Campaign Lethality and Script Immunity

Simlasa · September 18, 2014, 03:19:59 PM

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;787683When I don't want those things I play a different game that has lower danger and stakes. Variety is the spice of life, and there's no right or wrong way to play.

Of course. I guess I just think of 'death' as a permanent thing... so 'death followed by rezz' is something different, like you said, going unconscious.
In general if I wanted a less lethal game I'd rather play/run something where there was less overt violence... more politics or investigation... vs. playing something overtly violent where damage just gets dusted off. Just a matter of taste though. Similar to how I love horror movies but don't much care for superheroes or modern action movies.

fuseboy · September 18, 2014, 03:24:08 PM

I think jhkim hit the nose on the head. Who cares if the GM is wearing his 'tough guy' shirt if the party is up to its knees in healing potions, the system insulates from death, or the opposition is afraid of or unwilling to kill PCs?

The more interesting metric for me is the actual rate of character loss - the player can no longer use that character - in milliwhacks ( (character losses * 1000) / (sessions * players/session)).

I played about three years of bi-weekly, Paizo adventure path 3.5e and in that time we had two TPKs. Call that 60 sessions with a party of 4-5 (so, 9 unrecoverable deaths) so that play style rates 33 milliwhacks.

In four one-sessions games of Fiasco (avg. 4 PCs) I've seen maybe two deaths (both mine)? So that play style rates 125 milliwhacks.

ostap bender · September 18, 2014, 03:44:17 PM

Quote from: jadrax;787677This is an example of a game I was in that I would call a '1'.

Cyberpunk game, First session, party meets in a bar and gets the plot. We head out onto the street. GM rolls to see if there is an encounter, a booster gang is passing. GM rolls to see how dangerous they are, they are very dangerous.

The booster Gang open fire, and kill us all before we can react.

All done totally by the rules, no fudging.

If you would have run the session differently, you should not have voted 1.

i have played in several 2020 games that sort of went like that. our gm used to joke that just sending us to a grocery store is an adventure.

daniel_ream · September 18, 2014, 03:53:10 PM

Quote from: fuseboy;787688The more interesting metric for me is the actual rate of character loss - the player can no longer use that character

I think this is an important metric, because I notice everyone's focusing on character death. I've played in lots of games where there was no risk of character death, but a character being removed from play or permanently altered was.

Nexus · September 18, 2014, 04:22:09 PM

Quote from: ostap bender;787690i have played in several 2020 games that sort of went like that. our gm used to joke that just sending us to a grocery store is an adventure.

Wasn't there a Shadowrun adventure that basically was a trip to the grocery store?

Gronan of Simmerya · September 18, 2014, 05:09:09 PM

2.

I want my players to have fun, of course. But I tell them beforehand:

"This game is the story of a world. People lived on it. Some died young, some lived to a ripe old age, some explored to the horizon and became heroes. We will not know which one your characters are until we play."

Or to put it another way, we won't know who's Luke, who's Wedge, who's Biggs, and who's Porkins until we've played for a year or more.

woodsmoke · September 18, 2014, 05:16:27 PM

I voted 1, but I'm wondering if I read the OP differently than others. I want character death/loss to be a very real risk in my games, especially in dangerous situations, but I also want it to make sense. Arbitrary death-by-system is stupid; if my PC is killed by a situation or enemy I wasn't aware of and couldn't have done anything to defend against or avoid, the DM's just being a dick. If I've knowingly exposed her/him to a potentially dangerous situation, however, and whether through poor choices or just rotten luck with the dice my PC winds up buying the farm? Them's the breaks.

jhkim · September 18, 2014, 05:42:37 PM

Quote from: Bren;787680I'm curious. What death could possibly be inappropriate in a high body count horror game? Could you provide a few examples.

Sure, but as a caveat, what counts as "dramatic" depends a lot on the circumstances and the particulars of the story. You can never say "It's dramatically inappropriate for a hero to die of disease" because with imagination you can generally come up with a counter-example.

In general, though, for drama in a high-body-count horror story you want both the deaths and the horror to escalate. If there is a high body count early on from a very mundane / non-horrific source (like a car crash, say), that could interfere with the escalating horror. A heroic death before reaching the full horror might be inappropriate, depending on the story.

Bren · September 18, 2014, 05:48:04 PM

Quote from: jhkim;787708In general, though, for drama in a high-body-count horror story you want both the deaths and the horror to escalate.

Yes, that makes sense.

QuoteIf there is a high body count early on from a very mundane / non-horrific source (like a car crash, say), that could interfere with the escalating horror.

Gotcha. That seems like a pretty good example.

QuoteA heroic death before reaching the full horror might be inappropriate, depending on the story.

This does not seem like a good example for high-body count horror as deaths in those films are almost never, if ever, heroic. But mostly see what you mean now. Thanks!

Philotomy Jurament · September 18, 2014, 07:51:27 PM

Quote from: Imperator;787578I always play in 1, and I let the system dictate the lethality of the game.

This.

talysman · September 18, 2014, 08:57:08 PM

Quote from: Old Geezer;7877042.

I want my players to have fun, of course. But I tell them beforehand:

"This game is the story of a world. People lived on it. Some died young, some lived to a ripe old age, some explored to the horizon and became heroes. We will not know which one your characters are until we play."

I also picked 2. I figure players have to deal with their choices, but every once in a while, you get a glitch in some untested rules, or an opponent turns out to be too good and I have to pick whether to kill the whole party or have them captured.

Gronan of Simmerya · September 18, 2014, 09:49:18 PM

Quote from: woodsmoke;787706I voted 1, but I'm wondering if I read the OP differently than others. I want character death/loss to be a very real risk in my games, especially in dangerous situations, but I also want it to make sense. Arbitrary death-by-system is stupid; if my PC is killed by a situation or enemy I wasn't aware of and couldn't have done anything to defend against or avoid, the DM's just being a dick. If I've knowingly exposed her/him to a potentially dangerous situation, however, and whether through poor choices or just rotten luck with the dice my PC winds up buying the farm? Them's the breaks.

Then it's not a 1. A 1 would be like a WW2 battle; sometimes the way you find out there's a minefield is when your lead tank explodes.

Gronan of Simmerya · September 18, 2014, 10:47:10 PM

What's interesting to me is how the distribution of answers skews in the two places you have this poll up.

I'd like to see you put it up in Dragonsfoot or ODD74 or someplace like that too.

JamesV · September 18, 2014, 11:03:13 PM

I went with 2, but maybe there may be something I'm misunderstanding.

Is this number based on how I as the GM handle the results of player choices and actions, or does it also include the challenges I throw at the players?

While I have from time to time in the past, I stopped doing things like fudging rolls or pulling punches and underplaying dangerous baddies. At the same time, it's not like each week it's raining ancient red dragons, intellect devourers, and rust monsters. Nor is every group of green meanies out to kill the party, sometimes there are other motives like looting, harassing and/or capture.

Simlasa · September 18, 2014, 11:17:45 PM

I just took the question to be asking what is our preference... not even how we actually run things.
My preference is for plausible dangers to be plausibly dangerous... but that doesn't mean I think every game should a Busby Berkeley extravaganza of death. I'm happy if a session has no combat at all... vs. some random thing the GM shoves in because he thinks we want 'action'.