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I get that player characters are expected to be exceptional and all that. It's just that, as Kellsterik said, this sort of wonks what the expectations of stakes are. If players don't expect their characters can die, they won't fear combat; if they don't expect that they can genuinely lose something they care about, they won't mind risking it. It leads to Disney Deaths, where you just sort of roll your eyes when someone "dies" because you know they'll open their eyes again right as everyone starts to get teary-eyed. Player characters sure can do the legendary and impossible, but they shouldn't expect to, carte blanche, or they quickly end up becoming The Chosen One for whom action has no consequence. This goes double if it's a long-running game, where players with that expectation might accomplish one supposedly impossible thing per arc. I've seen it happen to my players and it can become exceptionally frustrating. It's not their fault, of course; they're just doing what players do. Doesn't make it any less problematic, though.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:11
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Similarly, though, if your players know it's possible to accomplish the incredible they'll dive into situations and bite on plot hooks a lot more.
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Jan 15, 2016 06:28
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Murder at least one player at the start of each new campaign to establish a proper tone. *adjusts DM mask*
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Jan 15, 2016 11:07
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Axelgear posted:This goes double if it's a long-running game, where players with that expectation might accomplish one supposedly impossible thing per arc. I've seen it happen to my players and it can become exceptionally frustrating. It's not their fault, of course; they're just doing what players do. Doesn't make it any less problematic, though. Sorry, I'm not getting why this is frustrating for you. Could you explain?
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Jan 15, 2016 13:31
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I kind of get how setting mismatch can be frustrating. It's a bit of a bummer when nobody ever takes bad guys seriously, or being captured seriously, or whatever, and your party is just an entire band of MST3K robots whenever anything dramatic is going on because they fully expect that they'll escape, the bad guy's going to lose, their kidnapped friend is going to get rescued, etc. Of course, actually killing them, having the bad guy win, letting their friend die, etc won't fix it, it'll just be an even more jarring event because they weren't expecting it on an OOC level. It's the same kind of thing that always comes back to talking to your players.
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Jan 15, 2016 13:47
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Axelgear posted:I get that player characters are expected to be exceptional and all that. It's just that, as Kellsterik said, this sort of wonks what the expectations of stakes are. If players don't expect their characters can die, they won't fear combat; if they don't expect that they can genuinely lose something they care about, they won't mind risking it. It leads to Disney Deaths, where you just sort of roll your eyes when someone "dies" because you know they'll open their eyes again right as everyone starts to get teary-eyed. The silliest thing about this post, and it's quite a contest, is the unjust maligning of the company that brought you Mustafa and Bambi's mom.
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Jan 15, 2016 14:18
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I don't know, I can kind of see what Axelgear is getting at here. If your players have difficulty getting deep into the story or avoiding meta reasoning, it's very likely that the stakes will have no importance for them, because they know that they can count on the GM not to completely screw them over, because otherwise there would be no game.
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Jan 15, 2016 15:34
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paradoxGentleman posted:I don't know, I can kind of see what Axelgear is getting at here. If your players have difficulty getting deep into the story or avoiding meta reasoning, it's very likely that the stakes will have no importance for them, because they know that they can count on the GM not to completely screw them over, because otherwise there would be no game. Then it sounds like there was a miscommunication or something between what the GM wants to run and what the Players want to play. If everyone goes into a campaign understanding that consequences for poor in-character decisions will be severe, then the likelihood of the players thinking they won't die because of plot armor will be lessened considerably.
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Jan 15, 2016 16:08
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paradoxGentleman posted:I don't know, I can kind of see what Axelgear is getting at here. If your players have difficulty getting deep into the story or avoiding meta reasoning, it's very likely that the stakes will have no importance for them, because they know that they can count on the GM not to completely screw them over, because otherwise there would be no game.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:22
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Peztopiary posted:Murder at least one player at the start of each new campaign to establish a proper tone. *adjusts DM mask* One player? 
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Jan 15, 2016 18:30
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Gilok posted:One player? Get out of here. YOU'RE DEAD! You don't exist any more.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:52
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This brought to you by extreme rpg playing. Soon table top rpgs will be banned because player death
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Jan 15, 2016 19:24
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One player? 
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Jan 15, 2016 19:44
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I've always been a bit skeptical of the "the player needs to know they can die at any time or they wont know that poo poo is getting real in my game!" argument. Like, I've got pretty invested in a lot of fiction. Movies, books, TV, whatever and I don't think that the main characters could just drop dead at any minute because I'm not four years old and stories don't work that way, and when they do they loving suck.
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Jan 15, 2016 19:52
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I mean, there's scales of these things. You have the whole "GM kills a PC a session to show how hardcore they are" but equally you get people who can't take stuff seriously. Ideally you're looking for what you see in films, where OOC we don't really expect people to drop dead with little foreshadowing and gravitas but the PCs will behave as if it's a risk; going "This is crazy, we'll never make it!" or "Do you want to get killed?" or whatever. For some people going along with that just needs a nudge, for other people if they've done the math and noticed that they've got 40 health left and at worst they're taking 20 on a crit, then their character can take it.
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Jan 15, 2016 20:00
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Rohan Kishibe posted:I've always been a bit skeptical of the "the player needs to know they can die at any time or they wont know that poo poo is getting real in my game!" argument. Like, I've got pretty invested in a lot of fiction. Movies, books, TV, whatever and I don't think that the main characters could just drop dead at any minute because I'm not four years old and stories don't work that way, and when they do they loving suck. The unpredictability of character deaths, and the tension that comes with it, is one of or the main attractions to some stories. Killing off a character when it's not expected is often used to raise tension in stories. And, to some people, myself included, some tension is lost when it becomes too obvious that the characters in a piece of fiction are invulnerable because of their protagonist status.
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Jan 15, 2016 20:24
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I feel like it's pretty rare that the lives of my actual PCs are the only things at stake in a fight as opposed to some location, treasure, or NPC the PCs are protecting, some kind of valuable loot or information the enemy combatant would otherwise be allowed to get away with, the ability of the PCs to be in good shape to complete some other challenge down the road, etc.
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Jan 15, 2016 20:27
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LatwPIAT posted:The unpredictability of character deaths, and the tension that comes with it, is one of or the main attractions to some stories. Killing off a character when it's not expected is often used to raise tension in stories. And, to some people, myself included, some tension is lost when it becomes too obvious that the characters in a piece of fiction are invulnerable because of their protagonist status. Is it? I am really struggling to think of a story where the unexpected, not-foreshadowed or built up to death of a main protagonist is a strength or even utilised in a big way beyond stuff like And Then There Were None which are explicitly about everyone getting murdered one by one. Ferrinus posted:I feel like it's pretty rare that the lives of my actual PCs are the only things at stake in a fight as opposed to some location, treasure, or NPC the PCs are protecting, some kind of valuable loot or information the enemy combatant would otherwise be allowed to get away with, the ability of the PCs to be in good shape to complete some other challenge down the road, etc. This is a part of why I don't think it's a big deal, even if your players don't think they are gonna die any minute, they should still be wary of taking risks because it can result in failing missions or objectives, losing NPCs they like, status with people or organisations and so on.
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Jan 15, 2016 20:38
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I feel that having real stakes are important, whether that is the character's life, some goal they have, or the well-being of people, places, or things they care about. It's always an important balance, of course, but as a player, I never want to feel like victory is a foregone conclusion. Although on this subject, my character in the ongoing nDemon game I'm a part of is pretty much a parody of the type of player that was mentioned earlier who knows they're essentially invincible. I stacked defensive abilities such as armor in demon form and defensive embeds to become more or less unkillable and the character's personality is very much influenced by this. They're the type of person that springs ambushes by just walking directly into them and punching their way back out. Obligatum VII fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 16, 2016 |
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Jan 16, 2016 02:55
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Yeah, I won't normally kill off my PCs unless it perfectly fits the moment (heroic sacrifice, truly colossal gently caress-up, etc) or the player wants to roll something new and retire the old. If they fail in their fight or with a critical roll, they'll just wish they were dead for one reason or another. Captured by the Sabbat and sent to a Tzimisce for 'interrogation', Endron's nuclear plant goes critical and spews radioactive particles across six states - including their caern, the colossal red dragon burns down their entire home town while they stagger to the edge of the cave too wounded to do anything but watch in horror, their cousin gets murdered in retaliation for their botched attempt at a local gang leader's life, etc. I try and always do it in a way that opens up new possibilities or changes one motivation (stop the dragon) into another (kill that loving dragon, he killed my mum!) even if they're pretty basic shifts or doorways.
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Jan 16, 2016 03:33
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I think there's really something to be said for coming up with a wide variety of lose conditions other than just Death for a PC. For instance, loss of prestige, acquiring a bad reputation, becoming known as a craven weakling, losing other people close to you, acquiring a hideous and dramatic scar, being forced to confess or renounce something important (but not on pain of death - or in such a way that it might help them accomplish something else).
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Jan 16, 2016 05:13
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Gilok posted:One player?  Sometimes the group needs New Blood.  Just have to let the dice fall as They will. If your players are being too zany just talk with them about it. otoh no sane being has ever let someone get their deeply moving/ludicrously villainous monologue out without interruption, barring incapacitation of course.
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Jan 16, 2016 05:32
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I find that threatening the kind of stories you can tell in a game (wreaking a police department if your players are a detective squad) are a better source of tension than player death when a re-roll is an option.
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Jan 16, 2016 15:30
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I think the scariest enemy we've faced in Mage is mortal police. Vampires? Lol we're mages and you don't count as Sleepers, eat sunlight and fireballs. Weird demons that feed off power and resist magical damage? Shoot it in the face and then run it over with a car. Police? Uh, poo poo, we can't just magic these guys away, and they have the power to seriously gently caress with our lives. I was the worst liar in the party, and was only saved from being arrested by judicious use of Jedi Mind Tricks and somebody doing their best to buff my bluffing skill while hiding in the rafters. There was also the concerned mother of a teen we failed to save from demonic possession, who got an interview on local TV and refused to stop associating Magic with Devilry (it did kill her son after all), and started up a rival orphanage. It also didn't help that one of the kids she was protecting was apparently destined to become a Nephandi/Banisher or some other dark fate, and thus was beheaded by a group of Voudoun fate-watchers when he tried to do his "look into your mind to make sure you're trustworthy" thing to them. I think we left her to her own devices after that, since we didn't want the police called on us again, and tried our best to work around her. We weren't as... scared of her, mostly because she was much more aggravating than anything else, so annoyance/anger balanced it out. To lighten the tone though, she also employed a grey-haired bodyguard, who "didn't want to get spelled" and squinted at us the whole time.
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Jan 16, 2016 20:00
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Ambi posted:I think the scariest enemy we've faced in Mage is mortal police. Vampires? Lol we're mages and you don't count as Sleepers, eat sunlight and fireballs. Weird demons that feed off power and resist magical damage? Shoot it in the face and then run it over with a car. Police? Uh, poo poo, we can't just magic these guys away, and they have the power to seriously gently caress with our lives. You can magic anything away if you put your mind to it!
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Jan 16, 2016 20:12
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:You can magic anything away if you put your mind to it! Hubris is a coward's word
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Jan 16, 2016 22:40
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In my experience police officers are at least as vulnerable to being shot in the face and run over with cars as demons.
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Jan 16, 2016 23:02
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True but you generally don't get a manhunt called on you for killing demons. Demons tend to be at the top of, or in the service/thrall of a a large structure of people, rather than being compositional parts of said structure. I did get to redefine "up" as "down" for the demon to ground it though, after quantum entangling it with a staff and snapping that staff over my knee didn't work - it was much more resistant to physical magic than mental and narrative effects.
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Jan 16, 2016 23:25
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Ambi posted:True but you generally don't get a manhunt called on you for killing demons. The same goes for cops if you know what you're doing, though. Yeah, if a cop ends up dead there's going to be a lot of tough questions, but you just have to make sure none of those questions have you as the answer. Mind mages can rewrite memories, Forces mages can wipe camera footage, Matter mages can clean up trace evidence. You can imagine even more convoluted coverups as your mastery of the arcana increases. (Get your Life mage to shapeshift into the guy for a little while to establish a cover story, for instance.) Plus, in the World of Darkness, the cops in major cities are probably used to the fact that a couple times a year one of them is gonna get murked and nobody's ever going to know why.
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Jan 16, 2016 23:48
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:You can magic anything away if you put your mind to it!
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Jan 17, 2016 02:02
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Any problem can be solved with enough Forces. Just figure out how much you need, then use twice as much.
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Jan 17, 2016 05:57
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Pssh. Amateurs. You don't kill your PCs. If you do, they just reroll, or quit to find a game with an ST who isn't poo poo. Kill the PCs' families. 
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Jan 17, 2016 15:04
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i didn't know john wick had an sa account
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Jan 17, 2016 15:15
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Jokes on you, I've only once made a WoD character with a living parent  .EDIT: We'll know it's Wick if he says that I'm not engaging with the story or powergaming.
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Jan 17, 2016 15:31
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I'd go the other way and make a character with a huge family full of weirdoes and plot hooks and hugely convoluted backstories. Bait the DM into loving the family and wanting to do poo poo with it.
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Jan 17, 2016 16:01
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MonsieurChoc posted:I'd go the other way and make a character with a huge family full of weirdoes and plot hooks and hugely convoluted backstories. Bait the DM into loving the family and wanting to do poo poo with it. That's loving genius.
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Jan 17, 2016 16:20
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Are there any mechanics/rules for establishing a pack territory in the Werewolf: Forsaken 2e book? I have looked for an inordinate amount of time and can't find any. My group is perfectly mine with making up our own rules for it, but we like to try things as written first. In other news, we are really enjoying the Aspirations feature in 2e. It has really helped our group develop motivations for our characters other than the main storyline going on and just feels better. It seems like it's a bit of a RP crutch, but I like the effect it has had on our games.
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Jan 18, 2016 01:19
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Conversely, my main group hates Aspirations because we tend to forget they exist in play.
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Jan 18, 2016 02:27
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Mors Rattus posted:Conversely, my main group hates Aspirations because we tend to forget they exist in play. I was slow on the uptake of aspirations, but they are really growing on me. For PCs, it helps me sculpt the tone / direction of the story. The Mekhet has an 'explore my Sire's bloodline' aspiration. The Ventrue has a 'gently caress around on Wall Street' aspiration. Now I introduce a new NPC of the Mekhet's bloodline with Wall Street ties and a rivalry to the Ventrue's company, that kind of stuff. It's a little tougher, but I've also gotten into the habit of defining aspirations for my NPCs. It's an easy reference when figuring out what kind of angles they are currently running when players come knocking, but when I haven't hooked the NPC more directly into the chapter plot. Then at Chapter's end I review those aspirations, figure out which ones got fulfilled and which didn't, and shift their goals appropriately for the next round.
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Jan 18, 2016 15:51
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My group was similarly slow with using aspirations. We eventually informally split them up into three categories: immediate, soon, and (step towards) long-term. "Immediate" are things that we are currently pursuing this session, like "Explore this area", "Get information from this NPC". These are often shared between players. They are to identify what we expect to happen this session. "Soon" is used for goals like "Find out where this body disappeared to" and "Participate in a Hunt". Things that take a back seat to the Immediate but still something that is pursued. These are also usually shared between players, but not as often as Immediate aspirations. Typically, this means we expect some hooks to be offered in the current session and have the aspiration resolved within the next session or two. "Long-Term" is for goals like "Avenge my elder's death" but split up into steps like "Find evidence of killer", "Identify", "Locate", etc. These are more personal to each character and thus rarely, if ever, shared. The time-line of these have differed since they are typically slower moving due to it being important to only one character, but expecting some progress every other session or so feels about right. We limit ourselves to five total aspirations and try to keep from having more than two in any one category. I find it helps the players stay on track with their core concept and personal story while also helping the GM identify what the players want to do. Kibner fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 16:23
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