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  • Attack the player, not the character

    From Alex Schroeder@21:1/5 to All on Sat Dec 30 22:11:28 2023
    You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters.
    But there are some things that "attack" players. Like the death of their character involves the player doing things they dislike, like start with
    a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or
    incurs some other loss. Another "attack" I sometimes experience is when character creation takes a very long time. Then fear of character death
    turns into fear of replacement character creation.

    I recently started thinking about certain events as attacks on players
    in that vein.

    If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session
    only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing
    many dozens of goblins turns out to be somewhat boring.

    Similarly, countless waves of weak opposition are boring and sap away
    time. These are challenges that attack player entertainment somewhat
    like character death or long character creation, I feel.

    A half-finished thought, in any case.

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  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Alex Schroeder on Sat Dec 30 23:16:05 2023
    Alex Schroeder <[email protected]> wrote:
    You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters.
    But there are some things that "attack" players. Like the death of their character involves the player doing things they dislike, like start with
    a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or incurs some other loss. Another "attack" I sometimes experience is when character creation takes a very long time. Then fear of character death
    turns into fear of replacement character creation.

    Even in case of character creation time, some players might like to make
    up more characters ahead of time. Longer character creation time might
    also sometimes mean you can have more customization, so some people will
    like that, too.

    Also, sometimes you might want to start with fewer levels, etc, in case
    you want a different challenge.

    If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session
    only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing
    many dozens of goblins turns out to be somewhat boring.

    When playing RPG, combat is not the only things to be involved; it is only
    one part of the game. The RPG is many things.

    Similarly, countless waves of weak opposition are boring and sap away
    time. These are challenges that attack player entertainment somewhat
    like character death or long character creation, I feel.

    If that just happens often, then that just means you (this can be the fault
    of the GM or players depending on what other events occur in the story) are
    not very good at this game, I think.

    --
    Don't laugh at the moon when it is day time in France.

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  • From Alex Schroeder@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 2 17:21:43 2024
    kyonshi, 2023-12-31 11:26:
    If it is clear that the opposition is no match for a party I don't see anything wrong in cutting the fight short, maybe making it less about
    every single roll, but having the attacks determine how long and with
    what effort or expense they manage the fight.
    It depends on the situation, but if a fight drags on too long and new
    forces arrive this might change the tides of the fight. If there is no
    help coming and no problem, maybe just roll for some appropriate damage
    for the PCs and cut the whole thing short.
    You want to keep the game moving.

    I think it depends on what you want out of the game. If you want an
    action filled ride with the referee acting as the master of ceremony,
    then that is a legitimate conclusion – and it is what I used to do. But
    these days I’m looking at it from a challenge-based perspective and from
    this point of view – and given an environment where picking paths is an option – it is up to players to avoid the time drain. I asked them twice whether they wanted to turn the skeletons, for example, and they did
    not. Shouldn’t that decision habe consequences in some way, good and
    bad? I’m not so unhappy about the turn of events. It was simply
    surprising to me that this was the outcome as I had not considered it
    before.

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  • From Justisaur@21:1/5 to kyonshi on Wed Jan 3 07:10:40 2024
    On 1/3/2024 6:51 AM, kyonshi wrote:

    While I am also into the simulation aspect of the game, sometimes the
    time drain is really not worth it.
    I come from this from a different perspective: rolling the dice puts the
    fate of the player characters up to random chance, and if this roll is inherently meaningless (because barring a series of very unlikely
    events) why would I make them roll all this?
    Now I am only speaking about play procedure, of course there still are consequences. A prolonged fight with no chance of losing might trigger
    random encounters, might deplete resources, and decrease stamina of the characters. I just think as a GM I'd rather have them progress further
    to another challenge than spend my time with a fight that's already won.

    I view it differently. I like the odd fight that is easy and a forgone conclusion to illustrate just how powerful the PCs have become. It also
    allows time for the PCs to show their character, do they toy with the
    enemy, have mercy, try to convert them, capture, show off with fancy
    moves etc.

    I had a DM who's view was every fight should be a challenge, my god the
    game started to feel like an endless slog and I lost all enjoyment from
    the play and only played to hang with friends.

    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
    (\_/)\
    `-'\ `--.___,
    ¶¬'\( ,_.-'
    \\
    ^'

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  • From gbbgu@21:1/5 to kyonshi on Thu Jan 11 01:02:37 2024
    On 31 Dec 2023, kyonshi wrote:

    Death is always something to dislike in the game, easier character
    generation makes it easier to get back into the saddle though.


    I don't get to play much anymore, and char gen is way easier now than ever before with online tools.

    Back in the day when you had to do everything by hand the most annoying part
    of PC death to me was the time it took me away from the game to create a new char. It never bothered me I was weaker and had less than the others in the group, a good GM would take this into account and adjust.

    Missing out on solving a tricky puzzle or participating in something interesting while I was rolling stats, buying equipment and selecting spells etc felt like I was on the sidelines watching while the team went on to win a big sporting event without me.

    --
    gbbgu

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