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Pretty much lost in the OP's overheated, Internet-style rhetoric (deliberately designed to attract as many flames as possible), are some fairly valid points, overstated though they may be. So I thought I'd give my thoughts on a few of them.
-- Somewhere along the way, game designers figured out that there were more players at the table than GMs, and that many (certainly not all) players wanted their characters to be more powerful, and 3.0, 3.5 and PF are the direct result. Very smart marketing strategy.
-- Characters of all sorts are infinitely more powerful than before (but so are opponents, so the game is no more or less balanced than it was before, it just plays at a relatively higher level of power)
-- Many rules that some players complained about that made it more likely for PCs to die or get hurt (deadly traps and poisons, SoD spells, energy-draining, more chance for magical fratricide, low HP for wizards and rogues, etc., etc.). First reaction from the grognards in my group when I introduced 3.0 was "this seems like D&D on training wheels".
-- If you think that WoW and other elecronic media RPGs have not impacted Pathfinder, you're living in a bigger fantasy land than you are playing in. You can certainly argue about whether the effects have been positive or negative but to deny the impact is simply ludicrous. I personally think the impact has been negative on balance, but that's just me.
-- Rule Zero has definitely been weakened in 3.X/PF, in relation to older versions. More and more rules are tightly codified rather than being left up to GM discretion (like social interactions). The sheer volume of rules is much higher. However, still lots and lots of room for GM interpretation, and always will be.
-- The game is definitely more magic-heavy. Players love their toys and the Magic Mart assumption of PF and trivially easy magic item crafting rules certainly deliver them.
-- I don't think players being more entitled is a generational thing at all. I hear the same arguments about "the younger generation" (which I'm not a member of if you haven't guessed) all the time at work, and don't give much credence there either. I think our society as a whole has become more "entitled". For example, we believe we deserve to have generous entitlement programs, the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and a fully-functioning government, while still maintaining the lowest taxation level in the developed world. Then we're shocked and appalled that we have a huge debt. Don't blame it on a generation. We all got here together, folks.
And a few comments on GM-player interaction:
-- A gaming group involves an implied social contract between the GMs and the players. The GM is obligated to put in far more work than the players in building a world and creating/running an adventure, with the goal of facilitating an awesome good time. He is obligated to be as fair and even-handed as possible, but not obligated to be a pushover or give players every little thing they want. The players in turn are obligated to respect the authority of the GM and play their characters to the best of their ability. Both sides are obligated not to be jerks.
-- While the GM builds the world and may have a larger share of "ownership" of it, it is a shared world, and the entire purpose of that world is to facilitate adventures. So, yes, players have every right to expect that gameplay centers on them rather than on the backstory, and that they get to be the heroes of the story. That doesn't mean they should expect the GM to warp reality to cater to their whims, or that everything should always go their way. As my military colleagues like to say, the enemy gets a vote, too.
-- While it is somewhat strange to talk about "reality" in a fantasy roleplaying game, it is important that there is a certain amount of logical consistency necessary to allow suspension of disbelief, immersion and full enjoyment. However, the level of desired "realism" and immersion desired widely varies flow player to player, and some things that bother some players deeply (fighters doing an elegant backstroke in full plate rather than sinking like stones, for example) are no problem for some others.
I'm thinking you may want to switch game systems. They're are a plethora of them out there where "player entitlement" is less baked into the core system, as you ascertain.
Returning to AD&D is always an option, as are the multitude of retroclones, such as Castles & Crusades, Adventures Dark & Deep, and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, could all suit your needs. C&C has 13 classes, only 4 of those have spells, and every single class (except for the fighter at higher level) has only one attack per round.
The sad thing is that I agree with you on some level, magic has lost some of its mystery and sense of wonder that it possessed in the earlier editions, and even slightly on the player entitlement point. But unfortunately you have no tact in expressing your beliefs which only results in inflaming others.
Good luck to you, may you find the players and game you are looking for.
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Frankly, even speaking as the guy who started the 'Does the World Need PCs' thread, I find most of the original OP's stuff kinda crazy.
The world's not a museum, its a stage, and frankly, the old Gygaxian ideal was a world so pants-on-head it wasn't even funny.
Every orc warlord had a +1 sword, but your fighters in town didn't even know they existed. Wandering around looking for berries was the #1 way of encountering the most horrible monsters imaginable. And nobody except for five dudes, maybe, even had the capability of dealing with the dragons who sat around in caves on top of piles of loot.
Pathfinder lets players feel impressive, it lets people feel impressive. If the DM is in it for a storyline, or some fun gameplay, thats good.
Not every game needs to be Dark Souls to not be WoW.
The old school folks, used to think that Gary Gygax's method of DMing was the good one. These days Gary'd probably be viewed a little less..gamely, given that his play style from those 'good old days' was arbitrary and outright based around formenting the ideal of a capricious jackass universe out to melt your face. There /is/ a gaming system for people who want those days back. Its called Hackmaster. Kenzer makes it.
And as for feeding the troll. Trolls, shmolls, if it gives us something to discuss like rational human beings, who cares?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
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I'm sorry, I'm all for "realism" but this is a fantasy roleplaying game, there really should be a sense of escapism for the players that you seem to be missing. I don't want to play some scrubby farmer with a rusty shortsword, I want to be the hero of the story.Thank you for proving my point. Players today want to sacrifice verisimilitude in favor of totally owning all the demons.Who gives a f$$% about "verisimilitude" in a game with where demons exist in the first place?
If you want a realistic game, go play "Farmland and Turnips" not Pathfinder.
In the meantime, I'll be having fun in a game where I can be a guy who can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips.
False comparison. Internal consistency vs external consistency. The introduction of a fantastic element doesn't mean all consistency and logic should immediately jump out the window and commit suicide.
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On the other hand "you aren't special you are just average people who picked up swords".
No. Not. They area by definition special people who picked up swords and are pretty much destined, if they survive, to be a cut above the people around them and also to be plot magnets.
I agree with the OP on the Dragon's Den. If you are building a world and want it to be sandbox then I guess having a Dragon's den is justified, after all bigger creatures exist and the players do need to feel vulnerable for the world to work otherwise they don't get a sense of acheivement as they level up in the world. They can always run away and take it on when they are more powerful (Harrigan in Skull and Shackles anyone?)
I can see where you are coming from about the old school d&d too but then as a player of 1st ed still if you do die then actauly make a new PC up takes minutes. You did not have the plethora of options then and everything including the game was so much simipler and deadly (well apart from the initative mods whicha ara + but you take the amount away from a d8, still boggles me that one). Rolling up a new PC did not take the hours it does now.
As a GM and a player I make sure the game world and adventure works, I invest a lot of time making it as real as I can, I think of new things all the time to add in and spend time on the NPC's. If things don't go the way I planned tough, I don't quibble I adapt and improvise. Players have ALWAYS done the unexpected the thing is not to punsih them for doing something you did not expect, its not thier fault and 9 times out of 10 they make everything more intersting when this happens anyway and challenge you as a GM.
Conversley as a player I invest time building up the PC I want to play using the huge amount of rules and options. I want to see my charcter grow as its an extension of me and I want to feel a part of the world the GM has designed. Having said that I will also not think that the game is centered on me.
Everyone has a part to play and at the end of the day its just a game in which you are meant to have fun. If you are not having fun it's time to hang up the gloves and let someone else take the riegns.
If you like the old school feel go back to 1ST ed or try Savage Worlds instead. Pathfinder and 3.5 is a differenet style of game that has grown up its not as simple as it used to be. If you need to blame someone don't blame the players, blame the game designers of the 21st century for making games more complex and interesting which is the way the majority of the gaming community actually like them. :)
I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
Which is a pretty important distinction in part because it also marked a shift towards giving PCs more survivability. Back when the mechanical side of character creation was often as simple a picking race, class, and rolling ability scores, losing a PC wasn't a big deal. With Pathfinder, if a mid-level PC goes down most players who don't know the system inside and out will be spending the rest of the game session making a new character.
Not many players enjoy dying to a single bad roll five minutes in, and not getting to participate for the rest of the night.
IF you believe that things like WoW and 4e haven't had a meaningful impact on PnP RPGs then I have a '76 Pinto I'd love to sell you. Mint condition.
It's been a two way exchange. Afte all, what is WOW itself pretty much based on.. it's whole character concept is lifted from games like Dungeons and Dragons, classes, levels, even the same six stats for the most part.
Posts like this are a sign of one thing. The gamers of the "70s and '80's are doing the one thing they swore that they'd never copy their parents in.
They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
Just wanted to tell you that was very well said. /claps, not sarcastically.
I think the biggest factor in de-mysterious-izing magic, is simply playing for a few years. It's just not as amazing as the first time you saw it.
While I will technically agree with you here, anytime one is exposed to something for prolonged periods of time they will become more accustomed to it.
However I dont think that is the sole reason, it is a combination of factors. Its a simple as comparing the magical item entries for 1E vs 4E. Everything has become overly quantified, and as such the more the game itself peels back those layers, the less mysterious it becomes.
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They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
For every man, his youth was Arcadia.
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A dragon's lair in a sandbox campaign can be interesting. But whether it's good or bad for the game depends on how the GM handles it.
If the PCs turn left at the crossing and bump into the lair with no warning, they're toast (because the GM doesn't believe in "easy mode" so the worst case scenario applies: the dragon is home. And since that dragon has a 250 fly speed and 25+ Perception...) This isn't much fun; there was nothing the players did wrong, but their characters are dead.
It's also not realistic or probable to bump into a dragon lair without any warning. If the dragon was alive, awake and active in the area, peasants will have seen it flying around. There will be the bones of the dragon's meals strewn around its lair. There may be patrols of its kobold guards. Big footsteps. The curious absence of any other apex predators because the dragon ate all of them. Rumors in the kingdom that a fierce dragon lives in the area; it was last seen flying in that direction after kidnapping the princess and looting the previous ancient dwarven kingdom.
In sum, dragons leave a rather obvious and big imprint on their environment. It's not hard to notice there's a big and very dangerous creature living in the area.
So a good sandbox GM has been dropping these hints for a while, many miles before the PCs even got near the dragon's lair. If a GM drops all these hints, the players will probably be on their guard. If they have common sense, they probably avoid the area altogether until they're higher-level and have done some detective work to figure out what kind of monster lives in that region.
But the prior version: you haplessly stumble into the dragon's lair without any warning, "because it's a sandbox game", that's just unfair.
Rules and culture have shifted together in the direction of superpowers, and roleplaying suffers for it.
I highly doubt this. It may very well have happened to this game (or, rather, throughout the evolution of D&D to Pathfinder), but other games exist.
In Dark Heresy (and other Warhammer roleplays) you can gain permanent disabilities like blindness and lost limbs. Notably, the fix for such things are prohibitively rare, expensive, probably faulty and difficult to implant even if you get them.
In Call of Cthulhu you play regular people facing unspeakable horrors. You fully expect that your character will die or go insane, and the gameplay is seeing how long you can avoid that.
Simiarly, in World of Darkness you can play a regular human. The game can have a computer engineer, a journalist and a carpenter facing vampires, ghosts and werewolves with no prior experience.
Hell, you could simulate this in Pathfinder if you want. Use only NPC classes and have only a 10 point buy. There, regular humans facing a world of monsters, built right into the rules!
IF you believe that things like WoW and 4e haven't had a meaningful impact on PnP RPGs then I have a '76 Pinto I'd love to sell you. Mint condition.
It's been a two way exchange. Afte all, what is WOW itself pretty much based on.. it's whole character concept is lifted from games like Dungeons and Dragons, classes, levels, even the same six stats for the most part.
Posts like this are a sign of one thing. The gamers of the "70s and '80's are doing the one thing they swore that they'd never copy their parents in.
They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
WoW was based on EQ, which was based mostly on AD&D. I think of it like the Telephone game, where people whisper a message around the room, and by the time the message gets back to the first person its always different from the original.
Things have a tendency to get lost in translation, to get skewed as they are repeated and copied. The copy of a copy is never as good as the original (see the movie Multiplicity for example). I too tend to miss the bygone days when simplicity was the norm. Roll stats, pick a class, pick a race, good to go, and everything that made you unique was background, personality, and roleplaying. The story and teamwork were the focus, not ones ability to hit Super Saiyan 4. :P
IF you believe that things like WoW and 4e haven't had a meaningful impact on PnP RPGs then I have a '76 Pinto I'd love to sell you. Mint condition.
It's been a two way exchange. Afte all, what is WOW itself pretty much based on.. it's whole character concept is lifted from games like Dungeons and Dragons, classes, levels, even the same six stats for the most part.
Posts like this are a sign of one thing. The gamers of the "70s and '80's are doing the one thing they swore that they'd never copy their parents in.
They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
WoW was based on EQ, which was based mostly on AD&D. I think of it like the Telephone game, where people whisper a message around the room, and by the time the message gets back to the first person its always different from the original.
Things have a tendency to get lost in translation, to get skewed as they are repeated and copied. The copy of a copy is never as good as the original (see the movie Multiplicity for example). I too tend to miss the bygone days when simplicity was the norm. Roll stats, pick a class, pick a race, good to go, and everything that made you unique was background, personality, and roleplaying. The story and teamwork were the focus, not ones ability to hit Super Saiyan 4. :P
Its all a matter of perspective and opinion. What you see as a better time another would call mind numbingly dull. Many people enjoy character creation that is more complex and in depth. I personally say to each his own as long as they are having fun.
The big problem really isn't what side of that line you are on. It is that a great number of people (on the internet at least.) are just flat unable to see that their opinion is subjective. That how they feel is not absolute fact.
I'm sorry, I'm all for "realism" but this is a fantasy roleplaying game, there really should be a sense of escapism for the players that you seem to be missing. I don't want to play some scrubby farmer with a rusty shortsword, I want to be the hero of the story.Thank you for proving my point. Players today want to sacrifice verisimilitude in favor of totally owning all the demons.Who gives a f*+& about "verisimilitude" in a game with where demons exist in the first place?
If you want a realistic game, go play "Farmland and Turnips" not Pathfinder.
In the meantime, I'll be having fun in a game where I can be a guy who can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips.
Okay, for future reference, when people talk about "realism" and "verisimilitude" in a tabletop RPG, what they're talking about is "internal logic and consistency in the game world," and not "things functioning by the physics of the real world."
This. Perhaps the "but ... Dragons!" fallacy can be retired ...
Is anyone else eagerly awaiting Roberta Yang's response to the OP?
The only reason I didn't immediately go to the last page.
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Every time someone posts one of these laments about how the GMs of today are so horribly mistreated and players of today are so "entitled" I just have to shake my head.
I was a GM within a week of the first time I ever picked up a d20. I've been a GM for 35 years now. I've been a player for 35 years now.
I've played in both roles with teenagers, college students, young adults, family members, corporate ladder-climbers and middle-aged parents and now with grandparents and retirees.
In terms of the dynamic between players and GMs I've not seen a huge difference between 1978 and 2013. The GAME RULES themselves have changed in ways that provide a lot more mechanical clarification, both in terms of character creation and in terms of game play, particularly in combat.
Usually this lament is presented as a defense of the sacred rite of "role playing" and the "entitled" players are presented as mindless video-game programmed munchkin-zombies who descend upon the beleaguered GM like ravenous salivating ghouls who seek any possible source of role-playing goodness and rip it into shreds while the horrified GM desperately tries to salvage some tiny fragment of their precious and perfectly crafted world.
I'm a little tired of trying to present the argument that the Ragnarok of Role Playing has been lamented and eulogized for, well, 35 years at least, and yet somehow my own campaign world is as vibrant, active and relevant today as it was when I drew the first map of an ancient ruined castle between classes in 1978...
I am now pretty much going to have to suggest that if the games you are running as a GM are falling apart because the players have taken over and ripped the verisimilitude apart and left a broken and bleeding mess behind as rampaging hordes of "entitled" players dance on the smouldering reamins....
Maybe it's not the entitlement-trained players of a declining civilization or a misguided generation of video game trained game designers after all.
Maybe, just maybe...
It's you.
This. Perhaps the "but ... Dragons!" fallacy can be retired ...Okay, for future reference, when people talk about "realism" and "verisimilitude" in a tabletop RPG, what they're talking about is "internal logic and consistency in the game world," and not "things functioning by the physics of the real world."
Actually, no... this is why it's a fallacy in the first place.
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If, as a GM, you can't make magic FEEL magical, you are not worthy of that title.
If, as a GM, you can't make magic FEEL magical, you are not worthy of that title.
I would suggest a corollary to this of "If your idea of a magical world requires treating a +1 longsword as a wondrous, rare and near-worshipful thing, Pathfinder is not the game for you."
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If your group is full of non-entitled, reasonable players, and you are posting about the one player you had a problem with, or the people you see on the forums that you think are entitled, I suggest you are looking at a very biased sample. The forums by their very nature are self-selecting, and not at all a representative sample.
Consider that you may be Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling.
I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
Which is a pretty important distinction in part because it also marked a shift towards giving PCs more survivability. Back when the mechanical side of character creation was often as simple a picking race, class, and rolling ability scores, losing a PC wasn't a big deal. With Pathfinder, if a mid-level PC goes down most players who don't know the system inside and out will be spending the rest of the game session making a new character.
Not many players enjoy dying to a single bad roll five minutes in, and not getting to participate for the rest of the night.
Actually, I would argue the exact opposite. In 3.X/Pathfinder, let's face it, beyond a certain level, death is merely an inconvenience and a resource tax, it's not a tragedy. There are no permanent costs for beign raised from the dead, it's not that expensive and it's not that hard to find an NPC to do it. So barring TPK, your character will be back. You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.
Nowadays, players always seem to think the world revolves around them. It used to be that if some orc with an axe got a lucky crit and took your head off, you sucked it up like a sir and rolled a new character.
Wait -- you think whining didn't exist in AD&D? Obviously you were playing with a different group of people than I was!
IF you believe that things like WoW and 4e haven't had a meaningful impact on PnP RPGs then I have a '76 Pinto I'd love to sell you. Mint condition.
It's been a two way exchange. Afte all, what is WOW itself pretty much based on.. it's whole character concept is lifted from games like Dungeons and Dragons, classes, levels, even the same six stats for the most part.
Posts like this are a sign of one thing. The gamers of the "70s and '80's are doing the one thing they swore that they'd never copy their parents in.
They're getting old and cranky. Being fatigued of the changes of the last couple of decades, they look back to what they perceived as a simpler, more correct time, forgetting that back in the day, their parents did the exact same thing.
Actually, my Dad didn't play games at all, and Scrabble was about the limit for my Mom. Neither of them, to this day, understand RPGs or why I play them. They just kind of shake their heads and put it down to some kind of mild mental illness.
In contrast, my two daughters play Pathfinder with me. There is a reason we play Pathfinder, even though I still have all my old AD&D books. It's a better game overall, but that doesn't mean I like everything about it, or don't think that there were some aspects of the old game that I liked better.
Now, that said, GET OFF MY LAWN!
Actually, I would argue the exact opposite. In 3.X/Pathfinder, let's face it, beyond a certain level, death is merely an inconvenience and a resource tax, it's not a tragedy. There are no permanent costs for beign raised from the dead, it's not that expensive and it's not that hard to find an NPC to do it. So barring TPK, your character will be back. You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
Which is a pretty important distinction in part because it also marked a shift towards giving PCs more survivability. Back when the mechanical side of character creation was often as simple a picking race, class, and rolling ability scores, losing a PC wasn't a big deal. With Pathfinder, if a mid-level PC goes down most players who don't know the system inside and out will be spending the rest of the game session making a new character.
Not many players enjoy dying to a single bad roll five minutes in, and not getting to participate for the rest of the night.
But not every table likes resurrection. mine refuse to resurrect fallen heroes
Keep also in mind that this is a more analytical generation. They are growing up on shows like "How was this Made?" "High Tech This and That", and are swimming in a sea of tech not available 30 years ago. It's also a considerably more competitive world as well.I think the biggest factor in de-mysterious-izing magic, is simply playing for a few years. It's just not as amazing as the first time you saw it.While I will technically agree with you here, anytime one is exposed to something for prolonged periods of time they will become more accustomed to it.
However I dont think that is the sole reason, it is a combination of factors. Its a simple as comparing the magical item entries for 1E vs 4E. Everything has become overly quantified, and as such the more the game itself peels back those layers, the less mysterious it becomes.
Actually more of them are watching America's Next Top Model and The Batchelor, and using that sea of tech to surf for porn or watch cute kitten videos on Youtube. I love the younger generation and think the kids are going to turn out alright, but let's not get too carried away with their virtues.
Actually, my Dad didn't play games at all, and Scrabble was about the limit for my Mom. Neither of them, to this day, understand RPGs or why I play them. They just kind of shake their heads and put it down to some kind of mild mental illness.
In contrast, my two daughters play Pathfinder with me. There is a reason we play Pathfinder, even though I still have all my old AD&D books. It's a better game overall, but that doesn't mean I like everything about it, or don't think that there were some aspects of the old game that I liked better.
Now, that said, GET OFF MY LAWN!
I am not sure how many people that played Original D&D had parents that played roleplaying games, just sayin'
But not every table likes resurrection. mine refuse to resurrect fallen heroesActually, I would argue the exact opposite. In 3.X/Pathfinder, let's face it, beyond a certain level, death is merely an inconvenience and a resource tax, it's not a tragedy. There are no permanent costs for beign raised from the dead, it's not that expensive and it's not that hard to find an NPC to do it. So barring TPK, your character will be back. You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
Which is a pretty important distinction in part because it also marked a shift towards giving PCs more survivability. Back when the mechanical side of character creation was often as simple a picking race, class, and rolling ability scores, losing a PC wasn't a big deal. With Pathfinder, if a mid-level PC goes down most players who don't know the system inside and out will be spending the rest of the game session making a new character.
Not many players enjoy dying to a single bad roll five minutes in, and not getting to participate for the rest of the night.
Cool. In some ways letting a character, particularly if they died heroically, rest in peace is a great tribute to that character. It probably makes them more memorable in the long run.
But that's just one campaign. The RAW makes death pretty unscary in PF.
Actually, I would argue the exact opposite. In 3.X/Pathfinder, let's face it, beyond a certain level, death is merely an inconvenience and a resource tax, it's not a tragedy. There are no permanent costs for beign raised from the dead, it's not that expensive and it's not that hard to find an NPC to do it. So barring TPK, your character will be back. You also rocket through the levels at many times the rate of 1st and 2nd edition, so players don't end up playing the same character for years as they did in the "old days", so I'd find it hard to argue that they are more attrached to them simply because the character creation process is more complex and time-consuming.I agree with Brian. There was a paradigm shift going from AD&D 2nd Edition / BECMI D&D to 3rd Edition. Even the verbs changed: in AD&D, you "roll a character". In 3rd Edition, with a robust character generation system requiring many, many more decisions, you "build a character", the same way a Magic:the Gathering player builds a deck.
Which is a pretty important distinction in part because it also marked a shift towards giving PCs more survivability. Back when the mechanical side of character creation was often as simple a picking race, class, and rolling ability scores, losing a PC wasn't a big deal. With Pathfinder, if a mid-level PC goes down most players who don't know the system inside and out will be spending the rest of the game session making a new character.
Not many players enjoy dying to a single bad roll five minutes in, and not getting to participate for the rest of the night.
Actually, leveling was about the same pace in 3rd edition as it was earlier IF you followed all the rules in ad&d. Its just that a huge amount of dms houseruled away the 1gold = 1xp in the early editions effecitvely reducing the xp granted by encounters by half or more. 3rd edition devs saw a rule that was mostly ingnored and incorporated it directly into the system, increasing the xp granted by challenges.
In terms of the whole 'death is no big deal because you'll be back'. Thats kind of a misnomer. Yes the character could come back, whenever the party could get their hands on the resources to raise them, but that usually isnt at the point where the character died. Usually you die in the middle of an enemy lair, or in the wilderness or on another plane etc. It could be a long time (in real life) before the character is back. During which the player is sitting there doing nothing.
I as both a player living as an adult in the modern world where leisure time is at a rediculous premium, dont find anything appealing about having to sit out of the game for 3 hours while my party makes it back to town to raise me. So yes there is a real life problem with character death. Its not an entitlement problem besides feeling entitled to be able to play the game during the time I set aside to do so.
In the so called 'good old days' where character death was abundant, and barely thought about, most of us were younger, in school, or simply had more time on our hands. I used to game for 8-12 hours every friday after school. So hell, if i died and need to sit out for a couple hours, no big deal. I also didnt bother writing a backstory for my characters, or heck even naming them sometimes. You cant have emersive roleplay with interesting character relationships with a revolving door of characters due to death, AND in the vast majority of cases, even when you are a level where death is just an inconvenience, its FASTER IN REAL TIME to make a new character then to wait for the party to get somewhere they can raise me from the dead.
The world is not the same as it was in the 70s, people are not the same, our time is not the same. 9-5 means 9-6 and for most its 8-7 and you need to be on your blackberry on weekends. The gygaxian deadly dungeon of doom is not ok anymore. In the majority of cases unless everyone is prepared with spare characters, its a bad thing. Period.
Should characters never die? Ofcourse not, but players should get to play the game. And most of the time, character death means sitting out for a good amount of time unless you completely trivialize death or trivialize the background and character interactions of the pcs by replacing them constantly.
Its true that we are a society of instant gratification and that our values are not hte same as they were 30 or 40 years ago. But we should all also remember that our world is not the same as it was also. Time especially leisure time is such a precious commodity, that we do in fact feel entitled to enjoying it. The only kind of wrongbadfun there is is when a player or the dm isnt having fun at the table. And a player sitting out for hours, when they might be juggling, work, family, and other responsibilities to get the game in the first place, is a sure fire way to get to said wrongbad fun.
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guys it is okay I am here now
I am trying to get my nerd rage up to appropriate levels to respond to this but I think instead I will just go play a fun roleplaying game with people who do not act the way the OP says they do
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guys it is okay I am here now
I am trying to get my nerd rage up to appropriate levels to respond to this but I think instead I will just go play a fun roleplaying game with people who do not act the way the OP says they do
What makes you think you're entitled to fun?
I tell ya, kids these days...