If the players don't all understand and accept that old school play is a contact sport and characters can die, fairly easily, then we can play something else.

Not all people like the same kind of games. There is nothing wrong with not enjoying a particular style of play, just don't show up and expect to change the nature of the game to match your own preferences.

Not participating in old school style games doesn't make one a whiny cunt. Playing in one then bitching when things don't go your way DOES.

Quote from: JonWake;699581The problem I've run into in D&D is just how incredibly random combat encounters are at a lower level. Even at higher levels, the wrong roll on the wandering monster chart and it's boom, squish, dead.  Just last week, I got a TPK on my whole party of 8th level characters with a single Beholder. A couple failed saves and they were locked down. It was a great story, and the player's were fine with the results, but largely because they were sort of done with the characters and knew they'd scraped by a few too many death traps purely by luck.  

It's fun, but only for certain groups. I've lost two of the best role players I've ever played with in that campaign because they didn't want to die from a single random bad roll, which nearly happened. They'd accept death if they'd, say, used up some resource they had conscious control over and chose to push on, or if they'd ignored warning signs, but they just weren't interested in being random Gnoll-kebob.

The problems I hear about in D&D seem to come largely from player choice. An "encounter" with a large number of monsters doesn't always need to mean a combat encounter. Are the players trying to kill everything they meet just because it is encountered?

Player choice in this instance includes the DM. If the DM decides that every random monster WILL attack on sight and WILL fight to the death then a great deal of gameplay has been taken away from the players. The decision to risk combat is an important one and it isn't fair for the DM to make that decision for them all of the time.

Low level classic D&D characters are fragile and the reaction and morale rules help to mitigate that. It why undead are so scary. They are terminators that will always attack the living, never break, and are relentless. All monsters shouldn't behave like undead.

Thus not every random encounter should be an automatic combat with a creature that behaves like an undead.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;699593The problems I hear about in D&D seem to come largely from player choice. An "encounter" with a large number of monsters doesn't always need to mean a combat encounter. Are the players trying to kill everything they meet just because it is encountered?

Player choice in this instance includes the DM. If the DM decides that every random monster WILL attack on sight and WILL fight to the death then a great deal of gameplay has been taken away from the players. The decision to risk combat is an important one and it isn't fair for the DM to make that decision for them all of the time.

Low level classic D&D characters are fragile and the reaction and morale rules help to mitigate that. It why undead are so scary. They are terminators that will always attack the living, never break, and are relentless. All monsters shouldn't behave like undead.

Thus not every random encounter should be an automatic combat with a creature that behaves like an undead.

This may explain why I have not had 'too many' character deaths in my dnd games.

I don't force combat unless it makes a ton of sense, and i love it when characters talk to potential enemies and either outwit or befriend them; etc...

Quote from: Exploderwizard;699593An "encounter" with a large number of monsters doesn't always need to mean a combat encounter.

It need mean it just one time with surprise (or superior strength, or position, or magic, or however else the PCs accomplish their countless slaughters) to be a massacre.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;699593Thus not every random encounter should be an automatic combat with a creature that behaves like an undead.

Bad luck with the dice, I'm afraid.  Rolled for encounter, brought up the Beholder that was a couple of rooms over, rolled for reactions, pulled a snake-eyes, and a single round with me rolling in the open and Bob's yer Uncle, the fighter goes down.  It's worth noting that I was playing 5e, and a couple party members simply couldn't be surprised. That's what kept it from being a complete ass-stomping.

Mortality isn't an issue, high or low, when it's part of the premise of the game and the consequences of game play. When you are predicating the game's activity on exploring the unknown, with a constant threat of failure looming around the corner, and your wits and powers and equipment and friends to guard you against that eventuality, high mortality may happen as a result of poor strategic and tactical choices.

Considering high mortality to be a "problem" ipso facto construes the game differently. It might become, for instance, about developing an avatar hero in the setting, about a series of plots unfolding which dramatically speaking make more sense when a majority of the characters/protagonists survive throughout to see their conclusions, or whatever else, and this or that may or may not be fun to play in its own right, but the premise of the first paragraph has been fundamentally changed.

What I do when I run a game is to explain in the clearest terms possible what its premise actually is right out of the gate, during the pre-game session Zero, whether it fits the description of the first paragraph (which I would identify as "old school D&D", to me), or something else. From there, the players know what to expect, and are free to play or not play, to their heart's content.

If mortality is repeatedly final, it slows or potentially halts exploration of higher-level goodies unless people start characters at higher level. That's a matter of interest from a purely "gamer" standpoint.

Quote from: Phillip;699639If mortality is repeatedly final, it slows or potentially halts exploration of higher-level goodies unless people start characters at higher level.

OR the players adapt and learn how to better survive with their next characters, which can be a lot of fun as well.

Quote from: RPGPundit;699303Can we acknowledge that for some gamers, the (fairly common) old-school game experience of having to go through several abortive characters who die-off at low level (before managing to get to a character that survives long enough to have a decent chance of hitting higher levels) is a turn off without just being a matter of them being whining little pussies?

How would you constructively approach this issue, if you have a gamer (whether it be a newbie, or someone who has been "brought up" with more new-school RPGs where there is much greater low-level survival odds) in your group who is experiencing a problem of disenchantment with your game on account of characters he really likes dying off prematurely?  What would you say or do to try to deal with the issue? Or is it just "them's the breaks, kid"?

RPGPundit

Make up several characters at start. One of them will likely make it to level 3. And we were doing this 30 years before Goodman put the funnel into Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Discourage heavy backstories. Tell the player that their characters will develop in play.

Not play a system that take three hours to make up a PC. Use a system where you can make up three characters in an hour and Bob's your uncle.

Quote from: Phillip;699639If mortality is repeatedly final, it slows or potentially halts exploration of higher-level goodies unless people start characters at higher level. That's a matter of interest from a purely "gamer" standpoint.

That is a genuine issue. Hall of the Fire Giant King was one of the first modules I bought. Despite playing D&D several times a week from age 11 to age 16, and a couple times a month for years more, we never had PCs high enough levels to play it. That made me sad.

Quote from: Benoist;699641OR the players adapt and learn how to better survive with their next characters, which can be a lot of fun as well.

Some people have the patience for that, and some don't. In the field of competitive boardgames, it's not generally regarded as a moral failure on the part of players if they lose interest in a horribly unbalanced design. Either they hack it into more acceptable shape, or they let it gather dust on a shelf.

In the case of an RPG, the GM is not at all an opponent on a level playing field. The role is more like that of the designer of a computer game, seeking to provide an entertaining challenge for players -- but with more direct feedback from them. What's fun to the players in question is a really sensible standard, not some ivory tower ideology.

The low investment time in character creation I think does make it easier for players to accept death. I think what this is really going to boil down to is setting player expectations up front. If everyone is on the same page, they all get that shit is dangerous out there and the weather is cloudy with a chance of horrendous death, then a high moratlity rate should not be a problem.

I get that alot of people here are saying that part of it is on the PC's, play smarter not harder so to speak. Which I agree with by and large, but there times at my table where we all are kind of like "fuck, that seemed random". I have found that a couple of simple HP tweaks helped fix that without removing the element of danger.

On the whole though I tend to agree that the real problem is one of expectations rather than mechanics. I don't think there is a right answer here, just right for a given group.

Quote from: Phillip;699648Some people have the patience for that, and some don't. In the field of competitive boardgames, it's not generally regarded as a moral failure on the part of players if they lose interest in a horribly unbalanced design. Either they hack it into more acceptable shape, or they let it gather dust on a shelf.

You seem to be making the assumption the design is unbalanced to begin with. That somehow you should have "patience" to keep interest in "an horribly unbalanced design." Whether the environment is balanced and ripe for successful exploration can be managed in any number of ways, and a number of them are not predicted on shielding the players from their own failings, or reducing the potential for mortality in the game.

Quote from: Phillip;699648In the case of an RPG, the GM is not at all an opponent on a level playing field. The role is more like that of the designer of a computer game, seeking to provide an entertaining challenge for players -- but with more direct feedback from them. What's fun to the players in question is a really sensible standard, not some ivory tower ideology.

I don't care for comparisons with films, computer games, board games and the like.

Let's talk about RPGs.

The GM prepares an environment ripe for adventure. A consideration of the overall danger involved in exploring the environment is useful, and making sure that the setup doesn't result in a "no possible win" scenario is important (no possible wins can actually be interesting to GM when the players are really good and become jaded, since they are likely to come up with inventive solutions and could take a no-win scenario into all kinds of crazy directions, but I wouldn't start a campaign with that, obviously).

From there, the players explore the environment. They may use okay tactics, good tactics, or abysmal tactics. All things being equal, assuming the GM DOES care about creating a significant challenge the PCs CAN manage and win using their brains and resources to beat it, if you keep dying at the table and that mortality becomes a "sludge", then something is amiss. You can try to keep doing what you're doing expecting different results, and we know what that is, or you could try different tactics and come at the challenge in different ways.

I have no doubt that there are some people who don't want this from their role playing game time, and these people probably should play other games. Nothing wrong with that. But there are people out there who start playing the game, eat the wall of mortality, learn, and become more skilled as players. It can be tough, and proportionally rewarding. This learning process is part of the fun of the game, to them. I'm actually one of those.

Quote from: Phillip;699648In the case of an RPG, the GM is not at all an opponent on a level playing field. The role is more like that of the designer of a computer game, seeking to provide an entertaining challenge for players -- but with more direct feedback from them. What's fun to the players in question is a really sensible standard, not some ivory tower ideology.

Yup. Players that don't think old school play is any fun shouldn't play those games.

We're basically talking about D&D, which has been tremendously popular because -- unlike some "new school" games -- it is very adaptable to a wide variety of game styles. Since adjusting the deadliness is pretty trivial in light of all the rest of what's on offer, I see no need to get huffy and insist that everyone must "lump it or leave it."

Was it an abominable heresy that Gygax gave pretty much everyone except MUs an average of +1 HP per level in AD&D? I would say that it was a well considered response to the increase in deadliness introduced in Supplement I (despite the HD changes therein). The heavy revision of such things as spell descriptions and numbers castable by level likewise reflected a sense of desired game balance.