Quote from: Rincewind1;788521You must be playing some pretty boring wargames, if extermination is the only victory condition.



If only we had the imagination to not make every conflict necessary about death! Could it be that perhaps the PCs would loose the kingdom they recently conquered, rather than THEIR LIVES AND EVERYONE THEY LOVE each time a challenge appears? Sure, they might take an arrow to the knee as they ride out to lead their men into battle, but chances of dying are very, very low as compared to the usual hike in the Tomb of Grotesque Horrorific Truly Doomsdayic Devices.

Not all words need to be designed by Games' Workshop, come on.

Perfectly acceptable- so long as losing the kingdom means game over.

If the game doesn't end (at least for the characters in question) then we are not talking about an actual loss, just setback fodder for further adventure.

If the characters get to press on and continue, then whatever happened wasn't much of a victory/loss condition at all, it was just part of the ups and downs of an adventuring life.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;788524Perfectly acceptable- so long as losing the kingdom means game over.

If the game doesn't end (at least for the characters in question) then we are not talking about an actual loss, just setback fodder for further adventure.

If the characters get to press on and continue, then whatever happened wasn't much of a victory/loss condition at all, it was just part of the ups and downs of an adventuring life.

I'd be cool with playing a campaign where the goal is simple - you have a kingdom, if you loose it, game over, but I'd also be cool with playing a campaign when loosing a kingdom is a "set back". However, it is a pretty major setback - I'd say  that loosing something that you sent several in game hours earning, perhaps even hundreds of them for lengthier campaign, is a pretty serious loss.

Of course, we can be pedantic and say "very well, we lost, let us start another campaign, with same characters, focusing on regaining the kingdom" - I mean, you lost the previous campaign...so what? Nobody's taking anyone's birthday away over it.

And it'd make perfect sense - real life adventurers rarely gave up their swords over loosing kingdom once.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;788524If the characters get to press on and continue, then whatever happened wasn't much of a victory/loss condition at all, it was just part of the ups and downs of an adventuring life.

If you can roll up a new party and rejoin the party within a few hours of play time, soon after adopting the same campaign-level goal, that strikes me as just a speed bump too - at least from the perspective of the player playing the game.

Then there's the TPK followed by the GM setting his campaign notes on fire. Now that's a real game-ender.

Quote from: fuseboy;788526If you can roll up a new party and rejoin the party within a few hours of play time, soon after adopting the same campaign-level goal, that strikes me as just a speed bump too - at least from the perspective of the player playing the game.

Of course! In D&D death itself is sometimes only a speed bump.

Quote from: fuseboy;788526Then there's the TPK followed by the GM setting his campaign notes on fire. Now that's a real game-ender.

:rotfl:

Hardcore!!

Quote from: Ravenswing;788483And were honest and accurate about it.

Even being honest and accurate isn't sufficient. You have to communicate it in a manner so that the players understand what you meant. And I've seen very few players over the years who understand (or even care about) the jargon used to communicate about play styles and preferences.

The best we can hope for is to try to communicate up front to screen out strong incompatibilties and then not to get offended or take it personally when someone says, "you know this isn't the RPG experience I was looking for" and decides not to play (or GM).

Quote from: Old Geezer;788487It's not any "test of manhood" shit.

A game you can't lose isn't a game.  It's a pastime, not a game.  Model railroading is a pastime.  I cannot "lose" at running a train.

I get different things out of running trains with friends than I get out of playing games with friends.  I want a game, including an RPG, to be a "game," and that means there has to be a way to lose.

And "complications" aren't losing; the game is about having adventures, and adding complications means that the player characters have MORE adventures.  So instead of "losing," you reward the players (which is not the same as the player characters) for losing by "adding complications."

Bullshit.  As a couple of others said, you seem to equate "losing" with "death."  But even given the many games that don't result in one or more sides "losing," that's not at all accurate.  You don't "die" when your PC gets taken out; you get to restart with a new game piece.  In my mind, that's not one bit different from you losing the chess game and saying "Best two out of three?" or losing the poker hand and waiting for the next draw.

Beyond that, there's a second flaw in your argument: the implication that if there isn't a measurable body count, it's not actually possible to "lose," and therefore.  How does this square with your personal definition if you've got a lucky, skilled party and people don't actually drop?

Beyond that, come off it.  It's absolutely a "test of manhood" to you, given what you said: "real men" play manly games where PCs die in profusion, and only pussies -- or, how did you phrase it, "Mommy's pwecious widdle snowfwakes" -- are caught playing those types of games.  Own your own words, for pity's sake.

Finally, let's say that the definitions of "game" and "pastime" are indeed what you claim.

So freaking what?

I swear, that's like the faction who shrilly insist that "storygames" can't be REAL RPGs, because they declare that this element or that are What Every/No RPG Has, or like the blockhead who once goggled at me and blurted out "But how can it be a RPG without dungeons??"

Quote from: Old Geezer;788487A game you can't lose isn't a game.  It's a pastime, not a game.  Model railroading is a pastime.  I cannot "lose" at running a train.

I get different things out of running trains with friends than I get out of playing games with friends.  I want a game, including an RPG, to be a "game," and that means there has to be a way to lose.

And "complications" aren't losing; the game is about having adventures, and adding complications means that the player characters have MORE adventures.  So instead of "losing," you reward the players (which is not the same as the player characters) for losing by "adding complications."

The normal way to lose in a wargame is to fail to achieve your goals. The same works perfectly fine in RPGs. Games where you have to eliminate your playing piece when you lose are actually pretty rare.

In my experience, there are a lot of competitive RPG players who prefer low lethality because it means there is more continuity. So if they fail to defeat the supervillain Doctor Hex, then they can adjust and try again with the same characters in a later adventure. Amber is often high competitive and low-lethality, in my experience, as are some superhero games like Champions.

On the other hand, I know lots of non-competitive players who play with high lethality - mainly casual, "beer-and-pretzel" gamers who just like playing together socially to kill some orcs, get eaten by tentacled monstrosities, or whatever. When they get killed, they just laugh about it and roll up a new character.

Quote from: jhkim;788645On the other hand, I know lots of non-competitive players who play with high lethality - mainly casual, "beer-and-pretzel" gamers who just like playing together socially to kill some orcs, get eaten by tentacled monstrosities, or whatever. When they get killed, they just laugh about it and roll up a new character.

This sounds very much like my group, with the exception that rolling up a new character can be a hassle (more or less so depending on the edition), so we'll normally prefer to simply have the old one raised - hence our preference for both high lethality and easily accessible raising spells.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;788646This sounds very much like my group, with the exception that rolling up a new character can be a hassle (more or less so depending on the edition), so we'll normally prefer to simply have the old one raised - hence our preference for both high lethality and easily accessible raising spells.

good way of getting excess gold/moneys out of the players, too!  

Quote from: Ravenswing;788617
Finally, let's say that the definitions of "game" and "pastime" are indeed what you claim.

Game
noun
1. an amusement or pastime

Went with 6 because 5 is just too much riding the fence and 4 is closer to the arbitrary side of things at 1. This is on the assumption that the poll is simply measuring preference for frequency of death in games, i.e., overall deadliness. Certainly never fudge dice myself; just prefer to play games (like 13th Age) where the characters are more robust from the get-go, minimizing random kills due to house cats, 10' drops, and strong winds.

Quote from: jhkim;788645On the other hand, I know lots of non-competitive players who play with high lethality - mainly casual, "beer-and-pretzel" gamers who just like playing together socially to kill some orcs, get eaten by tentacled monstrosities, or whatever. When they get killed, they just laugh about it and roll up a new character.

This is exactly where I am in my gaming career.  Having a blast:)

Quote from: jhkim;788645On the other hand, I know lots of non-competitive players who play with high lethality - mainly casual, "beer-and-pretzel" gamers who just like playing together socially to kill some orcs, get eaten by tentacled monstrosities, or whatever. When they get killed, they just laugh about it and roll up a new character.

That's me as a Player. I can really get into playing a character... voices and motivations and whatnot... but that's all 'in the moment' stuff. I don't much care about long term 'character arc' or 'builds'. Every PC death is an opportunity to try on some new costume.

But what's this 'competitive' vs. 'non-competitive' stuff?
It reminds me of the 'casual' vs. 'hardcore' stuff in videogames... where 'casual' is often a pejorative.

Quote from: Simlasa;788765... where 'casual' is often a pejorative.

But conversely, not so much in rpg's. The whole one thing though, imo I doubt unless everyone is playing Paranoia. Another lethal game was Aftermath, with a long chargen process, roll up a character takes two hours, 20 minutes into the game it's a TPK.

Quote from: Old Geezer;788487It's not any "test of manhood" shit.

A game you can't lose isn't a game.  It's a pastime, not a game.  Model railroading is a pastime.  I cannot "lose" at running a train.

I get different things out of running trains with friends than I get out of playing games with friends.  I want a game, including an RPG, to be a "game," and that means there has to be a way to lose.

And "complications" aren't losing; the game is about having adventures, and adding complications means that the player characters have MORE adventures.  So instead of "losing," you reward the players (which is not the same as the player characters) for losing by "adding complications."

I agree, but it's important to point out that one can be a loser in some games without getting your character killed. If my figure remains at (or falls back to) the bottom of the social hierarchy in En Garde!, then I'm not a winner.

The original D&D game form is like Diplomacy (or Monopoly or Risk) in that elimination - in this case of a figure, not the player - is a key element; mere survival is a significant victory.

Some people take that assumpton for granted as a definitive norm for rpgs, but this puts an arbitrary limit on their scope. I don't see it as a fundamental necessity for role-playing. Physically reckless roles are not the only possible ones, violence not the only possible challenge.