[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

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

Yeaaaaah. [snrks] This is why I've only played in one (non-freeform) game with a GM I wasn't even passingly familiar with beforehand -- and, ah, that game went the worst of any game I've ever been in. (Including the mediocre survival-horror-fantasy game, where most of the players had a lot of fun even if the GM and various observers and one of the other players hated all our concepts and the executions thereof. [coughs]) If I trust the GM to at least give me a fair hearing when I raise a problem, it's okay whether or not all the expectations are spelled out in detail in advance. If I don't... they need to be, and I'm still iffy about it.


I think she's more irritated with the argument that high odds of character death == actively limiting options instead of expanding them or being neutral, actually. But yeah, I have to say the "kill or be killed == majority of this game's concept" phrasing put me right off that person's game when I went to the userinfo, even though the idea of giant human chessgames appealed. [snrks]

(Actually, especially in a LJ game, although that's tangential to the overall argument of "is character death an annoyance or an essential risk". Dude. LJ GAME. It's not even like a MU*, where you can at least re@name your character when it dies. If you're making journals for the RP at all, they're either going to be hideously generic or hideously confusing, unless you're making a new journal every time someone dies and that sucks to do on LJ. ("Um, Player1? Why is your journal for the giggling homicidal maniac Black King's Knight full of entries about breeding rabbits?" "Huh? --oh, right! Remember the White Rook's Pawn from awhile back? He died last Wednesday. I reapped as this guy, and didn't delete the old entries when I redid the journal, 'cause, archives!" "...uh-huh...")

I mean, sure, most of the RP is supposed to happen over IM, so they could just be expecting OOC journals to friend and use the comm, but they do already have a black_npc or something like that, which implies that they plan to run a normal-ish LJgame, and, uh. [snrks] Anyway. </tangent> [grins])

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

According to the game rules, the same journals get reused. I imagine, or at least if I were doing that particular rule, you'd mark each entry with the name/rank of your character. When the character dies, new header, and anyone who reads the rules isn't going to go back farther than the header says.

I'm not sure you could have a human chess game, of the type the moderators are talking about, without people killing each other. That's part of the thrill. 'Most Dangerous Game', hunting the long pig, etc. It's also part of the callousness of the arrangement...the idea that the Kings can and will use people's lives for a little thrill. There's no way it'd have the same 'punch' if it were "Pawn gets taken, character gets thrown in a oubulette." Or, "Okay, you're taken. Give me your little badge and go home."