Quote from: Spike;791370The Man Rider story??? :confused:

I only vaguely recall this, so if I get the specifics wrong, someone please correct me.

Someone in a FLAILSNAILS game (you know, the OSR multi-campaign, multi-GM shared universe amongst the Google+ OSR crowd) rolled up a goblin PC (which should tell you right out of the gate what kind of player, and what kind of game, we're talking about) and got abysmal stats, and decided he was going to ride a human henchman in combat. Hence, Man Rider.

Man Rider showed up in several different games from different GMs and had a long and storied career that included trucking with gods. Typical "player rolls up suck stats and proceeds to play the character epically."

As for killing off a character because of bad rolls, that's childish, and I agree with the OP's assessment. Unless the player comes up with a really awesome way to go, in which case I kinda sorta forgive him or her. Generally speaking I feel there are valid reasons for a PC to take suicidal action, but bad stats don't strike me as a good one.

Quote from: Brad;791364I've determined that no one who posts there actually plays rpgs.

If they do, they're ashamed to admit to it and want to force rpgs to be more socially acceptable so they won't be embarrassed if anyone should ever find out.

Now I run rpgs for teenagers on Saturdays and I frequently want to shout obscenities at them for being so whiney.  But as I want them to spend money at my store I don't.  They grow over time I keep telling myself, but man it's not worth the wait.

I wish they'd give D&D 5e a shot, they're whiners who want to play superheroes who fight hamsters and are rewarded like gods so it should be right up their alley.  Though honestly 5e looks far better than I expected it to be.  But it does slap a patch on all the contentious rough spots.  Personally those rough spots are part of the designs charm but it certainly does pad out low level wizards and low levels in general while nerfing high level everything.  It's not bad it's just not necessary and runs against the elegance of the core game.  I guess what it tries to do is counter the stackable instance abuse created by exception based design through intelligent restriction of exceptions.  Or some shit.

What were we talking about?

Quote from: stuffis;791362so: have you ever had a player deliberately run a character into the ground right away to get out of a 'shitty' character w/random stats? do you know people who play this way? what are they like?
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People who do things like that think that they're exploiting the system or turning the system against itself or something else oh so clever... when in fact everyone else is actually laughing at them for being insecure crybabies.

Quote from: The Butcher;791395I only vaguely recall this, so if I get the specifics wrong, someone please correct me.

Someone in a FLAILSNAILS game (you know, the OSR multi-campaign, multi-GM shared universe amongst the Google+ OSR crowd) rolled up a goblin PC (which should tell you right out of the gate what kind of player, and what kind of game, we're talking about) and got abysmal stats, and decided he was going to ride a human henchman in combat. Hence, Man Rider.

Man Rider showed up in several different games from different GMs and had a long and storied career that included trucking with gods. Typical "player rolls up suck stats and proceeds to play the character epically."

Sounds awesome, what was the mods reason for hating on that story? The term "Man-Rider" make too many posters feel emotionally unsafe?

Quote from: The Butcher;791395As for killing off a character because of bad rolls, that's childish, and I agree with the OP's assessment. Unless the player comes up with a really awesome way to go, in which case I kinda sorta forgive him or her. Generally speaking I feel there are valid reasons for a PC to take suicidal action, but bad stats don't strike me as a good one.

A Player who engages in heroic self-sacrifice is not likely one who has his PC suicide over bad rolls.

Quote from: Old Geezer;791387This has been discussed before; some people just don't want anything bad to ever happen to their character.

Did I ever tell you about the time a PC got killed by being punched in the eye by an overweight, half drunk, middle aged man at arms?

It was an astonishing bit of rolling.  The player's favorite death ever actually.  Then there was the guy who got killed fighting a watch goose.

Then there was the Paladin who got killed while hunting a moose with his war mattock.

Man I love GURPS and Rolemaster

Quote from: The Butcher;791395Man Rider showed up in several different games from different GMs and had a long and storied career that included trucking with gods. Typical "player rolls up suck stats and proceeds to play the character epically."

IIRC he was the paladin of this really cool god:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2013/02/akayle-ozph.html

I've been playing in a 3d6 in order, rolled hit points, dungeon crawl campaign for a year and a half.  The characters who survive to level have universally had higher than average stats and higher starting hit point rolls.  Even without character suicide, low stats and low hit points are basically a session tax before you die and re-roll anyway.

So I'm not misunderstood -  I'm having a great time!  I'm willing to take all the above as a part of play.  I haven't myself suicided a character.  (I did go through about 6 before one "caught" and survived long enough to level, but that was all organic, while trying to survive.)  But I also wouldn't judge another player for a Leeroy Jenkins charge with a low-stat character.

I remember someone (edit: Kyle Aaron) once posted a story about the fighter with 1 hit point.  The player decided that, since he'd obviously never been hit in his life or he'd be dead, the character believed himself invincible, and played that out as insane bravery.  In the event, he just happened to keep rolling well and pulled it off, but if he hadn't, it would have looked like character suicide instead of real-man, old school play.

Quote from: David Johansen;791402Did I ever tell you about the time a PC got killed by being punched in the eye by an overweight, half drunk, middle aged man at arms?

It was an astonishing bit of rolling.  The player's favorite death ever actually.  Then there was the guy who got killed fighting a watch goose.

Then there was the Paladin who got killed while hunting a moose with his war mattock.

Man I love GURPS and Rolemaster

I play an online 3.0 game (using IM only because our DM is a luddite who won't try more advanced options), and for a while I was juggling two characters, a Wizard and a Cleric.  The Wizard got offed by a fellow party member who was mind controlled by a harpy. The dude rolled three 20s in a row, basically cutting her head off from behind.  I still get pissed about that moment, because I'm still not exactly sure whether he really rolled three 20s, or whether he said he did because he wanted to fuck with the rest of the group a bit.  (He had a bit of a history that way.)

That said, I do miss playing MERP.

Quote from: Saladman;791409I remember someone (Old Geezer?) once posted a story about the fighter with 1 hit point.  The player decided that, since he'd obviously never been hit in his life or he'd be dead, the character believed himself invincible, and played that out as insane bravery.  In the event, he just happened to keep rolling well and pulled it off, but if he hadn't, it would have looked like character suicide instead of real-man, old school play.

That was me who posted that, Colin playing Kag the Fighter.

Ended up wrestling a basilisk, got 1,500gp or so from the adventure's treasure, and decided to retire.

I don't mind if they "suicide" by doing things a character might do anyway. I mean, plenty of players of fighters have them charge in stupidly. Either they die and the player gets to roll up another, or they live and the player comes to love them.

Being stupid-brave is, statistically, a life-saver in D&D. That's because every time you roll there's a chance you fuck up. So if you go around sneaking and checking for traps and secret doors and all the rest, you end up making zillions of dice rolls, and eventually you fuck up and get killed. By charging in stupidly you end up making less dice rolls.

This does not apply with an intelligent DM who handwaves a lot of things that "should" be rolled, and who applies modifiers to the remaining rolls to reflect the intelligence of your plans, etc; but such DMs are rare.

It's worse than you think, guys.  Mengtzu's original contention was that he would use rolled chargen and suicide characters even if he had the option of point-buy, because point-buy is capped is capped at 15 before racial adjustments.  So it's not even "suicide PC with lousy scores", it's "suicide a PC that got a 14 or 15, repeatedly, until a 16-18 comes up."  In a game where bonuses are capped, and the difference between a 15 and an 18 is all of +2 for a limited time before the characters hit the ability cap.

Sigh.

Quote from: Iosue;791413It's worse than you think, guys.  Mengtzu's original contention was that he would use rolled chargen and suicide characters even if he had the option of point-buy, because point-buy is capped is capped at 15 before racial adjustments.  So it's not even "suicide PC with lousy scores", it's "suicide a PC that got a 14 or 15, repeatedly, until a 16-18 comes up."  In a game where bonuses are capped, and the difference between a 15 and an 18 is all of +2 for a limited time before the characters hit the ability cap.

Sigh.

Actually, he said that he wold suicide any character that didn't allow him to start with an 18 because the game wants him to do so:
"I would do that, so I could start with a 17 (--> 18 with human bonus), so I could get 20 in my primary stat earlier, so I could take the second feat I wanted earlier. I would expect this within three rolls.
...
It's kind of terrible, and I wouldn't *want* to do it, but that's what the game tells me to do. It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't give relatively poor stats to point-bought/array characters."

Apparently the game having point buy is a lie, and it is really a sentient being commanding players to kill characters so they can get a starting 18 stat.

I can tell every player who played 4th edition on TBP by how much of a fucking hard on they have for stats and mechanical differentiation for absolutely everything and not catering to them is a flaw and sign of absolute failure.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;791412That was me who posted that, Colin playing Kag the Fighter.

Ended up wrestling a basilisk, got 1,500gp or so from the adventure's treasure, and decided to retire.

My apologies!  That one stuck with me cause it was cool though, so thanks for sharing it.

I had a paladin douse himself in holy water and wrestle a wight once.  When I said, "You die from life energy drain," he only asked "Did I get him?"

Old Geezer's right to a point when he says, "Don't play with assholes."  The problem is that people often are very set in their course by prior gaming experience.  I have one friend who wants to find a magic item on every corpse he loots and gets bitchy about it.  I really don't miss him at the table.  I'm sorry, the kobold only has three copper pieces, a little sack with some scales and a pointy tooth in it, and a condom made of rhinoceros hide because he only left home with the things he thought he'd need on sentry duty.

Quote from: snooggums;791416Actually, he said that he wold suicide any character that didn't allow him to start with an 18 because the game wants him to do so:
"I would do that, so I could start with a 17 (--> 18 with human bonus), so I could get 20 in my primary stat earlier, so I could take the second feat I wanted earlier. I would expect this within three rolls.
...
It's kind of terrible, and I wouldn't *want* to do it, but that's what the game tells me to do. It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't give relatively poor stats to point-bought/array characters."

Apparently the game having point buy is a lie, and it is really a sentient being commanding players to kill characters so they can get a starting 18 stat.

I can tell every player who played 4th edition on TBP by how much of a fucking hard on they have for stats and mechanical differentiation for absolutely everything and not catering to them is a flaw and sign of absolute failure.

That is both hilarious and sad. It's alright though, they are the anti-next board and we're picking up the posters who are tired of their shit.