There isn't enough scathing criticism of old-school RPGing

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Fri May 18, 2012 7:06 pm

FatR wrote:How are you supposed to overcome them if they don't actually use rules or GM is outright told to make them impossible to overcome?

You don't. Seriously, if the encounter wasn't designed to be overcome, then you're probably not going to.
You either retreat or hope that the DM had something planned for the ensuing TPK.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sat May 19, 2012 3:18 am

Mauver wrote:what makes D&D, and other RPGs, so great is that you can die or otherwise get royally fucked over in a permanent manner. Because that shit is not actually fun. It is boring and humiliating.

Really? Okay, if you're feeling humiliated because your character died to a critical hit or a save-or-die, then, well, you're fucking insane. I mean, I'm getting Chick tract vibes here.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat May 19, 2012 5:37 am

I've honestly never felt humiliated when a character died. At worst I felt angry when a character died and it wasn't even my character. It was my character's bodyguard who got offed by the GM without a single roll.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat May 19, 2012 11:07 am

But did you feel angry because he died, or because the DM violated your trust?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun May 20, 2012 4:34 pm

ishy wrote:But did you feel angry because he died, or because the DM violated your trust?

Trust was violated. I spent character creation points on the bodyguard and I didn't get a say, a roll, or any chance to prevent his death. That struck me as both unfair and retarded.

8headeddragon · Post by **8headeddragon** » Wed May 23, 2012 2:40 am

bosssmiley wrote: Old (pre-WOTC) D&D was predicated on the idea that characters were - in some senses - disposable and easily replaceable. Level 1 as gauntlet run/hazing rite, death at 0hp, wall-to-wall save-or-die effects, 5 minute chargen: all these things were *intentional* on the parts of the game designers who came - let us not forget - from wargaming roots.

As late as 2E these things remained as (sadly unspoken) assumptions of the game. A later generation - raised on Shannara and Dragonlance and with cinematic or multi-volume fantasy assumptions about character survivability/agency - ended up playing a game built on assumptions about character dispensability derived from wargaming and pulp short stories. Inevitably, nerdrage ensued.

Traditionalist RPGers differ from modern players because they bring to the table a different - but equally valid - set of assumptions about the game. Old style vs. modern style is just the classic Gentlemen vs. Players ("play for love of it, win or lose" vs. "play to win/succeed") distinction all over again.

I really like this post; this is a divide I have seen on the Den for ages that many posters do not see eye to eye on. I began writing up a long thing on this divide, but then I remembered that the "hack n' slash rollplayer" vs the clueless RPer thing has been going on forever and the conflict has a habit of popping up a lot precisely because tabletop adventures try to be both a system and an a setting at the same time. I guess what I mean to say is that it's nice to see someone acknowledge both as equally valid.

Regarding overpowered villains, they are not inherently bad, but there is a right way to handle them and a wrong way to handle them. It all depends on how much they reek of the DM's ego. I have played in games where my character or the party encountered them in their purest forms-- the DM rule 0s the party's helplessness against the main villain's power and then something bad happens. Yet I had fun with that and the rest of the party did too. I have also been in games where such a "villain" (in this case an obnoxious NPC that wasn't actually a villain but everybody would have been glad to kill if it wasnt impossible) come in more than a couple of times to taunt the party and it left everyone feeling rather annoyed. The DM too once the party stopped playing nice with this NPC.

Then again, I admit I feel this way about a lot of the classic elements of RPGs. Railroading is fine, even good in the hands of someone who knows how to make it work, but it ruins a game when a stubborn and uncreative DM insists on getting what he or she wants. A Gygaxian death trap adventure is fine so long as the players know what they're getting themselves into and the DM is following the rules properly instead of just trying to be the biggest douche possible. I will love or hate the classics depending on how they are (mis)used.