Healing surges and other such fail.

[Bigode]

I was going to edit some math into the prior post, but as said by other people, there's always someone sitting on the thread ...

If you want a full campaign to be possible to finish at least as often as not (50/50), and you've 1 encounter/level for 20 levels, the highest possible death chance for the normal encounter (yes, you could diverge, if each was compensated in some other encounter) is 3.41%. But, you know, that's one encounter per level anyway, to take it with some tons of salt.

[name_here]

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.

The time to clarify your position was then, not, you know page seventeen

[Elennsar]

The time to notice that my position is that I want to play Sir Boldheart, who may (or may not) succeed at rescuing the princess from the dragon, was...well, sometime between my first mention of Sir Boldheart and now.

I don't like the idea of playing a character who won't take on an ecounter now not because dying would interfer with saving the princess, but because if he can gain xp from another 98 he'll have a "full" campaign and reach level 20.

The D&D assumption that not only will you face ~260 enemies between 1-20 but that reaching level 20 is meaningful is directly contrary to the entire desire to play Sir Boldheart instead of Sir Grindalot whether he (Boldheart) has a 50% chance of death or a 3% chance.

Is it really that hard to imagine that someone would consider a successful campaign to end just as easily at level 7 as 13 and what level you are at when it is over has nothing to do with what you were aiming to achieve that someone has to spell it out with big text?

[Bigode]

I don't like the idea of playing a character who won't take on an encounter now, not because dying would interfere with saving the princess, (...)

Interestingly enough, he argued against that as well, actually.

[Elennsar]

Since most of the people in this thread are (presumably) male, which he are you refering to?

[RandomCasualty2]

The time to notice that my position is that I want to play Sir Boldheart, who may (or may not) succeed at rescuing the princess from the dragon, was...well, sometime between my first mention of Sir Boldheart and now.

We all noticed that, but your point is vague, because you dont' attach any specifics to it. Yes, you say you want a chance to fail.

Okay, what's that chance that you die instead of rescuing the princess?

Second, do you want recurring PC characters or do you want a gritty bloodbath where PCs are constantly being replaced?

I mean, none of us really know what you actually want. Do you just want the game to play like Call of Cthulhu where it's expected that investigators are going to die when fighting monsters and where combat is something you want to avoid. Do you want PCs to be forced into fighting and likely die where the entire game is them hoping to get lucky? Or do you just want the base stats to seem like its deadly, but some side mechanic like drama points or whatever gives the advantage back to the PCs?

I mean give us an example of how you expect your game to play out on average. I don't want to hear about some miracle group that never rolls under a 7 with magic dice. I just want to hear about an average expected play session in the game you're envisioning. Realistically, how far in a story do you expect them to go before they kick the bucket?

[Orion]

No, my risk assessment is based on the fact I want to face genuine risk and am willing to have my PC die at some point other than by my specific intention and whether I want to face as many encounters was never fucking asked because people were too busy assuming "OF COURSE he wants to keep everything else the same" and not considering "Wait. How often do you want people dealing with this?"

It really isn't that hard to ask what my assumptions are if they appear whacky instead of just assuming that they are whacky and not bothering to find out why I don't think that's the case.

Elennsar, I asked what your assumptions were. Explicitly. Twice. You took 30 seconds to compose a reply which supplied precisely *zero* information.

I ASKED how many encounters you wanted. I ASKED what level you want to play to. You refused to answer. I'll ask you one more time. WHAT ARE YOUR ASSUMPTIONS?

[Bigode]

Boolean: why the fvck are you still asking, if don't mind explaining?

[Crissa]

I can't believe you've added four pages while I was away. It's not like it was more than a day.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

PS - a 5% chance of rain means that for 5% of the reporting area, there will be a 100% chance of rain. The chance is that you may not be in that 5% area. Not that there's a 5% chance of the whole area getting rain, although that may happen, it's more unlikely than that.

But that's just a little quirk of weather reporting.

-Crissa

[Orion]

Is it really that hard to imagine that someone would consider a successful campaign to end just as easily at level 7 as 13 and what level you are at when it is over has nothing to do with what you were aiming to achieve that someone has to spell it out with big text?

Yes, because that's crazy talk. Many people start a campaign knowing what they want the climactic encounter to be. If you want to end with the fight between the necromancer and his fire giant minions, that tells you what level the game has to end at.

[Falgund]

What I want is to be facing risk in combat, where smart decisions may (if things work out) make my character survive.

So you want something like "make smart decisions, have 99% chance to survive this encounter, make bad decisions, have 25% chances to survive this encounter".

Thus, after 12 encounters, if you always make smart decisions, you have ~88.5% of survival, and if you always make bad decisions ~0%. (And if you only had one encounter filled with bad decisions and the 11 others with smart decisions, you have ~22.5% chance of survival)

[Elennsar]

I just want to hear about an average expected play session in the game you're envisioning. Realistically, how far in a story do you expect them to go before they kick the bucket?

I expect them to have a chance of winning. And surviving. Do I expect 50-50? Maybe.

Some chapters (I say chapters instead of sessions because a session might be more than one chapter if this was a novel or it might be less, depending on how long the chapter was.) might be about a 0.3% chance. Some might be a 30% chance. Some might be 50-50. Some might be 80-20.

On all of these, "if you fight" is the assumption. You might be able to outrun the horde of orcs with a very high level of certainty (close enough to 100 as to make no difference), but fighting one hundred orcs at once is...not recommended.

Elennsar, I asked what your assumptions were. Explicitly. Twice. You took 30 seconds to compose a reply which supplied precisely *zero* information.

See my response to RC. Some things are going to be "We can't fight this!" because you're not supposed to fight every damn encounter (defined as in the English language).

Crissa: Interesting, thank you.

Yes, because that's crazy talk. Many people start a campaign knowing what they want the climactic encounter to be. If you want to end with the fight between the necromancer and his fire giant minions, that tells you what level the game has to end at.

There are a lot of things I'd like as someone playing Sir Boldheart. Being assured of being able to fight the necromancer and his fire giant minions as a goddamn given if I am not grossly inept is not one of them.

If no matter how well or badly I do, short of "I shoot myself in the head, now what?", I'll make it across the Burning Desert, spare yourself the trouble of finding good pictures of Moab ( http://www.moab-utah.com/nationalparks/arches.html ). They're cool and awesome, but you can show me later.

So you want something like "make smart decisions, have 99% chance to survive this encounter, make bad decisions, have 25% chances to survive this encounter".

Something to that effect, yes. Depending on what the other guy does, I may be able to win despite bad decisions or lose despite good ones (and if I do rock to his scissors, I win despite "scissors" not being usually "bad decisions"...same in reverse).

Note, I'm fine with a -mathmatical- certainty (as in, I will win the rolls) from those good decisions...as stated by someone else, decisions should be more important than dice.

But if I play the Lone Warrior against thirty brigands, I had better come up with something other than "I draw my sword and attack." And even if I pick something smart, -they could do something bad to me-. Maybe I'll notice it and thwart it, maybe I won't notice it but won't trigger it, whatever.

That's one thing on "a chance of survival" that "roll a 1, if you roll a 1..." doesn't model. Which is why I can't give a "I want a 50-50 chance of survival" answer...its not just the dice. Its the competence of the opposition and my ability to act and react to what they do.

[violence in the media]

You can make a very compelling argument that any of your "improbable" historical events were indeed the only possible outcome, given proper knowledge of the influence of all preceding factors and events.

Please do me the favor of reading the history of Arnold's invasion of Canada and then repeat this.

Sure, all those points (butterfly effect, chaos theory, etc.) are all valid and all apply at times...but some things happen despite the odds being really low.

You cannot put the bold part of that sentence together with the italicised part. All "the odds" are is an assessment of the likelihood of something happening based on an imperfect understanding of everything that influenced the scenario. From an omniscient standpoint, there are no odds. There is what will happen and what won't happen.

Here, envision this:

I sit down at your table to play a game of D&D with you. I'm rolling my d20 as we play, making checks and attacks, and an unremarkable assortment of numbers come up. You tell me to make a save vs. death and I need a 20 on the dice to do so. I tell you "no problem" and throw my dice. What are my odds of getting the 20? 19/1 right?

Ok, so I get the 20 and your response is, "Wow, that was really lucky." I then reveal to you that I am an amature magician and that I can roll any dice to land with with any number facing I choose. I then proceed to demonstrate this talent to you by calling and rolling several different numbers and dice for you. However, I do miss one time and the dice shows a number on the d20 right next to the one I called. What were my odds of getting that aforementioned 20 again? Are they still 19/1, or does your new knowledge of the factors involved change your assessment of the odds?

[Elennsar]

You cannot put the bold part of that sentence together with the italicised part. All "the odds" are is an assessment of the likelihood of something happening based on an imperfect understanding of everything that influenced the scenario. From an omniscient standpoint, there are no odds. There is what will happen and what won't happen.

Then you figure out a better way to phrase this statement:

The odds of Benedict Arnold managing to reach Canada with a sufficiently large and healthy force to be capable of posing any threat to Quebec were poor.

As it turns out, he did. Not because he had +50 to Pwn Wilderness Hardship, but because the unlikely but possible turned out as the actual.

So what phrase should we use for Arnold here? "The percieved odds" doesn't help if an omniscient standpoint is considered.

As for your magician example: I would say that the odds are 19>1 unless you use your talent.

Naturally, if you do, then asking you to roll is pointless.

[TavishArtair]

Let's generously assume Benedict Arnold is so incompetent to only succeed on a 1 in 20 chance.

What's the chance of a single Benedict Arnold of succeeding? 1 in 20.

What's the chance of two Arnolds succeeding? 1 in 400.

Three in a row? 1 in 8000.

The point is not that Benedict Arnold transformed the unlikely into the actual. The point is that if you sent out a hundred Benedict Arnolds, less than ten would make it back, and probably only 5, and that over the course of an entire campaign, because you have more than one adventure, the chance of failure increasingly threatens to forcibly discontinue the campaign before the story is told. You seem to want George Washington to have a good chance of suffering a total party kill from random British soldiers before he can actually cross the Delaware, nevermind actually throw off the English hold on the nation and become president for two terms.

Accordingly, you have to address the fact that most campaigns are actually going to consist of relatively "safe" encounters, because the people who live long enough to get things done are not the ones who repeatedly have highly risky encounters.

It is not any individual encounter being dangerous, but the repetition of highly dangerous encounters, that makes campaigns under such a model untenable.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I think Elennsar doesn't want the standard D&D model of characters going to the dungeon looking for trouble. He seems to want to have situations where you avoid combat whenever possible and get XP for non-combat actions. I still can't figure out for the life of me why he spends time complaining about the way things are in D&D instead of finding a more lethal system to play.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that we know that the circumstances did not favor one Arnold making it back.

We know that Arnold did...more or less in one piece (serious leg injury).

So how is Arnold actually challenged? If there's no chance of failure, why are we even rolling? Why do we even have dice in the average combat encounter if there's not meant to be a chance of something other than the probable and/or desirable?

I don't want Washington suffering a chance of TPK by "random British soldiers", but I do want the fact that winning the war and founding a new nation are hard tasks not to be "the harder the task, the more likely a PC will do it".

Because that turns a hard campaign into one where all the obstacles are background color...its not actually more epic for Our Heroes to trek across the Burning Desert than for me run down to the nearest store.

How boring.

So how do you make an actual challenge with "death" as an actual possible consequence of failure?

How do you (the GM/designer) make it so that it -matters- if you (the character/s) have your waterskins nice and fat before you cross the desert?

Premature campaign endings are not fun. Campaigns where everything prior to the end is just showing off how many situations the characters can treat as everyday and mundane aren't really exciting either.

I still can't figure out for the life of me why he spends time complaining about the way things are in D&D instead of finding a more lethal system to play.

Because supposedly one should be able to play heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery in D&D, and supposedly it matters whether you have water when crossing a desert in those genres.

Not this Highlander Immortal game where all enemies have blunt weapons (i.e. can't behead you).

I don't mind the chance of death save through misstep being fairly low, but I do mind "misstep" being something that would be basically "I shoot myself in the head".

[violence in the media]

Then you figure out a better way to phrase this statement:

The odds of Benedict Arnold managing to reach Canada with a sufficiently large and healthy force to be capable of posing any threat to Quebec were poor.

Stop using the phrase "the odds" in those situations. The "odds" of a historical figure performing a historically recorded task are, barring evidence to the contrary or weird time travel scenarios, 100%. They did it. It was done. Describe that. The deeds are impressive in their own right, and don't require embellishment or the wankery of "long odds."

I think I'm getting a further understanding into what the real divide is between Elennsar and everyone else. Elennsar, you want to play Benedict Arnold and overcome the difficulties he faced (using whatever metric of difficulty assessment you prefer) to have a heroically awesome good time. Everyone is with you on this point.

However, you want "real" chances of failure and defeat so that victory is sweeter, but you are not acknowledging that the stories you're reading and modeling things after are written about the people who succeeded. You seem to want gamers, worldwide, to collectively play members of the Continental Army so that you can relate the doings of the two or three that actually survive all of the obstacles. If that doesn't happen at your table, so be it.

The rest of us are attempting to take your first desire (play Benedict Arnold) and figure out ways to allow every gaming group that wants to play American Revolution! to do those things.

You want a Benedict Arnold to emerge, we want the Benedict Arnold to succeed.

Sound right to you?

[RandomCasualty2]

I expect them to have a chance of winning. And surviving. Do I expect 50-50? Maybe.

Some chapters (I say chapters instead of sessions because a session might be more than one chapter if this was a novel or it might be less, depending on how long the chapter was.) might be about a 0.3% chance. Some might be a 30% chance. Some might be 50-50. Some might be 80-20.

On all of these, "if you fight" is the assumption. You might be able to outrun the horde of orcs with a very high level of certainty (close enough to 100 as to make no difference), but fighting one hundred orcs at once is...not recommended.

You're dodging the question. Assuming the PCs don't do anything stupid, like charging an army of orcs, what chances do you give them for survival. I mean, you want the PCs to try to rescue the princess and risk their lives, so they pretty much have to fight at some points. What chance do you give them to actually come out of that fight alive, assuming their tactics are good?

I'm not saying that every fight the PCs might get into has to be winnable, but for sure, the mandatory fights should be. If your goal is to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, then what chance do you want the heroes to have of killing the dragon?

Note, I'm fine with a -mathmatical- certainty (as in, I will win the rolls) from those good decisions...as stated by someone else, decisions should be more important than dice.

OK, so basically you're okay with PCs being virtually mathematically invulnerable if they make good decisions?

I don't think anyone here is advocating that PCs should be able to be totally stupid and still prevail, so I'm not really sure what you want anymore.

Before you gave the impression that you wanted a quest to have a lot of risk regardless of the decisions you made, because you weren't heroic if you weren't at risk. Now you're saying that you're okay with a smart hero being a major mathematical favorite.

[Falgund]

That's one thing on "a chance of survival" that "roll a 1, if you roll a 1..." doesn't model. Which is why I can't give a "I want a 50-50 chance of survival" answer...its not just the dice. Its the competence of the opposition and my ability to act and react to what they do.

Except I think everybody other than you is talking about "chance of survival (assuming DM making appropriate decisions for the NPC and players making smart decisions for their character, which goes without saying)".

Thus the incomprehension.

[Elennsar]

The deeds are impressive in their own right, and don't require embellishment or the wankery of "long odds."

Not when it was as difficult and arduous and etc. etc. as running down to the store.

When there were actual obstacles that actually had to be worried about because the difference between "do we take the left fork or the right fork" had actual consequences, yes.

The odds or however you want to phrase it that, starting from 1775 that the historical scenario would unfold as it did are poor. It was an accomplishment -because- it was difficult.

However, you want "real" chances of failure and defeat so that victory is sweeter, but you are not acknowledging that the stories you're reading and modeling things after are written about the people who succeeded.

I am acknowledging that. I am simply not insisting that because they succeeded, I MUST SUCCEED to model that. I must have a CHANCE to meet (or better) Arnold's feats if we want Rebels and Redcoats (due credit to the author of the book by the same name, yada yada).

You seem to want gamers, worldwide, to collectively play members of the Continental Army so that you can relate the doings of the two or three that actually survive all of the obstacles. If that doesn't happen at your table, so be it.

I want the game to be "You are in Arnold's shoes. Will you repeat history? Will history unfold differently?" (Arnold being picked as an example here. I most certainly do not want everyone to be Arnold...I don't want to be Arnold personally. Arnold was an ass even before he was a traitor. But I digress.)

Not "You are in Arnold's shoes. You will survive past the end of the war unless you do something like shoot yourself in the head or turn yourself over to Washington when he says that he'll hang Andre unless Clinton turns you over."

The rest of us are attempting to take your first desire (play Benedict Arnold) and figure out ways to allow every gaming group that wants to play American Revolution! to do those things.

"Doing Benedict Arnold"=/= "succeeding at everything Benedict Arnold succeeded at because it was DESTINED that he succeed."

He managed to find the method of success and the British in the world we live in didn't find the counter. They could have. There was no goddamn Fate ensuring Arnold would have things go as they did.

You want a Benedict Arnold to emerge, we want the Benedict Arnold to succeed.

Sound right to you?

I want a chance of any of the following:

1) Arnold gets killed at Quebec. Unlikely but something that could happen - not "on a 1", but "if things go wrong and etc.".
2) History up until Burgoyne, then what ifs.
3) History up until Arnold was contemplating treason, then what ifs.
4) History as it was, pretty much.

Not Arnold HAS to survive Quebec 100% of the time unless he takes his pistol and shoots himself in the head, or impales himself on his sword, or whatever.

That removes the "overcoming difficulty and making good decisions" entirely. It doesn't matter whether Arnold stays prudently in the rear and asks Morgan to lead the spearhead or whether Arnold is side by side with him as they storm the battlements.

To use a phrase from earlier in your post, I want to play a member of the Continental Army. If I save the day despite having raw militia against the cream of the British army...well, to use a quote from Thomas Paine: "...the more arduous the struggle the more glorious the triumph."

You want to replay history with it turning out the same way whether Greene or Arnold or Washington or Knox (assuming they're PCs) make better decisions than historically or worse or the same ones.

Why are you even rolling dice? Doesn't Washington have to survive the whole Revolution in your campaign?

That's what I'm genuinely lost on here. You want a better chance of survival than death. Fine. Nothing wrong with that, there usually is in war.

The problem is, there's no reason NOT to lead from the front when it is just as safe as the rear. There's no reason to think that you as a brigadier general need to give some consideration to your safety because your safety isn't threatened.

Damnit, now I want to see if we can actually make an interesting Revolutionary War game. Damn you, Benedict Arnold. Why can't you be a boring asshole instead of a fascinating asshole.</ramble>

I'm not saying that every fight the PCs might get into has to be winnable, but for sure, the mandatory fights should be. If your goal is to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, then what chance do you want the heroes to have of killing the dragon?

Depends on the PCs and the dragon. No, seriously. But assuming the dragon is your equal, 50-50 overall. (Whether "Lance charge" is countered by "flaming breath" is something I can't answer abstractly very well.)

Before you gave the impression that you wanted a quest to have a lot of risk regardless of the decisions you made, because you weren't heroic if you weren't at risk. Now you're saying that you're okay with a smart hero being a major mathematical favorite.

You will have risk because the other guy is also making decisions that could be smart.

This is not "PCs are the only ones making decisions".

I don't mind if a smart hero -can- have something work out so that his tactic works 80-90% of the time (If its more than that it isn't worth rolling for, and the dragon should -always- be worth rolling for.) assuming the range of responses he is prepared to deal with.

I do mind "those are the only responses that could exist". The dragon wants me dead about as badly as I want the dragon dead.

Except I think everybody other than you is talking about "chance of survival (assuming DM making appropriate decisions for the NPC and players making smart decisions for their character, which goes without saying)".

Thus the incomprehension.

I don't assume that I'm smart and tactically savvier than the opposition. I don't assume that I have accurate and good information to be making decisions all the time.

Those two things are beyond my control (I can influence the latter, but not ensure it) and have nothing to do with the d20+Survival chance that I can find a berry bush if I did misguess the amount of provisions I need.

Part of what makes (RL) adventuring difficult -is- #2. Do you bring six months of supply and be burdened by it? Do you bring 4.5 months and trust that's enough becaue the information you have suggests you can do it in four and a half?

Do you bring 3 months and trust you'll find more if you need more?

Because I want this answered before seriously replying to anyone else here, please for the sake of fun and giggles (and anything you hold holy) read the following:

So here is the question. What is the level of competence you are assuming for "not doing something stupid"?

1) I don't shoot myself in the head.
2) I don't rush into the area with the hottest fire.
3) I don't lead from the front.
4) I don't charge the enemy single handed.
5) I don't charge the enemy single handed with my bare hands.
Using the American Revolution hypothetical idea, subsitute equivalant levels for a game involving different choices, but its on my brain at the moment, my appologies.

[RandomCasualty2]

So here is the question. What is the level of competence you are assuming for "not doing something stupid"?

Basically a few general levels of tactics.

Great Tactics: You pick a very good method for beating the opposition. You sneak past the oblivious cyclops instead of fighting him, you avoid all the kobolds traps, and so on. This should get you a virtually assured mathematical success. Around 95% if you're talking about a climactic uber battle, pretty much near 100% for anything else.

Reasonable Tactics: You do pretty average tactics. The cleric is doing his job buffing and healing, the wizard is using appropriate spells, and you do generally what you'd expect a group of competent player characters would do. This should give you an assured win against a minor encounter (like 99%), and range to probably about 85% or so against a climactic fight. The question for lesser battles is not so much if you win, but rather how many resources you expend doing so.

Poor Tactics: You do stupid crap that generally does not optimize what your characters are good at. Your wizard tends to cast magic missiles instead of color sprays, and your fighters don't use power attack. This should generally make a minor encounter possibly lethal (85-95% survival rate) and should turn a climactic battle into a near 50/50 or worse.

Suicidal Tactics: Not only are you bad at tactics, but you deliberately put yourself in harms way via excessive stupidity. You totally ignore any good sense and get yourself in dangerous situations like trying to take on an army of orcs by yourself or a wizard not using magic and instead meleeing people with a torch. Depending on the relative danger, Suicidal tactics will yield win rates under 25%, even going as low as 0% if the tactic was especially dumb.

[Elennsar]

My only problem is that all of these (while good examples) appear to assume that the opposition is doing Poor Tactics.

That is the crucial point I don't agree on at all. There's a reason for the "may" be killed by a dragon other than his attack bonus vs. your AC.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree.

[violence in the media]

As a courtesy to your request, I try to adhere to 0) make no assumptions.

You always want to give the players the option to come up with creative, oddball solutions to problems without arbitrarily demanding that they adhere to certain assumed behaviors. The caveat is that players should think out their actions and present their rationale for why they think something so unconventional should work.

If we're playing Fight Club, for example, shooting yourself in the head is the right answer to the question, "how do I defeat my alternate personality?".