TheRPGSite

Disclaimer #1: Warthur is a pretty cool poster and I agree with him more often than not. God knows he's not the only one who thinks this way and this si why I felt the need to spin this off in a thread of its own (also not to shit on another cool poster's very positive CoC thread).

First, let's clear up just what the fuck we're talking about. "Pulp", like "anime" is a medium and not a genre. There's pulp fantasy, pulp horror, pulp SF. But what most people are thinking of when they say "pulp" is what used to be known as "men's adventure"; contemporary (as of the writing, typically 1920-1950) fictional tales of badass men tackling on extreme danger of all sorts, from wildlife and criminals to far-out supernatural shit.

And therein lies my dilemma: you cannot have danger without grit and/or mortality. I am not a "negotiating the stakes of the conflict to be resolved" kind of guy, I find this a bullshit setup that robs conflict of its drama. I like conflicts to escalate and spiral out of control as men and women frantically grasp at the last straws and the Fates weave their tangled thread, Atropos ever with scissor in hand. Glad if something else works for you, doesn't work for me.

Not even the much-vaunted, borderline-superheroic proto-Batman, Doc Savage (certainly a protagonist at the higher end of the power scale for the genre) charged gunmen, like you're wont to see with some "ZOMG so pulpy" RPGnet darling of the month. He was wise enough to surrender when some "mook" got the drop on him with a handgun at close range.

I posit that true-to-source pulp gaming not only admits but requires actual danger. Not "ZOMG I took a punch and lost my girlfriend LOL this game is so sweet". Without the threat of grave and irreversible consequences hanging over every daring escapade, there's nothing "daring" about undertaking them and every victory becomes hollow and mechanical. What's awesome about jumping over a five-meter-wide chasm with bubbling incandescent lava below if you can emerge unharmed at the other side by spending a Magical Brownie Point?

Disclaimer #2. I play games with Magical Brownie Points every now and then. I strongly prefer "reroll" or "small bonus" MBPs (e.g. Savage Worlds bennies, WW Willpower) to "auto success" or "big bonus" MBPs, as they keep things surprising and players and GM alike on the edge of their seats. But I play them all. They're not bad when used sparsely but they tend to turn harrowing situations into resource management which isn't always what I want out of them.

Which is why the "pulp is not gritty/lethal" meme must PERISH IN THE FIRE OF A BILLION BLUE HYPERGIANTS GOING NOVA.

Thank you.

Bring on the flames.

Unless I am in a Magical Disney Princess RPG, I find games without death a possibility to be very unfun... Superhero games are one of my favorites, and I still like games to be someone challenging where death at least a possibility.

Also, I don't like games where the players have plot immunity...

I want to play an RPG, not emulate Fiction/TV/Movies/Anime.

There were a lot of times Indiana Jones could have died in Raiders of the Lost Ark... If not for Plot Immunity, it would have been a very short movie...

Quote from: The Butcher;750127First, let's clear up just what the fuck we're talking about. "Pulp", like "anime" is a medium and not a genre. There's pulp fantasy, pulp horror, pulp SF.

Counterpoint: pulp was a medium. 99.99% of the time in an RPG context it's used to designate genre conventions.

Hell, this original came up in the context of a Call of Cthulhu discussion - and Chaosium are (finally) going to be publishing their Pulp Cthulhu supplement alongside CoC 7th. If Chaosium themselves think that a) "Pulp" designates genre conventions and b) CoC needs an entire supplement to make it support that particular style, I'd say you're fighting a losing battle to turn back the linguistic clock.

Is Weird Tales horror pulp? I have some very pulpy horror short stories; the protagonists do survive more often than in Lovecraft or Poe, but often they end up with their girlfriend turned into a waxwork or somesuch.

To be fair, Lovecraft himself was published in Weird Tales.

To be accurate, though, Lovecraft's particular style was always kind of an odd fit for Weird Tales - much more pessimistic, often more low-key, and unlike some writers (like Robert E. Howard) Lovecraft never deigned to cater to the editor's kinks in order to make sales. (Farnsworth was really into bondage artwork, to the extent that if a story gave him an excuse to commission some for the cover of WT he was markedly more likely to buy it.)

Remember, Weird Tales rejected At the Mountains of Madness, so whilst there's plenty of room for pulpy Mythos stuff (thanks to pulpier writers who latched onto the Mythos in Lovecraft's time and afterwards), equally I'd say that "pulpy" and "Lovecraftian" are mildly incompatible prospects - not least because Lovecraft himself was never entirely compatible with the ethos of the pulps. (Or society. Or his wife. Or himself. Or really anything else. Awkward bird, was Lovecraft.)

It really depends on how you define "pulp". If it's just magazines printed on that sort of paper, you have a wide variety of genres.

But in practice, it means stuff like The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider, The Phantom Detective, etc. I think The Shadow lost 1 agent in the whole nearly 400 issue run.

But even if you expand it to other stuff, like mystery novels, you have Sam Spade, the Continental Op, Phil Marlowe. None of them ever died.

As you are playing in the Setting and not reading a Story, I see no reason that the "Hero" can't die. I do think that it should not be from an infection or blood loss.  It should be something Dramatic. This is where I see the "Magical Brownie Point" coming into play. They would heal wounds, clear infection and stop blood loss. They would not save you from falling into lava.
They might give you a re-roll on the jump attempt but when you fail after using one, so sad.
=

Is it redefined however?  The movie Pulp Fiction was about seedy, gritty, sexy, violent criminals, not about gorilla scientists in biplanes attacking nazi zeppelins over Mars.  Gamers specifically, and modern culture in general, seem to have a pathological need to take everything and crank the satirical, ironic, over the top elements of anything up to the 11th power.

So what we're talking about is a redefinition of "pulp" within the RPG community then.  But, games like Two-Fisted Tales aren't the same as SotC.  What Warthur refers to as the pulp redefinition is really "highly cinematic pulp", taking a small segment of the definition and assuming it's now the real definition in use.  Where have we seen this before? :hmm:

However, if we are talking about playing a "Pulp" game, then a lot of people are talking about genre conventions, but genre conventions vary widely from different genres of pulp.  

Call of Cthulhu is actually more of a playing "within the world of Lovecraft" rather then "within the fiction of Lovecraft" and as a result, aside from Sanity, it's not heavy on genre mechanics at all.  Since it's not heavy on genre mechanics, it's flexible.  If you are looking for Noir in characterization and not some metagame out of character mechanic, CoC can do Noir or other Detective Fiction, Westerns or any other type of low-powered pulp.  If you consider all of BRP as possible supplements for CoC (which they are, because all the d100 stuff is easily interchangeable) then you have rules for lots of different pulp styles.

However, if by pulp you mean "larger then life heroes who are a higher form of being then the mooks around them expressed through OOC metagame mechanics" then yeah, CoC doesn't help you much.

So what does Chaosium coming out with it's own Pulp Cthulhu say about CoC itself?  Not much, really, other then the typical, if somewhat banal at this point, new school shift.  What did Astounding Adventures add to BRP?  Narrative logic through OOC metagame elements to simulate genre.  What did COC7 add to CoC?  Narrative logic through OOC metagame elements to simulate genre.  What will Pulp Cthulhu add to CoC?  :hmm:

Indiana Jones vs. Cthulhu is popular though, so it's only natural I guess that Chaosium wants that money too, even if they're a little late to the table.

"Pulp" has been a genre for decades. It's a genre with its own assumptions and conventions. If you want to create "Lethal Pulp" as your take on that established genre, go for it.

Pulp RPGs seek to emulate the fiction...and in that fiction (for obvious reasons), the big damn hero lives to fight another day in issue after issue, proto-comic book style.

Lethal RPGs are about those same stories, but without the plot immunity, but since plot immunity is a KEY part of the Pulp Genre, you are messing with a core concept to what people understand to be Pulp.

But that's fine and it's quite possible that if you or someone else makes a really fun Lethal Pulp RPG, it will find an audience who wants to play Indy Jones who might die in 5 minutes into the movie.

or some people understand that playing in the Hyborian World doesn't mean we will all never die like Conan, because, well...

We're not Conan, and this isn't a book we're reading.

Whichever.  ;)

Quote from: JeremyR;750152It really depends on how you define "pulp". If it's just magazines printed on that sort of paper, you have a wide variety of genres.

But in practice, it means stuff like The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider, The Phantom Detective, etc. I think The Shadow lost 1 agent in the whole nearly 400 issue run.

But even if you expand it to other stuff, like mystery novels, you have Sam Spade, the Continental Op, Phil Marlowe. None of them ever died.

The protagonists rarely die in most genres. I think giving PCs a boost so they have protagonist style plot immunity (or something apporaching it) is more what I would call cinematic than pulp. I think it is totally fine to do, but games that don't do it are not failures or poor design because they don't regard that as essential to the genre they are inspired by. CoC does lovecraft well. In fact lovecraft arguably loses his punch if you give PCs plot immunity and treat them as larger than life heroes.

I usually don't think of pulp as being immune from death.

I will say that in pulp I think death is a bit HARDER. I mean, there is a mountain of middle ground between constant fear of death and death only if the player wishes it, and I tend to find pulp somewhere in that realm. you may die, but it isn't going to happen at some random moment, its going to be after a huge spiral of bad decisions/luck.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;750163The protagonists rarely die in most genres.

Right freaking there.  If I could put flashing lights beside it, I would.

Above and beyond that, it's a never-ending source of amazement to me how many gamers just can't separate the conventions of fiction (either literary or cinematic) with the conventions of tabletop gaming.  There's not one RPG party in ten which wouldn't jeer at the plan of the Council in LotR ("Let me get this straight.  Instead of the Ring being toted by the 15th level types, you're going to hand it to 1st level mooks?).  There's not one RPG party in ten which wouldn't scream bloody murder at the notion of their "protagonist" being effectively immortal.  There's not one RPG party in ten which, being plopped into Hogwarts, wouldn't adopt the common fanfic POVs that Dumbledore was either a manipulative asshole or completely senile, and that all the adults were incompetent, wimpy sheep.  (Heck, a lot of RPG parties, if the serial numbers were filed off, might well conclude that Voldemort was the only leader on the chessboard with any balls, and swing that way.)  

Fiction gives face time to the people the author wants, it gives plot immunity to the people the author wants to live until the end of the story -- and almost invariably to the protagonist/viewpoint character -- it has the characters acting the way that suits the plot, and it has those characters wearing blinkers which suit the author's amour propre.  GMs who routinely enforced these elements in campaigns would not win popularity contests.

Can we please stop buying in to nonsense such as "pulp isn't lethal because ongoing series don't kill off the protagonists?"  For pity's sake, the series wasn't called "Mike Hammer, Until It Was The Next Guy, And Then The Next Guy After That."

All that being said, I'm in general agreement with the OP.

Whilst it's true that the existence of character death as such isn't a meaningful distinction with pulp, I think there's room to discuss relative lethality in terms of what level of risk is considered to be safe, threatening, and suicidally dangerous for characters. We know that in some genres, one average guy with a knife and a nasty attitude is a serious threat to the protagonists, whilst in other genres the protagonists put down hordes of goons without breaking a sweat and are only seriously threatened by similarly tough individuals to themselves.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750158Where have we seen this before? :hmm:

I have an idea (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/01/pernicious-influence-of-princess-bride.html).

Quote from: Ravenswing;750173Above and beyond that, it's a never-ending source of amazement to me how many gamers just can't separate the conventions of fiction (either literary or cinematic) with the conventions of tabletop gaming.

One of many things that amaze me about some gamers.

Quote from: Ravenswing;750173Right freaking there.  If I could put flashing lights beside it, I would.

Above and beyond that, it's a never-ending source of amazement to me how many gamers just can't separate the conventions of fiction (either literary or cinematic) with the conventions of tabletop gaming.  There's not one RPG party in ten which wouldn't jeer at the plan of the Council in LotR ("Let me get this straight.  Instead of the Ring being toted by the 15th level types, you're going to hand it to 1st level mooks?).  There's not one RPG party in ten which wouldn't scream bloody murder at the notion of their "protagonist" being effectively immortal.  There's not one RPG party in ten which, being plopped into Hogwarts, wouldn't adopt the common fanfic POVs that Dumbledore was either a manipulative asshole or completely senile, and that all the adults were incompetent, wimpy sheep.  (Heck, a lot of RPG parties, if the serial numbers were filed off, might well conclude that Voldemort was the only leader on the chessboard with any balls, and swing that way.)  

Fiction gives face time to the people the author wants, it gives plot immunity to the people the author wants to live until the end of the story -- and almost invariably to the protagonist/viewpoint character -- it has the characters acting the way that suits the plot, and it has those characters wearing blinkers which suit the author's amour propre.  GMs who routinely enforced these elements in campaigns would not win popularity contests.

Can we please stop buying in to nonsense such as "pulp isn't lethal because ongoing series don't kill off the protagonists?"  For pity's sake, the series wasn't called "Mike Hammer, Until It Was The Next Guy, And Then The Next Guy After That."

All that being said, I'm in general agreement with the OP.

Quote for truth

Actually, the French edition of the Appel de Cthulhu supports Pulp emulation explicitly. It has three tiers of play, from gritty investigation to heroic-y to pulp, and does very much put into play lethality and sanity and all the trappings you know about CoC throughout, with twists, so you can actually get the best of all worlds, just saying to your players "OK, I need characters for pulp, or lovecraftian investigation, etc, and we go from there".

Quote from: Black Vulmea;750176I have an idea (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/01/pernicious-influence-of-princess-bride.html).

That is VERY pertinent. As a French guy who grew up on the "films de capes et d'épées" as a child with the likes of Jean Marais (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Marais), I can totally relate.

I think more important than character death or vulnerability is genre fidelity. As The Butcher suggests in the OP, "pulp" doesn't equal "charges machine gun nests, laughs at having a gun barrel jabbed in the ribs". If PCs can't die, then either players self-police (feels fake from an in-character POV) or they act with the verisimilitude-breaking knowledge that they can do whatever they like without serious consequence.

As for what can be done mechanics-wise to separate death from genre fidelity, that's another question. When they're linked, you have a double benefit. Most players are incentivized to stay within genre because they want their character to live. (And this maps pretty closely to the IC survival instinct.) But if a player doesn't really care about their character, that's cool, because the character's death ends the problem. (You do have issues with parties being screwed over by one loony or bad sport in their midst.)

But other mechanical approaches I've found only handle incentive without offering damage control if incentive fails. E.g. suppose you give each player a reroll budget before each adventure, with leftover refills converted into character points. So there's an incentive to be smart so you can minimize your use of rerolls. But if a player just doesn't care about advancement, the incentive is gone.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;750176I have an idea (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/01/pernicious-influence-of-princess-bride.html).

Oh my, that essay speaks to me... my previous group quoting TPB ad nauseum but having no clue at all about Errol Flynn movies or the original fictions. Much like Monty Python, their excessive and narrow repetition drove away the joy of it.

I'm in agreement with The Butcher and Ravenswing.
When I play a game where I KNOW my PC can die... doing dangerous stuff is THRILLING and I often feel downright HEROIC doing it... even if I do end up rolling a new character.
If I can just toss in some extra chips to metagame my way to assured success that thrill is gone and I certainly don't come away feeling heroic.

Pulp remains a medium for me, as does anime/manga... 'Hollywood Action Hero' (HAH!) would be my preferred way of speaking about implausible survival rates in the face of overpowering danger.

Good essay, BV.

And a thumbs-up to the posters talking about the need for genuine fear.  I've an anecdote.

I've mentioned playing for some years in a combat boffer LARP.  For most of that run I was the game's most powerful ritual magician, and for much of it its lead healer and a national leader.  Healing was pretty ubiquitous, and raising the dead pretty routine.  Heck, there was a site TPK -- every single PC had been killed, nearly a hundred of them -- but because I played dead, and then hid until the Bad Guy Army withdrew, I raised every single PC.

This didn't happen once.  It happened at three separate events.  (Okay, on one of them, I was killed, but my IC daughter was the last living PC, she followed my usual example and played dead, and used a healing potion to get me up.  And so the ball started rolling.)

I was asked more than once, IC, whether I was afraid, and I honestly had to say No.  Being wounded was a momentary inconvenience.  Being killed was a temporary inconvenience.  The worst depredation of the Big Bad would be set right in the end -- if not at this event, then eventually.  Getting torn asunder and made unrevivifiable?  Even that could be fixed, and I was one of the very few people who could do that.  Exactly what did I have to fear?  Evil winning the day?  Bah; you did a tactical retreat, you regrouped, and you came back swinging.

I just couldn't create a suspension of disbelief strong enough to be afraid, strong enough to override my character's common sense observation, powered by years of play.

So much handwringing over which choice of artifice one makes ...

Quote from: CRKrueger;750160or some people understand that playing in the Hyborian World doesn't mean we will all never die like Conan, because, well...

We're not Conan, and this isn't a book we're reading.

Whichever.  ;)

Conversely some just cannot grasp that Conan, Doc Savage, The Spider, etc Do come very close to death quite often. BUT. They are the adventurers that survived and thus we are reading their tale as opposed to reading about soon-to-be-dead-adventurer #55. And some pulp adventures go through at least an adventurer a story, sometimes with a TPK or sometimes they fail the quest.

Pulp never = unkillable. It is just that if it is a series centered on a central character then flat out death us unlikely as that would be contraproductive of a series ya know? It can be just as gritty and lethal. But that lethality tends to fall to those around the main character or the life and death struggles said characters face.

Torg did pulp adventuring pretty well with its Nile Empire cosm
Call of Cthulhu can indeed do pulp adventuring and Noir really well.
Cthulhu Live has the Shades of Grey booklet which is about playing Pulp Heros.
D&D itself can do pulp adventuring just fine.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750158Gamers specifically, and modern culture in general, seem to have a pathological need to take everything and crank the satirical, ironic, over the top elements of anything up to the 11th power.

Most gamers read games and game-derived fiction, not the actual literature their games are based on, and as a result don't know shit about genre analysis, elements of fiction, or the fact that there's quite a large academic community that's been studying this stuff for centuries and has built up quite a serviceable vocabulary for describing and discussing it.

"High fantasy", "pulp", "cyberpunk", et. al., ad nauseum - gamers as a group simply don't know what these terms actually mean, and the argument that "language evolves" would only work if the corrupted definitions used by gamers were used by anyone who wasn't a gamer.

Many great responses, sorry if I can't answer them all.

Quote from: Warthur;750133I'd say you're fighting a losing battle to turn back the linguistic clock.

Not fighting against the "linguistic clock", just the dumb idea that pulp RPGs can't have teeth.

Quote from: Warthur;750138I'd say that "pulpy" and "Lovecraftian" are mildly incompatible prospects

That is one of the points I'm making, actually; "pulp" is a damn big tent, and if your definition excludes a pulp author as prolific and proeminent as Lovecraft, it's probably not a very good one.

Quote from: Spinachcat;750159"Pulp" has been a genre for decades.

Says who? The Internet? Seriously?

Quote from: Spinachcat;750159If you want to create "Lethal Pulp" as your take on that established genre, go for it.

That's the exact misconception I'm taking issue with. Pulp heroes faced life-threatening danger all the time. Having a lethal pulp RPG is far more proper genre emulation than the cartoonish immortality that certain games try to sell off as "true to source."

Quote from: Spinachcat;750159Pulp RPGs seek to emulate the fiction...and in that fiction (for obvious reasons), the big damn hero lives to fight another day in issue after issue, proto-comic book style.

Lethal RPGs are about those same stories, but without the plot immunity, but since plot immunity is a KEY part of the Pulp Genre, you are messing with a core concept to what people understand to be Pulp.

Protagonists don't survive because it's their story. It's their story because they've survived.

Quote from: Spinachcat;750159But that's fine and it's quite possible that if you or someone else makes a really fun Lethal Pulp RPG, it will find an audience who wants to play Indy Jones who might die in 5 minutes into the movie.

How exciting would it be to watch the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, if there was no risk of Indy dying from the traps or the giant boulder?

Quote from: Warthur;750174Whilst it's true that the existence of character death as such isn't a meaningful distinction with pulp, I think there's room to discuss relative lethality in terms of what level of risk is considered to be safe, threatening, and suicidally dangerous for characters. We know that in some genres, one average guy with a knife and a nasty attitude is a serious threat to the protagonists, whilst in other genres the protagonists put down hordes of goons without breaking a sweat and are only seriously threatened by similarly tough individuals to themselves.

True. I'm not advocating OD&D-Normal-Men levels of lethality here,just railing against the one-true-wayism and the excesses. Having said that, though...

Quote from: Emperor Norton;750166I usually don't think of pulp as being immune from death.

I will say that in pulp I think death is a bit HARDER. I mean, there is a mountain of middle ground between constant fear of death and death only if the player wishes it, and I tend to find pulp somewhere in that realm. you may die, but it isn't going to happen at some random moment, its going to be after a huge spiral of bad decisions/luck.

...I like the idea that PCs live in a very dangerous world in which a moment's hesitation or a stroke of bad luck can cut their adventuring careers brutally short. Makes daring stunts of courage actually daring and courageous, y'know.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;750176I have an idea (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/01/pernicious-influence-of-princess-bride.html).

THANK YOU.

Quote from: Benoist;750190Actually, the French edition of the Appel de Cthulhu supports Pulp emulation explicitly.

So does the English language core rulebook. That's kind of my point. ;)

Quote from: Arminius;750214But other mechanical approaches I've found only handle incentive without offering damage control if incentive fails. E.g. suppose you give each player a reroll budget before each adventure, with leftover refills converted into character points. So there's an incentive to be smart so you can minimize your use of rerolls. But if a player just doesn't care about advancement, the incentive is gone.

That's exactly how Savage Worlds does it. When I first read it, I thought converting bennies to XP was dumb, but now I see a certain logic.

Quote from: J Arcane;750221So much handwringing over which choice of artifice one makes ...

I think I'm a pretty level-headed poster. I feel like I've earned the right to be outraged and rant about elfgames every once in a blue moon. ;)

Quote from: daniel_ream;750232Most gamers read games and game-derived fiction, not the actual literature their games are based on, and as a result don't know shit about genre analysis, elements of fiction, or the fact that there's quite a large academic community that's been studying this stuff for centuries and has built up quite a serviceable vocabulary for describing and discussing it.

"High fantasy", "pulp", "cyberpunk", et. al., ad nauseum - gamers as a group simply don't know what these terms actually mean, and the argument that "language evolves" would only work if the corrupted definitions used by gamers were used by anyone who wasn't a gamer.

Too true. Everyone nowadays, gamers included, apparently only gobble up pop culture rehashes of everything, oblivious to the original forms. Shit, we wouldn't have an OSR if that wasn't the case.

For a genre-simulation-oriented game, PCs need to be able to do the things protagonists do in the genre, with similar prospects of success from the POV of the protagonists. So in a Musketeers game a Musketeer PC should be able to duel a typical member of Richelieu's guard with a high chance of survival and small prospect of death or long term injuries. If he takes on ten of Richelieu's guards on an even field, he should feel certain of a swift demise.

A lot of 'pulp' and 'cinematic' games get this wrong - they stat it "with benefit of hindsight", ie chances of success are hugely booosted because 'heroes don't die'. So eg in 1e WEG d6 Star Wars a beginning PC with combat-oriented stats can take on the squad of stormtroopers that Han Solo ran from, with a good prospect of success. This then encourages player characters to behave differently from the heroes in Star Wars ep IV-VI; the PCs behave more like the Jedi vs the robot soldiers in episode I.

Good genre-emulation mechanics are mechanics that encourage the PCs to behave similarly to the way the protagonists in the genre fiction behave (assuming we are emulating the activities of the protagonists). So eg good rules for Conan genre should encourage Conanesque behaviour - which includes a lot of running away, and even surrendering.

Quote from: J Arcane;750221So much handwringing over which choice of artifice one makes ...

Who is the bigger handwringer?  The handwringer or the one who handwrings about him?

Quote from: Benoist;750192That is VERY pertinent.

Quote from: Simlasa;750216Oh my, that essay speaks to me...

Quote from: Ravenswing;750219Good essay, BV.

Quote from: The Butcher;750256THANK YOU.

Thank you.

The result, in roleplaying games, is that you end up with a narrow, limited and limiting take on the genre (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/04/u-is-for-unbuilt.html).

Re: fiction

I personally have a fondness for older works - so, for example, my Gothic horror is more likely to draw from Castle of Otranto rather than Interview with a Vampire. However, it's nonsense to say that the older works are "right" and the newer ones are "doing it wrong". Genres change, and they always have. Someone in the 1930s probably complained that new-fangled stories like Doc Savage were doing pulp completely wrong, compared to the older penny dreadful pulps.

So, yes, The Princess Bride and subsequent popular cape-and-sword movies changed the perception of the genre - as another step to how Errol Flynn movies changed the genre decades earlier. Change happens.

Perception of what is pulp today draws more from Indiana Jones than from the most popular 1930s pulp magazines like Blue Book and Argosy. That said, I don't think that the issue of deadliness has changed all that much. Heroes in pulp adventure stories aren't bulletproof, but they will often face down armed opponents. In The Maltese Falcon, for example, Sam Spade punches out someone holding a gun on him. The Shadow would taunt his criminal victims as they shot at the sound of his voice.

Quote from: S'mon;750278Good genre-emulation mechanics are mechanics that encourage the PCs to behave similarly to the way the protagonists in the genre fiction behave (assuming we are emulating the activities of the protagonists). So eg good rules for Conan genre should encourage Conanesque behaviour - which includes a lot of running away, and even surrendering.

I think it's overstating to say that Conan does a lot of running away. He will run away sometimes, but he will also sometimes fight seemingly unwinnable fights against all odds. For example, in Queen of the Black Coast, he first fights against overwhelming odds against Belit's men only to be unexpectedly spared by her - and later fights the monster that killed her only to be unexpectedly saved by her spirit.

I think a pulp RPG should allow for a moderate amount of this sort of risky behavior, rather than encouraging PCs to constantly be cautious and tactical.  For example, the d20 Conan RPG had a reasonable rule for this, I thought, which was a "left for dead" rule - that you could lose some fights a limited number of times and survive while left for dead.

I don't have enough experience with 1e D6 Star Wars to comment on that example.

Quote from: The Butcher;750256Protagonists don't survive because it's their story. It's their story because they've survived.

Quote from: Omega;750229Conversely some just cannot grasp that Conan, Doc Savage, The Spider, etc Do come very close to death quite often. BUT. They are the adventurers that survived and thus we are reading their tale as opposed to reading about soon-to-be-dead-adventurer #55.

(http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110705203442/glee/images/3/38/Orson-welles-clapping.gif)

That's why running a game like it is a story is boring as hell to me, except as a convention one-shot or something.  It's playing the game with the cheats on, ensuring victory.  The story comes after, just like the books and comics.

Quote from: S'mon;750278Good genre-emulation mechanics are mechanics that encourage the PCs to behave similarly to the way the protagonists in the genre fiction behave (assuming we are emulating the activities of the protagonists). So eg good rules for Conan genre should encourage Conanesque behaviour - which includes a lot of running away, and even surrendering.

and even taking mortal wounds, saved only through magical healing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750359That's why running a game like it is a story is boring as hell to me, except as a convention one-shot or something.  It's playing the game with the cheats on, ensuring victory.  The story comes after, just like the books and comics.

Personally, if I want a game where victory isn't assured, then I generally draw from fiction where the main characters sometimes lose or even die - which there are plenty of.

This is one of the reasons why I like running Call of Cthulhu, because it sets up the expectation of loss as a strong possibility. It feels backwards to me to claim something as a pulp game and suggest something like Conan or Doc Savage as inspirational material, and then have the game be completely different from the fiction.

Still, even in more light-hearted genres, there can still be plenty of challenge. It's just that the challenge isn't about not dying or the world being destroyed. Instead, the challenge is about getting a more positive outcome rather than a more mixed outcome. My superhero games never had permanent PC death, but the players really struggled to thwart the villain thoroughly and capture him - rather than just interrupt his biggest crime and force him to flee.

Quote from: jhkim;750385It feels backwards to me to claim something as a pulp game and suggest something like Conan or Doc Savage as inspirational material, and then have the game be completely different from the fiction.

It ISN'T different from the fiction though.  In Conan fiction, Conan lives, everybody else frequently gets killed.  So if you're not Conan, why would you expect Conan's Plot Immunity?

If you are playing Conan, and assuming Conan's plot immunity, then you won't play as Conan and the ONLY similarity to the fiction is that you will live.  Conan runs, hides and ambushes, climbs around instead of kicking in the door. He gets captured, he gets crucified, and gets beaten.  He loses...then moves on.

It feels backward to me to claim we're going to play a roleplaying game, and then hang back, genre savvy, in OOC observer mode.

Quote from: jhkim;750385Personally, if I want a game where victory isn't assured, then I generally draw from fiction where the main characters sometimes lose or even die - which there are plenty of.

Pulp characters lose all the time.  No character in fiction can die until the author pulls the trigger.  Even a fictional form where I know the character is probably going to die, like a saga, I know he's not going to die until the end.  Even Game of Thrones, where characters drop like flies, you know Daenerys isn't going to die unless it's the final conflict.

Protagonist immunity has nothing to do with any form of genre convention.  That's always been a weak argument.  If Howard didn't need the money he could have killed off Conan and it still would have been a Conan story and still would have been pulp.

Quote from: jhkim;750349However, it's nonsense to say that the older works are "right" and the newer ones are "doing it wrong".

Then it's a good thing that I didn't say anything remotely fucking close to that, with the exception of noting Robin Laws' lack of knowledge of The Three Musketeers.

What's really nonsense is to look at the current perception of the genre and say, 'THAT is the genre!' My argument isn't that current perceptions of swashbuckling are "doing it wrong" - my argument is that the genre is broader and more inclusive than just comedic cinema swashbuckling, in the same way that The Castle of Otranto and Interview with a Vampire are both Gothic horror.

Or would you argue that CoT is suddenly no longer Gothic horror because Twilight?

Quote from: The Butcher;750127I posit that true-to-source pulp gaming not only admits but requires actual danger. Not "ZOMG I took a punch and lost my girlfriend LOL this game is so sweet". Without the threat of grave and irreversible consequences hanging over every daring escapade, there's nothing "daring" about undertaking them and every victory becomes hollow and mechanical. What's awesome about jumping over a five-meter-wide chasm with bubbling incandescent lava below if you can emerge unharmed at the other side by spending a Magical Brownie Point?

I'd totally agree with this.  And I play Fate, which is obviously the game that this is pointed at.

Hell, I'd argue that any game without a possibility of real failure is kinda pointless.

(BTW, a Fate GM allowing a Consequence of "I lost my girlfriend" as a result of taking a punch is pretty lame.  Consequences and the like should be directly tied to what's happening, not non-sequiturs.  So I guess we agree that "I took a punch and lost my girlfriend" sucks.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;750219
I was asked more than once, IC, whether I was afraid, and I honestly had to say No.  Being wounded was a momentary inconvenience.  Being killed was a temporary inconvenience.  The worst depredation of the Big Bad would be set right in the end -- if not at this event, then eventually.  Getting torn asunder and made unrevivifiable?  Even that could be fixed, and I was one of the very few people who could do that.  Exactly what did I have to fear?  Evil winning the day?  Bah; you did a tactical retreat, you regrouped, and you came back swinging.

I just couldn't create a suspension of disbelief strong enough to be afraid, strong enough to override my character's common sense observation, powered by years of play.

And this is why any game worth playing has *real* consequences to player actions, and *real* stakes.  Things need to be at stake.  Some consequences need to be irrevocable.

In a game I'm running, the UN group dealing with an outbreak of crazy-Cthulhoid/reality warping stuff is about to nuke Portland (well, actually Blue River, OR, but close enough).  This may happen.  If the PCs are in the blast radius, they will die.  If the PCs run off and allow it to occur, the area will be gone, and there will be nasty side effects.  This will fundamentally alter the political landscape as well.  Of course, the PCs may be able to convince the guys at the UN to not nuke the site.  They may be able to disarm the bomb... but even *that* will have irrevocable consequences in the game.

Games without real, lasting, often irrevocable consequences are kinda pointless.  That's not even a sytem-level thing, it's a GM-level thing.

Quote from: jhkim;750349it's nonsense to say that the older works are "right" and the newer ones are "doing it wrong".

Who said that?

I'm the one taking issue with restrictive interpretations of what a genre or medium "is all about."

Quote from: CRKrueger;750411Protagonist immunity has nothing to do with any form of genre convention.  That's always been a weak argument.

Plot immunity makes for boring games, and that is the only mortal sin in game design.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750411If Howard didn't need the money he could have killed off Conan and it still would have been a Conan story and still would have been pulp.

Conversely, crazy ol' Moorcock killed off Elric, allegedly because he was sick of the character, and doomed himself to write prequel upon prequel when editors started rubbing fat checks up and down his twat face.

Quote from: jhkim;750349I think it's overstating to say that Conan does a lot of running away. He will run away sometimes, but he will also sometimes fight seemingly unwinnable fights against all odds. For example, in Queen of the Black Coast, he first fights against overwhelming odds against Belit's men only to be unexpectedly spared by her - and later fights the monster that killed her only to be unexpectedly saved by her spirit.

Funny, Queen of the Black Coast was the example I had in mind of Conan surrendering - to Belit.
The Conan Fate Points can be used to create outcomes similar to the stories, but they're a Narrativist meta-mechanic and rather dissociative - they tend to wrench the player out of immersion. I don't know if maybe a high chance of PCs being KO'd and a % chance of left-for-dead in the rules might be better than FPs.

Quote from: jhkim;750349I think it's overstating to say that Conan does a lot of running away. He will run away sometimes, but he will also sometimes fight seemingly unwinnable fights against all odds. For example, in Queen of the Black Coast, he first fights against overwhelming odds against Belit's men only to be unexpectedly spared by her - and later fights the monster that killed her only to be unexpectedly saved by her spirit.

You're mischaracterizing Conan, there.

In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan pretty much knows he's going to die in that first fight; he's the last fellow on his side standing, he's overwhelmingly outnumbered, against pirates with a reputation of giving no quarter.  ("Then as they lifted their spears to cast them, and he tensed himself to leap and die in the midst of them ...")  He just figures he's going to take as many of the sumbitches to hell with him as he can. Heck, he's on that boat in the first place because he's running from the Argosean guard, in hot pursuit.

Fighting against the monster, that's just pure vengeance, and as his words at the end of the story imply, he really doesn't give a damn whether he lives or dies ... so long as he chops that monster up.

But quite often, when Conan's overwhelmingly outnumbered, he'll run if he can, and surrender if he can't ... and doesn't have the expectation that he's going to be killed out of hand.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;750420Then it's a good thing that I didn't say anything remotely fucking close to that, with the exception of noting Robin Laws' lack of knowledge of The Three Musketeers.

What's really nonsense is to look at the current perception of the genre and say, 'THAT is the genre!' My argument isn't that current perceptions of swashbuckling are "doing it wrong" - my argument is that the genre is broader and more inclusive than just comedic cinema swashbuckling, in the same way that The Castle of Otranto and Interview with a Vampire are both Gothic horror.

Or would you argue that CoT is suddenly no longer Gothic horror because Twilight?

I would say that Castle of Otranto is still in the wide umbrella of Gothic horror, but it is now near the edge of the umbrella rather than being at the center. I don't think there's anything sudden about this, or that it has anything to do with Twilight. The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764. In the 250 years since then, the Gothic horror genre has evolved to be different than it was at the start.

Regarding Black Vulmea's essay on cape-and-sword genre, I don't agree that The Princess Bride has made "the caricature became the reality". The genre has been evolving for a while. I think Errol Flynn and Robin Hood did more to promote light-hearted swashbuckling than The Princess Bride. Robin Hood was the touchstone for a generation of kids.

Quote from: S'mon;750493Funny, Queen of the Black Coast was the example I had in mind of Conan surrendering - to Belit.
The Conan Fate Points can be used to create outcomes similar to the stories, but they're a Narrativist meta-mechanic and rather dissociative - they tend to wrench the player out of immersion. I don't know if maybe a high chance of PCs being KO'd and a % chance of left-for-dead in the rules might be better than FPs.

When Conan is fighting - Belit rushes forward and offers to him, "Take me and crush me with your fierce love! Go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter--be thou my king!" Taking her up on that offer doesn't exactly seem like surrendering to me.

Quote from: Ravenswing;750513In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan pretty much knows he's going to die in that first fight; he's the last fellow on his side standing, he's overwhelmingly outnumbered, against pirates with a reputation of giving no quarter.  ("Then as they lifted their spears to cast them, and he tensed himself to leap and die in the midst of them ...")  He just figures he's going to take as many of the sumbitches to hell with him as he can. Heck, he's on that boat in the first place because he's running from the Argosean guard, in hot pursuit.

Fighting against the monster, that's just pure vengeance, and as his words at the end of the story imply, he really doesn't give a damn whether he lives or dies ... so long as he chops that monster up.

I don't see how this is disagreeing with me. You just seem to be repeating the same thing that I said - that both of those fights were unwinnable, but he fought them anyway. Conan will run away sometimes, but sometimes he will fight against overwhelming odds - only to be saved by unexpected coincidence.

For gaming, the question is: what if the players behave similar to Conan? Sometimes they are practical and run away, but sometimes they fight against the odds or even against overwhelming force. Do you kill them off when, like Conan, they grit their teeth and just try to take out the enemy without caring if they live or die?

My answer is that I will absolutely kill them off - but only if I haven't sold the game as a Conan game and/or a pulp game. If I sold the game as a Conan game and/or a pulp game, then if they behave in a pulp heroic manner, then the results should be similar to results in pulp adventure stories.

For me, if I sell a game as pulp, that doesn't just mean that it is set in the same world as pulp stories. For example, suppose I have an idea for a game set in Hyborea, where the PCs are scholars searching for ancient mysteries in their monastery similar to Ars Magica. I wouldn't sell this as a Conan game just because it is set in the world of Conan, because the action isn't similar to the stories.

I agree that pulp games can be gritty. And some pulp action games are grittier than others (HEX is noticeably grittier than SotC).

I don't agree that you can't have drama without "real" risk of PC death, but I do agree that creating the perception of risk to the lives of the PCs is a very useful drama - inducing tool.

Quote from: jhkim;750641For me, if I sell a game as pulp, that doesn't just mean that it is set in the same world as pulp stories. For example, suppose I have an idea for a game set in Hyborea, where the PCs are scholars searching for ancient mysteries in their monastery similar to Ars Magica. I wouldn't sell this as a Conan game just because it is set in the world of Conan, because the action isn't similar to the stories.

Yes, setting != genre.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;750649I agree that pulp games can be gritty. And some pulp action games are grittier than others (HEX is noticeably grittier than SotC).

A lot of it also depends on how you define "gritty".  Some people define it as "any fight has a high percentage chance of killing you."  I define it more as "characters get hurt and suffer".

A game where you come out of a brutal fight where you were at the edge of death, and are JUST FINE the next minute isn't gritty.  A game where you carry your wounds with you for some time, to me, is.

Quote from: jhkim;750641For me, if I sell a game as pulp, that doesn't just mean that it is set in the same world as pulp stories. For example, suppose I have an idea for a game set in Hyborea, where the PCs are scholars searching for ancient mysteries in their monastery similar to Ars Magica. I wouldn't sell this as a Conan game just because it is set in the world of Conan, because the action isn't similar to the stories.

That's because when you say a "pulp" game you include with it genre-savvy meta-awareness on the part of the players and GM, which is how people who enjoy narrative games usually look at it.  Not all of us do, however, and I'll say again Literary Protagonist Immunity is NOT part of the pulp genre.  That is a completely different thing.  Any character in any genre has Literary Protagonist Immunity right up until they don't. Period.

You can totally do "pulp" through 100% atmosphere and IC attitude, no meta-level thinking, and definitely no meta-level mechanics required.

"Pulp Fiction" didn't become "Fiction" when John Travolta died.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750669That's because when you say a "pulp" game you include with it genre-savvy meta-awareness on the part of the players and GM, which is how people who enjoy narrative games usually look at it.  -level mechanics required.
d.

This is a key point for me. I am totally fine with mechanics that help emulate genre physics and even do things like give protagonists added protection. But it isn't the only way to design a game and lots of people hate that stuff. So I think it is entirely fair to make a pulp rpg that gives no buffer from death to player characters. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and who your audience is. But to say Pulp has to mean plot protection feels off to me (because plot plot protection is a product of something being a story, not of it being pulp). Especially when it comes to something like CoC, which in my view is pulp derived, having plot protection doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

My favourite pulp fiction is the adventures of Khlit the Cossack that Harold Lamb wrote for Adventure magazine. The protagonist is no superhero; he's an aging outcast who relies far more on his cunning than his sword-arm. In fact, one of the common traits of pulp fiction is how the protagonists rely on their wits and resourcefulness more than raw power and brawn. If pulp became a KAPOW-BLAM! genre, it seems to have happened once gamers got their hands on hit.

Of course, in any serialized fiction the protagonist will have plot immunity. But that's no more or less a feature of pulp fiction than any other genre.

Quote from: Haffrung;750683If pulp became a KAPOW-BLAM! genre, it seems to have happened once gamers got their hands on hit.

It's not just gamers. A lot of newer genre movies are borderline superhero movies... the way they're filmed, the fast editing, the ridiculous CGI-augmented stunts.
Over the weekend, before Godzilla, I saw the trailer for Maleficent and even that looked like a fucking superhero movie... and on the way home the 8yr old I went with started dreaming up the Godzilla sequel and how Godzilla would have 'more powers'.
It's all about the powers... and an 8yr old mindset.

Quote from: Simlasa;750732It's not just gamers. A lot of newer genre movies are borderline superhero movies... the way they're filmed, the fast editing, the ridiculous CGI-augmented stunts.
Over the weekend, before Godzilla, I saw the trailer for Maleficent and even that looked like a fucking superhero movie... and on the way home the 8yr old I went with started dreaming up the Godzilla sequel and how Godzilla would have 'more powers'.
It's all about the powers... and an 8yr old mindset.

Heroic = The hero succeeding through determination, even though he may be outclassed or hurt
Superheroic = The hero succeeding 'cuz he's just that awesome

I vastly prefer the former, though most young kids like the latter.

Quote from: robiswrong;750734I vastly prefer the former, though most young kids like the latter.

Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;750671This is a key point for me. I am totally fine with mechanics that help emulate genre physics and even do things like give protagonists added protection. But it isn't the only way to design a game and lots of people hate that stuff. So I think it is entirely fair to make a pulp rpg that gives no buffer from death to player characters. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and who your audience is. But to say Pulp has to mean plot protection feels off to me (because plot plot protection is a product of something being a story, not of it being pulp). Especially when it comes to something like CoC, which in my view is pulp derived, having plot protection doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

OK, but I haven't seen anyone arguing that Call of Cthulhu should have absolute plot protection. On the other hand, the OP explicitly argues: I posit that true-to-source pulp gaming not only admits but requires actual danger (meaning grittiness and lethality, and a lack of plot points).

I would say that you can have gritty and lethal true-to-source pulp gaming, and you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

Quote from: Simlasa;750756Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

Pretty much. Glutted on crude sensation. The other night I actually turned off the Desolation of Smaug during the interminable barrel-raft scene. 16 minutes of jumping and shooting and bouncing and falling and shooting and rolling and jumping and shooting and falling and shooting and shooting and bouncing and rolling completely numbed me. The kinetic frenzy ceased to engage me at all. So I turned off the movie, and let the 48 hour rental lapse. I've read the Hobbit three times, but the movie clearly wasn't catered to me.

I used to be able to drink a whole Big Gulp of Dr. Pepper. When I was 13. I couldn't even choke back a third of one today without gagging. The idea that man-children out there guzzle back liters of fizzy sugar-water a day is dismaying.

Quote from: jhkim;750784I would say that you can have gritty and lethal true-to-source pulp gaming, and you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

I agree with that.

Quote from: Simlasa;750756Oh, I don't think it's just the 'young kids'... unless that includes the 50yr old man-child I saw pumping his sandwich at the Transformers preview. I think it's an oversaturation of spectacle/action/handjobs in entertainment... like eating so much salt/sugar that you can't taste food without it anymore... "Oh, characters are talking, BOOOORING!"

It's certainly not limited to *just* children.  But I do think that *most* people grow out of it.

Unfortunately, I also think that many RPGs provide that need so well that I believe that mentality is over-represented.

Quote from: jhkim;750784you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

Not by any sane definition of "true-to-source", you don't. Just because Stardust The Super Wizard (http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics29.html) is a Golden Age character, I wouldn't call a hypothetical self-styled Golden Age supers RPG that went out of its way to emulate this one crazy, off-kilter comic "true to" or representative of the genre.

Quote from: jhkim;750784In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games - in the same way that I like both The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai.

No one is beholden to consistency in taste, least of all to an avowed Rifts fan like myself, but I don't think The Princess Bride and The Seven Samurai are even remotely in the same genre. Which is incidentally why "cinematic" is even worse a label than "pulp" but that's an argument for another day.

ITT: People who sit around rolling dice and playing make believe make fun of people who like superhero action for enjoying something that isn't "adult".

Quote from: The Butcher;750822Which is incidentally why "cinematic" is even worse a label than "pulp" but that's an argument for another day.

Heh.  No doubt, I can see it now.

GM - Let's play a cinematic WWII game.
PC's - Oh yeah!
...later...
PC's - Out of Ammo, we charge the machinegun nest head on with fixed bayonets.
GM rolls dice - You're cut to pieces in the crossfire of 3 MG-42s.
PC - What?  I thought this was a cinematic game.
GM - It is, ever seen Saving Private Ryan?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;750841ITT: People who sit around rolling dice and playing make believe make fun of people who like superhero action for enjoying something that isn't "adult".

ITT: Now a second drive-by better-than-thou post shows up.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750844GM - It is, ever seen Saving Private Ryan?

Awesome.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750845ITT: Now a second drive-by better-than-thou post shows up.

Dude, I wasn't even talking about your argument about genre or, unless I missed you joining in on that stupidity, anything you even said.

I was directing that at all the people who are calling people who like movies with superhero style action manchildren when they are sitting on a website devoted to rolling dice and pretending to be an elf.

I suppose its different though, because their elf is gritty and can die... wooo so adult of them.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;750850I was directing that at all the people who are calling people who like movies with superhero style action manchildren when they are sitting on a website devoted to rolling dice and pretending to be an elf.

I suppose its different though, because their elf is gritty and can die... wooo so adult of them.

I don't think there's anything wrong about liking superheros... it's the wanting/expecting/demanding that sort of sensory overload 24/7 that puts me off... it's like the 7yr old I know who doesn't get why she oughtta eat something other than marshmallows once in a while.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;750850I was directing that at all the people who are calling people who like movies with superhero style action manchildren when they are sitting on a website devoted to rolling dice and pretending to be an elf.

I don't recall anyone posting anything like that. Care to quote?

Quote from: The Butcher;750865I don't recall anyone posting anything like that. Care to quote?

It's my fault. I called a guy who was visibly exuberant while watching the new Transformers preview a 'man-child'... but really it had more to do with how he was dressed and acting... less his love of Michael Bay movies.

Quote from: Simlasa;750866It's my fault. I called a guy who was visibly exuberant while watching the new Transformers preview a 'man-child'... but really it had more to do with how he was dressed and acting... less his love of Michael Bay movies.

Fair enough. Also, personally, not a fan of the live action Transformers stuff... despite being a huge TF fan. They lack... well any personality or fun other than "boom boom, bang". Where as the current comics are at least boom boom bang + characters with enough personality to care about and witty writing.

Quote from: jhkim;750641My answer is that I will absolutely kill them off - but only if I haven't sold the game as a Conan game and/or a pulp game. If I sold the game as a Conan game and/or a pulp game, then if they behave in a pulp heroic manner, then the results should be similar to results in pulp adventure stories.

While I have a low mortality rate in my campaign, the answer is yes, I'll kill them off, but no, I don't consider that inconsistent with a pulp game.

I stand by my statement uptopic about the conventions of fiction being different from the conventions of gaming.  The reader's pretty sure that Conan will survive, somehow -- we know that Bêlit's Suba tribesmen are not, in fact, going to riddle him with holes.

But Conan doesn't know that for a dead certainty, and neither should the players in a pulp game.  If you're a deft enough GM to convince them that you're willing to kill them off even if you never have killed them off, good for you.  If they need to be convinced that they are in mortal danger by proving it, then that's what's needful.

Quote from: CRKrueger;750844Heh.  No doubt, I can see it now.

GM - Let's play a cinematic WWII game.
PC's - Oh yeah!
...later...
PC's - Out of Ammo, we charge the machinegun nest head on with fixed bayonets.
GM rolls dice - You're cut to pieces in the crossfire of 3 MG-42s.
PC - What?  I thought this was a cinematic game.
GM - It is, ever seen Saving Private Ryan?

I believe this wins the thread.

Quote from: jhkim;750784OK, but I haven't seen anyone arguing that Call of Cthulhu should have absolute plot protection. On the other hand, the OP explicitly argues: I posit that true-to-source pulp gaming not only admits but requires actual danger (meaning grittiness and lethality, and a lack of plot points).

I would say that you can have gritty and lethal true-to-source pulp gaming, and you can also have light-hearted, low-lethality true-to-source pulp gaming.

In short, I see no reason why I can't like both Call of Cthulhu and Spirit of the Century as pulp games...

I'm just wondering, what would be the original literary sources for a Spirit of the Century type game? To me it feels like a very (post) modern game, reminiscent of deconstructions of the pulp genre like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,  with a "Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow" patina (not a film I liked).

It kinda seems to me that I could do most of the original '30s "Two Fisted Tales" stuff a lot more easily in Call of Cthulu/BRP than in modern 'pulp' games.

Quote from: Ravenswing;750882While I have a low mortality rate in my campaign, the answer is yes, I'll kill them off, but no, I don't consider that inconsistent with a pulp game.

I stand by my statement uptopic about the conventions of fiction being different from the conventions of gaming.  The reader's pretty sure that Conan will survive, somehow -- we know that Bêlit's Suba tribesmen are not, in fact, going to riddle him with holes.

But Conan doesn't know that for a dead certainty, and neither should the players in a pulp game.  If you're a deft enough GM to convince them that you're willing to kill them off even if you never have killed them off, good for you.  If they need to be convinced that they are in mortal danger by proving it, then that's what's needful.

This is my feeling. For the PCs to behave like Conan in danger, they need to be facing actual danger. If you want an immersive genre game then genre emulation is probably best handled on the GM's side, so that eg the GM knows that the Pirate Queen wishes to capture the PCs, and if they act like Conan-in-genre they'll be treated like Conan-in-genre. If they act like mook #9 they'll be treated like mook #9.

Rather than Fate Points to avoid death through combat, I tend to think the OGL Conan game should have included more support for Conanesque activities outside of combat, eg if it had Escape/Evade rules, players would be more likely to flee. If it had seduction rules, PCs would be more likely to attempt seduction - in Conan's case it's the display of manly prowess though hacking up the big monster/evil wizard that serves as the seduction; likewise it's his killing tons of pirates that gets Belit interested.

Quote from: Ravenswing;750882I stand by my statement uptopic about the conventions of fiction being different from the conventions of gaming.  The reader's pretty sure that Conan will survive, somehow -- we know that Bêlit's Suba tribesmen are not, in fact, going to riddle him with holes.

But Conan doesn't know that for a dead certainty, and neither should the players in a pulp game.  If you're a deft enough GM to convince them that you're willing to kill them off even if you never have killed them off, good for you.  If they need to be convinced that they are in mortal danger by proving it, then that's what's needful.

On the other hand you technically do not know the character will allways make it. Literature is dotted with series that end with the main characters death. Writers get tired of a character and BOOM... dead.

Quote from: Omega;750961On the other hand you technically do not know the character will allways make it. Literature is dotted with series that end with the main characters death.

Not often enough.

But that's one of the reasons why To Live and Die in L.A. is one of my favorite movies.

I prefer the use of Drama/Fate/Hero/Luck points in this sort of situation. That way, while heroes are less likely to die, the players know when they SHOULD have died and when luck alone (in the form of said points) saved their hides.

Quote from: Omega;750961On the other hand you technically do not know the character will allways make it. Literature is dotted with series that end with the main characters death. Writers get tired of a character and BOOM... dead.

Yeah, I'm with BV -- very, very seldom.  If you can name me a popular pulp series where the author killed off the protagonist for good, I'll name you twenty where he didn't.

And like BV, I appreciate the vanishingly rare times this does happen.  While the Zoe/Wash shippers were howling in rage, Serenity is the only movie I can think of seeing in a long, long time (if ever) where after Wash and Book had bit it and the rest of the gang was getting the shit kicked out of them, I was gripping the arms of the theater seat, wondering if I was about to see an honest-to-Kurozawa TPK.

Quote from: Ravenswing;751190Yeah, I'm with BV -- very, very seldom.  If you can name me a popular pulp series where the author killed off the protagonist for good, I'll name you twenty where he didn't.

I believe the author of the "Misery" series killed off the main character.  That didn't work out so well.

Quote from: S'mon;750938This is my feeling. For the PCs to behave like Conan in danger, they need to be facing actual danger. If you want an immersive genre game then genre emulation is probably best handled on the GM's side, so that eg the GM knows that the Pirate Queen wishes to capture the PCs, and if they act like Conan-in-genre they'll be treated like Conan-in-genre. If they act like mook #9 they'll be treated like mook #9.

Rather than Fate Points to avoid death through combat, I tend to think the OGL Conan game should have included more support for Conanesque activities outside of combat, eg if it had Escape/Evade rules, players would be more likely to flee.

When you say they'll be "treated like Conan in-genre", do you mean that they will be saved rather than being killed in situations like Conan's when he fought against overwhelming odds?  If so, is this really "actual danger"?

Whether the GM saves them without fate point mechanics or the GM saves them with fate point mechanics, they are still saved.

People's taste varies in mechanics - I know a lot of people who don't like having points and dice and things and instead prefer to leave everything in the GM's hands. On the other hand, there are people who like having hit points rather than just having the GM tell them when they are wounded or dead; and likewise there are those who prefer luck to be measured rather than something given out by the GM without being explicit.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;751166I prefer the use of Drama/Fate/Hero/Luck points in this sort of situation. That way, while heroes are less likely to die, the players know when they SHOULD have died and when luck alone (in the form of said points) saved their hides.

Yes, this makes it more explicit that there is a limit to how much they will be saved. If the GM just saves them, it isn't necessarily clear how many more times they will be saved. For example, if we're playing out an adventure like Queen of the Black Coast, are the players pushing it too far if they have two fatalistic attacks in one adventure?

Quote from: jhkim;751240When you say they'll be "treated like Conan in-genre", do you mean that they will be saved rather than being killed in situations like Conan's when he fought against overwhelming odds?  If so, is this really "actual danger"?

In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan had a chance to survive, by impressing the enemy leader. Chances to survive are pulp-genre-appropriate. My Conanesque games certainly have higher protagonist fatality rates than the number of Conans who die in REH stories, though - but it tends to be because the PCs made the kind of tactical and/or strategic mistakes Conan doesn't make.

I ran OGL Conan, I found the Fate Points to be anti-immersive. The most Conanesque game I've run was a 4e D&D swords & sorcery campaign set in the Wilderlands; the 4e designers modelled the Fighter class on Conan and did an excellent job. It ended in a very appropriate TPK.

I think I am going to re-read Queen of the Black Coast after all this talk. Great story.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;751266I think I am going to re-read Queen of the Black Coast after all this talk. Great story.

It is that.  I admit that when I was asked to do a Conan solo on an emergency basis -- as in "Camera ready copy has to be in our hands no later than 30 days from now -- that was the very first idea that leapt into my mind.  It's a classic.

Worst comes to worst, you can read it online through Project Gutenberg.

Totally forgot about it. But FGU put out a 1930s themed pulp adventure RPG called Daredevils.

The genre-savvy Pulp Fiction, one of Tarantino's finer films, has Vincent die meaninglessly after coming out of the toilet. Because it's not his story anymore, it's someone else's. No matter what else has happened, and will happen, given the narrative's non linear structure, in that scene John Travolta is just a goon that Bruce Willis shoots.

Quote from: Omega;751911Totally forgot about it. But FGU put out a 1930s themed pulp adventure RPG called Daredevils.

One of my favourite games.
In one session a PC was trying to kidnap a baby so he put it in a suitcase ties that to his back and climbed out of the window of a Manhattan brownstone. The failed climb check and the fall were messy.

suffice it to say it was very pulpy.
Lost Cities, foggy Manhattan streets, Occupied Singapore etc etc ...

We played it big gulps 2 days straight sessions with a 8 hour sleep break 9-14 PCs.
Most sessions 1/3 of the PCs died In Singapore (actually funny I am here now ...) all but 2 PCs died mostly killing each other of course....

Quote from: S'mon;750936It kinda seems to me that I could do most of the original '30s "Two Fisted Tales" stuff a lot more easily in Call of Cthulu/BRP than in modern 'pulp' games.

Or you could try Two Fisted Tales (by Precis).

Seems to me that it's key that this talk of "plot immunity" shouldn't apply to PCs. I don't mind the use of Luck Points or what have you for hair's breadth escapes, but characters should always be able to die. Yes, the main character of a long-running saga like Conan seems to get out of an awful lot of scrapes, but I agree with the above posters who mentioned that the construction of the saga should happen, in theory, after the fact. It's BECAUSE the "hero" survived that we tell tales of his exploits and not vice versa. And quite often in swords & sorcery style pulps you'll get sidekicks and companions or even lovers getting killed, prompting the hero to seek revenge... And here's the trick: in an adventuring party, no one knows who the "hero" is! De facto, he's the guy who's still standing at the end. So, you got slaughtered by the snake cult? Turns out you were a sidekick! Only after the fact is the series of events turned into a narrative, which casts the survivor as the central protagonist (often even the narrator)... He doesn't even have to be the most "heroic" character. For an example of this, see Conrad's Lord Jim, in which Jim, the central character, gets involved in a pulpy "adventure" series of events towards the end, but Marlowe, the narrator, gets to recount his death.... Of course, LJ could be described as ironic commentary on the kind of imperial adventure fiction - precursor to the pulps - that Conrad mocked in its opening as "light holiday reading", but the point is you can have the hero die, as long as someone lives to tell the tale. And if no one does? Guess your series of adventures just never becomes a " story " at all....

Quote from: markfitz;753320Seems to me that it's key that this talk of "plot immunity" shouldn't apply to PCs. I don't mind the use of Luck Points or what have you for hair's breadth escapes, but characters should always be able to die. Yes, the main character of a long-running saga like Conan seems to get out of an awful lot of scrapes, but I agree with the above posters who mentioned that the construction of the saga should happen, in theory, after the fact. It's BECAUSE the "hero" survived that we tell tales of his exploits and not vice versa. And quite often in swords & sorcery style pulps you'll get sidekicks and companions or even lovers getting killed, prompting the hero to seek revenge... And here's the trick: in an adventuring party, no one knows who the "hero" is! De facto, he's the guy who's still standing at the end. So, you got slaughtered by the snake cult? Turns out you were a sidekick! Only after the fact is the series of events turned into a narrative, which casts the survivor as the central protagonist (often even the narrator)... He doesn't even have to be the most "heroic" character. For an example of this, see Conrad's Lord Jim, in which Jim, the central character, gets involved in a pulpy "adventure" series of events towards the end, but Marlowe, the narrator, gets to recount his death.... Of course, LJ could be described as ironic commentary on the kind of imperial adventure fiction - precursor to the pulps - that Conrad mocked in its opening as "light holiday reading", but the point is you can have the hero die, as long as someone lives to tell the tale. And if no one does? Guess your series of adventures just never becomes a " story " at all....

That's my view. And if you want the immersive experience of "You are Conan!" rather than "You are creating a Conan story!" then it has to be done that way. From Conan's POV within the stories, Conan can die. If he couldn't die he'd behave very differently, he'd be a different character. Probably a baddie. :)

"a baddie" haha, indeed! :)

So what's this game where PCs are invulnerable?  I mean, given the recent thread where just about nobody could come up with the last time that a PC with any investment in them died...

Quote from: robiswrong;753481So what's this game where PCs are invulnerable?  I mean, given the recent thread where just about nobody could come up with the last time that a PC with any investment in them died...

I got the impression from skimming some of the Nar games (Spirit of the Century, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Dungeon World) that PCs don't die without player consent, but I could be wrong on some or all of those. Savage Worlds does the traditional approach of making PCs extremely hard to kill, but players have no metagame control of the narrative.

Quote from: robiswrong;753481So what's this game where PCs are invulnerable?  I mean, given the recent thread where just about nobody could come up with the last time that a PC with any investment in them died...

Our Deadland's campaign seemed very not-deadly. It may have been the GM handing out too many chips... or generally pulling his punches. None of the games I played with that group EVER had anyone die... but Deadlands seems to be the one where that effect was more closely tied to the rules.
For me, it sucked out all the excitement/drama of combat.

I currently play in a storygame RPG that's pulp (Trail of Cthulhu, Eternal Lies by Pelgrane) but the GM has let us know that there's no PC immunity. PC death immunity is not specifically a storygame RPG thing, as evidenced by several Trad games that have death immunity (like Marvel Superheroes) and storygame RPGs that don't (like the aforementioned Trail and other Gumshoe games).  Death immunity seems more to be a genre thing.

As for pulp, we need to define exactly what pulp we're talking about. Pulp is a diverse genre.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;753525As for pulp, we need to define exactly what pulp we're talking about. Pulp is a diverse genre.

Pulp isn't a genre, it's medium, that delivered various genres. But the men's action adventure stuff is the most commonly addressed when folks claim their stuff is 'pulp'... a narrowed spectrum from private investigators on up to superheros.

My two cents.

Quote from: S'mon;753517I got the impression from skimming some of the Nar games (Spirit of the Century, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Dungeon World) that PCs don't die without player consent, but I could be wrong on some or all of those. Savage Worlds does the traditional approach of making PCs extremely hard to kill, but players have no metagame control of the narrative.

I'm pretty sure that it's perfectly possible in Dungeon World, and I know that it's possible in Fate.

In Fate, if you're Taken Out, the opponent that took you out decides what that means - if you're knocked out, captured, or just plain dead.  You have no real say in what happens.  It's generally considered polite to let players know "hey, it looks like these guys are really out for blood" or the like.

The 'avoiding death' mechanisms in Fate generally boil down to the difficulty of a one-hit kill, and the ability to Concede a conflict (basically, retreat/give up).  If you stick it out and get Taken Out, well, it's up to the GM what happens.

It is true that there's a bit of an issue in SotC where the default stress track lengths are just stupidly long.  10 stress makes for long, long fights.  More recent iterations have the length drastically lowered - Fate Core defaults to two stress.

Now, it's also true that in Fate, there's no point at which the system enforces "and now you're dead."  That's *always* a call the GM makes.

I don't know anything about MHR, so I can't really say.  But I could totally see death not being typically on the line for reasons of genre emulation.

Quote from: Simlasa;753524Our Deadland's campaign seemed very not-deadly. It may have been the GM handing out too many chips... or generally pulling his punches. None of the games I played with that group EVER had anyone die... but Deadlands seems to be the one where that effect was more closely tied to the rules.
For me, it sucked out all the excitement/drama of combat.

That's often a GMing problem - the inability to actually put anything at risk besides the PCs.  I've felt myself slide into that groove quite often, and the more 'scripted' a scenario is, the more I find myself in it.  Since I know the 'plot' is going to get dragged along in a particular direction, and I know from experience that PC deaths in almost *any* game are pretty rare, it gets really easy to get into the "fuck it, we'll see what happens" mode.

For me, once I see that there really isn't much at risk in a game (and if we go through ten combats of people doing dumb things and nobody dies, then there's no real risk), I get bored.  I don't require that the risk be the life of my PC, but something has to be at risk.

I'll admit the "your PC's life is really at risk, even though we haven't killed a single PC in thirty sessions" illusion is a bit harder to pull off when the system makes it obvious that actually dying is difficult.  I guess I've just played enough that in most games I've seen through it.

That's why I prefer either really old-school games where the GM will happily murder your character, or games that are honest about the actual death rate, and put other things on the line instead.

While this article is about movies, I do think that the general advice works well in certain types of games - it's pretty wildly inappropriate for a dungeon crawl, for instance.

http://io9.com/why-you-should-never-write-action-scenes-into-your-tent-511712234

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;753525I currently play in a storygame RPG that's pulp (Trail of Cthulhu, Eternal Lies by Pelgrane) but the GM has let us know that there's no PC immunity. PC death immunity is not specifically a storygame RPG thing, as evidenced by several Trad games that have death immunity (like Marvel Superheroes) and storygame RPGs that don't (like the aforementioned Trail and other Gumshoe games).  Death immunity seems more to be a genre thing.

Agreed. Other gritty and/or lethal story games include Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life With Master, Fiasco, Sorcerer, and Apocalypse World. If anything, these are more the mainstream of Forge and post-Forge indie story games - than games like Spirit of the Century. These games tend to be dark, emphasize strongly on letting the dice fall as they will, and strictly following the rules.

In my last Dungeon World campaign, the GM kept my character alive when he was in trouble - but he was fighting against the rules to do so. That my character survived had more to do with the GM than the rules. There is a "Death's Door" move that allows avoiding death, but it is a random roll. There is no check for player consent to die.

Quote from: robiswrong;753553The 'avoiding death' mechanisms in Fate generally boil down to the difficulty of a one-hit kill, and the ability to Concede a conflict (basically, retreat/give up).  If you stick it out and get Taken Out, well, it's up to the GM what happens.

I think that's the consent element I was thinking of - the player can always choose to Concede and not die, or make a "this is worth dying for" commitment - which is good as since it's the GM's choice to kill a PC, if the player had not made that commitment then the GM would look like a dick if he killed the PC rather than had them captured etc.

Now that I think about it, I've definitely heard the "you should never kill a character without their consent." bit.  Strangely, it's usually said by younger D&D 3.x players - I see it most frequently at the forums on giantitp.com.

Quote from: S'mon;753593I think that's the consent element I was thinking of - the player can always choose to Concede and not die, or make a "this is worth dying for" commitment - which is good as since it's the GM's choice to kill a PC, if the player had not made that commitment then the GM would look like a dick if he killed the PC rather than had them captured etc.

But apart from being more of a first-class game mechanic (as opposed to something that's derived from movement), it's not really different than retreating in a combat.

And, for what it's worth, you can only concede until dice are thrown - once the dice are down, you have to resolve them fully before you can Concede.  So you can't ever say "wow, that's a lot of stress, I'll choose to Concede rather than being Taken Out".

Quote from: robiswrong;753630Now that I think about it, I've definitely heard the "you should never kill a character without their consent." bit.  

You decide to roleplay in a setting where death exists, you've just given consent for your character to die.

Quote from: CRKrueger;753638You decide to roleplay in a setting where death exists, you've just given consent for your character to die.

Just to be clear, you'll notice I'm not defending the "your character can only die if you give consent" thing.

Quote from: robiswrong;753639Just to be clear, you'll notice I'm not defending the "your character can only die if you give consent" thing.

Oh yeah, I know, just had to comment on that one. :D

Quote from: robiswrong;753481So what's this game where PCs are invulnerable?  I mean, given the recent thread where just about nobody could come up with the last time that a PC with any investment in them died...

It was a problematic thread given that "lethality" (meaning "death rate") depends partly on player decisions, given a game where players can make decisions that meaningfully affect their chance of dying. If "lethal" refers to the death rate assuming perfect tactical and strategic play, and you really expect play to reach those heights, then the result is the same as rolling a chance of dying per adventure. I don't mean it's as fun, just that if you require a certain death rate even under the assumption that players are going to be perfect, you're taking skill and emotional motivation out of the equation entirely, leaving only chance, regardless of whether it's the roll of the dice or a decision made without the benefit of perfect information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information).

While I think that kind of lethality has its place--maybe if you want to make an RPG about front-line infantry combat on the Eastern Front--I think it's equally valid and more useful to think about lethality in terms of how unforgiving and strict the game is. Two games might have the same low PC death rate among experienced players while playing quite differently; the first game gives players the tools to minimize lethal uncertainty provided they use them with skill; the second game just mandates that nobody dies.

Or it may not be a matter of skill exactly. As I suggested upthread, one game might give PCs a decent chance of survival provided the players can deftly negotiate the "hard realities" of the setting; another game may instead give the players the power to define the realities of the setting on the fly, with the result that the PCs survive pretty much regardless of what they do. The latter doesn't have to become a gonzo lasersharked parody of the underlying genre--but it's quite a bit more susceptible to that.

Maybe if you add in a PvP element, so that the group as a whole can put the brakes on gonzo elaborations without "punishing" themselves by undercutting an ally, you could mitigate the effect.

Regardless of how lethal a game's rules says the game is, or how lethal the table insists the game is, if you play 100 sessions and nobody dies, I just don't buy that the game is truly "lethal" in any interesting way.

That doesn't mean the game is bad, of course.  But if over a long time, nobody crosses the bad luck + bad decision threshold sufficiently to cause a death... well, I just don't think that "lethal" is an appropriate descriptor.

And I'm not saying this from an outsider's perspective.  I've played in games that bragged about how lethal they were, and yet nobody died.  And in reality, the game got boring because at some level I *knew* that my character wasn't likely to die (and there were few other consequences involved).

Quote from: robiswrong;753795Regardless of how lethal a game's rules says the game is, or how lethal the table insists the game is, if you play 100 sessions and nobody dies, I just don't buy that the game is truly "lethal" in any interesting way.

That doesn't mean the game is bad, of course.  But if over a long time, nobody crosses the bad luck + bad decision threshold sufficiently to cause a death... well, I just don't think that "lethal" is an appropriate descriptor.

Agreed.

I think that both lethal and non-lethal games can be fun. Some people might have a preference for one or the other, but there's nothing wrong with either of

1) People who like lethal games playing lethal games and having fun.
2) People who like non-lethal games playing non-lethal games and having fun.

I understand people have preferences, but I don't get the moral judgment over plot immunity.

Quote from: robiswrong;753795Regardless of how lethal a game's rules says the game is, or how lethal the table insists the game is, if you play 100 sessions and nobody dies, I just don't buy that the game is truly "lethal" in any interesting way.

That doesn't mean the game is bad, of course.  But if over a long time, nobody crosses the bad luck + bad decision threshold sufficiently to cause a death... well, I just don't think that "lethal" is an appropriate descriptor.

My point was to look beyond the term.

QuoteAnd I'm not saying this from an outsider's perspective.  I've played in games that bragged about how lethal they were, and yet nobody died.  And in reality, the game got boring because at some level I *knew* that my character wasn't likely to die (and there were few other consequences involved).

In my book, boring = bad.

So is there something boring about calling a game "lethal" and then not having it measure up to your personal definition, regardless of the content otherwise? I mean if you like fudge and Nutella, does fudge become awful if you call it Nutella?

Or were the games boring because you need the excitement of PC death and there wasn't any? (This means you prefer lethality, using your definition of lethality.)

Or were the games boring because you saw PCs doing dumb things without dying? (This means you prefer lethality according to the criteria I suggested, but you might be okay with PCs rarely or never dying if they never did dumb things.)

Admittedly, lethality due to risk vs skill isn't either/or. In fact I'd say that if the players could always avoid all risk, at no cost, the game is likely to be boring for me. Basically that devolves into puzzle-solving. But in the overall equation of risk, cost, and reward, I'm not entirely sure that it's necessary for players to accept a particularly high chance of death for the game to be interesting.

To sum up:

I find that notional challenges that can be overcome using "whatever" tactics tend toward a gonzo atmosphere, which is something I'm not often looking for in RPGs. OR if everyone pretends the tactics are important, but they aren't really, it feels fake, anti-immersive, forced, railroaded, illusionistic, etc.

However if PC decisions really matter, so that they can choose their own course weighing personal risk against rewards and costs, while exploring and possibly redefining those values (rewards and costs), then the PCs don't necessarily need to take on a high level risk or have it imposed on them, for the game to be interesting. I'll add that that I appreciate it when decisions matter in a way that's coherent with the setting and genre.

This particular mix of characteristics may not result in many PCs dying, but I can see why someone might still call it "lethal" compared to other games.

Quote from: Arminius;753878So is there something boring about calling a game "lethal" and then not having it measure up to your personal definition, regardless of the content otherwise? I mean if you like fudge and Nutella, does fudge become awful if you call it Nutella?

Or were the games boring because you need the excitement of PC death and there wasn't any? (This means you prefer lethality, using your definition of lethality.)

No.  There was nothing truly at risk, because every challenge could be overcome using relatively standard tactics.  Yes, you *could* die if you did "dumb things", but that threshold was sufficiently low that, in reality, it never came up.

I don't care if character death is common or not, but I do prefer risk in games.  And at some point, when we've seen enough "scary things" and yet as long as we play smart, we come out okay, we realize that outside of dumb decisions, there's no real risk.  It's just like we know that no matter how bad things look in the middle of the movie, the hero ain't gonna die.

Quote from: Arminius;753878Or were the games boring because you saw PCs doing dumb things without dying? (This means you prefer lethality according to the criteria I suggested, but you might be okay with PCs rarely or never dying if they never did dumb things.)

If the risk of death is 'if you do incredibly dumb things, you die', then it's not really a risk of death in my book.  I mean, having that there can certainly impact how players play, and I'd agree with you that invulnerable, bulletproof characters make for a dumb game.

But I mean, that's the chunky salsa rule, right?  Anything that happens in a game that would, realistically, reduce you to the consistency of chunky salsa will kill you.  If you get your head guillotined, you're dead.  If charging a machine gun nest is a valid tactic, it kinda hurts the believability of the setting.

Quote from: Arminius;753878Admittedly, lethality due to risk vs skill isn't either/or. In fact I'd say that if the players could always avoid all risk, at no cost, the game is likely to be boring for me. Basically that devolves into puzzle-solving. But in the overall equation of risk, cost, and reward, I'm not entirely sure that it's necessary for players to accept a particularly high chance of death for the game to be interesting.

I *totally* agree with this.  There needs to be *risk*, but that risk doesn't need to be character death.  And since character death has a negative impact on many players, many GMs are hesitant to employ it in a heavy-handed fashion.

As such, other risks can actually create higher tension since they are *likely* to actually occur.

Quote from: Arminius;753878To sum up:

I find that notional challenges that can be overcome using "whatever" tactics tend toward a gonzo atmosphere, which is something I'm not often looking for in RPGs. OR if everyone pretends the tactics are important, but they aren't really, it feels fake, anti-immersive, forced, railroaded, illusionistic, etc.

In some ways, if there are tactics that *work*, and tactics that *don't work*, and using the working tactics will always result in success, then, well, you're realistically just as railroaded.  Certain choices = win, other choices = lose.  You just go down the list of things you're supposed to do.

Quote from: Arminius;753878However if PC decisions really matter, so that they can choose their own course weighing personal risk against rewards and costs, while exploring and possibly redefining those values (rewards and costs), then the PCs don't necessarily need to take on a high level risk or have it imposed on them, for the game to be interesting. I'll add that that I appreciate it when decisions matter in a way that's coherent with the setting and genre.

I'm not the one focused on "death = only acceptable risk".  I think a game has to have some level of risk to be interesting, but that risk doesn't have to be death.

And I'm not interested in games where I win all the time.  This isn't just limited to RPGs, either.

Quote from: Arminius;753878This particular mix of characteristics may not result in many PCs dying, but I can see why someone might still call it "lethal" compared to other games.

Again, I differentiate between "lethal" and "risk".  You can absolutely have risk without being lethal.

No major disagreement, but I think the chunky salsa rule is also an exaggeration, just like trying to separate luck & skill in actual play. I may be off but I think the subtext of this thread is clash of expectations--as BV showed. If the mood of a movie is over the top action like Transporter, you can do things that don't work say The French Connection. I think the same applies to a gaming table. There are gradations of mood even before you get to conscious parody and beyond. It's reasonable to complain if pop trends push your favorite genre into a narrow niche that's fairly removed from the original center of gravity.

As far as risk and tactics, I think one thing I may not have made clear is even in theory, the ability to avoid personal risk through sound tactics doesn't mean that personal risk will disappear. That only happens if the players only have tactical choices. Suppose you have multiple values. An NPC did a favor for the PC some time in the past; now the NPC needs help in a business matter (that may involve some rough stuff). As the game proceeds, the PC hits a crisis and must choose tactics:

--One tactic eliminates all personal risk (no chance of dying) but there's a 50% chance the NPC will lose his investment.

--The second tactic entails a 1% personal risk, but the venture will succeed if the PC succeeds (lives).

This ties in with what you say about risks other than death,  but it's still "gritty" in a way that satisfies the need for lethality to be genuine. I would contrast this with either

--If you take a blow, you can trade off the damage by having your girlfriend break up with you when you get home, or whatever, or

--The stakes of a given conflict are always resolved, but PC death isn't an option. Sure, you can have an ultra-tactical fight to ward off the hired guns trying to run Uncle Fred off his farmland, but if you "lose", you're only left for dead, or forced to retreat, etc.

In conclusion, grittiness and lethality may not depend on a particular mortality rate, but they do require that risk of death be a real factor for the PCs to consider.

Quote from: robiswrong;753882In some ways, if there are tactics that *work*, and tactics that *don't work*, and using the working tactics will always result in success, then, well, you're realistically just as railroaded.  Certain choices = win, other choices = lose.  You just go down the list of things you're supposed to do.

That's a bit of a stretch.  Who's talking about tactics that always result in success?  Deciding not to charge machinegun nests head on and instead use distraction/flanking maneuvers, smoke grenades to obscure vision increases the chances of success highly, but does not make it guaranteed.

The reason that a special ops guy might prefer to take out a sentry by approaching him from behind using a weapon that won't alert the whole compound isn't guaranteed, but it's better then walking up to the front gate guns blazing.  Sometimes the only way to do it is to assault, but even then you have a plan so that to the enemy it looks like total chaos, but to you it's executing a strategy.

The heroes of WWII that we talk about today didn't become famous because they did all that "heroic stuff" in SotC, any jackass can do that, they did it in a system more lethal then RQ.  :D

It just goes back to whether you want your character to be a hero because they do heroic things or because we agreed beforehand that we're roleplaying within the dramatic literary scope of trope blah blah blah.

Quote from: robiswrong;753882Again, I differentiate between "lethal" and "risk".  You can absolutely have risk without being lethal.

You can have risks obviously that aren't lethal, but if death is off the table, or so rare that it might as well be due to mechanics, then there is no risk at all, because who cares?  Any situation is temporary, and can be dealt with later (like the hero who loses his wife in Season Two gets a new girlfriend in Season Three).  Yeah it sucked ass at the time, but oh the story arc!

Quote from: CRKrueger;754334That's a bit of a stretch.  Who's talking about tactics that always result in success?  Deciding not to charge machinegun nests head on...

What do you mean I can't charge the machinegun nest head on and win? You railroading bastard! :D

@robiswrong - "good tactics work" is a really bad definition of "railroading", and makes me wonder if you've encountered actual railroading  ("the PCs will now be captured"/"if they leave the path, hit them with draconians until they turn back"), or even typical linear adventure design ("the PCs must find clue X to get to place Y for the adventure to continue").

Quote from: S'mon;754342What do you mean I can't charge the machinegun nest head on and win? You railroading bastard! :D

@robiswrong - "good tactics work" is a really bad definition of "railroading", and makes me wonder if you've encountered actual railroading  ("the PCs will now be captured"/"if they leave the path, hit them with draconians until they turn back"), or even typical linear adventure design ("the PCs must find clue X to get to place Y for the adventure to continue").

what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

Quote from: jibbajibba;754346what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.  You come in from different angles, zig zag, use cover, throw grenades, etc, are all going to end up fucking the machinegunner's chance to hit you, because of mechanics in the game.  No dramatic logic or magical tea party bullshit required.  Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.
Wow, it's like we're actually Roleplaying in WWII instead of a John Wayne movie. Whoda fucking thunk it?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.  You come in from different angles, zig zag, use cover, throw grenades, etc, are all going to end up fucking the machinegunner's chance to hit you, because of mechanics in the game.  No dramatic logic or magical tea party bullshit required.  Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.
Wow, it's like we're actually Roleplaying in WWII instead of a John Wayne movie. Whoda fucking thunk it?

This is a very important distinction and it is important I think for those at the table to be aware which WWII they are in. I had a player who used to ask questions like "Is this hollywood Rome or real Rome?" Is this Hollywood 1930s NY or real 1930s NY, basically so he would know what logic I was applying to these kinds of situations. It is also important for gauging the plausibility of any "cunning plan" the players come up with to outwit foes. I have run campaigns using both styles depending on what I a interested in, and continue to do so. If I am playing real world WWII though, charging a machine gun nest is going to be quite likely to mow you down. If it is a  John Wayne movie, we're probably using something like Savage Worlds and the player can use bennies or something to gain an edge, plus all the guys manning the nest will go down in one hit. But the GM who is taking the real WWII approach isn't being a jerk or implanting secret win buttons when he makes things that are actually dangerous, actually dangerous.

Quote from: jibbajibba;754346what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

Hm; the former could trend towards railroading if the GM arbitrarily has every outside-the-box solution fail. That was not my reading of what rob said.

The latter sounds like typical linear design - 'this is what we expect will happen' - but doesn't necessarily prevent other solutions such as kidnapping Vader and holding him to ransom while the rebels evacuate. Paizo APs tend to be written like that, with a default linear path, but open to the GM allowing deviation.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.

Some people seem to regard that (or likewise "stuff that works in this genre's fiction also works in this genre-game")  as railroading. Obviously I strongly disagree.

In fairness, I believe I was the one who introduced the idea that skillful play could minimize lethal risk, in order to justify calling a game "lethal" even though PCs rarely die.

Or to avoid getting hung up on that one term, I was suggesting that The Butcher's complaint about "pulp" being misunderstood is valid even if there's little difference in the actual death rate between Butcher-approved "real pulp" and gonzo neo-pulp. I'm saying you have to look at the quality of play, not just the rules and the outcome.

And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

The fact is that if you're repeatedly putting your character at risk of death based on a die roll with any reasonable chance of failure (not some mathematical power series that converges to a small finite number), then your character WILL die unless:

--You retire characters after a limited number of adventures, or
--You have access to a sufficient pool of reroll points (technically, if you play an infinite # of adventures you'd need not only infinite points, but infinite points in each adventure) and you can use them repeatedly (not just one reroll per roll).

I think that covers it, outside of GM fudging. I suppose you could contrive your own power series by putting characters into semi-retirement--wait 10 adventures before reintroducing Captain Daring, then 100, then 1000...

In short, I don't see a solution other than accepting character turnover vs character continuity, or using brownie points.

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

Quote from: Arminius;754381And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

The fact is that if you're repeatedly putting your character at risk of death based on a die roll with any reasonable chance of failure (not some mathematical power series that converges to a small finite number), then your character WILL die unless:

--You retire characters after a limited number of adventures, or
--You have access to a sufficient pool of reroll points (technically, if you play an infinite # of adventures you'd need not only infinite points, but infinite points in each adventure) and you can use them repeatedly (not just one reroll per roll).

I think that covers it, outside of GM fudging. I suppose you could contrive your own power series by putting characters into semi-retirement--wait 10 adventures before reintroducing Captain Daring, then 100, then 1000...

In short, I don't see a solution other than accepting character turnover vs character continuity, or using brownie points.

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

I think what occurs though if the risk is high is players take fewer risky actions and seek alternate but safer paths to victory. That is how things generally go in my high lethality mafia games. But when you do actually jump the pit in such a game the thrill is quite high.

There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

Quote from: Arminius;754381And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

(...)

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

Mathematical modeling of death rates over the long term is, as you yourself recognize, a gross oversimplification, not to mention veering into "spherical cow" territory.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754383There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

1/5000 = 0,02%

I feel that's close enough to zero that I feel it would rob players of the death-defying thrills we seek in pulp gaming.

Quote from: The Butcher;7543971/5000 = 0,02%

I feel that's close enough to zero that I feel it would rob players of the death-defying thrills we seek in pulp gaming.

Yes, but I was just trying to establish that it is a spectrum of possibilities, and that depending on where you set it, there is a spot where it isn't inevitable but it is still possible.

In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

I think this paradox really resolves itself on the fact that campaigns don't go on forever, characters are retired at varying rates, and many games effectively provide some sort of brownie point and/or escalating padding as characters continue.

There's also the psychological fact that at any given moment, your still-living PC's life expectancy is the same. So whether you start a new character or keep pushing your luck with the old one, you still have the same chance of making it to "the end of the campaign" whether that's planned and definite, or unplanned but inevitable.

So there's a performance envelope based on a bunch of factors; you pick your point on the envelope (in terms of rules and playing style) and go with it.

Quote from: Arminius;754416In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

I think this paradox really resolves itself on the fact that campaigns don't go on forever, characters are retired at varying rates, and many games effectively provide some sort of brownie point and/or escalating padding as characters continue.

Absolutely. Kolmogorov's Law is a poor guide to game design. In the long run, the players are dead too! :D

Which is why the risk of death must have a certain immediacy. Which also means that sometimes PCs will err on the side of caution and it's the GM's job to run a dangerous enough world that this risk will rear it ugly head often enough to keep players on the edge of their seats.

Quote from: Arminius;754416In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

ith it.

No it wont, not if you only take the 1 in 5000 chance risks 20 times over the course of a campaign. It will not always kill you. It isn't inevitable unless you are performing the risk regularly enough for the odds to catch up with you.

Quote from: The Butcher;754425Absolutely. Kolmogorov's Law is a poor guide to game design. In the long run, the players are dead too! :D

Exactly. On a long enough time scale, my morning coffee will kill me due to the small risk of secondary drowning. A non zero chance of something happening, doesn't mean it will happen in a campaign or even over several campaigns. I do things every day in my real life that have a non zero chance of killing me and yet I am here. It isn't just the risk, it is frequency of risk, the context of the situation and the kinds of risks the players take and avoid. I do think though that the numbers can be useful to designers as their making a game, but they have to look at how the game will be pkayed by actual people and run it through full campaigns to get sone perspective. I mean it may be helpful if I am making a gun for a gritty and lethal game to know that it has a x % chance of killing at point blank in a single shot in the hands of an average character.

QuoteWhich is why the risk of death must have a certain immediacy. Which also means that sometimes PCs will err on the side of caution and it's the GM's job to run a dangerous enough world that this risk will rear it ugly head often enough to keep players on the edge of their seats.

And in some games that means characters will die on occassion. But that is totally fine. While I will happily play games that are less lethal, I really do get a huge thrill playing games with a higher body count. It creates a "shit just got real" vibe.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754383There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

I think chances in the 1 in 100 to 1 in 400 sort of range work well for the thrill of "I can die!!" without constantly rolling up new PCs, and are fairly close to what real world 'adventurer' types experience - they often die eventually, but chances of dying on any particular venture are low.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754335You can have risks obviously that aren't lethal, but if death is off the table, or so rare that it might as well be due to mechanics, then there is no risk at all, because who cares?  Any situation is temporary, and can be dealt with later (like the hero who loses his wife in Season Two gets a new girlfriend in Season Three).  Yeah it sucked ass at the time, but oh the story arc!

Experiences differ on this one.

I have seen players who would shrug off the killing of their character's spouse because it is temporary as you say - but I've also seen many players who are able to shrug off the death of a PC. Their PC gets killed, they get a good death scene in, and then they happily roll up a new PC. I've been in plenty of casual beer-and-pretzels gaming where this is a positive thing - everyone enjoys a good characters death. I've also had some high-lethality Call of Cthulhu campaigns where it was considered a problem.

You can try making new characters start at 1st level / 0 XP to make players care more about their characters - but what that is really doing is encouraging them to care about stats and bonuses, and it doesn't always work. In casual gaming, plenty of players were knocked back down to 1st level, and they were happy to play the fresh-faced newcomer in the crowd.

Conversely, I've played in a number of low-lethality games (mainly superheroes and certain Amber games) where the players cared a lot about what happened to NPCs and the world situation, and got very invested in that - moreso than their character's lives in the Call of Cthulhu campaign, for example.

TL;DR - Some players may only care about their PCs lives, but some don't, and some care more about other things.

Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself (unless of course, it's something the character would die for, like protecting a loved one).  In which case, again, no death robs them of the catharsis.

In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

So it's not that there's different experiences, as much as different types of players or games you're attempting to conflate with different opinions toward risks.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754429No it wont, not if you only take the 1 in 5000 chance risks 20 times over the course of a campaign. It will not always kill you. It isn't inevitable unless you are performing the risk regularly enough for the odds to catch up with you.

I believe I covered this in my caveats.;) In short, I agree, but there's a tension between "risky enough to register as a risk" and the compounded risk over multiple acts of derring-do. Conversely one could argue that a 90% chance of death per incident also doesn't guarantee a dead PC after a finite # of incidents.

Ultimately as I said there are a number of variables to consider; there's more than one way to meet a certain tolerance for PC death/turnover even with a fixed level of BTB lethality.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself (unless of course, it's something the character would die for, like protecting a loved one).  In which case, again, no death robs them of the catharsis.

In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

So it's not that there's different experiences, as much as different types of players or games you're attempting to conflate with different opinions toward risks.

I'm not sure how we're disagreeing on this. When I said that experiences differ, what I meant was that different people have experienced different types of players and games.

My main point was:

1)  There are some high lethality games where players don't particular care about PCs dying - like Paranoia as you say, or plenty of other beer-and-pretzels games.

2) There are some zero-lethality games where the players do care about consequences instead of shrugging everything off as temporary like you described in your post. In most cases, I'd agree that they also care about their PCs lives - but that doesn't mean that the threat of PC death will make the game better for them. (It may or may not "rob them of catharsis" - I'm not sure what that means.)

Quote from: Arminius;754520I believe I covered this in my caveats.;) In short, I agree, but there's a tension between "risky enough to register as a risk" and the compounded risk over multiple acts of derring-do. Conversely one could argue that a 90% chance of death per incident also doesn't guarantee a dead PC after a finite # of incidents.

One could argue that but there is a clear difference between those two probabilities. Dying 9 times out of every ten versus once in every five thousand are much different stakes. If I go in for elective surgery and the doctor tells me there is a 90% chance it will kill me, I am getting the heck out of there. Bnt a 1 in 5000 is much more palatable if the surgery is important enough to me. My basic point was the argument that "it is inevitable because you gave it a chance of happening" doesn't hold out for everything. It matters what the probability itself is and how often it comes up in game, the specifics of a given campaign and whether the PCs can avoid it or not. I just see it used way too often in discussions about whether anything in the game should have even a small chance to kill a PC.

I think in terms of there being tension, i would agree, and that is why you try to find the sweet spot for the needs of the game you are making. But if it is truly risky enough to register as a risk, the group kind of needs to accept PC death as a possibliity. Or at the very least that players who want their characters to survive will need to be a bit prudent and not leap over every flaming chasm that presents itself. That isnt a bad thing. I mean the threat of death in a game can really enhance play but it also can lead to interesting solutions or developments. There are a few ways to approach a more lethal game. On the one hand you accept it and take the risks anyways, enjoying the challenge of surviving, on the other things can get much more down to earth, and the players might approach the risks a bit more like we do in real life.

Since we are launching this off of The Butcher's original post, i am curious what his interests are here and how substantial a threat he wants character death to impose (are you okay with 1-2 pcs dying per adventure for example, even if that number isn't a certainty).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754611Since we are launching this off of The Butcher's original post, i am curious what his interests are here and how substantial a threat he wants character death to impose (are you okay with 1-2 pcs dying per adventure for example, even if that number isn't a certainty).

There is no numerical answer to your question that I can think of.

I want jumping over a cliff, or charging a gunman unarmed, or being ambushed by Thuggees with garrotes in their hands and murder in their eyes, to be dangerous enough for PCs to consider alternatives and only take the more dangerous route because (a) there's no timely alternative available or (b) because they're fucking crazy and they live for this shit.

I am unconcerned with the means employed to achieve the desired end-result: a world that feels close enough to our world that "danger" and "peril" and "defying death" have actual meaning, instead of being hollow buzzwords in a world that behaves like a hip webcomic or a Saturday morning cartoon, that (to use Black Vulmea's words) enshrines the genre as parody.

If I had to guess at an optimal number, I suppose I'd be satisfied with actual risk of death (put it in the order of 20% or higher) popping up once or twice a session for at least two players. But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota". Unless they're at a loss as to how to proceed, in which case my response is a gang of thugs kicking down the door, guns blazing.

Quote from: Arminius;754327No major disagreement, but I think the chunky salsa rule is also an exaggeration

I don't see it that way at all.  It's saying that there are circumstances where you don't even bother rolling the dice.  If you're captured and put under a guillotine, YOU DIE.  No dice involved, no rolling damage, etc.

Quote from: Arminius;754327There are gradations of mood even before you get to conscious parody and beyond. It's reasonable to complain if pop trends push your favorite genre into a narrow niche that's fairly removed from the original center of gravity.

Absolutely.  And pulp doesn't have to equal "gonzo pulp".

Quote from: Arminius;754327As far as risk and tactics, I think one thing I may not have made clear is even in theory, the ability to avoid personal risk through sound tactics doesn't mean that personal risk will disappear.

Again, I don't see any real risk if the result in reality is that there is nobody dying.

The difference is that if there is literally zero chance of death, you have idiocy like charging machine gun nests.  Which I think we can all agree is not a desired outcome (at least outside of a supers game).

Quote from: Arminius;754327--If you take a blow, you can trade off the damage by having your girlfriend break up with you when you get home, or whatever, or

Where the hell does this keep coming from?  I'm assuming this is a slight at Fate, but Fate doesn't work that way unless you're deliberately coming up with a strawman version of how consequences work.

Quote from: Arminius;754327--The stakes of a given conflict are always resolved, but PC death isn't an option. Sure, you can have an ultra-tactical fight to ward off the hired guns trying to run Uncle Fred off his farmland, but if you "lose", you're only left for dead, or forced to retreat, etc.

I don't think anyone here is arguing in favor of "PC death can never happen no matter what", so I don't know why this keeps getting brought up.

Quote from: Arminius;754327In conclusion, grittiness and lethality may not depend on a particular mortality rate, but they do require that risk of death be a real factor for the PCs to consider.

What I'm hearing here is "nobody dies in our games, but they're still deadly, damnit!"  Which, frankly, I don't understand.  It's like a bunch of NHL players playing a high school team and arguing it's a challenge because if they all sat on their butts instead of skating the other team *could possibly* win.

The one thing I can see for that is that it prevents obviously stupid behavior.  But frankly, "don't do dumb things and you'll live" isn't really that interesting to me.  I like having actual risks.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754335You can have risks obviously that aren't lethal, but if death is off the table, or so rare that it might as well be due to mechanics

And this is my experience in *most games*.  And if you look at the "how many have you lost" thread, it seems to be the overall experience in *most games*.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754335Any situation is temporary, and can be dealt with later (like the hero who loses his wife in Season Two gets a new girlfriend in Season Three).  Yeah it sucked ass at the time, but oh the story arc!

Regardless of the game being played (D&D, GURPS, TFT, whatever), most of the players I've played with actually do care about stuff that happens to their characters and the world.

And, gee, who says that non-death consequences have to be temporary?

Quote from: S'mon;754342@robiswrong - "good tactics work" is a really bad definition of "railroading", and makes me wonder if you've encountered actual railroading  ("the PCs will now be captured"/"if they leave the path, hit them with draconians until they turn back"), or even typical linear adventure design ("the PCs must find clue X to get to place Y for the adventure to continue").

I generally define railroading as lack of agency.  If there are certain things that will work, and those work every time, and other things don't work, eventually the game can devolve into simply exercising those known good options.  Meaningful choice is removed.

Maybe 'railroading' isn't the most accurate term there, but the lack of actual meaningful decisions is the issue I see.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.

And who, exactly, is arguing against this?

Quote from: Arminius;754378Or to avoid getting hung up on that one term, I was suggesting that The Butcher's complaint about "pulp" being misunderstood is valid even if there's little difference in the actual death rate between Butcher-approved "real pulp" and gonzo neo-pulp. I'm saying you have to look at the quality of play, not just the rules and the outcome.

And that I'll agree with - rules that allow/permit gonzo play will result in a vastly different play experience.  It seems at that point that the real issue isn't the actual lethality of the game, but rather the tone that comes about as a result.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754436I mean it may be helpful if I am making a gun for a gritty and lethal game to know that it has a x % chance of killing at point blank in a single shot in the hands of an average character.

Depending on how you define 'gritty' - I define it more as being about *pain* than death.  You may come out of the fight - but you'll probably be injured/scarred/whatever.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754436And in some games that means characters will die on occassion. But that is totally fine. While I will happily play games that are less lethal, I really do get a huge thrill playing games with a higher body count. It creates a "shit just got real" vibe.

Sure, it can.  What I find important is actual *risk*.  The PCs have to *lose* on occasion, and it has to mean something.  Character death is the easiest way to do this, of course, but it's not the only.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

Do I really need to quote that block of text from Eric Wujick again?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself

Death of a PC hurts, but it's done and over and you roll up a PC and move on.  Other stuff I can drag out.

And it's a matter of how likely the 'bad stuff' is to occur.  I like games where the PCs 'lose' on a *regular basis*.  I'm not a fan of the endless series of victories that I so often see.  If losing always equals death, then it's a meatgrinder campaign, and I know very few players who are interested in losing characters every other session.

And let me restate this again, because something seems to be getting lost:

I am not against character death.  I am not advocating having PCs never die.  I am advocating having something at risk all the time, and not having a series of neverending victories.  I am advocating non-death risks IN ADDITION to the risk of character death, not INSTEAD OF.

I *want* characters in games to hurt and to suffer.  How the fuck can the highs have any meanings without the lows?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

Why?  You can always roll up another character, and in some games you might have a few characters by default.  I mean, of course nobody likes losing characters, but why is it the "ultimate risk"?  Because you might lose your shiny levels and shiny gears and powers and all the stuff you've "earned"?

On the other hand, things may happen in the game world that impact the campaign as a whole, and all characters.  Why is that considered a lesser risk?  If I'm playing Forgotten Realms, is the destruction of Waterdeep a lesser risk, really, than the death of a single character?

I mean, isn't that a big part of roleplaying?  Having your character's actions have an impact on the setting?

I mean, seriously.  If I was playing in Forgotten Realms, I think that having a character die would be less of a blow than having that character be responsible for the destruction of Waterdeep, kicked out of any organizations he belonged to, and hunted as a traitor.  Yeah, the character death probably sucks more at the moment, but you deal with it, make a new character, and keep playing.  The other stuff I'm dealing with for a very, very long time.

Quote from: The Butcher;754642But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota".

Good, because I'm pretty sure nobody is advocating for that.

I'm not sure the meme of "you can avoid dying if your girlfriend dumps you" comes directly from FATE. I think it may be from With Great Power, or maybe Truth and Justice.

I don't know any of the three particularly well, so if someone could help out...

Quote from: Arminius;754833I'm not sure the meme of "you can avoid dying if your girlfriend dumps you" comes directly from FATE. I think it may be from With Great Power, or maybe Truth and Justice.

I don't know any of the three particularly well, so if someone could help out...

I know FATE and Truth & Justice pretty well, and have played With Great Power but don't remember it particularly well.  I don't think that as phrased this fits any of them. The closest I can think is:

Truth & Justice does have an abstract damage mechanic and freeform stats, so as you are damaged you can lose points off a "Piano Playing" trait or I suppose a "Loves Girlfriend" trait since traits can be anything. (Also, the first damaged trait you take always generates a story hook - bringing your less actively used traits into play.) However, you never have the choice of this or dying. In order to be taken out, you need all your traits to be taken to zero.

FATE would potentially allow you to get a Fate Point if the GM had your girlfriend dump you as a Compel - and that Fate Point could later be used to avoid damage. That seems like a stretch, though.

Thanks; that T&J description may be what I was thinking of.

That could be.

I kind of assumed SotC due to the OP and the focus on pulp, while I'm guessing that those games are more aimed at supers.

Also, "I got hit!  Instead of getting hurt, I'll lose my girlfriend!" sounds a lot like either a misinterpretation or a strawman version of Consequences (take stress, take a consequence to avoid getting taken out) - missing the part that the consequence is supposed to actually fit with what the hell is happening (getting hit in the nose would more likely yield a Broken Nose consequence).

Of course, the funny thing is that The Butcher's explanation of what he likes in games...

Quote from: The Butcher;750127I like conflicts to escalate and spiral out of control as men and women frantically grasp at the last straws and the Fates weave their tangled thread, Atropos ever with scissor in hand. Glad if something else works for you, doesn't work for me.

This perfectly describes the Fate games I'm running, and is exactly what I like in gaming.  (Not saying that Fate/etc. is the only way to get that, of course).

I was deliberately hyperbolic in the OP. The game described therein does not exist, being a patchwork of several abstract and forgiving game mechanics of the sort that really, really turn me off. But if it did, I'm 100% sure it would be an instant RPGnet darling.

My opposition to the "pulp can't be gritty" or more specifically to the "pulp PCs must have 'plot immunity' reflected in the mechanics somehow or it's Not A Real Pulp Game" is sincere, though. It's particularly rankling because it is borne of a narrow and borderline parodical reading of the "pulp men's adventure" genre (one of many under the medium of pulp, but the one that tends to get saddled with the "pulp genre" label in RPG-speak).

I feel like I've been repeating myself over the last few posts and I think we've pretty much reached a point where we'd best agree to disagree.

But this piqued my interest:

Quote from: robiswrong;754874Of course, the funny thing is that The Butcher's explanation of what he likes in games...

This perfectly describes the Fate games I'm running, and is exactly what I like in gaming.  (Not saying that Fate/etc. is the only way to get that, of course).

I found FATE 3.0, at least as presented in SBA, a horribly written and abstruse RPG. Seriously, Savage Worlds (the horrible original version with the super annoying Smiling Jack sidebars) is a paragon of clarity and objectivity next to it. I had to read the Diaspora SRD before I could make sense of half of what the rulebook was going on about.

So let me get this straight. If you have the option of walking out of a conflict with a Concession, or avoiding damage by taking Consequences, how can you possibly die against your will? Sounds pretty damn hard, especially when you consider that getting Taken Out won't necessarily mean death (and just when Taken Out = dead strikes me as another potential source of game table drama).

I feel PCs have far too much control over the terms of a conflict in FATE. Certainly far more so than in the real world, and that's enough to turn me off. But I could, conceivably, be reading the rules all wrong because SBA is a very badly written game.

Quote from: The Butcher;754642There is no numerical answer to your question that I can think of.

I want jumping over a cliff, or charging a gunman unarmed, or being ambushed by Thuggees with garrotes in their hands and murder in their eyes, to be dangerous enough for PCs to consider alternatives and only take the more dangerous route because (a) there's no timely alternative available or (b) because they're fucking crazy and they live for this shit.

Seems fair

QuoteI am unconcerned with the means employed to achieve the desired end-result: a world that feels close enough to our world that "danger" and "peril" and "defying death" have actual meaning, instead of being hollow buzzwords in a world that behaves like a hip webcomic or a Saturday morning cartoon, that (to use Black Vulmea's words) enshrines the genre as parody.

I think this is really important and I largely agree. I will qualify it by saying I am also a fan of games that emulate genre physics and do include things like buffering PCs from harm, but it feels like a lot of people today have trouble grasping that some of us do want (at least for certain games) things to feel closer to the real world than to a movie or comic book in terms of the bodily threat some risks impose. And we are not always looking to have our games reflect "the source material". I enountered this a lot with Terror Network, when all I was looking to do was make and play a game where I could be an FBI agent in a real world terrorism investigation. But people kept writing to me asking what movies or shows their adventures should be patterned after, and how  i envisioned them sturcturing adventures.

QuoteIf I had to guess at an optimal number, I suppose I'd be satisfied with actual risk of death (put it in the order of 20% or higher) popping up once or twice a session for at least two players. But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota". Unless they're at a loss as to how to proceed, in which case my response is a gang of thugs kicking down the door, guns blazing.

The not railroading them is a key bit here and something I think a lot of folks miss in these discussions. If the adventure is a series of set pieces the players have to pass through, and every adventure one of those set pieces has something like a 20% chance of killing one or two players, that is quite different from a scenario where stuff like that might crop up, but players candecide to be cautious and take the long way around.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923My opposition to the "pulp can't be gritty" or more specifically to the "pulp PCs must have 'plot immunity' reflected in the mechanics somehow or it's Not A Real Pulp Game" is sincere, though. It's particularly rankling because it is borne of a narrow and borderline parodical reading of the "pulp men's adventure" genre (one of many under the medium of pulp, but the one that tends to get saddled with the "pulp genre" label in RPG-speak).

And I totally agree with that.  By that definition, CoC ain't pulp, and well, that seems utterly bizarre.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923But this piqued my interest:

Cool.  The fact that you didn't just shut down and go "nuh uh, you're lying because that's not the experience I had!" is pretty damn nice, and I'm glad to be able to discuss it with you, and possibly figure out where the difference in perception is.  No snark :)

Quote from: The Butcher;754923I found FATE 3.0, at least as presented in SBA, a horribly written and abstruse RPG. Seriously, Savage Worlds (the horrible original version with the super annoying Smiling Jack sidebars) is a paragon of clarity and objectivity next to it. I had to read the Diaspora SRD before I could make sense of half of what the rulebook was going on about.

My view of Fate comes primarily from Fate Core and the other Evil Hat products.  I have no real insight into other implementations of the system.

I'll also be the first to admit that Fate can be very hard for new players to grasp, especially those with a more traditional background.  That's not being condescending - it was tough for *me* to grasp, coming from a traditional background (interestingly, GURPS players, and GURPS was my system of choice for *years*, seem to have a harder time than most other players).

Quote from: The Butcher;754923So let me get this straight. If you have the option of walking out of a conflict with a Concession

So, we'll start with Concessions, and please, excuse me if I get pedantic.  I'm not trying to talk down here, I'm just trying to be super precise about stuff so there's less room for misinterpretation.  

You're in a fight, right?  Presumably, you're fighting for a reason, right?  Since most people don't want to die, and not fighting is usually a reasonable way of achieving that, there's some reason you're fighting instead of high-tailing it.  That's all that "stakes" means.  It's not some big drawn out legal discussion thing, it's usually "the guards don't want to let you in!" "well, we're going in anyway!" kind of thing.  It's almost always very implicit (social conflicts can be a bit more explicit, but physical ones are pretty obvious).

So, if there's guards preventing you from going where you want, we get into a Conflict.  Which means we fight until one side either Concedes (retreats) or is Taken Out (defeated).  So if the guards start kicking your butt, you can Concede, which represents you running off with your tail between your legs - something that could happen in any system.

Here's the catch, though - your Concession *cannot* invalidate the other party's goals.  That's what Conceding means - they win.  They get what they wanted, and you get some say in *how* you fail.

So in the case where the other party's goal *really is* "kill the bastards", you really can't Concede.

The other point is the timing of a Concession.  You can Concede any time - until dice are rolled.  So at every point, it's a gamble - are you willing to try and stay in this fight, and risk getting Taken Out?  Or are you going to give up and let them get what they want?  But once the dice are on the table, no takebacks.  So, sure, you can Concede just about every fight - much like you can retreat in just about every fight in a more traditional game.  If you retreat from every fight in D&D when you hit half hit points, you're not going to be very likely to die.

Since Fate very much advises against 'linear adventure paths', and making sure that things matter, retreating from every fight at the first sign of adversity is likely to let your enemies get further and further ahead, making your situation more and more dire.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923, or avoiding damage by taking Consequences,

If there's "damage" in Fate, it's in the form of Consequences, not stress. Stress clears up after the conflict is over.  Consequences stick around.  Taking a Consequence is *worse* in all ways than taking stress.  At the very minimum, it gives a free invoke on the Consequence, meaning you've gotten away with a little this turn, but that bonus is going to make your next turns suck.

(Note:  I only say "if there's damage" because Consequences aren't *limited* to physical damage.  Going temporarily crazy?  Consequence.  Headache from using too much magic?  Consequence.  But almost all physical injury of any lasting import will be modeled as a Consequence.  Consequences are really "the bad shit that happened (to you, personally) as a result of what happened that's gonna stick with you for a while").

Minor consequences aren't a huge deal, but a moderate (or is it major?  I forget) consequence?  That lasts until the next session, at least.  And severe ones will last for several sessions, and extreme consequences permanently alter your character.  They're usually used for things like having your hand burned into cinders (the actual original inspiration was that very thing happening to Dresden), or losing a limb, etc.

But let's say you take the Consequence "Broken Leg" from taking a big hit.  That would probably be severe.  Great.  You've now got a broken leg.  So for the next several sessions, you're dealing with that.  It's an Aspect, which means all of the usual aspect stuff gets associated with it, in addition to it being a target for hostile invocations.

Going to climb a ladder?  Really?  With a broken leg?  I don't think so.  Running around and dodging?  That's gonna be tougher.  Let's throw some passive opposition your way.  Damn, broken legs suck, huh?  Especially in comparison with taking stress, which would go away at the end of the fight.  They're even worse (IMHO) than hit points, which have no additional mechanical impact, and are generally easy to replenish.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923how can you possibly die against your will?

You die because you say "Fuck, no, I'm not backing down.  This is worth it" and then shit doesn't go your way.  Just like damn near every system.  Hell, I think there was a thread here a few months ago about TPKs and how they're a result of people *not retreating*.  Same thing.

I mean, seriously, in D&D, you don't get one-shot killed, right?  What happens is you choose to stick in the fight even as your cleric runs out of healing spells, or you run dangerously into the middle of the bad guys and get swarmed.  If you had retreated before then, you'd probably live.  That's what conceding really is - retreating.  Giving up.  Letting the bad guys have what they want (provided that "what they want" isn't "your head on a plate").

And seriously, the GMing advice for Fate is usually "go hard on your players.  Make them hurt."  It's not "make a fair fight that they'll likely win, but is close enough that they'll feel like they were in danger".

Quote from: The Butcher;754923Sounds pretty damn hard, especially when you consider that getting Taken Out won't necessarily mean death (and just when Taken Out = dead strikes me as another potential source of game table drama).

"Yeah, these guys attacking you?  They've got some serious bloodlust in their eyes.  They don't look like they're going to be satisfied with just beating you."

"The guards look professional - the type of guys that go for the killshots every time."

At this point, players should consider themselves warned.

I mean, I'll admit, Fate's not a game predicated on lethal brutality and one-shot kills (neither are most games, really).  But it also gives a lot of tools and places a lot of emphasis on things actually going wrong for players, and them not just winning all the damn time.  And those losses should mean something - the bad guys get closer to their goal, bad things happen, the shit pile that characters are in gets deeper.  And those types of things should be on the table *all of the time*, and be real risks *in every conflict*.  Death is extra gravy when necessary.

But, really, if I said the above to my players, and they bitched about Taken Out = dead, I'd have very little sympathy.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923I feel PCs have far too much control over the terms of a conflict in FATE. Certainly far more so than in the real world, and that's enough to turn me off. But I could, conceivably, be reading the rules all wrong because SBA is a very badly written game.

How it works in practice often isn't immediately obvious, especially reading it with a more traditional mindset.  I don't really know about how SBA presents the rules - it's certainly possible that their presentation doesn't help things.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754358This is a very important distinction and it is important I think for those at the table to be aware which WWII they are in. I had a player who used to ask questions like "Is this hollywood Rome or real Rome?"

"Am I Ray Stevenson or Tony Curtis?"

Quote from: James Gillen;754948"Am I Ray Stevenson or Tony Curtis?"

While I agree it's important to have everyone on the same page as far as expectations, I think the actor/character analogy is a poor one.

Shit, I feel more like an actor playing a role in heavily railroaded games than I do in even the most hardcore 'storygame', much less games which just are not hardcore simulation but have some level of genre emulation.

Quote from: robiswrong;754700I generally define railroading as lack of agency.  If there are certain things that will work, and those work every time, and other things don't work, eventually the game can devolve into simply exercising those known good options.  

Again, it seems like you have not encountered actual lack of agency, where your PC has no ability to affect the game world and/or no choices to make. "I know X will work" is not lack of agency. At most, a world that doesn't react to PCs always doing X (by eg NPCs avoiding opportunities for PC to do X) isn't a very well designed game world. That X tactic, when available, reliably works, doesn't remove agency. "Superman wins fights" does not remove Superman's agency.

Re 'no one is saying you can't die in Fate!' - well see this (http://www.meetup.com/London-DnD/messages/boards/thread/36900362/440) - this GM at my local Meetup is running it so that not only PCs can't die, his pet NPCs can't die either - unless he chooses to let them. And according to him he's running the Concession rules RAW. Is he wrong?

Quote from: robiswrong;754951While I agree it's important to have everyone on the same page as far as expectations, I think the actor/character analogy is a poor one.

Shit, I feel more like an actor playing a role in heavily railroaded games than I do in even the most hardcore 'storygame', much less games which just are not hardcore simulation but have some level of genre emulation.

This is at best confusing. Okay, I am confused. First because both names are actors! But I guess that's a commentary on the verisimilitude of Spartacus vs HBO's Rome.

Second, because offering a railroaded game vs storygame dichotomy doesn't seem too relevant given the widespread disdain for railroading on this site. I think I understand why you're saying what you're saying but folks hereabout tend to see things in terms of scriptwriter (storygame) vs character (sandbox trad game).

Quote from: S'mon;754953Again, it seems like you have not encountered actual lack of agency, where your PC has no ability to affect the game world and/or no choices to make. "I know X will work" is not lack of agency. At most, a world that doesn't react to PCs always doing X (by eg NPCs avoiding opportunities for PC to do X) isn't a very well designed game world. That X tactic, when available, reliably works, doesn't remove agency. "Superman wins fights" does not remove Superman's agency.

No, I've definitely encountered real railroading, and I've admitted that 'railroading' may have not been the best word to use there.  I see you omitted that part - are you interested in discussing things, or just proving that I'm BadWrong?

I've played in games where every situation is handled the same way - go through a checklist of things you need to do, use the same tactics, blah blah blah.  I was making as few meaningful choices as I would in the most railroady DragonLance campaign ever.

Quote from: S'mon;754953Re 'no one is saying you can't die in Fate!' - well see this (http://www.meetup.com/London-DnD/messages/boards/thread/36900362/440) - this GM at my local Meetup is running it so that not only PCs can't die, his pet NPCs can't die either - unless he chooses to let them. And according to him he's running the Concession rules RAW. Is he wrong?

If you're breaking into the vampire's lair in order to kill them, then yeah, I think it's wrong to say "no, you really didn't mean that."  That doesn't mean that the vamp doesn't have options beyond "Take Out/be Taken Out".  One of the most common is to run, turning it into a Contest rather than a Conflict.

The important thing is that everyone has to *agree* to the Concession.  Sometimes, you can throw in some key information/etc.  Sometimes you can throw in a few Fate Points as a pseudo-compel.  Sometimes, the NPC just bites it, and so be it.

I mean, that's actually an example in Fate Core - an NPC that the GM intended to be important was cut down in an early part of the game.  The advice?  "Roll with it."

I don't see anything in the rules that states "your goal of a conflict can't be the death of the enemies".  So that's the part he's making up.  Now, most of the time it *shouldn't* be that - your goal will be "get into the castle", not "kill the guards".  But sometimes it really is "kill the sumbitch".

Personally, if the players make it to the vampire's lair, and manage to overcome his defenses, and get him on the ropes, I'm not really feeling like taking that victory away from them because it's My Precious NPC (which happens in other games than Fate).  Fuck that.  Let 'em have their victory, they earned it.  Otherwise, what's the damn point of even letting them into the fight in the first place?  I know how it's going to end before it starts.  To hell with that.

If you don't want your NPC to die, then don't stick him in the fight.  That's why you have minions and lieutenants.

I'm also personally not a fan of "I'm going to make this happen because I'm telling this story, and it'll be better this way"  Again, fuck that.  Play out the situation, and keep shit moving.  Fuck that "dramatically appropriate" shit.  We play to find out what happens, not to listen to the GM's preplanned story.

And really, I think it was clear that when I said 'nobody is saying you can't die' that it was scoped to this conversation?  Otherwise, I'm sure I can find plenty of people saying you shouldn't kill characters without their consent in D&D.  I know I've seen that claim, but I don't think that it's really fair to pin that on D&D as a whole (and I wouldn't).

Actually, I think I will turn the "is it valid to say that 'I want you dead' isn't a legitimate goal" to the Google+ group.

My belief is that it shouldn't be the default, but that it *is* the goal in some circumstances.  I suspect that will be the general consensus, but it'd be interesting to see.  I'll let you know the results.

Quote from: Arminius;754956This is at best confusing. Okay, I am confused. First because both names are actors! But I guess that's a commentary on the verisimilitude of Spartacus vs HBO's Rome.

Second, because offering a railroaded game vs storygame dichotomy doesn't seem too relevant given the widespread disdain for railroading on this site. I think I understand why you're saying what you're saying but folks hereabout tend to see things in terms of scriptwriter (storygame) vs character (sandbox trad game).

Ah, sorry, didn't catch the "both actors" thing.

My point was that in a railroad story, you're possibly playing a known character, and definitely playing through a known story.  That's... pretty much what an actor does.

The 'character vs. scriptwriter' thing is at least more accurate, though I still think it's often just a way of scoring points.

The character vs. scriptwriter thing is also on display in the page linked to By S'Mon, and again, I'd personally have no interest in playing a game like that.  I expect my players to primarily have their characters' goals and personality in mind, not some meta-goal of "make a neat story".  OTOH, "yeah, my character would *totally* do that, even though it's kinda dumb" is part and parcel of roleplaying in my view.

Quote from: robiswrong;754959...I mean, that's actually an example in Fate Core - an NPC that the GM intended to be important was cut down in an early part of the game.  The advice?  "Roll with it."

I don't see anything in the rules that states "your goal of a conflict can't be the death of the enemies".  So that's the part he's making up.  Now, most of the time it *shouldn't* be that - your goal will be "get into the castle", not "kill the guards".  But sometimes it really is "kill the sumbitch".

Personally, if the players make it to the vampire's lair, and manage to overcome his defenses, and get him on the ropes, I'm not really feeling like taking that victory away from them because it's My Precious NPC (which happens in other games than Fate).  Fuck that.  Let 'em have their victory, they earned it.  Otherwise, what's the damn point of even letting them into the fight in the first place?  I know how it's going to end before it starts.  To hell with that.

If you don't want your NPC to die, then don't stick him in the fight.  That's why you have minions and lieutenants.

I'm also personally not a fan of "I'm going to make this happen because I'm telling this story, and it'll be better this way"  Again, fuck that.  Play out the situation, and keep shit moving.  Fuck that "dramatically appropriate" shit.  We play to find out what happens, not to listen to the GM's preplanned story.

Thanks. From reading that thread I thought it seemed particularly bad GMing in Fate, because AFAIK Fate is supposed to be a narrativist game of mutual story creation by players and GM, and the GM seems to be running it as a White Wolf style Storyteller. I wanted to say something, but it's considered bad form there to post non-laudatory stuff on other GM's threads.

So 'pet NPC can't die' seems even less appropriate in a story-creation game that it would be in a gamist game, where the potential victory conditions may perhaps be set not to include NPC death as a possibility.

But this example does make me think that there might be something other than ignorance in the frequent conflation of Storyteller and Story-creation games, that one (story-creation) can rather easily degenerate into the other (railroaded storytelling)? And that maybe gamist challenge-oriented games are more robust, less likely to suffer from this?

Quote from: S'mon;755023But this example does make me think that there might be something other than ignorance in the frequent conflation of Storyteller and Story-creation games, that one (story-creation) can rather easily degenerate into the other (railroaded storytelling)? And that maybe gamist challenge-oriented games are more robust, less likely to suffer from this?

I think there's a *ton* of conflation between the two, among both supporters and detracters, even though most 'story creation' games go out of their way to point out that you shouldn't take away player agency.  I mean, that's why Apocalypse World has as one of its rules "play to find out what happens."  It's directly against railroading/"story telling" (as if you know what happens, you're breaking the rules).

It's a confusion I used to have, that's for damn sure (from the detractor side).

I honestly think it's just the use of the word "story", in conjunction with years if not decades of being taught that story in RPG = railroading.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939And I totally agree with that.  By that definition, CoC ain't pulp, and well, that seems utterly bizarre.

I know, right? This seems to be is a common conceit, sadly.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939My view of Fate comes primarily from Fate Core and the other Evil Hat products.  I have no real insight into other implementations of the system.

This is not the first time that I bump heads with someone who got in via FATE Core. I swear to God I might understand FATE better if I'd never read SBA.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939I'll also be the first to admit that Fate can be very hard for new players to grasp, especially those with a more traditional background.  That's not being condescending - it was tough for *me* to grasp, coming from a traditional background (interestingly, GURPS players, and GURPS was my system of choice for *years*, seem to have a harder time than most other players).

My one experience with FATE was as a GM and I had a lot of difficulty wrapping my head around the very abstract, "storey" or "fluffy" logic of the game engine. As I've mentioned before, I thought the rulebook was very poorly written and organized, which further complicated things during actual play.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939excuse me if I get pedantic.  I'm not trying to talk down here, I'm just trying to be super precise about stuff so there's less room for misinterpretation.  

Not at all. I appreciate your clarifications and the obvious amount of time and effort that went into them.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939How it works in practice often isn't immediately obvious, especially reading it with a more traditional mindset.  I don't really know about how SBA presents the rules - it's certainly possible that their presentation doesn't help things.

Your explanations were very enlightening and addressed most of my concerns. I might even given FATE Core a chance but the whole system still strikes me as a dash more abstract than I'm comfortable with.

Thank you for your willingness to engage in meaningful debate.

Quote from: The Butcher;755385Your explanations were very enlightening and addressed most of my concerns. I might even given FATE Core a chance but the whole system still strikes me as a dash more abstract than I'm comfortable with.

One of the biggest trip-ups with Fate is "fiction first" (which doesn't mean plot immunity, or fuck the rules, I"ve got a story to tell).  It means "start by saying what your dude is doing, and then we'll figure out what rules to apply".

If you look at "Create Advantage" as a rule by itself, it does seem very abstract.  But when you start with a concrete action, like "I'm Spiderman, and I shoot my web slingers at this other dude to tie him up", then it becomes much less abstract.

As I've said before, if you're interested, I'm more than willing to run a game for the curious or skeptical.  I'm actually running a few sessions on Thursdays at 7pm PST to teach the system to a few folks.  I could see if we can handle a fifth (four is kind of a good sweet spot, five starts getting a bit heavy).

But at the end of the day, no, Fate's not everybody's cup of tea.

I've never heard the idea that PCs shouldn't/can't die in pulp-inspired games. Or any other game for that matter. Weird. Is it an outgrowth of the kids used to video games where you essentially never die if you keep jamming quarters in the slot?

I'll just stick to Daredevils. None of these newfangled "storytelling games" seem very interesting to me.

As an aside (and possibly beaten into a fine mist), on genre...

I think the problem most people have in genre discussions is that genre is actually a multidimensional loosely inter-related tangle of associations.

So when people say 'horror genre,' they are actually talking about various combinations of mood, message, atmosphere, plot, setting, props, character types, styles, etc.

So Pulp is a genre, but it's broader in certain respects and thinner in others compared to, say, Horror or Science Fiction -- Pulp is a little more about message, mood and plot, while Horror and SF is more strongly noted by setting and props (but certainly have plot and messages typical to them).


tl;d:
Pulp as genre -- it's complicated.

As for death in games... I often run games with an eye that we're essentially cobbling together a TV episode.

And so, often, I don't want PCs to die unless they effectively insist.


That said, there's a lot of other crap I can do to them, first...

Don't get this at all. Pulp can often be extremely lethal.  Of course, there's a huge range of what can qualify as 'pulp'.

I don't subscribe to the notions of 'pulp' put forward by the RPG hipster crowd. When I think of pulp, I think of Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, and Dashiel Hammet. Definitely gritty and lethal stuff. The RPG hipsters seem to draw their inspiration from comics.

Quote from: Haffrung;780738I don't subscribe to the notions of 'pulp' put forward by the RPG hipster crowd. When I think of pulp, I think of Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, and Dashiel Hammet. Definitely gritty and lethal stuff. The RPG hipsters seem to draw their inspiration from comics.

I think they draw it from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, and other latter-day "pulp-inspired" cinema and confuse it with actual pulps which it's doubtful they have ever read given their odd conclusions.

Lovecraft might not be quite pulp (I'm not sure), but many of folks inspired by him were.

Pulp is also intertwined with Sword and Sorcery as well as Noir. (Ie: I agree with Haffrung)

So. Goofs.

Quote from: Matt;780751I think they draw it from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, and other latter-day "pulp-inspired" cinema and confuse it with actual pulps which it's doubtful they have ever read given their odd conclusions.

That makes sense. Pulp as "80s movies inspired by pulp by at least one remove" versus "lurid action stories read by truckers in the 30s."

Quote from: Haffrung;780756..."lurid action stories read by truckers in the 30s."

And elevator operators. Back when that was an actual job because elevators didn't run themselves. Can't recall the specific stories, but a number of pulp tales had throw away asides of elevator operators or hotel night clerks reading various pulp magazines during their mostly dull shifts.

Quote from: Will;780755Lovecraft might not be quite pulp (I'm not sure), but many of folks inspired by him were.

He was published in the pulps so... he's was a pulp writer. That's my only real qualifier.

Quote from: Simlasa;780769He was published in the pulps so... he's was a pulp writer. That's my only real qualifier.

Works for me, but I'm not a literature ... talker... guy.

After several 'the label Science Fiction cannot be applied to anything before 1920' arguments, I qualify my statements about literature descriptors.

Quote from: Will;780776Works for me, but I'm not a literature ... talker... guy.

After several 'the label Science Fiction cannot be applied to anything before 1920' arguments, I qualify my statements about literature descriptors.

So Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are out. Who argued that?

Some literature wonks on TBP. I forget who.

It might be that it's just a few crazy folk who like to post on TBP, but it's the kind of nitpicking stupidity I've seen over and over from university echo chambers, so it wouldn't surprise me to find it's a Thing.

Edit: Ah, here's an article on the subject from Robert Silverberg, who is awesome:
http://www.asimovs.com/2014_07/ref.shtml

Quote from: Will;780810Some literature wonks on TBP. I forget who.

It might be that it's just a few crazy folk who like to post on TBP, but it's the kind of nitpicking stupidity I've seen over and over from university echo chambers, so it wouldn't surprise me to find it's a Thing.

Edit: Ah, here's an article on the subject from Robert Silverberg, who is awesome:
http://www.asimovs.com/2014_07/ref.shtml

What the heck is a TBP?

RPG.net. 'The Banning Place' is, I believe, the common term around here.


Admittedly, most of the commentary about Verne and scifi seem to be more about nitpicky genre arguments than periodicity, but this ( http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/jv-rosny.html ) is more about Verne being the _start_ of SciFi, so nothing previous 'counts.'

Which I think is a load of crap.

Quote from: Will;780814RPG.net. 'The Banning Place' is, I believe, the common term around here.

"The Big Purple"

Quote from: robiswrong;780817"The Big Purple"

"The Banning Place" works too.

Nothing before Verne counting as scifi is utter bullshit.

Quote from: Haffrung;780821"The Banning Place" works too.

I like "The Banning Place". Though I haven't been banned. Yet.

Seeing as I took a literature class in college that included 'gaslight era' scifi I don't think it's an academic/literature standard either... just more geek wanking.