Managing High-Leathlity Games

[Beta Centauri]

If you make that argument, welcome fellow existentialist! Note the same thing applies to you IRL. Now feel sad, and embrace the nihilism! We all die, no ifs ands or buts about it. Making all your actions meaningless! So who cares what you do, right?

It's not the same, because I can't just make another character in real life. And since this isn't a game, there's no expectation that it be enjoyable: the consequence of screwing around isn't that I just go home early and do something else, but could be a lot of pain and suffering without the luxury of a metastate that allows me to admire how realistic this all is.

Here's why you're wrong. You see, if you run your character intelligently, you won't die. You'll only die if you make a poor choice. Which is the point. If a 1st level charges against the Dragon, they've made a poor choice.

Then what are we even talking about? No one does something like that who either didn't read the rules, or is deliberately trying to screw around. The idea of lethality seems to be, for you, just a way to make yourself feel superior to some imaginary group of screw-ups.

That character would die. If the GM saves them, all the GM's done is reward poor decision making. The player paid no consequence. Why does the player even have HP then?

Continuation of the false dichotomy. It isn't "live" or "die," where one is always the reward and one is always the consequence. It's "succeed" or "fail," and one can fail even if they survive, and succeed even if they die.

If all the GM can think to do with a dragon is have it kill a character, then that sounds like a GM problem to me. I won't bother listing the dozens of alternatives that pop almost instantly into my brain, that a clear failures for the character, but not death; I'm sure you can think of your own.

HP exist for a reason. To let you know when characters are dead. Because character's die.

And you make another one and keep going. So what?

And most of the time, characters die because of the decisions their player made. And the only things to blame are the players and the dice.

Ah, yes: don't blame the GM, right? Never the GM.

No, most of the time, players die because of a decision the GM made. Even if the GM rolled on a random table, they were the one the one who decided to do that, and who interpreted the results.

You say:

The problem is, you assume that every encounter has to be a contest. Instead of assuming that random events can place players into unwinnable circumstances and that players should be smart enough to recognize that.

Whether or not it's unwinnable, and whether or not that's going to be recognizable to the players, is almost entirely in the GM's hands. If they roll "green dragon" on the table, then the GM is the one who decides whether the dragon is able to just surprise them and gas them all, or if it's a situation they can deal with. In the latter case, if they survive, didn't the GM "save them"?

It's the same with player ideas. If the player wants to run and attack the dragon, the GM is the one who decides whether that's fatal or something else. The GM decides what's "foolish" or not.

So, if you're saying that lethality is about consequences for poor decision making: great! I can have a"high lethality" game, and simply decide that the "poor" decisions are poor for unfortunate (to the character) reasons, but not lethal. Done!

Try to respond to this post without using the words "jump" or "cliff." Let's keep things original here, shall we?

If a player can't die, what meaning do hit point rules even function? Why have them anyway?

Unconsicousness, for one thing.

And HP can really mean anything. They're just a pacing mechanism for combat. A table could decide, for a given combat, that 0 HP means the opponent drops the McGuffin they're holding and teleports away.

If tomorrow, you woke up and you could never die, you want me to believe that it would not not change your decision making paradigm?

No, but the characters don't know they can never die. And before you say "But the characters would figure out that they can't die": My characters don't figure out anything I don't want them to figure out, the same as any other fictional creation.

You want me to believe you wouldn't be reckless?

No, because my recklessness could have serious consequences for things I hold dear.

Without death's sting, life has no meaning.

Untrue. The threat of cessation of the things around us can also give life meaning.

With a threat of death, players have the free rein to make horrible decision after horrible decision.

Only if death is the only consequence you can imagine. But I'm sure you're smarter than that.

At that point, what exactly is the GM supposed to do? He's suck cleaning up their messes until the somehow dig themselves out of the hole.

I'm not sure what this means. The GM doesn't have to care if they dig themselves out of their "hole." But the GM can help make that hole worth the players spending their free time on.

It'd be fun in football if you could kick off-sides. But you can't, because doing so radically alters the nature of the game. And not in a good way.

Says you. I don't personally see how it would make a big difference. One side will still win and the other will still lose. Individuals will still rack up statistics, meaning that even a player on the losing team can actually come out far ahead.

Failure other than death isn't cheating, the way trying to kick offsides would be. It's just a different set of stakes.

[Thrudd]

Assuming by "high lethality", you are talking about something like Basic/Expert D&D completely by the book, no fudging. (Or retro clone like labyrinth lords, dark dungeons, ACKS)
Possibly 1e AD&D by the book, as well (though that is a bit more forgiving). This means random encounters, wandering monsters, xp for treasure, morale and reaction rolls, etc.

Note that this does not mean characters will inevitably be killed in every adventure, nor that the DM is always sending overpowered things at the players purposely trying to kill them. We should assume a good, responsible DM that is doing their best to make the game fair and fun.

The assumed format is that the pc's will begin in a town or city or other safe location where they can procure equipment and find out about possible adventures. They need such a place to return to or retreat to in between dungeon expeditions.

Any particular adventure and the game world as a whole should be able to take into account the fact that the characters will likely need to make more than one trip to the dungeon, and will possibly need to wait weeks in between expeditions in order to heal wounds. If your adventure breaks because the players retreat and need to heal before coming back, you have designed your adventure inappropriately.

When a character dies, there are different options depending on the level of the characters and the resources available to them. At low levels where resurrection isn't an option, the player generally rolls up a new character and waits for a chance to be introduced to the party. Usually the party will be looking for a replacement for their fallen member, so it makes sense to bring in the new guy. Since it is likely they will be retreating back to town shortly after losing someone anyway, it shouldn't take too long.

At mid and higher levels, the party will have henchmen, lower level NPCs that are members of the party they can boss around. If a player loses their main character at this point, they might choose to play as a well liked henchmen instead, "promoting" them to full party member.

One alternative possibility that I think is fun is to have each player roll up a few different characters at the start of the game. This group if characters is an adventuring company or part of a guild. On each expedition, each player chooses one character from their stable to participate. Players could switch characters for every adventure if they want to. If a character dies, you have more ready to go, and a built in reason for them to be there. When they reach high enough level to get henchmen, this also makes sense, they are new recruits for the company.

Having a character die is not the end of the game or the end of fun. Sometimes you need to wait a few minutes before you can get back into it. Forced into being a bystander temporarily is one possible motivation to do your best to avoid your characters death.

[Duke of URRL]

You have to decide how much the narrative is focused on a few heroes on an epic quest. If you're framing it heavily in that direction, things may be quite tricky, unless you have very skilled players and give them options. The more your players need to replace major characters, the more it'll go against the theme and narrative.

It's a bit wrong to think this view. This is the storytelling view. Like this is the story of Luke, so Luke can never die as the story must come to a happy ending. It's classic Lord of the Rings, or even Eberron thinking: ''only the small handful of people can save the world and everyone else is useless.'' It's just as easy to replace a character as it is to give them immortality.

Injuries take a while to heal in most realistic/high lethality games, so make sure your players have the option of waiting a month after a really rough fight. Alternatively, you can have each player keep several characters, shuffling between them when injury and death occurs.

The shuffle works great. But High Lethality can have whatever healing you have in any game. If you like having heal bots in the game so all characters are at 100% at all times or doing 15 minute days, those can both work for a high lethality game.

High Lethality really has nothing to do with injuries. low or high injuries is really separate.

For any given situation, the harder it is the more options your players should have. If you have them constantly fight DnD style encounters, their deaths are only a matter of time. Engaging threats strategically should be rewarded and encouraged.

There is no reason high lethality needs more options. Death is not just a matter of time.

Would you say ''in a no lethality game it is only a matter of time before the DM fudges, twists, breaks, ignores or rewrites the rules to keep a character alive? Like: ''The giant throws a boulder at Zorm! '' DM looks over his notes sees that Zorm has three hit points left and rolls damage total of 22 and says ''the boulder does 2 damage!'' Player of Zorm "Wow, Zorm lives, he was at three hit points!'' DM-"er, um, yea, wow....what luck''

[Knaight]

If tomorrow, you woke up and you could never die, you want me to believe that it would not not change your decision making paradigm? You want me to believe you wouldn't be reckless? Without death's sting, life has no meaning. With a threat of death, players have the free rein to make horrible decision after horrible decision. At that point, what exactly is the GM supposed to do? He's suck cleaning up their messes until the somehow dig themselves out of the hole.

The vast majority of risks I don't take don't have death as the likely failure condition. There are tons of ways things can go horribly wrong without you dying in the process, and the absence of the threat of personal death by no means implies that every other threat out there disappears.

[Arbane]

Here's why you're wrong. You see, if a character is run intelligently, thet won't die. They'll only die if they make a poor choice.

Sometimes, the 'poor choice' turns out to be 'turn left instead of right' or 'talk to this person' or 'play in this group'. And sometimes, in some games, 'playing intelligently' requires a definition of intelligent that includes actual mind-reading capacity to figure out what that sadist of a GM is expecting.

Granted I find the idea of ANY party getting through Tome of Horror's with no deaths utterly preposterous unless there coming at it as WAY higher level casters then ToH was intended for with exhaustive use to Divination and Conjuration and Transmutations first. But if there doing that there not charging in head long, there using a different plan which suits the game better.

ISTR one of Gygax's players managed it - as a FIGHTER. He did this by
a: knowing Gygax's favorite screw-you traps and
b: herding about 200 prisoners (orcs, I think) ahead of them.

If a player can't die, what meaning do hit point rules even function? Why have them anyway?

"I can't kill you, but you'd be surprised what you can live through."

If tomorrow, you woke up and you could never die, you want me to believe that it would not not change your decision making paradigm? You want me to believe you wouldn't be reckless? Without death's sting, life has no meaning. With a threat of death, players have the free rein to make horrible decision after horrible decision. At that point, what exactly is the GM supposed to do? He's suck cleaning up their messes until the somehow dig themselves out of the hole.

There are PLENTY of ways people can screw up their lives and everything they care about that don't involve dying. (The noted Killer GM John Wick once ran a Champions campaign where he promised not to kill any PCs - instead, he BROKE them in ways that were custom-designed to make the players rage-quit or be completely useless. He wrote an essay about it called 'Play Dirty' which I don't recommend reading except as a cautionary tale, as he carried this philosophy forward in his work on Legend of the Five Rings and various other games. )

The vast majority of risks I don't take don't have death as the likely failure condition. There are tons of ways things can go horribly wrong without you dying in the process, and the absence of the threat of personal death by no means implies that every other threat out there disappears.

...what he said.

It's a bit wrong to think this view. This is the storytelling view. Like this is the story of Luke, so Luke can never die as the story must come to a happy ending. It's classic Lord of the Rings, or even Eberron thinking: ''only the small handful of people can save the world and everyone else is useless.'' It's just as easy to replace a character as it is to give them immortality.

Of course, that approach can have its own problems. (Warning: Contains F-bombs.)

[goto124]

Sometimes, the 'poor choice' turns out to be 'turn left instead of right' or 'talk to this There are PLENTY of ways people can screw up their lives and everything they care about that don't involve dying. (The noted Killer GM John Wick once ran a Champions campaign where he promised not to kill any PCs - instead, he BROKE them in ways that were custom-designed to make the players rage-quit or be completely useless. He wrote an essay about it called 'Play Dirty' which I don't recommend reading except as a cautionary tale, as he carried this philosophy forward in his work on Legend of the Five Rings and various other games. )

*sunders players' weapons*

[Jay R]

Roleplaying games got their start with high lethality.

Not as much as most people think. Tomb of Horrors is famous because it was so unusual.

Of my first ten characters, starting in 1975, only two ever died. There was high risk, but we worked hard to avoid it.

I don't remember ever finding a campaign, or anybody who talked about a campaign, in which characters routinely died. But we all know we could, if we didn't sometimes cut and run.

[Beta Centauri]

When a character dies, there are different options depending on the level of the characters and the resources available to them.

Yes, like you said, resurrection (which many tables flat out remove, because it "cheapens" death), replacement characters (likely somewhat boring unless the henchmen were chosen for their suitability as back-ups), or back-up characters. I prefer the last option. With some forethought, there doesn't have to be any delay in the player's ability to participate.

Having a character die is not the end of the game or the end of fun.

Agreed. That's why I don't understand what's particularly tricky about running a "high-lethality" game. If someone dies, they just go to a back up. I believe that in Dark Sun, which was originally designed to be a very lethal setting, players were advised to have a "tree" of several connected characters, each of whom could step in quickly if their primary one died.

Sometimes you need to wait a few minutes before you can get back into it. Forced into being a bystander temporarily is one possible motivation to do your best to avoid your characters death.

I'm very much against this. Sure, even when one's character is alive and present there are going to be lulls for the player, but I don't see why we should accept a game that can completely eject players, for any amount of time at all, who are playing legally. If people are happy to sit out, or enjoy risk-mitigation for its own sake, great, but "you won't get to play the game" is a preposterous incentive in a friendly, cooperative game.

[Thrudd]

I'm very much against this. Sure, even when one's character is alive and present there are going to be lulls for the player, but I don't see why we should accept a game that can completely eject players, for any amount of time at all, who are playing legally. If people are happy to sit out, or enjoy risk-mitigation for its own sake, great, but "you won't get to play the game" is a preposterous incentive in a friendly, cooperative game.

There are concessions that need to be made in the cause of verisimilitude and immersion in the game world. Unless the backup character was in the same location already (henchmen or players running multiple characters simultaneously), you have to wait until it makes sense for another character to show up. Every time a character finds themselves incapacitated, you can't have someone else coincidentally show up exactly at that moment. Once the players' actions and the environment gives you an opening to fit in a newcomer, that's when it happens.

[aspekt]

For my part I plan on including magical healing. My players would find sitting around for a month boring. They have day jobs ; )

So what I'm trying to determine is if I make the encounters deadly enough can I let the "magic flow baby!" Or do I really need to consider limiting it?

[veti]

Not as much as most people think. Tomb of Horrors is famous because it was so unusual.

Of my first ten characters, starting in 1975, only two ever died. There was high risk, but we worked hard to avoid it.

I don't remember ever finding a campaign, or anybody who talked about a campaign, in which characters routinely died. But we all know we could, if we didn't sometimes cut and run.

Yeah, there seems to be a slight disconnect in this thread about what "high lethality" really means.

To me, it means Kenny Rogers playstyle: "Know when to walk away, and know when to run". Play cautiously, and there's every chance you'll live to become rich and powerful enough to survive those sorts of risks. But some people seem to interpret it as "the GM plays against you, and throws in threats for the specific purpose of killing you". That's a different thing entirely.

It seems to me there's a large middle ground between "bring a dozen prerolled characters" and "DM-supplied invincible plot armour". But there's no real agreement about where, on this spectrum, "high lethality" begins.

[Beta Centauri]

There are concessions that need to be made in the cause of verisimilitude and immersion in the game world.

Depends. What's more likely to pull a player out of their immersion? A slightly unrealistic world, or literally being pulled out of the game they were immersed in?

Unless the backup character was in the same location already (henchmen or players running multiple characters simultaneously), you have to wait until it makes sense for another character to show up. Every time a character finds themselves incapacitated, you can't have someone else coincidentally show up exactly at that moment. Once the players' actions and the environment gives you an opening to fit in a newcomer, that's when it happens.

With a little forethought and preparation, it's not too hard to find a plausible way to bring in replacements. The writers of Babylon 5 created "trapdoor" characters, who could quickly and easily be slotted into another character's storyline should the character have to disappear due to an issue with the actor.

But okay, sure, if your group can't manage that, then the henchmen idea might become the better one. Sure, you're playing a scrubby, nigh-useless character but at least it has verisimilitude realistic! Woo-hoo!

Or, resurrection magic. Because that's much more plausible than another living being happening to come by.

The other thing is that it doesn't have to be instantaneous and coincidental for the characters, just the player. A character dying, the PCs heading back to town, and a new character joining the group doesn't have to take any more time than reading this sentence. It probably will, but at least the player of the dead character can be involved, and "immersed" in that activity.

To me, it means Kenny Rogers playstyle: "Know when to walk away, and know when to run". Play cautiously, and there's every chance you'll live to become rich and powerful enough to survive those sorts of risks. But some people seem to interpret it as "the GM plays against you, and throws in threats for the specific purpose of killing you". That's a different thing entirely.

They can easily amount to the same thing, if the players have a different understanding than the GM about when they should walk away. The GM can either shrug and let the players kill their characters (which means it's a relatively high-lethality game), or can drop heavy-handed hints about the wisdom of such action (which means the players effectively have DM-supplied invincible plot-armour).

But that's all just a ridiculous hypothetical, right, because who's ever heard of players having a different understanding than the GM?

It seems to me there's a large middle ground between "bring a dozen prerolled characters" and "DM-supplied invincible plot armour". But there's no real agreement about where, on this spectrum, "high lethality" begins.

Yes, that middle ground is "You probably won't die, but you will (sometimes/frequently) suffer failure."

[Mr. Mask]

Mark: It's harder to say with full recoveries, and it depends what's hit. If its tendons, they won't ever heal. Even really bad cuts to muscle can heal within a couple of weeks. Ribs tend to have complications, in that you can't immobilize the bones.


Jay R: That's what I consider a high-lethality game. You could have additional grit, like less common magical healing, infection, etc..


I recall a podcast from some of the Penny Arcade workers (not Gabe and Tycho) which I found had a great example of doing lethality wrong. If they were meant to engage enemies strategically, it never seemed to come up. Perhaps they were meant to run away from the threats, but everywhere seemed equally dangerous so I'm not sure if there'd be point. Whenever someone died, another character happened to turn up, with a randomized character sheet. So, death was constant, but it was also entirely trivial.

[Beta Centauri]

So, death was constant, but it was also entirely trivial.

I'm still stuck on this: how can it not be trivial unless the player doesn't want it to be?

If your character dies, you simply continue with another one. The only way for one to feel that this is anything but trivial is for one to tell oneself that it is significant because one wants to. Even if one is resurrected instantly, one could find the experience significant.

If one doesn't want to find it significant, then they won't. They'll disengage from their characters and treat the whole thing lightly.

I'm dismissing here the threat of being sidelined, because if the only way to make an in-game event significant is to attach an out-of-game consequence to it, then the game is clearly flawed.

[kardar233]

If a player can't die, what meaning do hit point rules even function? Why have them anyway?

If tomorrow, you woke up and you could never die, you want me to believe that it would not not change your decision making paradigm? You want me to believe you wouldn't be reckless? Without death's sting, life has no meaning. With a threat of death, players have the free rein to make horrible decision after horrible decision. At that point, what exactly is the GM supposed to do? He's suck cleaning up their messes until the somehow dig themselves out of the hole.

If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!

Okay, imagine a hypothetical D&D game where you could not die; instead, when you "died", you're knocked unconscious instead. Now, when the plucky heroes are asked by the King of Somewhere to save his daughter, Lady Someplace from the evil warlord Everywhere, your 'death' at Everywhere's hands means that rather than dying, you drag yourself back to consciousness to find that Lady Someplace had been taken to Everywhere's fortress and sacrificed to the evil god Omnipresence. Everyone in Somewhere spits on your name for failing to save their beloved princess and the King casts you out of his lands in a grief-stricken rage. Your only hope of redemption is to storm Everywhere's fortress and retrieve Lady Someplace's soul gem before the new moon, when Everywhere completes his ritual to desecrate the entire world.

In Khan's words: "I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on . . . hurting you." There are far more awful things to do to a character than simply killing them.

I actually wanted to address this:

Roleplaying games got their start with high lethality. I feel like if dying ruins a player's fun, the player is the problem not the death. While I understand your argument, those kind of consequences still put very little skin in the game.

If Alderaan blows up, my character has skin in the game. I, as a player, do not. When the guy whose a little short for a stormtrooper rescues my character, the campaign goes on with no consequence to me personally. From my point of view, no real consequence has be incurred.

But if my character dies? All that effort, equipment, and roleplaying goes to waste.

See the difference? Death incurs an incentive personal to the player, not the character. That's why you can die in video games.

Okay, so the problem you're having is that your players don't care about in-character consequences for their actions (such as Alderaan blowing up), so instead you're instituting out-of-character consequences for their actions (such as the loss of a character they enjoy, having to spend time out of the game until the new character is introduced, etc). Correct?

That indicates to me that the players don't care strongly enough about their characters to care about the things the character cares about. If someone were playing Princess Leia and strongly cared about the character, they would likely care too about Alderaan and its destruction because of its importance to the character.

Now, having players that don't care that deeply about the character is a fairly common occurrence, but I'd like to propose something: roleplayers such as myself, a couple of friends in my playgroup (and, if I may assume, Metahuman1 and Beta Centauri as well) are inclined to care deeply about our characters, but tend to care less when there is a high chance of character death. Consider that if there are players of that type in your group, the reason why they don't care about any consequences other than character death is that the prevalence of character death has made it so they don't care about their characters. If that's the case then you're trying to solve the problem of lack of investment by perpetuating the lack of investment.

I think the really important thing is to know your audience. High lethality gameplay works for certain kinds of people and very much does not work for other kinds, and it's very easy to misinterpret a style mismatch as an attempt to disrupt the game or lack of interest in it.

[Arbane]

I recall a podcast from some of the Penny Arcade workers (not Gabe and Tycho) which I found had a great example of doing lethality wrong. If they were meant to engage enemies strategically, it never seemed to come up. Perhaps they were meant to run away from the threats, but everywhere seemed equally dangerous so I'm not sure if there'd be point. Whenever someone died, another character happened to turn up, with a randomized character sheet. So, death was constant, but it was also entirely trivial.

"Hide behind the pile of dead bards!"

[Mr. Mask]

Arbane: That about sums it up.


Kadar: You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Some players will take offence if the GM hammers in the fact they lost. If deaths are infrequent, they serve as dramatic points in the group's story. If townsfolk spit at them, and they can't kill said townsfolk... the game, for some, gets to be an exercise in frustration. Killing off likeable NPCs can be a better angle, but it requires you to get NPCs the players care about.


Podcast: With no way to avoid dying, and then you trivialize the death by a literally random character just happening to join their party, with a randomized character sheet so that the player can't play the cool original character concept. It just seems the worst of all worlds.

[Metahuman1]

Mr. Mask: Precisely.

Gygax having a lone fighter beat the Tome of Horrors: 1: How many DM's do you know who would let the fighter successfully sacrifice 200 or so prisoner NPC's to beat there dungeon? None? That's what I thought. 2: I'm familiar with that story. It was in the beta test and Gygax really upped the anti on the module after that cause he never wanted it to happen again. 3: He was only able to do that to him cause he New Gygax inside and out. Most people don't have that kind of intimate ability to second guess there DM to the point were said DM has to seriously start considering the player, not the character, the player, has either become precognitive or telepathic.

kardar22: Damn Straight. Nail on the head man, you have hit the nail on the head.

Let me put it another way. Let's say I'm playing a game based on Fairy Tail. I'll be heavily invested in my character and the world. Game Biased on One Piece? Sure, still heavily invested even though death can happen. (It's rare, but it can happen.)

Attack on Titan? Nope. Not giving a crap about any characters, party members, NPC's, or the world, because I know there is no possible way to win or even survive for more then a few minutes of game time. Period. And that every plan will always fail, period. (Yes, if the canon main characters are NPC's, they can make success happen, but there also wearing more plot armor then the entire cast of every Shonen Anime in the last decade combined, per character, to get that. And it is decidedly DMPC/Mary Sue behavior to bring them in as NPC's. If you have them as the PC's, it's not a high lethality game anymore, it's a "Watch everyone around you die and kill stuff." game.)


Beta Centauri: You've got it.




BootStrapTommy: 2 characters cleared and infamously high lethality module that's designed for 4-6 characters by themselves with minimal effort, and that doesn't scream with a bull horn "THESE CHARACTERS ARE SO FAR BEYOND BROKEN IT'S MIND BOGGLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" to you? If so, you have just expressed you don't have as good a grasp on game balance as you seem to think you do.

[Mr. Mask]

Wouldn't you be interested in playing an Attack on Titan game?

[Beta Centauri]

Podcast: With no way to avoid dying, and then you trivialize the death by a literally random character just happening to join their party, with a randomized character sheet so that the player can't play the cool original character concept. It just seems the worst of all worlds.

To me it seems like a Roguelike.

I never really got into Rogue, but I've been playing a lot of Pixel Dungeon which is sort of a lighter, less complex Rogue. You get to pick your class and subclass, and the stats and equipment are always the same, but the dungeons are randomized, so you might not get the same cool weapon you had before, let alone the same supply of potions and scrolls (which are also randomized so they're unidentifiable from game to game). Sometimes you'll score an awesome weapon and armor, other times you'll score a wand that conjures sheep. You make the best of what you have.

Now, the game certainly rewards caution, and playing to one's strengths. The wizard will want wands, the warrior will want heavy weapons. After the first level, you shouldn't walk on open floor unless you've searched it, because it could be trapped. It's advisable to open doors from a distance in case there's something right behind it.

I have different moods when I play it. Sometimes I want to just get as far as I can in a short amount of time, traps, lurking enemies and dangerous experimentation with potions be darned. I die quickly, but survival wasn't my goal. Sometimes I'll be very cautions, never moving without searching, and never barging into a doorway. Mostly, though, I find both of those modes tiresome and I strike a balance. I'll search as I move, but I'll barge through doors. I'll blithely blow through potions and scrolls and equip potentially cursed equipment, just because I'm more interested in moving things along than being perfectly "smart." Maybe it's not possible to win without either absolute caution and a lot of luck, but I'm okay with that.

I do experience some frustration at some deaths, if I think the game was being cheap or if I misclicked something, but I can just put it down or start right over again. There's no expectation that I sit around watching others have fun, the way there would be at a gaming table. I'm also not expected to play a scrubby character on the level where I just died, so I never feel like I'm not able to do anything. I get to have fun until I decide I'm done.

Point being the one I keep trying to make: lethality is fine as long as downtime is minimized or prevented, and everyone knows what they're in for. But don't expect a lot of player engagement with the characters or the setting.

[Metahuman1]

Wouldn't you be interested in playing an Attack on Titan game?

Nope. For reasons stated above. Among, other things. If you want to know about those other things, I'd suggest popping over to the Attack on Titan thread in media, and asking them about Metahuman1 and his general feelings on the series.

I'm, kinda infamous in my utter loathing of it.

[Mr. Mask]

Beta: Yeah, time not playing has to be minimized. If a player sits around doing nothing, that is an issue. Still, having a randomly generated character just happen to run into the party as soon as they die seems a poor solution. At that rate, you're better off having a wand of resurrection. Henchmen characters, rest points the party can retreat to to pick up allies and lick their wounds, or interesting hooks for new characters, like prisoners or turncoats or survivors from another adventuring party.

[Arbane]

Wouldn't you be interested in playing an Attack on Titan game?

There's a fan-made game called Titan World. It's an Apocalypse World hack, and one of the rules that amuses me the most is that new recruits start at level 0, and only have a first name. They need to survive at least one mission to bother giving them a second name.
(It is, unsurprisingly, VERY high-fatality for zero-level characters. Each level-up, characters gain luck points that go a _long_ way towards allowing survival.)

[Beta Centauri]

Beta: Yeah, time not playing has to be minimized. If a player sits around doing nothing, that is an issue. Still, having a randomly generated character just happen to run into the party as soon as they die seems a poor solution.

Again, it's not "as soon as they die," it's "as soon as the player loses the character." Time in the characters is not time for the players. That new character might come along weeks later, even though five seconds passed in real life.

At that rate, you're better off having a wand of resurrection.

That's precisely the reason resurrection is in the game. Other approaches work, but they either require planning and creativity on the part of the GM or they limit the kinds of adventures that can happen. Henchmen are frankly a pain to deal with, and when you're tired after a week of work, and a little drunk, figuring out a plausible reason why a new character has appeared on a lonely mountaintop might be asking a bit much. So: raise that corpse and keep going!

Henchmen characters, rest points the party can retreat to to pick up allies and lick their wounds, or interesting hooks for new characters, like prisoners or turncoats or survivors from another adventuring party.

Yep. All have downsides or require some pre-planning. Lots of reasons either not to make death the primary default mode, or just go ahead and cheapen death.

I'm talking about this from the GM's side. The GM can expect the players to be cautious, and expect them to be okay with death, but the GM doesn't control that. But the GM does control what the penalties for failure are.

[kardar233]

Kadar: You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Some players will take offence if the GM hammers in the fact they lost. If deaths are infrequent, they serve as dramatic points in the group's story. If townsfolk spit at them, and they can't kill said townsfolk... the game, for some, gets to be an exercise in frustration. Killing off likeable NPCs can be a better angle, but it requires you to get NPCs the players care about.

What do you mean by "can't kill said townsfolk"? Of course the PCs can kill the townsfolk, they're low-level or zero-level commoners. The question is whether the characters are willing to commit murder to soothe their own pride, in the process burning all bridges and ruining any chance of regaining their good name.

If not, they can run from the ridicule to somewhere where someone doesn't know of their failure, or suck it up and try to work to redeem themselves.

To make it clear: I'm not advocating these as the "correct" way to treat the characters in-game; I know how much it can suck if you lose too much this way, as one of our campaigns fell apart because my character lost nearly all ability to contribute. I'm saying that if you want to have harsh penalties for failure they don't have to involve character death.

[Mr. Mask]

Arbane: HA! Sounds great. I should really look into that one. Some day, I ought to get a dedicated group together, and we'd play through a whole bunch of systems over a campaign.


Beta: Yes, the player is not required to wait real life time for the characters to reach a reasonable point. The thing is, the very slight change of, "OK, our group is depressed by our friends' death. We finish this battle (or retreat if it's not going well), pick any loot we can, get our friend's body if applicable, and head back to town." Then a couple of lines about how they meet the new character, and suddenly the verisimilitude does a lot better than a randomly generated char appearing the very next combat round after a character dies.

If a game has resurrection, it ought to be built around it. You could make it Dark Souls, for example. DnD also does it pretty well, I guess.

Well, I figure the GM should plan for these things in advance, even if death isn't too likely. It generally shouldn't be too hard to improvise. Have the next event in the dungeon be a goblin prisoner train or such, with one of the prisoners being the new recruit. The prisoner could even help the adventurers fight the goblins.


Kadar: I've known GMs who put in unbearable jerks the players are meant to put up with, sometimes as a punishment. If you did anything to them, you'd more or less get rocks falled later on, or it'd devolve into an argument about your character wouldn't do that due to alignment or such. So, I'm advising caution.

[Beta Centauri]

Kadar: You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Some players will take offence if the GM hammers in the fact they lost. If deaths are infrequent, they serve as dramatic points in the group's story. If townsfolk spit at them, and they can't kill said townsfolk... the game, for some, gets to be an exercise in frustration. Killing off likeable NPCs can be a better angle, but it requires you to get NPCs the players care about.

The same things can be said about lethality. Some players will take offense if the GM kills their character or forces them to act with extreme caution. The game, for some, gets to be an exercise in frustration.

[Mr. Mask]

Indeed. Players need to agree to the deadly nature of the game beforehand, or it will almost certainly go poorly.

[Beta Centauri]

Beta: Yes, the player is not required to wait real life time for the characters to reach a reasonable point. The thing is, the very slight change of, "OK, our group is depressed by our friends' death. We finish this battle (or retreat if it's not going well), pick any loot we can, get our friend's body if applicable, and head back to town." Then a couple of lines about how they meet the new character, and suddenly the verisimilitude does a lot better than a randomly generated char appearing the very next combat round after a character dies.

Sure, but if it happens often enough eventually people are going to get tired of going through the motions and something will give.

If a game has resurrection, it ought to be built around it. You could make it Dark Souls, for example. DnD also does it pretty well, I guess.

I was mainly thinking of D&D, yes.

For D&D, resurrection magic seems like an afterthought, and it has always been fraught with odd compromises. Its existence appears to acknowledge that character death is a pain, but... only past a certain level, and only at great expense, and only if the character has suffered system shock, etc. The can is just kicked down the road with every edition, though I don't know how it's handled in 5th Edition. Frankly, the whole thing needs reflavoring, starting with hit points and what 0 HP means.

Well, I figure the GM should plan for these things in advance, even if death isn't too likely. It generally shouldn't be too hard to improvise. Have the next event in the dungeon be a goblin prisoner train or such, with one of the prisoners being the new recruit. The prisoner could even help the adventurers fight the goblins.

Exactly. I have a lot of fun getting creative with stuff like this. I once ran an occasional game at a game store, where I couldn't be certain of having the same players every time, and I was expected to find room for customers who wanted to join. The party was off on a mission, and couldn't "head back to town." New players had to accept pre-generated characters, but I had fun coming up with those and how they could pop in. One character was a warforged who had been sealed up inside a room for several years. Another was someone who had just been killed and had woken up in a new body that had been created (without his knowledge) as part of a clone spell.

Kadar: I've known GMs who put in unbearable jerks the players are meant to put up with, sometimes as a punishment. If you did anything to them, you'd more or less get rocks falled later on, or it'd devolve into an argument about your character wouldn't do that due to alignment or such. So, I'm advising caution.

Again, I see the same issue with death. Some of the worst arguments I've seen have been about whether or not a character should have died. Often, it's just about whether the character should have taken damage, because even having death loom prompts unpleasant, game-stressing feelings.

Indeed. Players need to agree to the deadly nature of the game beforehand, or it will almost certainly go poorly.

It's likely to go poorly even if they do agree. It's one thing to agree to an unpleasant hypothetical that one believes one is too smart to have happen to them, it's quite another for it to actually happen to them.

[Mr. Mask]

Played much of Kirby's Epic Yarn, Fable or Wario World (Gamecube)? What are your thoughts on games where players compete, where there are clear winners and losers, or cooperative ones like Forbidden Desert?