The Campaign Builder's Guild

I posted in the tavern recently regarding something I found over on the Paizo boards.

Quote from: TavernI was wandering about the paizo boards today, and I was reading a thread on "controlling powergamers." Amused, I clicked on it and saw a lot of popular comments that could be summed up as "anything they can break, the GM can break even more,"  or to not play with them, and a lot of talk was of exploiting their character weaknesses in encounters.

Maybe I'm a minority in this, but I feel like this sort of thought is pretty pervasive in a lot of mainstream RPGs, namely, PF, 3E, 4E, etc., and I don't think it breeds good gaming behavior. It shouldn't be about competing with the GM or PC, but working together to create an awesome adventure. Granted, that's not to say ALL the comments were like that (there were a few later on that I could definitely get on board with), and I don't mean to pick so much upon those aforementioned systems, but they do pop up a lot and (at least on the PF boards) get a fair amount of "likes."

Now, as I said, this isn't exclusive of PF, but it's something that I see often enough to give me reason that it's a commonly held viewpoint, i.e., that the GM is a force of competition to the player. I used to run my games like that, and I can tell you firsthand: it's a bad idea, and it only breeds aggression and competition. The best games I've played in were about the player and GM working together to create an awesome story, where I wasn't legitimately afraid to go into the next encounter because I trusted the GM... in fact, I was actually excited to progress the plot just to see what would happen next.

I'm of the opinion that this paradigm needs to change, but I want to investigate why it's already so pervasive in gaming. Thought I'd start a thread to gather more opinions on this, and to vent a little.

Yeah, the first game or two I DMed, I DMed that way.  Well, not quite.  Mostly just fiat and railroading.  I knew what was going to happen and I'd be damned if I was going to let my players interfere.  It didn't go over well.  There was anger and frustration on both sides.

I have a lot more fun, and I think my players have a lot more fun, when we are working together to build the game experience.  Nowadays I keep an outline of my primary "arc" for the adventure, but it's in flux as the game proceeds.  The directions the PCs go, the choices they make, all affect what else will happen.

There are a lot of different kinds of players out there, and sometimes they won't match with your game style. In which case, someone will have to adapt, or else you just won't play with them.

To the point of so-called "powergamers", I've seen a couple of types. Some are just obsessed with building up power for their characters, and you can play a co-operative game with them as long as you give them scope to do just that. Of course, this may involve some game balancing issues for the GM if there are other players who seek other things. But that is pretty much normal give and take.

I've also run across some players who treat everything like it was a competition. They try to beat the other players (by having the most powerful character, or whatever) and the GM. I think this kind of player is looking for a different kind of game and maybe can't be integrated as well. And of course, most players have a mix of interests and motivations.

Most players like to have a little challenge thrown in there - something for them to sink their teeth into. In this sense there can be some healthy "competition" with the GM, but the motivation here should be to provide an interesting and challenging game, not to beat anyone or prove anything.

I am personally something of one of these "powergamer" types, but hopefully in a more positive sense than the type that gets complained about a lot. For me it's definitely just about creating an awesome character who can do awesome things, so naturally I try to find the "awesome things" in the system and make use of them. I like participating in the shared story, and having a lot of abilities helps me to participate in the story in a lot of ways. However, it also lets me influence the shared story in a lot of ways.

As others in this thread have alluded to as well, I think that's really the thing that bothers a lot of these GMs about powerful player characters-- the GM, for whatever reason, is looking to run a railroad, and a powerful character isn't necessarily going to stay on the tracks. The competition comes about because there is a very real competition at the table for who is going to exert the most influence over the narrative flow of the story.

Or as I like to put it, if you want complete narrative control, write a book.  :grin:

I agree that the paradigm is pervasive and does need to change, but I think the change has to come more from players than the GM ("you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink").  GMs tend to be the ones who pour time and effort into the game, preparing the world and stories for their players; consequently it's frustrating if a player comes along and treats the setting as a Diabloesque vehicle for competition, or for building the "best" character.  Much of this can be solved by being open and honest about expectations before-hand, but too often players and GMs don't have discussions about the kind of game everyone's interested in.

To me, there's a huge difference between building an optimized character and being a "power-gamer" of a certain Munchkin-y type.  Building an optimized character is fine - in fact it's more than fine, it's great, and to be encouraged.  Playing that optimized character as a murder-hobo obsessed only with getting the best loot/abilities, as a cardboard cutout or a collection of stats rather than a character, is usually obnoxious, unless the game was specifically billed as a lowbrow hackfest.

In my avatar: Two murderhobos. I would love to run that campaign.

Railroads are generally pretty bad. Power gaming can be good or bad. Exploits are bad. Interesting decisions for characters are good.

Mostly nothing everyone here doesn't know.

Quote from: SteerpikeGMs tend to be the ones who pour time and effort into the game, preparing the world and stories for their players; consequently it's frustrating if a player comes along and treats the setting as a Diabloesque vehicle for competition, or for building the "best" character.

Well, I agree with this-- but I think it still goes both ways, though. After all, a railroad often results when a GM that spends too much time and effort on preparing overly specific stories or one certain area of the world, and is insistent on making sure to get to utilize that preparation. The players can mess it up, but players who are frustrated at being railroaded might behave that way because they don't feel like what they're doing actually matters, too.

Quote from: SteerpikeMuch of this can be solved by being open and honest about expectations before-hand, but too often players and GMs don't have discussions about the kind of game everyone's interested in.

I also agree with this.  :D

What is a GM?

In earlier games, he was often considered a combination of referree, arbiter of the rules, and the guy who played the rest of the world for the players.

Sometimes, he was an opponent of sorts.  Ken St Andre and Tim Kask and Gygax all talked about that element, of not letting it be too easy.

However, I personally never want to be an adversary at all to my players.  The rules and system are the physics engine that we all work under, but the idea is that I am working with them to create the story of the players within the setting.  And I think a sandbox setting is the best for avoiding any railroading, to minimize that friction.

Quote from: LordVreeg
What is a GM?

In earlier games, he was often considered a combination of referree, arbiter of the rules, and the guy who played the rest of the world for the players.

Sometimes, he was an opponent of sorts.  Ken St Andre and Tim Kask and Gygax all talked about that element, of not letting it be too easy.

However, I personally never want to be an adversary at all to my players.  The rules and system are the physics engine that we all work under, but the idea is that I am working with them to create the story of the players within the setting.  And I think a sandbox setting is the best for avoiding any railroading, to minimize that friction.

I think of a GM as your first description, an arbiter of the rules, but also as something more involved than just a judge or referee. Overall, I think of a GM as someone who wants to create a story with the players. I think of a GM as someone who'd want the players to succeed, and be excited over their triumphs.

I'm having a hard time putting into words how I think difficulty should factor into it all. I believe it does, to some degree, make for a better GM, but it's very much about how the GM is challenging them. If failure isn't interesting, it's probably not worth rolling in the first place. I'm also not a fan of failure automatically equating to character death. Failed the climb check? You fall several thousand feet to your death. Sure, that drives suspense for the check, but the finality of death in this case makes it so risky that it's stifling. You can provide challenges and up the suspense in many other ways that don't necessarily end up with the character in a moist heap at the bottom of a ravine.

This is naturally going to vary between players. But for me, I see it like this: the players are going to succeed in their own manner. It's about how they succeed, and what steps they take to get there that makes it fun, interesting, and challenging. Maybe some actions they take delay their triumph (say, the enemy takes over the city) but failure in achieving that is not the end, and eventually they'll have their moment of glory in sight yet again. Ultimately, I'm not looking to throw things at them like obstacles as if I'm some malevolent controller of their fates, but trying to give meaning to their successes; to provide a sense of accomplishment and a journey for them. They, likewise, shape their path with each decision they make, and the story revolves around those things.

I think there's an important distinction here, too, between two things:
- The GM is the referee of the rules, but the rules themselves are decided by the group as a whole.
- The GM actually decides the rules, and then carries them out.

I believe the oldschool "Gygaxian" model tends to favor the latter, whereas I myself am much more in favor of the former.

Quote from: sparkletwist
I think there's an important distinction here, too, between two things:
- The GM is the referee of the rules, but the rules themselves are decided by the group as a whole.
- The GM actually decides the rules, and then carries them out.

I believe the oldschool "Gygaxian" model tends to favor the latter, whereas I myself am much more in favor of the former.

As I often say, I do find these to be a black and white choice so much as a continuum.  But I agree that these are ends of the continuum.
Most older groups agreed on house rules a lot, and it may (or may not) surprise you that most GS rules get a vetting  by PCs and the players have a lot of say as to rule additions or tweaks.  And this is a place in between the 2, as many I am sure exist.

Quote from: Weave
If failure isn't interesting, it's probably not worth rolling in the first place.

Does the failure count as interesting if its existence makes success interesting?
I'm really not a fan of "save or die" type situations, but I do like a degree of lethality and danger in my game. My players (I can't speak for anyone else) would not enjoy the game if their success was entirely guaranteed. Highly likely is fine, but the risk of failure, character death and other Bad Things happening has to be there to some degree to make the successes feel worthwhile.

I think of "interesting failure" as a situation that introduces complications rather than stopping the adventure in its tracks.

For example, let's say you're rolling to pick a lock. If you fail the roll, and all that means you can't pick the lock and the adventure stops, that's not very interesting. If failing the roll means that you fumble and make a lot of noise, dropping your tools on the floor with a loud clatter, and then an orc comes bursting through the door demanding to know what's going on-- well, you get it.
That's more interesting, isn't it.  :grin:

Oh, absolutely, but Weave was saying in his post that he sees long-term player success as a given, whereas I'm saying that a chance of total failure or death enhances the experience for my players. It's not a big chance by any means, but when they win battles knowing that if they had rolled badly and/or used foolish tactics their characters would end up killed or crippled the victory seems more deserved. Their long-term success is highly likely - it wouldn't be much fun if they were more likely to lose - but it's not entirely guaranteed.

EDIT: On the other hand, I do agree completely with everything else in Weave's post. As long as they are still alive and able to function (not paralysed or incurably insane or whatever) there should be a path to victory - although maybe not the victory they were originally after - open to them. Failed to stop the Evil Cult performing their Dread Summoning Ritual? Now the adventure becomes about fighting off the Things From The Beyond that they unleashed on the world!

I'm with Kindling.  Part of the fun as a player for me is when I'm given a situation that seems challenging and really makes me think my way round a problem since the obvious or straightforward solution would be perilous.  Of course failures should be interesting and one should be rooting for the PCs to succeed, but part of being a GM is creating a series of challenges.

In some games of the more sandboxy variety, I'm also in favour of the GM not pulling punches in order to contribute to verisimilitude.  For example, right now I'm GMing a Planescape game.  If my 3rd level PCs decided, for some reason, that they wanted to steal a contract from the Tower of Arcanaloths (Arcanaloth = CR 16), I would have NPCs warn them that's a terrible idea and would give them several opportunities to back out or pursue alternatives, but if they persisted, I wouldn't go easy on them.

QuoteOf course failures should be interesting and one should be rooting for the PCs to succeed, but part of being a GM is creating a series of challenges.

Steerpike has saved me the trouble of writing five paragraphs in this space.

Quote from: Steerpike
I'm with Kindling.  Part of the fun as a player for me is when I'm given a situation that seems challenging and really makes me think my way round a problem since the obvious or straightforward solution would be perilous.  Of course failures should be interesting and one should be rooting for the PCs to succeed, but part of being a GM is creating a series of challenges.

In some games of the more sandboxy variety, I'm also in favour of the GM not pulling punches in order to contribute to verisimilitude.  For example, right now I'm GMing a Planescape game.  If my 3rd level PCs decided, for some reason, that they wanted to steal a contract from the Tower of Arcanaloths (Arcanaloth = CR 16), I would have NPCs warn them that's a terrible idea and would give them several opportunities to back out or pursue alternatives, but if they persisted, I wouldn't go easy on them.

Oh, I would certainly do the same in your case. I would give them fair warning regarding the challenges they face, and if they continue to do so, then yes, they would die. Perhaps I should say, players will succeed in their own manner - they'll get what they want, but I'll do what I can to ensure they aren't recklessly marching to their deaths.

Quote from: KindlingDoes the failure count as interesting if its existence makes success interesting?
I'm really not a fan of "save or die" type situations, but I do like a degree of lethality and danger in my game. My players (I can't speak for anyone else) would not enjoy the game if their success was entirely guaranteed. Highly likely is fine, but the risk of failure, character death and other Bad Things happening has to be there to some degree to make the successes feel worthwhile.

That's a good question! I think so long as the failure isn't "save or die," then it's fine. The main point of what I was trying to get across was that failure shouldn't be the end all of the adventure. Maybe towards the end, in the final battle, when it's all or nothing, but for me, death shouldn't be the difference between success and failure. Multiple failures? Sure. One? Not in my book.

Bad Things happening are awesome. I'm in full support of Bad Things happening, but those Bad Things should be interesting and not veritable walls for the plot.

EDIT: Also, I don't want people to think I'm saying "don't challenge the players," because that's not what I mean to say. By all means, challenge them, throw everything you've got at them! I started this thread because a lot of people seemed to lean towards challenging them through character exploitations, as if they deserved punishment for building a powerful character. Challenges should be opportunities for growth, change, and heroism - I find many of my players work their best when they're at their (character's) worst. I want to make sure that the game isn't becoming something akin to PC vs. GM, but rather a collaborative building process.

Quote from: Steerpike
I'm with Kindling.  Part of the fun as a player for me is when I'm given a situation that seems challenging and really makes me think my way round a problem since the obvious or straightforward solution would be perilous.  Of course failures should be interesting and one should be rooting for the PCs to succeed, but part of being a GM is creating a series of challenges.

In some games of the more sandboxy variety, I'm also in favour of the GM not pulling punches in order to contribute to verisimilitude.  For example, right now I'm GMing a Planescape game.  If my 3rd level PCs decided, for some reason, that they wanted to steal a contract from the Tower of Arcanaloths (Arcanaloth = CR 16), I would have NPCs warn them that's a terrible idea and would give them several opportunities to back out or pursue alternatives, but if they persisted, I wouldn't go easy on them.

In a few recent threads in different sites, I have referenced the threat level and power level of a campaign as something that needs to be clearly communicated to the players.  Not everyone is motivcated by the same things, and even the same player and GM might want a lighter, less intensive game for a while.  And sometimes, the story created by the game is more silver-age comic book or more liughthearted or otherwise superheroic, if that is what everyone wants.

And it is the job of the GM to deliver the type of game and story that is advertised, but also play to what the level of the players. 

Your Sandbox comment is the nost important to me.  I have always said that EL/CR are dangerous ideas, as they can put GMs and designers in a situation where the EL is more important than the internal logic of the setting.  I made the same argument back in the elder days that random placement (big in Gygaxian days) also needed to be used with care as it also sometimes flew in the face of internal setting logic (versimilitude).
My Steel Isle players can attest to this in many areas.  I do try, as a GM, to always give extra avoidability for over powered encounters (but still, only for players playing very intelligently) , but internal setting logic is critical to immersion and to creating a satisying inside-out (played from the inside) narrative.


I recently said, "Smarter Players often come from deader characters".  I stand by it, humorous as it may be.  It may not work for every GM, but I tend to keep players for a long time, and often for multiple characters in the same setting.  I try to tell prospective players these days that Celtricia, at least, is a high-lethality, challenging game.  I try to evoke the feelings of pride and real accomplishment that existed in the earlier days of gaming, where most characters did not survive that long. 
And I feel like it does matter, even from a cooperative level.  Recently, both the SIG and IGBAR groups in Celtricia have started to move up as a group into a higher average experience bracket.  And I can feel the feeling of acomplishment in my players, and (speaking of the cooperative side) I share it. 

Quote from: LordVreegI recently said, "Smarter Players often come from deader characters".  I stand by it, humorous as it may be.  It may not work for every GM, but I tend to keep players for a long time, and often for multiple characters in the same setting.

I think you need to be careful what you mean when you say "smarter." However much verisimilitude or detail or whatever a game has, at the end of the day, every GM is still just a subjective human being running a subjective game whose main goal is to be fun for all involved. A player doing something "not smart" might simply be doing something that the GM doesn't agree with, or doing something from a position of inferior knowledge about the GM's world or whatever. For that matter, the player might know more about the real-world basis for what he's doing than the GM and get it "wrong" in the GM's world due to the GM's lack of knowledge. I don't think there's any justifiable or reasonable reason to cut someone out of a shared narrative (which saying "you're dead" is always going to be doing, on some level) simply over what is fundamentally a disagreement between two people who both have a stake in that shared narrative.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: LordVreegI recently said, "Smarter Players often come from deader characters".  I stand by it, humorous as it may be.  It may not work for every GM, but I tend to keep players for a long time, and often for multiple characters in the same setting.

I think you need to be careful what you mean when you say "smarter." However much verisimilitude or detail or whatever a game has, at the end of the day, every GM is still just a subjective human being running a subjective game whose main goal is to be fun for all involved. A player doing something "not smart" might simply be doing something that the GM doesn't agree with, or doing something from a position of inferior knowledge about the GM's world or whatever. For that matter, the player might know more about the real-world basis for what he's doing than the GM and get it "wrong" in the GM's world due to the GM's lack of knowledge. I don't think there's any justifiable or reasonable reason to cut someone out of a shared narrative (which saying "you're dead" is always going to be doing, on some level) simply over what is fundamentally a disagreement between two people who both have a stake in that shared narrative.

Yeah, I'm pretty careful, or at least at this point, damn sure about what I mean when I say 'smarter'. 
the quote comes from Roleplaying games where there are stakes and sometimes permanent effects.  And like many such things, these consequences can be teaching moments about the setting and the level of lethality.  And that is part of the game and risk/reward.  Shining the light of the OP on it, the GM should never be vindictive and should be trying to build the shared narrative with the Players, but in some game, it is the Job of the GM to play the world reacting to the actions of the players.  I rarely have had any disagreement from a player about their death in a very long history with a lot of gameplay.  And again, some of these players have stuck pretty exclusively with me for decades.

This thread is getting very interesting.  There seem to be several salient issues.

The main questions seem to be:

1) Should GMs use their control over the game to try and reward certain player character behaviors and punish others?  Should this control be predicated only on the internal logic of the setting?  Is it OK to reward or punish certain gaming styles?

2) Can/should character death in particular be used as a kind of teaching tool for players, to cultivate a certain style of play - i.e. more creative, more cautious, more adaptable, etc.?

3) How important is the possibility of death or other severely deleterious effects to the enjoyment of the game?  Is a sense of risk integral to the fun?

4) What are the major risks of running an especially lethal game?  Will a deadly game frustrate most players?  How should a GM strive to balance this risk/frustration dichotomy?

5) Are "save-or-die" effects and the like something of a hold-over or vestige from an earlier era of gaming, or can they have a valuable role in games?  Were they a "mistake" or are they sometimes still a useful tool?

6) Should the GM's role primarily be to simulate a world, to offer challenges for players to overcome, or to cooperate with players to build a story?  Are these roles ever at odds, or can they always be reconciled?

7) Should player success be assumed, or should the GM be "success-neutral"?  Is such a stance even possible?

8) How should failures be handled?  What are some strategies for making PC failure "part of the fun"?

I'd be interested in hearing how various thread contributors answer some of these!

Quote from: LordVreegI rarely have had any disagreement from a player about their death in a very long history with a lot of gameplay.  And again, some of these players have stuck pretty exclusively with me for decades.

Well, if your players like it and agree with it, that's the real point. As I've said before, I'm not going to accuse anyone of "badwrongfun." I think your quote rubbed me the wrong way because all too often I've heard the statement about players "not being smart" to mean "playing in a way different than the GM wants/expects," which, of course, needs to be resolved by discussion at the table, not killing characters. I am personally not in favor of making players learn anything about my game or setting "the hard way," but that's just me. (Characters, naturally, are a different story!)

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: LordVreegI rarely have had any disagreement from a player about their death in a very long history with a lot of gameplay.  And again, some of these players have stuck pretty exclusively with me for decades.

Well, if your players like it and agree with it, that's the real point. As I've said before, I'm not going to accuse anyone of "badwrongfun." I think your quote rubbed me the wrong way because all too often I've heard the statement about players "not being smart" to mean "playing in a way different than the GM wants/expects," which, of course, needs to be resolved by discussion at the table, not killing characters. I am personally not in favor of making players learn anything about my game or setting "the hard way," but that's just me. (Characters, naturally, are a different story!)

I think that is the real point on this.  Some players would not enjoy this, or find the risk vs reward worthwhile.  I can actually say that the two times a PC really complained bitterky about their death being unfair were both times that I was covering for the fact other PCs killed those characters, but the player would not have known that....

Quote from: SteerpikeThis thread is getting very interesting.  There seem to be several salient issues.

These are good questions! I'll try to answer them for myself. :grin:

1) As I've mentioned, I don't think "smart" should be used as a code word for "plays the way the GM wants." I feel there should be mutual agreement at the table among all those with a stake in the shared narrative as to how that narrative will proceed.

2) Only if the players have agreed. This goes with #1 and my previous comments.

3) To me, it's not that important. I think risk is important, but that can be the risk of any sort of setback. Failing the mission means the game gets to go on. Character death means the game doesn't go on, for that player. That's something I feel the player should have a hand in deciding.

4) I think it depends on the group. Asura is actually quite a lethal system, in the sense of "it's quite easy to lose a lot of HP." However, Asura has a specific, codified rule that only "important" characters can kill other "important" characters. I feel this is important to allow characters to "own" their character's lives and deaths.

5) I personally dislike them strongly. I don't feel a single roll in isolation should matter nearly that much. (This is far different from the single roll that determines whether you're taken out-- after you've already taken a lot of damage, and probably made a voluntary choice or two that increased your risk!)

6) I like to think that helping the players to build a story and simulating the world go hand in hand, because the world is an essential backdrop to the story and the story gives the world some direction. And, of course, in that world and story, there will be challenges, or it's not very interesting. So, I like to do them all, and feel the three tasks often enrich one another greatly.

7) I really do like it when players prevail in the end. I'm certainly willing and able to inflict setbacks on them, but that makes victory all the better.

A side anecdote: I will admit that the "Sixsura" game was at one point spiraling towards a bad end and I was mentally preparing myself to just grit my teeth and hand out the "Game over, you lose, Cthugha wins." It was a one-shot, though. I don't know how I'd feel in a campaign.

8) I must confess a certain fondness for slapstick hijinks, both as a player and as a GM; failure doesn't feel nearly as bad when everyone's laughing at the way it happened. Giving players some choice in how they fail often helps with this, as they can come up with something amusing and is a setback but doesn't hurt their concept of their character or the narrative. FATE has a mechanic often called a "self-compel" where you can say to the GM, "I want to fail at this because I think it'll enrich the story."

Fascinating questions, Steerpike. I think this thread can benefit a lot from that sort of distillation.

Quote from: Steerpike1a) Should GMs use their control over the game to try and reward certain player character behaviors and punish others?  1b) Should this control be predicated only on the internal logic of the setting?  1c) Is it OK to reward or punish certain gaming styles?

Forgive my slight renumbering, I have clarity in mind.

I consider 1a and 1c to be rewordings of the same question.

I think 1b is the key, here. I will absolutely, absolutely reward and punish certain styles when it is consistent with the game being played and the world the game takes place in. If I run some sort of Game of Thrones RPG and you want to play a pure-hearted, honorable, virtuous soul-- look out, buddy; your life is going to be rough. Because that's what the setting demands.

So this is not a blanket condemnation of a style choice ("When I GM, I hate it when people do XYZ, so I always make sure doing XYZ is fatal to a character"), but it's an acknowledgement that some types of play work less well within a specific context. And I think that's important to making the context seem real and relevant. (If I run a Game of Thrones RPG and people are being all valorous and honest and noble and coming out unscathed, pretty soon it doesn't feel like Game of Thrones at all anymore.)

Which is not to say I make characters die. Because that's removing someone from play, that's removing someone's ability to contribute to our group activity, that's pretty extreme. And I think "wrong move: u ded" is often abrupt and suspenseless.

But this gets back around to the role of the GM, which is tough for me to articulate. Lately I lean towards "not antagonism per se, just make the characters' lives difficult and occasionally miserable, and make it all but impossible for them to reconcile conflicting wants." But that's not antagonism, that's dissection, and we'll get to that in a bit I guess.

Quote2) Can/should character death in particular be used as a kind of teaching tool for players, to cultivate a certain style of play - i.e. more creative, more cautious, more adaptable, etc.?

In general, I think this is not very much fun. There are exceptions, and they are the exceptions that alter the stakes of death, what death means. Eclipse Phase and Paranoia would be examples, I guess.

Tabletop RPG playing is a social group endeavor. If death means "your character is finished, start over from scratch," then a player whose character dies has a reduced scope through which to contribute to the ongoing effect. (Survivors' players can contribute through a "complete" character's story, inasmuch as they're ever actually "complete"; casualties' players contribute through fragmented and abruptly truncated segments, and may never get to touch on things they wanted a character to address.) This is not to say that PCs should never be allowed to die until their stories are concluded (I am loath to take just about anything completely off the table, especially something as potentially powerful and interesting as death); rather that it's a lousy anticlimax for a character with a promising arc and interesting options for future fates to be struck down as a fatal object lesson. ("Died as a way to demonstrate to his player the importance of checking every 5' x 5' square for traps.")

Quote3) How important is the possibility of death or other severely deleterious effects to the enjoyment of the game?  Is a sense of risk integral to the fun?

I think there should always be the possibility of unforeseen, irrevocable changes to a character. As it happens, most things that fall into that category seem to be tragedies.  I don't think those things should necessarily remove that character from play. (Then you don't get to deal with the aftermath.)

Death isn't even the only thing that falls into this category. If you're running a period piece in feudal Japan where one character is a badass samurai who can do anything with his sword, and being a master swordsman is the player's source of enjoyment from that character, for god's sake don't let that PC end up with his hands cut off. Or if you ordain such a fate, don't pretend it's more lenient than PC death, because in many cases, it's not.

Quote5) Are "save-or-die" effects and the like something of a hold-over or vestige from an earlier era of gaming, or can they have a valuable role in games?  Were they a "mistake" or are they sometimes still a useful tool?

So here's the thing. Whenever death is an option, it almost always comes down to one detail or one die roll. If you're a mighty warrior who has suffered many wounds and continues fighting anyway, you get to a point where every attack roll against you is a save-or-die, because if you get hit one more time by anything, you are wormfood.

The difference, and the reason one is acceptable and the other is (I think) unacceptable, is whether or not a player has an option to buy into the stakes of a scene and agree to them by action. If I'm playing a mighty warrior and I wade into battle, I've got to know that there's a chance I might die. By going into the fight anyway, I'm essentially acknowledging that risk. If I continue fighting even though I'm pierced with many wounds, I've got to know it's probable that I will die. Being wounded, and continuing to fight anyway, is a way of raising the stakes.

Choice made, risk accepted, death valiant.

The same character could, in some systems, get killed by a save-or-die effect before even realizing where the deadly attack was coming from, much less buying into the high stakes with a choice. Which is what I think makes them unsatisfying. In some situations it can make sense (you've waded into the heart of the necromancer's lair and now face the twisted sorcerer one-on-one; he raises clawed hands which crackle with anti-life magics...) although I think there are almost always better mechanical ways to represent this stuff.

Quote6) Should the GM's role primarily be to simulate a world, to offer challenges for players to overcome, or to cooperate with players to build a story?  Are these roles ever at odds, or can they always be reconciled?

All three. Probably more than that. If they're at odds, you need to change one. (If I'm working really hard to simulate a world which is boring, and there's nothing that's drawing players into the story, then I probably need to change things about the world I'm representing to make it more... full of stuff to do.)

Quote7) Should player success be assumed, or should the GM be "success-neutral"?  Is such a stance even possible?

In the context of this thread, I feel like this question might be asking about a false dichotomy, as if the only options are a.) succeed or b.) die. Which I think is missing out on a heck of a lot of things!

I think the real meat of the GM's role, much of the time, is to really put the fire to PCs, in order to see what they do. Be a fan of the players' character, but force them to make tough choices, because that's how you get to know them. Set up situations where they cannot have everything they want, no way, impossible-- then see what they prioritize.

Here's a character who a.) never lies, and b.) puts family first, no exceptions. Obviously put him in a situation where the only apparent way to protect a family member is by lying, then see which principle he sacrifices first. (Or if he's clever enough to find a third path that allows him to keep all his principles intact.

This does players the great and interesting service of allowing them to walk the walk. It's one thing to say "my character is honest." Unless that's really put to the test: ho-hum, so what? not interesting. But if this is the character from the above example who chose to let a brother die rather than lie to protect him, suddenly that honesty really means something, it's become the basis for a story players will remember, and it's become a real point of discussion (is he now "too honest"? Maybe!)

So I think that's a way of hurting a character that really sparks new kinds of player participation and reveals interesting things about the character. Character death is a way of hurting a character that stops them from participating and reveals... entrails.

If death is worked into this framework and becomes part of the stakes of an action through a weighing of priorities, though, that's powerful fuel. If a character dies because they legitimately wanted something so badly they were willing to risk death to get it, that's awesome whether they live or die.  

Quote8) How should failures be handled?  What are some strategies for making PC failure "part of the fun"?

Quote from: Luminous CrayonFascinating questions, Steerpike. I think this thread can benefit a lot from that sort of distillation.

Thank you!

Some awesome answers... LC, I love what I'm going to call your "Jamie Lannister" style of character-development, where you put the PC in a kind of "something's-gotta-give" situation.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonBut that's not antagonism, that's dissection, and we'll get to that in a bit I guess.

Or vivisection  :P.

Quote from: sparkletwistI think it depends on the group. Asura is actually quite a lethal system, in the sense of "it's quite easy to lose a lot of HP." However, Asura has a specific, codified rule that only "important" characters can kill other "important" characters. I feel this is important to allow characters to "own" their character's lives and deaths.

This is interesting.  It seems to imply that you're essentially "anti-death" except when it specifically enhances the drama of a given scene, i.e. when two important characters are fighting.  How do you handle things like traps and environmental hazards?  Is it impossible to be killed by them?

Quote from: sparkletwistI like to think that helping the players to build a story and simulating the world go hand in hand, because the world is an essential backdrop to the story and the story gives the world some direction. And, of course, in that world and story, there will be challenges, or it's not very interesting. So, I like to do them all, and feel the three tasks often enrich one another greatly.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonAll three. Probably more than that. If they're at odds, you need to change one.

This is what I'm getting at with the idea of the simulation/challenge aspects of GMing sometimes potentially being at odds with the storytelling aspects of GMing (I'm not saying they always are at odds):

For example, let's say we're playing a gritty, realistic WWII game where a single bullet can spell death.  The GM here wants to evoke the feeling of grim, realistic war films like Saving Private Ryan and mini-series like Band of Brothers.  Accordingly if we build a rules-system with simulation and challenge in mind, then weapons like grenades, gatling guns, flamethrowers, and bombs are going to blow characters to shreds if they put themselves in harm's way, and they're going to have to be very, very careful about their tactics (use of cover, stealth, formation) to survive.  Done well, this makes the game exciting, immersive, and highly challenging.  Much of the fun comes from devising creative ways to avoid being turned to mincemeat, and the very-real possibility of death is essential to this atmosphere and playing style.

Now let's say that one character's major story arc involves saving an old Parisian sweetheart from the Nazi commander who plans to make her his bride.  Unfortunately, said character is wounded in the leg just outside the French capitol, and as a result of his reduced speed, he's unable to make it to a bunker in time to avoid being caught in a hail of German fire.  The dice say that the character has been obliterated at the hands of a nameless Nazi mook.

Now, here I'd be tempted to say "screw the dice," screw the simulation, screw the throwing-tough-challenges-at-players element of GMing and rule that the character is just knocked out and bleeding badly, giving his comrades a chance to patch him up and thus (hopefully) head towards the much-more-dramatic encounter with the German commander, which at this point isn't far off.  Or perhaps a bullet penetrated his brain and he's now slowly dying, but will last just long enough to rescue his lost love before perishing.  That's fine, but it entails a sacrifice of the other roles the GM plays - if we give in to the storytelling aspect, we give up an element of gritty realism.  Moreover, the players will probably be aware that the normally simulationist, gritty rules have been compromised in some fashion.  Now they might feel that they needn't be quite as careful since they can rely on the GM fudging the dice for the sake of story.  See the conundrum?

Now we could say that that type of story is too elaborate for this kind of game, but then haven't we just sacrificed the story element in favour of the simulation/challenge element?  Is there a way "out" of this situation without some kind of tradeoff, a privileging of one GM hat over another?

Man seems like a lot of people here are anti PC-death. Maybe because it's how I like my games (heavily simulationist) or how I cut my teeth on gaming (Guildschool) but I really don't see losing a PC as a bad thing. Sure it sucks, but what's stopping you from rolling another one? It isn't life, you aren't "out of the game" forever. It was a consequence to your choice of actions.

I like to try to give an extra chance to avoid a PC death, but I will allow a PC to die if it comes to that.

Quote from: Steerpike


1) Should GMs use their control over the game to try and reward certain player character behaviors and punish others?  Should this control be predicated only on the internal logic of the setting?  Is it OK to reward or punish certain gaming styles?

I have almost never had a need to punish a gaming style.  The game has always done that for me, literally.   About 6 times in my history, the other PCs have knocked off the powergamer in a group for me.  And I do try to run games that are either too simple to really break, or too multidimensional.
And since the internal logic of the setting does not have to be compromised to reward and punish, it can be very synergistic in a good GM's hand.Part of this is merely just cherring along with the PCs who do smart and fun stuff.  And this should not be overlooked.  When the GM is excited about the way the PCs do something, that excitement passes to the players.

Quote from: Steerpike
2) Can/should character death in particular be used as a kind of teaching tool for players, to cultivate a certain style of play - i.e. more creative, more cautious, more adaptable, etc.?

I think my answer is obvious, but I'll try to explain it a bit. 
First off, I run Old School games, and was brought into gaming in a time where part of the reason you played was the fact that a lot oc characters died, and that was OK.  Roll up a new one and try to learn from the experience.
Because there was a lot of pride in survival. Saying you had a fifth level dwarven fighter in a campaign where only 3 people had ever made it past 5th level meant something.  And I keep this in my current games. 
Now, not every setback or teaching moment involves death, sometimes there are a lot of positive reinforcers, and sometimes players cheat death and that is a big one as well.  But having to stop and roll up a character and rejoin later is a powerful reinforcer to behavior.

Quote from: Steerpike
3) How important is the possibility of death or other severely deleterious effects to the enjoyment of the game?  Is a sense of risk integral to the fun?

As above, I was brought into this whole thing playing games where you lost characters regularly.  SO for me and what I was brought up in, I have seen that the risk is often tied to the reward.  Success means little when success is all but ensured.
Now, different people enjoy different things, and even the same person likes a break sometimes.  But I once had a very safe RPG game described to be about as much fun as playing monopoly and having the money and property re distrubuted every time around the board so no one could lose. 
But there are a lot of people who hate to lose, and they would rather deal with capping the feeling of success because the chance of losing is no fun at all.

Quote from: Steepike
4) What are the major risks of running an especially lethal game?  Will a deadly game frustrate most players?  How should a GM strive to balance this risk/frustration dichotomy?

The biggest issue here is being upfront about this and make sure that players know what they are getting into.  Will it frustrate most players?  DEpends what you mean.  There are levels.  Rarely is a player thrilled about losing a character, but frustrated enough to bail, or really to make them mad enough to avoid the game?  Steerpike and assembled...I have had 2 instances in the last 30 years of my adult phase of gaming (I am not counting the first 6) wher a Player has complained to me about how they died.  ANd both were situations where I was lying to thje player becasue their character would not know that the other PCs killed them, so they were unclear how they died.  and both of them camed back to the table anyways.  I have NEVER seen a player lose a character and not come back to my table.  I've had them  quit 'in medias', but never lose a character and then stop playing.

Quote from: Steepike
5) Are "save-or-die" effects and the like something of a hold-over or vestige from an earlier era of gaming, or can they have a valuable role in games?  Were they a "mistake" or are they sometimes still a useful tool?

This is a question and part of an analysis that went on in many boards for years, as 3e and 4e came out.  The answer to the first is both, the answer to the second is that they were never a mistake, but they were misused.
Save or die was part of the earlier games, where the game was balanced around exploration and then balanced around the campaign...not around combat.  There was no EL or such.  Part of this was just the fact the game was supposed to be more deadly.  I know enough people who lost characters to fireballs even after saving (Only half damage...great.). 
But part of the reason that petrification saves, or poison saves, or save or die stuff was kept in the earleir games was to encourage alternate, often non-combat or heavy thinking ways to defeat something.  Once EL and CR came around, and the game was becoming balanced around combat, things needed to change because the whole balancing mechanism was based around slugging it out with things in the appropriate class.  Balancing things around combat with the possibility of Save or Die makes little sense.
 
But running away was always part of the earlier game, or parlaying (there were rules for it), or trying to get the treasure without fighting (you got experience points for gold and for magic found back in the day), or finding a way around that save or die.  Because that was one of the reasons it was there.  It made smart players try to get around those real chances of serious issues despite their power level.
Now, if you played kick in the door style games back in the older days, you lost a lot of characters (this heakens back to the earlier question about death), so you save or die taufght you that no matter how tough your character was, they clould get killed, and as such, save or die taught caution and smart play.   

Quote from: Steerpike
6) Should the GM's role primarily be to simulate a world, to offer challenges for players to overcome, or to cooperate with players to build a story?  Are these roles ever at odds, or can they always be reconciled?

they are not at odds, but they often have to be prioritized.  And while I have my own ideas how, it is based on the expectations that the players and GM set up in the beginning.
For my games, the world simulation is the one absolute.  But I read other people, and I see that proobably the shared narrative is the top priority.  Heck, in my games still, and especially back in the old dyas, PC cooperation was not a given at all.

Quote from: Steerpike
7) Should player success be assumed, or should the GM be "success-neutral"?  Is such a stance even possible?

Steerpike, I;ve seen games where it is neutral, anti player, and proplayer.  Seen it all.  I personally don't think it is any fun if the sucess or even the survial is assumed, but that is me.
I take the personal pose of, 'Geez, I cheer for my players and I am here to answer anything and to help you play as smart and as well as you can...since I am playing the role of the rest of the world fairly and if you croak, you croak'

Quote from: Steerpike
8) How should failures be handled?  What are some strategies for making PC failure "part of the fun"?

By having the dice ready to roll up their new character.  Or to tell them to have  a spare ready.
No, sort of kidding, but the way the party treats this has a lot to do with it.
And the GM should always be sorry and unhappy with PC bad consequences.  This is a game for everyone.
OK, enough for now.

Quote from: LordVreegAs above, I was brought into this whole thing playing games where you lost characters regularly.  SO for me and what I was brought up in, I have seen that the risk is often tied to the reward.  Success means little when success is all but ensured.
Now, different people enjoy different things, and even the same person likes a break sometimes.  But I once had a very safe RPG game described to be about as much fun as playing monopoly and having the money and property re distrubuted every time around the board so no one could lose. 
But there are a lot of people who hate to lose, and they would rather deal with capping the feeling of success because the chance of losing is no fun at all.

There's a couple things you've said here that bother me, but I think it mostly boils down to equating character death with losing. Maybe more specifically the apparent assumption that a player who is upset by the death of their character is a sore loser, or that anyone who creates or plays in a game that isn't all about the hard reality of numbers is a communistic carebear. I don't particularly see the point of playing an RPG as having a successful character, but rather about the construction of an interesting story. My character could consistently suffer from undesirable outcomes, but that doesn't automatically make the story that is being built a bad story. I'm not saying characters shouldn't die. Character death is very important, and can be a powerful narrative element, but I don't think that it should just be a functionally random occurrence. The choices that a character has made and the tensions that they have created through their actions should feature, in my opinion, in any situation that has significant lethal potential.

I generally become very invested in my characters and enjoy developing them outside the bounds of the game itself, and thusly, if a character of mine were to die because a random no-name mook shot them in the eyeball I would not be upset because I 'lost', but because the work I put into that character wasn't at all valued or considered by the GM. I'm not saying that GMs should pander to their players, far from it, being given what you want all the time with little effort would be just as boring as having your character choke to death on their breakfast because they failed their chew roll. It's difficult to convey my exact meaning here, but I think I at least sort of intimated it.     

Quote from: TheMeanestGuest

Quote from: LordVreegAs above, I was brought into this whole thing playing games where you lost characters regularly.  SO for me and what I was brought up in, I have seen that the risk is often tied to the reward.  Success means little when success is all but ensured.
Now, different people enjoy different things, and even the same person likes a break sometimes.  But I once had a very safe RPG game described to be about as much fun as playing monopoly and having the money and property re distrubuted every time around the board so no one could lose. 
But there are a lot of people who hate to lose, and they would rather deal with capping the feeling of success because the chance of losing is no fun at all.

There's a couple things you've said here that bother me, but I think it mostly boils down to equating character death with losing. Maybe more specifically the apparent assumption that a player who is upset by the death of their character is a sore loser, or that anyone who creates or plays in a game that isn't all about the hard reality of numbers is a communistic carebear. I don't particularly see the point of playing an RPG as having a successful character, but rather about the construction of an interesting story. My character could consistently suffer from undesirable outcomes, but that doesn't automatically make the story that is being built a bad story. I'm not saying characters shouldn't die. Character death is very important, and can be a powerful narrative element, but I don't think that it should just be a functionally random occurrence. The choices that a character has made and the tensions that they have created through their actions should feature, in my opinion, in any situation that has significant lethal potential.

I generally become very invested in my characters and enjoy developing them outside the bounds of the game itself, and thusly, if a character of mine were to die because a random no-name mook shot them in the eyeball I would not be upset because I 'lost', but because the work I put into that character wasn't at all valued or considered by the GM. I'm not saying that GMs should pander to their players, far from it, being given what you want all the time with little effort would be just as boring as having your character choke to death on their breakfast because they failed their chew roll. It's difficult to convey my exact meaning here, but I think I at least sort of intimated it.     

I've played with you enough to get some handle on your meaning. 
And frankly, your return to SIG has been awesome.

I agree...one of the issues is equating character death as losing.  There is a big difference between a sense of justified loss, based on the time and enjoyment of the game, and the petulance of 'losing' the game.  This difference may be partially maturity, but there are other factors as well.
And I mention in another area that players are rarely happy to lose a character, especially one they are attached to and have played for a while.  That is actually a big part of the equation in the longer term games, the attachement to the character as the player builds a bigger story and cheats death and survives anf grows is very important.  I've had players very upset when the lose a character, not at the other players, or me, or the game, just a sense of loss that came from building something worthwhile.  SO the longer term games have that dynamic as well, investiture multiplied, so the GM had better make the game worth it...To put it another way, it is only a good GM and player combination that build a long-term game, with an emphasis on roleplay and development,

More, I agree that in many games, character death has an important place, and there are reasons that a good game has safeguards built in to make sure that the more powerful a character gets, the less the random forms of death affect them.  Better saves, better armor, more resistance to damage, better amgical protection, and then, when the shit does still hit the fan, amny games have respawning rules built into the crunch (and hopefully, the fluff, as well). 
(course, when the MOFO green dragon flies off with the bodies...)

So, to return to it, there is a large difference between the feeling of loss when a carefully constructed character, played for a while and developed in lots of roleplay gets removed from the game, and the petulance of 'losing' the game.  The first example is normally not felt as 'losing', but loss.  And to tie part of it back into the OP, normally I feel, as a GM, a sense of loss as well.  I still talk about the SIG charactgers that died, like Hamish, or when Cucino or Kiko died in the Igbar game.  Becasue the GM should be invested in them as well. 
But part of the investiture, I feel is the sense of achievement and survival with the risk of losing that being understood.   

Quote from: Steerpike
This thread is getting very interesting.  There seem to be several salient issues.

Great list here!

Quote1) Should GMs use their control over the game to try and reward certain player character behaviors and punish others?  Should this control be predicated only on the internal logic of the setting?  Is it OK to reward or punish certain gaming styles?

I think you, SP, actually made a good point of this before: GMs and PCs need to more openly discuss what they want out of a game before they start playing it. At that point, I would think it wouldn't matter how the game was governed so long as they agreed upon it and they all have a good understanding of the type of game they're in.

Quote2) Can/should character death in particular be used as a kind of teaching tool for players, to cultivate a certain style of play - i.e. more creative, more cautious, more adaptable, etc.?

If the game was intended to be a sort of gritty, realistic, highly lethal game, then sure it can. I think the main thing is that players should be in agreement - not just the GM - that this sort of teaching tool is appropriate. If I may, I like my occasional foray into highly lethal games, but never for an extended period of time. The way I see it, a game like that needs to be extremely carefully balanced so that creative and daring maneuvers aren't stifled by the fact that death is so omnipresent, lest it stagnate into something boring.

Quote3) How important is the possibility of death or other severely deleterious effects to the enjoyment of the game?  Is a sense of risk integral to the fun?

Good question. I think risk is important, but death? Not so much. As sparkletwist illustrated, risk can be any sort of setback. Sense of risk is certainly correlated to having fun, but I'm not convinced it causes fun.

Quote4) What are the major risks of running an especially lethal game?  Will a deadly game frustrate most players?  How should a GM strive to balance this risk/frustration dichotomy?

In my extremely limited experience, it's keeping players invested in the game. The sense of risk is enjoyable, but after the second or third character death in a row, it gets a little oppressive. It can also cause aggression between the GM and PC, who, aside from unlucky dice rolls, might take it as not playing the way the GM wants them to.

Quote5) Are "save-or-die" effects and the like something of a hold-over or vestige from an earlier era of gaming, or can they have a valuable role in games?  Were they a "mistake" or are they sometimes still a useful tool?

Times change. What was seen as good then might not be now. I don't see them as ever being a mistake, but what I do see is the demographic of tabletop gamers growing, and the game fumbling to evolve alongside it. Though it's not a perfect comparison, look at videogames. With the exception of very few mainstream games, video games are less lethal than ever, with other players able to run over and bring them back to their feet, respawns increasingly frequent, and death meaning only a minor setback. Why? Because designers are starting to realize that their are other, often better ways to challenge players that aren't so "You died. You lost 3 hours of progress, bummer."

Quote6) Should the GM's role primarily be to simulate a world, to offer challenges for players to overcome, or to cooperate with players to build a story?  Are these roles ever at odds, or can they always be reconciled?

I'm definitely more of the "cooperate with players to build a story," but to each their own. I would like to think a good game has all three, and that they aren't exclusive of each other. In FATE, players and GMs offer challenges that enrich the story, and any GM worth his salt should at least try to simulate some modicum of their world in a reasonable manner.

Quote7) Should player success be assumed, or should the GM be "success-neutral"?  Is such a stance even possible?

I don't think success-neutral is possible. There's absolutely no system out there that can possibly cover every rule in every case, so the GM will inevitably have to come up with some rule modifications on the fly for unusual situations. Even if there were some mythical system to cover all rulings, imagine how stifling that would be as a player! There would be no room for creativity if everything is already, by definition, created.

Quote8) How should failures be handled?  What are some strategies for making PC failure "part of the fun"?

Give them a choice in the matter. In FATE, players generally lose any conflicts on their own terms, or ones at least agreed upon by the GM and the player. This'll need some more delving into, but I'm short on time so I can't really give a more detailed answer.

I don't understand why any risk-reward equation is somehow benefited by including out-of-character risk, i.e., the risk of "you can't play this character any more." Does that somehow make it more "risky" (because the player, not just the character, is risking something) and therefore supposedly more interesting, or something? Personally, I like my risk to be in-character-- characters may suffer setbacks, and I don't think anyone's arguing that everything always go right, but the thing about in-character setbacks is that they enrich the character's story and give the player new challenges to overcome and new stories to tell. If the character dies, that character's story ends.

It seems to me to be mutually exclusive to say "you should feel invested in this character" and "the chance to play this character may be taken away from you arbitrarily."

Quote from: LordVreegI've had players very upset when the lose a character, not at the other players, or me, or the game, just a sense of loss that came from building something worthwhile.

See, I don't get this at all.

An RPG is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. When playing in a group where everyone has mature adult outlooks on things, if the game makes someone very upset, then that game is not fun and something is wrong with the game. That person may not (at least overtly) blame the game or GM because they are trying to be mature about it and get past it, but seriously, why do something that ruins someone's fun? What is the point?

Oops, I missed these questions...

Quote from: SteerpikeThis is interesting.  It seems to imply that you're essentially "anti-death" except when it specifically enhances the drama of a given scene, i.e. when two important characters are fighting.  How do you handle things like traps and environmental hazards?  Is it impossible to be killed by them?

Yes, it is impossible. I feel that things like traps and hazards should basically just be there to add interesting complications to the story, as they're far too impersonal to be anything worth a character's life. So, a party member caught in a trap will take some damage (which will make a coming important fight harder) or suffer a negative condition (which does the same thing in a different way) but the story will go on.

Quote from: SteerpikeFor example, let's say we're playing a gritty, realistic WWII game where a single bullet can spell death.

I hope I'm not falling into a trap of thinking everything is a nail simply because I've invented a hammer that I'm rather fond of, but I'm not sure if being "simulationist" is necessarily required for this kind of game-- as long as everyone is on board with the tone, and willing to work together to create it, I feel like the Asura system or some variant thereof would work for this kind of game, as well.

In that case, your problem becomes a non-issue because a lighter, more "narrativist" system like Asura includes plenty of places to bend the narrative and tweak the dice. The Nazi's burst of fire could be mitigated by stunts or consequences, or, at the worst, invoke the "mooks can't kill you" rule and state that the party shows up before Herr Generalfeldmarschall Von Evil.

Quote from: sparkletwist
I don't understand why any risk-reward equation is somehow benefited by including out-of-character risk, i.e., the risk of "you can't play this character any more." Does that somehow make it more "risky" (because the player, not just the character, is risking something) and therefore supposedly more interesting, or something? Personally, I like my risk to be in-character-- characters may suffer setbacks, and I don't think anyone's arguing that everything always go right, but the thing about in-character setbacks is that they enrich the character's story and give the player new challenges to overcome and new stories to tell. If the character dies, that character's story ends.

It seems to me to be mutually exclusive to say "you should feel invested in this character" and "the chance to play this character may be taken away from you arbitrarily."

Quote from: LordVreegI've had players very upset when the lose a character, not at the other players, or me, or the game, just a sense of loss that came from building something worthwhile.

See, I don't get this at all.

An RPG is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. When playing in a group where everyone has mature adult outlooks on things, if the game makes someone very upset, then that game is not fun and something is wrong with the game. That person may not (at least overtly) blame the game or GM because they are trying to be mature about it and get past it, but seriously, why do something that ruins someone's fun? What is the point?

I'm doing it wrong again?  Back to the drawing board....someone tell my players....

Kidding.  Sort of. 

Part of the idea of many RPGs is that they are playing the role of a person or entity involved in a very-high risk activity, most commonly combat, but other perils are part of that role being played.  There is a smaller subset of games where this threat of danger does not exist.
When playing in the larger set, the player normally is understanding that they migh lose that character because of the situations they put that character in.  Normally, the GM puts a lot of reward out there in the same direction of the risk.  It;s the same thing when you are reading a story and you get the feeling that the protagnist is invlunerable, the story is less interesting, or what makes Game of Thrones, so rivetting for people, there is an element of simulationism that,  GASP!. the protagonists are not immortal! 
These are elements that make some games more interesting to a lot of people. But not everyone.

Same thing about the story ending, yes, that character's story might end, and so it matters more to play smarter.  If the risk is 'setback', the need to play intellgently and avoid the game ending is less, to many players.  Not all, but many.  Games have micro and macro scale at the same time.  The quest may be to destroy a dragon, and in lethal games and non lethal games, there can be the risk of success and failure, but at a macro level, the lethal game has another level of failing which makes success much sweeter than in the non lethal game.  When there is a chance of large scale failure, accomplishment means more than if there is not, for many players.  That is how I see risk and reward.

Which is why it is not only interesting the think: 
"It seems to me to be mutually exclusive to say "you should feel invested in this character" and "the chance to play this character may be taken away from you arbitrarily.",
it is often backwards.  You said you don't understand it, and I get that, but for many players, it falls under the gist of, "Better to have played a game that mattered with real consequences I overcame for quite a while than to never have played such a game at all"

And about that, the second part...you are confusing 'fun' with 'rewarding'.  Which is why player after player who loses a character and is upset comes back, because the process is rewarding, sometimes deeply rewarding.  SOme people play RPGs because they are fun, some people play them because they are rewarding, and I daresay there is a subset who gerts both out of it, and I hope my players are in that subset.

Quote from: VreegWhich is why it is not only interesting the think: 
"It seems to me to be mutually exclusive to say "you should feel invested in this character" and "the chance to play this character may be taken away from you arbitrarily.",
it is often backwards.  You said you don't understand it, and I get that, but for many players, it falls under the gist of, "Better to have played a game that mattered with real consequences I overcame for quite a while than to never have played such a game at all"

The point is: why get stuck on death as the only possible "real consequence"?

Quote from: sparkletwist
An RPG is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. When playing in a group where everyone has mature adult outlooks on things, if the game makes someone very upset, then that game is not fun and something is wrong with the game. That person may not (at least overtly) blame the game or GM because they are trying to be mature about it and get past it, but seriously, why do something that ruins someone's fun? What is the point?

What is the point of reading a sad book or ever playing a game (say, Chess) that you can lose? Ostensibly both are for entertainment, but what's the point if you aren't happy at all times?

The fact is that sometimes people like things that involve feeling bad. That feeling bad isn't always just a side effect; sometimes it's part of the point.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Quote from: VreegWhich is why it is not only interesting the think: 
"It seems to me to be mutually exclusive to say "you should feel invested in this character" and "the chance to play this character may be taken away from you arbitrarily.",
it is often backwards.  You said you don't understand it, and I get that, but for many players, it falls under the gist of, "Better to have played a game that mattered with real consequences I overcame for quite a while than to never have played such a game at all"

The point is: why get stuck on death as the only possible "real consequence"?

The point I was working with was, "why does death matter so much" since it was referenced (in the form of the character being taken away), and few other consequences take the character out of the game so long.  And since it came up in terms of Steerpikes questions.

But if you are bring up the question of other consequence, no one said or intemated it was the only real consequence.  Many other consequences are interesting and game changing and still have a very strong effect, while still being the subject of the ineveitable comment, "At least you didn't die".  And they are more interesting.

I'd like to answer these as well!

Quote from: sparkletwist
Oops, I missed these questions...

Quote from: SteerpikeThis is interesting.  It seems to imply that you're essentially "anti-death" except when it specifically enhances the drama of a given scene, i.e. when two important characters are fighting.  How do you handle things like traps and environmental hazards?  Is it impossible to be killed by them?

Yes, it is impossible. I feel that things like traps and hazards should basically just be there to add interesting complications to the story, as they're far too impersonal to be anything worth a character's life. So, a party member caught in a trap will take some damage (which will make a coming important fight harder) or suffer a negative condition (which does the same thing in a different way) but the story will go on.

I agree with sparkle here. The only time I could ever see a trap killing a character would be when the player was ready to try something else (game, character, etc.) and didn't feel the loss of this one was all that bad - I've had that happen with a character before; their class wasn't turning out the way they thought it would and basically decided that was a good time to try something else. Otherwise, yeah, generally if the dice go way out of their favor I'll at least say "Whoa, that was seriously unlucky. You sure you want to stick with that result?" or something.

Quote from: beejazz

Quote from: sparkletwist
An RPG is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. When playing in a group where everyone has mature adult outlooks on things, if the game makes someone very upset, then that game is not fun and something is wrong with the game. That person may not (at least overtly) blame the game or GM because they are trying to be mature about it and get past it, but seriously, why do something that ruins someone's fun? What is the point?

What is the point of reading a sad book or ever playing a game (say, Chess) that you can lose? Ostensibly both are for entertainment, but what's the point if you aren't happy at all times?

The fact is that sometimes people like things that involve feeling bad. That feeling bad isn't always just a side effect; sometimes it's part of the point.

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here because I want to know more: I don't think you can compare chess and a tabletop RPG. Chess, by itself, is a game you can win or lose. You'll probably lose a lot, too, but that's part of understanding and improving upon the game. I don't think you could argue the same for any given RPG game; the rules aren't and can never be fixed enough that it's just winning and losing in any case - you have an arbiter of the game, a GM, who will inevitably govern things in a manner they see fit, and if it's anything like a story or campaign, the heroes won't be able to just lose some of the combats and come back as something completely new. Even with very little backstory, a person can be mechanically involved in their character, and that's the point. You can be mechanically involved in chess while losing, and come back having learned from that loss. I suppose you could argue the same in a tabletop game, but you're not always necessarily getting better at the game - you're getting better at playing the way the GM wants you to. If that's your cup of tea, so be it.

In a story, it's not really about a character you control, it's about the book, and whatever's going on with it. You can enjoy all the characters and the story. When you're the GM, maybe this is the case. As a player, unless the game is extremely collaborative, something like death ends that story for that character that you've been essentially living put the story through. I don't think it's a good comparison, but hey, maybe it really is a case of "to each their own."

Quote from: sparkletwistI hope I'm not falling into a trap of thinking everything is a nail simply because I've invented a hammer that I'm rather fond of, but I'm not sure if being "simulationist" is necessarily required for this kind of game-- as long as everyone is on board with the tone, and willing to work together to create it, I feel like the Asura system or some variant thereof would work for this kind of game, as well.

In that case, your problem becomes a non-issue because a lighter, more "narrativist" system like Asura includes plenty of places to bend the narrative and tweak the dice. The Nazi's burst of fire could be mitigated by stunts or consequences, or, at the worst, invoke the "mooks can't kill you" rule and state that the party shows up before Herr Generalfeldmarschall Von Evil.

I wouldn't necessarily say that all forms of things like stunts and consequences are always incompatible with a gritty game.  But I do think that the GM pulling punches to outright prevent character death would majorly alter the feel of the game I described, especially in the form of a "can't be killed by Mooks" rule.

Take another hypothetical scenario from the same imaginary game.  The PCs are pinned down in a burnt-out hotel and German machine-gun emplacements have the main street covered.  There's a secret tunnel in the cellar the hotel owner has been using to aid the French Resistance, but the PCs don't know about it yet.  German troops are slowly closing in on the hotel through the alleyways - and the PCs are running very low on ammunition.  They need to escape.

Under the gritty/simulationist rules, running out into the street is pretty much certain death.  Unless the players get very, very lucky, they're going to get cut to pieces.  This knowledge adds tension to the situation: near-certain death lurks just outside the front door of the hotel, a swathe of Allied corpses giving testament to the fact.  The PCs must get inventive.  They might start laying an ambush for the German troops, creating a diversion to make a break for it, or scoping out the cellar as a hiding place, leading them to discover the resistance tunnel.  If they make a dash through the alleyways, they're probably going to attempt stealth since they need to conserve their ammunition and can't afford to get in a prolonged firefight.  A high-risk, holding-their-breath game of cat and mouse and ducking into shadows might ensue as they attempt to evade the German troops.

Under the narrativist, lighter system, I would argue, the tension  could very well be significantly lessened.  Secure in the knowledge that they can't die unless it fits the narrative, the players might decide simply to make a dash through the main street ("this sucks, but I'll just use a defensive stunt to tumble aside" or "I'll just take a severe consequence, take a few penalties - we'll be in the Allied camp soon where we can rest up").  Or they might be more inclined to rush out into the alleyway guns blazing - since they're essentially bulletproof vs. mooks, the Germans aren't much of a threat, and they can easily kill a few and grab their weapons to replenish ammunition.

Now, if you had great players who were totally committed to their roles, they might still adopt the more "realistic" strategy to extricate themselves from the tense situation - but I still don't think it would feel as tense.  Narrative concessions could still be OK - but there would be a trade-off.  The GM would have to be very careful to keep things in balance.

I'm emphatically not saying that gritty/simulationist rules > cinematic/narrativist rules - or vice versa.  It depends on the game, on the feel one wants to cultivate, on the type of game you want to play, of course.

Quote from: WeaveI'm going to play the devil's advocate here because I want to know more: I don't think you can compare chess and a tabletop RPG. Chess, by itself, is a game you can win or lose. You'll probably lose a lot, too, but that's part of understanding and improving upon the game. I don't think you could argue the same for any given RPG game; the rules aren't and can never be fixed enough that it's just winning and losing in any case - you have an arbiter of the game, a GM, who will inevitably govern things in a manner they see fit, and if it's anything like a story or campaign, the heroes won't be able to just lose some of the combats and come back as something completely new.

Woah, lots here. I didn't mean it as a perfect comparison; I was mostly just addressing the point of whether and why people want a little difficulty or hurt in their entertainment. I could as easily have picked spicy food for comparison.

Additionally, as others have said winning and losing isn't always a death thing. The variability of objectives is one of RPGs' unique assets. So the "end of play" bit doesn't apply across the board to the "winning and losing" bit.

Finally, while there are those like Sparkle for whom the nature/story of a particular character is a key point of interest, there are others for whom characters are avatars first. For these people, for whom the specifics of the character are secondary, death might not sting as much. Especially if there's an NPC on hand that they can pick up. Roleplayers have complex and not entirely uniform relationships with their characters, and the relationship here might change from game to game for the same player as well.

QuoteEven with very little backstory, a person can be mechanically involved in their character, and that's the point. You can be mechanically involved in chess while losing, and come back having learned from that loss. I suppose you could argue the same in a tabletop game, but you're not always necessarily getting better at the game - you're getting better at playing the way the GM wants you to. If that's your cup of tea, so be it.

I don't buy the "playing the GM" bit for three (ish) reasons.

1) GM plays by specific rules in some games.
2) One of the assets of RPGs is that they are representational. The "immersion" bit ideally means that what would work in "real life" (or in genre as the case may be) works in game.
3) The rules themselves (say, the combat rules) are built tighter in some spots, making things less fiat-ish in the high stakes areas.

None of these is a perfect answer by itself, but together they add a dimension beyond "playing the GM."

Quote from: beejazz

QuoteEven with very little backstory, a person can be mechanically involved in their character, and that's the point. You can be mechanically involved in chess while losing, and come back having learned from that loss. I suppose you could argue the same in a tabletop game, but you're not always necessarily getting better at the game - you're getting better at playing the way the GM wants you to. If that's your cup of tea, so be it.

I don't buy the "playing the GM" bit for three (ish) reasons.

1) GM plays by specific rules in some games.
2) One of the assets of RPGs is that they are representational. The "immersion" bit ideally means that what would work in "real life" (or in genre as the case may be) works in game.
3) The rules themselves (say, the combat rules) are built tighter in some spots, making things less fiat-ish in the high stakes areas.

None of these is a perfect answer by itself, but together they add a dimension beyond "playing the GM."

Chiming in here for a bit.

In poker, the cards you get are random, but it is common poker wisdom that you don't play your hand; you play the other players.  With RPGs, the details will vary, but I think that there is a degree of this going on.  So I think in groups that play regularly, you will get a bit of "playing the GM going on."  The rules may not change, but the types of challenges the PCs face may well follow a pattern.  Maybe a GM likes to throw a lot of traps at the PCs, so the players become suspicious of empty corridors, and so might make sure their rogue (or some character good at finding and disabling traps) is always in front and searching for traps, and that he trains the relevant skills as much as possible.  If the GM never includes traps, though, the PCs, might make the decision to put the Fighter up front, and their rogue might focus on sneaking, and ignore trapfinding skills altogether.  If the GM has a penchant for throwing hordes of squishies at them, the party's wizard might make sure to always have some "fireballs" handy. 

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium

Quote from: beejazz

QuoteEven with very little backstory, a person can be mechanically involved in their character, and that's the point. You can be mechanically involved in chess while losing, and come back having learned from that loss. I suppose you could argue the same in a tabletop game, but you're not always necessarily getting better at the game - you're getting better at playing the way the GM wants you to. If that's your cup of tea, so be it.

I don't buy the "playing the GM" bit for three (ish) reasons.

1) GM plays by specific rules in some games.
2) One of the assets of RPGs is that they are representational. The "immersion" bit ideally means that what would work in "real life" (or in genre as the case may be) works in game.
3) The rules themselves (say, the combat rules) are built tighter in some spots, making things less fiat-ish in the high stakes areas.

None of these is a perfect answer by itself, but together they add a dimension beyond "playing the GM."

Chiming in here for a bit.

In poker, the cards you get are random, but it is common poker wisdom that you don't play your hand; you play the other players.  With RPGs, the details will vary, but I think that there is a degree of this going on.  So I think in groups that play regularly, you will get a bit of "playing the GM going on."  The rules may not change, but the types of challenges the PCs face may well follow a pattern.  Maybe a GM likes to throw a lot of traps at the PCs, so the players become suspicious of empty corridors, and so might make sure their rogue (or some character good at finding and disabling traps) is always in front and searching for traps, and that he trains the relevant skills as much as possible.  If the GM never includes traps, though, the PCs, might make the decision to put the Fighter up front, and their rogue might focus on sneaking, and ignore trapfinding skills altogether.  If the GM has a penchant for throwing hordes of squishies at them, the party's wizard might make sure to always have some "fireballs" handy. 

Random content generation and non-linear dungeons (or other scenarios) can help immensely with these sorts of issues, assuming one sees them as such.

Quote from: beejazz

Quote from: Seraphine_Harmonium

Quote from: beejazz

QuoteEven with very little backstory, a person can be mechanically involved in their character, and that's the point. You can be mechanically involved in chess while losing, and come back having learned from that loss. I suppose you could argue the same in a tabletop game, but you're not always necessarily getting better at the game - you're getting better at playing the way the GM wants you to. If that's your cup of tea, so be it.

I don't buy the "playing the GM" bit for three (ish) reasons.

1) GM plays by specific rules in some games.
2) One of the assets of RPGs is that they are representational. The "immersion" bit ideally means that what would work in "real life" (or in genre as the case may be) works in game.
3) The rules themselves (say, the combat rules) are built tighter in some spots, making things less fiat-ish in the high stakes areas.

None of these is a perfect answer by itself, but together they add a dimension beyond "playing the GM."

Chiming in here for a bit.

In poker, the cards you get are random, but it is common poker wisdom that you don't play your hand; you play the other players.  With RPGs, the details will vary, but I think that there is a degree of this going on.  So I think in groups that play regularly, you will get a bit of "playing the GM going on."  The rules may not change, but the types of challenges the PCs face may well follow a pattern.  Maybe a GM likes to throw a lot of traps at the PCs, so the players become suspicious of empty corridors, and so might make sure their rogue (or some character good at finding and disabling traps) is always in front and searching for traps, and that he trains the relevant skills as much as possible.  If the GM never includes traps, though, the PCs, might make the decision to put the Fighter up front, and their rogue might focus on sneaking, and ignore trapfinding skills altogether.  If the GM has a penchant for throwing hordes of squishies at them, the party's wizard might make sure to always have some "fireballs" handy.  

Random content generation and non-linear dungeons (or other scenarios) can help immensely with these sorts of issues, assuming one sees them as such.

1) yes, one of the reasons that some random charts are useful are for this reason.l  I have a random social effect/even chart that is modified by the PCs social CC roll i use, partially for this reason, to not fall into a rut.

2) and a good GM is always playing the players, as well.  In positive ways (the SIG game was supposed to be a pure dungeon crawl at first, but the in-town time and travel has take up more sessions than the dungeoning has.  This is in response, mainly, to the type of game the players were playing (heavy RP).  Sometimes, it means specifically doing something, within the in-setting logic, that surprises them.
My Igbarian Guys took months to figure out that Harack Don Faden, their ally on the Deductors of the Scarlet Pilums, had actually been turned to an uncompyre.  SO many players are trained by RPGs to see NPCs as unchanging and immutable.

Quote from: LordVreeg2) and a good GM is always playing the players, as well.  In positive ways (the SIG game was supposed to be a pure dungeon crawl at first, but the in-town time and travel has take up more sessions than the dungeoning has.  This is in response, mainly, to the type of game the players were playing (heavy RP).  Sometimes, it means specifically doing something, within the in-setting logic, that surprises them.
My Igbarian Guys took months to figure out that Harack Don Faden, their ally on the Deductors of the Scarlet Pilums, had actually been turned to an uncompyre.  SO many players are trained by RPGs to see NPCs as unchanging and immutable.

This is a good point.  I think that to a certain extent a GM needs to tailor the game to the desires of the players.  This doesn't mean let them run rampant with game-breaking advantages or anything, but the type of game should be determined by what the players on the whole want out of the experience.  Everyone should be having a good time, or else "you're doing it wrong."

And if you know how your players will react to stimuli, you will know how to hook them on something they should follow, or how to throw them a curveball.  One of my favorite moments of this kind was when I was DMing a group that was on a mission for their church.  They found a note revealing that there was a spy in their midst, and they went to inform the authority in the matter, completely unaware that the authority WAS the spy, and that they were tipping their hand.