Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1019170Here's another example, and one that might come up in a session soon: an assassin targets a PC in their sleep. This is appropriate for the context of the situation, but still, this is one of those situations where a PC, if the dice go bad, could die before they even know what happened.

Why would dice even be involved? If the assassin manages to get the drop on a sleeping PC, it's goodbye PC and hello 3d6 in order.

Quote from: Dumarest;1019223Why would dice even be involved? If the assassin manages to get the drop on a sleeping PC, it's goodbye PC and hello 3d6 in order.

mAcular Chaotic said "an assassin targets a PC." Presumably one uses dice to figure out if the assassin successfully got the drop on their target.

Quote from: Bren;1019229mAcular Chaotic said "an assassin targets a PC." Presumably one uses dice to figure out if the assassin successfully got the drop on their target.

Eh, would you make a player roll dice to get the drop on a sleeping goblin? As long as it's the same both ways, I guess, but I don't see why you'd need to roll at that point.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1019170Here's another example, and one that might come up in a session soon: an assassin targets a PC in their sleep. This is appropriate for the context of the situation, but still, this is one of those situations where a PC, if the dice go bad, could die before they even know what happened.

Excellent.  That'll teach the player not to casually piss off people with the resources to hire assassins.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018782Actually, a related question: how do you guys feel about long term campaigns ending in a TPK?

This isn't "two sessions in and everybody wipes," but having played for years and made it to a final boss, and then getting destroyed.

Good, bad? Just play it out and let it end on a sad note? Give them a way out?

I play it out. But I also consider if there are ways some of them might live, fairly, rationally, by the rules. If what happens is they all die, they all die. No doubt that would be upsetting to some people, but it's vastly more important to me that the game be a game about the situation it says it is, where the risks, dangers and potential consequences of the game situation are actual risks and dangers with consequences, and the chances of them happening are about what you might expect if the situation were a real one, NOT if the situation were a super hero comic book or a happy-ending Hollywood adventure fillm. It's up to the players and the dice to try to get a positive outcome and avoid being chopped up, eaten, incinerated, etc

And yeah, as Gronan immediately replied, there is no such thing as a "final boss" except in a one-off. I have run one-off adventures with "final bosses" before, but in those it would seem even more glaringly clear to me that I don't want the GM fudging to favor the PCs, because it would completely undermine the whole point of the game - CAN YOU SURVIVE AND PREVAIL IN THIS SITUATION, OR WILL YOU FAIL AND DIE HORRIBLY? If the GM messes with the dice and outcomes to help you, you don't get to find out.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1019007Well, what is an unsuitable death. Is getting killed by a random encounter unsuitable?

If it was good enough for Richard the Lionheart and Sir John Chandos, it's good enough for any PC.

There is no such thing as "unsuitable death."  The world is the world, and people die.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1019254If it was good enough for Richard the Lionheart and Sir John Chandos, it's good enough for any PC.

There is no such thing as "unsuitable death."  The world is the world, and people die.

Yeah, this:).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1019254There is no such thing as "unsuitable death."  The world is the world, and people die.

Depends on the type of campaign. The above works in a gritty dungeon crawl, but not so much for superheroes.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1019266Depends on the type of campaign. The above works in a gritty dungeon crawl, but not so much for superheroes.

Except the thread is about high level characters, and most superhero games don't feature levels;). Besides, the OP was clearly talking about fantasy campaign, so we're answering that.

Quote from: AsenRG;1019282Except the thread is about high level characters, and most superhero games don't feature levels;). Besides, the OP was clearly talking about fantasy campaign, so we're answering that.

It's D&D 5e.

Quote from: AsenRG;1019282Except the thread is about high level characters, and most superhero games don't feature levels;). Besides, the OP was clearly talking about fantasy campaign, so we're answering that.

What I said still applies, though. A fantasy campaign can just as easily be Errol Flynn style tales of daring-do as it can be fantasy Vietnam War. It all depends on what the GM and players want.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1019170Here's another example, and one that might come up in a session soon: an assassin targets a PC in their sleep. This is appropriate for the context of the situation, but still, this is one of those situations where a PC, if the dice go bad, could die before they even know what happened.

Yes. And it would play out just as if the PCs were targeting and NPC.

- Can the assassin find the target?
- Are they stealthy enough to approach the target unnoticed?
- Can lethal force be applied? (Weapon, poison, &c.)
- Can they escape after the target is terminated?

And, finally,

- Is the target supposed to be killed, but revivifiable? Killed permanently? Does a thwarted attack send enough of a message, or do we have to gack a henchman on the way out if we miss?

All of that requires impartial thought and die rolls on the part of the referee. And, should the attack be successful, you will know what happened when the divinations are rolled out.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1019266Depends on the type of campaign. The above works in a gritty dungeon crawl, but not so much for superheroes.

Quote from: AsenRG;1019282Except the thread is about high level characters, and most superhero games don't feature levels;). Besides, the OP was clearly talking about fantasy campaign, so we're answering that.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1019332What I said still applies, though. A fantasy campaign can just as easily be Errol Flynn style tales of daring-do as it can be fantasy Vietnam War. It all depends on what the GM and players want.

I don't think the difference is entirely in the subject of the campaign. I almost never play superhero campaigns, but when I do, I stat them out to be super, but then I use consistent and gritty rules to game them out. So it's highly unlikely but still possible that a random gunshot will one-shot Kick Ass, Bat Man, or anyone who isn't entirely bulletproof. And if they ARE bulletproof, it's that stat that makes them unable to be killed by gunfire, and not that they are a PC or a superhero.

Similarly and more on-topic here, there are certainly many people who play fantasy RPGs but routinely fudge things they're afraid will upset their players, removing the risks and consequences and then sometimes noticing the consequences that develop in the game experience, such as the question of this thread, players getting conditioned to the experience of always winning and never really suffering serious lasting consequences even when that gets them into situation where by all rights they should have been slaughtered, and they start being upset by things like taking a few hitpoints of damage, or missing an attack.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1019170Here's another example, and one that might come up in a session soon: an assassin targets a PC in their sleep. This is appropriate for the context of the situation, but still, this is one of those situations where a PC, if the dice go bad, could die before they even know what happened.

Good question.

Quote from: Baron Opal;1019601Yes. And it would play out just as if the PCs were targeting and NPC.

- Can the assassin find the target?
- Are they stealthy enough to approach the target unnoticed?
- Can lethal force be applied? (Weapon, poison, &c.)
- Can they escape after the target is terminated?

And, finally,

- Is the target supposed to be killed, but revivifiable? Killed permanently? Does a thwarted attack send enough of a message, or do we have to gack a henchman on the way out if we miss?

All of that requires impartial thought and die rolls on the part of the referee. And, should the attack be successful, you will know what happened when the divinations are rolled out.

Excellent answer. These are the sorts of thing I consider when resolving such situations, too.


And I would add, for all my frequent posts about wanting realistic fair consequences and so on, this sort of assassin question (also see extremely deadly ambushes and some other issues) is one which gave me pause even after 8 or so years of GM-ing and got me to think and realize that this is more the level at which I would choose to apply at least some level of nerfing to avoid slaughtering PCs for a more pleasant game. That is, I will tend to choose to have a powerful enemy of the PCs hire squads of fighters to attack the PCs, even though I know as a GM there are some nasty clever things they could do instead that might tend to be very effective and not give the PCs much chance to do a lot about it, such as a master assassin, and/or coating weapons in deadly poison, and/or poisoning their food, and/or using certain magic spells. But I try to restrict such choices to the level of the types, abilities, and methods of the NPCs, and the weapons, magic, and so on readily available in the world. It's also one reason I tend to like ancient/medieval settings, rather than ones with reliable accurate guns, because shooting people with guns tends to be a really efficient way of killing people and not giving them much chance to escape, which overall tends to seem less fun to me, and I'm not willing to use game mechanics that make things not behave like the thing they supposedly are.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1019332What I said still applies, though. A fantasy campaign can just as easily be Errol Flynn style tales of daring-do as it can be fantasy Vietnam War. It all depends on what the GM and players want.

Sure, it can be, but your comparison was about dungeon crawls vs superheroes. And either way, it doesn't seem to be the deathless kind of campaign:).
And my swashbuckling and wuxia campaigns easily feature PCs losing limbs. While playing "Errol Flynn-style tales of daring-do".
Also, I'm really not interested in a game where PCs can't die, unless we're playing Nobilis, and even there that's just hard to happen.