I don't want to play my game on Hard Mode

[Kirth Gersen]

thejeff wrote:

Well, I tend to consider a TPK game ending. There may be another game in the same setting in which that TPK and mission fail is Canon, but it's not the same game. The character development is over. New characters won't have the same ties to NPCs, the same motivations, won't be tied into the same events.

Unless, as I often like to do, you run 2 parties concurrently -- alternating sessions, or whatever, but ultimately experiencing events in the same frame of campaign time. One party might pick up where the other failed, and complete the mission, based on their own connection to the ongoing events -- maybe for similar or identical motivations. This is how things played out in our "Age of Worms" game -- TPK in the Spire of Long Shadows didn't end the campaign at all -- it made the rest of it even more intense.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Ciretose. Great minds...

[Kirth Gersen]

thejeff wrote:

This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts about the "hard mode" proponents.

Note: "Many" =/= "all."

[kmal2t]

Just because there is a TPK doesn't mean the game can't go on unless you have an unflexible bad DM who can't figure out how to tie back in to this new group the NPCs you need to know somehow and get you the items you need.

"BUT THATS NOT IN THE AP WHAT I DO?"

[Jaelithe]

Not everyone considers their characters interchangeable and/or dispensable. Many players instead invest emotionally—some of them rather more than others. A DM whose group tends towards this kind of involvement should probably consider whether or not the TPK indicated serves the purpose of fun, or simply an in-this-case misplaced sense of propriety.

I can't imagine wanting to simply pick up the quest with the next in my assembly line of characters ... but that doesn't make such a style or mentality wrong, either.

It's simply best to be in tune with what works with the group for whom you're running.

[kmal2t]

If the whole group gets so distraught after the TPK they simply can't move on then sure..have the next game pull out the game he was working on. I'm just saying a TPk doesn't mean you can't continue forward. It just takes a litle ingenuity.

[thejeff]

kmal2t wrote:

Just because there is a TPK doesn't mean the game can't go on unless you have an unflexible bad DM who can't figure out how to tie back in to this new group the NPCs you need to know somehow and get you the items you need.

"BUT THATS NOT IN THE AP WHAT I DO?"

It depends on the game. If it's an AP style thing where you just happen to be the guys that got involved in the hunting down the MacGuffin or whatever, then sure, you can hack something together to give a new party some excuse to get involved. Of course, picking up where you left off with new characters sort of defeats the purpose of "hard mode".

OTOH, if the campaign is actually tied to your individual characters motivations and personal lives, then it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Not all campaigns just need a NPC to hand out missions and a couple of plot items.

[thejeff]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

thejeff wrote:

This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts about the "hard mode" proponents.

Note: "Many" =/= "all."

Fair enough. If you really just enjoy the challenge and like to play that way, that's cool.

It's when people start bashing the way other people play that I get annoyed.

[TriOmegaZero]

I think this article is relevant to the thread topic.

[Aranna]

Can I get an AngryDM pin now?

[TriOmegaZero]

I'd totally rock a SissyDM pin.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed a post and string of responses. Please revisit the messageboard rules.