Too Tough to Handle??!!?

[Admin Pete]

I was reading the other day and I ran across a thread where a bunch of people were commiserating with one another about how terrible it is to have encounters where the PCs are in serious danger of dying or are guaranteed to die if they attack. They went on and on about unfair it is to have encounters that are tough and why would you put in stuff that the PCs cannot interact with and etc.

I often wonder about these people and what their games must be like, where no one ever dies and no one ever loses, where there is no real danger and victory is always guaranteed. Is it really possible to play that way and have fun in the long term? Wouldn't complete boredom set in after a while?

I don't ref that way and I would not want to play in a game that was run that way. I like knowing that there are many encounters out there in the world where fighting is not the solution. I like trying to sneak in and out of places, trying to outwit the bad guys, negotiating, playing one group off against another, knowing sometimes all you can do is run, etc.

When I play, I don't want anything just handed to me, I want to feel like I really earned it. When I ref, I want to make the game a real challenge for the players. I want to throw in things that make them think and be creative in the solutions they come up with. As the ref, I want to be entertained and surprised by the players just as much as they want to be entertained and surprised by me. I create and present an environment to the players, they respond and I respond, back and forth. I don't give them anything, they have to find it and take it, and they try to avoid fighting unless they have to. Exploration is the game we play, as a game of wits rather than one long battle.

[robkuntz]

Yes. The "ME" generation was catered to by the computer RPG industry, where if one did not succeed then "RELOAD SAVED GAME." No challenge equals no growth; no challenge equal to the rewards, the same. It has a lot to do with those people who expect everything to be handed to them on a platter without the commensurate endeavor. All it creates in games and play are feet of clay.

[captaincrumbcake]

I often wonder about these people and what their games must be like, where no one ever dies and no one ever loses, where there is no real danger and victory is always guaranteed. Is it really possible to play that way and have fun in the long term? Wouldn't complete boredom set in after a while?

Isn't this just LARPing?

[Deleted]

"Wipe them out. All of them."

Rob, I've noted several times in several forums that Dark Chateau should be required for all new players. With the goblin ambush in the stable, if the players ignore the information that they're given that goblins have been spotted in the area, and if the players then go dorking down the road with their thumbs up their asses, there is an excellent chance of a total party kill.

Which is exactly as it should be. "Next time try a little reconnaissance, sh*t-for-brains."

[Admin Pete]

Mar 17, 2016 18:20:48 GMT -5 captaincrumbcake said:

I often wonder about these people and what their games must be like, where no one ever dies and no one ever loses, where there is no real danger and victory is always guaranteed. Is it really possible to play that way and have fun in the long term? Wouldn't complete boredom set in after a while?

Isn't this just LARPing?

If LARPing is run like that, I would definitely not be interested.

[Deleted]

No kidding, Gronan ... Dark Chateau presents a great textbook ambush. (I tried firebombs in that game only to be surprised ...) Great stuff.

[hengest]

I almost want to see how my character dies, but without obviously suicidal moves. Depends on the tone of the game, of course, but somehow it feels proper. Reminds me of what I read on a site by a maker of ceramics -- I can't find it now, but it was something like "only by being used and eventually broken can a ceramic plate or mug be understood."

[Deleted]

Many sagas include the death of the hero, from Gilgamesh through Heracles to Beowulf to Roland to Le Morte d'Arthur to the d'Artagnan romances to Cyrano de Bergerac. It's an entirely worthy tradition.

[robkuntz]

Mar 17, 2016 21:01:52 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

"Wipe them out. All of them."

Rob, I've noted several times in several forums that Dark Chateau should be required for all new players. With the goblin ambush in the stable, if the players ignore the information that they're given that goblins have been spotted in the area, and if the players then go dorking down the road with their thumbs up their asses, there is an excellent chance of a total party kill.

Which is exactly as it should be. "Next time try a little reconnaissance, sh*t-for-brains."

Yes.  This was the way of the past--value driven accomplishment.  Not so in the present where successive generations believe they are entitled or due something without equal accomplishments--and this has seeped into all structures of society, RPGs included.

[robkuntz]

I covered this very topic in an essay I wrote many years ago for LotGD (partial extract and link follows):

lordofthegreendragons.blogspot.fr/2010/01/up-on-tree-stump-4.html

...

[section sub-heading] …The New D&D: The Lessening of the Play Experience

The built in safety net in the newest RPGs only exemplifies what is already known in that regard: Even if the rigidity of form is adopted, as in numerical expressions and tables and endless charts for myriad events or perceived game driven engagements, even if the players "feel" that there is fair and equitable treatment being proposed, in the end, the DM, however rigid and defined the system may be, can always call upon the fantastic if he or she is unfair or unyielding or selfish, breaking all barriers of pretense with but one summoned monster from the ether which demolishes said party of PCs anyway. Players may scream in the end about equality of CR levels or what not, but done is done. In retrospect OD&D assumed a standard of fairness of adjudication as its core principle in DMing the game. Thus I find that this sacrifice of play in the new D&D—and supposedly in answer to player demand or a perceived design need--has never held water with me; and it appears beneath the surface as a red herring implemented to justify new rules favoring a finite structure that in turn explode PC-dominant positions within the game.

In turn, this new RPG “safety net” creates and sustains a totally manufactured and assumptive way of imagining a player and thus their regulated environment, making sure that they are not over-wounded (disfavored) in the game. This of course does not present a realistic portrayal of any event driven fiction (role) and its backlash is the need driven participation of the player to succeed time and time again. When faced with challenges or loss, they can point back at “balance or fairness,” the very things that have in fact been worked out of the game play due to structuring it in this manner. In essence, the apparent reason for this conceptual deletion of value-driven accomplishment is due to marketing and grooming of the play environment to keep players, like in computer games, happy as larks with their perceived rewards and gains.

Now let's take a look at a different way of viewing this from the other end of the telescope.

Immersive play furthers creative thought. When a player substitutes intuition and creativity for game mechanics only, they are not immersing themselves in a growing experience through which they become better decision makers or strategists. This very lack summons a ground of clay that makes any stance for learning or achieving beyond a redundant and non-immersive pattern impossible. Such participants instead comfortably root to where and when they will choose to implement powers and repeatable set in stone strategies. They may reach for dice with the knowledge that they have achieved a numerically advantageous position as they have before them all of the inputs in print to arrive at that calculation, so they are assured in most respects of a positive outcome. This is like opening a door. ...

[Deleted]

Indeed. I actually saw one person post "I don't want to think about stuff, just have me make an intelligence roll and tell me the answer."

It's not role playing, it's constructing robots and watching how they perform on a test ground. Not a bad hobby if that's what turns your crank, but it's not what I'm after.

As Rob put it a couple years ago at GaryCon, "They're playing, but it's not a game." What X number of gamers do in the privacy of their own table is their business -- but don't tell me I'm doing it "wrong."

[bestialwarlust]

Mar 17, 2016 21:01:52 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

"Wipe them out. All of them."

Rob, I've noted several times in several forums that Dark Chateau should be required for all new players. With the goblin ambush in the stable, if the players ignore the information that they're given that goblins have been spotted in the area, and if the players then go dorking down the road with their thumbs up their asses, there is an excellent chance of a total party kill.

Which is exactly as it should be. "Next time try a little reconnaissance, sh*t-for-brains."

Agreed. My group has been with me for a long time. And when they do stupid stuff they die and then they learn not to do it again. Even the best and most experienced players make stupid mistakes and they still pay for it.

I find keeping this around helps