Quote from: Old One Eye;667416Pffftttt....

A damn fun game can be had where Han and Chewie's players realize the mission is hopeless and fly off to greener pastures while Luke gets toasted on his impossible mission, the Empire destroys the fledgling Rebellion, and Luke's player rolls up a new character to join the Falcon's future adventures.

Definition of the word "exception".

Quote from: Old One Eye;667416Pffftttt....

A damn fun game can be had where Han and Chewie's players realize the mission is hopeless and fly off to greener pastures while Luke gets toasted on his impossible mission, the Empire destroys the fledgling Rebellion, and Luke's player rolls up a new character to join the Falcon's future adventures.

but is it fun when the whole crew then get killed in a battle with pirates and the players make new PCs who just bought the Falcon at a Pirate pilage sale.

And then 2 weeks later when the party get killed by a failed jump drive repair check.

etc...

If you played that sort of game the players would soon get bored with a lack of continuity in the party and move on to a new thing.

I think the OP quote is really saying  -
The DM's job is to set up a scenario that the players are capable of beating and to play it as well as they can so that its a real challenge but for the players through skill, knowledge and luck to just prevail.

Don't get tied up with semantics the idea of competition where is more about the PCs prevailing again the scenario with the DM trying their best to beat them, but doing so in the constraints of the setting that has been created. If there are 12 goblins then there are 12 goblins the DM doesn't add 8 more nor does he remove 4 of them when the PCs struggle. But the 12 goblins the DM has are going to do their damnest to kill the PCs and survive.

In my game on Sunday the PCs had in theory 1000 zombies and one skilled terrorist to beat.
The Zombies were easy as Zombies ought to be. The players faultered at first as they  weren't shooting their heads until my 8 year old daughter who was observing and eating all the snacks pointed out that they should shoot them in the head as then they might stop getting back up... then they got into their stride. The Terrorist almost pursuaded them to kill themselves but I gave the Precog a roll to see their doom. this was DM intervention to keep the PCs alive but had he failed the roll or interpretted it wrongly it would have been a straight up TPK (escape pods all rigged to self desctuct)
As it was in the fight with the terrorist 1 PC was down to 3hp one lost all HP and took 5 wounds (out of 7) so was at -5 on all actions and effectively incapacited, the 2 NPCs were killed and the last PC just managed to escape being sucked out into space.  And the Terrorist got away.

I played the Zombies like Zombies but I played the terrorist in the most tactical smartest most well prepped way I could. The party were saved by their own prep and their own use of skills and a bit by having the NPCs there to absorb hits but that was their doing too as they hooked them into the game. And a lot by luck. There was a spot with a Autotargetting mini gun chucking out 6 shots per round that nearly managed to wipe out all of them but they quite simply got lucky and then eliminated the threat.

So I kind of agree with the sentiment of the quote if not its language.

Create a scenario the PCs can 'win' (you might need to define win from survive to solve the mystery to find the McGuffin)
Play the NPC and monsters in that scenario to the best of their ability and give no quarter once the game is in play.
The best outcome is for the players to feel that their PCs could have died at any point but that they won through based on their own abilites and skills

Quote from: Justin Alexander;667414There are exceptions, but as a general rule: Yes. 99% of the time, the PCs should ultimately succeed at their objects. There will be setbacks and complications along the way, but ultimately they're going to solve the mystery; beat the bad guy; yada yada yada.

GMs who don't approach the game with the expectation that the PCs are going to generally accomplish their goals are going to be fairly atrocious GMs. They're going to create bad scenarios and they're going to run them poorly.

I'm seeing lots of people quibble by claiming that it's not really the GM who is being overcome here or that Sauron didn't lose when Frodo destroyed the One Ring; but this is pure pedantry.

I don't think so. If you're setting up your players for a 99% chance of victory, rather than set up scenarios where failure is a more plausible option, there's absolutely no suspense. You've just provided window dressing that doesn't really provide any doubt whether or not they will ultimately be successful. If I have a 99% chance of ultimately succeeding, where's the drama? Why do I care if I haggle successfully with this guy, or succeed in grabbing the sword from the stone if I know most generally we'll come through just fine somehow?

I have no expectations that my players will specifically achieve or fail at their goals. I know they will have a properly-run proving ground in order to make meaningful decisions, while frequently in mortal danger --meaning they will live or die, succeed or fail based on their choices and actions, and not the GM making nicey-nicey just so there's a happy ending. That doesn't mean crucifying the entire party every time they fail a perception check, but it does mean keep the risk of ultimate failure very real and present.

I disagree only insofar as I think its a woefully inadequate description of the role a GM plays and also assumes the success of the characters is not based on the players but an inevitable conclusion.

As a counter to dissuade those competative 'killer gms' certain gamers seem to wallow in perpetual fear of, its an adequete enough witicism, though like most witicisms its cleveness only survives up to the point its exposed to critical examination.

Quote from: TristramEvans;667458I disagree only insofar as I think its a woefully inadequate description of the role a GM plays and also assumes the success of the characters is not based on the players but an inevitable conclusion.

As a counter to dissuade those competative 'killer gms' certain gamers seem to wallow in perpetual fear of, its an adequete enough witicism, though like most witicisms its cleveness only survives up to the point its exposed to critical examination.

Well, I think in general, Killer GMs who penalize gamers for everything aren't optimal for most groups, and Monty Haul, Cupcake GMs more often than not end up being a snore for any groups but those who feel a need to validate their existence through their character's victories, or are simply poor sports if they lose.

That's why I think establishing a firm proving grounds for characters to live or die based on their own actions is such an essential part of good gamemastery. I don't want to assign the assumed expectations of failure OR success; show me what your character comes up with, and let's see what happens from that.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;667353It is true the GM decides what challenges are on the table, and this has an enormous impact on how easy it is to survive. But I still think a GM can provide very different experiences depending on why he chooses to present given encounters and what procedures he uses to deploy them. If a GM wants to he can clearly kill the party. Just keep stacking the odds against them. But choosing not to do that, doesnt mean he is letting them win. He could just be striving to present a reasonable challenge, and from there let the dice fall where they may, or he could just be trying to maintain a beliavable setting with varied threats. I think if the gm is coming at it from either of those, then his purpose is not to be defeated by the players, but to run the combats as fairly as he can and to engineer the challeneges appropriately. This is one of the reasons I am fond of random encounters.

To me, the GM letting the party win, is either only throwing challenges at the group he knows they can survive and overcome, or pulling his punches when combat gets too deadly. Personally, I prefer when the GM throw a variety of challenges, not so overwhelming that characters die left and right, but not so predictable that I know my character will survive or win a given encounter. But what I also expect is the GM will be as fair as he can about running such combats. There is an art to that because it is not something easily quantified by challenge ratings since the GM, as you point out, ultimately decides so much about the world.

I wish they would remove challenge ratings from rpgs

What I am suggesting is that pulling a punch at the last minute to save the party, and pulling the punch before the danger arrives are both 'saving the pcs'  

There are many ways to 'let the characters win' and good luck defining what was a fair challenge.

One gm will have 1d6 orcs arrive each round. Another will have no reinforcements. One gm will determine a creature can't be reasoned with, another will allow it to be cajoled until it is a pet.

The gm makes countless decisions that may be self percieved as fair and unbiased and true to the setting.

The reality is that a gm helps and screws over characters all the time.

If I wave my magic gm wand and a Lich lord rises up to convert the land from living to dead in a bruatal hoarde of death, am I being 'fair' ?

Its not like there is a fair percentage chance a Lich lord will arise.  

Its all on the gm.

Quote from: Bill;667473I wish they would remove challenge ratings from rpgs

What I am suggesting is that pulling a punch at the last minute to save the party, and pulling the punch before the danger arrives are both 'saving the pcs'  

There are many ways to 'let the characters win' and good luck defining what was a fair challenge.

One gm will have 1d6 orcs arrive each round. Another will have no reinforcements. One gm will determine a creature can't be reasoned with, another will allow it to be cajoled until it is a pet.

The gm makes countless decisions that may be self percieved as fair and unbiased and true to the setting.

The reality is that a gm helps and screws over characters all the time.

If I wave my magic gm wand and a Lich lord rises up to convert the land from living to dead in a bruatal hoarde of death, am I being 'fair' ?

Its not like there is a fair percentage chance a Lich lord will arise.  

Its all on the gm.

I think there is a difference though between a gm who allows his party to win all the time, either by setting up challenges that are deliberately too easy or by fudging midway through an encounter, versus one who tries ot present an acceptible threat of character death to the game. Between the extremes of the GM who is trying to actively kill the party, and the GM who goes easy on the party, i think there is a happy medium where the risk of dying and not succeeding is present (which doesn't have to mean it happens fifty percent of the time, or even twenty percent).

I am not saying it is wrong for the gm to let the pcs win, this is a perfectly acceptable playstyle and one may prefer. But my preference is that characters not be saved (either throu encounter design or fudging) by the Gm. Doesnt mean I want the to send wave after wave of celestial hordes at us, just that I want there to be some reasonable level of risk in the game.

What constitutes fair is somewhat subject. Which is why I said there is an art to it. For me, fairness with encounter selection and event creation has more to do with the GMs reasons for doing things and what kinds of procedures he might follow. If a gm says his aim is to create a world that feels real, so he is going to throw threats with a broad range of challenge at the party, and he consistenlty does so, and everyone going in understands this fron the beginning, i'd call that fair, even if it results in the occassional tpk or character death. If the gm decides he is going to strive for encounters that hit the right level of challenge for the party and makes an honest attempt to do so, I would also regard that as fair (provided his sense of what is an appropriate challenge is not wildly different from mine).

I think whenever you are dealing with the idea of fairness and any kind of referee, you understand there is a human judgment involved and no one is going to be perfect all the time. But that absence of perfection doesn't mean fairness goes out the window. I have gamed with lots of GMs and some I definitely consider more fair than others in their judgment and application of the rules.

Quote from: Bill;667473The gm makes countless decisions that may be self percieved as fair and unbiased and true to the setting.

.

Yes.  The way I have always perceived my job is that I am another player, with the PCs.  They play their characters.  Who do I play?

I am playing the setting.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;667487I think there is a difference though between a gm who allows his party to win all the time, either by setting up challenges that are deliberately too easy or by fudging midway through an encounter, versus one who tries ot present an acceptible threat of character death to the game. Between the extremes of the GM who is trying to actively kill the party, and the GM who goes easy on the party, i think there is a happy medium where the risk of dying and not succeeding is present (which doesn't have to mean it happens fifty percent of the time, or even twenty percent).

I am not saying it is wrong for the gm to let the pcs win, this is a perfectly acceptable playstyle and one may prefer. But my preference is that characters not be saved (either throu encounter design or fudging) by the Gm. Doesnt mean I want the to send wave after wave of celestial hordes at us, just that I want there to be some reasonable level of risk in the game.

What constitutes fair is somewhat subject. Which is why I said there is an art to it. For me, fairness with encounter selection and event creation has more to do with the GMs reasons for doing things and what kinds of procedures he might follow. If a gm says his aim is to create a world that feels real, so he is going to throw threats with a broad range of challenge at the party, and he consistenlty does so, and everyone going in understands this fron the beginning, i'd call that fair, even if it results in the occassional tpk or character death. If the gm decides he is going to strive for encounters that hit the right level of challenge for the party and makes an honest attempt to do so, I would also regard that as fair (provided his sense of what is an appropriate challenge is not wildly different from mine).

I think whenever you are dealing with the idea of fairness and any kind of referee, you understand there is a human judgment involved and no one is going to be perfect all the time. But that absence of perfection doesn't mean fairness goes out the window. I have gamed with lots of GMs and some I definitely consider more fair than others in their judgment and application of the rules.

Agreed. I just felt the need to challenge the idea that a gm does not ever let players win just because the gm is setting challenges he feels fit the setting.

Quote from: LordVreeg;667491Yes.  The way I have always perceived my job is that I am another player, with the PCs.  They play their characters.  Who do I play?

I am playing the setting.

I agree and try to do this when I gm.

However, I like to challenge the idea that a gm playing the setting does not ever let the players win.

Fair (whatever that is) setting ajudication is not a magic wand that prevents 'letting players win', or prevents the gm from 'killing the pcs'

Quote from: Justin Alexander;667414There are exceptions, but as a general rule: Yes. 99% of the time, the PCs should ultimately succeed at their objects. There will be setbacks and complications along the way, but ultimately they're going to solve the mystery; beat the bad guy; yada yada yada.

GMs who don't approach the game with the expectation that the PCs are going to generally accomplish their goals are going to be fairly atrocious GMs. They're going to create bad scenarios and they're going to run them poorly.

I'm seeing lots of people quibble by claiming that it's not really the GM who is being overcome here or that Sauron didn't lose when Frodo destroyed the One Ring; but this is pure pedantry.

If the GM cannot separate him/her self from elements of the campaign world then you may run into these problems.

Sauron DID lose big time when the ring was destroyed. The part you seem to be missing is that the GM wasn't Sauron. Sauron is one of the many elements of the game world portrayed by the GM.

If, when all is said and done, victory is 99% assured for the players then there isn't much of a game going on at all. Instead of needing to play with a bit of smarts and brass balls to claim victory, players will simply coast to the finish line unless they actually try to lose.

This IME leads to less engaged players. If players need to pay attention and actually put forth a good effort to win, they will be much more satisfied with thier victory than with one that can be virtually phoned in.

In my campaigns, if the default is ride along and accept whatever, then loss is the usual outcome. If you want to win then play like you want to win. If players don't want to have to think then they don't have to play.

What makes a scenario that is not 99% winnable on autopilot inherently bad? I much prefer scenario difficulty to depend on player action. This means somewhat easy missions can go sideways and the seemingly impossible can sometimes be a piece of cake with a well laid plan. Not knowing how either will turn out from both sides of the screen is why I play and run games.

Quote from: Bill;667494I agree and try to do this when I gm.

However, I like to challenge the idea that a gm playing the setting does not ever let the players win.

Fair (whatever that is) setting ajudication is not a magic wand that prevents 'letting players win', or prevents the gm from 'killing the pcs'

No, playing the setting means staying somewhat above those considerations.  It does not mean ignoring bad play or that you can't reward good play, or ignoring context.  

But it does mean always appearing to be playing the setting.  It's part of the illusion of preparedness,  and it means when the PCs beat whatever setting-scenario you have created, I believe you celebrate with them, the same as you have to commiserate when they have poorly played (or badly rolled) same setting-scenario.

Like I said above about the Globetrotters and the Washington Generals, the point is the illusion of challenge.   Yes, the Generals did occasionally force the Globetrotters to knuckle down and play actual basketball from time to time, but it was never a fair and honest contest.  It was always entertainment.

Maybe your table is more like the NBA.

Quote from: mcbobbo;667509Like I said above about the Globetrotters and the Washington Generals, the point is the illusion of challenge.   Yes, the Generals did occasionally force the Globetrotters to knuckle down and play actual basketball from time to time, but it was never a fair and honest contest.  It was always entertainment.

Maybe your table is more like the NBA.

Lots of people prefer a more Globetrotter style of play and that is totally fine, but it isnt just a choice between that and a fifty-fifty NBA style contest. In a game like D&D the players do tend to have an advantage over the monsters. What is fun and exciting will vary from one group to the next, but I know I want to face challenges where failure and death are possible. If the dice start going against me, I do not want the GM to step in to save my character. Over time, this lessens the excitment because I know i am not really under any threat. If I have to roll up a new character every so often, I am totally fine with that.

It is entertainment, but it is also a game, and I really enjoy that aspect of play where you dont honestly know how things will end up.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;667499If, when all is said and done, victory is 99% assured for the players then there isn't much of a game going on at all.

Well, a storygame might be going on.