Quote:
Originally Posted by rgalex
There is plenty of room for player input and control, but it seems like death is a very certain thing for the characters. For example, if you accumulate too many Exhaustion Dice (which seems like it could happen very quickly) you fall alseep and it's suggested that really terrible things (like dying) happen to those that fall asleep. Other bits throughout the book seem to poke the GM toward being harsh on the PCs. I got a strong GM vs Player vibe from reading it.
|
Like you, I haven't played DRYH (though as of Monday I hope to have remedied that).
It's worth bearing in mind that Exhaustion and Madness dice are player controlled, at least initially - if a player wants to play things safe, I think they can. Once they have a few Exhaustion dice out there, or roll a bunch of Madness dice, sure there's the chance of things spiralling out of control but that gives some great tension I think. And 7+ Exhaustion doesn't = Death in the same way as Hit Points of 0 = Death. It just means things are truly dire for the character, and shouldn't be taken lightly - which gives the system its necessary consequences, otherwise why not ramp up the dice pool if there's no risk if you go too far?
There's also the whole hope/despair economy going on - if the GM uses Despair to make Madness or Exhaustion dominate, then later the players have a resource to buy off Exhaustion and Madness effects. They can use them to pull back from the edge.
Personally, that's exactly the sort of tension I'm looking for in game design, and it makes the system about interesting decisions as well as the in-character decisions.
As for an antagonistic relationship between GM and players, I didn't get that impression - sure, it's the GM's job to pressure the players into hard decisions (should I use Madness dice to win this conflict, but risk going over the edge?) but not to whack them over the head with the system. In this it's no different from any game, it's not like you put your 1st level D&D characters up against a dragon is it? Pain dice shouldn't be overwhelming in the same way, IMO. I certainly don't see Snapping or Crashing as inevitable.
Anyway, I'll find out soon enough when I run the game.
