Quote from: Simlasa;360388That's a really good expression of the issue, IMO.
Coming up with a quick judgement that smothering the grenade would do twice the damage would seem completely fair to me, not adversarial, because outside of a superhero/cartoon game, if my character jumps on a grenade it's an act of self-sacrifice. Killing me would support my intention.
But I could easily be at the table with another player who wouldn't feel that way. He thinks he can pull off a 'cool move' within the rules and remain game-functional. Since his intention isn't self-sacrifice he might see the ruling as adversarial...
Both of us have an argument that our intention is within the setting's tropes.

A couple of times, ok, it happens whenever new players join my crew,these are people who have never played rpgs before. Sometimes during the course of the game, they attempt heroic acts during combat because they reason their hitpoints or whatever is enough "to take the hit". It's not really about disregarding common sense or heroism with a small "h" or anything like that, it's more like they are playing a game and they assume what they are doing is within the rules. Of course they soon learn (in post game discussions) that there's a level of verisimilitude in our games and everyone get's on the same page.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;360412I dunno. What genre was being emulated ? I mean the whole Death Star chase where Solo chases the Storm Troopers into a deadend and they turn around, he shoots one of them (at close range) turns round and runs away....I mean if he can survive that....
 
Regards,
David R

Anyone in Star Wars can survive anything as long as it doesn't hit them. But if they get hit, then they're out of the action. Episode IV starts out with Vader boarding Leia's ship. Everyone who gets hit stops fighting.
Leia falls down unconcious when the Storm Troopers stun her.
R2D2 falls down and switches off when the Jawas zap him.
Luke falls down unconcious when the Tuscans whack him with a gaffi stick.
 
Ship combat is different. Luke's fighter can take several hits but a co-pilot or wingman gets incapacitated each time. Larger ships can take alot of hits from smaller ships. Little ships can take alot of hits from big ships if they're being captured or if the big ship is letting them escape with a tracking device. Apart from that though one hit and you're out is the rule of ship to ship combat.
 
In superhero terms: getting hit is kryptonite.

What's your point, Malleus ?

Regards,
David R

Wrt the original question:
 
I found Call of Chthulu's sanity points to be very anticlimatic. There were several times when my characters got hit with a perfect storm of THINGS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOOOOOW! and they made their SAN check and shrugged it off.
 
The one that hops to mind was when my investigator fell through space and time into another dimension and found himself in a city where the angles were wrong. The character was into math and geometry so I thespianed the horror of seeing a road paved with perfect octogons and so on. The game system got in the way because my investigator made his SAN check.
 
And to generalize the Star Wars grenade thing, any system where players are secure in the knowledge that leathal weapons aren't lethal gets in the way of my gaming fun.
 
Or even more generally: when the system says there's no risk when there should be risk.

Quote from: David R;360520What's your point, Malleus ?
 
Regards,
David R

I'll bold it for you.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;360525I'll bold it for you.

So what ?

My point in my reply to jibbajibba was the subjective nature of genre emulation and how it's should be used carefully when it comes to character death in rpgs.

So again, what is your point ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;360524Wrt the original question:
Or even more generally: when the system says there's no risk when there should be risk.

Why should there be risk? People that say this kind of thing don't seem to connect with the idea of the absolute sweetness of their characters. Regular people are afraid of death. Player characters in a rpg are usually so sweet, even at the beginning of the game, that you can't apply normal rational thinking to what they do.

I think reality emulation is a noble goal in rpg design, but almost none of the major game labels worry about it.

Quote from: Cranewings;360532Why should there be risk?

Because a large part of the joy of RPGs is the vicarious risk-taking involved. If there is no threat of character injury or death, then there is not sufficient risk for most Players. Risk is part of the fun.

Expression without risk is meaningless circle-jerk.

I'm not at the table to wank off about how awesome I am, I'm at the table to have adventures, and you can't have an adventure without risk and danger.

So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

In the context of the grenade argument, which is what I was referring to, there will still be risk. Just because I character isn't killed by every random grenade doesn't mean that players can't die. They just can't die from single instances of random grenades.

God knows it pisses me off in Call of Duty, an it takes at most 12 seconds to respawn. Real grenades are far too fucking deadly for role playing games. Throwing a grenade into a room or car with a bunch of player characters is like saying, "rocks fall, everyone dies," if the grenade is stated up realistically

Realistically, soldiers won't be throwing grenades that the party can kick back. If it has a three second fuse, and the grenadier held it for one second, and then it flew through the air for a second, the pc would only have one second to get it and throw it back. If the grenade didn't land in the most advantageous position because the grenadier through it real hard and bounced it all over the room the party is in, they would never have time to throw it back.

I've been scared shitless and stunned by firecrackers before. I think people underestimate the shear fuckness of a person that has a grenade land next to them.

That would suck in an rpg.

In real life, you can prevent a grenade from being thrown at you in a lot of ways:

1) Grenade throwing takes longer than shooting, so shoot the guy first. Maybe his grenade will kill his friends.

2) Suppress him with fire so that he can't see where he is throwing it.

3) Have the fire fight from too far away for grenades.

If those things aren't possible in your RPG, then grenades need to do less damage than they do in real life. Grenades in RPGs are no more dangerous to use than a handgun, so with less risk they do less damage.

Quote from: J Arcane;360539Expression without risk is meaningless circle-jerk.

I'm not at the table to wank off about how awesome I am, I'm at the table to have adventures, and you can't have an adventure without risk and danger.

So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

Players that repeatedly get hit by explosions will die. Players that make tactical errors or get separated from their groups will die. Players that get hit by some random-ass grenade thrown in a game where there is virtually no risk when it comes to handling grenades won't die. It is perfect.

We had a dragon fight in my Pathfinder game the other day. A REAL dragon would be unkillable by men with swords. The dragon failed to do shit with its first two uses of its breath weapon. Still, the players were afraid of the dragon because they knew that it might still kill them all. It almost did. If it were a real dragon that really was that much bigger and stronger, then its bite would ignore armor and the shaking of its neck would automatically kill anyone in its mouth, but because this is a game about badasses, the characters can always fight free. This is represented by having hitpoints left over from the attack.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360461And now you're being just plain dishonest in all of your denials above.

No, you're just fucking on crack and can't read a sentence in English.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360542No, you're just fucking on crack and can't read a sentence in English.

Seanchai

Speaking of which, while you have strongly opposed everything that I have posted in this thread, you have not dared to engage me in conversation directly. Is this passive-aggressive bullshit behavior because you are a pussy, Seanchai?

Jeebuz!  Get sick for almost a week and the grenade thing is still going strong. :idunno:

Quote from: J Arcane;360539So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard, nor is Indiana Jones ever in any real danger in any of his movies and any reasonably intelligent fan of those movies, even fans going in to see the movies for the first time with no foreknowledge of the characters, know this in advance. The thrill comes from the continual raising of the stakes involved, the tease of the heroes and villains almost achieving their goals only to be repeatedly confronted with obstacles until the very end of the show, and watching the cleverness/heroics of the heroes and villians in circumventing the obstacles in their way. This sort of thing is difficult to create on the fly in table-top rpgs, so it is replaced with the more straightforward tactic of putting the characters in genuine (albeit fictional) risk to create tension.