RPGnet Columns
02-11-2005, 04:40 PM
Post originally by Chris Farrell at 2005-02-11 15:40:10
Converted from Phorums BB System
Walt, I love your columns.
I think there might be a meta-rule here too: if you're the GM, don't *set*up* a situation where the characters can't fail or can't die. It seems to me to be not so much a matter of not fudging the dice or having the on-call army of NPCs, but of simply not putting yourself in the situation in which you have to or feel compelled to do this in the first place.
Part of this seems to be to make sure the stakes are appropriate, as you say, but also not to bind the specific characters too tightly to the plot. If you are playing in an adventure that's part of an overall arc, and if it's clear that failure is simply not an option because the stakes are too high, or if specific characters have obvious destinies, this presents big, big problems from a game perspective. This tug of war between the opposing requirements of Game and Drama/Story seems like a trade-off that is hard to manage, at least for me.
Anyway, if you're going to actually play a game (as opposed to tell a story), I think you as the GM have to be prepared for character death, both in terms of making sure the plot and setting is not going to be derailed by it, and that characters have some flexibility to come and go, and that the player can be brought back into the game with minimal effort, delay, and hassle. There is an obvious practical difficulty if you kill a character off (whether due to stupidity or bad luck) in the first 30 minutes of a 4+ hour gaming session, so if you really are going to be serious about this sort of thing, then when character death is a risk you need to have a couple plans in place to the players back in somehow ASAP. Perhaps there is a major NPC that can be seamlessly brought into the party as a main character in short order, or maybe you have a couple backup pregenerated character that can be made avialable. Maybe spin it as an interesting roleplaying opportunity if this pregenerated character has some interesting features that you would never see generated by a player for whatever reasons.
Converted from Phorums BB System
Walt, I love your columns.
I think there might be a meta-rule here too: if you're the GM, don't *set*up* a situation where the characters can't fail or can't die. It seems to me to be not so much a matter of not fudging the dice or having the on-call army of NPCs, but of simply not putting yourself in the situation in which you have to or feel compelled to do this in the first place.
Part of this seems to be to make sure the stakes are appropriate, as you say, but also not to bind the specific characters too tightly to the plot. If you are playing in an adventure that's part of an overall arc, and if it's clear that failure is simply not an option because the stakes are too high, or if specific characters have obvious destinies, this presents big, big problems from a game perspective. This tug of war between the opposing requirements of Game and Drama/Story seems like a trade-off that is hard to manage, at least for me.
Anyway, if you're going to actually play a game (as opposed to tell a story), I think you as the GM have to be prepared for character death, both in terms of making sure the plot and setting is not going to be derailed by it, and that characters have some flexibility to come and go, and that the player can be brought back into the game with minimal effort, delay, and hassle. There is an obvious practical difficulty if you kill a character off (whether due to stupidity or bad luck) in the first 30 minutes of a 4+ hour gaming session, so if you really are going to be serious about this sort of thing, then when character death is a risk you need to have a couple plans in place to the players back in somehow ASAP. Perhaps there is a major NPC that can be seamlessly brought into the party as a main character in short order, or maybe you have a couple backup pregenerated character that can be made avialable. Maybe spin it as an interesting roleplaying opportunity if this pregenerated character has some interesting features that you would never see generated by a player for whatever reasons.