Yeah I read it as Matt did, that the GM/Player relationship can be working with every player in the group, not just one.
The more you can blend into the mix building the inter-relationship and plot hooks the better :)
Ah. I didn't see it that way. That seems more reasonable.
I'm not reading it as much as singling just one player out. More that when a player is succeeding at the game, their exploits and activities should help provide the GM with new story hooks because of the depth of storytelling involved, with the two of them building on one another's contributions to the overall story. It's possible for this to be happening for every character, in which case you're looking at a table full of success ;)
Well, I do have this tendency to try and read the nicest, sensible, reasonable, or logical explanation into things, even if it isn't worded that way or even intended that way ;) So I could be completely off in how I read it. On the other hand, it also means I have very little issues with any RPG rulebook as I'll just read it the way that looks like it'll work best rather than worrying about what the author actually means ;)
Well, that certainly makes sense. The more invested the group is, the more they should like the game. And a reasonable reading is logical.
But the way Gygax presents it seems awfully focused on one individual, as he specifically speaks in the singular. He didn't elaborate at all on this step: what I quoted was the entirety of what he wrote, so nothing to fluff it out some.
Well, that certainly makes sense. The more invested the group is, the more they should like the game.
But the way Gygax presents it seems awfully focused on one individual, as he specifically speaks in the singular.
The optimistic part of my brain wants to say "He's probably assuming a reader that is looking for ways to improve their game, and thus treating them personally in his writing"
(there I go again...)
I can see why he does though, as if he kept speaking in the plural there would be people claiming that you always need a group, as opposed to just a player and GM.
I suspect Gygax has taken the safer and clearer route, as you can always convert player to players, but the reverse is not as likely.
I can see why he does though, as if he kept speaking in the plural there would be people claiming that you always need a group, as opposed to just a player and GM.
I suspect Gygax has taken the safer and clearer route, as you can always convert player to players, but the reverse is not as likely.
yeah, but the first two steps are individual focused, while the next three are group-oriented successes.
I know this is a little deal (and I think you can have non-group success anyways..), but it just stuck out in looking at the five steps.
Now, off to drive in the snow...
Well that's all true, but I guess he wanted to at least start building a dialogue so he had to take some kind of clear narrative, even if all it did was act as fuel for further discourse like we are having here :)
Ahhh what a brilliant fellow he was.
Re: Group success. Three of us were playing the PFACG (Pathfinder Adventure Card Game) last night. That means five locations. As the other two characters were getting one card out of a location deck each turn, my cleric closed THREE locations rather quickly. She then temporarily closed a fourth when the villain was encountered. The ranger defeated the villain and the game was won.
Now, the PFACG is a cooperative game and clearly group success is the goal. Though a character can die and the group can go on to win the scenario, resulting in successful completion, but the dead character doesn't get that reward.
But while we won the scenario (wrapping up the Adventure and allowing us to start the next one), the cleric CLEARLY was the star (in fact, her back is sore this morning from carrying the other two on her back the whole game...). So, within group success, individual success can causes a character to shine brighter than the others.
It really is a fun game to play.
And individual success is great. In fact, I'd say there isn't truly group success unless all individuals are having success as well. It's when everything turns on one character moreso than the others, consistently, that problems occur.
When battles are designed for the one player who optimizes so much more than the rest, or when plots consistently center on one PC and the rest are left out, that's when you start getting alienation. If one character is carrying the entire party, the others are probably going to be jealous or irritated by it.
Of course, some players don't push to be on center stage, and if they really don't want center stage, it's probably best to let them stay in the background. But you need to be able to tell the difference between "I don't want the spotlight" and "I want the spotlight but am too shy to ask for it."
I usually find that the problem is "I want the spotlight, but I think I should be there because I deserve it" - but with no real effort made to earn it.
I've never played a Sorceror, but I was reading about the class in the Core Rulebook over the weekend. I don't think Gygax would have approved of the class, as it is similar to the spell points concept he discussed in Role Playing Mastery:
In both the D&D and AD&D games, the spell-using power of PCs is controlled through the use of a system that requires study and memorization of magic spells before they can be cast. Then, once a spell is used, the ability to cast it is erased from the character’s mind until that character again takes time to study and memorize the particular spell. Well, some years back, there arose a line of thinking that asserted that magic in a fantasy game was best expressed in terms of spell points-characters should be able to cast a certain spell often and repeatedly, with each usage simply costing the caster a specified number of “points” from his magical ability.
The D&D and AD&D games were criticized harshly by advocates of this approach for being behind the times. The fad lasted for a time, with spell-casters spewing forth streams of sorcerous stuff as if they were magical Gatling guns. Everyone wanted to be a magic-user of that sort-but what could stand before such a character? How much fun is a game in which any challenge or problem can be overcome by calling up yet another
spell from a seemingly limitless storehouse of energy? Good-bye, spell-point magic system. This is not a condemnation of the idea of using a point system, but the point system as advocated did not fit the D&D or AD&D game system spells, rules, assumptions, or spirit. The idea is workable still, but needs its own body of surrounding material to operate effectively.
I like 'magical gatling gun.'
Magical gatling guns are fun. The problem is that they encourage the alpha strike strategy, where you dump all your power on the enemy at once.
Of course, very rarely have I played in a game where I seriously, seriously had to conserve spell slots.
But it seems to me that in Gygax's world, the baseline was the Fighting Man. He could do pretty much what a reasonably well-trained human can; wear armor and swing a weapon around. The wizard could do so, so much more. But he was limited by severe restrictions on how many times in the course of a day he could do it. I remember my first character had one spell per day at 1st level. That was it.
I prefer a more powerful (and more magical) baseline, and the D&D community has moved that way over time.
The point system could have fit, simply by restricting the size of the spell energy pool severely. Essentially that's what the sorcerer does; in 2nd edition terms he might have had two spells per day, and known two spells, while the wizard had one, but knew six or more.
The classical Vancian spell system leads to two of my bigger gripes: the first is the way the game is "balanced" around having enough encounters per day that the spell casters need to conserve their spell slots. If you have one encounter per day, the fighter can feel like a chump (or a buffed-to-the-nines superhero). If you have 4-5, the fighter is great because he's going strong the whole way. The other gripe is that of the prepared spell caster trying to guess what spells he's going to want today.
I remember an AD&D Ravenloft campaign we played in high school. The party wizard kept casting 'Grease.' It got to where we made fun of him every combat, and he'd say something like, "It's all I've got." Running around the castle, casting Grease on undead.
I was going to run Raging Swan Press' Retribution (GREAT read) as a one-off 1st level PbP that takes place in a day or two. Somebody asked if I was going to run a second adventure and when I said no, they replied back that they didn't want to play a wizard then, because a short adventure that was only first level didn't offer much to a wizard. I hadn't thought of that. I ended up running a different adventure as part of a campaign. There certainly seem to be some limitations on memorized spellcasters at starting levels. Though I don't think that's necessarily bad. Life skills start out low and work your way up.
Gary Gygax’s 17 Steps to Role Playing Mastery
Step Nine - Role-play your character fully and correctly.
Note: Italics are quotes by Gygax, contained in the book, Role Playing Mastery.
Make sure that your actions, decisions, and behavior as a player are faithful to the role of the PC you are representing. When you have a trait or a tendency your PC does not possess, do your best to keep that aspect of your personal makeup from surfacing during play.
This topic has been discussed earlier in the thread. We've also talked about both the PC knowing something the player shouldn't and the more common occurrence of the player knowing something the PC shouldn't.
I think there's large scale agreement that you are supposed to play your character, not yourself. And if you're playing a wizard, you aren't supposed to leap into melee at every opportunity (hello, Magus).
If I played a Sherlock Holmes RPG, and we were going through an adventure based on one of Doyle's original stories, it's 100% certain I would know more than my PC. But I should not be using that knowledge to make choices my character couldn't reasonably expect to make himself.
Likewise, if your character was an orphan who is uncomfortable around people, they wouldn't be speaking for the group at every opportunity. The character background, skills and feats (and alignment) provide a framework for how the character would act. There's both playing the character as it's been created and also playing it not as you.
Gygax says, Whatever path you select for your PC to follow, you must then begin thinking like that persona. Whether the game is patterned after a real or an imaginary activity, you need to make your mind-set such that you can role-play your character realistically within the game milieu. If you are to be an interstellar explorer, don’t think in terms of becoming rich through trade and commerce. Piety becomes a cleric, caution and alertness a spy or a thief. You should be bold and aggressive as a knight, while as a worker of magic, you will tend toward reclusiveness and mystery. The rules and spirit of the game tell you what you can and cannot do in general and somewhat concrete terms, but it is very much up to the individual to take on the role of the PC and play it well.
Those lines and distinctions have certainly become blurred over the years. The new classes in the Advanced Class Guide are specifically combinations of two classes. The 'types' of characters (really, classes) don't quite fit Pathfinder in 2013.
Not what Gygax intended, but I think somewhat related is that the group makeup can alter your PC's role. I like to play rangers and sometimes find myself up front with swords because we are 'melee light.' That's usually not my goal nor how I build my rangers. But the group's needs dictate that's how he helps out. I could push to stay as a ranged specialist, but that's not what the group needs. I would be remaining faithful to my vision of the character, but I would not really be playing that ranger very well in regards to the actual game we were in.
And of course, some players are simply jerks. They will play however they want, with no regard to their actual PC or the group. They are focused on themselves, not on the character. They usually make the game unenjoyable for the other players and aren't interested in role playing as Gygax defines it in this Step. I think that type of player is going to kill Pathfinder Online for PvE oriented players like myself who would be willing to give it a try.
These are awesome. I just got done with Of Dice and Men and I'm a total sucker for all things Gygax. Thank you very much for these posts H&dub!
These are awesome. I just got done with Of Dice and Men and I'm a total sucker for all things Gygax. Thank you very much for these posts H&dub!
Glad you like the thread. Hope you'll contribute. I haven't read Ewalt's book yet, though it's on my list. Jon Peterson's 'Playing at the World' looks interesting as well.
And it's nearly impossible to find, but Designers and Dragons was a MASSIVE look at RPG history. I read somewhere it's being re-released in more reasonably sized (and priced) pieces.
I found a facebook page for Designers and Dragons . There are a slew of links to product histories that Shannon Appelcline (the author) has written. There's some neat info in them. Find a product you were interested in and have at it.
Here's a sample
I'm blocked from the WotC site at work, but she also has some histories of various D&D things posted there. Find some topics that interest you and see what they say. And please post some useful stuff here in the thread.
I haven't read Ewalt's e.book yet, though it's on my list. Jon Peterson's 'Playing at the World' looks interesting as well.Have you read Gygax's "companion book" to Role-Playing Mastery - Master of the Game?
Yes, I have that one too. If we get all the way through this book, I will probably also do a thread on that on
Of Dice and Men was crap. I hated it, and would glady give you my copy if we ever meet.
Any specifics on why?
FYI: there are a couple of reviews of Role Playing Mastery over on Amazon.
And a couple as well for the 'companion' book, Master of the Game.
Welcome back from hiatus Holmes! Great to see this thread up and running again. It's been too long since I've been in here, and I've missed out on some excellent conversations. Therefore, this post is going to be of the TLDR variety, but I'll try to give a brief summation at the end.
First:
It is not uncommon for a tabletop session to consist entirely of walking around town, buying stuff, checking out different inns, shops, group talk, etc.
Too true! However, I've found myself with unwilling participants in the two separate groups I run at the high school where I work. If anyone wants to discuss the logistics of that let me know, but I digress. With both of these groups the participants have one thing in common. They are coming to the table top game via some "rpg" video game they loved to play. Many of them come to my groups with a specific character in mind, because that was the character they "created" for their "rpg" video game. I'm not joking when I say that the first time some of the characters of these players entered a town, a player asked me something along the lines of, "who are the notable NPCs I can talk to?"
Yikes! Just, yikes.
Obviously with that canned NPC mentality, their idea of a conversation was a selection of dialogue choices. In my experience these players think NPC dialogue is just a means to get access to side quests, or exchange goods for gold. Which is sad, because I have always prided myself on being a GM that creates notable and realistic NPCs, whom I can take the persona of, and carry on an intelligent, in-game, conversation through.
This mentality also leads itself to players using terms like: tank, aggro, spam-heal, etc. I've found a very easy, albeit extremely harsh way to destroy the "this is just a different kind of video game" mentality. I kill one of the players at low level. I mean, I kill them good. A wolf biting the throat out of a victim whilst helpless people watch from their turn in the initiative. As I said, it's harsh, but when the player realizes there's no "save point" to return to, and that they are rolling up a new character, they realize this is not a video game, and that mentality must be left at the door. They all learn, some slower than others, but they all learn.
I'm sure this makes me sound like some roleplaying taskmaster tyrant, out to teach the children of the world what real RPGing is all about. Perhaps some of that is due to me. I like to think of myself more as a guide into the differences, be they big or small and nuanced, between the video game rpg, and the table top. I can also say that I have never had a player leave the game because of my GMing style. In fact, the only time I had a player leave the game, he left because he got a job and his schedule no longer worked with the game.
I guess that about sums up my response to the MMO discussion.
Next:
I suspect the big change since Gygax wrote this is that people do the same thing, but they're playing their character, not their class.
So glad to see theJeff in here. I have come to greatly respect his opinions throughout my time here on the messageboards. I also completely agree with him in this case. The modern day Pathfinder character is not always limited to narrow and specific roles, as they would have been during Gygax' days. Pathfinder, with its archetypes, alternate racial traits, social traits, and now story feats gives a player the ability to create a truly rich character that may not fit at all into the stereotypical view of the Ranger, Wizard, etc. Nowadays you can be a cleric that severely limits their casting ability to become more like a fighter. What role does that character play? Gygax might have trouble with the answer to that. I also think Pathfinder does an excellent job of providing support for creating a character with a rich, complex, intricate, and very real history behind them. The character background options from the Ultimate Campaign book were the factor that clinched my purchase of that hardcover book. There are a wealth of ideas there, and they provide even the least creative of individuals the ability to create a truly realistic character with just the rolls of some dice.
This wealth of complexity helps to create characters that may perform tasks within the group completely outside of what the designers themselves even intended. That, to me, is the magic and power of Pathfinder. My players LOVE to create characters. So much so that I have had to actually tell some players, at various times, to put a halt on the looking at new characters and start getting to know your current character better. This diverse role-blurring, or role-mixing (which, incidentally, is part of what I think the new ACG is intending to do more completely) gives players the ability to create a fully-functioning party of characters where none of them are the "classic four." I'm guessing, and hoping actually, that Gygax may have had visions of just such a game evolving out of the one he created. Perhaps not, but as Matt Thomason seems to do, I tend to think positively about things whenever possible.
This of course brings a whole new meaning to the phrase: "roleplay your character fully and correctly." The correctness of playing something so complex and realistic can be very easy, or very challenging depending on one's viewpoint of what makes it correct. :)
Lastly, I just wanted to chime in on the reading list discussion. I learned a very long time ago (perhaps even elementary school) that I can not read non-fiction for pleasure. I've been reading fantasy fiction for so long that I've become something of a snob/connoisseur of the genre, and can only read books of excellent quality within that category. So while Of Dice and Men may be an excellent book, I'll never read it. I will, however, take other people's informed opinions about these books and blatantly steal them for my own. :P So feel free to tell me why the books are, or are not, good.
Brief summation: 1)MMOs and other "RPG" video games can be a great feeder for the table top, but some mentalities will need to be challenged. 2)Today's Pathfinder is not Gygax' D&D, and that's a great thing. 3) I don't read nonfiction, but I'll shamelessly steal your opinions about it for my own.
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Well, that certainly makes sense. The more invested the group is, the more they should like the game.
But the way Gygax presents it seems awfully focused on one individual, as he specifically speaks in the singular.
The optimistic part of my brain wants to say "He's probably assuming a reader that is looking for ways to improve their game, and thus treating them personally in his writing"
(there I go again...)
OTOH, it's a matter of fact that in the original Greyhawk campaign, it was frequently (though by no means universally) the case that games consisted of him DMing and one player with a host of hirelings and such. IIRC, the first PC to get through Tomb of Horrors was a Chaotic (read evil) fighter, who did so with no other PCs. He had an army of expendable orc mooks instead. Granted, the ones who survived got some good stuff, but a whole lot of them died setting off traps. So Gygax might really be talking in the singular.
OTOH, it's a matter of fact that in the original Greyhawk campaign, it was frequently (though by no means universally) the case that games consisted of him DMing and one player with a host of hirelings and such. IIRC, the first PC to get through Tomb of Horrors was a Chaotic (read evil) fighter, who did so with no other PCs. He had an army of expendable orc mooks instead. Granted, the ones who survived got some good stuff, but a whole lot of them died setting off traps. So Gygax might really be talking in the singular.Well, that certainly makes sense. The more invested the group is, the more they should like the game.
But the way Gygax presents it seems awfully focused on one individual, as he specifically speaks in the singular.
The optimistic part of my brain wants to say "He's probably assuming a reader that is looking for ways to improve their game, and thus treating them personally in his writing"
(there I go again...)
Could be. But he's so "group" driven that I don't tend to think of his approach as being oriented towards expendable NPCs. But again, we're only talking about a couple sentences in one of the stages. It's not a major matter.
That is kind of funny though: sometimes I think it's hard to find players for a game. Imagine what it was like for Gygax!
Of Dice and Men was crap. I hated it, and would glady give you my copy if we ever meet.Any specifics on why?
I reviewed it and found it OK, gave it ****.
"Playing at the World" is better.
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Could be. But he's so "group" driven that I don't tend to think of his approach as being oriented towards expendable NPCs. But again, we're only talking about a couple sentences in one of the stages. It's not a major matter.That is kind of funny though: sometimes I think it's hard to find players for a game. Imagine what it was like for Gygax!
He had a fair lot of wargamers around, though, and at least one of his kids was a gamer. OTOH, finding games that he could *play* was likely kind of problematic for a while....
I actually think of his gaming approach as being oriented towards expendable *PCs*; for all the lip service given to role-playing in the quotes above, the actual D&D/AD&D rules system strongly encouraged character fragility and ephemerality, let's say. More so than BECMI, anyway.
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Welcome to all the new posters, and I'm glad to see mendedwall back.
I think that archetypes are one of the best aspects of Pathfinder. They really add a lot to the player options without "going gonzo." My first choice for a character is usally an Urban Ranger, so I've bought into them. I think they've been more of an asset than entirely new classes.
Regarding roleplaying fully and correctly, I think a distinction can be made between the background given the character and the 'mechanical' choices.
Mechanical Race/Class/Archetype result in a certain range of characteristics. They are broader than they used to be: as mendedwall referenced, the Cleric can be a lot of different things (I'm still trying to adapt to them using swords). And a half-asimar is certainly different than a gnome. But there are rules aspects of races, classes and archetypes: guidelines that the game itself sets. Let's think of these categories as the skeleton for the character.
Background But the 'fluff' background can be virtually anything. Emotions, experiences, lineage: things from outside the rulebook form a set of clothes for the character, fitting over the skeleton.
To RP the character as Gygax is talking about, the player should factor in both the mechanics and the background. Doing one but not the other would seem a variation from the character and not properly fulfilling this Step. Now, it's a game, and if it's more fun that way and doesn't ubalance/'ruin' things, maybe so what? But to play properly and fully, both the skeleton and the clothes need to be considered.
Gygax has a section on character creation, which we'll get to outside of the 17 Steps.
I really need to get The Ultimate Campaign book. I had to pick between that and Mythic Adventures, going with the latter. I found Mythic to be rather disappointing and not of much use to me at all.
As for fantasy books, I'm re-reading Glen Cook's Black Company series. I think it stands out as rather original (albeit, certainly a bit dark). It's also COMPLETELY different from his marvelous hardboiled fantasy series, Garret PI. That Cook could write two completely different series' so well is a testament to his ability.
PS, Garret PI is Nero Wolfe. The Dead Man is Nero, Garret is Archie, etc....
@Alzrius - Welcome.
I mentioned in a later post that I have softened somewhat on my stance, moving more towards a "even if does seem cheap, so what?" take.
But I think one valid demarcation line is how much the GM wants to have to learn. If put up a PbP recruitment post and say everything on the PRD is fair game, that's my decision. But to be fair to applicants, I'm going to have to learn a lot about the witch, the gunslinger, the samaurai and the magus if those are classes that people submit. And that may be more than I want to do.
Now, if I say in my original post, only classes from the Core Rulebook (and maybe the Advanced Players Guide), I've set parameters. Somebody who doesn't like that, or wants to play a class from other sourcebooks, can simply not play in my game.
For a closed group meeting in person, I think you probably have to be a bit more open to different classes because someone might have a significantly reduced amount of fun with the limitations. With PbP, there are usually a slew of applicants and the party selected won't feel 'deprived' by the restrictions.
I suppose this could be asserted to be 'lazy GMing,' but I think GMing takes a LOT of work (for a hobby) and I'd rather take on a load I think I can handle and do well. And that might mean some or all of what Paizo deems official. And thematically, I may think gunpowder is fine in a Razor Coast game, but not in Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands (one of my favorites).
As for balance, that's certainly a debatable topic. Being a half-asimar gives several paladin-like qualities to another class, which I found over-powered in a game I played in. I'm sure there are other examples.
I like to read a lot of third party product, but I often wonder how balanced they are. Including third party stuff in a game probably requires a more thorough review than Paizo stuff.
That was a pretty thoughtful post you wrote: hope you stick around.
PS, Garret PI is Nero Wolfe. The Dead Man is Nero, Garret is Archie, etc....
Oh yeah, Garrett PI is strongly influenced by the Wolfe books. I wrote an article for Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine on the Wolfe Corpus and mentioned the Garrett books.
If folks here are looking for a good mystery series, The Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, which ran from about 1932 to 1974, hold up EXTREMELY well. They are among the best mystery books in the history of the genre. And A&E did a superb tv series starring Timothy Hutton that is out on DVD.
Robert Goldbsborough has written some additional Wolfe books as well, including a prequel that tells when Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin met.
I'm a member of the Nero Wolfe fan club. Seriously....
@Mendedwall - Something I find myself more and more curious about lately is what I perceive are likely the different approaches to in game death between MMO/videogamers (I'll use 'MMO' for both categories here) and tabletop RPG/PbPers (RPGers).Death is easy in MMOs. It's barely a penalty in Age of Conan (AoC). And I would just reload a saved game in Neverwinter Nights.
To a tabletop RPGer, death is to be avoided and (hopefully) is rare. Dare I say, it is tramautic. That character is, in most instances, gone. In AoC, after completing the bat demon quest, and wishing to avoid the five minutes it takes to retrace my route and get back to town (including load times), I have lept to my death from the ruins and respawned closer to the exit. The death penalty didn't really matter.
I cannot imagine voluntarily killing myself in an RPG without REALLY good cause. And quite possibly not even then (sacrifice myself? Hey, you got into this mess, why should I die?).
As your example indicated, the MMO-raised player is going to understand rather quickly that dead means DEAD. But it's a fundamentally different orientation towards the concept. Most 'RPGers first' know that an MMO/videogame is a very different experience than tabletop/PlayByPost and there's not really a shock in the transition. But I think the MMOer coming to RPG is moving into a new realm and there needs to be a change in how they approach the game.
I've played both forms long enough that I understand the intrinsic differences and play both easily. An MMOer might not see it quite the same way.
@Alzrius -- Very thoughtful post. I agree with much of what you are saying, but I do think Holmes has a good point about the GM required knowledge. The expectation of mechanical balance does make many players balk if a GM says "no, you can't use that," but "I don't like it," isn't always the reason we, GMs, say no. Sometimes they coincide. I don't allow guns because I don't want guns in my fantasy world AND because the difficulty and time necessary to learn, understand, and successfully integrate the firearms mechanics is time I'd rather have in prepping other things for our campaigns.
I cannot imagine voluntarily killing myself in an RPG without REALLY good cause. And quite possibly not even then (sacrifice myself? Hey, you got into this mess, why should I die?).
Yes, I know. While I have had a couple of PC’s heroically sacrifice themselves, I try hard to keep them alive. Contrast this to the players who start each game with a stack of “toons”, so that as soon as one build (I can’t even call them a “character’ ) dies, another bigger, better one is brought in. Then they post in threads saying you don’t need to heal during combat!
I'm blocked from the WotC site at work, but she also has some histories of various D&D things posted there....
While I'm sure I've made no shortage of errors in this thread, I just realized I referred to Shannon Appelcline as "she". Shannon is in fact, a "he." My mistake.
And to make this a moderately useful post, here's one of my favorite PF reviewers on Designers and Dragons .
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Yes, I know. While I have had a couple of PC’s heroically sacrifice themselves, I try hard to keep them alive. Contrast this to the players who start each game with a stack of “toons”, so that as soon as one build (I can’t even call them a “character’ ) dies, another bigger, better one is brought in. Then they post in threads saying you don’t need to heal during combat!I cannot imagine voluntarily killing myself in an RPG without REALLY good cause. And quite possibly not even then (sacrifice myself? Hey, you got into this mess, why should I die?).
I don't know about that last bit, but I'll say that given the amount of time it takes to get a PF character together (particularly if it's being brought in at a level over first) I would very much prefer that a player has a backup in mind if they lose a character--I don't want the player to be out of the game for that long. And I've been doing the "if this character dies, what do I want as a replacement?" thing as a player since, well, before the days when "computer games" meant Rogue. Is your argument only with the language these players use?
No, it's treating them as disposable as Kleenex.
Sure, a "back up PC" is fine, and even a Good idea. But a whole stack of them? Going thru several per session?
And of course, if all these "toons' are is a set of numbers, there's no real Roleplaying going on.
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The thing is (returning to the OT), disposable PCs are part of the history of the game, dating back to before I started playing. Remember that D&D grew out of wargaming. How attached does a chess player get to a rook? IMNSHO, the design philosophy behind OD&D (and later 1e) supports a play style in which the conflict, as such, is between the player(s) and the DM, and the PC(s) are the game tokens. Crawled into the Sphere of Annihilation in Tomb of Horrors? Ah, well. The next one won't do that. And given the fragility of low-level characters, why put the effort into a detailed personality and backstory? Expected mortality rates for some OD&D games I was in ran somewhere north of 50% before reaching 2nd level.
Granted, very few people play that way any more, but the style has a long (if not honorable) history in RPGs.
I've never had a backup character ready to go, but it does sound like a smart idea. Sitting around a table not getting to play isn't fun.
I'm playing a cleric in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and several times I've had to heal characters near death(basically, out of cards in your deck). If your character dies, you have to sit out the rest of the scenario (which the party might still win, but you won't get the reward).
I guess the distinction in this discussion is whether you see each character as valuable and something you want to develop, or just a space filler that you can get killed and replace with the next iteration. Both approaches would seem to result in very different play styles.
The thing is (returning to the OT), disposable PCs are part of the history of the game, dating back to before I started playing. Rememb... Crawled into the Sphere of Annihilation in Tomb of Horrors? Ah, well. The next one won't do that. And given the fragility of low-level characters, why put the effort into a detailed personality and backstory? Expected mortality rates for some OD&D games I was in ran somewhere north of 50% before reaching 2nd level. Granted, very few people play that way any more, but the style has a long (if not honorable) history in RPGs.
And as I waffle back and forth: I get that point. Tomb of Abysthor (Necromancer/Frog God Games) is just about my favorite module. Rappan Athuk, same company and campaign setting, is just a pure meat grinder. It prides itself on how many characters die exploring it. I think one person ever survived the whole thing. So it's death on the hoof. And getting attached to your character is probably a bad idea.
I do agree that playstyle isn't in vogue anymore. So the disposable character thing still seems to be more of an MMO mentality than an RPG.
The thing is (returning to the OT), disposable PCs are part of the history of the game, dating back to before I started playing. Remember that D&D grew out of wargaming. How attached does a chess player get to a rook? IMNSHO, the design philosophy behind OD&D (and later 1e) supports a play style in which the conflict, as such, is between the player(s) and the DM, and the PC(s) are the game tokens. Crawled into the Sphere of Annihilation in Tomb of Horrors? Ah, well. The next one won't do that. And given the fragility of low-level characters, why put the effort into a detailed personality and backstory? Expected mortality rates for some OD&D games I was in ran somewhere north of 50% before reaching 2nd level.
Granted, very few people play that way any more, but the style has a long (if not honorable) history in RPGs.
Not since I started playing have they been ‘part of the history of the game”.
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ETA: Response to HolmesandWatson.
That's because the design philosophy behind 3.x discourages disposable characters. It takes a while to create a PF character (even with practice), that character starts out with max HP for 1st level, and isn't dead-dead until -(CON) HP. Compare that to OD&D: it doesn't take long to roll 3d6 in order (even if you have to do it several times), the character can start out with 1 HP, and dies at 0 HP.
It's clear that the 3.x character has far higher survivability, and healing is far more common in a 3.x game (and with channeling more so in PF); I think the difference between OD&D and PF in that regard is qualitatively and quantitatively greater than the difference between PF and 4E. And there's a very good reason for that: most players don't like having character after character evaporate without ever getting to the sweet spot in the game. It becomes less than fun after a while, and having fun is the point of the exercise.
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Not since I started playing have they been ‘part of the history of the game”.The thing is (returning to the OT), disposable PCs are part of the history of the game, dating back to before I started playing. Remember that D&D grew out of wargaming. How attached does a chess player get to a rook? IMNSHO, the design philosophy behind OD&D (and later 1e) supports a play style in which the conflict, as such, is between the player(s) and the DM, and the PC(s) are the game tokens. Crawled into the Sphere of Annihilation in Tomb of Horrors? Ah, well. The next one won't do that. And given the fragility of low-level characters, why put the effort into a detailed personality and backstory? Expected mortality rates for some OD&D games I was in ran somewhere north of 50% before reaching 2nd level.
Granted, very few people play that way any more, but the style has a long (if not honorable) history in RPGs.
I started playing OD&D in 1977, and traces of the play style were still around then; the transition to 1e in 1978 made it clear that at least at that point Gygax still really wanted to discourage getting attached to PCs. When your character ages a year if *affected* by a haste spell, and unnatural aging gives you all the physical handicaps without the mental bonuses, the game designer clearly doesn't want you to have that character for very long. (Or wants to discourage the indiscriminate use of haste by PCs, but there are easier and less hamfisted ways to do that.) When being resurrected drains a CON point from you, and when casting raise dead ages the caster, that tends to discourage players from trying to salvage PCs when they die. When (by the probabilities in the random magic item generation tables) one magic item in eight is cursed somehow, often in a way that will instakill the affected character if they don't happen to have just the right item on hand or spell prepared, and cursed items are completely indistinguishable from their non-cursed equivalents, the game designer *wants* characters to be subject to random death. In the 1e DMG, in the section on scrolls, Gygax comes out and says that DMs should encourage PCs to open scrolls when they're found. And that's because cursed scrolls can do things like polymorph the reading character into a puddle (with, IIRC, no save), or randomly teleport the character 1000 miles away. And then, even if your character manages to survive to 9th-12th level, that's when you're encouraged under RAW to retire and settle down. In short, if you're going to play the game as written, you *will* go through characters like Kleenex, so there's no sense in getting too attached to one until they reach retirement age.
However, that's not a lot of fun for most people, so we have game systems now that support more robust characters that give you the player the expectation that they'll survive long enough to justify putting some effort into developing a persona for them. The thing is, though, that with that breadth of potential play styles out there, you can pick a point on the continuum from character-as-Kleenex to character-as-lovingly-crafted-and-well-developed-person, find a bunch of people who hang out around the same point to play with, and you're gold. The problem comes when your position on the continuum differs too much from where your GM sits, or where the other players sit, as that tends to severely impair the fun-having potential of the game.
Well, it’s possible. I never actually played with Gygax (I did play a game with Arneson). But I have been playing since 1974, and ‘disposable characters” were never a standard part of the game. Sure, the game could be deadly, but my first PC didn’t die until 9th level and then that was an act of martyrdom, and he came back as a demigod anyway.
All those things are true, but with various other magics, easily reversible. Potions to reverse ageing, books, pools, etc to bring back CON, etc. The magic item list was small, but Phat Lewt was everywhere. “WBL” wasn’t even a idea. True, one could rarely buy anything but the most basic, but our PC’s were LOADED. If you didn’t have a major artifact by name level, well you weren;t trying very hard.
Once in a while, Gygax and others would run a “killer” module. ToH is one of those. They were not the standard by any means. Often, you’d get a “mulligan” if your fave PC died in one, you were assumed to have sent in a clone or something.
So, we played the game as written (in fact I wrote part of the game) and no, we didn’t go thru characters like Kleenex. Oh sure, we all have many characters, but that was because you needed an organic played from scratch PC for each game. Rarely would you write up a new PC at a higher level. My OD&D AD&D book has maybe 30 PC’s from 1st thru Demigod, and only the 1st level PC are ‘scratch” the rest were played up.
Now, yes, if you did die and couldnt be brought back, most DM didn’t make you start from level one in a 7th level game, you just brought in a lvl 6 or 7 PC from another game that had ended.
We had many "one off' games that started "OK, I need everyone to bring in a 7th level character than hate orcs, but isn't an elf. No evils".
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Well, it’s possible. I never actually played with Gygax (I did play a game with Arneson). But I have been playing since 1974, and ‘disposable characters” were never a standard part of the game. Sure, the game could be deadly, but my first PC didn’t die until 9th level and then that was an act of martyrdom, and he came back as a demigod anyway.
All those things are true, but with various other magics, easily reversible. Potions to reverse ageing, books, pools, etc to bring back CON, etc. The magic item list was small, but Phat Lewt was everywhere. “WBL” wasn’t even a idea. True, one could rarely buy anything but the most basic, but our PC’s were LOADED. If you didn’t have a major artifact by name level, well you weren;t trying very hard.
Once in a while, Gygax and others would run a “killer” module. ToH is one of those. They were not the standard by any means. Often, you’d get a “mulligan” if your fave PC died in one, you were assumed to have sent in a clone or something.
So, we played the game as written (in fact I wrote part of the game) and no, we didn’t go thru characters like Kleenex. Oh sure, we all have many characters, but that was because you needed an organic played from scratch PC for each game. Rarely would you write up a new PC at a higher level. My OD&D AD&D book has maybe 30 PC’s from 1st thru Demigod, and only the 1st level PC are ‘scratch” the rest were played up. Now, yes, if you did , most DM didn’t make you start from level one in a 7th level game, you just brought in a lvl 6 or 7 PC from another game that had ended.
Interesting...that answers a question I'd had rattling around the back of my mind for a while--given the lethality of RAW, how did characters like Mordenkainen, Leomund, Tenser, etc. survive? And the answer is, the games weren't run as lethally as they could have been.
I know there were potions to reverse aging, but under 1e there was a chance they'd malfunction and undo any previous age reversals; all magic tomes looked alike, so your Manual of Bodily Health was indistinguishable from that Libram of Ineffable Damnation that'll drain a bunch of XP from you.
I don't know; maybe I just had a run of killer DMs. (The very first time I played, our band of 1st-level characters ran into a pair of hostile werebears on the way to the dungeon. Yeah.) It was a year or so after I started playing that I got a PC up above 3rd level.