Courage and the Genre of Heroic Asskicking.

[Elennsar]

Then why bother having the battle?  Why not just storyline it away?

Because watching Zorro beat a dozen guards is fun? It certainly isn't because we expect him to lose.

Death is a status effect in D&D -- if you're unable to make it seem heroic then that's your problem, not the system's.  If you want death to be likely then expect your characters to die.  If you want death to be unlikely then expect boring fights.

It is not heroic because it is simply a status effect. Its not a sacrifice. Its just something that given the time and resources can be made as if it never was. And that time and those resources are not ones that characters struggle long and hard to obtain.

Same with blindness, maiming injury, and just about any other penalty short of "you are obliterated utterly" and ripping up the character sheet.

Eliminating the others because you seem to dislike quote trees sprouting from our conversations, and I think those cover the things I want to be most clear on.

[ZeroSum]

Because watching Zorro beat a dozen guards is fun? It certainly isn't because we expect him to lose.

But cutscenes aren't fun in D&D.  "I rolled a 3 for an attack of 14."  "You skewer the measly guard."  "yay.  be still my heart.  what fear of death."

It is not heroic because it is simply a status effect. Its not a sacrifice. Its just something that given the time and resources can be made as if it never was. And that time and those resources are not ones that characters struggle long and hard to obtain.

I guess if your character believes in the revolving door afterlife and doesn't care about the pain of death yeah, but there's a reason to not care about dying, but there's a reason not every ninth level character makes it to 20.  And there's never the possibility of being brought back as undead, prolonging the death and requiring the party to go on a side-quest to revive the character, not to mention the taint of that evil on your soul eternal.

I mean, the whole idea of a heroic death is non-mechanical in the first place, so why do you need the mechanics to represent it?

[Elennsar]

I'm not refering to cutscreens. I'm refering to the fact we find it fun to watch Zorro kick ass even though we know he's not in danger because its fun seeing him kick ass that well.

Or at least, I find it fun. Somewhat.

I guess if your character believes in the revolving door afterlife and doesn't care about the pain of death yeah, but there's a reason to not care about dying, but there's a reason not every ninth level character makes it to 20.  And there's never the possibility of being brought back as undead, prolonging the death and requiring the party to go on a side-quest to revive the character, not to mention the taint of that evil on your soul eternal.

I mean, the whole idea of a heroic death is non-mechanical in the first place, so why do you need the mechanics to represent it?

Its not so much that you precisely need the mechanics to represent a heroic death, but the mechanics should not make it so that your death isn't a heroic sacrifice.

It is not giving all you can give...its roughly equivalant to spending 500(?) gp and a level (or more gp and not as much otherwise).

And that doesn't feel right. Its basically saying that you're willing to give 25,000 gp to defeat the Overmind.
Doesn't take a Monty Haul campaign for Tassadar to have more than 25,000 gp available for his ressurection.

As for a revolving door afterlife: That is what is an option if the character wants to return (and there's no reason for them not to other than "well, you could prefer being off on Cloud 9") and can do so that easily is.

Silly? Fuck yes. But that's exactly the problem.

[Judging Eagle]

I'm not sure I want to have Frank designing it from start to finish.

I trust Frank's judgment and I definately think what he has to say is worth reading.

But I don't think that what he wants to play or what he thinks is how it should work is something I agree with.

Nevertheless, his advice is invaluable. And the knowledge pool he is operating from is both deeper and wider than mine.

So, my first priority is collecting data on "what to remember", my second is "what to do with this".

Read the Dead Man's Hand Thread. It's pretty much one person asking questions, getting a ton of answers, then writing based on those answers. He designed the game and system for someone else, and the entire idea was on a whim.


Also, who do you want the death to be painful for? The player or the character?

Because right now, even with being able to be Revivified if the party is fast enough; death is still a shock to everyone, and you almost always feel bad afterwards.

I know that I remember my PC deaths; even when some of said PCs got ress'ed the same day.

Elennsar, how many PCs have you had die on you? or watched die on other players?

[Elennsar]

I did. My point is that Frank has a lot of brilliant ideas, and I don't have a concrete enough idea at the moment to be able to explain it so that he designs what I'm looking for, as opposed to something roughly along those lines.

Is Frank's design skill awesome? Yes. Does that mean that I could communicate what he needs to know to design what I want? No. Will I ask him until I can? No.

It'd be pointless. Not because Frank can't design, but because he'd be designing something that wouldn't resemble what I want to create/ask him to create very well.

As for PC death: I want it to be painful for the characters and the players.

Death as something where you wait fifteen minutes and you come back to life (whether that's fifteen real life minutes or in game minutes) is not a sacrifice of anything but time.

If death involves "alas, poor _____, we knew him well. God rest his soul."...that is meaningful. If it involves "Okay, did Chris prepare raise dead? Resurrection? True ressurection? Miracle? ANy of those things?"...not so much.

Player pain is not all that important. Character death meaning something as far as that character is dead...not unconscious, not seriously hurt, not anything less than dead is what I want.

One thing I also want that D&D does not represent at all is (temporary, though how temporary may vary) penalties for being hurt. For instance, to use the simplest example of such a thing: When at 50% or less of your base hit points, you're at -4 to all d20 rolls.

Doesn't have to be death to be an injury that sucks.

[Judging Eagle]

You probably don't want HP then.


You want something along the lines of "Wound Levels"

Also, it doesn't matter if you have a concrete enough view of what you want or not.

Seriously, go to the Den and start talking about what you want.

I find that working in isolation and without expressing yourself tends to lead to poorly-developed ideas. I don't design PrCs or base classes without getting feedback. I also find that once the "flavour" of what I want to see has been expressed, then the "mechanics" are a lot easier to determine and create. Since the game's rules should reflect what the creator wants; and not be developed indepentantly of what the flavour-design for the game is.

Heck, even Frank is too smart to fall for the "I'm good enough at game design, that I don't need anyone else's input" trap that the people at WoTC fell into when creating 4E, and that Paizo fell into with their "Faelfinder" system.

On the Den we've been discussing a completely new game system over on the Den for.... a few months now (nearly a year I think). So far we've discussed a wide range of things, from "how we want people to get killed" to "Classes? Why and/or how?"

The New Edition's take on killing targets:
Everyone at the Den haets rocket tag, Kieth and Frank included. The solution (after 100's of posts and 100's more views) is that "HP doesn't exist" (there's a form of wound levels that's either linked to your own power level, or independant) and "attacks are de-buffs". Once you've "weakened" an enemy enough, you can go Voltron on their ass with your "nova move" and end the fight. So, fights against equally powerful opponents start off with weak moves that, as characters/creatures become more and more injured/weakened, build up to someone trying to end the fight with a big move.

TNE's take on classes:
Classes yes. Your class doesn't dictate what you are, as all adventurers are essentially the same role "Humanoid that Uses Weapons and Magic". Instead, your Class dictates what you do.

So, your "class" isn't Barbarian, or Wizard. It's Green (And you create walls of brambles; or grow massive fangs and claws; or create a rain of fish; or you summon an army of animals) or Black (you turn living things into dust, you make the dead walk, you terrify your enemies). Or Red, or White or Blue or Brown.

The amount of time and argument back and forth (and back and forth) that it took to come up with the above was ludicrous. In the end however, we've all agreed that it's the best of all possibly presented systems.

Hmm, here's a list of things regarding TNE that have been discussed; even if you don't read any of the threads, they're a pretty good example of the kind of work that you need to do to create a decent game system that does exactly what you want it to do:

I suppose those are all the TNE threads made so far. Please tell me if I missed any.

An idea about Per Encounter and Daily Powers
BAB v. AC: Is it a war we need?
Competing Abilities
Ending TNE Work Stoppage
In-Combat Recharge
Initiative: if you go first then you went first.
Movement and Mayhem
New Edition
New Edition: Actions
New Edition: Continuity vs. Railroading
New Edition: Iconic Characters
New Edition: Monsters
New Edition of Rules
New Edition: Setting
New Edition: Wiki
New: Master Ability and Condition Lists
New Setting: Lies, Mutants, and other offbrand setting elements (Fbmf, please check.)
Racial Determinism: TNE
Radical Idea: Armor
Reviving TNE
Setting: Morality?
Setting: Temples, Sites, Ruins, and Empires
The Feeling of Epic
The Five Cornerstones to Adventuring
TNE: Ability Format
TNE: Action Resolution
TNE: Art, Marketing
TNE: A Sensible Magic Item System
TNE: Combat Advantage Number
TNE: Cool Stuff
TNE: Defenses
TNE: How do you solve a problem like melee?
TNE: How often should your schtick be completely useless?
TNE: Multi-abilities
TNE: Skills?
TNE: Tactical Conceits
TNE: The Feeling of Epic, Take 2
TNE: Wealth, Power Sites, and Artisans
TNE: What effects do you want?
Wealth and Power
Weapons and Damage Types
What Power Sources do we Believe in?
What roles do monsters actually have?

That's about 43 discussions; some are no more than 30 Posts; while others go for as much as 100. On average 65 posts per discussion; coming to be about 2,795 posts just for the creation of a system. That's not including any of the spin-off threads where people speculate about existing discussions.



Also, you're contradicting yourself, in your own post.

I did. My point is that Frank has a lot of brilliant ideas, and I don't have a concrete enough idea at the moment to be able to explain it so that he designs what I'm looking for, as opposed to something roughly along those lines.

Is Frank's design skill awesome? Yes. Does that mean that I could communicate what he needs to know to design what I want? No. Will I ask him until I can? No.

It'd be pointless. Not because Frank can't design, but because he'd be designing something that wouldn't resemble what I want to create/ask him to create very well.

As for PC death: I want it to be painful for the characters and the players.

Death as something where you wait fifteen minutes and you come back to life (whether that's fifteen real life minutes or in game minutes) is not a sacrifice of anything but time.

If death involves "alas, poor _____, we knew him well. God rest his soul."...that is meaningful. If it involves "Okay, did Chris prepare raise dead? Resurrection? True ressurection? Miracle? ANy of those things?"...not so much.

Player pain is not all that important. Character death meaning something as far as that character is dead...not unconscious, not seriously hurt, not anything less than dead is what I want.

One thing I also want that D&D does not represent at all is (temporary, though how temporary may vary) penalties for being hurt. For instance, to use the simplest example of such a thing: When at 50% or less of your base hit points, you're at -4 to all d20 rolls.

Doesn't have to be death to be an injury that sucks.

What do you want?

How do you want it to happen?

Why do you want it?

Where do you want it?

Who do you want it to happen to?

[Brainpiercing]

And why do you want to play D&D? Wanting to play D&D like that just doesn't make sense.

[Psychic Robot]

Elennsar, I think you want to play 4e.  They have the perfect thing for your "Zorro skewering guards": minions.

It's a retarded metagame mechanic that was put in there for 4e circlejerks ("I suck in real life but I'm like a movie star in D&D!"), but it does what you want.