I posted this initially as a comment over at Zak’s blog, but thought I’d put it here too.
There is a common view, I think, amongst role-players of all stripes, that later and newer editions of role-playing games encourage more “story-based” gaming than older ones, or that people who prefer to play later edition games are more likely to be “story-based” gamers. I don’t think that this is a result of system changes encouraging the development of story-based gaming, but a lot of people believe it is due to a kind of gamers’ version of the anthropic principle. When the game started it drew from wargaming, and story wasn’t a big part of it. As it developed over the following 10 years, particularly with the magazine-based theorising (in Dungeon, etc.) story-based gaming became more common. At the same time the systems developed, new ones were released, and obviously products were also released to cater to the wider range of gaming styles available. I think that this diversification, and particularly the interest in story-based gaming and character development, came with the increased maturity of the systems, and the development of the teenage audience into young adults looking for more meaningful social interactions than could be provided by gaming in which each player had 5 or 6 characters that died rapidly (again, I recommend this book as an insight into how the early games were played).
So, when the OSR decided to turn their backs on the later editions, they associated them with this “story” problem. But really the two developed side-by-side. I was doing story-based games with AD&D 1st edition in the 80s, and my reasons for switching to Rolemaster had nothing to do with story – neither did my reasons for switching back to D&D3.5 in the early noughties. I’m pretty confident I’m not unusual in this development process, I’m pretty confident as well that most people who switched away from AD&D 2nd edition did so because it was pretty complex, and more interesting (but often less playable) systems were coming out at that time. We grew up with the game and we diversified with the game.
Similarly this idea that OD&D is associated with regular PC death is also representative of the style of play at the time, not the system. Back when it was a wargaming spinoff, death was all the rage (e.g. the 5 or 6 PCs at a time phenomenon). As the gameplay styles diversified, DMs learnt to balance adventures to match the frequency of death they thought players would bear. It’s perfectly easy to play a D&D3.5 adventure and kill your PCs by the minute. But again, when the OSR decided to return to their 80s roots, they also returned (partially) to that wargaming style, and they associate (probably in some cases blame) the other styles with later game editions – not with, as is probably more likely, the maturation and diversification of a gaming crowd that was largely teenage when the hobby first developed.
Also I think when modern DMs dip into OD&D gaming, they often do so to experience that wargaming style of play, so when people sample OD&D, they often sample it with a particular historically fixed style of play. This doesn’t mean OD&D has to be played that way, or has to be representative of that punishing style of gaming. Compared to pure Rolemaster, OD&D is quite soft, for example. It is exactly the uncompromising harshness of RM which taught me to fudge dice rolls, something the OD&D crowd are very down on. Playing OD&D or AD&D, you can afford to be down on DM fudging (although the AD&D rulebooks are very supportive of this). Playing Rolemaster, not so much…
Anyway the point is that these two phenomena – story based play and the TPK – are not system-specific so much as era-specific. But, because the systems developed with the eras, they two are easily confused.
March 4, 2010 at 12:28 pm
When I played Rolemaster, we could be reasonably certain that if 72 on the critical chart was something like ‘spleen punctured, bleed at 15 per round until unconscious; death from organ failure in 10 hours’ the GM would say ‘oh, no, I meant 27. Sorry about that.’ Though occasionally the GM did have us carting around each other’s slowly expiring bodies looking for an NPC with the equivalent of an organ repair spell.
March 4, 2010 at 12:32 pm
haha, absolutely! If you played RM strictly by the dice, it would be continually very short and very boring. The trick is in balancing the fudging so that the game remains challenging without the players feeling they’re constantly being rescued.
Ultimately I gave up on rolemaster, but it did teach me the value of a carefully-fudged roll for maintaining tension and interest.
March 5, 2010 at 12:01 am
Faustus, I think that you and I took away different things from The Elfish Gene. For me, it’s an illustration of what happened when a generation of pre-teens took a game that was designed by and for adults and tragically misused it. I’m interested in Gygax and Arneson as a way of seeing what the concept of a roleplaying game meant to mature adults who’d been developing their campaign style and relationship to storytelling over years of play. My own formative D&D experiences were either I-kill-you-because-of-childish-dominance-games or it’s-my-world-why-won’t-the-characters-follow-my-plot, so for me, an examination of the earliest days of D&D is precisely anti-nostalgic; it’s a way to unlearn the assumptions I bring to it.
March 5, 2010 at 4:41 am
Certainly, things can break down at the game table when unmistakable “love for an era” replaces group interchange, or makes situational fudging “unfaithful”.
March 5, 2010 at 4:46 am
I have absolutely no opinion on the story v. no story “controversy”. My problem is, someone said this about Old Scholers:
“(I can’t help thinking of these folks as Robin Williams in Hook, finding his inner child by throwing food and ‘never growing up.’)”
…and you defended it.
Someone made a personal remark about a bunch of people based on how they play and you defended him.
That’s the problem here. The rest is fair game for argument among people who, unlike me, happen to care one way or the other about “story”.
March 5, 2010 at 8:23 am
well Zak, “I never claimed I wasn’t judgemental” – that’s how the argument goes, right?
Or how about this: every review of Jack Vance starts with the phrase “his writing style is not to everyone’s tastes”, but a certain someone has decided I’m not qualified to comment on “any creative activity, ever” because I don’t like Jack Vance.
So perhaps you aren’t best placed to comment on manners, judgements and what other people should or shouldn’t defend.
March 5, 2010 at 8:32 am
tavisallison, I think you and I may be the only gamers who’ve actually read that book. I did get the message you got from it, loud and clear (and I hope I made that clear in my review); but the book also makes clear that the style of play being conducted by those boys was pretty common, and it does link that style to the general properties of the culture where the boys were growing up – the sterile wasteland of 70s teenage life. I don’t know if that was the same for Americans, but I grew up in England in the 70s and the general social milieu described in that book was exactly what my life was like, and exactly what the interactions of ordinary teen boys – in and out of the game – were like.
That book is in some wasy really mean, but it also makes some very interesting points about the life of 70s British teenage boys.
March 5, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I’m not denying that style of play was common – I got a dose of it on this side of the pond too. But I think it’s a mistake to draw conclusions like “when the game started it drew from wargaming, and story wasn’t a big part of it” based the assumption that the “development of the teenage audience into young adults looking for more meaningful social interactions” is the only story.
Arneson was 24 when he approached the 33-year-old Gygax with the rules he used to run Blackmoor. Those grew out of the way he and his group were playing wargames, of which his early experiences in the Braunstein games were a natural development. Someone who took part in “the 2008 recreation described them as “somewhere between a LARP, Diplomacy, boardgame and tabletop RPG. The players were given character roles, turn-based order sheets and some plastic WW2 miniatures to represent our units… players spent the bulk of the game milling around in the hallway outside the room in various groups, negotiating with and plotting against each other. Each of the characters had hidden agendas that required us to betray someone, but we also had to work with others in order to achieve these.”
I can’t imagine the people I played D&D or wargames with as a kid creating or successfully playing something like that; nevertheless this, and not what pre-teen wankers like you and I were doing, is the true milieu in which D&D and its relation to character and wargames has to be understood.
March 5, 2010 at 12:28 pm
true true, but I think the game developed through the 80s and 90s to meet the needs of its maturing players, who were primarily the people of our age now, teenagers then. Particularly as the new non-D&D systems came online.
Of course it’s an assumption of mine – we’ll probably never know how the other gaming companies were thinking and developing their work during the 80s, because the only one that will ever get significant coverage will be TSR.
I have to say, reading that paragraph describing Arneson and Gygax – it must be a truly heady experience to have your idea of a hobby become an internationally conducted activity, and your business life as well as your hobby.
March 5, 2010 at 6:27 pm
“But again, when the OSR decided to return to their 80s roots, they also returned (partially) to that wargaming style”
errr…. just no.
I’m not an OSRer but LL, S&W, S&S, BFRPG are anything BUT war gamey.
At least -reading game reports- they are not played as such, while 4e -for example- seems pretty war-gamey.
March 5, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Sorry artikid, but I disagree. OD&D has a much more wargamey feel to it than later editions. Particularly, the absence of skill system and rules pared back to basics for everything except combat, and a very abstract level of combat resolution, are hall marks of a wargamey system. Obviously being RPGs they aren’t going to be played in a squad-level combat way, but that’s what the system was built around and that’s what you have to get if you return to that system.
March 5, 2010 at 7:11 pm
“Particularly, the absence of skill system and rules pared back to basics for everything except combat, and a very abstract level of combat resolution, are hall marks of a wargamey system.”
1)… the absence of a skill system and rules pared back to basics for everything except combat…
I think this creates excellent opportunities, even for “meaningfull interaction” and “story”.
A skill system can be a crutch in play.
Have you seen S&W or the OS primer? Matt Finch goes on at some length regarding this subject.
2) …abstract level of combat resolution…
I think we are coming from different experiences, but where minis and maps are missing I don’t see much of a war game.
Some story games I’ve seen around have even more abstract combat system, actually an ultra abstract resolution system that is used to solve combat and interaction.
Would you say that by using such abstract system they are war-gamey?
Anyway, I’ve said more than I use to.
Enjoy your gaming
March 5, 2010 at 7:18 pm
… and thanks for saying it, artikid. Quick responses
1) you may be right about the benefits of the absence of a skill system, etc., but the benefits or otherwise are a separate conversation to the bit about whether its wargamey
2) we may have different concepts of abstract. I think hit points and damage rolls and minute long rounds are about as abstract as a resolution system can get. Other games have much more detail, and much more character focussed systems (e.g. hit locations, damage penalties, etc.) that make the combat process itself very role-play-ish. Again, casting aside the relative merits of one over the other, I think the former is more wargamey than the latter.
Thanks for commenting!
March 5, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Regardless of who is accusing you of standing by an indefensible statement, you, faustus, either are or aren’t standing by it.
Pick a position:
A guy claimed to know all about the minds of a bunch of gamers he’s never met know based on the fact that they play a differnet kind of game than him–do you stand by that or not?
March 6, 2010 at 12:36 am
are you drunk, zak, to be commenting in the wrong thread using incomprehensible English?
Why do I have to stand by Wax Banks statement? I myself wrote a post doing exactly what you accuse him of, and guess what? I agree with my own post.
Do you still “stand by” your claim that I am not qualified to comment on anything creative anymore ever, because I don’t like the same writers as you? Because that’s really making my point very clearly.
March 6, 2010 at 1:09 am
[…] that says what form that conflict has to take or what mechanics will be used to resolve it. One of the proponents of the fallacy that wargame = hack and slash says “the absence of skill system and rules pared back to basics for everything except combat, and […]
March 6, 2010 at 6:23 am
I deeply apologize for my typographical error.
I stand by my comment, though. Someone can establish themselves as so far from you in terms of taste that you’ve got nothing to talk about in terms of what’s valuable in aesthetics. That happens all the time.
This thing about Banks, though, this is an ethical issue, not a taste issue.
Saying you don’t like the same game someone else does is fine. Saying you know things about their inner life and personality because of what game they play isn’t.
March 6, 2010 at 9:00 am
It’s been my experience that codified skill systems can come across as very abstract and “wargamey” in play.
The “I aid another” dogpile when someone is trying to negotiate with an NPC and the like.
I find that lacking a codified skill system, a character’s skills are what would be reasonable considering the character’s background and abilities. When attempting a “skill check” the player is questioned regarding their methods and intent and so forth.
I find it much more immersive to describe how I craft and place snares and puts nets in a stream than I do saying “I make a survival check to find food.”
2) With combat when I’m DMing I do describe hit locations, consequences and the like. Characters have been hampered by their injuries as well. It also seems counterintutitve to claim that a streamlined, abstract combat system “is wargamey.”
March 6, 2010 at 9:04 am
Also, despite the lack of skill systems and the rules-based emphasis on “wargamey combat” my “old school campaign” revolves mostly about travel, exploration, and interpersonal ineraction than it does combat.
March 6, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Zak, I think it’s impossible to be so far from someone in taste that you can’t have a meaningful conversation about what’s valuable. For example, I explained why I didn’t like Vance’s writing style. You could have told me why you did. Then we’d be discussing aesthetic style. Instead you engaged in classic internet cliche. Note I wasn’t the only person on that thread who defended their perception of Vance with reasoned commentary. The only person not doing so was you.
Once again, I have to remind you, Banks and I are not saying we know things about peoples’ inner life just on the basis of the game they play – we’re drawing conclusions based on the strength of their defense of that game, the reasons they say they like it, and the reasons they say they hate everything else.
You can’t tell me you don’t do the same. In the post where the FLGS guy ripped off your friends sister you made some definitive conclusions about his inner life. What’s the difference between that and me drawing conclusions about, say, the Flame Princess (Raggi) when he writes a post about wanting to bait the world of darkness kids?
Typical OSR assumptions about story-based gamers include:
a) the DM’s on a power fantasy
b) they’re cry-baby emo-kids
c) they lack creativity
d) they aren’t bold individualists
e) they’re not very smart
My post is about why the OSR blogosphere is so full of this crap, and what it says about those people. Banks’s comment was in the same vein.
You need to work out the difference between “that guy’s a tosser for playing that game” and “that guy’s a tosser because he called me a tosser for playing this game”.
March 6, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Blair, it’s true that the skill system makes these actions more abstract but this is done to make them more possible. The reality is that people who don’t have a good mechanical knowledge can’t describe how they disarm the trap; people with no wilderness experience or knowledge can’t effectively describe the trap. And, even if they do, the DM still has to make a judgement, usually arbitrary based on dice. It is this aspect of the game – a judgement system for non-combat actions – which distinguishes it from wargaming, and makes it the different hobby that it is.
What you’re describing there is a type of stunting, in its earliest form – you describe what you do and the DM decides your chance of success based on how well you describe it. This is a skill system, just not a very advanced one[1]. But the lack of systematization makes the game a role-playing game with a wargaming engine.
Your point 2) is interesting because it’s what everyone very quickly learnt to do with the OD&D rules. But the original explanation given for this system was that it was abstract, that the hit points of damage done by a weapon didn’t represent a single wound, but an accumulation of fate, lost chances, etc. and that the minute-long rounds were a deliberate abstraction. You were never meant to describe combat, it was meant to be a wargamey level of abstraction. But the people playing the game wanted that feeling of personal combat, and soon started laying on the description, ignoring the 1-minute round issue. Subsequent games recognised this desire by players to reduce the level of abstraction in the combat, and introduced hit locations, wound effects, etc.
OD&D was characterised by abstract combat and highly-stunted, arbitrary DM decisions on tasks. Because players wanted more detail in combat and less stunting, and less arbitrariness in task resolution, skill systems developed.
Returning to OD&D means returning to these roots.
—
fn1: and one which significantly penalises shy people. I’ve seen many instances of a player being confronted with a task they have to describe, and freezing. Particularly in Feng SHui, where stunting is essential.
March 6, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Banks called out James Maliszewski by name and said
“I can’t help thinking of these folks as Robin Williams in Hook, finding his inner child by throwing food and ‘never growing up.’)”
this isn’t about “those people” this about a specific comment made by a specific person against another specific person.
James has never made a personal remark about any story-gamer, he just says that’s not his style. why can’t you do the same?
March 6, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Actually, he explicitly didn’t do that, Zak. His use of James’s name comes after the statement you quote, preceded by the word “Even”. i.e. he separated James from that statement, and then said that James’s campaign descriptions sound like the slow parts of harry potter.
A little less disingenuous quote mining would be good.
Also James does speak about individual bloggers. And when you write a blog post, it’s there for all the world to be criticised, critiqued, linked to and named.
March 6, 2010 at 1:04 pm
1-Are you claiming that Wally wasn;t including James in the group he describes in his statement?
2-Are you claiming that James has made personal attacks on people for playing plot-oriented games? Where? When?
March 6, 2010 at 1:17 pm
He was including James in the group, but not by name as you claim – he was making an overarching statement about the group, and then identifying James as the least likely to be in that group or vulnerable to that style (hence the “Even”). I don’t know that James would see these opinions as a criticism either – he defends himself vigorously against claims of being a “story-based” player.
I don’t think James has made personal attacks on people individually, but he does name individual bloggers he disagrees with, as do we all. He also (separately) makes overarching statements about what styles of gaming mean and the characteristics of the people who play them. That’s the point of my post (and I gave examples) and the point of Wax Banks’s reply.
The only specific criticism of James in that comment is that his campaign reports read like the slower parts of Harry potter, and he uses his views of pulp literature as a defense against claims about his gaming style. I don’t think the former is very harsh (though James might turn purple at the sight of his name in the same sentence as Harry Potter, who knows?); I think many in the OSR would not be fazed by the latter.
The general criticisms you can take up with me. They’re not about James particularly, and if he thinks they’re worth defending himself against I’m sure he can make the trouble himself.
March 6, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“He also (separately) makes overarching statements about what styles of gaming mean and the characteristics of the people who play them”
name one.
name one that is nearly as insulting as comparing someoe to Robin williams in Hook.
Also: you cite two people in your article–James and Jeff Rients. Neither of these people have ever crossed the line the way “Wally” did.
Anyway:
Identify the posts that support your argument. Quotes. Dates. Facts.
March 6, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Here are some examples:
and lastly
Some of these are comments, some from posts, all collected by random effort in just 2 or 3 days. I’ve found more subsequently, in the process of defending myself against some of the more ludicrous claims made on other peoples’ blogs.
This is without mining the treasure trove of nasty that is Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Old School Rant, both of which are well-respected and regularly commented on and linked to by OSR bloggers across the sphere.
There are some – Robinson’s Games, I think is a good example – which avoid this stuff and identify as OSR.
Also, if you go back a year or so you’ll find a bunch of 4e blogs putting up exactly the same rant as I did. I wonder why that is?
March 6, 2010 at 1:39 pm
None of those are personal attacks in the form of “people who play story-heavy games are _______ kind of people”.
Banks’ statement IS.
Even the “uncreative DM” would only be insulting if he said “predetermined story-type GMs are all uncreative”.
He is saying he has no desire to appeal to people who don’t play his kind of game, this is MILES different from saying people who don;t play his kind of game are immature.
Try again.
Facts. Quotes. Evidence.
March 6, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Bullshit Zak, you’re being overly charitable. I don’t have to explain a comment like “I support the continuing alienation of non-OSR readers”, FFS.
March 6, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Yeah, you do.
I support the continuing alienation of volleyball players on my blog–my blog is not meant to appeal to them, it’s not about their game.
It is NOT by any means as intellectually unethical as saying “old school dungeoncrawl fans are immature”.
Is “I support the continuing alienation of non-OSR readers” really all you’ve got?
March 6, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Zak, volleyballer players aren’t gamers. I might be interested in finding out about aspects of the OSR, why should I have to wade through alienating abuse to learn about the latest gem of a Gygax quote they’ve dug up, or to appreciate a random table?
And saying “the uncreative dm is better off playing something else” is pretty much the same as saying “new school players are uncreative”.
You don’t get this?
March 6, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Not at all. Seriously–answer these questions:
-you think saying “This blog is for people who are into the OSR and not for people who aren’t” is “abuse”?
-you think it’s abuse on the level of saying “people who play OSR are immature”?
-If I say “The uncreative chef is better off not making pizza” then you read this as saying “all chefs who don’t make pizza are uncreative”
Really?
Really?
March 6, 2010 at 2:59 pm
no Zak, I’m saying that if you deliberately aim to make people feel unwelcome by, for example, talking about baiting them or telling them that they aren’t welcome (see the quote on latitudinarianism) you’re being impolite.
I understand after your invocation of internet cliche number 1 that you’re still having a bit of difficulty distinguishing “polite” from “awesomely rude”, but I really don’t need to explain it here. You know as well as I do what the flavour of these comments is, you’re just interpreting them charitably in defense of an argument you really don’t need to make. Here’s another example:
“people who can’t do sandbox games lack initiative”
That’s a paraphrase of about 88 different comments, including from Noisms on this blog.
What’s the inverse of this, do you think? Let’s try:
“people who can’t do narrative games lack socialisation skills”
What’s good for the goose, eh?
March 6, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I don’t stand behind
“people who can’t do sandbox games lack initiative”
if anyone actually said that, fuck ’em.
And, regardless of JM (who obviously offends you so much his value as an example has dwindled to zero)–
Let’s just analyze the truth value of the assertions you and Wally agree on: I roll old school–are you telling me and all the girls in my game that we lack socializations skills (and are immature)?
March 6, 2010 at 4:02 pm
I made this comment on Zak’s blog, and it seems to have mysteriously disappeared. I had hoped it was respectful, but perhaps I crossed a line. At any rate, I hope it finds a better home here.
* * *
Zak —
You clearly have a very strong social conscience, it’s one of your many admirable qualities, but frankly your reaction to this particular issue strikes me as extreme, perhaps even somewhat belligerent.
A fellow made a comment that struck you as out-of-line. But the offended parties (at least those singled out) are all intelligent, eloquent individuals who seem perfectly capable of defending themselves. In fact, nearly everyone involved in this argument, on both sides, appears to be clear-thinking and well-spoken (though almost invariably mule-headed and stubborn, as us RPers are wont to be). In the case of people unable to defend themselves a strong reaction is necessary, but in this case it seems a bit superfluous.
The initial comment itself — right or wrong — was relatively mild as internet insults go. Someone essentially labeled a group of people as puerile. And it’s fine to call them on that if you disagree. But to say “you are not allowed to do this to other people”? I’m sorry, but if you’re crusading against internet hate crime, there’s FAR worse cases of it going on right now, even just within the world of gaming. In fact, the comment in question seems quite similar to those people who say “oh, people are attracted to D&D4 because their minds are used to the simplicity of videogames”. I personally think both comments are empty generalizations, but I’m not going to hulk out at someone for making them, especially if they seem willing to have a dialogue over it.
Finally, concerning the Jack Vance question; if my friend doesn’t like my favourite band (let’s say for example Silver Mount Zion), does that mean that I’ll automatically dislike their favourite band? Cause I’m sorry to say, I would have missed out on a lot of fantastic music if I’d actually thought that way.
Something to consider, at any rate.
March 6, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Faustus, you really need to read over what Wax Banks said again. As Zak says, he fragrantly crosses the line into personal attack territory on several occasions. It’s not a matter of attacking OSR play. It’s “these people are stupid and immature”, couched in slightly more elegant terms
.
March 6, 2010 at 4:24 pm
For the record, there’s a big difference between “sanbox gaming needs more initiative from players” and “people who can’t do sanbox play lack initiative”. Don’t let’s start misquoting people.
March 6, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Depends on how you phrase it noisms. I implied a certain nuance from the follow-up “paternalistic gm” bit. I’m happy to stand corrected on the nuance – but I do wonder what you mean to say with that kind of statement.
Banks did not make a flagrant personal attack (or a fragrant one). But what he and I are saying is inflammatory, and it’s inflammatorily directed at those who are talking up the importance of their worldview over others – not just at people like you or Zak who enjoy a sandbox game.
I really wish I didn’t have to keep repeating this.
Zak, I think many people would forgive me for telling you you lack socialisation on the basis of your “You don’t like Vance so I’m not listening to anything you say” moment. But I recognise that is just a brain spaz. I’m not so comfortable about accusing you of a lack of socialisation on the basis of anything else, because you don’t seem particularly inclined to valorise the grind or its supposed intellectual requirements.
I have parties to attend. Other comments will have to go unanswered for a while. I hope you guys can cope!
March 6, 2010 at 5:04 pm
So you’re saying that “you are immature because you play sandbox D&D” is now actually NOT something you stand behind?
Which is it?
March 6, 2010 at 5:53 pm
I really wish I didn’t have to keep repeating this.
And I wish I didn’t have to keep repeating that Wax Banks wasn’t just having a go at people “talking up the importance of their world view on others”. At this point it’s beginning to seem like you’re being wilfully obtuse.
Have fun. Some of us have to go to work today…
March 7, 2010 at 3:56 am
“Similarly this idea that OD&D is associated with regular PC death is also representative of the style of play at the time, not the system.”
…
Um…
Have you ever read or played 4e? In OD&D every class had between 1 and 6 HP at first level! You could be a FIGHTER, for crissakes, the guy who is supposed to be able to kick ass and take names, with 1 HP! To be felled by a single rock thrown by a kobold!
Lets contrast that with 4e, which (just in case your answer to my two questions was no, you have never read or played 4e) starts characters out with their Constitution score worth of HP + a sum of HP determined by their class AND lets you heal yourself during combat once per combat AND lets you heal yourself more or less at will outside of combat AND says you do not actually die until you reach a value equal to negative one half your HP.
…
You really think PC mortality is a function of style of play?
March 7, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Excuse me, what is “Story-based gaming”?
March 8, 2010 at 9:48 am
zak @39, I don’t think I ever said anything that straightforwardly obtuse. You’ll probably claim I was just inserting plausible deniability, but my post is a little more subtle than that.
Noisms, you worked on a Saturday?
Carl, I wasn’t thinking just of first level in either of these games – D&D characers double their unkillability at 2nd level, then it goes up by 50% again at 3rd level, and so on – they quite quickly become proof against a few sword blows.
But more specifically, I was thinking that the rate of PC Death really depends on the DMs decisions about what and how many monsters to use, what kind of encounter settings to use (for example, whether the PCs get a chance to plan for combat), and so on. Obviously if you run encounters as simple stand-up fights without preparation or warning, strictly according to the random encounter rules, with the appropriate level-balanced monsters, at 1st level D&D and D&D3.5 are much harder to survive in than 4e. But I don’t think many groups do that, and they certainly don’t have to do that. It’s about style.
nagulscodpiece, this definition of “story-based gaming” depends on who you ask. The classic grognard stereotype is that it’s like a DM power trip in which the players move from plot moment to plot moment in a quest to save the world (or the DM’s sister, or whatever) with no personal freedom to choose their own destiny. The reality is more that there is an overarching goal or background plot to the story, and the players make decisions about how to get there. The goal can change during the game, and the story changes depending on the actions of the PCs at each point. So it becomes an interactive story-telling.
Who is nagul, and does he really need a codpiece?
March 8, 2010 at 11:47 am
Oh really? Let’s check:
Whatshisname wrote:
“(dungeoncrawls)They’re ‘boys playing in the woods’ stories, which appeal naturally to those prolonging their shared adolescence. They demand nothing.
“Nearly every old-school campaign chronicle I read these days is like a heedlessly unironic Peter Pan story without the moral content, a geek-triumphalist Lord of the Flies narrated by Jack. (I can’t help thinking of these folks as Robin Williams in Hook, finding his inner child by throwing food and ‘never growing up.’) Even Maliszewski’s campaign…”
And you then wrote:
“You always put these things so much better than me!…”
And defended him vigorously and repeatedly.
So in what way does that NOT translate into: “people who play sandbox D&D are immature”
or, at the most generous:
“I can’t help thinking most people who play sandbox D&D are immature”
“I agree!”
Where is the hair you’re splitting that makes that not an insult?
Please do tell.
July 9, 2010 at 6:03 am
[…] P.S. Yes, I do know this is all a response to the flurry of introspection created by Raggi’s post and that the community isnt monolithic, as witnessed by Joe’ s questioning dissent. I’m just kidding, even if the only person who will laugh with me might be Faustus […]