Quote from: Age of Fable;258338Maybe that's what d20 was/is trying to avoid, by having specified difficulties for doing particular things.

That's exactly it.  That's why 3E has a fully developed skill system, and hordes of rules for interacting with the environment.  Not perfect rules, but one of the major impetuses for those sort of changes is the problem of DM imagination acting as an artificial limit on player choice.  Of course, it's easy enough to take that too far, which I think is a problem with 4E, but I haven't played it so I should keep my mouth shut.

The next question then becomes: How competent should a starting character be?  Should players start out as zeros and have to build up to becoming heroes?  Or should they start out as heroes?

I tend to lean towards "should start out as heroes," mostly because years of experience with zero-to-hero has left me bored and jaded with it, frustrated by coming up with great concept only to watch them die before they mature (sometimes I wonder if those people who keep playing the same character over and over do it because they've never been able to get the character to the level they imagined the character at), having campaigns fall apart levels before the character achieves competence, watching other players play so cautiously it made my teeth grind, and having to write stupid first level adventures where nothing too dangerous happens and everything is covered in nerf foam to make sure a swingy die roll doesn't cause everything to come crashing down.

And yes, there is the "Just start at higher levels." solution, but almost everyone I know sees that as "cheating," and I find it deeply unsatisfying.  I just think starting level adventurers should be people who are reasonably competent and not neophytes in way over their head.  If you're going to have a game about adventurers, they should start out as people for whom the mere idea of going into a dungeon isn't vaguely suicidal, right?

IME players don't act "boldly" - boldly being the examples Jackalope has given - because the system they are using makes it difficult to do so without having to add their own houserules. They would just rather go with the flow or system as it were.

All the new players not gamers, mind you, who I have introduced to the hobby view gaming in cinematic terms and since they are ignorant of system, they just dive in with the crazy stuff. Players from other groups who have joined my group, upon realizing that I'm pretty open to ignoring the rules and just making it up as I go along (and that the other players are cool with that and there's no disruption during play) start contributing their own "bold" acts.

I don't really think it's the difference between Hector and Achillies type heroism. It's not about archtypes or even particaular mindsets of players but rather the attitude the group has towards the system. IME depending on what type of game the group wants, it can either be about larger than life heroes or about average joes but this does not mean players don't act boldly in one but not the other, but just that verisimilitude determines the scale and consequences of their bold acts.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;258422IME players don't act "boldly" - boldly being the examples Jackalope has given - because the system they are using makes it difficult to do so without having to add their own houserules. They would just rather go with the flow or system as it were.

All the new players not gamers, mind you, who I have introduced to the hobby view gaming in cinematic terms and since they are ignorant of system, they just dive in with the crazy stuff.

My experience is that players tend to be pretty conservative even if the system is pretty forgiving. I'm seen players in Spirit of the Century squander half their fate points protecting stress boxes. Fate points are what let you do the coolest stuff, and stress is the most trivial resource.

Sometimes, I don't get it.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;258613My experience is that players tend to be pretty conservative even if the system is pretty forgiving. I'm seen players in Spirit of the Century squander half their fate points protecting stress boxes. Fate points are what let you do the coolest stuff, and stress is the most trivial resource.

Sometimes, I don't get it.

You just reminded me that I have to get down to reading SotC ! In my case I have to gently remind the players to tone it down to the level we all agreed to. They are pretty "reckless" with their characters and they are the "no fudging" type players, which makes it even more interesting

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Jackalope;258110While the ordinary man who overcomes tremendous odds may be the more interesting story, it tends to fail as a game.

Well, perhaps for you. I really enjoy playing a reasonably ordinary person who overcomes tremendous odds, and have very little interest in playing tremendous people who overcome tremendous odds. That doesn't have to mean a depressing death-fest in which your ordinary character is "rolled over by history," although I find some games like that interesting, too.

There's another option, though: an ordinary person who overcomes slightly-more-than-ordinary odds. The street kid doesn't have to kill the megacorporate CEO - that'd be absurd, which some people like, but I'm not one of them - but to have the street kid survive an attack by opposing gang members can be exciting, seat-of-the-pants, edge-of-your-seat sort of stuff, and more importantly to me, is something we can relate to. I don't really relate well to a character who cannot die unless someone accidentally pokes his heel, but an everyman who gets caught up in something greater than himself, and survives, can be very compelling. And if he doesn't survive...well, tragedy is compelling, too. Or is the game only fun when it's un-loseable?

Quote from: Engine;258650Well, perhaps for you. I really enjoy playing a reasonably ordinary person who overcomes tremendous odds, and have very little interest in playing tremendous people who overcome tremendous odds.

Perhaps for me?  I was referring to dice probabilities.  I'm pretty sure those are the same for everybody.  I guess that was too subtle for you.

My point:  A first level Commoner taking out a Pit Fiend by wits alone is a great story, but it's also a story that can only happen if the Commoner has a LOT of plot protection.

Quote from: Engine;258650There's another option, though: an ordinary person who overcomes slightly-more-than-ordinary odds. The street kid doesn't have to kill the megacorporate CEO - that'd be absurd, which some people like, but I'm not one of them - but to have the street kid survive an attack by opposing gang members can be exciting, seat-of-the-pants, edge-of-your-seat sort of stuff, and more importantly to me, is something we can relate to.

To relate my point to your example here:

A street kid surviving an attack by opposing gang members can be exciting, seat-of-the-pants, edge-of-your-seat sort of stuff but it can also be one freaky short string of bad die rolls at the very beginning of the session that leaves you both unsatisfied and forced to roll up a new character.

And while that story can be compelling and tragic, if it's the first session of the campaign and in the first hour of game play -- like say it's the character's introduction scene -- then it tends to not be very meaningful or it tends to be very frustrating.  If the character is essentially undeveloped before play (raw stats, no background), then the player tends to not find the death meaningful in any way.  If the character is extremely developed before play, then the player tends to be more frustrated by time wasted developing the character.

Now, you play Shadowrun.  I'll admit to being less than 100% familiar with the system, but I have played Shadowrun, and it's not a particularly realistic game, with a fairly cinematic combat system that makes survival far less dependent on swingy die rolls.  So I'm guessing you're thinking about the kid in Shadowrun terms.

In Shadowrun, that kid is going to have far greater chances of survival simply because of the nature of the combat system.  In Friday Night Firefight, the combat system used in the Old School predecessor to Shadowrun -- Cyberpunk 2025 -- avoiding combat is of paramount importance, because a stray bullet can kill you dead quite easily.  It's a frighteningly realistic combat system.

One of the reasons Shadowrun sold better than Cyperpunk 2025 is that the baseline mortality level in Shadowrun is far lower than in Cyberpunk 2025.  The other reason is, of course, that it's basically D&D with cyberware and sprawls.

QuoteI don't really relate well to a character who cannot die unless someone accidentally pokes his heel, but an everyman who gets caught up in something greater than himself, and survives, can be very compelling. And if he doesn't survive...well, tragedy is compelling, too. Or is the game only fun when it's un-loseable?

You're engaging in the very false dilemma this thread is about.  The game in no more only fun when it's "un-loseable" than it's only fun when it's unwinnable.

I personally think it's the desire to have developed and meaningful characters that drives a lot of the push to raise the baseline power level and lower the mortality rate in rpgs.  It is just way too frustrating developing a character -- especially for a heroic fantasy game -- only to have them die as a result of a critical hit by a kobold who happened to roll max damage on the first round of the first combat, all because you rolled low on hit points.

Quote from: Jackalope;258862Perhaps for me?  I was referring to dice probabilities.  I'm pretty sure those are the same for everybody.  I guess that was too subtle for you.

Yes. Since you only mentioned dice once, in passing, I didn't realize you were referring to dice probabilities. It actually doesn't change my point, which isn't about dice probabilities.

Quote from: Jackalope;258862My point:  A first level Commoner taking out a Pit Fiend by wits alone is a great story, but it's also a story that can only happen if the Commoner has a LOT of plot protection.

Right. That's why I said, "There's another option, though: an ordinary person who overcomes slightly-more-than-ordinary odds." Your Commoner vs Pit Fiend is my "street kid" vs "megacorporate CEO," and it would, indeed, be absurd.

Quote from: Jackalope;258886A street kid surviving an attack by opposing gang members can be exciting, seat-of-the-pants, edge-of-your-seat sort of stuff but it can also be one freaky short string of bad die rolls at the very beginning of the session that leaves you both unsatisfied and forced to roll up a new character.

If it's "freaky," it's also unlikely. A good plan makes it that much more unlikely. Can it still happen? Well, of course; a game without some kind of challenge isn't going to be much fun for me, either, but the challenge needs to be calibrated to the characters: death should still be possible, certainly, and sometimes that'll happen at the whims of fate, and not because of any error the player made. It sucks, absolutely, but I prefer it to playing Achilles, personally.

Quote from: Jackalope;258886In Shadowrun, that kid is going to have far greater chances of survival simply because of the nature of the combat system.  In Friday Night Firefight, the combat system used in the Old School predecessor to Shadowrun -- Cyberpunk 2025 -- avoiding combat is of paramount importance, because a stray bullet can kill you dead quite easily.  It's a frighteningly realistic combat system.

Cyberpunk 2020, actually. And a single shot can kill you in Shadowrun, too, although without using optional rules, it generally leaves you "unconscious, possibly dead," and with maybe a handful of seconds to live. It is rare, in Shadowrun, to need to put more than a single round into someone to kill them, unless they're wearing a ballistic vest and you hit them in it. Or unless you're using a low-caliber weapon, of course, but then it's likely you'd need to put a couple rounds into someone - or hit them very well - to kill them.

The optional rule mentioned above - "Deadlier overdamage" - has been modified by my group to be "absence of overdamage," such that a full ten boxes of damage results in near-immediate death. It's actually more lethal than reality, but it does help keep the die rolls to a minimum. As much as we like realism, it's not worth a half-dozen extra die rolls for every attack!

None of this really applies to the issue at hand, but bringing up Shadowrun is apt to make me prattle on for hours.

Quote from: Jackalope;258886You're engaging in the very false dilemma this thread is about.

Really? So when I put forth the third option that shows the thread's dilemma to be false, that's engaging in the false dilemma? I don't really understand how that could possibly be true.