Quote from: S'mon;754342What do you mean I can't charge the machinegun nest head on and win? You railroading bastard!

@robiswrong - "good tactics work" is a really bad definition of "railroading", and makes me wonder if you've encountered actual railroading  ("the PCs will now be captured"/"if they leave the path, hit them with draconians until they turn back"), or even typical linear adventure design ("the PCs must find clue X to get to place Y for the adventure to continue").

what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

Quote from: jibbajibba;754346what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.  You come in from different angles, zig zag, use cover, throw grenades, etc, are all going to end up fucking the machinegunner's chance to hit you, because of mechanics in the game.  No dramatic logic or magical tea party bullshit required.  Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.
Wow, it's like we're actually Roleplaying in WWII instead of a John Wayne movie. Whoda fucking thunk it?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.  You come in from different angles, zig zag, use cover, throw grenades, etc, are all going to end up fucking the machinegunner's chance to hit you, because of mechanics in the game.  No dramatic logic or magical tea party bullshit required.  Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.
Wow, it's like we're actually Roleplaying in WWII instead of a John Wayne movie. Whoda fucking thunk it?

This is a very important distinction and it is important I think for those at the table to be aware which WWII they are in. I had a player who used to ask questions like "Is this hollywood Rome or real Rome?" Is this Hollywood 1930s NY or real 1930s NY, basically so he would know what logic I was applying to these kinds of situations. It is also important for gauging the plausibility of any "cunning plan" the players come up with to outwit foes. I have run campaigns using both styles depending on what I a interested in, and continue to do so. If I am playing real world WWII though, charging a machine gun nest is going to be quite likely to mow you down. If it is a  John Wayne movie, we're probably using something like Savage Worlds and the player can use bennies or something to gain an edge, plus all the guys manning the nest will go down in one hit. But the GM who is taking the real WWII approach isn't being a jerk or implanting secret win buttons when he makes things that are actually dangerous, actually dangerous.

Quote from: jibbajibba;754346what he means is the gm has decided that this tactical approach will work and all else will fail. Or the GM has given the bad guys a deliberate weak spot that will get them a 'win' if they expolit it right, say the death star has a single vent leading to its core reactor and it they could just ....

Hm; the former could trend towards railroading if the GM arbitrarily has every outside-the-box solution fail. That was not my reading of what rob said.

The latter sounds like typical linear design - 'this is what we expect will happen' - but doesn't necessarily prevent other solutions such as kidnapping Vader and holding him to ransom while the rebels evacuate. Paizo APs tend to be written like that, with a default linear path, but open to the GM allowing deviation.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356Stuff that works in real life also works in the game.

Some people seem to regard that (or likewise "stuff that works in this genre's fiction also works in this genre-game")  as railroading. Obviously I strongly disagree.

In fairness, I believe I was the one who introduced the idea that skillful play could minimize lethal risk, in order to justify calling a game "lethal" even though PCs rarely die.

Or to avoid getting hung up on that one term, I was suggesting that The Butcher's complaint about "pulp" being misunderstood is valid even if there's little difference in the actual death rate between Butcher-approved "real pulp" and gonzo neo-pulp. I'm saying you have to look at the quality of play, not just the rules and the outcome.

And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

The fact is that if you're repeatedly putting your character at risk of death based on a die roll with any reasonable chance of failure (not some mathematical power series that converges to a small finite number), then your character WILL die unless:

--You retire characters after a limited number of adventures, or
--You have access to a sufficient pool of reroll points (technically, if you play an infinite # of adventures you'd need not only infinite points, but infinite points in each adventure) and you can use them repeatedly (not just one reroll per roll).

I think that covers it, outside of GM fudging. I suppose you could contrive your own power series by putting characters into semi-retirement--wait 10 adventures before reintroducing Captain Daring, then 100, then 1000...

In short, I don't see a solution other than accepting character turnover vs character continuity, or using brownie points.

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

Quote from: Arminius;754381And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

The fact is that if you're repeatedly putting your character at risk of death based on a die roll with any reasonable chance of failure (not some mathematical power series that converges to a small finite number), then your character WILL die unless:

--You retire characters after a limited number of adventures, or
--You have access to a sufficient pool of reroll points (technically, if you play an infinite # of adventures you'd need not only infinite points, but infinite points in each adventure) and you can use them repeatedly (not just one reroll per roll).

I think that covers it, outside of GM fudging. I suppose you could contrive your own power series by putting characters into semi-retirement--wait 10 adventures before reintroducing Captain Daring, then 100, then 1000...

In short, I don't see a solution other than accepting character turnover vs character continuity, or using brownie points.

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

I think what occurs though if the risk is high is players take fewer risky actions and seek alternate but safer paths to victory. That is how things generally go in my high lethality mafia games. But when you do actually jump the pit in such a game the thrill is quite high.

There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

Quote from: Arminius;754381And on rereading the OP I think it's clear that The Butcher is talking about real lethal risk at specific moments and the thrill of taking those risks (like jumping over lava pits). So I think I may have sidetracked things a bit in response to robiswrong's critique of death rates in actual play.

(...)

Of course, I'm simplifying, since in the real world, the chance of death will vary, along with the real-time frequency of lava-pit jumping and the actual length of the campaign. Even if it's not a closed-ended campaign, the group is going to stop eventually, which means there's a nonzero chance that our lava-jumping Captain will still be alive.

Mathematical modeling of death rates over the long term is, as you yourself recognize, a gross oversimplification, not to mention veering into "spherical cow" territory.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754383There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

1/5000 = 0,02%

I feel that's close enough to zero that I feel it would rob players of the death-defying thrills we seek in pulp gaming.

Quote from: The Butcher;7543971/5000 = 0,02%

I feel that's close enough to zero that I feel it would rob players of the death-defying thrills we seek in pulp gaming.

Yes, but I was just trying to establish that it is a spectrum of possibilities, and that depending on where you set it, there is a spot where it isn't inevitable but it is still possible.

In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

I think this paradox really resolves itself on the fact that campaigns don't go on forever, characters are retired at varying rates, and many games effectively provide some sort of brownie point and/or escalating padding as characters continue.

There's also the psychological fact that at any given moment, your still-living PC's life expectancy is the same. So whether you start a new character or keep pushing your luck with the old one, you still have the same chance of making it to "the end of the campaign" whether that's planned and definite, or unplanned but inevitable.

So there's a performance envelope based on a bunch of factors; you pick your point on the envelope (in terms of rules and playing style) and go with it.

Quote from: Arminius;754416In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

I think this paradox really resolves itself on the fact that campaigns don't go on forever, characters are retired at varying rates, and many games effectively provide some sort of brownie point and/or escalating padding as characters continue.

Absolutely. Kolmogorov's Law is a poor guide to game design. In the long run, the players are dead too!

Which is why the risk of death must have a certain immediacy. Which also means that sometimes PCs will err on the side of caution and it's the GM's job to run a dangerous enough world that this risk will rear it ugly head often enough to keep players on the edge of their seats.

Quote from: Arminius;754416In the long run, regularly risking a 1/5000 chance of death will still kill you 100% of the time. It'll happen sooner if you choose a "more thrilling" chance.

ith it.

No it wont, not if you only take the 1 in 5000 chance risks 20 times over the course of a campaign. It will not always kill you. It isn't inevitable unless you are performing the risk regularly enough for the odds to catch up with you.

Quote from: The Butcher;754425Absolutely. Kolmogorov's Law is a poor guide to game design. In the long run, the players are dead too!

Exactly. On a long enough time scale, my morning coffee will kill me due to the small risk of secondary drowning. A non zero chance of something happening, doesn't mean it will happen in a campaign or even over several campaigns. I do things every day in my real life that have a non zero chance of killing me and yet I am here. It isn't just the risk, it is frequency of risk, the context of the situation and the kinds of risks the players take and avoid. I do think though that the numbers can be useful to designers as their making a game, but they have to look at how the game will be pkayed by actual people and run it through full campaigns to get sone perspective. I mean it may be helpful if I am making a gun for a gritty and lethal game to know that it has a x % chance of killing at point blank in a single shot in the hands of an average character.

QuoteWhich is why the risk of death must have a certain immediacy. Which also means that sometimes PCs will err on the side of caution and it's the GM's job to run a dangerous enough world that this risk will rear it ugly head often enough to keep players on the edge of their seats.

And in some games that means characters will die on occassion. But that is totally fine. While I will happily play games that are less lethal, I really do get a huge thrill playing games with a higher body count. It creates a "shit just got real" vibe.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754383There is also something of an excluded middle here, it isn't a choice between no lethality and frequent lethality. The actual probability matters. If I have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying versus a 1in 10 chance of dying while crossing a chasm that is quite a difference. If the probability is low enough chance of death is possible but hardly inevitable.

I think chances in the 1 in 100 to 1 in 400 sort of range work well for the thrill of "I can die!!" without constantly rolling up new PCs, and are fairly close to what real world 'adventurer' types experience - they often die eventually, but chances of dying on any particular venture are low.