then comes back in the bible.
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Post by ishy »

K wrote:But you can't do that if you remove the character. Avenging the Rogue's destroyed village stops being a interesting story when the Rogue dies. The story fails and it just becomes some fights you did.
But is the story worth telling if the rogue is still alive? It sounds like a waste of time for everyone who is not the rogue to go on an adventure they don't care about at all. Or what if the rogue can't make it for that specific encounter? Do you put it on hold?
Shouldn't there be reasons why the rest of the party is interested as well? For example the fighter wants to go after them to get information about his rivals, the wizard wants to go after them because they have stolen a great wizarding secret etc.
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Post by K »

ishy wrote:
K wrote:But you can't do that if you remove the character. Avenging the Rogue's destroyed village stops being a interesting story when the Rogue dies. The story fails and it just becomes some fights you did.
But is the story worth telling if the rogue is still alive? It sounds like a waste of time for everyone who is not the rogue to go on an adventure they don't care about at all. Or what if the rogue can't make it for that specific encounter? Do you put it on hold?
Shouldn't there be reasons why the rest of the party is interested as well? For example the fighter wants to go after them to get information about his rivals, the wizard wants to go after them because they have stolen a great wizarding secret etc.
If the other PCs are too selfish or mercenary to not go on an adventure without a clear reward, then you don't do character-based storytelling at all. You just leave everyone's backstory as "I came from the mountains" and just do basic storytelling or scenario play that never brings anyone's backstory into the adventure plot.

Character-based storytelling is for people who like stories. If a good story and the XP and magic items isn't enough to motivate you, then there is no point to doing it at all. Many people have had many enjoyable evenings playing as murder-hobos who wander around the map sticking their dicks into things.

The only thing to remember is that character-based storytelling, cooperative or otherwise, has to follow the basic rules of a story. You can't end it in the middle because that creates a more unpleasant experience than doing no story at all. You can't force everyone into the narrative because that's painfully awkward and lame. You basically can't do anything that would ruin the story for other people.

You can't get the rewards of character-based storytelling without accepting the limitations. Yes, that guy has to show up for that session. Yes, you can't kill his character before his story is done. Yes, other players have to accept with good grace that they won't be the focus of the story for one or more sessions.

Not accepting those very basic limitations leads to shitty or shallow stories, and sometimes both.

But hey, your tolerance for shitty stories may be high. I've read enough game logs to know that most people don't seem to notice just how shitty the adventure they are playing is from a story standpoint and they seem fine.
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Post by hogarth »

Using A Song of Ice and Fire as an example of a story that is not harmed by (repeatedly) adding new characters is like using Mein Kampf as an example of great Jewish literature.
Last edited by hogarth on Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by echoVanguard »

hogarth wrote:Using A Song of Ice and Fire as an example of a story that is not harmed by (repeatedly) adding new characters is like using Mein Kampf as an example of great Jewish literature.
15 pages to Godwin. Awesome.
K wrote:Your stories aren't real stories, and 20,000 Leagues isn't really about an undersea adventure. Or maybe they're just shitty and shallow stories, and if you like that sort of thing that's ok, I guess, but I have read enough game logs to know that most people's adventures are shitty, unlike my games, which are high art.
I don't even know how to respond to this. Like, at all. I guess maybe I could do a dismissive image macro?

Image

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. Maybe I should have gone with Cool Story Bro guy instead.

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Post by Wrathzog »

I'm sorry I missed this.
Hogarth wrote:Using A Song of Ice and Fire as an example of a story that is not harmed by (repeatedly) adding new characters is like using Mein Kampf as an example of great Jewish literature.
While you're right that ASoIaF currently (has always) suffers from having a humongous glut of characters (because seriously Fuck the Martells and Fuck the Greyjoys), that's not why we're bringing it up. We're using that series to provide an example of a character-driven story that's not harmed by Killing Off Major Characters.
I agree with K that it's Fucking Hard to do and, in the case of Tabletop, it does require the involvement of and compromise from everyone else at the table to not allow the story to Fail on some level. I disagree that it's impossible to do or that it's pointless to try.
EchoVanguard wrote:I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. Maybe I should have gone with Cool Story Bro guy instead.
You nailed it(, dawg).
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Post by K »

echoVanguard wrote: I don't even know how to respond to this. Like, at all. I guess maybe I could do a dismissive image macro?[/img]
Yeh, I don't know how you should respond to the things in your head that have nothing to do with what I'm saying.

I'm putting you on Ignore now because your strawmanning is tiresome and pointless, and I hate to see people do that to themselves.
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Post by hogarth »

Wrathzog wrote:While you're right that ASoIaF currently (has always) suffers from having a humongous glut of characters (because seriously Fuck the Martells and Fuck the Greyjoys), that's not why we're bringing it up. We're using that series to provide an example of a character-driven story that's not harmed by Killing Off Major Characters.
I agree with K that it's Fucking Hard to do and, in the case of Tabletop, it does require the involvement of and compromise from everyone else at the table to not allow the story to Fail on some level. I disagree that it's impossible to do or that it's pointless to try.
I don't think it's difficult or rare to have a plot that every character is equally invested in and that's more sophisticated than "let's wander around and have adventures". Many of Paizo's adventure paths would fit that description and they could easily survive having several PCs die without derailing the story.

The (usually) harmful part comes when you're replacing PCs. And you have to replace PCs because you're not playing Monopoly or Risk where players can go play Super Smash Brothers once they've been knocked out of the game.
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Post by K »

hogarth wrote: I don't think it's difficult or rare to have a plot that every character is equally invested in and that's more sophisticated than "let's wander around and have adventures". Many of Paizo's adventure paths would fit that description and they could easily survive having several PCs die without derailing the story
All published adventures can survive the death of any or all or the PCs because they are not character-driven. They are designed to be generic and usable by any group of characters from parties of centaur women to iconic LotR-style parties.

Even the adventure paths engage the PCs very little and each adventure works as a stand-alone with almost no elements transferring from one adventure to another. They usually even have a little text box for "here is what you do if you run this as a stand-alone."

Published adventures are the golden standard for storytelling without using any character background. They have straightforward non-background hooks like "Mordenkainen bribes you to go look in this dungeon for a book" or "there's been a series of murders... what are you going to do about it?"
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Post by hogarth »

K wrote: All published adventures can survive the death of any or all or the PCs because they are not character-driven. They are designed to be generic and usable by any group of characters from parties of centaur women to iconic LotR-style parties.
I don't know what to tell you. In my experience, people hear what the story will be about and build their characters to specifically match the story. The end result is not really any different from making characters and building a story to specifically match the characters.

For example, in our Night Below campaign, the story starts with a kidnapped girl, so we created characters who were the girl's fiance, family members, family friends, family servants, etc. That's not any different from creating a bunch of family members/friends and then creating a story about a kidnapped fiancee.
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Post by K »

hogarth wrote:
K wrote: All published adventures can survive the death of any or all or the PCs because they are not character-driven. They are designed to be generic and usable by any group of characters from parties of centaur women to iconic LotR-style parties.
I don't know what to tell you. In my experience, people hear what the story will be about and build their characters to specifically match the story. The end result is not really any different from making characters and building a story to specifically match the characters.

For example, in our Night Below campaign, the story starts with a kidnapped girl, so we created characters who were the girl's fiance, family members, family friends, family servants, etc. That's not any different from creating a bunch of family members/friends and then creating a story about a kidnapped fiancee.
Weird. Where's the fun as a player in reading the adventure before you play it?

If they aren't reading the adventure beforehand, I'd love to hear how they are making their character to fit a story with plot points and characters that they don't know? (Not sarcastic here. Actually interested.)
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Post by Red_Rob »

Well, there's several ways to do that. One is for the GM to give out a few non-specific background details that will tie into the upcoming story, like "someone might want to have a brother they haven't seen in a while" or "If you come from a merchant family there might be things relevant to that later." The other is for the DM to customise campaign elements so that they are more relevant to the characters the players have made. In our Rise of the Runelords campaign I replaced the Skinsaw Men from the book (Multiclass Rogue/Clerics) with Tome Jesters because one of the party was a Tome Jester with a vague past. It turned out he had been mind controlled by the Big Bad and had been a part of this organisation before escaping. Similarly, at one point the party rescue a few exiled Rangers, including one that has a secret past as an enemy informant. I made this one of the group's delinquent younger brother, which gave things a more personal edge.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Pathfinder actually makes free "Player Guides" specifically to give people a good idea of what they are getting into with an adventure path and suggest character hooks that would integrate well with the campaign.
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Post by hogarth »

K wrote:Weird. Where's the fun as a player in reading the adventure before you play it?

If they aren't reading the adventure beforehand, I'd love to hear how they are making their character to fit a story with plot points and characters that they don't know? (Not sarcastic here. Actually interested.)
The usual "pitch" from the GM is something like:

[*]The adventure begins with the kidnapping of a young girl. In the campaign book, it suggests that your PCs might be relatives, friends, etc. or even the girl's fiance. (Night Below)

[*]The adventure begins with an NPC hiring you to help prepare for a long sea voyage, so you probably want to create characters who have a reason for wanting to work for this NPC and who wouldn't be averse to going on a sea voyage. (Savage Tide)

I mean, if you consider those spoilers (and I don't think they are), then having a PC hunt down his family's killers (and the other PCs being willing to help him in his quest) is the same kind of "spoiler", isn't it?
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Post by Chamomile »

K wrote:
Does no NPC in your campaign world ever die? If that's not the case, your example is terrible and makes no sense.
Death mechanics, like basically all mechanics, aren't used for things offscreen. There are multiple wars going on elsewhere that the PCs aren't particularly involved in, and I am not rolling individual attacks for the soldiers fighting those wars. So offscreen, the world just runs however makes most sense, which includes people dying. The problem with this NPC is that she isn't going to die offscreen because that'd be lame (and because the PCs are involved in just about every major battle anyway), she isn't going to die in a cutscene because that'd be contrived and also less fun for me because I actually don't like having perfect knowledge of what'll happen next, and so long as permadeath is impossible she wasn't going to die as the result of a battle either because that never happens. For that matter, neither will the PCs, and their being invincible thanks to plot armor takes as much punch out of her fatalism as her being invincible does.

The point of this is that you can't have any themes related to untimely death in a character arc if untimely death is actually impossible. The impact is lost. Interactive mediums are wonderful for immersing people. I can make players feel the bite of a fatalistic argument because they actually can die an untimely death, dreams unfulfilled, friends and family left in the lurch, and that's the point. That's what war does, and that's why it is bad and we want it to stop. And I really can't make that point if the PCs are actually invincible plot armored gods who needn't have the slightest fear of death.
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Post by K »

Chamomile wrote:
K wrote:
Does no NPC in your campaign world ever die? If that's not the case, your example is terrible and makes no sense.
Death mechanics, like basically all mechanics, aren't used for things offscreen. There are multiple wars going on elsewhere that the PCs aren't particularly involved in, and I am not rolling individual attacks for the soldiers fighting those wars. So offscreen, the world just runs however makes most sense, which includes people dying. The problem with this NPC is that she isn't going to die offscreen because that'd be lame (and because the PCs are involved in just about every major battle anyway), she isn't going to die in a cutscene because that'd be contrived and also less fun for me because I actually don't like having perfect knowledge of what'll happen next, and so long as permadeath is impossible she wasn't going to die as the result of a battle either because that never happens. For that matter, neither will the PCs, and their being invincible thanks to plot armor takes as much punch out of her fatalism as her being invincible does.

The point of this is that you can't have any themes related to untimely death in a character arc if untimely death is actually impossible. The impact is lost. Interactive mediums are wonderful for immersing people. I can make players feel the bite of a fatalistic argument because they actually can die an untimely death, dreams unfulfilled, friends and family left in the lurch, and that's the point. That's what war does, and that's why it is bad and we want it to stop. And I really can't make that point if the PCs are actually invincible plot armored gods who needn't have the slightest fear of death.
Unless you've got PCs dropping every battle, you aren't going to make your point at all. PCs are already armored by the fact that they can make new characters at will AND that those characters are designed to win most battles that they will fight.

Toss players out of the campaign when their character dies and you might have a chance to make your point (of course, no one will ever play with you again).

Second, you don't have to use the same rules for NPCs as PCs. Players can empathize with NPCs who die because you give NPCs worse rules.

Third, as a DM you can choose to kill NPCs whenever you want and you should. Just focus a few extra monster attacks on them or have them do something stupid and they'll go down. Waiting for random dice to do the job does not have much dramatic impact in the same way as a heroic sacrifice or a pointless slaughter.
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Post by Chamomile »

K wrote:Unless you've got PCs dropping every battle, you aren't going to make your point at all. PCs are already armored by the fact that they can make new characters at will AND that those characters are designed to win most battles that they will fight.
Believe it or not, most real soldiers survive the majority of combat encounters they turn up in. The US Marines is not the 40K Imperial Guard. Casualty rates weren't even that bad in Vietnam. Hell, casualty rates weren't that bad on the Russian front.

You can't say that losing a PC is a crippling blow to character-based plots and then flip-flop back and say that the players won't even notice the loss of a PC unless it's a constant meatgrinder. Of course players will notice the loss of a PC, unless that PC is a hollow pile of stats. My players (like most, I imagine) make actual characters and if one of those characters died it would mean something, and that's cool because plot twists are good.
Second, you don't have to use the same rules for NPCs as PCs. Players can empathize with NPCs who die because you give NPCs worse rules.
Sure, but I could also write a book. If you aren't taking advantage of the interactive form of the medium, if you aren't recognizing and taking advantage of the medium's random elements and multi-author nature, you're working in the wrong medium. Don't GM like you're haphazardly writing a book with battles randomized and four other authors with bizarrely limited inputs. GM like you're running a roleplaying game, build your plot to make use of the dice rather than being destroyed by them, build your plot around immersing your players in the one role they actually have rather than drawing attention to the artificial nature of their place in the narrative.
Third, as a DM you can choose to kill NPCs whenever you want and you should. Just focus a few extra monster attacks on them or have them do something stupid and they'll go down.
Sure, but they won't die. Because that's how the death rules worked, and if the death rules did work that way, most of my NPCs wouldn't survive more than two or three battles alongside the PCs. I mean, granted, I have NPCs to burn through, but all of them have a place in the plot and I can't chew through them that fast.
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