Quote from: jeff37923;360606Yes you are sidestepping the point. The death of the main character(s) was vital to the telling of the story, but instead you tried to make it seem irrelevant.

See? You are dissembling again in an attempt to show that character death is irrelevant in the movies listed.

Sorry, but that dog just won't hunt.

No, actually, you're dodging the point i raised entirely. Yeah, there are movies where the hero dies, and in those, their deaths are relevant. So what? That is a point that irrelevant to my point--that there are very many movies where the hero has considerable script immunity and there there is no expectation that he will die. The existence of movies where the hero dies doesn't disprove that there are movies where the viewer knows he won't. Even if i set aside Die Hard as "arguable" since it is being argued, that leaves movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Batman Begins, as well scores of written fiction. The authors of those fictions use all sorts of tricks to create tension despite our knowledge that certain characters are simply not going to die. Many rpgs which emulate those fictions use the threat of character death to replicate that tension. It's easy and effective but it's not an especially most accurate method of replicating what is actually going on in those films.

And yeah, I am aware, as -E pointed out, it is a more complicated issue, and many writers deliberately play against our expectations of who will live or die, but the fact that those expectations can be played with affirms their existence.

Even in those movies where the heros do die, there is the larger issue that those deaths were deliberate choices on the part of the writers, used to serve the purpose of the fiction. Trying to replicate the tension of those movies with a random probability of character death is not necessarily the most accurate way or best to emulate that sort of fiction, either.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360610Movies aren't games.

But rpgs often attempt to emulate movies, and replicate some of the experience of watching a movie at the game table. Many rpg players want to build the sort of dramatic tension and payoff at the table that they find in their favorite fiction. A discussion of how fiction builds tension or the "rules" of drama and genre is valid for those games.

Quote from: -E.;360603Likewise, why would you say that situations where excitement in games comes from raising the stakes in terms of fictional outcomes is difficult to do in table-top games?

I can think of several games I've run (or are running), where there's not serious risk of death to the characters and the tension comes from achieving or failing-to-achieve the character's goals as tensions escalate.

I agree with you, but I think that sort of play requires a little bit more creative oomph from the players than the method of creating tension via risk of character death. "Difficult" may have been too strong, "not-as-easy" seems a little weak.

Quote from: Simlasa;360687Hmmm... I've never played with a group that had alcohol at the table... or camembert for that matter.

You're missing out!

QuoteTo me the space we're playing in, the lighting and decor, the way people are dressed, probably effects my roleplaying more than the snacks that are available.

Those make a difference, yes. However, most game groups have the session in the same place at the same time every week, fortnight or month. So the lighting, decor etc are the same. And the timing being the same makes the clothing the same, since people don't tend to dress for a game session, but just come in whatever they normally wear at that time, eg just arrived from work, or Sunday sloppies, etc.

I agree that those things make a difference to the game session, but they tend to be constant in a particular game group. Whereas the snacks, setting and system are more prone to change.

Quote from: two_fishesBut rpgs often attempt to emulate movies, and replicate some of the experience of watching a movie at the game table. Many rpg players want to build the sort of dramatic tension and payoff at the table that they find in their favorite fiction. A discussion of how fiction builds tension or the "rules" of drama and genre is valid for those games.

Yes, but movies still aren't games.

There's a difference between dramatic tension and payoff in a game and a movie, and it's simply the uncertainty of outcome. A movie's scripted. Games have dice. Diceless variants exist, but they are extraordinarily less popular than the diced ones. There's a reason for that - people enjoy the uncertainty. The uncertainty of outcome is what makes it a game. You can have uncertainty of outcome without dice - chess has it, after all - but in practice gamers prefer dice.

And roleplaying games aren't "stories" the way movies are. They don't have a beginning, middle and an end in the same way that movies do, unless you have a true railroader of a GM, which almost everyone agrees is a bad thing. Any "story" is an emergent property of play, rather than an intrinsic property of the thing.

Movies aren't games. Games aren't movies. Gamers are not Meryl Streep or Dustin Hoffman. It's a game. It's in the name of the thing and everything.

Quote from: jeff37923;360681Seanchai, knowing that my grenade incident causes an existential crisis for you is full of win for me. Makes my day and is awesome.

Dance monkey! Dance!

I think Seanchai makes a very good point and I'm a proud graduate of the GM Uber Alles School of GMing.

Nothing in your posts says to me you punished the player because he had a bad attitude but he's right when he says that there are GMs who do this. I have come across many GMs who have this didactic style of play which I don't think is good for gaming.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360685Yes. It's hard to be thespy with junk food snacks, it's hard to be hacky with "healthy" snacks. "I cut off their heads!" just doesn't make sense over camembert and almongs. "I pause for a moment to reflect on the lives I've taken, and feel the angst of -" just doesn't work with a mouthful of cheetos.

You would be wrong. It's a strange kind of beauty, saying, "Terminate with extreme prejudice" with a mouthful of cheetos.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: two_fishes;360688So what?

Character death in a movie makes for a more powerful story that is being told. In a similar fashion, character risk which includes the possibility of character death makes for a more powerful role-playing experience for the Player due to the stakes involved.

Kyle is right, RPGs and movies are not equal. However some very easily understood similarities can be made between the two different types of entertainment.

I think you are trying to prove that the potential for character death in a RPG should not be considered by GMs as a risk or stake to be raised in play.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360696I agree that those things make a difference to the game session, but they tend to be constant in a particular game group. Whereas the snacks, setting and system are more prone to change.

I haven't noticed much variation in snacks, even from group to group... bags of chips and HUGE tankards of soft drinks accompanying whatever style of greasy fast food each person had drug with him/her.
The occasional special event where we order pizza or someone brings spaghetti/chili.

Maybe there is some regional variation to this.

We had wine, fruit, some jaffa cakes, tea and coffee but it failed to stop Ithaqua destroying Arkham far too easily and devouring each of us in turn (bad dice its all about the bad dice).

The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

Quote from: Simlasa;360703I haven't noticed much variation in snacks [...]

Maybe there is some regional variation to this.

I don't think it's regional so much as individual and group-based.

I had a one-off with a group recently, they had salamis and cheeses and crackers and dips. We normally go with chocolate and cheetos and doritos and lemonade and so on.

We do beer sometimes, too - but those guys game in a public place (a uni lounge) so they can't do alcohol of any kind.

They spend a lot longer debating the rules, too.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360710The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

Bravo.

As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360733Bravo.

As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Oh I have always realized it.  Which is why I called him out on it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360733As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Yeah, I just find it amusing because nobody I know in the real world who plays RPGs shares the same wacky ideas.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360710We had wine, fruit, some jaffa cakes, tea and coffee but it failed to stop Ithaqua destroying Arkham far too easily and devouring each of us in turn (bad dice its all about the bad dice).

The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

This here wins the grenade issue.

More to the OP, rules that get in the way for me are the ones that cause me to think of the rules more than my character and the pretend world he/she/it inhabits, rules that cause me to think of my character and he/she/it's world in rules terms most or all of the time, and rules that take so much time to run conflicts in that there's only time for one or two such conflicts before the session is over and the very little progress is made otherwise.

Quote from: two_fishes;360577I would say that in each of those cases it was foreknown that the heroes were going to die before the movie even started (300, Excaliber, and Spartacus being especially prevalent examples of this) or it was clear that this was a pretty likely outcome before the movie was half-way through. (though I haven't seen Silent Running so I can't speak for that one.)

Lord of the Rings... did we see Boromir's death coming? Harry Potter... did we see Diggory's death coming? How about Sirius Black? How about Dumbledore? Surprise deaths happen too. Apparently with greater frequency in movie franchises aimed at kids.

In the case of Star Wars, don't you remember how most of the time (at least in the original trilogy) was spent running away from someone?

Quote from: Seanchai;360618* What Would Han Solo Do

He would run away.

Quote from: two_fishes;360688No, actually, you're dodging the point i raised entirely. Yeah, there are movies where the hero dies, and in those, their deaths are relevant. So what? That is a point that irrelevant to my point--that there are very many movies where the hero has considerable script immunity and there there is no expectation that he will die. The existence of movies where the hero dies doesn't disprove that there are movies where the viewer knows he won't. Even if i set aside Die Hard as "arguable" since it is being argued, that leaves movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Batman Begins, as well scores of written fiction. The authors of those fictions use all sorts of tricks to create tension despite our knowledge that certain characters are simply not going to die. Many rpgs which emulate those fictions use the threat of character death to replicate that tension. It's easy and effective but it's not an especially most accurate method of replicating what is actually going on in those films.

Die hard killed off a bunch of folks IIRC. Star Wars illustrated real risk by the "if you're hit you're out of action" rule and the characters constantly running away (plus a few one-sided slaughters like in the opening scene or with Luke's parents and the Jawas). But Indiana Jones movies and superhero movies make the "death is not an issue" obvious NOT because they are action movies but because they are single-protagonist action movies... like Kill Bill or something.