QuoteThe paradox of the GM running the game is that while the GM is there to provide a challenge for the players and characters, the GM doesn't actually feel themselves the players' adversary.

Bzzt.  Wrong.  A spirit of friendly competition, or even outright rivalry, between GM and player is a tradition that goes back decades, especially in D&D, perhaps more so than any other game.

However, that spirit of competition requires responsibility on both sides of the table in order to not break down. That means the DM practicing understanding his player's capabilities and managing his encounters, and excercising some judgement in regards to exercise of power, and the players not going out of their way to break the system, and putting all good effort into tackling the DM's challenges.

But of course, that would require you to recognize other playstyles than your own, which I know is difficult for you.

I don't get it. Who's bewailing the loss of DM power to hose the players? What I see is people complaining that D&D rules and D&D culture is focusing increasingly on guaranteeing the players a narrowly restricted range of challenge, in discrete "encounter" chunks, instead of a wider range of challenge, in less-delineated form, that allows players to enjoy defining their own challenges.

Quote from: J ArcaneBzzt.  Wrong.  A spirit of friendly competition, or even outright rivalry, between GM and player is a tradition that goes back decades, especially in D&D, perhaps more so than any other game.

No, the tradition is that the GM acts as an adversary, but doesn't actually feel adversarial.

As Gygax tells us,
   "Now and then a player [character] will die through no fault of his own. he or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such thigns pass as the players [characters] will kill more than one oppoenent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player [character], instead of dying, is knocked unconscious [etc] [...]

"the game must be neither too difficult to survive nor so easy as to offer ittle excitement or challenge. There must always be soemthing desirable to gain, something important to lose, and the chance of having either happen. Futhermore, there must be some purpose to it all. [...] moments of silliness and huor help to contrast with the grinding seriousness of a titanic struggle and help relieve participants at the same time." [DMG, pp.110-112]
He also has a section in the middle of that on how if you have a high-level campaign and new players come, they should have their own mini-campaign until their characters are tough enough and the players are experienced enough to deal with those greater challenges.

On the whole, it is not adversarial at all. I would say that most GMs run their games more in the spirit of what Gygax is advising, than in your suggested spirit of "I'm gonna kill a PC tonight!"

But perhaps the distinction between acting as an adversary and being adversarial is a subtle one. I think it's an important one, though.

Quote from: J ArcaneBut of course, that would require you to recognize other playstyles than your own, which I know is difficult for you.

And I realise that it's hard to understand any playstyles when you haven't gamed for some time. If you game for a bit with a group, then perhaps you'll have greater sympathy for distinctions like "acting as adversary vs being adversarial" and so on.

Go play, J Arcane. Go play.

QuoteAnd I realise that it's hard to understand any playstyles when you haven't gamed for some time.

So you're suggesting that I don't understand my own preferred style of play?

That's pretty presumptious of you.  

Keep digging that hole deeper.  It amuses me when you demonstrate to the audience what a hypocrite you are.

No, I'm suggesting that when you haven't gamed for a while you just generally lose perspective about things. It's a bit like how single blokes are more likely than attached blokes to be saying "all women are bitches" or giving generally bad advice about intimate relationships.

You just lose perspective, is what I mean. Because you forget what it feels like to play or GM. You start thinking more of the theory than the practice.

I mean, just look at Settembrini. The guy has apparently had a dry patch of gaming for a while, and that's also the time he's come along and said all these loopy things about gaming which make everyone say, "what the fuck?" Or look at the Forgers yabbering about how they have to make their demo games really count and they should all sign up for each-other's games and make a lot of noise to sound like they're really having fun.

It's hard to have a good and nuanced understanding of things when you've not experienced it for a while. Likewise, it's hard to have a good understanding at the time, in the heat of the session with the dice rolling - we all get carried away from time to time. The time when you can really have a good understanding of what gaming's really about is in the first days after a session. So you've had a bit of gaming but have had some time to digest it and think on it.

You've long been an angry poster, J Arcane, but over recent months your posts have become more and more confrontational, angry and bitter. You express contempt for many posters, and if you actually like and respect any posters here, you seem to keep quiet about it. Now, either this reflects the way you really feel, or you just don't like us at therpgsite any more. In either case I prescribe some fun game sessions - whatever "fun game sessions" are for you. Less talking about gaming, and more gaming.

It's what I'm aiming for. Thus the Spring Geektogether. Looks like we'll have our usual 10-15 - maybe up to 18-20 in all over the evening, but 10-15 at any one time. Some people who were there before won't be this time, but we have some new ones, too. That's good, it's what we like, a nice circulation of people meeting so they can talk about gaming, and use that talk to game better and with new people.

So, do you have any other plays in your playbook JimBob?  Or is it pretty much all, "ramble on and on and on, and if that doesn't shut them up, accuse them of not being a gamer"?

This pathetic little ploy of yours is really getting rather tired.

Quote from: J ArcaneThis is why save-or-die is such a cheap dick move, it's basically one die roll away from death-by-GM-fiat.

Let's say you are running a 1st level game of B/X D&D.  If a character with 4 hp gets hit by a goblin with a spear for 1d6 damage, they have a 50/50 chance of dying.  If they open a trapped chest and need to make a save vs. poison or die -- that's not much different.  (I don't have my book here... I'm assuming save vs poison is better than 50/50 for all classes).

Quote from: StuartLet's say you are running a 1st level game of B/X D&D.  If a character with 4 hp gets hit by a goblin with a spear for 1d6 damage, they have a 50/50 chance of dying.  If they open a trapped chest and need to make a save vs. poison or die -- that's not much different.  (I don't have my book here... I'm assuming save vs poison is better than 50/50 for all classes).

I see that and raise you a "the odds on the save or die roll skew in your favor as you go up in level and your saving throws improve and max out at a pretty easy 2-5 range".

Quote from: jrientsI can't help but think that over-elaborate chargen sequences feed into that spaz's sense of entitlement.  When it takes a long time to build a proper PC I can't help but think that killing that character will be a tremendous pain in the ass.

Ding ding ding. Dong. Dingdong. Yes, absoltely. Characters built on elaborate concepts, designed ("built") over hours, are more painful to lose than Ratomil the Rogue, whom you rolled up and equipped under 15 minutes. The sort of gaming that used to be cool doesn't work under today's systems bacuse they don't provide the tools for running them. Except, of course, crossing out "Lwyellyn the Fair" on your character sheet and writing "Lwyellyn's cousin's second uncle" in its place.

And building on this a bit more...

The trapped chest is pre-placed on the map, and it isn't targeted at any one player's character.  They can also use find/remove traps on it.  When a roll needs to be made, it's the player making it -- and lots of players prefer this.

The goblin spearman is controlled by the GM, and they can decide who to attack with it. The GM rolls to hit.  The GM rolls damage.  Suddenly the player's character is out of the game.

Save or Die isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

Quote from: StuartSave or Die isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

It's not like I think about the subject all of the time, but in retrospect, save or die wasn't such a big deal. It was like the rest of D&D at the time, fairly dangerous in the beginning, but losing its teeth as the PC gains levels with all the items, spells and geegaws that came with it. Shoot, if D&D 4 develops ways to scale environmental effects and allow them to be challenging at all levels, just as they're planning to do with monsters, that would be cool.

Furthermore, I find it most suspicious that it is not the "kids who came from CRPGs" demographic which finds character death unacceptable - all over the net, I see the attitude from bitter old coots who were killed in Tomb of Horrors or Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. :rolleyes: And people who dislike D&D.

This is why I disagree with J Arcane here - he is defending a design direction which masquerades as mainstream, but is pretty much a rejection of tried, true, and commercially successful principles in D&D. Not that everyone should aim for mainstream recognition, mind you.

Quote from: J ArcaneIt sounds like a bunch of ex-killer-DMs and railroaders bitching because their players stopped taking their shit.

Luke Crane, is that you?

QuoteExcept, of course, crossing out "Lwyellyn the Fair" on your character sheet and writing "Lwyellyn's cousin's second uncle" in its place.

We SO do this during the first five levels in 3.5., maybe switching a feat that didn´t do the trick.
And we dig it.

After that, there´s level loss for resurrection.
I mean it´s fucking power-fantasy-D&D.

If you can´t stand earning your power through danger, death and level loss, you have issues with frustration tolerance. It´s fucking D&D, the most undeadly system that ever existed. So many ways to return characters, it boggles the mind.

Being powerful is ONLY fun if you earned it the "hard" way.

Yeah, but that thread is full of people who post things like

QuoteActually, such a covering would make me even less inclined to be on alert. It not only indicates that whatever is down there has been stuck for some time, but also that it is extremely unlikely to be able to break out now.

If you want to indicate that there is a risk of whatever is in the well getting out, you want a combination of old, weathered wooden boards and new boards. This tells the observer that the townsfolk really don't want whatever is inside getting out and that it has recently succeeded despite their attempts at boarding it in.

Because this is the stuff of heroic adventure. Right. :rolleyes: