[RPGs] Minor Rant (Not fair, completely biased, and YMMV)

[pyrephox]

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.

Comments

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

See, I still don't understand it.

It's natural to be bummed, or a little upset, when a character dies, especially unexpectedly. But that doesn't mean I didn't have fun. It doesn't invalidate or waste all of the time I spent playing with that character. I had fun. And just like I don't think a Monopoly game is a waste if I don't win, I can't see how losing a character could ever be a waste, unless I wasn't having fun in the process.

And that's not to say I don't get emotionally involved with my characters. I do. I care about them. I think of how they'd react to little things, that are never going to come up. I write fanfic bits about them. I theorize about where they're going, I create goals for them, and I let them pursue those goals to their fullest extent.

But in the end, the journey is more important than the goal, and there's ALWAYS another character. It only takes about an hour to come up with a new concept.

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

Well, it doesn't invalidate all the time, no. But it does feel like a waste. "I did all that buildup in chargen and pre-planning/brainstorming with the GM and/or other players, never mind all the buildup in the actual game, and then...fzzt? Nothing? Dead in a random encounter from bad dice luck? I don't get to wrap up the subplots, or play this particular character any more ever unless I can port it over to another game? (Sure, other characters are and can be fun, but if I didn't like this one in this game I wouldn't've still been playing it in this game.) And if I make a new character for this game, I don't even get as much preptime as I did with the other one, so I probably won't be able to flesh it out as much and therefore won't enjoy it as much? Um."

Like, oh... in SSO? I've got no problem shelving Betharan to NPC status. She's incredibly fun to RP and as far as I know most of the other players/observers and the GM like her and her plots, but since she's incredibly hard to come up with IC reasoning to get her involved with the other PCs instead of other NPCs, it's better to shelve her. And I like Salathiel, and had time to bounce ideas off Beth before bringing him in, and could tie him into various of Betharan's subplots as well as generating new ones of his own so I can still see how they get resolved (and the Betharan-chargen work wasn't wasted.)

But if she'd been soul-killed in the Big Marches Fight Scene? (Trauma isn't much of an OOC problem in IN when you and the GM don't want it to be, and ethereal death is even less of one. Soul-death's a big problem.) Yeah, I would've asked Beth if she was open to deus-ex-machinaing or retconning her way around it, even if I'd had Salathiel statted and GM-checked and ready to go in her place, and even though I do have a couple random side-timelines I can run versions of her in. There was a lot of work put into the Elder and the attached subplots, a lot of characters attached to her, and frankly, death-by-random-encounter just isn't worth it. (Now, if it was death-by-running-into-Asmodeus-specifically? I'd most likely raise the question, but be a lot more comfortable with leaving it. Not that I would want to keep playing Betharan any less, but it'd be really really hard to ICly get her out of that situation if Asmodeus felt like killing her, and it'd at least be a more interesting, 'worthwhile'-feeling death.)

I'm not knocking the journey in the slightest, but when it has to end, I'd rather it end at a place and time that satisfy me and (at minimum) aren't objectionable to the other players and GM, instead of me getting suddenly knocked off the road and having to hack myself a brand new path and miss everything that was farther along the road I chose to start with. It takes me about five seconds to thirty minutes to come up with a new concept, if a while longer to stat it out and write up background and all, but it's not necessarily going to be a concept I feel comfortable playing, or as good a character as the first one was.

(In other words, I am a total fanatic for character development and plot development, erring slightly toward the former, but my fanaticism is 'developing all the way to the end, as much as possible overall', and my definition of 'end' is 'when the game's over, or I can't stand this character any more and can stop playing it okay'. Again, not knocking people who have no problem swapping in charsheets midgame, or who enjoy playing games with an extremely high risk of permanent PC death, or who prefer combat-centric games, or what-have-you. It's just both boring and disappointing to me, which is why I play other types of games.)

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

See, that sounds more like writing collaborative fiction than roleplaying, to me.

My characters have goals. I have goals for my characters. But although the characters fully intend to achieve their goals, and work towards those just like as anyone would a deeply-held passion, I the player don't expect that I'll ever achieve the goals I have for them. They're just things to keep in mind as I go through the game.

And I can't even imagine having a battle scene without real danger of PC death or, at the very least, PCs being disabled. A big, dramatic confrontation that decides the fate of the fledgling realm? I want to feel fear! I want to see blood and glory and hear the players suck in their breaths with apprehension as they have to decide whether their wounded character will stand and hold the line as the enemy closes in, or if this is the moment of breaking, of pulling back and preserving its own safety at the cost to the greater good.

I want to be 3 points away from losing a Force, out of Essence and far from reinforcements, as a grinning Calabite closes in, mouthing obscenities. I want to know that if my character pulls back, this flank's defenses crumble, and my party members are going to have it that much harder. And if I stay, they may have time to come rescue me, but they might be late. They might not even notice. It may just be me and the Calabite and the gory, painful death of one or the other. I want to give my character the opportunity to make that choice, to flee and try to retrench somewhere safer, or raise her bloodslicked blade, and growl, "Bring. It. On."

And then know the GM /will/, with all six cylinders. If the character is clever, and the dice are kind, maybe she'll win. Maybe she'll lose. But either way, I'm having a ball.

Part 1 of 2 (it got longer than I expected)

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

(Grah, lost a chunk of this the first time I tried posting.)

...ah, here's the problem, I think.

There is a MAJOR difference between "big, dramatic confrontation that decides the fate of the fledgling realm" and "random encounter". Likewise, there is a MAJOR difference between "big, dramatic confrontation that etc and happens only a few times at most over the course of the campaign arc" and "you're fighting desperately for your life every single gameday, knowing that you could die permanently at any moment". (Also a difference between the latter and Paranoia, where you can die but it doesn't matter because characters aren't supposed to have depth and have IC mechanics to replace them, but that's tangential, and I'm still iffy on playing Paranoia games.)

Again, to pull from past games:

PoaGH. Loved my character at the time, even if I wasn't having much fun with the game itself. A couple of the combat scenes, I would've aughed at character death purely because it was only from the GM wanting to screw with my character and make other characters look better. (harukami got this worse, but all of us other than one or two got combat-screwed overall. >.>) But in that last scene, where my character dumped all her Essence into a desperate attempt to Sing Fire on Alaemon to at least try to delay him so the other PCs could 'win the game'? I would've had no problem with her getting Traumatized or soul-killed for it. Uppity Bright Lilim of Fire. Versus pissy, stressy, already homicidal in game Demon Prince with a grudge against our party. Heck yes her death is logical and his isn't (barring Intervention). Plus, it's the end of the campaign arc, which at least feels like closure. My problem with that scene was when Alaemon both threw off the Song without a moment's hesitation or it touching him at all and completely ignored my character in favor of the two PCs the GM had arbitrarily designated as 'stars of the show'. (On the one hand, yes, IC priorities; on the other hand, uh, hi, there's ?five? of us PCs in the room and you're only letting two do anything AT ALL other than MST the scene.)

DGC3: Loved my character at the time, again. Said character being a Malakite with STRESS LIKE WHOA and currently majorly buzzed on Aura-of-the-Sword(TM), it was most IC for him to go try to attack a Calabite who'd just ethereally-or-celestially killed another angel. Character initiates the fight, character has obscene ethereal stats and respectable celestial stats and okay swordskill, player and GM go 'cool' and run the fight. Mechanics and dice proceed to actively attempt to rend the character down into componant Forces. Player goes 'augh', because, frankly, that is not a satisfying death. It's a tolerably IC one, but not a satisfying one in the slightest. Death by completely random encounter and horrible dice luck. Of a character I'm still having fun with, everyone else AFAIK is still fine with, and who has lots of potential for future gameage. And who just summoned his Archangel and is in the middle of the blessed VICTORY. The GM eyes the dice and the scene, and proceeds to rule that A) the Calabite is on its last few Soul Hits, B) finishing those off will actually soul-kill the Calabite instead of just stripping a Force (to save time because WOW that was getting long), and C) one of the other PCs can get involved in the next round just before the Calabite's turn. Other PC comes in to help, Calabite is soul-dead, Ryukage is irritated at the dice but very very happy that her character didn't get thrown away by random chance.

Re: Part 1 of 2 (it got longer than I expected)

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

OOC BS should never be a reason for character death. I would have gotten irritated, too. :) While it's good to let all the PCs have their share of the spotlight, you don't actively screw one over for the purpose of it.

Unless they don't show up for a session and give the GM no warning. Then the PC is fair game. Ahem. >_>

More stuff in the comment on the second part.

Re: Part 1 of 2 (it got longer than I expected)

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

Indeeeeeeeed. [laughs] Like I said, Haru got the "OOC BS == character death" more; I mostly got "OOC BS == character incompetance". But, yeah. Not a good reason at all, that. (Well, barring "OOC BS" in the sense of "the player is being a dick OOC and has quit or been ejected from the game, we need to kill off the character fast and get it out of here".)

[snrrrrrrk] I assume no mitigating circumstances at all? But, yeah. I dunno how happy I'd be with a GM who killed off my character (unresurrectably) because I wasn't there to protest (now, Trauma or making it hard to get back to the party, sure thing), but I can see annoyedness easily, and if the player'd deserved it/knew it was a risk.... [grins]

[nodnods]

Re: Part 1 of 2 (it got longer than I expected)

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Usually, with characters of people who don't show up, and don't give me warning, Something Unpleasant happens to them, and the party sends the session trying to cure them. :p

Part 2 of 2

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

SSO: Betharan gets involved in the Big Marches Fight Scene(TM). She's helpful pre-fight, yay! Then the actual fight starts, whee! Which is essentially Everyone Vs Lots Of Cannon Fodder. Coolness happens, fighting happens... and Betharan turns out to have slightly poorer stats than I thought she did when balancing them (particularly in the Marches), in addition to much poorer diceluck. However, I had no problem with her getting drugged/poisoned by the ethereal she was fighting -- since the GM was again merciful and let someone notice who was able to help kill the thing. And the aftereffects of the drugging/poisoning resulted in interesting enough RP and character/relationship development, and the combat ended relatively soon after that so it wasn't a problem.

I have much less problem with meaningful death than I do with pointless death. (Yes, I know, any character death is likely to be meaningful to the PCs and NPCs left alive, but that's not necessarily meaningful to me or to my old or new characters.) I have vastly less problem with death in the climax of a plot arc or the end of a game than I do with death at any other time, and I have next to no problem with a death at the climax or endgame that has an effect other than just "horrify the other characters with the pointless tragedy of it all".

But kill-or-be-killed constantly? Very, very much not my thing. In my opinion: it dulls the significance of any given death, it requires me to either waste time generating loose ends in chargen that'll never be tied up or attempt to submit a flat character, and it does waste the time I spend ICly RPing and plotting for a given goal if my character dies for no reason except 'that's the way the dice fall, now lie down in that gutter over there and brainstorm a new character while you're at it'. (Or, for that matter, if someone else's character dies while essential to plot...)

I'll suck it up and deal if the GM says no retconning of my character's death, and I'll most likely enjoy the battle up to that point and the death scene itself if it's appropriate/meaningful/interestingly run. But I'm not going to enjoy death-by-random-encounter, I'm not going to enjoy death-by-playing-tennis-with-dicerolls-and-doing-minimal-posing, I'm not going to enjoy a rough average of no less than one character death a day, and I'm not going to enjoy dying in the climax if it boils down to "you're dead of fallout". (Even if I'm actively seeking an excuse to get rid of the character so I can bow out of the game or substitute a new one, I'm not going to enjoy any of the above. I'm going to appreciate them as excuses, but I'm not going to enjoy them.) It feels very, very much like wasted time and wasted potential.

Re: Part 2 of 2

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

*grins* Aside from Paranoia, I don't think there's any game that's going to average one character death a day (unless we're talking seriously crazed GM, here), and I don't like games that are filled with random, pointless battles. But the battles that do occur...they're not random encounters to my character, if that makes any sense? I want them to have the chance of death, because my character thinks they do. She's fighting for her life, or her cause, or whatever, every time, whether it's a random demon tormenting a random human, or the end of game showdown with the Big Bad, whatever it is.

Too many battles, or too pointless of battles, is a seperate issue, I think. Related, but seperate.

Re: Part 2 of 2

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

(Well, depends on how "kill or be killed", "a game of murder [and money and whatever else the tagline said]" is run... but. [snrks])

[nodnods] I can see that as a perfectly valid take, definitely. [grins] It's just that, for me, all I need of OOC "realism" in random encounters is risk of loss/pain/mutilation/Trauma. I can RP a character convinced that she's risking permanent death while OOCly confident that she'll live through this unless I screw up massively or there is Sudden Attack of Plot Dramatics involved. And I'll have fun with the RP, and still have adrenaline/worry because of it (there are LOTS of ways to hurt a character without killing them...), and not get too distracted by the dicerolls to enjoy the roleplaying.

(And, well...I'm more likely to try and figure out if my character would be willing not to fight if I do have significant OOC worry about her dying. If I know she's not dead and gone barring major, major screwup, I can play fight scenes or run-and-hide or what-have-you no problem. If I know she has a good chance of permanent death, I'm either going to mutter about playing Malakim kamikazes and suck it up, or I'm going to start playing Loopholist with my character's psyche as far as I can without breaking character. [coughs])

[wobbles a hand] Well, it does affect responses to character death, IMO. If you like combat-heavy games, you're less likely to twitch at character death (or you'll cling like mad to Exalted and other games with Dramatic Combat Mechanics and Near-Unkillable Characters). If you can't stand them, you probably have more issues with unplanned character death. (Not a hard-and-fast rule in either case, but a general tendency, I think. [laughs]) --Also, for what it's worth, my start in RPGs was "freeform" and then "Mage" and then "survival horror which I didn't like much" and then "In Nomine which I did" -- as opposed to, say, D&D or d20 or dungeoncrawly anything. Which may well affect my take. [snrks] But, yeah, not quite the exact same issue. [grins]

Re: Part 2 of 2

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

That is, to be honest, part of my issue with no-death, the idea that because the character isn't going to die, someone reacts differently than if they knew the character /could/ die, if they did Risky Thing X. And no, I'm not talking about every moment being deadly. As I mention elsewhere, I've killed /very/ few characters, and I don't usually run games where combat is the focus (although /conflict/ often is, because without conflict, you've got a freeform chatroom with endless bar RP and not much else).

*nods* And likely, we are coming at it from different angles. I started with D&D, and I liked to play Mages. My characters died, a lot, and we never played a game past 10th level before getting bored and starting a new campaign. Now that I'm in my current group, made up largely of people who aren't in college and who have real lives...we do pretty much the same thing. One of us GMs a campaign, and then when they get bored, we switch off to a new set up.

Online games, I have a tendency to find frustrating, because without character death, they're so.../static/. It all becomes long monologues and romances and conversations about nothing in particular, because even if characters have a reason to go after each other, or if NPCs have a good reason to after PCs, nothing ever happens. There are no consequences for what a character does, for good or for ill. You can never get rid of your character's enemies, no matter how good your plan is or how ill-thought their response, and you have negotiate every little thing...and vice versa. People pull their punches, even when your character deserves to get smacked down, hard. It frustrates me. It likely always will.