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We used to make fun of guys who wanted 're-dos' on RPG situations that didn't work out right. Now Jeremy Crawford wants it to be D&D policy. Because he doesn't understand the most basic thing about how RPGs work.


[video=youtube_share;vrYt6ZopnIw]https://youtu.be/vrYt6ZopnIw[/youtube]

We want a do-over!
Player's Lives Matter!  
Stop DM brutality!
;-)

Ha!!!!!!!

This surprises anyone... how?

I mean 5e allready has inspiration points for a re-roll. There is luck feats for another re-roll. and so on. We need more? Why?

I exercise my right to disagree. The point of RPGs as a whole is to have fun. If having fun is incumbent on a do-over, or trying again at a challenge, then that's the way that table goes.

Do I? No. Do others? Sure? I would say that it's a weakness of the overall nouveau community that they need some kind of icon to say "Oh, sure, that's ok," to do it.

Depends on the game. The old Top Secret game had Fame and Fortune points, but these were secret, random, and non renewable. For D&D Hit points are this weird mash of fate/skill/meat points but it wouldn't be too far off to offer something similar.

If you overdo it, however, there comes a point where there's no point in rolling. Just write your collaborative novel and be done.

I enjoyed this video. :cool:
The worship of Crawford as a guru is crazy, when he's positively sub-average in so many basic aspects of running a game. In this case, inability to understand how the secret of D&D is immersion, and that this rests on the you-are-there, no-do-overs element. Immersion distinguishes it & other RPGs from video games & other games. It's what is so addictive about RPGs. That they are NOT collaborative story-telling. It comes from the 'Gamist' aspect of RPGs as wargame-derived, the possibility of success and failure, just like life. This is why they are so different from other sorts of role-playing such as staff training & practice. Players & GM do actually enter a slightly altered mindset, almost a kind of vision quest with the GM as shaman. Do-overs make that impossible.

I did a "dream sequence" once when a teenager. The redo was even worse. I took time off DMing to watch and see how others did things, but I can't say it helped. It takes years to be decent, at least in my case.

Good vid Pundit.

But who the hell is Jeremy Crawford?

Quote from: The Exploited.;1132766Good vid Pundit.

But who the hell is Jeremy Crawford?

Not sure if serious?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1132913Not sure if serious?

I also had to look him up. I had no idea who he was.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1132766Good vid Pundit.

But who the hell is Jeremy Crawford?

Sorry, I was actually being serious. I agree with what you are saying in the vid mate (what's the point in playing, if the players want a do-over every so often).

I just don't now the chump is tbh. Is he one of the SJWs on twitter?

Edit found his wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Crawford

My honest opinion; isn't this what Hit Points are for?

You fail, you lose some hit points and try again if applicable.

This isn't to say Hit Points couldn't use some tweaking (ex. I wrote my falling rules based on non-physical hit points meaning you catch yourself at the last moment and only plummet down the ravine if you run out of hit points (i.e. your luck, skill and stamina give out)... but rather that the game is already has a system for mitigating failure.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1132725I exercise my right to disagree. The point of RPGs as a whole is to have fun. If having fun is incumbent on a do-over, or trying again at a challenge, then that's the way that table goes.

Do I? No. Do others? Sure? I would say that it's a weakness of the overall nouveau community that they need some kind of icon to say "Oh, sure, that's ok," to do it.

Yeah, I'm with this. The overall message of the video is "These spoiled brats today don't know how to have fun properly. They need to play the way that *I* play, then they'd really have fun." Like some old man trying really hard to convince kids that checkers is more fun than their Nintendo.

Incidentally, while "It was all a dream" is usually a bad idea, I do have a great fondness both for the original AD&D Ravenloft module as well as its sequel "Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill." The latter uses "it was all a dream" to good effect -- in keeping with gothic horror traditions.

Quote from: jhkim;1132951Yeah, I'm with this. The overall message of the video is "These spoiled brats today don't know how to have fun properly. They need to play the way that *I* play, then they'd really have fun." Like some old man trying really hard to convince kids that checkers is more fun than their Nintendo.

Incidentally, while "It was all a dream" is usually a bad idea, I do have a great fondness both for the original AD&D Ravenloft module as well as its sequel "Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill." The latter uses "it was all a dream" to good effect -- in keeping with gothic horror traditions.

Why I'm not surprised to see you in agreement with a rule that removes all consequences from the characters actions?

Speaking of Nintendo, you do know that videogames have lives for the exact same reason? If you expend all your lives (Hit Points) you really die and have to start over, in some games from the very beginning in others from a certain prior save point. Said save point is the equivalent of inheritance rules in RPGs, you die and will your earthly possessions to your brother, sibling, comrade, etc. So your new character doesn't have to start poor.

The expression "Nintendo Hard" rings any bell?

I knew Jeremy Crawford didnt know shit when he said melee and ranged combat is completely equivelent.

Quote from: jhkim;1132951Yeah, I'm with this. The overall message of the video is "These spoiled brats today don't know how to have fun properly. They need to play the way that *I* play, then they'd really have fun." Like some old man trying really hard to convince kids that checkers is more fun than their Nintendo.

Incidentally, while "It was all a dream" is usually a bad idea, I do have a great fondness both for the original AD&D Ravenloft module as well as its sequel "Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill." The latter uses "it was all a dream" to good effect -- in keeping with gothic horror traditions.

I actually get where you two are coming from, but this is the gaming equivalent of getting a participation prize. I'd argue this is far less about people's fun and more about "rewarding" mediocrity.

Also, had no idea who Jeremy Crawford was before this thread. I guess I remain happily unaware of the "D&D hipster crowd".

This seems like it fits into the larger pattern of trying to defang risk from everything, which among other things, destroys the human brain's perception of reward and affects perception of meaning. Jordan Peterson talks about this idea quite a bit in terms of self-improvement. Learning to deal with failure and dare to look foolish or be injured or generally fall on one's face is an important part of humanity, and stripping it out of games runs counter to some of the purpose of games to begin with. If a group chooses it of course I'm not going to claim it's badwrongfun, but better leadership would be to encourage groups to dare and to take individual situations on a case-by-case basis.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201902/you-have-risk-it-the-biscuit-sports-success

QuoteThe dictionary defines risk as a situation in which you expose yourself to danger. Though physical risk is an inevitable part of many sports, the risks I'm talking about are more psychological and emotional in nature. Clearly, risk is essential for success not only in sports, but in every aspect of life, whether winning an Olympic gold medal, starting a tech company, or telling someone, "I love you." If you don't take risks, you won't improve, grow, or achieve your athletic goals. And, importantly, you will never find out what you are truly capable of or how far you can go.

This kind of risk comes when you face a test of your ability, effort, and preparation. You are putting your self-identity, self-esteem, goals, hopes, and dreams on the line. After the competition, you will learn whether you succeed or not at the test. The risk then becomes clear: failure!

Given the risks of taking risks, there are obvious upsides to not taking risks. You stay safe. You never get uncomfortable. And you minimize the risk of failure. Of course, there are far more significant downsides to not taking risks. You will be perpetually stuck where you are. You will never be truly successful. You will feel really frustrated. And you will never be completely satisfied with your efforts.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201404/risky-play-why-children-love-it-and-need-it

QuoteResearchers have devised ways to deprive young rats of play, during a critical phase of their development, without depriving them of other social experiences.  Rats raised in this way grow up emotionally crippled.[3, 4]  When placed in a novel environment, they overact with fear and fail to adapt and explore as a normal rat would.  When placed with an unfamiliar peer, they may alternate between freezing in fear and lashing out with inappropriate, ineffective, aggression.  In earlier experiments, similar findings occurred when young monkeys were deprived of play (though the controls in those experiments were not as good as in the subsequent rat experiments).

Such findings have contributed to the emotion regulation theory of play--the theory that one of play's major functions is to teach young mammals how to regulate fear and anger.[4]  In risky play, youngsters dose themselves with manageable quantities of fear and practice keeping their heads and behaving adaptively while experiencing that fear.  They learn that they can manage their fear, overcome it, and come out alive.  In rough and tumble play they may also experience anger, as one player may accidentally hurt another.  But to continue playing, to continue the fun, they must overcome that anger.  If they lash out, the play is over.  Thus, according to the emotion regulation theory, play is, among other things, the way that young mammals learn to control their fear and anger so they can encounter real-life dangers, and interact in close quarters with others, without succumbing to negative emotions.

I tried to watch a video with Jeremy and another fellow talking some D&D once.  I got to hear about his husband 3 times in around 5 minutes.  I do not care to hear about anyone's spouse on a rule discussion for D&D.   Read more about him and decided I dont know how much I cared for anything he had to say about D&D or RPGs.

WotC loser makes loser noises. News at 11.

WTF is wrong with these people?
If you play a card game or board game, you might lose. You learn why you lost and play again.
If you play a co-op boardgame, your whole team might lose. You learn why you lost and play again.

Why is this utterly basic dynamic impossible for the amazing new players WotC brought into the hobby?

I think the problem is

1. The game has evolved to involve much more investment in characters than it did in the old days;
2. The game has not correspondingly evolved to come up with setbacks or loss conditions other than 'character death.' Indeed, the removal of things like energy drain and permanent loss of magic items has arguably pushed it more in the 'death is the only loss' condition.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133004WotC loser makes loser noises. News at 11.

WTF is wrong with these people?
If you play a card game or board game, you might lose. You learn why you lost and play again.
If you play a co-op boardgame, your whole team might lose. You learn why you lost and play again.

Why is this utterly basic dynamic impossible for the amazing new players WotC brought into the hobby?

Bulldozer parents.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1132965This seems like it fits into the larger pattern of trying to defang risk from everything, which among other things, destroys the human brain's perception of reward and affects perception of meaning. Jordan Peterson talks about this idea quite a bit in terms of self-improvement. Learning to deal with failure and dare to look foolish or be injured or generally fall on one's face is an important part of humanity, and stripping it out of games runs counter to some of the purpose of games to begin with. If a group chooses it of course I'm not going to claim it's badwrongfun, but better leadership would be to encourage groups to dare and to take individual situations on a case-by-case basis.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201902/you-have-risk-it-the-biscuit-sports-success

So... You're saying that Crawford's RPGs *literally* cause brain damage?!? I've heard similar claims about certain RPGs before, but I found them hard to credit.

Personally, I play my games based on what I find fun, not for self-improvement. If some psychology journal tells me that the games that I don't find fun are better for my brain, I'm more likely to be skeptical of the psychology journal rather than change my game playing habits. Psychology and social sciences deserve a lot of skepticism, given the problems with reproducibility that I've seen. I suppose I could be convinced, but it's a high bar.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1132956Why I'm not surprised to see you in agreement with a rule that removes all consequences from the characters actions?

Speaking of Nintendo, you do know that videogames have lives for the exact same reason? If you expend all your lives (Hit Points) you really die and have to start over, in some games from the very beginning in others from a certain prior save point. Said save point is the equivalent of inheritance rules in RPGs, you die and will your earthly possessions to your brother, sibling, comrade, etc. So your new character doesn't have to start poor.

The expression "Nintendo Hard" rings any bell?

First, I don't play Nintendo or much of any video games. I like high-risk games, but I also like some low-risk games. Regardless of my personal tastes, though, I also don't go lecturing my son about what video games I think he should be playing. It's (a) ineffective, and (b) unsupported.

As for save points -- it seems to me that a save point is pretty much exactly a "do-over". You can't back up an arbitrary amount, but you can back up to a fixed point with no consequences for prior to that.

Quote from: jhkim;1133028So... You're saying that Crawford's RPGs *literally* cause brain damage?!? I've heard similar claims about certain RPGs before, but I found them hard to credit.

Recent double blind randomised trials found that DnD 5e did 1d2 San damage.

You can not argue with Science.

Quote from: jhkim;1133028So... You're saying that Crawford's RPGs *literally* cause brain damage?!? I've heard similar claims about certain RPGs before, but I found them hard to credit.

Personally, I play my games based on what I find fun, not for self-improvement. If some psychology journal tells me that the games that I don't find fun are better for my brain, I'm more likely to be skeptical of the psychology journal rather than change my game playing habits. Psychology and social sciences deserve a lot of skepticism, given the problems with reproducibility that I've seen. I suppose I could be convinced, but it's a high bar.


First, I don't play Nintendo or much of any video games. I like high-risk games, but I also like some low-risk games. Regardless of my personal tastes, though, I also don't go lecturing my son about what video games I think he should be playing. It's (a) ineffective, and (b) unsupported.

As for save points -- it seems to me that a save point is pretty much exactly a "do-over". You can't back up an arbitrary amount, but you can back up to a fixed point with no consequences for prior to that.

Except it's not, you do have a price, a consequence, you were at point f, you died and re-spawn to point c.

Where's the price for the characters in a "It was all a dream" snowflakery?

I think you mentioned it in the video, but I reserve do-overs for things like decisions based on misunderstandings. If the GM fails to adequatley explain a situation or if the players fail to communicate their intent clearly.
If the players and GM understand the situation, even if the players understand they don't have all the info, then let it ride.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1133040I think you mentioned it in the video, but I reserve do-overs for things like decisions based on misunderstandings. If the GM fails to adequatley explain a situation or if the players fail to communicate their intent clearly.
If the players and GM understand the situation, even if the players understand they don't have all the info, then let it ride.

1000% Agreed.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;11330131. The game has evolved to involve much more investment in characters than it did in the old days;

How?

Maybe that could be argued for the earliest days when wargamers were the core OD&D audience, but why would B/X or AD&D players have less investment than 5e players? Speed of chargen doesn't explain it because 5e chargen is the same speed or faster than 3e or 4e.

And unlike almost every other RPG, D&D has Raise Dead...and its gotten cheaper/easier over editions. Even Raise Dead had penalties back in AD&D, it was not unusual for 7th to 10th level characters to have 2-3 deaths under their belts.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1133020Bulldozer parents.

Here's my problem.

• Plenty of people the same age as WotC's new D&D audience also play CCGs, 40k and boardgames.
• There must be an audience crossover with D&D and these games.
• Thus, if they can handle total loss in non-RPGs (even total smackdowns), why shit themselves when it comes to RPGs?
• Seems weird that "playing a character" vs. "playing a game" triggers some mental failure.

Quote from: Chris24601;1132944My honest opinion; isn't this what Hit Points are for?

You fail, you lose some hit points and try again if applicable.

um... no. Very not. Unless your definition of "re-roll or do-over" is "everything on earth"...

HP are the slow wearing down from exertion and any incidental nucks and cuts till the final blow fells you. You dont spent them on re-rolls like inspiration points.

Quote from: jhkim;1133028So... You're saying that Crawford's RPGs *literally* cause brain damage?!? I've heard similar claims about certain RPGs before, but I found them hard to credit.

Wow, I think that's my first-ever jhkim bizarro-world reply! Does this make me an official member now? Not only did I claim no such thing, I even made sure to allow for it possibly being the right thing sometimes. Wow. Also, I was referencing the advantage of RPGs being a place to be risky for fun with very low actual danger/damage potential, i.e. the opposite of causing brain damage.

Quote from: jhkim;1133028Personally, I play my games based on what I find fun,

Cool, so we're in agreement. Because I'm sure as heck not lecturing anyone on how to play, just questioning the quality of the advice on this specific point.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1133040I think you mentioned it in the video, but I reserve do-overs for things like decisions based on misunderstandings. If the GM fails to adequatley explain a situation or if the players fail to communicate their intent clearly.
If the players and GM understand the situation, even if the players understand they don't have all the info, then let it ride.

Only a rare few are arguing that. And not reccently.

When I first got on this fora I mentioned making a catastrophic rules mistake, the players noticing it before a TPK happened and I told the players we'd just rewind and I'd tone things down as it was my mistake.

And a few members here told me that was wrong and should have let it stand and TPK them. One of the most ass backwards statements ever.

If we're being honest though, aren't we already more or less doing this?  When I'm DMing, I'm intentionally making encounters that I intend to push the players without wiping them out.  While it's not so blatant as just handing the players a do-over button, the game is tilted in favor of them making it through because the person running it is purposefully aiming for a sweet spot of challenge.  Yeah, PCs have died in my games, but only as a result of breathtaking bad luck or them managing to do something spectacularly stupid; the status quo is that they'll show up, have whatever adventure, and be back for the next one.  I'm not trying to run them through the Tomb of Horrors here.

Quote from: Valatar;1133077If we're being honest though, aren't we already more or less doing this?  When I'm DMing, I'm intentionally making encounters that I intend to push the players without wiping them out.  While it's not so blatant as just handing the players a do-over button, the game is tilted in favor of them making it through because the person running it is purposefully aiming for a sweet spot of challenge.  Yeah, PCs have died in my games, but only as a result of breathtaking bad luck or them managing to do something spectacularly stupid; the status quo is that they'll show up, have whatever adventure, and be back for the next one.  I'm not trying to run them through the Tomb of Horrors here.

At least leave the players their illusion of challenge, the fig leaf so to speak.

Quote from: Valatar;1133077If we're being honest though, aren't we already more or less doing this?  When I'm DMing, I'm intentionally making encounters that I intend to push the players without wiping them out.  While it's not so blatant as just handing the players a do-over button, the game is tilted in favor of them making it through because the person running it is purposefully aiming for a sweet spot of challenge.  Yeah, PCs have died in my games, but only as a result of breathtaking bad luck or them managing to do something spectacularly stupid; the status quo is that they'll show up, have whatever adventure, and be back for the next one.  I'm not trying to run them through the Tomb of Horrors here.

For me it varies - I may be doing a sandbox where they pick their own adventure which may be low threat or high threat. And I may just throw them in under levelled and see if they can survive, which has created some of the best stories with pcs using smarts, tactics, allies, diplomacy and flight to survive.

I don't know if Crawford's games LITERALLY cause brain damage, but I sure did lose a few IQ points reading some of the responses in this thread.

I started playing D&D in 8th grade, and since that time I've seen a "do over" exactly twice: one D&D game I was running, the other a GURPS Twilight 2000 game I was a player in. First instance, I was inexperienced and let some stuff during a session get out of control, the players all agreed to just pretend that session didn't happen and we moved on. Wasn't a big deal, and it had nothing to do with the players failing miserably and it being un-fun, more like "wow, I totally fucked up, let's salvage this." The GURPS game was pretty much the same thing; I was gone for the session in question, actually, and an inexperienced player apparently did some REALLY stupid shit because he didn't know better, when I showed up the next game, the GM told me what happened and that everyone decided to just ignore that to get the game back on track. The player's brother set him straight and zero issues after we resumed.

I have been a part of many, many games that went into weird territory, or where the characters had a TPK, or whatever, and in every other instance the game either just stopped (almost uniformly with people I wasn't really friends with), or we decided to just start a new campaign (my friends). I have severe gamer ADD, and I always want to try something new, so this doesn't really bother me. The longest continuous game I've actually run is three years, and even then there was a break in the middle after a TPK and we restarted with new characters in the same game world. It was actually good because everyone got to try out new classes/abilities.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133048How?

Maybe that could be argued for the earliest days when wargamers were the core OD&D audience, but why would B/X or AD&D players have less investment than 5e players? Speed of chargen doesn't explain it because 5e chargen is the same speed or faster than 3e or 4e.

  Individual characters have gotten more detailed and more important to the 'narrative,' and thus less disposable.

Quote from: Jason Coplen;1132765I did a "dream sequence" once when a teenager. The redo was even worse. I took time off DMing to watch and see how others did things, but I can't say it helped. It takes years to be decent, at least in my case.

Like anything in life - you go out in the forest and kick the tree ten-thousand times.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1133095Individual characters have gotten more detailed and more important to the 'narrative,' and thus less disposable.

Odd. I started in 1978. Every character was individual. Every player I played with cherished their PC's and even got into real-life fist-fights over stuff that happened between their PC's (and kept playing with each other and remained friends). PC's were never disposable, and the narrative was always what we chose to do.

Most other games I knew of in my area were no different. The worst games were the ones where GM's were trying to narrate their version of some novel and their players balked or the GM became adversarial for not following the GM's narrative.

Today, how many threads do we see where games have been designed around making up for the lack of experience of "good GMing" by taking away the ability to adjudicate as a GM and giving players more "options" to have "narrative control"? It immediately sets up a dichotomy between having immersion and having a boardgamey disengaged experience where the mechanics of the game IS the game.

Quote from: tenbones;1133097Odd. I started in 1978. Every character was individual. Every player I played with cherished their PC's and even got into real-life fist-fights over stuff that happened between their PC's (and kept playing with each other and remained friends). PC's were never disposable, and the narrative was always what we chose to do.

  Oh, it's been around from the beginning, it's by no means a bad thing--but it does produce tension with certain assumptions in original D&D, where players would generally have 'stables' of PCs and, by reports, not get too attached to them until they've survived a couple of levels. And as I said, the other part of the problem is that the rest of the game's design has not only not changed to reflect this, but can too easily reach the point where the only possible consequence for character failure (PC or NPC alike) is death.

 Of course, you've been gaming longer than I've been alive :), so I will defer to your expertise in this matter.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1133098Oh, it's been around from the beginning, it's by no means a bad thing--but it does produce tension with certain assumptions in original D&D, where players would generally have 'stables' of PCs and, by reports, not get too attached to them until they've survived a couple of levels. And as I said, the other part of the problem is that the rest of the game's design has not only not changed to reflect this, but can too easily reach the point where the only possible consequence for character failure (PC or NPC alike) is death.

 Of course, you've been gaming longer than I've been alive :), so I will defer to your expertise in this matter.

In general I agree with tenbones on this, people were super invested in their characters even back then, they were never disposable (and I have no recollection of running "stables" of pcs, always just one per campaign).

Where you are right is that investment wasn't instant from the get-go. I guess because chargen was pretty bare-bones back then. Characters were blank slates, their stories were yet to be told, not something worked out in loving detail at chargen. So yes I would say investment was less in the first couple of levels. You might not get too cut up about dying at Level 1 (unless you had rolled unspeakably good stats that you were unlikely to see repeated!). On the other hand, by level 3 and sometimes even by level 2 your character had stories of his own, treasured possessions, and a personality.  By that point, investment was high.

Wrt do-overs back in the day, the most extreme example I can think of is one I was not involved in at all, but heard something about. In Professor Barker's own Tekumel campaign, sometime quite early on (mid-70s?), the players solved one of the deepest mysteries of Tekumel, worked out how to return Tekumel to humanspace, and actually did it. At which point I guess the Professor basically said great job guys, game is over now, what do you want to play next? I guess the players hadn't foreseen that and were dismayed because they wanted to keep playing Tekumel. Eventually they somehow persuaded the Professor to agree it never happened (or happened in an alternate plane, or got reversed, or some such thing) so the game could go on. Anyway, pretty major do-over from back in the day.

Quote from: Zirunel;1133112In general I agree with tenbones on this, people were super invested in their characters even back then, they were never disposable (and I have no recollection of running "stables" of pcs, always just one per campaign).

Where you are right is that investment wasn't instant from the get-go. I guess because chargen was pretty bare-bones back then. Characters were blank slates, their stories were yet to be told, not something worked out in loving detail at chargen. So yes I would say investment was less in the first couple of levels. You might not get too cut up about dying at Level 1 (unless you had rolled unspeakably good stats that you were unlikely to see repeated!). On the other hand, by level 3 and sometimes even by level 2 your character had stories of his own, treasured possessions, and a personality.  By that point, investment was high.

This was roughly our experience.  If you made level 3, you started to care.  If you even sniffed level 5, you were totally invested.  The one exception was that if we had an epic TPK, everyone was so amused by how that happened, that it trumped their attachment to the characters.  That is, it was a strange kind of "care" or attachment to the character--that wasn't so much about surviving as it was about having a good run.

Quote from: jhkimSo... You're saying that Crawford's RPGs *literally* cause brain damage?!? I've heard similar claims about certain RPGs before, but I found them hard to credit.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1133060Wow, I think that's my first-ever jhkim bizarro-world reply! Does this make me an official member now? Not only did I claim no such thing, I even made sure to allow for it possibly being the right thing sometimes. Wow. Also, I was referencing the advantage of RPGs being a place to be risky for fun with very low actual danger/damage potential, i.e. the opposite of causing brain damage.

Heh. OK, so I go overboard sometimes. One of the things I enjoy about debate here is that people step over the line sometimes, and then they step back. In this case, I was focused on the part of your reply that's bolded below.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedralThis seems like it fits into the larger pattern of trying to defang risk from everything, which among other things, destroys the human brain's perception of reward and affects perception of meaning. Jordan Peterson talks about this idea quite a bit in terms of self-improvement. Learning to deal with failure and dare to look foolish or be injured or generally fall on one's face is an important part of humanity, and stripping it out of games runs counter to some of the purpose of games to begin with.

But maybe that was my over-reading of what you wrote. If you don't think that low-risk games cause harm, then we're in agreement.

(Re: comparison of tabletop RPGs to video games with save points)

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1133039Except it's not, you do have a price, a consequence, you were at point f, you died and re-spawn to point c.

Where's the price for the characters in a "It was all a dream" snowflakery?

I don't know what this supposed snowflakery looks like in actual play - I watched Pundit's video, but he didn't link to Crawford's material. But suppose someone ran a tabletop RPG which worked exactly this way -- i.e. any time someone died, or anything else bad happened, the players could go back to a previous save point. It seems to me that fits exactly what Pundit characterized as consequence-less "it was all a dream" snowflakery. Heck, the last save point could literally be when the character's last slept. Then it would totally fit that the last day's events were just a dream.

Quote from: jhkim;1133133(Re: comparison of tabletop RPGs to video games with save points)

I don't know what this supposed snowflakery looks like in actual play - I watched Pundit's video, but he didn't link to Crawford's material. But suppose someone ran a tabletop RPG which worked exactly this way -- i.e. any time someone died, or anything else bad happened, the players could go back to a previous save point. It seems to me that fits exactly what Pundit characterized as consequence-less "it was all a dream" snowflakery. Heck, the last save point could literally be when the character's last slept. Then it would totally fit that the last day's events were just a dream.

So, no price to pay, like I said, you do you but that removes the incentive it turns an adventure game into candy crush, and hey if that's what floats your boat by all means go crazy, just don't tell me it's the same type of game I'm playing because it's not and do not say it's the way people should run theirs, especially when you're seen as an authority and newbies will take your advice and thing TTRPGs suck.

Snowflakery: What and how Snowflakes like to (play in this case), and pretend it's "The One True Way tm". Changing fundamentally the game while pretending they did not.

Quote from: jhkim;1133133Heh. OK, so I go overboard sometimes. One of the things I enjoy about debate here is that people step over the line sometimes, and then they step back. In this case, I was focused on the part of your reply that's bolded below.

But maybe that was my over-reading of what you wrote. If you don't think that low-risk games cause harm, then we're in agreement.

Cheers man. No, "destroys" was for "the perception", not "the brain". I was talking primarily about the psychology of the removal of risk also removing the feeling of reward ("fun"). Since I'm a layman and try not to talk out of my ass, I linked some of the psychology material I'd read that I was thinking of when I made that claim, which also gets into the function of play - possibly useful absent an objective definition of "fun". And to your point about debate here, "destroys" was a poor word choice on my part. "Reduces" is more accurate, less hyperbolic, and hopefully clearer.

Sometimes people like to bowl with bumpers, no problem. Bowling with bumpers a lot, though, is probably missing out, though the devil's always in the details.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1133095Individual characters have gotten more detailed and more important to the 'narrative,' and thus less disposable.

But that's why D&D has Raise Dead. Your PC dies, your corpse gets dragged to a temple, next week you're back in the dungeon.

Here's what confuses me. There's no Raise Dead in most non-D&D RPGs, even most other fantasy games...and yet we don't hear about these issues with those games.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133193Here's what confuses me. There's no Raise Dead in most non-D&D RPGs, even most other fantasy games...and yet we don't hear about these issues with those games.

Except for Traveller, but then you just keep on creating new characters until one survives the generating process.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133193But that's why D&D has Raise Dead. Your PC dies, your corpse gets dragged to a temple, next week you're back in the dungeon.

Here's what confuses me. There's no Raise Dead in most non-D&D RPGs, even most other fantasy games...and yet we don't hear about these issues with those games.

How big is the sample of non-D&D (and non-Pathfinder) games compared to D&D/Pathfinder games? Mainly I mean in games being actually played, not just shelf queens.

Except Raise dead and a few other raise spells are not "do-overs" and theres a little, or a-lot of loss from it depending on the spell used and the edition.

You have to actually work usually to get a dead character back to life and in older editions of D&D there might be a recuperation period after. Or loss of EXP or other setbacks. Even if its just the cost to have them raised. This on top of getting the body back to a place a raise can be done, and finding someone agreeable to performing the casting. You did not do anything over. You picked up the pieces and continued on. This on top of any other repercussions from all this.

And not all settings for D&D actually have raise dead as an option.

As for other games.
Autoduel for Car Wars had clones.
Cyberpunk and Shadowrun I believe had medivac units if you payed for the services.
Paranoia had clones.
Believe Torg and Rifts had some manner of raise dead?

and so on.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133193Here's what confuses me. There's no Raise Dead in most non-D&D RPGs, even most other fantasy games...and yet we don't hear about these issues with those games.

Few non D&D games have routine PC death as the default fail state. Running & playing D6 Star Wars the only time PCs ever died was when they got in a spaceship... which was pretty in-genre. :D

Quote from: S'mon;1133230Few non D&D games have routine PC death as the default fail state. Running & playing D6 Star Wars the only time PCs ever died was when they got in a spaceship... which was pretty in-genre. :D

Weird. I ran D6 SW2eR&E not too long ago and we had a PC die in a single shot from a sporting blaster. He was out of CP and his 3D Strength didn't hold up against the 4D+1 damage of the blaster when the PC rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Strength and the shooter rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Damage. The character was dead and the player thought it was pretty awesome that there was a real element of risk in a gunfight--something that had been almost totally absent from his FFG SW experiences.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133241Weird. I ran D6 SW2eR&E not too long ago and we had a PC die in a single shot from a sporting blaster. He was out of CP and his 3D Strength didn't hold up against the 4D+1 damage of the blaster when the PC rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Strength and the shooter rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Damage. The character was dead and the player thought it was pretty awesome that there was a real element of risk in a gunfight--something that had been almost totally absent from his FFG SW experiences.

I've only GM'd 1e Star Wars d6. Though I GM Mini Six now which plays closer to your story.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133241Weird. I ran D6 SW2eR&E not too long ago and we had a PC die in a single shot from a sporting blaster. He was out of CP and his 3D Strength didn't hold up against the 4D+1 damage of the blaster when the PC rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Strength and the shooter rolled a 1 on his Wild Die for Damage. The character was dead and the player thought it was pretty awesome that there was a real element of risk in a gunfight--something that had been almost totally absent from his FFG SW experiences.

I'm always really worried when I run a particularly killy game like Dungeon Crawl Classics or Dark Sun, but so far, the players are usually excited when they realize that I'm willing to let a character die instead of GM intervene or play softball with them.

Characters being at risk of dying is what makes them worth playing.

Quote from: S'mon;1133230Few non D&D games have routine PC death as the default fail state.

Traveller? Cthulhu? Gamma World? Cyberpunk? Warhammer? All have plenty of PC death.

In Paranoia, your clones are basically hit points since insta-kill is really common.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133385Traveller? Cthulhu? Gamma World? Cyberpunk? Warhammer? All have plenty of PC death.

In Paranoia, your clones are basically hit points since insta-kill is really common.

Default fail state - Cthulu you go mad, Cyberpunk they kill your girlfriend. Traveller you have to take out a new loan on your ship mortgage. Warhammer you go mad, they kill your girlfriend, they set fire to & sink your ship, and you die. :D

Quote from: RPGPundit;1133378Characters being at risk of dying is what makes them worth playing.

  correct, and after surviving a few harrowing adventures where someone else did die, or you almost did creates a value and investment in that character.  I feel there is waaaaaay too much trying to make a "backstory" for a character,  a beginning character has no backstory, they are one of many.  Their adventures and exploits as they play CREATES their backstory.  Not sitting down to write a bunch of being awesome and having never accomplished shit.

Quote from: oggsmash;1133427correct, and after surviving a few harrowing adventures where someone else did die, or you almost did creates a value and investment in that character.  I feel there is waaaaaay too much trying to make a "backstory" for a character,  a beginning character has no backstory, they are one of many.  Their adventures and exploits as they play CREATES their backstory.  Not sitting down to write a bunch of being awesome and having never accomplished shit.

As a counter point, has anyone ever really felt the same way for say Mario?

We know he can't die, he will always re-spawn or we re start the game and play again. He's always the same guy doing the same things over and over again.

The sense of accomplishment there is about you as a player learning how to beat the game. While in a TTRPG you get truly invested in your character and it changes, grows as time passes and you find who him/her is.

In my AD&D2e campaign the DM recently mentioned my wizard having more moral qualms about letting our fallen comrade's body to be eaten by bugs or monsters in a cavern. I have not written anything about him having such morals, it just happened while we were playing.

In the end I won the argument and the Dwarfs and Mutants we just rescued helped us carry his body out of the cavern, easy enough t convince them since he was a Dwarven Cleric.

Quote from: S'mon;1133390Cyberpunk they kill your girlfriend.

I remember one time my buddy rolled on the Lifepath generator that his girlfriend has been kidnapped, and then rolled his response to the event as "the relationship was over anyway." We decided right there that his PC was the coldest mofo in Night City.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1133378Characters being at risk of dying is what makes them worth playing.

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Quote from: oggsmash;1133427correct, and after surviving a few harrowing adventures where someone else did die, or you almost did creates a value and investment in that character.  I feel there is waaaaaay too much trying to make a "backstory" for a character,  a beginning character has no backstory, they are one of many.  Their adventures and exploits as they play CREATES their backstory.  Not sitting down to write a bunch of being awesome and having never accomplished shit.

I agree. Another way to look at it is the characters actions in the game say more than any backstory. And I'm not particulary against backstory.

Thinking about it, I think lethality level isn't the only factor. There's also the nature of danger and how that affect the tone of a game. I'll use some specific examples, in order of killyness.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Hearkens back to the days of Tomb of Horrors. Your character can die due to an unlucky dice roll, and we like it that way.

Dark Sun: Surviving an adventure can be it's own reward. You may have to choose which character goes without water today, and they may die for it.

Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance, etc: Death is not off the table, but there are other ways to handle that fail state. Having the bad guys take a defeated character hostage for ransom, NPCs save your bacon but want to be recompensed, and there's ressurection if you can afford it. (Not just in cash, but favors owed to the gods or the priests or both) If your characters falls into lava or gets eaten by a dragon, well sometimes your character just croaks.

You can run out of replacement clones in Paranoia.

Mu first and only session playing Paranoia ended up with the whole party getting killed, alot and using up all 6 clones.

Quote from: Omega;1133587You can run out of replacement clones in Paranoia.

Mu first and only session playing Paranoia ended up with the whole party getting killed, alot and using up all 6 clones.

Sure. But having those 6 clones makes death in Paranoia different than D&D or whatever other game.

I would say that there has to be at least one fail state that is really what it purports to be.  Whatever those fail states are, they must be honored.  The disconnnect comes when we have pretend fail states that are not honored in fact.

In D&D, supposedly you can die and that's that.  Raise Dead, a bunch of hit points, luck, etc. can put it off, but it really is possible to die.  

Arguably, some of the "too easy" slams on 5E are shorthand for the more accurate "it is possible to die but the chances if you play the default are so low after level 3 or so that we consider them not worth mentioning".  That is, except for a few rabid anti-5E people speaking from ignorance, no one believes you can't die at all.  Some find the chances of death low enough that it effectively nullifies the fail state.  Others (like me) consider the default to make the chances of death to low, but are happy with a few house rules that move the threshold to somewhat more likely (though not as likely as what others would want).

In the same way, if you play, say, AD&D 1E with a GM that fudges a lot, then you've got the pretense of death being on the line, but it isn't.  Whereas if the people at the table are playing for other reasons (e.g. failed missions, my character's love interest shuns him, etc.) that really can fail, then maybe they are ok with throwing the death fail state out--because it is well understood by the group that death isn't on the line.

In Toon, death isn't a mechanic.  Losing because you end up like Wile E. Coyote--failed, humilated, etc. is on the line.  If it's not, then the GM is fudging Toon and missing the point.  I'd be as annoyed by that as by an AD&D game where everyone pretended you could die when the GM always fudges to stop it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1133597But having those 6 clones makes death in Paranoia different than D&D or whatever other game.

Paranoia 1e combat is very deadly and its pretty common for combats and environmental dangers to run "one-hit, one kill". And the ubiquitous nature of grenades and rocket launchers being used at short range means half-to-full group kills happen often.  Thus, instead of worrying about losing all your hit points, you worry about losing all your clones.

I can't speak to the later edition of Paranoia. Perhaps those combat rules are much more survivable.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133666Paranoia 1e combat is very deadly and its pretty common for combats and environmental dangers to run "one-hit, one kill". And the ubiquitous nature of grenades and rocket launchers being used at short range means half-to-full group kills happen often.  Thus, instead of worrying about losing all your hit points, you worry about losing all your clones.

I can't speak to the later edition of Paranoia. Perhaps those combat rules are much more survivable.

My point is it's easy for a character to die in Paranoia, but it's also easy to bring them back. This changes the tone of the game, in that a character dying just for a laugh is actually encouraged in the game.

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In one of those, immortality is part of emulation of genre. Sure, if you want your D&D games to be like looney tunes, you don need to have pcs die.

The other is extremely lethal so much so that you get five (clone) lives and it's very common that all five don't survive a single session. Maybe you never played?

Quote from: oggsmash;1133427correct, and after surviving a few harrowing adventures where someone else did die, or you almost did creates a value and investment in that character.  I feel there is waaaaaay too much trying to make a "backstory" for a character,  a beginning character has no backstory, they are one of many.  Their adventures and exploits as they play CREATES their backstory.  Not sitting down to write a bunch of being awesome and having never accomplished shit.

This perspective is so on the money and defines what amounts to a real backstory, which invariably becomes far more nuanced and memorable than any of the players could have imagined.  That's what is so great about the RPG play concept.

Making a character is complicated and takes time?  Too bad, play a system with simpler mechanics if you're going to get miffed about spending time on a character creation that might die.  No one is asking for a vast cornucopia of backstory at the start that does nothing other than to stroke a player's alter-ego.

I'm a big believer in players who lose a character, making some sort of connection to their new character.  It makes a nice catalyst for player investment, whether it is some overall arching plot to overthrow a major opponent or just an opportunity to give a random spider in some dungeon that took out their former character payback.

It's like watching a film like LOTR:  we know going in how it is going to go down, yet we become invested in characters like Boromir due to their failings and loss.  And like a good DM would develop, Boromir is tied into the story down the road and becomes a crucial part of events transpiring, even in death.  Sometimes in this increasingly player-driven RPG narrative, it is better to let the DM decide if the fate of the character warrants some cause and effect down the road.  The players may be pleasantly surprised with some unexpected developments in their campaign.

Would be amusing to see this ret-con style applied to something like Tomb of Horrors:  A group would never finish the module.  If they did finally manage to complete it, they would be pretty crestfallen as in the end, any sense of achievement against the odds that might have been felt would be replaced with nothing.

Really the whole idea seems to stem from a transition of simpler, older version of some poor schmucks trying to survive and taking a chance at easy riches transforming into overpowered heroes who now expect to be the catalyst of everything that happens around them.  To those players who prefer these larger than life archetypes, I strongly suggest checking your ego at the door:  you might find playing characters who are just trying to make it alive to sundown more rewarding than you may realise.

So yea, count me as not including that idea in my games anytime soon.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1133597Sure. But having those 6 clones makes death in Paranoia different than D&D or whatever other game.

5 clones we had, + the starter. And those are not "do overs" as you have to pick up where you left off as well. Essentially the same as a raise dead.

Keep in mind that in AD&D there was a small chance of permanently not being able to be raised ever again if you died.

I think we underestimate the attachment and value a character would have if you started as a level 1 D&D char, 0 DCC, or a 100-150 point character in GURPS.
   
     You get that character in gurps close to 250 points, you start  to seriously consider semi retiring them, setting up a stronghold, base, whatever to let them continue on, but get the risk off of them.   You get a character to level 5 or 6 in DCC, and you may feel similar, because you know if you have to go get rid of that giant, he is one critical from removing you from your air addiction.   5th edition D&D I can not comment as much, regarding hitting say level 10, I only have experience there up to 4-5, and the lethality seems to drop off to the point entering a dangerous situation with preparation seems almost death proof (if you guys have examples where this is not the case, hit me with em).   I could be wrong, but compared to 1st edition, it seems some of the lethality from the steeper challenges and higher level magic seems to have leveled off at high level.  I do know in 1st edition, level 10 WAS A BIG DEAL.   Again, you start considering retiring that level 10 fighter to manage his stronghold and land and rolling up a level 1 character  because adventuring is DANGEROUS.  Sometimes other games feel a bit more like a video game and I just have to go back from the save point versus getting killed.

In terms of lethality; I'm generally a fan of what I call the "three hits" rule; a starting PC should have enough resilience to take about three "normal" hits or barely survive one "big" hit (i.e. two hits worth from a single source) from the things they're likely to face.

This gives them just enough slack that any single random result won't kill them outright, but if they continue to engage in risky behavior beyond their ability it will turn lethal very quickly. It also leaves enough room that a well-prepared and/or clever party could turn an initial reverse around.

I similarly design opponents along being able to take one (mooks, ex. goblin), two (average, ex. orc), four (mini-boss, ex. ogre) or eight (boss; ex. orgre chieftan) hits that a PC can typically deal to bring them down.

There's some variance due to the dice; the PC rolls crap on damage so the mook actually takes two hits to drop while a crit drops an average foe in one hit or the monsters get some crap rolls and despite four hits, a PC is still upright or a nasty crit drops a PC in two blows (and before they even got to act); but overall it's been the right balance of survivability vs. threat for me and those I play with.

This is the one issue I think I have with D&D.  The first two, and I guess third level, it feels dangerous and combat feel harrowing.  But later, if you are a level 4 barbarian and two orcs are aiming bows or cross bows at you, and you are pretty sure you are going to get hit charging at them, you do not really care, because there is virtually no chance of you getting dropped, especially if you hulk out.  I think I need to play it more and run it less.  See it from both perspectives.

Quote from: oggsmash;11339655th edition D&D I can not comment as much, regarding hitting say level 10, I only have experience there up to 4-5, and the lethality seems to drop off to the point entering a dangerous situation with preparation seems almost death proof (if you guys have examples where this is not the case, hit me with em).   I could be wrong, but compared to 1st edition, it seems some of the lethality from the steeper challenges and higher level magic seems to have leveled off at high level.  I do know in 1st edition, level 10 WAS A BIG DEAL.   Again, you start considering retiring that level 10 fighter to manage his stronghold and land and rolling up a level 1 character  because adventuring is DANGEROUS.  Sometimes other games feel a bit more like a video game and I just have to go back from the save point versus getting killed.

5e has lower but possible PC death at 5+. It has easy but not guaranteed raising.
The biggest issue I see these days is that GMs mostly run Adventure Paths/Campaign Adventures, and new or replacement PCs start at or close to the single Party Level. So if one of the 12th level PCs dies in my Princes of the Apocalypse game, player rolls a new level 12 PC. This seriously discourages any idea of retirement.

I'm running my 1e AD&D PBP with start-at-1st, raise dead is rare,  and I can imagine PCs getting (edit) more risk averse at high level, & players may eventually want to start fresh level 1 PCs or even play the Henchmen of the advanced PCs.

Quote from: oggsmash;11339655th edition D&D I can not comment as much, regarding hitting say level 10, I only have experience there up to 4-5, and the lethality seems to drop off to the point entering a dangerous situation with preparation seems almost death proof (if you guys have examples where this is not the case, hit me with em).

IME, a 5E group can easily overpower almost any level-appropriate encounter, even "Deadly" ones, but they have to watch their resources (primarily spells, but also hit points) closely or else their effectiveness rapidly drops off. The key to planning on the PCs part is more about figuring out when& where they can fit in rests. If they are going on an extended jaunt (30+ "rooms" and lots of discrete encounters) somewhere they cannot take a long rest between (and are unlikely to manage even a short rest without some risk of interruption) then they have to fall back on basic attacks and cantrips a lot more, meaning even the easier encounters can become far tougher (and, depending on the foes/terrain/etc. risk becoming a slog to get through).

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133977IME, a 5E group can easily overpower almost any level-appropriate encounter, even "Deadly" ones, but they have to watch their resources (primarily spells, but also hit points) closely or else their effectiveness rapidly drops off. The key to planning on the PCs part is more about figuring out when& where they can fit in rests. If they are going on an extended jaunt (30+ "rooms" and lots of discrete encounters) somewhere they cannot take a long rest between (and are unlikely to manage even a short rest without some risk of interruption) then they have to fall back on basic attacks and cantrips a lot more, meaning even the easier encounters can become far tougher (and, depending on the foes/terrain/etc. risk becoming a slog to get through).

Right.  And the GM could do like me, and not only make extended use of the exhaustion rules, but also set up environments where rests aren't guaranteed, and then use mostly Kobold Press monsters--which are typically a little nastier than the default WotC monsters.  Oh, and the short rests only allows use of the Hit Dice, and the long rests do not automatically heal any damage, but simply restore Hit Dice (up to half level).  The net effect is that a "fully operational D&D 5E" party can punch well beyond its weight but it can be worn down pretty rapidly.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1134005Oh, and the short rests only allows use of the Hit Dice, and the long rests do not automatically heal any damage, but simply restore Hit Dice (up to half level).  The net effect is that a "fully operational D&D 5E" party can punch well beyond its weight but it can be worn down pretty rapidly.

Well the RAW is that LR heals all damage.

I use 1 week LRs which works great.

Quote from: S'mon;1134013Well the RAW is that LR heals all damage.

I use 1 week LRs which works great.

Yes.  I was stating how I modified it.   It's an easy change to make it a little more deadly, and most of it is even an option specified in the DMG.

One of the reasons players got over time more and more attached to their characters is that chargen went from a fairly basic thing to an ever more involved one starting with 2e. Class paths, proficiencies, class kits, and more.

The more involved a player is in chargen the more likely they are to either be more invested in the character, or reluctant to go through the process again.

We've gone in D&D from "Roll stats, choose class/race, Buy gear and go" to "choose class, choose race, buy gear and go." to "all that + choose proficiencies and kits" to "all that + feats, backgrounds etc."

The chargens gotten more involved and the threat of character death has diminished some.

Quote from: Omega;1134078The chargens gotten more involved and the threat of character death has diminished some.

There's definitely truth to this statement and I suspect there's something of a statistical distribution of system lethality vs. time to create a character that is linked to popularity of a system.

Old School D&D is popular despite its high lethality because you can literally have a new character in minutes; I have fond memories of running BECMI as a teen at Summer Camp and not even bothering to roll stats, I just made everything a 13, and max starting hit points, the player picked a class, got a pre-picked pack of equipment and entered the grinder (half the fun for a bunch of teen boys was just describing all the ways PCs and entire parties died horribly).

D6 Star Wars similarly could be high lethality (depending on how many CP points the GM handed out), but few people had many problems with it because "pick template/split 18D across 6 stats, then add 7D of skills... Go!" is up there with 1e D&D in terms of fast character generation. You COULD get more nuanced by splitting dice into pips and using specializations, but you didn't have to (and weren't gimped by not doing so either).

5e is also very popular despite it taking much longer to build a PC because the odds of PC death and having to go through the whole process again are quite low.

By contrast, all the various Mechwarrior RPG iterations have never taken off, in my opinion, because creating a PC is rather labor intensive, but then uses the same combat resolution as the war game where there's an ever present 1-in-36 chance to be insta-killed by any of a volley of weapons (1-in-36 on one roll a turn is one thing, 1-in-36 on five to ten rolls a turn is another). Basically, the effort of PC generation isn't worth the likely lifespan of the PC (by contrast, the war game where you just pick one or more mechs in the point range and assign generic pilots is OSR D&D level speed and complexity and therefore much more popular).

Basically, I think there's a sweet spot (or line rather if you were looking at the distribution) of PC complexity vs. lethality where you'll be much more well received and the further you deviate the more niche the game becomes.

Which is why I think 5e's decision to employ a couple of optional dials is actually a pretty good design decision. Feats and even skills can be optional while the classes come with a set of default starting gear. Roll/assign stats, pick race/class, ise default equipment... done! is perfectly viable and a good choice if you also opt to make the higher lethality (and can be further refined by using only the "basic" human/dwarf/elf/halfling and cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard races/classes).

Skills, feats, backgrounds, additional races/classes and personally buying your starting equipment add complexity to chargen and so probably warrant a reduction in lethality to match.

Shadowrun character creation can usually be considered moderately intricate--until you get to equipping your character. That was a total pain in the ass. Everything had multiple mods that could (and almost always were) filled, and sometimes you had software packages to run on the gear and added softs for the mods. PC equipment lists were often huge, but NPCs tended towards verisimilitude-straining degrees of being minimally equipped.

Jeep in mind that even though death was around every corner for the original and early players. Once they got someone to live long enough they started getting more and more cautious and eventually moving heaven and hell to keep the characters going. Which might include a trip to the afterlife to get the character back, or a quest before the cleric NPC will raise them and so on.

This probably dies into the investment aspect of doing whatever can to stave off the loss of a character. Except instead of chargen its the actual play that can instill the urge.

Keep in mind that alot of those oddly specific deathtrap monsters and items in D&D came about because the players were getting ever more careful and harder to challenge.

Quote from: Omega;1134106Jeep in mind that even though death was around every corner for the original and early players. Once they got someone to live long enough they started getting more and more cautious and eventually moving heaven and hell to keep the characters going. Which might include a trip to the afterlife to get the character back, or a quest before the cleric NPC will raise them and so on.

This probably dies into the investment aspect of doing whatever can to stave off the loss of a character. Except instead of chargen its the actual play that can instill the urge.

Keep in mind that alot of those oddly specific deathtrap monsters and items in D&D came about because the players were getting ever more careful and harder to challenge.

Reportedly the entire premise of Tomb of Horrors was Gary trying to challenge his extremely sucessful and meta-skilled players.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1134115Reportedly the entire premise of Tomb of Horrors was Gary trying to challenge his extremely sucessful and meta-skilled players.

Thats what the original players have said. That and its a sort of "take that" from Garys exasperation at some of the letters he was getting from players bragging about their high level characters and how easy D&D was. He just understimated how stupid some of these people were.

Quote from: Omega;1134078One of the reasons players got over time more and more attached to their characters is that chargen went from a fairly basic thing to an ever more involved one starting with 2e. Class paths, proficiencies, class kits, and more.

The more involved a player is in chargen the more likely they are to either be more invested in the character, or reluctant to go through the process again.

We've gone in D&D from "Roll stats, choose class/race, Buy gear and go" to "choose class, choose race, buy gear and go." to "all that + choose proficiencies and kits" to "all that + feats, backgrounds etc."

The chargens gotten more involved and the threat of character death has diminished some.

As I've argued upthread, I do not buy that investment in character is necessarily greater now than back in the day.

Where I agree with you is that investment may come earlier now (maybe even before play begins) because of the effort put into "build" at chargen. Whereas in the past the initial build was minimal and the * real* build happened gradually in the course of actual prolonged play.

Believe me, a character that has been "built" through long-term play is as precious, if not more so, than a character lovingly built at chargen. And the loss of that character, the dismay at "going through the process again," is all the greater if the character took years to build.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134200As I've argued upthread, I do not buy that investment in character is necessarily greater now than back in the day.

Its something I've heard from several players about chargen involvement being a deterrant to wanting to do it again if the characters die frequently, or at all in a few rare cases.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134200As I've argued upthread, I do not buy that investment in character is necessarily greater now than back in the day.

Where I agree with you is that investment may come earlier now (maybe even before play begins) because of the effort put into "build" at chargen. Whereas in the past the initial build was minimal and the * real* build happened gradually in the course of actual prolonged play.

   That was actually what I was trying to get at when I first floated the idea, although I wasn't clear--it was more about initial investment in characters than long-term investment, and the corresponding issues of how easily starting characters both died and were replaced.

Quote from: S'mon;11339765e has lower but possible PC death at 5+. It has easy but not guaranteed raising.
The biggest issue I see these days is that GMs mostly run Adventure Paths/Campaign Adventures, and new or replacement PCs start at or close to the single Party Level. So if one of the 12th level PCs dies in my Princes of the Apocalypse game, player rolls a new level 12 PC. This seriously discourages any idea of retirement.

I'm running my 1e AD&D PBP with start-at-1st, raise dead is rare,  and I can imagine PCs getting (edit) more risk averse at high level, & players may eventually want to start fresh level 1 PCs or even play the Henchmen of the advanced PCs.

It's kinda ironic, since 5e is probably the most "fair" edition for having lower level PCs. If you're within 5 levels of the rest of the party, your proficiency will only be 1 less than everyone else.  I think it's mostly due to the absolutely moronic obsession with milestone xp. If you're too lazy to write down xp numbers, you're probably too lazy to figure out the different rates characters should level.

Quote from: Omega;1134106Jeep in mind

I shall, with my psionic 4x4!

Quote from: Zirunel;1134200As I've argued upthread, I do not buy that investment in character is necessarily greater now than back in the day.

Half the fun of Champions was spending an hour (or longer) crafting your superhero. That was the early 80s. By the late 80s, Palladium was rocking with all their games which need an hour for chargen and death - especially in RIFTS - was pretty common.

As for emotional investment, I doubt there's much difference between 1980 and 2020. There's always players who treat their PCs as disposable pawns and always players who treat their PCs as beloved legends. I've loved playing many characters, but I'd rather they die in battle than vanish because the campaign fell apart.

But maybe I'm wrong. The hobby has gotten swamped with snowflakes so maybe emotional investment in their power fantasies is far greater than in the past.

Quote from: areallifetrex;1134548It's kinda ironic, since 5e is probably the most "fair" edition for having lower level PCs. If you're within 5 levels of the rest of the party, your proficiency will only be 1 less than everyone else.  I think it's mostly due to the absolutely moronic obsession with milestone xp. If you're too lazy to write down xp numbers, you're probably too lazy to figure out the different rates characters should level.

I agree mostly, though there are some issues around tier breaks 4>5 and to a much lesser extent 10>11. Everyone starting at 5th works well and I've done that; starting at 3rd in 5e would work too and would feel a lot like 1e-with-UA starting at 1st.
As you say, the big problem is the 5e XP system, which isn't very well designed to accommodate this (especially not the 10>11 tier break where XP to level goes DOWN), and the prevalence of ad hoc levelling.

Quote from: Omega;1134177Thats what the original players have said. That and its a sort of "take that" from Garys exasperation at some of the letters he was getting from players bragging about their high level characters and how easy D&D was. He just understimated how stupid some of these people were.

Interestingly, I first saw Tomb of Horrors during our game session on Halloween Night in 1980. The game was run by a friend, Tom, who wasn't really a very good GM, and he used it to prove his superiority as a GM  generating two quick TPKs' in a row. He was like "Seeeeeeee, I'm a great GM! Your party couldn't survive an hour in my Dungeon." Exasperated at the sheer stupidity of that particular game session, and the overall level design, we all quit playing D&D, and then went and watched "Halloween" with Janie Lee Curtis on HBO cable, and I ended up making out with my hot girlfriend until the wee hours of the morning.  The Halloween party turned out way better than the game. Never did look at ToH again, becuase it wasn;t really about D&D, but was a dinosaur of a module harkening back to the age of wargaming, when it seemed all too often, the only purpose of playing, was to defeat the guy sitting across the table from you.

That was ok for wargames, but wasn't why I chose to enjoy, and play D&D.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1134586Interestingly, I first saw Tomb of Horrors during our game session on Halloween Night in 1980. The game was run by a friend, Tom, who wasn't really a very good GM, and he used it to prove his superiority as a GM  generating two quick TPKs' in a row. He was like "Seeeeeeee, I'm a great GM! Your party couldn't survive an hour in my Dungeon." Exasperated at the sheer stupidity of that particular game session, and the overall level design, we all quit playing D&D, and then went and watched "Halloween" with Janie Lee Curtis on HBO cable, and I ended up making out with my hot girlfriend until the wee hours of the morning.  The Halloween party turned out way better than the game. Never did look at ToH again, becuase it wasn;t really about D&D, but was a dinosaur of a module harkening back to the age of wargaming, when it seemed all too often, the only purpose of playing, was to defeat the guy sitting across the table from you.

That was ok for wargames, but wasn't why I chose to enjoy, and play D&D.

So you blame an allready bad DM on a module meant to challenge players. Bravo on proving Gary's point.

Quote from: Omega;1134587So you blame an allready bad DM on a module meant to challenge players. Bravo on proving Gary's point.

Sure, ...any GM can kill the players anytime they want too. It takes a good quality GM though to create challenges that the players face, that "as players" or "As a team" they have a fair opportunity to overcome. That is what makes it a game. As a player, ToH seemed designed to simply humiliate. For me It was a clear indicators of the imminent demise of TSR, and even though DMG came out just a couple months later, I returned to playing and running original D&D. AD&D was marketed as the game for mature players, but was in fact, just the opposite, with modules being deliberately designed so that inexperienced GMs could "lord" over their players and "prove" their superiority, even though they didn't personally have an ounce of design skills, or creativity for that matter. Modules like that, opened the floodgates and a humongous wave of imbeciles entered the hobby. ...that was great for TSR for awhile, anyway.

They lost the holy grail, though, that which made the game truly great in the first place.

This was a turning point for alot of GMs besides myself, and this is also when third party RPGs really began to take off, as other game designers looked for ways to make a better game overall, and better experience for the players. Even with AD&D, really great GMs knew their was still enormous unlocked potential in creating an improved RPG, one that the players liked better,  that was "better" than D&D.

Even though some later AD&D modules turned out to be extremely good, I automatically overlooked them because of the bias of the poor play experience that ToH introduced in our gaming group. So it actually lost TSR some sales.

Quote from: Omega;1134078One of the reasons players got over time more and more attached to their characters is that chargen went from a fairly basic thing to an ever more involved one starting with 2e. Class paths, proficiencies, class kits, and more.

Exactly.

3d6 down the line, choose one of the basic four classes, away you go. The longest time will be that spent shopping for starting gear.

Given this approach, I find it remarkable just how often PCs survive to tell the tale. Most game systems and DMs underestimate players.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1134595The longest time will be that spent shopping for starting gear.

This one drives me nuts. Why does it take so long? Is it the selection? The organization? I have tried providing pre-built packages of gear for my players, and it doesn't seem to speed the process at all. I've tried reorganizing the character sheet more explicitly to support easy writing down of gear, which also didn't seem to help. I suppose at some point the player has to understand their gear for it to be useful -- which is maybe why pre-selected gear doesn't help much.

As with any process, repetition helps some ... but gear selection remains the biggest boggle during character creation for novices and veteran players alike in my experience. I'd love to find a way to speed that part of character creation, especially for novices.

Quote from: Zalman;1134621This one drives me nuts. Why does it take so long? Is it the selection? The organization? I have tried providing pre-built packages of gear for my players, and it doesn't seem to speed the process at all. I've tried reorganizing the character sheet more explicitly to support easy writing down of gear, which also didn't seem to help. I suppose at some point the player has to understand their gear for it to be useful -- which is maybe why pre-selected gear doesn't help much.

As with any process, repetition helps some ... but gear selection remains the biggest boggle during character creation for novices and veteran players alike in my experience. I'd love to find a way to speed that part of character creation, especially for novices.

Any choices can be potentially paralyzing.  In that scenario, where just about the only choices you have are equipment related--and the list is a little long, some players will be slow.

It can help to narrow the choices considerably.  I'm going off of memory, because it has been some time since I did BECMI, but I don't recall even new players having trouble picking weapons when they were playing a wizard or even cleric.  That limited list helps, plus the wizard is anxious to get on to spells.

What I've done in other contexts (Fantasy Hero with mostly pregens that could be customized, for example) is to limit the lists by culture and other factors.  Instead of a dwarf getting the whole list (with exceptions for things outside their size range), say they can have a battle axe, war hammer, or short sword (or whatever you want them to have as choices) as their main weapon, and then a similarly short list for backup/ranged.

Quote from: Zalman;1134621This one drives me nuts. Why does it take so long? Is it the selection? The organization? I have tried providing pre-built packages of gear for my players, and it doesn't seem to speed the process at all. I've tried reorganizing the character sheet more explicitly to support easy writing down of gear, which also didn't seem to help. I suppose at some point the player has to understand their gear for it to be useful -- which is maybe why pre-selected gear doesn't help much.

As with any process, repetition helps some ... but gear selection remains the biggest boggle during character creation for novices and veteran players alike in my experience. I'd love to find a way to speed that part of character creation, especially for novices.

    I think it's because it's essentially a point-buy system--you've got a fixed budget, a whole bunch of options, and a lot of tradeoffs to make. I personally don't like games that emphasize equipment as much as D&D and its ilk, so I'm biased in this regard.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1134586Interestingly, I first saw Tomb of Horrors during our game session on Halloween Night in 1980. The game was run by a friend, Tom, who wasn't really a very good GM, and he used it to prove his superiority as a GM  generating two quick TPKs' in a row. He was like "Seeeeeeee, I'm a great GM! Your party couldn't survive an hour in my Dungeon." Exasperated at the sheer stupidity of that particular game session, and the overall level design, we all quit playing D&D, and then went and watched "Halloween" with Janie Lee Curtis on HBO cable, and I ended up making out with my hot girlfriend until the wee hours of the morning.  The Halloween party turned out way better than the game. Never did look at ToH again, becuase it wasn;t really about D&D, but was a dinosaur of a module harkening back to the age of wargaming, when it seemed all too often, the only purpose of playing, was to defeat the guy sitting across the table from you.

That was ok for wargames, but wasn't why I chose to enjoy, and play D&D.

This was my attitude towards ToH for a long time. An amusing kill em all dungeon, but not the kind of thing I'd actually run. That kill em all mentality was most apparent in the Grimtooth's Traps series of 3rd party books.

Having re-read ToH recently, my opinion has shifted somewhat. Taken for what it is, ToH makes a certain kind of sense. This is the lair of an ancient lich who has seen everything a party of adventurers can come up with. It's his lair, it's not mean to be fair.

There have been refinements in rules and systems since then. If I were to run ToH today, I'd probably take it down a notch or two, but try to retain the difficulty. Not everyone likes ToH, but everyone remembers it or has heard of it. It's a touchstone of Dungeons and Dragons.

Quote from: Zalman;1134621This one drives me nuts. Why does it take so long? Is it the selection? The organization? I have tried providing pre-built packages of gear for my players, and it doesn't seem to speed the process at all. I've tried reorganizing the character sheet more explicitly to support easy writing down of gear, which also didn't seem to help. I suppose at some point the player has to understand their gear for it to be useful -- which is maybe why pre-selected gear doesn't help much.

As with any process, repetition helps some ... but gear selection remains the biggest boggle during character creation for novices and veteran players alike in my experience. I'd love to find a way to speed that part of character creation, especially for novices.

IME cutting the gear list into several smaller lists by type of gear helps, also making each list alphabetical, plus using modern names instead of archaic ones. Another thing is to put the starting gear (stuff with a price cap of the max coin any given character can get at chargen) in a separate list, even if that gear is latter repeated in the full lists. And do not give them the full lists at chargen.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134631IME cutting the gear list into several smaller lists by type of gear helps, also making each list alphabetical, plus using modern names instead of archaic ones. Another thing is to put the starting gear (stuff with a price cap of the max coin any given character can get at chargen) in a separate list, even if that gear is latter repeated in the full lists. And do not give them the full lists at chargen.

Good suggestions, thanks!

I've already implemented the last idea -- and doing so spawned a different feel whereby I no longer have a "complete" gear list at all, only a "starting gear" list, and lists of what each specific marketplace offers. This in turn has given rise to an economy where local vs imported goods are well defined, where an item's origin affects the cost, and where all kinds of specialty goods are possible without overwhelming players.

I've also tried minimizing the "point buy" effect by making starting gear free, limited only by what you can carry. There's still a point buy in terms of encumbrance, but at least it's only one instead of two.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1134630Having re-read ToH recently, my opinion has shifted somewhat. Taken for what it is, ToH makes a certain kind of sense. This is the lair of an ancient lich who has seen everything a party of adventurers can come up with. It's his lair, it's not mean to be fair.

   In the rare graphic novel Vecna: Hand of the Revenant, there's a scene between Vecna and a living Acererak, who was one of Vecna's lieutenants Back In The Day according to that story. Acererak characterizes life as 'a trap (or series of traps) where all roads lead to death' except for lichdom.

   I picked that up at GenCon 2002 and talked to the illustration, Kevin McCann, about that bit, and he said something to the effect of 'what other kind of person would come up with the Tomb of Horrors?'

Quote from: Zalman;1134633Good suggestions, thanks!

I've already implemented the last idea -- and doing so spawned a different feel whereby I no longer have a "complete" gear list at all, only a "starting gear" list, and lists of what each specific marketplace offers. This in turn has given rise to an economy where local vs imported goods are well defined, where an item's origin affects the cost, and where all kinds of specialty goods are possible without overwhelming players.

I've also tried minimizing the "point buy" effect by making starting gear free, limited only by what you can carry. There's still a point buy in terms of encumbrance, but at least it's only one instead of two.

I've seen the free starting gear approach somewhere, not sure if it was limited by your STR (I bet it was just not sure). Yes, that could also be a good option.

As for non gear, all adventurers know the basic skills for adventuring: Fire starting, fishing, foraging, hunting (by bow or trap your choice), maybe swimming and give them all the profficiency in their main weapon, this also speeds up chargen.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1134651In the rare graphic novel Vecna: Hand of the Revenant, there's a scene between Vecna and a living Acererak, who was one of Vecna's lieutenants Back In The Day according to that story. Acererak characterizes life as 'a trap (or series of traps) where all roads lead to death' except for lichdom.

   I picked that up at GenCon 2002 and talked to the illustration, Kevin McCann, about that bit, and he said something to the effect of 'what other kind of person would come up with the Tomb of Horrors?'

Neat! :) That's the kind of lore you could sprinkle throughout the tomb.

In Tomb of Annihilation the Tomb is in part a test of adventurers and in part an extension of the original tombs purpose. To harvest souls.

If you think Acererak as a sort of sadistic big game hunter it makes a bit more sense.

Not exactly keen on him being elevated to some sort of demi-god. But such is.

Quote from: Omega;1134671In Tomb of Annihilation the Tomb is in part a test of adventurers and in part an extension of the original tombs purpose. To harvest souls.

If you think Acererak as a sort of sadistic big game hunter it makes a bit more sense.

Not exactly keen on him being elevated to some sort of demi-god. But such is.

  I had the 1st edition copy of Tomb of Horrors, in all honesty as far as encounter difficulty, demi god is a step down for Acererak in so far as status.   Does he have worshippers in the 5th edition?

I love Tomb of Horrors. It's supposed to be a mega-challenge and not something you just march through in a game session. It's effectively a mini-campaign, not an evening of laid back beer and pretzels. But it's not for every group. As always, know your players.

As far as I understand it, Tomb of Horrors was meant for Convention Tournament play:  to separate the wheat from the chaff.  I kind of wish I had been there to experience it as intended.  It was unapologetic in it's deadly purpose.  I can imagine the excitement and competitiveness various groups playing there felt, seeing how far everyone got before TPK.  Any group surviving it would wear that accomplishment like a badge of honour.  Besting Gygax's killer dungeon would give one a lot of free beers no doubt from the fallen, coupled with many questions of how they managed to finish the module.

Contrary to some opinions, I feel it is one of the ultimate player teamwork modules.  If the players decide to run off and do their own thing, they're dead.  As a DM I would not gloat over the player's death, but leave it as something to gnaw away at them, knowing that they will be hard pressed to resist returning to try another day.  I feel there has to be at least one area in a campaign that is verboten for the players, to occasionally humble them if they are feeling a little too heroic and confident at times.

Despite how one may feel about TOH, there was enough memorable moments about it to sustain many expansions on the legend.  I admit, anything tied into the storyline always gets a second look from me.

The other 'S' series modules weren't a walk in the park either.  Expedition to the Barrier Peaks ended up killing the party I was part of when we decided to wrangle with the exercise robots and got trounced hard.  Knowing nothing about what were were getting into and seeing unearthly science fiction elements as we bumbled around with swords and shields was a real mind trip for our group, weaned on more traditional dungeon crawls.  Was so hard not to metagame though.


On the vexing situation of players decking out their characters dragging on, I also feel players sometimes overthink their equipment as they micromanage.  Just don't show them Gygax's pole-arm lists to choose from or you'll never get the game going.  Maybe just start the story with the players washed up on an island with little to no items.  Watch them go all 'Survivor' as they barter and fight each other for the best weapons.  The monsters won't have to worry 'cause they'll end up being their own worst enemies.  Heh

This is where it can be good to start with "cultural weapons."

"Ah, you're a Roman legionary. So you have a long tunic, boots, cloak, mail, large shield, shortsword and spear for battle. To carry around you have a long pole with attached spare tunic, rations, a pot, spade, and two wooden stakes."

"So you're a Saxon warrior. You're only 1st level so you have tunic and trews, boots, medium shield, a helm which gives +1 to AC, a shortsword and spear. Roll 1d6, if you roll 1-3 that's it, roll 4-5 you have leather armour, and roll 6 and you have mail."

"You're a monk. You have robes and sandals. You can find a stick."

Pick one from column 1, two from column 2, three from column 3...and we're done.

I should design that for OD&D.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134774I love Tomb of Horrors. It's supposed to be a mega-challenge and not something you just march through in a game session. It's effectively a mini-campaign, not an evening of laid back beer and pretzels. But it's not for every group. As always, know your players.

All the S Series are like that.  Legends and Myths your characters have heard of, and end up going after or getting involved in.  S1-4, every one of them is a damn meat grinder.  Very few people come out of any one of those modules without at least one permadeath if not a TPK.  Every single one of them is also worth it, for the bragging rights and sense of accomplishment if nothing else.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1134791This is where it can be good to start with "cultural weapons."

"Ah, you're a Roman legionary. So you have a long tunic, boots, cloak, mail, large shield, shortsword and spear for battle. To carry around you have a long pole with attached spare tunic, rations, a pot, spade, and two wooden stakes."

"So you're a Saxon warrior. You're only 1st level so you have tunic and trews, boots, medium shield, a helm which gives +1 to AC, a shortsword and spear. Roll 1d6, if you roll 1-3 that's it, roll 4-5 you have leather armour, and roll 6 and you have mail."

"You're a monk. You have robes and sandals. You can find a stick."

Soulbound does something like that, with each PC having an archetype and each archetype starting with a small set of assigned gear. Beyond that, you get a small amount of spending money to customize, but gear selection should be finished in just a few short minutes (and all of character creation in about 15-20 minutes).

Quote from: jhkim;1132951Yeah, I'm with this. The overall message of the video is "These spoiled brats today don't know how to have fun properly. They need to play the way that *I* play, then they'd really have fun." Like some old man trying really hard to convince kids that checkers is more fun than their Nintendo.

Incidentally, while "It was all a dream" is usually a bad idea, I do have a great fondness both for the original AD&D Ravenloft module as well as its sequel "Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill." The latter uses "it was all a dream" to good effect -- in keeping with gothic horror traditions.

Woah. Woah. Let's not  ring checkers into this discussion

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1134791This is where it can be good to start with "cultural weapons."

"Ah, you're a Roman legionary. So you have a long tunic, boots, cloak, mail, large shield, shortsword and spear for battle. To carry around you have a long pole with attached spare tunic, rations, a pot, spade, and two wooden stakes."

"So you're a Saxon warrior. You're only 1st level so you have tunic and trews, boots, medium shield, a helm which gives +1 to AC, a shortsword and spear. Roll 1d6, if you roll 1-3 that's it, roll 4-5 you have leather armour, and roll 6 and you have mail."

"You're a monk. You have robes and sandals. You can find a stick."

not a bad idea, might steal it for my totally not Conan game

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134792Pick one from column 1, two from column 2, three from column 3...and we're done.

I should design that for OD&D.

might work if you keep the columns short

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134792Pick one from column 1, two from column 2, three from column 3...and we're done.

I should design that for OD&D.

I'm listening ...

This was an interesting discussion of Anglo-Saxon gear.

https://www.heroicage.org/issues/6/devingo.html

Our ideas of Anglo-Saxon helms are based on... four surviving examples. Obviously there are other sources, but when you look into historical stuff, it's amazing on what a thin foundation most of our understanding sits. So with gear, culture or whatever, if you just go with what seems reasonable to you, then you probably won't be any further off than professional historians.