Quote from: Skarg;833851Hmm, yes... but I wonder where the expectation to not risk death or loss comes from?

Is it just that game companies have pandered to crybabies enough for it to become a standard feature and box which people tend not to break out of?

For me, it's also akin to all the action films where even characters who have no particular survival skills are shown (often with CGI physics-bending magic) to do amazing gymnastic dodges and physical miracles to survive over-the-top eye-candy danger scenes which a real person would have a 0.1% chance of surviving, and most audiences just take it and say, "cool" while I'm thinking "OMG they made The Hobbit into Mario Brothers, and they would have all died in that fall, and if not, been killed 100 times before making it out of the goblin caves, if they were really like that."

It's more like they want the character's life to be like an epic story arc, and having them just die in a ditch somewhere against a random mook is anti climactic and unsatisfying for them. It's more like an author and his story.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;833871It's more like they want the character's life to be like an epic story arc, and having them just die in a ditch somewhere against a random mook is anti climactic and unsatisfying for them. It's more like an author and his story.

And I can understand that. An anti climactic death can be a downer but I feel like its also part of what makes rpgs a distinct and interesting venue from movies or novels. Nothing's set. As something (I think Old Geezer?) once put it "RPGs are like movies. Except you don't know if you're playing Luke, Biggs or Wedge* until the game is over.". That's something I like.

And if the character was fun, had an interesting run even a undramatic death can be an entertaining in its repercussions and irony.

*or even Extra #43 for some particularly gritty settings and games.

I prefer to get to drama by having drama-worthy characters. An idiot jerk who picks fights left and right for nothing is likely to die for nothing and win little more care about it from others. Have something worth fighting for, and it leaves a legacy whether you win or go down trying.

Quote from: Phillip;833880I prefer to get to drama by having drama-worthy characters. An idiot jerk who picks fights left and right for nothing is likely to die for nothing and win little more care about it from others. Have something worth fighting for, and it leaves a legacy whether you win or go down trying.

Was this directed at my post?

Quote from: Skarg;833851Hmm, yes... but I wonder where the expectation to not risk death or loss comes from?

When D&D tried to stop being a full on Wargame, I figure about 1989, with the introduction of the Forgotten Realms and subsequent novels.  Dragonlance started the trend, but it really picked up when the Realms came around with The Drizzle and Elminster the Realm's Gigolo, although Curse of The Azure Bonds did leave it's mark.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;833925When D&D tried to stop being a full on Wargame, I figure about 1989, with the introduction of the Forgotten Realms and subsequent novels.  Dragonlance started the trend, but it really picked up when the Realms came around with The Drizzle and Elminster the Realm's Gigolo, although Curse of The Azure Bonds did leave it's mark.

That's an interesting perspective I hadn't heard before. Thanks!

(It seems ironic to me, as it strikes me that artificially aiding PC's to be legendary, to my mind is like robbing them of the game of trying to actually be legendary. :-) )

Quote from: Skarg;833944That's an interesting perspective I hadn't heard before. Thanks!

(It seems ironic to me, as it strikes me that artificially aiding PC's to be legendary, to my mind is like robbing them of the game of trying to actually be legendary. :-) )

I remember there being a shift in thinking in the various Dragon Magazines, after all, the older guys who had start were 15 years older, and so new blood was being introduced to D&D, either by their siblings or friends, and the Dragonlance Novels were taking off, then '88 comes around and the Icewind Dale trilogy starts up, with a 'unique' character and admittedly engaging plot, just like the Dragonlance series, but here, there was a world that wasn't 'epic' in scope, like Lord of The Rings, where there was only ONE bad guy.

So, especially us younger folks started to play more like novels.  Now, the FR Box set was released in 87 and suddenly, with the Icewind Dale novels, we could play the game just like the still fan favourite Drizzt Do'Urden or Cattie-Brie, Bruenor Battlehammer and/or Wulfgar.

And while yes, AD&D 2e did have miniature rules, it focused away even further than 1e did, and 1e got rid of most of the minutiae dealing with the hex grid and stuff.  Don't get me wrong it had it, but it also wasn't beholden to it.

Again, I may be wrong, but I sincerely remember this 'cultural' shift in D&D at about that time, 87 to 89.

i think that today people think of character death as something that disrupts the story. of course, before there was story there could be no discontinuity. so, if you go for more like emergent narrative as opposed to story then death is obviously not something that threatens integrity of the game.

Quote from: ostap bender;834011i think that today people think of character death as something that disrupts the story. of course, before there was story there could be no discontinuity. so, if you go for more like emergent narrative as opposed to story then death is obviously not something that threatens integrity of the game.

Pre-written story, you mean? Because many of the storygame RPGs don't support pre-written story:).
To me, character death is part of the character's story, whether it's dying in his bed from old age, or by more violent means;).

Quote from: Skarg;833851Hmm, yes... but I wonder where the expectation to not risk death or loss comes from?

Is it just that game companies have pandered to crybabies enough for it to become a standard feature and box which people tend not to break out of?

Or maybe different people just like different things?

I've been roleplaying since D&D since 1974. And since at least 1975 there have been differences in how people gamed. We had killer DMs, easier DMs, and K-Mart DMs evem way back when. In a killer DM game you were nearly always playing extra #47 and if you ever had a character reach 5th or 6th level character after hundreds of hours of play then you were damned smart and damned lucky. Whereas for your character to die in some other games you had to be pretty damned stupid and unlucky and you might also need to be the sort of socially clueless git who invariably annoyed both the DM and all his fellow players.  

QuoteFor me, it's also akin to all the action films where even characters who have no particular survival skills are shown (often with CGI physics-bending magic) to do amazing gymnastic dodges and physical miracles to survive over-the-top eye-candy danger scenes...

That would be those earn lots of money at the box office, really popular with audiences now, over the top action films?

Yeah, as I said, different people like different things. Film at 11.

I may be in an unusually cranky mood today, but seriously all you folks that keep repeating this sort of dreck on either side of the death/no-death discussion, GROW THE HELL UP! Only crybabies and insecure whiners need to claim moral turpitude as the reason why other people like things they don't.

Quote from: AsenRG;834024Pre-written story, you mean? Because many of the storygame RPGs don't support pre-written story:).
To me, character death is part of the character's story, whether it's dying in his bed from old age, or by more violent means;).

Not pre-written in my case.  Hell, half the time, I have no idea where players will go in my games, but having a player die ignominiously tends to kill the enthusiasm at the table a lot of the time.

YMMV and all that.

Quote from: Bren;834025I may be in an unusually cranky mood today, but seriously all you folks that keep repeating this sort of dreck on either side of the death/no-death discussion, GROW THE HELL UP! Only crybabies and insecure whiners need to claim moral turpitude as the reason why other people like things they don't.

Bren, do you want the traffic in Internet to go down by 90% or what:)?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;834036Not pre-written in my case.  Hell, half the time, I have no idea where players will go in my games, but having a player die ignominiously tends to kill the enthusiasm at the table a lot of the time.

YMMV and all that.

Possibly, but I was addressing ostap bender's post, not yours;).
Also, PCs can only die ignominiously if the GM doesn't narrate it as a heroic death kind of affair.

Quote from: AsenRG;834045Bren, do you want the traffic in Internet to go down by 90% or what:)?


Possibly, but I was addressing ostap bender's post, not yours;).
Also, PCs can only die ignominiously if the GM doesn't narrate it as a heroic death kind of affair.

Sometimes you can't really narrate a heroic death. Suppose a goblin or a gelatinous cube kills them. What are they going to do? It's still a goblin at the end of the day.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;834051Sometimes you can't really narrate a heroic death. Suppose a goblin or a gelatinous cube kills them. What are they going to do? It's still a goblin at the end of the day.

First, I don't have a one-size-fits-all answer to that, except to improvise.
Other than that, I've got to talk with generalisations.

With that in mind, in most games goblins are sentient beings, but the odds are weighted so harshly in favour of PCs that dropping one is no small feat for the goblin. If I want to make it a heroic affair, I'm going to describe it as an exchange of blows, with the goblin, say, stabbing a spear through the PC at the last moment. And then you have to show said goblin has gained prestige and skill. A scene where he's teaching Sir Otto's thrust to other goblins might help here, as an example.

That said, the reaction of other PCs is important as well. Our DCC game lost quite a few PCs to goblins. My warrior, barricaded behind a wall, screamed bloody vengeance upon learning a chick she liked hasn't survived. And she basically invoked all gods and demons to hear her pledge: she was going to come back, kill all the goblins, and salt the earth.
We're currently working on the second part, and I'm wondering where to find that much salt if we manage to pull the killing off:D!
Granted, that's DCC, and everybody has lost quite a few PCs before we got to be 1st level (I ended up with Jacqueline when the rest of my initial batch of PCs died). Still, I think similar attitude helps the players to feel better.

Quote from: AsenRG;834045Bren, do you want the traffic in Internet to go down by 90% or what:)?

I'm trying to free up some global Internet bandwidth. I'm running H+I over Skype tonight and I thought it might help.