TheRPGSite

This is split from Merits of Class Systems (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/merits-of-class-systems/) as it is really its own topic.

The question is over what makes it more workable for a system to be deadly - not in terms of the combat system, but what are elements that make it OK to have a PC die and the players still enjoy the game. This isn't about between D&D editions - but about RPGs more broadly, with the springboard being the comparison of PC death in Call of Cthulhu versus PC death in D&D, but death in other RPGs are totally on-topic.

Socratic-DM emphasizes the time taken for character creation, but I think it's only one factor. Players often enjoy creating a new character, so it's not necessarily an awful chore to make a new character that causes a player to quit. For example, Traveller character creation is time-consuming, but it is a fun mini-game in itself. And Traveller comabat can be quite deadly.

I think the archetypal-ness and expectations for the characters are something that makes players more invested.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 17, 2025, 05:48:01 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 17, 2025, 05:27:48 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 16, 2025, 08:55:29 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 16, 2025, 08:31:08 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 16, 2025, 06:39:53 PMVery quick character generation: Characters in Class systems tend to be quicker (given the classes are few and distinct) this has a knock on effect, my general belief is a system has to have a quick method of character generation for it to also be deadly, otherwise it's at best annoying or downright game ender to have a character die.

As a long-time Call of Cthulhu player, I strongly disagree. Call of Cthulhu is one of the most successful RPGs for over four decades, and it is both deadly and skill-based.

I never said class based systems were always faster or always fast in comparison to skill-based. I imagine it doesn't take very long to make a CoC character?

If it does, then regardless of the strengths I'd still dock points away from it on the grounds it should have a quicker means of character if it's going to be so deadly.

Chargen in Call of Cthulhu (CoC) is mostly about allocating points to skills. You have a few hundred points to divide among fifty or so skills. It's straightforward but can be time-consuming.

But from experience with Call of Cthulhu, I don't find that it is more of a downer or game-breaker for a character to die.

I think that's because time investment isn't the biggest factor in emotional investment. I think the archetypal-ness of classes and the "zero-to-hero" of D&D XP are bigger factors.

In Call of Cthulhu, you make a relatively ordinary person - not an archetypal hero. That makes it easier when your PC dies. Also, experience in CoC is much more incremental. In D&D, after a few levels it becomes very painful to give up the investment, whereas in CoC it's easier to fold in a beginning character.

I spoke strictly in terms of mechanics, whether a character is "easier" to accept dying is utterly subjective as far as I'm concerned.

I strictly meant in the mechanical sense, and it is clear to me CoC and many BRP systems don't exactly have breezy character generation. which makes their lethality simply annoying as opposed to having any sense of bathos.

the advantage of quick and random character generation is that the ones that survive long you feel (rightfully so) more entitled to care and think they are epic and as to what happens to them. than say some pre-planned min/maxed character build, because all of their greatness was set ahead of them even having been played.

another reason I make a distinction between old-school classes in games and new-school classes. because D&D 3.5 sucked ass through a straw and making characters was a tedious chore.

One of the things that bugs me about the D&D model of deadliness is the meta-gaming feel to it.

Characters at level 1 behave in brave or even foolhardy ways, and they shrug at the deaths of other PCs. But higher-level characters care about their lives and act more carefully. That can often feel artificial and contrary to what it should be like in the world. For immersion in the game-world, the characters should feel like real people who care about their own deaths.

Call of Cthulhu has some of its own meta-gaming feel, but I like the balance of investment in characters. I've had fun with characters dying at various points in their careers.

Perhaps not in the system itself but method of play, it's important that a player should be able to jump back in and participate quickly even if his character is taken out.  There are a lot of ways to deal with this.  In Paranoia each character has 6 clones and if one dies the next arrives immediately via a clone-apult or somesuch.  Silly but it works.  Ars Magica has grogs.  In D&D my group usually has 2 pcs per player, mostly for this reason, but also to keep players involved if the group must split.  In my current playtest, the players each picked a pre-gen and the 5 or 6 not picked are "guarding the boat."  If a pc dies the player can grab another pregen and be back in action almost immediately.

Quote from: jhkim on January 18, 2025, 06:12:42 PMThis is split from Merits of Class Systems (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/merits-of-class-systems/) as it is really its own topic.

The question is over what makes it more workable for a system to be deadly - not in terms of the combat system, but what are elements that make it OK to have a PC die and the players still enjoy the game. This isn't about between D&D editions - but about RPGs more broadly, with the springboard being the comparison of PC death in Call of Cthulhu versus PC death in D&D, but death in other RPGs are totally on-topic.

Socratic-DM emphasizes the time taken for character creation, but I think it's only one factor. Players often enjoy creating a new character, so it's not necessarily an awful chore to make a new character that causes a player to quit. For example, Traveller character creation is time-consuming, but it is a fun mini-game in itself. And Traveller comabat can be quite deadly.

I think the archetypal-ness and expectations for the characters are something that makes players more invested.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 17, 2025, 05:48:01 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 17, 2025, 05:27:48 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 16, 2025, 08:55:29 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 16, 2025, 08:31:08 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 16, 2025, 06:39:53 PMVery quick character generation: Characters in Class systems tend to be quicker (given the classes are few and distinct) this has a knock on effect, my general belief is a system has to have a quick method of character generation for it to also be deadly, otherwise it's at best annoying or downright game ender to have a character die.

As a long-time Call of Cthulhu player, I strongly disagree. Call of Cthulhu is one of the most successful RPGs for over four decades, and it is both deadly and skill-based.

I never said class based systems were always faster or always fast in comparison to skill-based. I imagine it doesn't take very long to make a CoC character?

If it does, then regardless of the strengths I'd still dock points away from it on the grounds it should have a quicker means of character if it's going to be so deadly.

Chargen in Call of Cthulhu (CoC) is mostly about allocating points to skills. You have a few hundred points to divide among fifty or so skills. It's straightforward but can be time-consuming.

But from experience with Call of Cthulhu, I don't find that it is more of a downer or game-breaker for a character to die.

I think that's because time investment isn't the biggest factor in emotional investment. I think the archetypal-ness of classes and the "zero-to-hero" of D&D XP are bigger factors.

In Call of Cthulhu, you make a relatively ordinary person - not an archetypal hero. That makes it easier when your PC dies. Also, experience in CoC is much more incremental. In D&D, after a few levels it becomes very painful to give up the investment, whereas in CoC it's easier to fold in a beginning character.

I spoke strictly in terms of mechanics, whether a character is "easier" to accept dying is utterly subjective as far as I'm concerned.

I strictly meant in the mechanical sense, and it is clear to me CoC and many BRP systems don't exactly have breezy character generation. which makes their lethality simply annoying as opposed to having any sense of bathos.

the advantage of quick and random character generation is that the ones that survive long you feel (rightfully so) more entitled to care and think they are epic and as to what happens to them. than say some pre-planned min/maxed character build, because all of their greatness was set ahead of them even having been played.

another reason I make a distinction between old-school classes in games and new-school classes. because D&D 3.5 sucked ass through a straw and making characters was a tedious chore.

One of the things that bugs me about the D&D model of deadliness is the meta-gaming feel to it.

Characters at level 1 behave in brave or even foolhardy ways, and they shrug at the deaths of other PCs. But higher-level characters care about their lives and act more carefully. That can often feel artificial and contrary to what it should be like in the world. For immersion in the game-world, the characters should feel like real people who care about their own deaths.

Call of Cthulhu has some of its own meta-gaming feel, but I like the balance of investment in characters. I've had fun with characters dying at various points in their careers.

I respect you decided to make this a separate thread for this instead of us endlessly clogging an entirely different thread which our topic did not really pertain to. (anymore at least)

Point 1. character creation being fun, and it being quick are not mutually exclusive, you can have both, and I even admit I recall spending hours planning out Mutants & mastermind characters. it can be engrossing no doubt, but I've grown out of it because I generally find it sets poor expectations on the players parts, one of the reasons I disdain D&D 3.5 was it's focus on system mastery over player skill, and lengthy character creation with lots of options tends to support the notion of "system mastery" not always explicitly but certainly implicitly.

2. Which leads to point 2, Systems that support mastery and detailed character creation tend to make characters that either die less (because they are crafted as such) or make the player more cautious because it's their handcrafted avatar. it also means systems that are more lethal are punishing players who care because it's dashing any work they put into those characters.


3. Addressing the high level D&D paradox as to why level 1 characters act foolhardy while high level characters act cowardly. I don't believe there to be a paradox, people act like that in real life, if you have nothing to lose you can only punch up, and the more invested and prosperous a character is the more they have to lose. though early D&D addressed this problem with the idea of character retirement, because logically someone who is now a lord of a manor has much better things to do than dungeon delving, and now your new character is your old characters knight it sort of solved the problem.

Ars Magica would expound on this idea, with the idea of troupe play, where each player had more than one character, sometimes the wizards had to spend a season doing lab work, so you couldn't play them for that period, sometimes a knight had duties elsewhere, etc, so you had a sort of mini-roster.

4. What is the point of Death in a TTRPG? we should get at the question itself because it decides why a system should or should not be lethal. death is a fail state, one in which the failure is so bad the character is taken away from you. the question then should be how harsh should the fail state be? if character creation is long and detailed, then the more lethal the system is the more punishing to the players it is for failure cause they automatically have more to lose.

systems with breezier character creation with high lethality tend to feel more proportionate in this respect, and have a certain glamour about them. plenty an epic story has been told about a D&D characters that were total underdogs who ended up surviving to 20th level, D&D is quite good at the rags to riches type setup, and high lethality makes it feel more earned because it really was earned, the likely hood was failure but you beat the odds.

In contrast if I had meticulously speced and planned each phase of my character, only for them to die suddenly and randomly, while there is a degree of humor to that, even bathos, it's only in meta sense, as in universe the character was already epic to begin with, not having an epic death is just a let down and feels abrupt. 

Quote from: jhkim on January 18, 2025, 06:12:42 PMCharacters at level 1 behave in brave or even foolhardy ways, and they shrug at the deaths of other PCs. But higher-level characters care about their lives and act more carefully.

That's not because of level, but the time playing them. It's the same as how the death of a main character in the first episode of a 12-episode miniseries has little impact, but the death of that same character in the 7th episode has more impact. It's no different in real life. If you start a new job and on your first day hear that Bob died, you say "that's sad" but really you don't care. If you see Bob every day for a year and then he dies, even if you didn't like him much you'll feel sad.

When you've had time to get to know them, you'll miss them. That's not a function of the game system, but simple time invested.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the thread, but I think tone and style of the game is another factor that plays a large part.

Sticking with the traditional "Dungeons and Dragons" style game, going with something like DCC you have "Funnels" which are designed to kill characters quickly, which is why you're supposed to make like 4 level 0 characters to begin with.

Compare that to say, something like Pathfinder 2E which at level 1 has characters start with what is even double the HP of a level 1 5th edition character. Despite this, Pathfinder 2e has a reputation as being a harsh game.

Taking a step out of the world's oldest form of Roleplaying, if I sit down to play Call of Cthulu versus Champions, my expectations on my characters death are going to be very different.

If my Call of Cthulu character dies early on, I expect this as it's a Horror game, and the expectation is that characters will die.

But if say during the 2nd session of Champions the GM has a Villain ruthlessly execute my costumed Superhero after knocking him out, not even putting him in a death trap, just double tapping him... I might get a little upset, since that kind of thing doesn't typically happen in the 4 color Superhero genre.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on January 18, 2025, 07:20:38 PMIt's no different in real life. If you start a new job and on your first day hear that Bob died, you say "that's sad" but really you don't care.

Counterpoint: If you start a new job and see Bob brutally killed right next to you while on day one of the job, you will likely never forget Bob.

What I've noticed over the years is what matters even more than character build complexity for tolerating lethality is whether the adventures are set up to be episodic or serial.

Episodic adventures where there is little to no carryover; ex. professional dungeon delvers explore various dungeons in pursuit of profit; can be a lot more lethal in my experience, even if the complexity to build a character is higher, because the setting basically defaults back to a status quo as soon as the current dungeon/supervillain/etc. is dealt with.

Serial setups where elements from previous adventures; ex. ties to various NPCs; are an important part of the setting make death an extremely harsh affair since any new PC brought in has far fewer connections and can often feel like a "extra" compared to the other pre-existing PCs as a result.

You're that guy added in season three because one of the original leads needed to be written out. Technically you might be in the story longer but, to use a Cheers reference, very few end up like Woody, a lot more are Rebeccas... and the same goes for PCs who come into a serialized adventure late.

So it's not really a system matter, but a campaign style one. The fewer "resets" there are, the more a campaign needs to mitigate its lethality.

To put it another way, if a third of the cast of TNG rotated out every season it wouldn't actually affect the form it's stories took that much (indeed, Tasha Yar and the Crusher/Pulaski/Crusher situations highlight this), while once you got into the main Dominion War arcs having some new main character show up would have greatly disrupted the flow (to the point that it's actual late departure only got a new host while the symbiont survived so the "new" character had familiarity with both the rest of the crew and the story so far).

One consideration is that the relationship between character death and length of character creation is more correlation than cause/effect. We tend in these conversations to say that long character creation discourages character death, and it does. However, discouraging character death also causes longer time spent on character creation.

The player knows that they are more likely to be with this character for awhile. So they take more pains with it, worry more about things that can't change easily later (class options, low stats, etc.), and are more inclined to want to have an involved back story.

If you want characters to develop in play instead of dropping into the game already formed in the player's mind, then making it clear that characters can and will die in the game is a powerful push to get the player to learn about the character in play.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 19, 2025, 02:13:54 PMOne consideration is that the relationship between character death and length of character creation is more correlation than cause/effect. We tend in these conversations to say that long character creation discourages character death, and it does. However, discouraging character death also causes longer time spent on character creation.

The player knows that they are more likely to be with this character for awhile. So they take more pains with it, worry more about things that can't change easily later (class options, low stats, etc.), and are more inclined to want to have an involved back story.

If you want characters to develop in play instead of dropping into the game already formed in the player's mind, then making it clear that characters can and will die in the game is a powerful push to get the player to learn about the character in play.

I'd agree with that.

However, as a correlary to it, long running campaigns often become backstories in and of themselves that can prove detrimental to replacing PCs with random new guys.

One d6 Stars Wars (Tales of the Jedi era) campaign I was in started well enough, but then one PC died, then another fell to the darkside and murdered two other PCs before escaping... my PC and the one added literally the session before were the only survivors and mine was the only one with any motivations tied to the original premise.

That campaign died because it was a serial with a death rate too high to keep any momentum to the story. If it had continued I'd have had to be the lead PC by default because no one else would even have a connection to the existing plot elements or NPCs.

So, yeah, encouraging people through death to encounter their character in play is one thing, but it comes with a caveat that the adventures you're involved in can't require any continuity of purpose or character either.

That works for some settings (ex. you work for someone else pursuing their agenda... spies, military, etc.), but definitely not for others (anything focused around pursuing player motivations like a sandbox fantasy).

The worst variations as I see it are high lethality + serialized events, and, even worse, the no risk + purely episodic ("slice of life RP" is what I've come to call this... the vampire PCs do nothing but hit the club every night and get a few drinks, maybe do some karaoke... nothing happens because they never engage anything outside the bubble and resent the GM for allowing anything outside to intrude).

The former at least will tend to fall apart sooner and with fewer harsh feelings.

I'd say another thing to consider is how long the campaign has left to run, and how heroic the death is. A beloved character you've played for months or years dying heroically in the last ever session of the campaign would make for a great memory. The same character dying because he failed a saving throw, and you need to roll up a replacement to continue the campaign, is not going to go down so well with the players.

Quote from: Krazz on January 19, 2025, 04:56:41 PMI'd say another thing to consider is how long the campaign has left to run, and how heroic the death is. A beloved character you've played for months or years dying heroically in the last ever session of the campaign would make for a great memory. The same character dying because he failed a saving throw, and you need to roll up a replacement to continue the campaign, is not going to go down so well with the players.

It really comes down what the GM and players are looking for in their campaign and there's no one right answer either... even for the same player across campaigns.

For example; after finishing a long campaign involving the fate of the world, our group decided our next game should be a straight dungeon delve where we've been hired to explore and clear the dungeon in exchange for a share of the loot (by law it all belongs to the noble, but he lacks the ability to reach it).

It's easy to run it episodically as any losses are easily covered by new hires and even partially clearing parts of the megadungeon could set someone's heirs up for life (the average peasant makes maybe 30-40 gp in a year so a 300 gp windfall would be a decade of earnings).

But after we finish that out, I'm planning on running some M&M for the group (premise: last issue all the big heroes died saving the world... who will save it now?) and as is the norm for comic book tropes, death is pretty rare (it practically needs to be deliberate in M&M3e) and I do want complications/backstory and such to play a role... again to have a change up from what we're doing now.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 19, 2025, 11:10:52 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on January 18, 2025, 07:20:38 PMThat's not because of level, but the time playing them. It's the same as how the death of a main character in the first episode of a 12-episode miniseries has little impact, but the death of that same character in the 7th episode has more impact. It's no different in real life. If you start a new job and on your first day hear that Bob died, you say "that's sad" but really you don't care. If you see Bob every day for a year and then he dies, even if you didn't like him much you'll feel sad.

Counterpoint: If you start a new job and see Bob brutally killed right next to you while on day one of the job, you will likely never forget Bob.

Yeah, like HappyDaze says.

I realize that some people don't like having PC backstory as a preference, but there's a point where this comes across as meta-gamey. Any character (PC or NPC) should still come across like a real person who has a birthplace and family and a life. They shouldn't seem like they suddenly sprang into existence just to join an adventuring party.

This isn't an old-school versus new-school. There are plenty of old games like Traveller or HarnMaster where you generate a background for your character as a part of character creation.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 19, 2025, 02:13:54 PMOne consideration is that the relationship between character death and length of character creation is more correlation than cause/effect. We tend in these conversations to say that long character creation discourages character death, and it does. However, discouraging character death also causes longer time spent on character creation.

The player knows that they are more likely to be with this character for awhile. So they take more pains with it, worry more about things that can't change easily later (class options, low stats, etc.), and are more inclined to want to have an involved back story.

If you want characters to develop in play instead of dropping into the game already formed in the player's mind, then making it clear that characters can and will die in the game is a powerful push to get the player to learn about the character in play.

I think the push to only learn about the character in play comes more from "zero-to-hero" and having level-1 characters being killed by cats, while high-level characters are tougher and have more save options like Raise Dead.

In games where play keeps being lethal, players often try to get the most out of what time you have with a character. Thus, they try to start them out as interesting from the beginning, making the most of what time they have to shine in play.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 19, 2025, 11:10:52 AMCounterpoint: If you start a new job and see Bob brutally killed right next to you while on day one of the job, you will likely never forget Bob.

Not if that's the job. Soldiers didn't remember all the people they met at Stalingrad.

Quote from: jhkim on January 19, 2025, 06:34:18 PMI think the push to only learn about the character in play comes more from "zero-to-hero" and having level-1 characters being killed by cats, while high-level characters are tougher and have more save options like Raise Dead.

In games where play keeps being lethal, players often try to get the most out of what time you have with a character. Thus, they try to start them out as interesting from the beginning, making the most of what time they have to shine in play.

Well, I don't know about everyone, and neither do you.  But I can tell you that my preference for develop in play has nothing to do with what you just said.  I simply prefer that dynamic in any game.  Naturally, I do tend to gravitate towards games that fit that style better, but even when I ran Fantasy Hero that was the way we played it.  Likewise, when I run any game with life paths or similar mechanics, I prefer the pre-play info to be vague and lightweight.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 19, 2025, 07:32:47 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 19, 2025, 06:34:18 PMI think the push to only learn about the character in play comes more from "zero-to-hero" and having level-1 characters being killed by cats, while high-level characters are tougher and have more save options like Raise Dead.

In games where play keeps being lethal, players often try to get the most out of what time you have with a character. Thus, they try to start them out as interesting from the beginning, making the most of what time they have to shine in play.

Well, I don't know about everyone, and neither do you.  But I can tell you that my preference for develop in play has nothing to do with what you just said.  I simply prefer that dynamic in any game.  Naturally, I do tend to gravitate towards games that fit that style better, but even when I ran Fantasy Hero that was the way we played it.  Likewise, when I run any game with life paths or similar mechanics, I prefer the pre-play info to be vague and lightweight.

Dude, you are probably in the majority.   Recognize that jhkim will attack any general statement someone else makes, but will make sweeping absolute pronouncements as justifications for his opinions regularly. His anecdotes are universals, and your generalizations are invalid by default.

From a player's perspective:

Always try to scout things out first so you don't walk into an ambush.

Pick your fights, don't wade into fights you can't win.  Don't think you're an action hero, you're the guy who dies in the battle so avoid the battle.

Use stealth and guile as much as possible.  Try talking your way out.

Have a sniper in position just in case.

If you have to shoot, shoot first.

Remember that legless zombies can only chase you very slowly.

Position your guys out of the claymore's blast radius.

While fleeing enemies may come back they are way lower priority targets than the ones still shooting at you.

As a GM

Give the players a break, the cannon fodder shouldn't be stacked, customized killing machines unless the players want to go hardcore wargaming in which case knock yourself out.

Remember, if they don't have fun, they won't come back or want to play your favorite detailed and realistic system ever again.

Don't punish their mistakes too much.  Maybe a squad of reinforements arrives instead of a batalion with AFVs and air support even though the latter would be realistic given how long they stood around dithering and arguing about what to do next.

I'll probably think of more but for players it boils down to don't be stupid and for GMs it's expect them to be stupid and be a bit lenient.  After all, it's just a game.

Lastly, if it's gonna be a TPK, make sure it's an EPIC TPK that they'll be talking about for years to come.

Another point.  Deadly is okay.  Randomly deadly with nothing you as a PC can do about it is not fun.  One shot kills without warning by a sniper are realistic and are fun if you're the one dealing out the mayhem.  Not so much if the sniper is an NPC enemy.  I like having snipers but especially since my current project is aimed for young, beginning players I also put in a lot of ways to avoid surprise instakills.  There's always a passive perception check to spot the sniper, if nobody invested in that skill that's on the party.  There's simply paying attention, that will give an active perception check.  There's magic to detect hostile intent.  There's quite a few spells that let you spot possible attackers.  There's stealth so the enemy can't see you.  There's armor, protective magic, and investing in the defense trait.  After all that, mechanically you can be disabled but not killed by a single attack.  A follow up attack on a disabled character will kill him, but your friends have a chance to protect you first.  (And btw a disabled character is out of action until after he is healed _and_ gets a full night rest.  Disabled is bad)  After all that if a player still manages to get his character killed he really should feel that it was a failure on his part, not rng or a mean gm.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on January 19, 2025, 06:54:55 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 19, 2025, 11:10:52 AMCounterpoint: If you start a new job and see Bob brutally killed right next to you while on day one of the job, you will likely never forget Bob.

Not if that's the job. Soldiers didn't remember all the people they met at Stalingrad.

Your experience differs from mine. I've worked alongside US Army soldiers. While they were never in Stalingrad, most were in UEF and UIF. They didn't tend to forget those they lost.

I used to play and own Rolemaster. The game had extensive and a high investment time to build a character. And it just took a dice roll in combat for a character to die. Which meant, just literal seconds and all the work put into making a character seemingly wasted with a quick death.

Some people call this a feature of the game. Others find it a source of frustration.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 20, 2025, 02:07:38 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on January 19, 2025, 06:54:55 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 19, 2025, 11:10:52 AMCounterpoint: If you start a new job and see Bob brutally killed right next to you while on day one of the job, you will likely never forget Bob.

Not if that's the job. Soldiers didn't remember all the people they met at Stalingrad.

Your experience differs from mine. I've worked alongside US Army soldiers. While they were never in Stalingrad, most were in UEF and UIF. They didn't tend to forget those they lost.

I wish you were wrong, but I'm going to have to agree here. One of my friends served over in Iraq until he was disabled. He remembers them all by name.

Trauma tends to cement rather than dilute memory. That guy who exploded next to you on your first day (who would have been you if the flight path was a fraction different) is not something you forget.

They don't talk about it (much), but they don't forget.

Honestly, building something about that into a Funnel system might be a viable mechanic if the campaign start is always going to be some horror show where 75% of those participating are going to be slaughtered.

Maybe some sort of "hardness" score based on how many were lost achieving the objective. Bonuses to actions related to determination and duty and group cohesion, penalties to actions involving showing genuine emotion to outsiders or "pointless" tasks.

Make the experience of the Funnel mean something other than just weeding out the weak for the strongest survivors.

I'll be honest, the Funnel system of chargen sounds horrific to me as a regular part of launching a campaign. It basically creates just a single type of PC (action survivors). Sometimes you wanna be more than just "the guy who didn't die in the massacre."

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 20, 2025, 08:54:52 AMI'll be honest, the Funnel system of chargen sounds horrific to me as a regular part of launching a campaign. It basically creates just a single type of PC (action survivors). Sometimes you wanna be more than just "the guy who didn't die in the massacre."

I did the DCC funnel thing once.  I wasn't at all upset when my level 0 halfling moneylender bought the farm.  Partly it was because he took me maybe 2 minutes to roll up.  Partly it was because I expected him to die.  I also didn't care when he died.  He wasn't an rpg character.  He was more like a disposable piece in a skirmish minis game.  He's dead.  Whatever.  Dock worker guy will attack with his stick. 

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 20, 2025, 09:21:03 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 20, 2025, 08:54:52 AMI'll be honest, the Funnel system of chargen sounds horrific to me as a regular part of launching a campaign. It basically creates just a single type of PC (action survivors). Sometimes you wanna be more than just "the guy who didn't die in the massacre."

I did the DCC funnel thing once.  I wasn't at all upset when my level 0 halfling moneylender bought the farm.  Partly it was because he took me maybe 2 minutes to roll up.  Partly it was because I expected him to die.  I also didn't care when he died.  He wasn't an rpg character.  He was more like a disposable piece in a skirmish minis game.  He's dead.  Whatever.  Dock worker guy will attack with his stick. 

I'm more referring to how "one note" the funnel system becomes in terms of campaign setup. If every campaign starts with some massacre that kills 75% of all involved I'd quickly find that rather same-y and limited.

No youngest son knights seeking names for themselves, no bookish wizards facing the real world for the first time, no annointed priests on a "mission from God."

Just commoners who turn into Action Survivors. Again. And Again.

I've nothing against it as a one-off; but I'd find it extremely tiresome if it that was the only way a campaign could ever begin.

The funnel system or its equivalent in another game is not my preferred way to start, either.  However, I can see it as a way to shock a group of players not used to that style into that mindset. I've found over the years running for players in a new campaign that:

- Experienced players of about my age will just roll with it.

- Inexperienced players of about my age often don't believe that a character will die until they see it.

- Players new to my campaigns but experienced with other GMs often don't believe that I will let a character die until they see it.

- Novices are all over the place.  They'll take the possibility of character death at face value but then follow along with the rest.

Underlying all of this is that about two-thirds of players are bad at statistics.  If they have really bad luck with a good plan, they'll think the plan was bad.  If they have really good luck with a bad plan, they'll think the plan was good.  So there has to be enough action that goes right up to the edge fairly early to give them a good sample size to make sure they can learn the difference between plans and luck.

So I tell them that one of the reasons the game is somewhat deadly (but not funnel-style slaughter deadly) is so that they can lose some characters early and learn where the boundaries are, before they have too much time invested in the characters.  Then I find that even though the game is still somewhat deadly for more powerful characters, they've learned that I'm serious--I don't kill characters but I do let characters die when bad planning or bad luck or both happen. Moreover, the way I run tends to favor selective aggression.  So there is the opposite lesson for the overly cautious, that if you do decide to go in, go in all out.  Players that have learned how the thing really works can still lose an experienced character, but it doesn't happen often.

For every thing there is a season; a time to run and a time to fight; a time to surrender and a time to fight the odds; a time to talk and a time to ignore the sly words. :)

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 18, 2025, 10:49:59 PMCompare that to say, something like Pathfinder 2E which at level 1 has characters start with what is even double the HP of a level 1 5th edition character. Despite this, Pathfinder 2e has a reputation as being a harsh game.

I haven't heard that about PF2 at all.  It seems that all the fans of the system (which I have looked at but personally never tried so I'm literally going off of that online reputation pretty much exclusively) is that the math is "tight" and the game is balanced on a razor's edge throughout the levels.   The same thing, to a lesser extent, was parroted about Starfinder 1e (which I did play for 8 levels) and I found it both discouraging at low levels and boring at times.  But harsh?  Definitely not for Starfinder (which is admittedly just pf1.5e) and I haven't heard that said about pf2e over the years on multiple forums.  YMMV.

Having a long, detailed character creation process, means it sucks to lose that character quickly.

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 20, 2025, 02:18:04 PMHaving a long, detailed character creation process, means it sucks to lose that character quickly.

A big difference is the nature of deadliness in the system. To split it into an arbitrary binary:

1) The character is very easily killed when first introduced, but after a bit of experience becomes tough and has more options to survive. This is a design feature of D&D along with DCC and others.

2) A character might be killed at any point from some combination of bad luck or bad choices. Examples could be Rolemaster - where at any time a rare critical hit could instakill a character, or also Call of Cthulhu where even an experienced investigator can still easily be killed by a monster or shotgun. In this case, a character isn't especially likely to be killed on their first session, but they may run out of luck sooner or later.

If a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair to my Rolemaster GM of those years ago. He would stop the game entirely while he adjudicated a new character being created. Because of how involved the process was of making characters for that game.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on January 21, 2025, 07:47:11 AMTo be fair to my Rolemaster GM of those years ago. He would stop the game entirely while he adjudicated a new character being created. Because of how involved the process was of making characters for that game.

Well that's one way to ensure the group does everthing they can to keep every PC alive and a great incentive to boot anyone that has trouble keeping their PCs alive.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

We normally play 3.5 - 4.5 hour sessions.  In Rolemaster, you can die to a crit on the first roll against.  If I drove 25 minutes across town to play at 6PM and die at 6:05PM, and my GM tells me I'm out of the game until the next session (while the group continues to play until 10PM), I'm out of the game for good.  This is why dick GMs lose players...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 07:41:59 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

We normally play 3.5 - 4.5 hour sessions.  In Rolemaster, you can die to a crit on the first roll against.  If I drove 25 minutes across town to play at 6PM and die at 6:05PM, and my GM tells me I'm out of the game until the next session (while the group continues to play until 10PM), I'm out of the game for good.  This is why dick GMs lose players...

Heh. Shows the difference of experience.

I do drive about 20 minutes every other week for a four-ish hour session too, but we always end any combat before the end of session too.

As such, the odds of a deadly situation in the first five minutes (or even the first hour) is basically nonexistent in my experience.

I also wouldn't go home just because my PC died (nor do others at the table) any more than we would if we got turned into a newt or similar non-fatal, but basically removing from participation for the rest of the session. I like to see how my friends get out of the situation.

So your experiences are yours and mine are mine... neither are invalid and just highlight that different people want and experience different things when it comes to gaming.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 08:05:59 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 07:41:59 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

We normally play 3.5 - 4.5 hour sessions.  In Rolemaster, you can die to a crit on the first roll against.  If I drove 25 minutes across town to play at 6PM and die at 6:05PM, and my GM tells me I'm out of the game until the next session (while the group continues to play until 10PM), I'm out of the game for good.  This is why dick GMs lose players...

Heh. Shows the difference of experience.

I do drive about 20 minutes every other week for a four-ish hour session too, but we always end any combat before the end of session too.

As such, the odds of a deadly situation in the first five minutes (or even the first hour) is basically nonexistent in my experience.

I also wouldn't go home just because my PC died (nor do others at the table) any more than we would if we got turned into a newt or similar non-fatal, but basically removing from participation for the rest of the session. I like to see how my friends get out of the situation.

So your experiences are yours and mine are mine... neither are invalid and just highlight that different people want and experience different things when it comes to gaming.

Then why did you comment in the first place?  Your initial comment (to a post not addressed to you) was to contradict my experience.  Now that you've said some stupid shit, suddenly "everybody's experience is valid... blah, blah blah."  How about starting there, and not falling back on it once your objections have been shown to be nonsensical?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 08:19:14 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 08:05:59 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 07:41:59 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

We normally play 3.5 - 4.5 hour sessions.  In Rolemaster, you can die to a crit on the first roll against.  If I drove 25 minutes across town to play at 6PM and die at 6:05PM, and my GM tells me I'm out of the game until the next session (while the group continues to play until 10PM), I'm out of the game for good.  This is why dick GMs lose players...

Heh. Shows the difference of experience.

I do drive about 20 minutes every other week for a four-ish hour session too, but we always end any combat before the end of session too.

As such, the odds of a deadly situation in the first five minutes (or even the first hour) is basically nonexistent in my experience.

I also wouldn't go home just because my PC died (nor do others at the table) any more than we would if we got turned into a newt or similar non-fatal, but basically removing from participation for the rest of the session. I like to see how my friends get out of the situation.

So your experiences are yours and mine are mine... neither are invalid and just highlight that different people want and experience different things when it comes to gaming.

Then why did you comment in the first place?  Your initial comment (to a post not addressed to you) was to contradict my experience.  Now that you've said some stupid shit, suddenly "everybody's experience is valid... blah, blah blah."  How about starting there, and not falling back on it once your objections have been shown to be nonsensical?

I was trying to be polite.

You started by tearing down jhkim's experience as pointless and argue quick chargen is required to get back in the game as soon as possible (as if the GM has a requirement they bend the adventure to accommodate your situation... are they supposed to transform the next room into whatever best allows your new PC to enter the adventure? Seems pretty storygame nonsense to me).

I offered a counterpoint that jhkim's remarks are not pointless, they're dependent on group playstyle.

In a playstyle where you're not re-entering in the same session regardless of how fast you generate a new PC there is no particular advantage to fast PC creation.

That is further emphasized in systems where death is comparatively rare (ex. a superhero game... it's damnably hard to kill most PCs in a Champions or M&M games unless the GM is actively headhunting... Rifts can range from high lethality to practically unkillable depending on the power level you're playing at).

If it's a half-a-dozen or more sessions before anyone even has to roll up a new PC, then a complex chargen system that might take an hour or more is perfectly in line with the rest of the game mechanics and the style of play the GM is using.

That's why I say there's no one size fits all answer like you're trying to lay down... because the rapidity of chargen needed is actually a case-by-case answer.

Sorry, I tried to treat you like a human being and not an armed enemy combatant.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 08:47:44 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 08:19:14 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 08:05:59 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 07:41:59 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2025, 07:35:37 PMIf a character's death is particularly likely in the first session, then chargen time may seem like a waste. However, if my character dies after nine sessions, then it doesn't matter that much whether I took 15 minutes or 90 minutes to make my character months ago.

Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.  They care about the months of character-building and shared adventure that are now moot.  If you have a run of bad luck playing Rolemaster, you can spend 90% of your time in a session rolling up characters.  My group has funny stories about this happening to us.  Coincidentally, we don't play Rolemaster anymore...

To be fair, outside of D&D in my youth (like when I was 10-12 at Boy Scout camp), I've never seen replacement PCs rolled up during a game session.

If you suffer an unreversed death you're consistently out until next session (since the GM has to also determine how the new PC joins the campaign).

Therefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

We normally play 3.5 - 4.5 hour sessions.  In Rolemaster, you can die to a crit on the first roll against.  If I drove 25 minutes across town to play at 6PM and die at 6:05PM, and my GM tells me I'm out of the game until the next session (while the group continues to play until 10PM), I'm out of the game for good.  This is why dick GMs lose players...

Heh. Shows the difference of experience.

I do drive about 20 minutes every other week for a four-ish hour session too, but we always end any combat before the end of session too.

As such, the odds of a deadly situation in the first five minutes (or even the first hour) is basically nonexistent in my experience.

I also wouldn't go home just because my PC died (nor do others at the table) any more than we would if we got turned into a newt or similar non-fatal, but basically removing from participation for the rest of the session. I like to see how my friends get out of the situation.

So your experiences are yours and mine are mine... neither are invalid and just highlight that different people want and experience different things when it comes to gaming.

Then why did you comment in the first place?  Your initial comment (to a post not addressed to you) was to contradict my experience.  Now that you've said some stupid shit, suddenly "everybody's experience is valid... blah, blah blah."  How about starting there, and not falling back on it once your objections have been shown to be nonsensical?

I was trying to be polite.

You started by tearing down jhkim's experience as pointless and argue quick chargen is required to get back in the game as soon as possible (as if the GM has a requirement they bend the adventure to accommodate your situation... are they supposed to transform the next room into whatever best allows your new PC to enter the adventure? Seems pretty storygame nonsense to me).

I offered a counterpoint that jhkim's remarks are not pointless, they're dependent on group playstyle.

In a playstyle where you're not re-entering in the same session regardless of how fast you generate a new PC there is no particular advantage to fast PC creation.

That is further emphasized in systems where death is comparatively rare (ex. a superhero game... it's damnably hard to kill most PCs in a Champions or M&M games unless the GM is actively headhunting... Rifts can range from high lethality to practically unkillable depending on the power level you're playing at).

If it's a half-a-dozen or more sessions before anyone even has to roll up a new PC, then a complex chargen system that might take an hour or more is perfectly in line with the rest of the game mechanics and the style of play the GM is using.

That's why I say there's no one size fits all answer like you're trying to lay down... because the rapidity of chargen needed is actually a case-by-case answer.

Sorry, I tried to treat you like a human being and not an armed enemy combatant.

Except you said none of that, nor did I.  I specifically responded to jhkim's assertion that character creation time doesn't matter if the character was created a long time in the past.  I responded with two points, one that the loss of a character in a system with a long build time will impact your continued play in the session (which isn't fun), and two, that losing a character means the loss of all of the relationships, experiences unique to that character, etc. (a point you didn't address).  I then gave an example of how a highly lethal and highly complex game can have those two combine to reduce the fun.

Your response included a dismissal that said GMs (in your experience) didn't even let players back in the game until the next session.  If spending all session rolling up characters is dumb, what is spending the whole session watching other people play?  You're one of those people that like critical role, aren't you? (Probably not, but the idea is the same). Let's not even talk about generalizing not getting into a fight in the first five minutes of a game (hell, half of TSR's and even WotC's published adventures start in media res).

So, when you jump in to defend jhkim by dismissing my experiences in the name of "all experiences are valid" expect to catch heat.  Oh, and "all experiences are valid" is a vapid, meaningless platitude in the context of this thread, anyway.  No one is arguing that anyone has to play a certain way.  We're arguing over what balance of lethality and complexity is unwieldy and unfun (to a significant group of people).

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 21, 2025, 10:25:59 AM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on January 21, 2025, 07:47:11 AMTo be fair to my Rolemaster GM of those years ago. He would stop the game entirely while he adjudicated a new character being created. Because of how involved the process was of making characters for that game.

Well that's one way to ensure the group does everthing they can to keep every PC alive and a great incentive to boot anyone that has trouble keeping their PCs alive.

Because of the lethality of the systems. Everybody was given the benefit of the doubt,

But it was also very difficult to keep players after they encountered a few instakills, which was just the reality of running Rolemaster.

Trying to keep this on-topic,

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 08:05:59 PMHeh. Shows the difference of experience.

I do drive about 20 minutes every other week for a four-ish hour session too, but we always end any combat before the end of session too.

As such, the odds of a deadly situation in the first five minutes (or even the first hour) is basically nonexistent in my experience.

I also wouldn't go home just because my PC died (nor do others at the table) any more than we would if we got turned into a newt or similar non-fatal, but basically removing from participation for the rest of the session. I like to see how my friends get out of the situation.

So your experiences are yours and mine are mine... neither are invalid and just highlight that different people want and experience different things when it comes to gaming.

My experience is similar to your's, Chris24601, but I've had some rare times when a newly rolled-up PC would be brought in. The new PC would never instantly appear, though, with the exception of the CRUD System in "Send in the Clones" for Paranoia. The player would have to wait for the PCs to get to a place where the new PC could logically be introduced and join the group, which would usually be at least an hour - and typically close to the end of the session.

Two caveats on that:

1) Often if a PC was killed, the GM would have the player temporarily play an NPC - like a hireling or the equivalent. Once in Masks of Nyarlathotep, I made a new PC to be an NPC that had temporarily joined the party, so effectively I kept the same character - but his character sheet was replaced to be a standard PC.

2) Very rarely, players would have made a backup PC in advance. Sometimes these would even be made with connections already established with the PCs, so they could be swiftly introduced.


I'd agree that it's trivial to say "all experiences are valid" - but much of what I've been talking about is typical _Call of Cthulhu_ play. CoC isn't an obscure new game. It's one of the most popular RPGs of all time since it was introduced in 1980, regularly being listed among the top 5 systems. It's also known as one of the deadliest. Pundit just interviewed Sandy Peterson - I've got a first edition CoC book signed by him.

It's fine for someone to not like Call of Cthulhu as a matter of personal taste. But if they say that objectively it is bad game design - like saying point-buy doesn't work for deadly systems - then that has to contend with its success.

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 02:58:58 PMIt's fine for someone to not like Call of Cthulhu as a matter of personal taste. But if they say that objectively it is bad game design - like saying point-buy doesn't work for deadly systems - then that has to contend with its success.

I really wish you were more acquainted with the scientific method.  The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."  The fact that there is a "successful" (for very large values of "success," when you consider that "5th most popular system" is a rounding error compared to the sales of the most popular game) example does not mean that the details of that success are applicable to the hobby as a whole.

For example, CoC is not designed as an action-oriented or combat-heavy game.  Generally, if you're fighting the eldritch horror with weapons, you've already lost.  As such, high lethality is an expectation, but not as something that will occur five times during a session.  Catastrophic sanity loss takes time (unless you are running houserules), and usually doesn't happen within ten minutes of the game starting..  CoC works best at the table as a slow burn.  On the other hand, D&D is an action-oriented, combat-heavy game (as is Rolemaster).  The standard dungeon-crawl might see the players engage in a half-dozen fights of varying scales each session. 

So, while both Rolemaster and CoC can be said to be highly lethal, there are different rates of lethality.  You probably don't expect your CoC character to survive the campaign (yet many do).  You probably don't expect your Rolemaster character to last the week (and many don't).  So complicated and involved point buy systems may "work" for CoC, and still be terrible design for a combat-oriented RPG like Rolemaster.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 22, 2025, 04:05:36 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 02:58:58 PMIt's fine for someone to not like Call of Cthulhu as a matter of personal taste. But if they say that objectively it is bad game design - like saying point-buy doesn't work for deadly systems - then that has to contend with its success.

I really wish you were more acquainted with the scientific method.  The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."  The fact that there is a "successful" (for very large values of "success," when you consider that "5th most popular system" is a rounding error compared to the sales of the most popular game) example does not mean that the details of that success are applicable to the hobby as a whole.

For example, CoC is not designed as an action-oriented or combat-heavy game.  Generally, if you're fighting the eldritch horror with weapons, you've already lost.  As such, high lethality is an expectation, but not as something that will occur five times during a session.  Catastrophic sanity loss takes time (unless you are running houserules), and usually doesn't happen within ten minutes of the game starting..  CoC works best at the table as a slow burn.  On the other hand, D&D is an action-oriented, combat-heavy game (as is Rolemaster).  The standard dungeon-crawl might see the players engage in a half-dozen fights of varying scales each session. 

So, while both Rolemaster and CoC can be said to be highly lethal, there are different rates of lethality.  You probably don't expect your CoC character to survive the campaign (yet many do).  You probably don't expect your Rolemaster character to last the week (and many don't).  So complicated and involved point buy systems may "work" for CoC, and still be terrible design for a combat-oriented RPG like Rolemaster.

Okay, but so what? It's not like Rolemaster's popularity is anything but a rounding error either.

Because of how you play Rolemaster you want fast chargen (and the ability to insert new PCs into the same session your PC drops). What does that have to do with how other RPGs and tables handle death and speed of adding a replacement PC into the game?

Remember you're the one who started in on jhkim's analysis of time needed to make a PC not mattering if it's not something you have to do regularly...

"Do you even play RPGs, or is this all theorycrafting?  Because no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you."

Clearly you were claiming he was wrong... now you're going on about how different games have different assumptions... which was what I was saying too.

Do you even HAVE a point or are you just ranting for the sake of ranting?

Just to add my experience to the survey here.

I don't find that character creation time has much of an impact on how I feel about my character dying. That's more down to the quallity of the campaign and whether or not the character creation process is inherently enjoyable. A couple of qualifiers, though.

1) I've never played a truly high-lethality game, at least as people here seem to reckon it. A handful of deaths per campaign, with maybe the odd TPK-like spike as a fluke is typical across all the games I've been involved with. If I was having to roll a new character every session, that might be different, but then the character creation process would be the least of my grievances.

2) I'm just generally someone who like getting an excuse to roll a new character, so I'm low energy when it comes to my PCs dying.

On the subject of rolling up during the session or sitting out until the next one, I've seen both approaches. Generally, it seems more the case that more "story-oriented" games go for the sit it out approach, because they're usually spending more time on creation and will care more about how to integrate a new character into the party. More "gamey" or beer-and-pretzels style is more likely to just say "eh fuck it. roll another guy real quick and we'll just have him walk in from the next room."

These days I'm firmly in the latter category. I strongly advise (but don't force) my players to have a backup character already rolled, so that they can get back in the game ASAP. I'm probably only going to have someone waiting until the next session if they died within 20 minutes of the end of the current one.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 22, 2025, 04:30:17 PMClearly you were claiming he was wrong... now you're going on about how different games have different assumptions... which was what I was saying too.

No, you didn't say that at all.  You simply asserted that my statement was wrong in general.  Show me where you say different games have different assumptions in your original post, or where you mention different games at all:

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 21, 2025, 09:46:26 AMTherefore in nearly every situation I have ever experienced, whether the new PC takes 15 minutes or 45 minutes is largely irrelevant... the loss in play time and connections are the same regardless.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 22, 2025, 04:30:17 PMDo you even HAVE a point or are you just ranting for the sake of ranting?

My point was in the original post, and here:

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 09:11:28 PMI responded with two points, one that the loss of a character in a system with a long build time will impact your continued play in the session (which isn't fun), and two, that losing a character means the loss of all of the relationships, experiences unique to that character, etc. (a point you didn't address).  I then gave an example of how a highly lethal and highly complex game can have those two combine to reduce the fun.

If character creation takes 10 to 15 minutes, and I lose that character in game, that's not too bad. 

But if character creation takes an hour, and I lose that character, just give me a pre-gen character at that point.

Just tell me the name, level, and character class.

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 22, 2025, 10:16:21 PMIf character creation takes 10 to 15 minutes, and I lose that character in game, that's not too bad. 

But if character creation takes an hour, and I lose that character, just give me a pre-gen character at that point.

Just tell me the name, level, and character class.

So here's the potential clash between Man at Arms and Eirikrautha. As Eirikrautha puts it,

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AMBecause no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.

Is the important issue how long it took to make that character? Does the difference between 15 minutes and an hour making the character change one's attachment to them? Or is the important thing the time out from the action?

For both Man at Arms and Eirikrautha, would it make a difference if the PC death happened at the end of the session - so you could roll up a new one before the next session?

---

For me, I'm more like ForgottenF - as he calls it, "low energy". I'm generally fine with my PC dying as long as the adventure is good otherwise. I enjoy coming up with a new character. Some character creation systems are more fun for me than others, but typically it's something I enjoy.

For other people, I agree with Eirikrautha - how long it took to create a character isn't that important after the character has been around for a few sessions.

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 10:48:34 PM

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 22, 2025, 10:16:21 PMIf character creation takes 10 to 15 minutes, and I lose that character in game, that's not too bad. 

But if character creation takes an hour, and I lose that character, just give me a pre-gen character at that point.

Just tell me the name, level, and character class.

So here's the potential clash between Man at Arms and Eirikrautha. As Eirikrautha puts it,

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 21, 2025, 06:43:05 AMBecause no one cares about the time it took to make a character months ago.  They care about the time it takes to make a character while the rest of your group is adventuring without you.

Is the important issue how long it took to make that character? Does the difference between 15 minutes and an hour making the character change one's attachment to them? Or is the important thing the time out from the action?

For both Man at Arms and Eirikrautha, would it make a difference if the PC death happened at the end of the session - so you could roll up a new one before the next session?

---

For me, I'm more like ForgottenF - as he calls it, "low energy". I'm generally fine with my PC dying as long as the adventure is good otherwise. I enjoy coming up with a new character. Some character creation systems are more fun for me than others, but typically it's something I enjoy.

For other people, I agree with Eirikrautha - how long it took to create a character isn't that important after the character has been around for a few sessions.

"Hey, let's you and him fight!"  What a disengenuous piece of garbage you are...

I don't see any conflict between what I said and what MaA said.  The issue isn't the time to make my first character.  It's the time to make my second  (and third, and fourth...) , especially depending on the frequency of having to do so.  And it's not whether the death is at the end of the session.  It's whether the effort to create a new character is worth the payoff of playing them.  Sitting out for half the session is just the cherry on top.

Also, you never responded to my post about you misusing CoC as an example.  I assume that means you accept my counter-argument as correct.

Quote from: jhkim on January 22, 2025, 10:48:34 PMFor me, I'm more like ForgottenF - as he calls it, "low energy". I'm generally fine with my PC dying as long as the adventure is good otherwise. I enjoy coming up with a new character. Some character creation systems are more fun for me than others, but typically it's something I enjoy.

Just to follow up on that a little, I only get attached to or invested in my character if the campaign is good. Again, how long it takes me to make it has pretty much no bearing on the issue. The funny thing is that if the campaign is good, I know I can get invested in another character if mine dies, so that's no issue either.

If the campaign is boring, frustrating, or just dry/mechanical, that's where my character dying has me thinking "oh fuck, I have to go through the hassle of making another character just to keep being bored." It doesn't help that a bad campaign is more likely to mean your character died for a stupid reason, either.

Circling back to the original thread topic of "what works in a high-lethality game":

I'd say thinking about it in terms of what punishments are inflicted on the player beyond just character death is a good direction to look in. How pleasant/unpleasant character creation is would be one angle on that, but there are others. Is the new character going to be kicked back to level one, and relatedly, how useless is a starting character relative to an advanced one? Like Chris mentioned, does losing a character disconnect the player from the ongoing story/campaign?

One I think people don't often consider is how important is accumulated wealth or equipment? Something I've noticed in several OSR campaigns is how woefully underpowered new characters coming in are relative to long-lasting ones, even when they come in at the same level, because they lack the accumulated magic items of the long-running characters. In something like Call of Cthulhu or most Conan RPGs, that's a non-issue.

One of the highest-fatality campaigns I've played in was (of all things) Dungeon World. Nobody seemed to care, and I think it was because that campaign hit all these beats. The day-to-day adventure was fun, equipment didn't matter much, character creation is fast and relatively enjoyable, there was little ongoing plot, and starting characters in that game aren't much weaker than experienced ones.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 22, 2025, 04:05:36 PMFor example, CoC is not designed as an action-oriented or combat-heavy game.  Generally, if you're fighting the eldritch horror with weapons, you've already lost.  As such, high lethality is an expectation, but not as something that will occur five times during a session.  Catastrophic sanity loss takes time (unless you are running houserules), and usually doesn't happen within ten minutes of the game starting..  CoC works best at the table as a slow burn.  On the other hand, D&D is an action-oriented, combat-heavy game (as is Rolemaster).  The standard dungeon-crawl might see the players engage in a half-dozen fights of varying scales each session. 

So, while both Rolemaster and CoC can be said to be highly lethal, there are different rates of lethality.  You probably don't expect your CoC character to survive the campaign (yet many do).  You probably don't expect your Rolemaster character to last the week (and many don't).  So complicated and involved point buy systems may "work" for CoC, and still be terrible design for a combat-oriented RPG like Rolemaster.

This is an interesting point, but this doesn't dismiss Call of Cthulhu as an example. The topic isn't just about D&D and Rolemaster. It's about deadliness of systems in general. The original claims - that my OP was responding to - about the problems of skill-based chargen weren't qualified as "only for D&D-like combat-oriented systems".

I agree with the generality that combat-oriented systems will have different priorities than investigation-heavy or exploration-heavy systems. But I don't think I agree with the point about Rolemaster or combat-heavy systems.

---

I played two short campaigns of Rolemaster in the 1990s. The first was in college, a fantasy campaign set in Renaissance Italy, where I played a overpowered sympathetic healer. The second was a segment of a friend's fantasy campaign ("Land of Neng" (https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/landofneng/)) where he was experimenting with different systems, where I played a mentalist (https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/landofneng/pcs/myshik_worksheet.txt). Neither of them was combat heavy - they were both fairly immersive with detailed worlds, more like Pundit's "medieval authentic" than like dungeon crawls. I never had any PCs die. We were pretty careful about combat in both cases, and in the first, I was amazing at healing.

Rolemaster is a bit of an oddity, and I'm not sure what the bigger community was like. From the books, RM was intentionally broader in focus than D&D. It gave XP not just for combat, but also for things like ideas and miles travelled. The sample adventure in Campaign Law, "Vog Mur" looks more like a Harnmaster adventure than a D&D adventure, with many pages of background and detailed description. The end challenge is about finding a rare herb to awaken a golem.

So first of all, I'm not sure I'd class Rolemaster the same as D&D. And after that, there's the question of whether the detailed chargen of Rolemaster works. I'm not a big fan of it, but I can speak more to Harnmaster - which also has detailed skill-based chargen, and that I think does work.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 22, 2025, 11:32:43 PMThe day-to-day adventure was fun, equipment didn't matter much, character creation is fast and relatively enjoyable, there was little ongoing plot, and starting characters in that game aren't much weaker than experienced ones.

A reasonable set of potential factors there.  A good argument can be made that all of them play some role.

Any player in any game I've ever participated in was permitted to and capable of rolling up a backup character ahead of time.

The idea that anyone has to sit out for the rest of an entire session if their PC dies is nuts. In my experience, that's invariably on the player for not creating the backup PC ahead of time.

But if I ever encountered a DM that just refused to bring a character in because "story" or something, I'd find a new game right quick.

Quote from: Zalman on January 23, 2025, 08:03:21 AMAny player in any game I've ever participated in was permitted to and capable of rolling up a backup character ahead of time.

The idea that anyone has to sit out for the rest of an entire session if their PC dies is nuts. In my experience, that's invariably on the player for not creating the backup PC ahead of time.

But if I ever encountered a DM that just refused to bring a character in because "story" or something, I'd find a new game right quick.

Yeah, if you are going to run a "story" game--like characters are the ones in the prophecy who will save the world kind of deal--then you need to make character death unlikely--and not just because it is a hassle to make a new child of prophecy character and work them into the story.

OTOH, if you want to run a game that benefits from the threat of real character death, then don't run the stupid child of prophecy story game.  It's not rocket science.  There's appeal to both types to different players, but you can't have both in the same game.  The root of this problem is that people want their cake and eat it too.  In particular, they want the pretense that a story game is deadly without losing characters, which never works.  No matter how much everyone at the table pretends to get a little thrill at how close that encounter was to losing someone, everyone knows it wasn't going to happen. 

So yeah, definitely, not only do I have players make backup characters, I incorporate them into the game ahead of time.  Sometimes when not many players can make a session, we'll have the player handle the main and the backup in the same session.  Sometimes, when someone loses a character and reverts to the backup, we'll play an adventure where all the backups go do something.  Then I have the players meeting NPCs (ahead of time) that could turn into backup characters.  It's like AD&D henchmen on steroids. Get this, I've even had a couple of players lose a character, start playing their backup, and in a few sessions are happy about it, because they like the backup character even better.  And after that happened, I even had a player voluntarily switch to their backup, without the main character dying. 

It's amazing what you can do when you know characters will eventually die, instead of pretending that they might for that little fake thrill.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 20, 2025, 08:54:52 AMI wish you were wrong, but I'm going to have to agree here. One of my friends served over in Iraq until he was disabled. He remembers them all by name.

Trauma tends to cement rather than dilute memory. That guy who exploded next to you on your first day (who would have been you if the flight path was a fraction different) is not something you forget.

They don't talk about it (much), but they don't forget.

Not entirely true. People deal with trauma in different ways, either consciously or subconsciously. One person may have it "Cemented" in their memory and cannot forget. Another person may subconsciously forget the incident by having a false/screen memory.

I know for myself personally, having served in Iraq in '05, there are things I've forgotten and others I remember like it was yesterday. Without getting into details, the psychological scars are there. I was diagnosed with PTSD after my deployment and will have it the rest of my life (20 years later and I'm still taking an anti-depressant).

I was lucky. I saw the warning signs and got help. To put in gaming terms, I failed my SAN roll once, lost 1d4 SAN, made my SAN a second time and got help, and recovered 1d4 SAN. Others, not so much. Less than a year after coming home, the youngest kid in out platoon committed suicide. For him, he kept failing his SAN roll and never found help. Ultimately he went under the threshold and hung himself in his parent's basement.

Yeah, it's morbid, but most veterans have a morbid sense of humor. It's a coping mechanism.

Sorry to derail for the moment.

Part of it I think is expectations. If the players understand the type of game it is, be it lethal or not, it will temper the players' expectations before and during the course of play.

This doesn't always work. You will almost always have at least one crybaby.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 23, 2025, 09:32:53 AM

QuoteAny player in any game I've ever participated in was permitted to and capable of rolling up a backup character ahead of time.

The idea that anyone has to sit out for the rest of an entire session if their PC dies is nuts. In my experience, that's invariably on the player for not creating the backup PC ahead of time.

But if I ever encountered a DM that just refused to bring a character in because "story" or something, I'd find a new game right quick.

Yeah, if you are going to run a "story" game--like characters are the ones in the prophecy who will save the world kind of deal--then you need to make character death unlikely--and not just because it is a hassle to make a new child of prophecy character and work them into the story.

OTOH, if you want to run a game that benefits from the threat of real character death, then don't run the stupid child of prophecy story game.  It's not rocket science.  There's appeal to both types to different players, but you can't have both in the same game. 

The context I've seen this in isn't "oh we can't lose this character or add a new one because the plot won't work". I'm sure that happens, but not with the people I've played with. Even the nu-school generally knows that you shouldn't hang your campaign on specific characters. What I've seen is people who are too wrapped up in the Creative Writing 101 school of DM advice and think they need to stop and discuss the character's backstory, motivation, history with the existing PCs etc., before figuring out a narratively consistent way to introduce them into the party.

It's one of those prime examples of the K.I.S.S. principle and the road to hell being paved with good intentions. DMs get lofty ideas into their heads which they think will make their games better and end up making them worse.

D&D Paranoia Call of Cthulhu

all popular games that punish players for being stupid. The games reward cleverness that keeps your barbie alive.

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