[D&D 4.0] System Doesn't Matter

[zakarntson]

Here's a quote from the latest D&D Design & Development article (registration required):
Sure, a DM can decide for dramatic reasons that a notable NPC or monster might linger on after being defeated. Maybe a dying enemy survives to deliver a final warning or curse before expiring, or at the end of a fight the PCs discover a bloody trail leading

Comments

[david_chunn]

Wow. I read that and was thoroughly unimpressed. It's just one more step down the wrong path to me. Gamist play won't advance until designers get the death as punishment obsession out of their heads. (Well, you can do it in a few like T&T where you can have a new adventurer primed in five minutes or less.) There are other ways to employ loss conditions.

I play Classic D&D without PC deaths. Instead, we use a very simple wound system as punishment for falling under 0 hp. The wounds subtract ability score points and xp. Been doing this for two years now and it works great.

Btw and off topic... My wife used Shadows in a gifted classroom two years back, and Thord or Relings is a really cool concept. It inspired me to create a game that used many of its ideas.

[zakarntson]

I don't agree, at least with the current D&D incarnation (i.e., a combat encounter engine). It seems that the whole point of most encounters is to kill or be killed. Though Classic D&D (the Red Box/Rules Cyclopedia kind?) isn't nearly as focused on combat like D&D 3.0/3.5. I'm curious to know how often your sessions have combat versus other things.

When I ran D&D 3.0/3.5, it was pretty much one combat encounter to the next, with a little veneer of story to keep things moving. The players would have felt cheated if I didn't kill one of their characters, so long as the dice rolled that way.

...

Thanks for the kind words! It's nice to hear that Shadows is getting played. Thord of Relings is something I keep going back to, too, for my various pulp fantasy game designs.

[david_chunn]

About 75% combat, I'd think, though sometimes it's hard to separate out roleplaying and adventure from combat. Some sessions we have a lot less, though.

I like it when the "killed" result is a measured punishment instead of an actual PC death. The game is definitely geared toward such a loss.

[greyorm]

*sigh*

When things don't work out the way you need them to, as DM, do exactly what you'd kick any player out of your game for trying: cheat! After all, it's the only way to force your garbage...er, story down the players throats in a game where everyone is an equal participant creating an unfolding story that could have any ending -- that the DM wants!

[zakarntson]

Well, that's the sticky widget right there. If the whole group agrees, up front, that the DM is going to run a story and break the rules at times, then you're golden. But I've played with enough groups where "unspoken agreements" weren't actually agreements that I now bring up the social contract right away.

The problem in the quoted text is the implications of story over rules. If the DM's going to go that route, it'd better be made loud and clear to the players.

[counterfeitfake]

I dunno about all this righteous indignation, it happens in video games all the time. Besides, usually the PCs don't really know exactly the criteria for killing the big bad guys, do they?

[zakarntson]

That's a good point. Let me ruminate on this and get back to you. I hope I didn't sound too angry, since I know a ton of groups are happy with the kind of play I deplored above. At least, I hope they're happy, because I'm pretty sure that's how a lot of D&D groups operate.

[greyorm]

I was thinking it might have to do with the fact that in a computer game, the game can't decide to cheat, and neither can the player...rather, that video games are "passive" (pre-constructed) stories, not "active" (emerging?/un-directed?/open?) stories like RPGs.

Or, perhaps, it has to do with this: in a tabletop game, either party can cheat, but only the GM can get away with it without group support or fear of retribution/being over-ruled.

That is, the players almost never get to say, "Nope, I claim story privilege, so my guys lives," or more-to-the-point, "I alter/supercede the rules in this instance to say THIS happens instead for story/dramatic reasons."

That isn't fair in any manner I can see, even if the GM is given free-reign to ignore rules for dramatic reasons. Why him alone if drama/story is important? Isn't everyone's input into the state of the story/drama important and valid?

[counterfeitfake]

I think it's cool the way you want to run your games. I just don't think the other way Zak quoted is so awful either. They're both different approaches but I could see myself having fun in either framework. What's most important is that nobody is an ass, right? If the GM is an ass and makes an adversarial relationship with the players, it's a problem no matter what, right? But I think I have no real problem with a good storyteller taking liberties to involve me in the story he wants to tell.

It's not like I'm a serious RPGer, though...