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Philosophy major?You've actually asked me this once before. I am a professional game designer (yes, with published work) with a severe undertone in sociology.
Before it comes up, I work with video games and not specifically tabletop games, but as Dave Arneson (my game design instructor and fairly famous enemy of Gary Gygax) once told me, "If you think there is a difference you aren't looking hard enough at the core elements".
I will add that in my professional experience, when writing a design proposal or a game bible, you cannot remotely state that atmosphere or player experience is a metric. You can get fired for doing that too often. The game system is defined very rigidly in one section of the game bible, and the intended atmospheric elements and artistic intent are in another. There are reasons for this.
In fact, realize that James Jacobs and Sean K. Reynolds have drastically different job titles and there is a reason for that as well. It is true that they will compromise with one another in meetings I'm sure to achieve the goals of their job title, but that does not mean that grit and atmosphere are part of the rules. They are merely implied by them.
Video games are closed systems. Tabletop role-playing games are not. The design differences to a designer are often reflected in what my primary point is: The audience still has more power than the game designers do. You are not held hostage by the rules.
The reason I ask was your discussions of the semantics of the words reminds me a lot of philosophy major friends of mine. Sorry I've asked before and forgotten.
There are similar mechanics to systems, but as you pointed out one is open and one is closed.
A large portion of the system is built around avoiding death. Hitpoints to unconciousness, with a sub-unconciousness level that means removal from play. As a player, a large portion of you decision making is around how many hit points you have/what your saves vs X are, etc...
Status effects can limit your effectiveness, remove you from A combat, but you aren't removed from play.
Death removes you from play.
Now, obviously we have, and should have mechanisms to overcome this. Even at low levels if a party is invested in a character there are ways to get them back. If they are willing to invest in moving the game to focus on that outcome.
But when you remove penalty from that outcome, when you remove cost, you lessen the deterent in the decision making. When you play a game that allows a limited number of lives vs unlimited lives, wouldn't you agree that you play that game very, very differently?
Additionally, the 3.5 system as opposed to other systems, encourages the world inself to operate on the presumption all parties are involved in the same system. Good guys and bad guys all play by the same rules, with various factors in place (CR system, etc...) to make it more likely the good guys will win most of the time.
But it is understood that anything you can do, the bad guys can do.
A world where death has little consequece is a very different world. It might not be a bad world to play in, SKR gave examples of great stories in some novels that would make exciting settings.
But it is still a very different world. The math of decisions changes significantly.
Think of the Highlander vs the Human. The highlander is not concerned about life in the same way a moral is, save for losing his head and knowing they are always hunter. That is a wonderful setting, but the math the highlander lives by isn't the math most people concieve PCs in Forgotten Realms or Golarion would live by. Or NPCs for that matter.
Yet if we make raising dead simple and cost free, isn't that how it would work? Death by most means is a trivial event with no lasting impact. Wake up on a battlefield in Scotland a few days later and meet Sean Connery.
I am not saying that way is "bad". I am saying that way is not what the setting was or is. That way is a different game in a different setting.
So why go that way, if we aren't trying to play a different game in a different setting?
A guy once told me about this old experiment with criminals in france. They made everything a capital crime, punishable by death. Robbers, arsonists, anything that would've normally landed them in prison but not necessarily meant a death sentence now carried one. The idea was by putting out an extreme threat of punishment it would deter criminals.
Crime skyrocketed, and the types of crimes escalated. The brigands figured as long as I'm getting hung anyway I might as well murder my victims and light their house on fire instead of just robbing them.
I'm not saying this is what WILL happen, but it is one result when extreme, negative consequence was used as a deterent for bad behavior. As to what Touc is saying, I can attest to that. Back in 1e we had a player whose characters died 3 in a row. He got so sick of it he rolled up "Monty"; a village idiot with a spear. Monty was 1st level and the rest of us were 4th-6th. Monty was a moron and blundered about the dungeon, finally taking an arrow to the eye which killed him, but only after he'd stupidly blundered us (on purpose since the player had stopped caring per his own admission) into several unnecessary encounters.
Party Thief: I check to see if the door is locked.
Monty: I knock loudly on the door!
*party groans*
Ogre behind door: Who's there?!!
Monty: (shouting) It's Monty!
Melee ensues...
Now I'm not saying this bad behavior is ONLY from dying a lot, but I'm sure it was a contributing factor. I'm sorry, as Cora above pointed out, if I'm an exceptionally bad GM which is skewing my experiences and perceptions of older editions, but there you go.
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A guy once told me about this old experiment with criminals in france. They made everything a capital crime, punishable by death. Robbers, arsonists, anything that would've normally landed them in prison but not necessarily meant a death sentence now carried one. The idea was by putting out an extreme threat of punishment it would deter criminals.
Crime skyrocketed, and the types of crimes escalated. The brigands figured as long as I'm getting hung anyway I might as well murder my victims and light their house on fire instead of just robbing them.
Do you have a source for this? It set of some old-wives-tale alarms in my head, and I've never read anything about this in literature on the death penalty and deterrence. I think it's probably just made up, or has been wildly distorted.
The reason I ask... (a lot more)
Just about everything you stated in your synopsis I agree with and makes perfect sense. This is one of the few times you remained quite subjective in your hypothetical and it was appreciated. Nicely done and a very well put together response.
Now I will pose a fairly simple question to bring it back to your own personal experiences and keep us on the same topic:
Yet if we make raising dead simple and cost free
Why do you feel like it is simple and cost free? This is something you should discuss with your GM. It is entirely within his power to make it not simple and not cost free without breaking a single Pathfinder rule. The "cost" is all relative to the meaning and value of what is lost at each individual table.
Do you simply have too much Diamond Dust? Is this why you consider it cost free?
Are high level clerics in abundance or always a PC? Does the cleric PC never die? Is this why you consider it cost free?
I'm sure you consider it simple and cost free for a reason, and I'm sure this can be rectified at your table. I'm trying to help you actually enjoy the game. Perhaps the truth of the matter is, you simply have a personal preference to the negative levels, and it's possible it's as simple as that.
There is still no such thing as "This is how the game plays". There is only "This is how the game plays at my table."
Well, it's still not going to be cost free for most people. Even without the material component cost, anyone who isn't a high level cleric or good friends with one will have to hunt one down and hire him to do it: Which involves a trip to a large city and at least 450gp which is out of reach for 1st level PCs and for your average peasant. Reaching that large city could be a dangerous adventure on its own. It's not like you just pop back to life. Someone needs to haul you to a cleric and cast the spell on.
None of that really affects the game that much, but it does affect the world.
Except all that added difficulty is DM fiat. Are you going to do that everytime someone dies. If player A dies and everything you listed is added by the DM and then later on Player B dies and oh hey there is a cleric in this town right next to the gem merchant some players are going to scream favoritism. It's much better IMHO if the penalty is baked into the rules.
More generally, do you really think this is a problem? Do you really think your players are going to change the way they play if this changes?
From what I have seen it certainly can be. We had a player that insists on playing 4th edition because of how hard it is for a pc to die in that system.
Ok, so at low levels - death is still pretty dangerous and may very well be permanent. As thejeff says: it's not an automatic pop-up. By 9th level this all changes; breath of life/raise dead becomes an option by the party cleric and they no longer NEED to seek aid in this arena.
Now I have not had that many campaigns of late that have made it to 9th level, but I would suppose that by this level the party is pretty well established, really powerful; the kinds of people the NPCs LIKE having around. It stands to reason then they take measures to be around. Fair enough?
Ok, so for levels 1-8...resurrection is not a given. What if they get to a Pharasmin who refuses them the spell: "your friend died and honorable death and she follows the Spiral to her eternal rest, as the Mother commands. While it is in my power, it is beyond my will to return her to the mortal." Or perhaps there as TJ says - there might be an epic journey just to get to the power that raises them.
I guess what I'm saying is: I maintain through all this debate that death is only taken lightly if the whole group takes it that way and that character death, in and of itself, should be consequence enough. I don't think I'd ever want to play in a game where death wasn't possible. But by the same token there are SO many tools in the GM's arsenal to remind the PCs that they're mortal, I don't know that I'd concede that another one is needed.
There are a LOT of things that can make players cavelier w/their character's lives. Death mechanics or lack thereof, frustration w/the current build, boredom with the story, or a nihilistic character. I think this game should endeavor to move toward what its players think is fun. In this vein it has created a system of snapon enhancements for the builds, put the rules in the CRB to empower the players, make them more involved and therefore keep them from getting bored as easily, and it has moved away from death consequences.
Vitamin C, I'd have to re-read, but in all this did you ever answer your own question? Why do YOU think PF and others are following this trend with regards to death's consequences?
Why do you feel like it is simple and cost free?
I don't think he claimed it was, just that it was trending in that direction.
It is certainly less costly then previous editions.I'm curious at what point would you consider recovering from death to be too cheap? or rather, what do you consider to be an appropriate level of difficulty/cost
I'm curious at what point would you consider recovering from death to be too cheap? or rather, what do you consider to be an appropriate level of difficulty/cost
I like the question so I'll take up the challenge!
Generally my personal preference does not particularly like death recovery at all. My favorite RPGs do not have any form of death recovery. I also prefer death to be rare and momentous occasions that are meaningful and not simply a result of a failed save.
However, I will re-apply the question and answer specifically to Pathfinder, which contains both death recovery and save-or-die situations.
I find that my interest in death recovery varies drastically from death to death.
There are deaths that seem so lame and unimaginative that I would believe that there's no such thing as "too cheap" because the story element had no meaningful impact and it'd be nice to just move along like it practically didn't happen.
There are other deaths that are so momentous that I would find it irresponsible for that character to come back without some form of drastic scars (either literally or figuratively). That death means that I would hate to see this character again unchanged.
The true answer is like reality. There is no black and white answer that is perfect for every situation and I am proud when I get to play under a GM that recognizes this.
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Also, the die holding back the monster for a round while the rest of the party flees isn't a good example. If the sacrificee can't be recovered or gets eaten before the rest of the group is able to return, you're going to need a bigger spell.
More generally, do you really think this is a problem? Do you really think your players are going to change the way they play if this changes?
I think if the player knows they can be brought back with minimal penalty, the value of the sacrifice is diminished and they will change the way they play if this changes in the same way I would take the chance if I had a cleric nearby with breath of life.
Something I have seen and have done.
We are talking about two things. First, that the trend is less effect currently. That now there is no long term penalty, and how that effects decision making.
Second however, is that if this is a trend that continues in the direction SKR is advocating, even the cost effect with go away and it will be little different than a restoration spell.
I am nearly always willing to soak a spell effect I can have removed to advance winning a given combat. Speaking as a Player I am almost never willing to sacrifice my life, currently, but I am far more willing than I was in 3.5.
Speaking as a GM, it is much harder to explain why every King just doesn't have the treasury invested in 5k diamonds. :)
I'm pretty ok with deaths not being dramatic, or whatever. That's how deaths are in real life 90% of the time. And if you're somebody who walks into the face of death regularly, odds are, it's gonna happen sooner or later, and not to dramatically save the rest of your party. If you want to craft a literary masterpeice, you're going to have to write a book. Don't expect one to just generate itself in a dice based RPG.
As for this, being able to come back to life if your party can get their hands on your dead body is just one of those perks of leveling. Parties that are under a certain level are just SOL, like the level 4 assassin that died in our last 4e session. If you get to that high of a level, it's kind of like, WOO HOO, my character made it to the resable milestone. But still, there are plenty of ways to perma kill you, so I still don't think it's a big deal.
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@Grenmeera - Currently and going forward are two separate issues, so let me deal with them one at a time.
Currently the cost is 5k and two removable negative levels. SKR (if I understood correctly) argued that the 5k should be removed, because through WBL it will be removed over time anyway. The negative levels cost about 500 each to be removed, one can be taken immediately and one can be done about a week later.
So in a week, you only have the gold penalty, which SKR argues will go away anyway since WBL is supposed to be self regulating. Functionally dying has no real and lasting impact.
Compare this to 3.5 and it is no contest which one is a real risk and which one is an inconvienient spell effect. Particularly with negative level effects being so much less in Pathfinder.
Going forward, SKR is advocating removing the gold cost, since it has no functional long term effect, meaning the only impact is the negative levels, which can be easily (and now freely) removed.
Which is my concern with the trend.
At this point, the impact is fairly negligable. It would make sense in many encounters to go ahead and take the dead to help the party win rather than retreat to protect yourself. Not always, but more frequently than I like and much more frequently than you would make that trade in 3.5.
Going forward, without the gold cost, it makes a good deal of sense in many encounters to go ahead and take the dead to help the party win. Negative levels themselves don't really have that much bite, and you would only have them for a short period of time. That extra round holding the monster in position or soaking is huge when you consider action economy and combat duration.
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Do you have a source for this? It set of some old-wives-tale alarms in my head, and I've never read anything about this in literature on the death penalty and deterrence. I think it's probably just made up, or has been wildly distorted.A guy once told me about this old experiment with criminals in france. They made everything a capital crime, punishable by death. Robbers, arsonists, anything that would've normally landed them in prison but not necessarily meant a death sentence now carried one. The idea was by putting out an extreme threat of punishment it would deter criminals.
Crime skyrocketed, and the types of crimes escalated. The brigands figured as long as I'm getting hung anyway I might as well murder my victims and light their house on fire instead of just robbing them.
Not to mention during these times enforcement was arbitrary at best.
These are measures stated but not enforced, and given you are referencing France I would bet they were refering to "The Terror" post the French Revolution when there was more or less martial law imposed across the country to stomp out counter-revolution.
The Brigands were a problem during this time, largely because the army was off fighting in multiple wars and unable to stop them while resources like food were in short supply. That wasn't about laws, that was about trying to scare people into compliance because of an inabilty to police and enforce laws.
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Going forward, SKR is advocating removing the gold cost, since it has no functional long term effect, meaning the only impact is the negative levels, which can be easily (and now freely) removed.
Which I hope does not take place in any revision without some anxiety-causing measurement taking its place. Others may argue the inconvenience (play stops, you have to sit out until raise dead is performed) combined with the possibility the rest of the party could die without your contribution is anxiety-causing enough. But that form of worry has been present from day 1 and is more a natural consequence rather than a mechanism to induce a thrill into combat that your hero could die and if you want him back, it's going to cost you a penalty (but not one so large that you make a "suicide Monty" from hereon out and just lose interest in the game).
@Mark - And sorry, I didn't answer the last question. So let me do so now.
"But seriously my question still stands: what is the advantage to permanently penalizing a player for dying?"
1. Natural selection: Builds that fail will be replaced, rather than the gimped party limping along with Bob the Failbot.
Of course, Bob the Killface McMurderpants could also die to a random critical failure Will save, so that's not a particularly good argument.
2. Motivation: You don't need as many MacGuffins to motivate the PCs if not dying is a strong one in and of itself.
I find that plot is a much better motivation than a McGuffin or just a command to "Live!".
Seriously, what kind of motivation is "not die" in a game? It doesn't motivate you to DO anything. Quite the opposite in fact. If your characters just want to live, all they have to do is GTFO and find a farm somewhere.
3. Impact: "Remember that time I got mummy rot and you cast a spell and it went away" isn't a great story. It is also the same mechanical impact.
"Remember that time the GM introduced this douchey disease that couldn't be cured and I died from it?" is a much better story, I'm sure.
4. Death with no impact is a very different setting than we are accustomed to.
A world with dragons and people who can open inter-dimensional portals is a much different setting than we are used to as well.
5. Disney vs Game of Thrones: Which is more interesting to you?
Ice cream or popcorn, which is more interesting to you?
I'm not sure if you understand this, but people can like MULTIPLE things. I like Disney movies, they're good entertainment, especially Disney/Pixar ones.
I like Game of Thrones episodes/SoIaF novels as well, they're good entertainment too, especially the segments starring Tyrion.
I can like both just fine, I'm sorry that you can't.
That it bothers you to be told that doesn't make it factually not true.Maybe not, but it does make you a jerk for so casually insulting people left and right.Are you arguing the game isn't easier when you don't have any penalty for death?
If you find facts insulting, you are bothered by the facts not the source of the facts.
Please don't make me go back and find every instance of you offhandedly insulting everyone that doesn't agree with you, it would take far too long (edited because I don't feel like getting this deleted for creative euphemisms).
And yes, I am arguing that the game isn't necessarily easier when dying isn't a consequence. As long as there is a goal other than "don't die" the game will be difficult.
You ever play a game with a time limit? You respawn every 15 seconds for free but at a certain point on the map away from the action.
Does it make the game easier when death has no direct consequence? No, because that time limit is still ticking down, and once it hits 0 YOU LOSE, period, end of game. Nobody cares if you never died because you failed to accomplish your objective, which is the whole POINT.
I remember, and I believe I commented saracastically how well that worked for 4e.
For someone who loves to call out logical fallacies, you sure seem enamored with with an odd form of correlation implies causation.
Just because 4e did something and 4e failed does not mean that this thing caused 4e to fail, savvy?
Death is part of the game. I think dying is going to happen, and at higher levels it is almost expected. But there is a relative element as well.Back to 5 dead Bob vs 1 Dead Bill, one of these builds (or players) is better than the other one. They both died, they were both brought back, but one dies 5 times more often.
Why should the game give them the same outcome?
co·op·er·a·tive
[koh-op-er-uh-tiv, -op-ruh-tiv, -op-uh-rey-tiv] Show IPAadjective
1.
working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit.
Just putting that there in case you had forgotten what the word cooperative meant, since Pathfinder is a cooperative game. It says nothing in there (or in any of the other definitions of the word) that someone always has to come out ahead of another person. You're all working towards the same goal and your power level (and chance of success) is determined by the power of the group AS A WHOLE. If Bob dies 5 times and Bill dies once, nobody cares. If Bob dies 5 times and takes a massive penalty for doing so, then he's holding the rest of the group back. THEN they care, but not that Bob died, they care that the death penalties are penalizing the whole group, not just Bob.
Adding to what thejeff said, it isn't a "You suck" message in my opinion. Rather the 99 time out of 100 you don't die, you get a "You Rock!" message.
Using Toz defeat of Elvis as an example, he doesn't remember that victory because it was easy. He remembers it because it was hard.
And it was hard even though his lives weren't limited and he had no real penalty for dying.
Funny that, it's almost like you're starting to agree with what we've been saying.
In his opinion thread, James Jacobs was asked the OP's question. Here's his take on why the game has been moving in this direction (just in the interest of having it in this thread for those who haven't seen it):
....In that vein, others might want to know; why has tabletop RPG game design nerfed consequences such as dying over the past 30 years?Because it's not fun to go to play a game and then end up being punished for playing the game. Dying is already punishment enough—you end up sitting at the table feeling embarassed that you died, and don't get to continue playing the game until your fellow players or the GM brings you back to life. Stacking additional penalties on your character ON TOP OF THAT often humiliating experience is petty and unnecessary, in my opinion. Furthermore... in large part due to videogames (where you can either just reload a save game to undo a death, or where death is really only a minor setback before you can start playing the game again), the culture of gaming has evolved over the last several decades. Tastes in entertainment change as time marches on.
In my experience, those who are disappointed that death has been "nerfed" are GMs, not players.
Taking time to play a campaign or two as a player is really important if you want to become a better GM.
For years, I was almost always the GM in the game. Finally getting to play the game as a player, and not just as a one-shot game but in a whole campaign, kind of opened my eyes to how I as a GM could be more entertaining to my players.
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At this point, the impact is fairly negligable. It would make sense in many encounters to go ahead and take the dead to help the party win rather than retreat to protect yourself. Not always, but more frequently than I like and much more frequently than you would make that trade in 3.5.
Going forward, without the gold cost, it makes a good deal of sense in many encounters to go ahead and take the dead to help the party win. Negative levels themselves don't really have that much bite, and you would only have them for a short period of time. That extra round holding the monster in position or soaking is huge when you consider action economy and combat duration.
You're assuming at this point that your party includes a 9th level cleric who has Raise Dead prepared, right? Otherwise taking that hit means, either burning a 1000gp+ scroll or breaking off the expedition and heading off somewhere to get you raised.
And you'd better hope your sacrifice works. If not, dead people don't retreat well and if they don't have your corpse, you're not getting raised.
Or access to a 9th level cleric. Which means access to a decent sized city before you run out of gentle repose.
And again, two parts. Where we are and where we are going. Where we are is fairly nerfed, where we are going seems comically nerfed.
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Another thing occurred to me. This is only a particular example of a larger trend of reducing consequences through magic.
In real world combat, especially if it's not a one-off fight, but you there will be more opponents, people tend to focus on not being hurt, even to the point of being much less effective on offense, since any real damage will tend to make you less effective in the fight and will take a long time to heal, if it ever fully does. Some RPGs reflect this, especially ones with a modern setting without magic or science fiction healing tech.
Pathfinder does not. Not only are you just as effective offensively when you're down to your last hp, but it's trivial to be healed back up to full for the next fight or at least the next day.
Standing up and taking a few hits to shield others or bring a bad guy down has little to no consequence, since you can be healed cheaply and quickly.Isn't that essentially the same argument you're making for death? If one is bad why isn't the other?
It is the very reason it is a problem in this system.
It is an all or nothing system.
Some other systems have more permanent effects for injury, let alone death. You don't need to fear death in addition to fearing dismemberment.
For the most part in 3.5 nothing bad permanently happened to players other than death. There were some corner cases and the classic fate worse than death, but the big thing you avoided was dying because that mattered. That was a lost level you couldn't ever get back.
Now basically nothing bad can happen to you that can't be cured completely. No risks are real risks. Even for NPCs, since you can bring them back also unless DM fiat comes into play.
It is workable now, with the economic argument, but remove that and why wouldn't every 9th level good cleric spend all day bringing people back with all the lower level ones using Gentle Repose to keep the line going?
Why wouldn't the world be populated with tons of high level characters, if death is just a speedbump. What does it mean to say "I've had the same character since 1st level" other than "I didn't feel like making a new one."
I am not interested in games that use overly complicating rules for realism that slow the game to unplayability on the one side of the spectrum. And I'm not interested in a "Push x to continue" either.
@Joana - Do you think I would have linked to SKR saying to get rid of if saying "This is what the Devs think" wasn't part of my concern? I guess thank you for further illustrating that there is validity in my concern that the Devs are trending toward nerfing death into being less of a fear than, say, mummy rot.
I play more than I GM. I disagree with SKR and JJ on this issue. It is one of the few I disagree with them on, they have forgotten more about the rules than I have ever learned, but I do strongly and fundamentally disagree with them here.
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Missing the point. That's what I meant by "breaking off the expedition and heading off somewhere to get you raised."
I suppose that's no big deal if it was the climactic battle and you were going to head back to the city to sell your loot anyway, but if you don't have instant access to raise dead or breath of life and you weren't done with the adventure, you're now continuing on a man short or breaking it off and heading back to town with the princess unrescued, the BBEG unfought and preparing for your return.
9 times out of 10 a death is occurring BECAUSE it was the climatic battle of the evening.
Death should be rare, random encounters don't generally result in death anymore, at least not at levels where you shouldn't have someone in the party with raise dead. They are intended to soften the party up for the climatic battle of the evening.
And even still, that death has absolutely zero effect in about a week, unlike the edition it was based on and every edition that came before it.
And more importantly, even that seems to be trending to be removed, because of what I believe is a misguided belief that kids today raised in the video game culture can't handle bad things happening and characters dying.
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Another thing occurred to me. This is only a particular example of a larger trend of reducing consequences through magic.
In real world combat, especially if it's not a one-off fight, but you there will be more opponents, people tend to focus on not being hurt, even to the point of being much less effective on offense, since any real damage will tend to make you less effective in the fight and will take a long time to heal, if it ever fully does. Some RPGs reflect this, especially ones with a modern setting without magic or science fiction healing tech.
Pathfinder does not. Not only are you just as effective offensively when you're down to your last hp, but it's trivial to be healed back up to full for the next fight or at least the next day.
Standing up and taking a few hits to shield others or bring a bad guy down has little to no consequence, since you can be healed cheaply and quickly.Isn't that essentially the same argument you're making for death? If one is bad why isn't the other?
It is the very reason it is a problem in this system.
It is an all or nothing system.
So do you agree that we should remove healing magic or at least apply some penalties after being healed?
After all, there should be consequences to taking a sword to the guts, or even just getting your sword arm slashed open. Without real consequences people will rashly take damage rather than retreat or seek cover.
Speaking of missing the point...I am going to assume you really completely misread what I wrote and you aren't trying to put things in my mouth like others on here, since you've been an honest broker in the thread...
The issue is that this is a system where most things are meaningless in the long run, where it only matters from encounter to encounter. Where you at full strength until you fall unconscious.
But there is a reason you to fear death more than unconsciousness. There is a reason why you withdraw, even on the last battle of the night, if another hit will kill you.
There is a reason that cleric is on call nearby with a Breath of Life, or even just a heal, so that you can keep above that "one and done" threshold, and a reason we are all on the edge of our seats for save or die spells.
That reason has always been that unlike the other things that happen from battle to battle, living or dying actually matters in the game. It will carry over. If you die on the last combat of the night, it matters next time you play.
Now, it only matters financially. And according to SKR, that isn't at all.
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I direct your attention to the Kingmaker Obituaries Thread.
9 times out of 10 a death is occurring BECAUSE it was the climatic battle of the evening.Death should be rare, random encounters don't generally result in death anymore, at least not at levels where you shouldn't have someone in the party with raise dead. They are intended to soften the party up for the climatic battle of the evening.
Bad example as nearly every encounter in Kingmaker is in and of itself more or less a one off you go back to town after.
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I thought lower levels were more deadly than higher ones? A critical hit at first is more deadly than a single one at 10th surely.
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I thought lower levels were more deadly than higher ones? A critical hit at first is more deadly than a single one at 10th surely.
But also more rare. Yes it can happen, but it isn't very common anymore considering the added HP.
And characters die at first level. You barely even know them, as a party.
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Hmm, Flood Season was the third issue, I think?
If that is where I think it is, that exactly my point.
The first listing I see for that spell in that book is the CR 12 end boss for the book. THE big fight not only of a given session, but the whole book.
If that is correct, that is a moment where if the party wins, you are done for the evening, you are going to have time to raise him after the fight and not miss any play, and where it would and should be a scary as hell fight.
That is the point I was making. Sure random death can occur (GMs IMHO should try not to have stupid random deaths as much as possible) but most of the time it is during a fight that is SUPPOSED to be hard and SUPPOSED to be scary and climatic for the evening.
If someone dies then, you have between sessions to deal with either figuring out as group if you want to bring them back, rolling up a new character, etc...
Early session death is more GM fail than player fail.
Vitamin C, you've made some excellent points through the course of this thread. You've proven (I feel) the devs are moving away from a permanent consequence resulting from character death. I also feel you've made a compelling case that in the current format of PF it is easier to be raised from the dead: more options, no long-term effects, etc.
Your OP posed these game design shifts as a symptom of the larger problem that you wanted a dark, gritty, real world where actions have consequence and therefore didn't become Disney films. I would ask - have you seen that? ARE these games becoming the game worlds you say they are?
I've not played a single jot in the PF world of Golarion. I've picked up some individual AP adventures to supplement my own homebrew. However I don't seem to see that trend coming out of Paizo. One module seems to jump right off the page at me for consequence and non-Disneyness: Carnival of Tears
I haven't gotten the chance to run my players through it yet, but it seems like it'd be a meatgrinder, at least to my PCs. It has an ACTUAL meatgrinder in it. The adventure is set on a bit of a timeline as well, and the consequences can be quite permanent for the entire town.
Now, whether or not I bring back Raise Dead penalties will affect the darkness of this adventure. The CRs will not change, nor will the timeline, meaning if the party loses someone along the way that person will have to be out for the rest of the adventure or have a backup character or something. Its a mid-level game, but even if they were powerful enough to have a 9th level caster around for BoL or RD that STILL wouldn't affect the pacing of the adventure or its grit.
Now I cede your points that the game IS developing in a certain trend of no-permanent-consequence-for-death, but is it ACTUALLY resulting in a more Disney world? Please, lets have a civil discussion along those lines, since that's what you started the thread with.
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@Mark - There is thematic grit and table tension. Would I accuse the people who brought us the Grauls of not getting down and dirty story wise? No.
But would I argue that having less and less drama at the table because things can always be fixed and overcome is less gritty (and more importantly, IMHO less fun). Yup.
I don't want bad things to happen as a player. Who does? But I love the fear I have of bad things, and I love the thrill when I avoid them.
A participation trophy is not the same as an actual accomplishment.
Let me jump in from the other side of this table:
I like easy mode. I probably wouldn't game if it didn't have an easy mode. I don't like the tension and fear generated from not knowing how something will end up. I love spoilers.
If you let me know you are gonna try to capture my character, or torture her, etc, I will play up the reaction she gives. But, if I as the player don't know it's coming, then I clam up and don't RP well at all.
I want to know I will survive, the game simply lets me know how I survive.
Just my two cents on work break.
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@Nepherti - And that is totally cool. I am glad that unlike others on the other side you aren't attributing things to me I haven't said to create arguments I am supposed to defend.
I have no issue at all if that is how a table wants to play. But it seems to me it is much easier for a table to remove the penalties that exist if that fits play than it is to add them.
@Nepherti - And that is totally cool. I am glad that unlike others on the other side you aren't attributing things to me I haven't said to create arguments I am supposed to defend.
I have no issue at all if that is how a table wants to play. But it seems to me it is much easier for a table to remove the penalties that exist if that fits play than it is to add them.
Why do you think that? You are every bit as capable of adding something to your games as someone else is of removing them. Why do you feel that your preferred playstyle should be the default?
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I love spoilers.
And here are three words I never thought I'll see written in a row like that with nothing between them and no clarification that they are a joke after them. Something new every day, eh?
About the subject of the thread: Pathfinder is not a zero sum game. When the PCs are loosing the GM is not "winning" - he is as much a part of the group as each player is, he just acts up a diffrent role. That means that by talking things through, most groups should be able to find some sort of agreed mutual ground to work from and create the kind of adventures they want to have. If PC death is nt part of that mutual ground, than nobody has any reason to force it happening.
Myself? As a GM, I killed a few PCs in my time. One was eaten by a T-Rex on the isle of dread, one flanked by a large group of hungry ghouls, another eaten by a shark. Even when I allow death to happen I make sure it's spaced out from other deaths, and when running a campaign I actualy try to make sure most of the original PCs stay alive, to have some sort of actual connection from the start of the path to it's end. Don't see that as going easy on anyone though - I find myself cheating for the bad guys more than I do for the PCs, in order to make some fights more intresting.
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That might also be something to consider, when asking why games are trending toward less restriction on rezing PCs - story. Go back and re-read your old 1e modules. Most of them were basically stand alones; one shots with no real "story" to speak of.
No one made whole campaigns through their company's modules - that was left to the GM. The game was more restrictive and less concerned with character continuity through the campaign.
Nowadays even the board game Descent has a contiuity campaign. Games are trending toward linked adventures, whether by creating one long AP, leaving obvious plot hooks for continuation or at least using the same sites such as Darkmoon Vale.
Yet again, I'd say there's nothing inherently good or bad in this. However if this observation is acurate then it helps explain why death has become less restrictive; b/cause there's a sense that you want this PARTICULAR character who started the AP to get to the end and reap the final reward or fate.
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There's not a real difference in difficulty between adding and subtracting rules. Only in that DMs tend to be more reluctant to remove restrictions than to add. :/
And players will downright mutiny if you try and add them.
Come on TOZ, you know it is much easier for a GM to add a nerf than a penalty.