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[RPGs] Minor Rant (Not fair, completely biased, and YMMV)
From BRPS, not commented there because it would be diverting the discussion from the topic of the post. But.
1. The ability to play a character in a setting where it's kill or be killed is limited. Sooner or later you die, you lose the character and the time you wasted creating the character is gone.
I HATE THIS. Yes, I use the big, scary caps of doom. I hate it. Time playing or creating a character is not 'wasted' if that character dies, damn it. If you're having fun, then the game is doing what it's supposed to do: be a game. You play.
It is not an investment. (Yes, you are investing time. However, the payoff is immediate: fun and interaction with others. That is all there is.)
I hate the line of thought that says it only matters if the character survives. Stop worrying about the damned character.
Play the game. If you didn't spend so much time bending over backwards to try and negotiate your way out of harm, or whining about the danger that you character might die, then you MIGHT be able to seize the moment and get some roleplaying done.
The code of Bushido says something along the lines of, "A samurai must accept that he will die. Death is inevitable. It is only by accepting death that he can live in the present moment, and attend to the battle right here and now. Fear of death distracts. It's only by understanding that you /will/ die that you can learn to truly live."
In RPGs, at least, it makes sense.
1. The ability to play a character in a setting where it's kill or be killed is limited. Sooner or later you die, you lose the character and the time you wasted creating the character is gone.
I HATE THIS. Yes, I use the big, scary caps of doom. I hate it. Time playing or creating a character is not 'wasted' if that character dies, damn it. If you're having fun, then the game is doing what it's supposed to do: be a game. You play.
It is not an investment. (Yes, you are investing time. However, the payoff is immediate: fun and interaction with others. That is all there is.)
I hate the line of thought that says it only matters if the character survives. Stop worrying about the damned character.
Play the game. If you didn't spend so much time bending over backwards to try and negotiate your way out of harm, or whining about the danger that you character might die, then you MIGHT be able to seize the moment and get some roleplaying done.
The code of Bushido says something along the lines of, "A samurai must accept that he will die. Death is inevitable. It is only by accepting death that he can live in the present moment, and attend to the battle right here and now. Fear of death distracts. It's only by understanding that you /will/ die that you can learn to truly live."
In RPGs, at least, it makes sense.
no subject
The fun for me is playing. The difference is I'm well-aware that I have more fun playing an established, rounded character than in playing one fresh from the forge. Fun is not a binary, its a continuum. I would have thought that was obvious. Moreover, I'm no longer in college and I have other things to do with my time, including writing my own material. As such, I have a limited amount of time to get a maximum amount of fun out of my investment.
In that sense, the likelihood (rather than chance) of my character dying makes me make the intelligent choice of investing my effort elsewhere. I don't know how many PCs you've had die in the course of your gaming career, nor can I be expected to. If you tell me "I'm running a kill-or-be-killed game," I pretty much taken as given that you'll rate the chances of my character dying at over 30% or so a month, and that's unacceptably high for my investment and limited time. (Moreover, the very fact you think its important enough to state and like that tells me I'm uninterested.)
This is not a problem with other people. Its a problem with you. You and how you choose to communicate.
And I say this as a person from a strong Simulationist gaming background. I would never refer to it as "kill or be killed," I might, if I thought it important, call it ... well, Simulationist. "You have realistic chances of survival given this opposition." Of course, in reality, survival during conflicts was pretty low, so I'd have few takers. Unless I make it clear I'm simulating a genre emulation, the Simulationist mode of play is not particularly popular. (Historically, it only was popular until Narrativism became smoothed out mechanically enough to use.)
no subject
Yup. This would be why it's labeled 'rant', 'completely biased', and 'unfair'. And why it's in my personal journal, as opposed to a community.
And, for the record, aside from CoC, I've never /run/ a 'kill-or-be-killed' game. And CoC is more like fight-and-be-killed, play-smart-and-survive-for-a-while. I simply do not, and will not, excuse characters from logical consequences, up to and including character death. And I don't want character death to be excluded from the games in which I play, because it limits /my/ enjoyment.