Ive played a spread of games where the longevity of PCs varied widely. In some a player had to screw up pretty bad (either tactically or with the dice) to ever get a character killed while in others it seemed almost an assumption that characters would die, maybe several in an adventure, and the quest was the priority over keeping any one personality part of the game. In my most recent RPG purchase the rules call for each new replacement character to be awarded with XP so as to 'keep up' with the luckier ones. Character's HP never really increase and even at high level a mook can take you down with a couple of lucky hits.

So where do you think the balance point is? Are the PCs the heroes that are basically SUPPOSED to live through the adventure except for an unfortunate and unexpected loss or are they disposable?

Depends on the tone of the game. The tone depends on the feel that the players want. If they want heroic, then death should be rare. If they want gritty, then it should come when the dice say it should. If they want grim, death should come frequently and maybe a TPK in a single session.

If you know what your players want, you'll know the answer to that question.

There is no definitive answer that covers all rpg play. The most important determining factor are the desires of the participants. What is the goal of play? The group has to agree upon that before such things can be decided.

Hmm, its been my experience that players in general want their characters to survive, period. Its not some silly attachment either but rather the feeling of investment, connection to the setting etc. Ive seen really good players reduced to passionless bystanders when forced to bring in a new character after their regular character died.

I suppose the longevity and risk factor are obvious in some games (Cthulu comes to mind) but in most they arent. Most players Ive known over the years enter into every game with the expectation of leveling their fledgling character up to some grand hero and eventually engaging in epic adventures. I cant say Ive ever encountered anyone that didnt feel this way. Are you guys saying some players start with the expectation of short lived characters and are cool with it?

Im asking this with a real concern over the campaign I am about to start. (Symbaroum) Without some serious tweaking I see this game as being a meat grinder for characters. Its something I havent contended with much before.

Quote from: rgrove0172;921988So where do you think the balance point is? Are the PCs the heroes that are basically SUPPOSED to live through the adventure except for an unfortunate and unexpected loss or are they disposable?

How is this NOT a personal taste question? I realize that a critical response. The answer are other questions

QuoteHow deadly do YOU and your players want combat to be?

QuoteDoes the deadliness of combat in the rules I am using reflect how deadly I want combat to be in my campaign?

With the state of the RPG hobby in 2016, you have a variety of choices between RPG systems and within RPG systems.

If you want deadly combat that playable, that comes off as fair, and has a reasonable but not overwhelming amount of options then go with Harnmaster (1e, 2e, 3e, or Gold).

If you want deadly combat with all the options that reflects real life 100% then go with GURPS + GURPS Martial Arts (which is more than the unarmed Far East fighting style) without any of the cinematic options.

If you want a lot of options and you want character to be movie/tv resilient then go GURPS + Cinematic

The various editions of Runequest are a reasonable balance between realism, complexity, and deadliness.

For heroic combat with lots of options go with D&D 4e.
For heroic combat with a staggering amount of options go with D&D 3.X/Pathfinder
For heroic combat with a reasonable amount of options go with AD&D 1st, AD&D 2nd, or D&D 5e
For heroic combat that simple and straight forward go with B/X, BECMI, or RC D&D.
For heroic combat that is more gritty go with OD&D and perhaps D&D 5e with the basic classes.

For abstract combat use a RPG like Fate.
For Superheroes nothing beats the Hero System in my opinion.

All of the above and more work, the real trick is figuring out which one or which combination works best for the campaign you want to run and what the players want to experience.

It depends on the player's expectations on how lethal the campaign will be.

I always ask these two questions before starting a new campaign, regardless of system:

"Is the occasional character death an acceptable risk?"

"Are you OK with characters dying from bad luck?"

Quote from: Exploderwizard;921994There is no definitive answer that covers all rpg play. The most important determining factor are the desires of the participants. What is the goal of play? The group has to agree upon that before such things can be decided.

This.

Quote from: Tod13;922009This.

Yes.  Sorry to chime in with a similar comment, but every game I have played and written has been different.

My online collegium game is very low lethality, as it is more about solving mysteries in an ancient school.  No deaths and only 5 really combat or possibly lethal situations in 100 sessions so far.
My Online Steel Games were very high-lethality, with a couple near-tpks and the average lifespan being 12 sessions (in a 160 session game, and these were short, 2 hour online sessions).  

My two main live games go through periods of high lethality and out. I only have one player who has managed to keep a Character alive for over 50 live sessions, the average seems to be now an average of 19 sessions, but there was a four year span in one of the games where the players went through 25 PCs.  


Part of it comes down to the way the game is described in the first place.  I prefer a feel (sometimes ascribed to older games) where there was pride of success when a character survived difficult adventures and it was not a forgone conclusion, where the Players have to deal with the dice and random chance (one of the 25 was a really amazing character whose player came in after a wedding in a tux, poured a glass of wine, and was promptly Critical hitted and killed in the first 10 minutes he was there.   The proper joke that no one shows up in formal wear comes up in bad situations).  We have another player who has lost 6 Characters in a short time, but it is mainly due to his play style.

I would say it is incumbent on the GM to explain ahead of time where on the continuum the game is supposed to fall.  The game longevity also comes in, in that I play very long games and the PCs know, on one hand, it will continue and they can create a new one, but on the other, survival leaves a lot of perks in terms of power and influence gained.

As deadly as your game premise, genre, themes, and players tastes demand.

Quote from: rgrove0172;921988So where do you think the balance point is? Are the PCs the heroes that are basically SUPPOSED to live through the adventure except for an unfortunate and unexpected loss or are they disposable?

Totally depends on tone. For Dungeon Crawl Classics, I GM by the dice. If your character, dies, roll up a new one.
For 2nd ed AD&D, I tend towards PC's don't die unless it's really aggregious. Like a TPK against enemies that have no interest in taking captives. No negative values, a character reduced to 0 HP is unconscious but not dying, and can be revived with minimal healing.
Dark Sun I go for the jugular. Not a "killer DM" style, but I do feel that Dark Sun benefits from a level of ruthlessness that is a step above typical D&D. Just surviving a Dark Sun session should feel like an accomplishment.
And there's some wiggle room in specific genres, but those are my general thoughts.

Obviously, this is a matter of taste and choice. There are games where it's almost impossible to die, or to die permanently, and plenty of GM's who will fudge and bend to keep the players alive, and even published games which play like a computer game where it is inevitable (unless/until players stop playing) that the PCs will not only live, but will follow some pre-determined heroic story arc where they become like demi-gods, no matter how much the fail along the way. And there are games where everyone will die (Cthulu) or PCs are likely to die eventually because everyone who plays with swords and axes is (TFT).

Quote from: rgrove0172;921997Hmm, its been my experience that players in general want their characters to survive, period. Its not some silly attachment either but rather the feeling of investment, connection to the setting etc. Ive seen really good players reduced to passionless bystanders when forced to bring in a new character after their regular character died.

And do they always get everything they want? Grieving is natural and part of life. Death is part of life. Games without them aren't really games where death is an element of play, even if they pretend like they are. That's ok as far as it goes. If you're afraid to have this happen, or think it makes sense to force it not to happen, go ahead. But don't expect everyone to agree with you that it's the universal best thing. I'm not going to tell you that style of fun is bad or wrong, but I will also not lie and tell you that it's what I prefer, or that I think it's as interesting as a game with actual risks of PC death and dismemberment and their consequences, etc.

Also I think your higher-level pattern/style of asking for forum consensus about GM control issues is wrong-minded, regardless of the topic. These things are dials with a variety of valid settings. Phrasing questions like there is one best way is baiting a hyperbolic furball.

QuoteI suppose the longevity and risk factor are obvious in some games (Cthulu comes to mind) but in most they arent. Most players Ive known over the years enter into every game with the expectation of leveling their fledgling character up to some grand hero and eventually engaging in epic adventures. I cant say Ive ever encountered anyone that didnt feel this way.

Congratulations. You've just remotely-via-Internet met some people who don't feel that way. I NEVER enter ANY "game with the expectation of leveling [my] fledgling character up to some grand hero and eventually engaging in epic adventures" EXCEPT ones that I consider annoying fake-tastic railroads such as formulaic computer RPGs or ones with GMs/systems that I usually avoid even starting to play with if I thought that was the expectation. Very much like your thread about "behind the screen" GM forcing stuff, while I would enjoy ACTUALLY achieving something like that, the fact that it would be forced by such a game/system/GM undermines most/all of the satisfaction of attempting to do so against actual risks and circumstances.

QuoteAre you guys saying some players start with the expectation of short lived characters and are cool with it?

Sometimes. Depends on the game and scenario. I expect there to be some expectation-setting about it, unless the GM thinks it will be fun or clever to start with an unexpected difficulty level, or it happens unexpectedly for one reason or another, which can be ok, though also upsetting or at least time-wasting if players made detailed role-playing characters with backgrounds and then there's a deadly situation right away. Usually it's more like I expect to face actual risks and challenges, and to do my best to kick ass in the face of them, and to be given some reasonable chance/opportunity to survive if I act intelligently enough and don't take too many or too severe risks and luck doesn't roll too far the wrong way. What I do want and expect from GMs/systems I like are actual risks appropriate to the situation described. That is, a deadly weapon should be about as deadly as it really is, and the actual countermeasures should apply, and the combat system be about countering the deadliness successfully and managing to use the weapons in a way that the enemy tends to fail to avoid them before I do. I do not want a game where we pretend there are deadly weapons but by some external not-in-world reason, the "heroes" are just gonna survive by God's hand somehow (that is, unless God is an element of the game world, which I have also seen done and even enjoyed when there are limits to it and not just a narrative conceit).

QuoteIm asking this with a real concern over the campaign I am about to start. (Symbaroum) Without some serious tweaking I see this game as being a meat grinder for characters. Its something I havent contended with much before.

Well in that case, I'd say you should do a little solo playtesting so you know what the expected death risk is like, and then if it's higher than you think you want, figure out how to tweak things so you get your desired risk level. And possibly check in with your players about what they want.

Here's another perspective. I've mostly played TFT and GURPS and wargames, by choice, having tried many other games. I and my friends tend to choose fairly realistic and/or deadly settings, and to let the dice says who lives or dies. PCs can and do die, sometimes unexpectedly. It can be quite upsetting, particularly to the player of a PC they've played for a while. However we do not take this as something to prevent happening, because (my understanding is) we agree that it would undermine most of the point for us of playing a game about a risky situation, to artificially remove the risk. For example, in cases where players think they can get away with taking extreme risks, some players tend to do so, doing things like "I drop my weapon and jump on the giant serpent's neck, climb up to the head, get out my knife, and stab its eyes out..." because they expect the GM to give them unrealistic chances to actually manage to do that, do it in a time-warping accelerated rate and with much less real risk and much more effectiveness than it should have because of "rule of cool" or "GM must avoid letting PC die" even though the other PCs may be there too and behaving more appropriately. That stands out like a sore thumb to me and to most (if not all) of my friends and players as annoying fake-o crap that punishes the rational players and rewards something that should at best fail and at worst put the foolish PC at great risk of various horrible and likely deadly outcomes. If on the other hand, appropriate risks are assessed and rolled for, and the PC manages to do things that could actually work and pull off a victory which was quite unlikely, then that's actually interesting and worth remembering.

So, while there have been various PC deaths and TPKs in our games, and the risk is really there all the time, and can happen at any time when facing any foe, in many of our games, not by GM forcing, PCs have survived campaigns, even through several years of play. It happens despite the risk, because we learned about the nature of the risks, and learned to manage them. We don't head off into the woods without being well prepared to deal with the expected threats, if we can at all help it. We avoid fights we think will lead to people we care about dying, by not starting them, or by fleeing or even laying down arms if needed. When we do fight, we use all the tactics we can to minimize risks of death. We use combat systems where that's possible, and one of the main focuses of play. If the GM is helping the players survive, it is several steps before the point where a die roll would be fudged. That is, by being moderate in how skilled and deadly the foes are, how brilliant they are tactically, how alert or gullible they are, how good their tactics are, how many of them there are, how many opportunities the situation provides for avoiding getting killed or gaining advantages in various ways, and so on. Players in such games can get really good in developing tactics to avoid death, without requiring forcing mechanisms.

Count me in for Depends (as opposed to Depends...you know...the other one.:-)

I run Super Hero games where no one dies, unless for story reasons. I run Dungeon World, where characters are expected to, and do, often die.

I don't think there's a "sweet spot" for this that covers all eventualities.

From a game design perspective, the only wrong answer is a game that purports to be one thing, but the rules reward something different. Example: describe your game as highly story driven, where you spend much of your time exploring your character and their motivations and struggles, but have a highly lethal combat rules that means you are likely to lose your character. Notable offenders: 1st edition oWoD games.

From a DM perspective, the only wrong answer is to neither explain nor telegraph your expectations, or fail to reward your PCs for correct action. Example: "This game is grim and gritty, so you're going to have to think carefully whether you want to engage in combat, and not be afraid to have to run away." Then give players no way of knowing ahead of time how challenging an encounter would be and/or make sure running away just means they die shot in the back. Notable offenders: people trying any grim&gritty (or just OSR level lethal) game for the first time in a long, long time.

From a player perspective, the only wrong answer is to say you up for X, where X is a rather lethal game, but then take it personally when your character bites it. Example: We've all seen it at some point.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;922056
From a DM perspective, the only wrong answer is to neither explain nor telegraph your expectations, or fail to reward your PCs for correct action. Example: "This game is grim and gritty, so you're going to have to think carefully whether you want to engage in combat, and not be afraid to have to run away." Then give players no way of knowing ahead of time how challenging an encounter would be and/or make sure running away just means they die shot in the back. Notable offenders: people trying any grim&gritty (or just OSR level lethal) game for the first time in a long, long time.

From a player perspective, the only wrong answer is to say you up for X, where X is a rather lethal game, but then take it personally when your character bites it. Example: We've all seen it at some point.

In regards to both of these, one of the things I've seen is where one party _thinks_ they've communicated something, but the other party _understood_ something else. We've seen this in threads here too. WtheD's example that I've bolded above is good. But I'd probably still explicitly state "Characters will die very easily in this game".

When I run you through, or a limb comes flying off, I let the common-sense of the players do the rest.

When an NPC engages and purposely in not overtly trying to maim and kill the PC's, I let the common-sense of the players do the rest.

When the elusive common-sense power does not kick in - mayhem ensues. And you got some nice conflict for gaming fodder.

win/win.

GMing 102