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A friend posted this video.. It is about Star Wars but it's 4 rules reflect what many of us look for in a game, and where a divide lies in the community.
Players are adventures, and the world needs adventurers because it is full of terrors.
It is a dangerous place. Bad things happen, often to good and innocent people.
Evil actually exists. True evil that would bring down all that is good in the world.
Sometimes your hero loses a hand, gets placed in carbonite. Sometimes your mentor is struck down by the BBEG right in front of you as you watch.
And there is nothing you can do about it.
Consider the world of Star Wars. Not the prequels, we are talking "A New Hope"
The Empire won. The great heroes fought valiantly. The great heroes fought bravely. And the great heroes died. Obi Wan is hiding on a frontier planet. The heroes family is killed, his father turned to the dark side, and to help him escape, his mentor is killed right in front of him.
It is a dangerous world. If you aren't careful, you can go from hero of the story, to Obi Won making a sacrifice to help the heroes.
When you remove risk from the game...well you get "Phantom Menace".
We knew Anakin and Obi Wan lived. Padme too. We knew Qui-Gon Jinn didn't make it, as otherwise why is Obi Wan training Anakin. We just didn't know when.
So we never worried during the fighting, as the only character who we didn't know would be killed, (Jar Jar) well...we kind of rooted for him to die.
Arguably the most interesting character in the first movie, Darth Maul is "killed". This wasn't a coincidence.
Episode two and three were somewhat more tense, as aside from Yoda and Obi-Wan we didn't know who may or may not make it of the Jedi's. Great heroes all, we knew many and more would fall. But we knew Padme would die, and we knew the children would be sent away and we knew that Anakin wouldn't really die and that Obi Wan would win.
If you know the outcome, the story loses much. If the heroes can not fall heroically, the story loses much.
This is not an argument for DM's to kill characters. Nor is it an argument for players to not be upset when characters die.
Fear of the loss you would suffer if your character dis, and how upset you would be is part of what makes you so excited to win.
It is an argument for not removing death from the game, and for slowing the trend away from death being something to be feared toward a more video game style approach.
Han shot first. Because if he didn't, he would be dead. Han Solo's story would end with him shot in a bar. But he shot first, and so someone else's story ended.
It was that kind of setting. That kind of world.
The kind of world we love.
Don't childproof the game.
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I agree with stories being more gripping when the outcome is in doubt, and that occasional setbacks make for a better story, than the PCs rolling over every obstacle.
D&D/PF is a rather bad fit for those kind of stories, since there is very little in the way of permanent injury or setback. Unless there is some kind of houserule crit system in place, PCs go from full hp to low, and either die, or get back up to full in no time at all.
If an encounter didn't kill someone, in the player's minds, it may as well not have existed.
If it did kill a PC, they either get raised, or the player creates a replacement, who magically happens to be waiting in the next tavern, and coincidentally is at a loose end.
Either way, the PCs death is an irrelevance.
Few people would argue that a player should be kept out of the game, but any solutions to get the player playing again will tend to promote an attitude akin to 'reloading the game from the last save point'.
A game has to include a core assumption that PCs can accumulate longterm injury, for the players to fear getting in over their heads.
Every classic tale involves the "descent into darkness", so that the hero(s) can emerge victorious into the light.
Some elements for a longer campaign:
- If a potion doesn't heal completely, it leaves behind scars.
- A massive amount of damage to a character (mass damage rule)= loss of a limb or eye
- Not every priest or healer is capable of restoring lost eyes or limbs, and not every priest or healer is willing to heal the PCs.
- PCs occasionally lose their stuff to situations and NPCs who are more powerful than they.
- PCs have relationships with NPCs (mentors, important contacts, trainers, lovers, etc.) and these NPCs will sometimes complicate the lives of the PCs.
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Every classic tale involves the "descent into darkness", so that the hero(s) can emerge victorious into the light.
Some elements for a longer campaign:
- If a potion doesn't heal completely, it leaves behind scars.
- A massive amount of damage to a character (mass damage rule)= loss of a limb or eye
- Not every priest or healer is capable of restoring lost eyes or limbs, and not every priest or healer is willing to heal the PCs.
- PCs occasionally lose their stuff to situations and NPCs who are more powerful than they.
- PCs have relationships with NPCs (mentors, important contacts, trainers, lovers, etc.) and these NPCs will sometimes complicate the lives of the PCs.
This is more trying to provide a counter to the recent push to make game death more like video game death.
I think the two are very different.
Every classic tale involves the "descent into darkness", so that the hero(s) can emerge victorious into the light.
No, it's about this.
If you can put a PC or the entire party in a "dark place", you can create additional "hooks" in them that will lead a story into interesting places.
Heck, you can even encourage it by hinting at additional rewards for making the sacrifice (meta-game).
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Every classic tale involves the "descent into darkness", so that the hero(s) can emerge victorious into the light.No, it's about this.
If you can put a PC or the entire party in a "dark place", you can create additional "hooks" in them that will lead a story into interesting places.
Heck, you can even encourage it by hinting at additional rewards for making the sacrifice (meta-game).
If the place isn't actually dangerous, it isn't that dark a place.
