Attack the player, not the character

[Alex Schroeder]

You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters.
But there are some things that "attack" players. Like the death of their
character involves the player doing things they dislike, like start with
a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or
incurs some other loss. Another "attack" I sometimes experience is when
character creation takes a very long time. Then fear of character death
turns into fear of replacement character creation.

I recently started thinking about certain events as attacks on players
in that vein.

If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less
powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session
only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing
many dozens of goblins turns out to be somewhat boring.

Similarly, countless waves of weak opposition are boring and sap away
time. These are challenges that attack player entertainment somewhat
like character death or long character creation, I feel.

A half-finished thought, in any case.

[ne...@zzo38computer.org.invalid]

Alex Schroeder <al...@alexschroeder.ch> wrote:
> You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters.
> But there are some things that "attack" players. Like the death of their
> character involves the player doing things they dislike, like start with
> a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or
> incurs some other loss. Another "attack" I sometimes experience is when
> character creation takes a very long time. Then fear of character death
> turns into fear of replacement character creation.

Even in case of character creation time, some players might like to make
up more characters ahead of time. Longer character creation time might
also sometimes mean you can have more customization, so some people will
like that, too.

Also, sometimes you might want to start with fewer levels, etc, in case
you want a different challenge.

> If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less
> powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session
> only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing
> many dozens of goblins turns out to be somewhat boring.

When playing RPG, combat is not the only things to be involved; it is only
one part of the game. The RPG is many things.

> Similarly, countless waves of weak opposition are boring and sap away
> time. These are challenges that attack player entertainment somewhat
> like character death or long character creation, I feel.

If that just happens often, then that just means you (this can be the fault
of the GM or players depending on what other events occur in the story) are
not very good at this game, I think.

--
Don't laugh at the moon when it is day time in France.

[kyonshi]

On 12/30/2023 11:11 PM, Alex Schroeder wrote:
> You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters.
> But there are some things that "attack" players. Like the death of their
> character involves the player doing things they dislike, like start with
> a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or
> incurs some other loss. Another "attack" I sometimes experience is when
> character creation takes a very long time. Then fear of character death
> turns into fear of replacement character creation.

Death is always something to dislike in the game, easier character
generation makes it easier to get back into the saddle though.

>
> I recently started thinking about certain events as attacks on players
> in that vein.
>
> If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less
> powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session
> only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing
> many dozens of goblins turns out to be somewhat boring.
>
> Similarly, countless waves of weak opposition are boring and sap away
> time. These are challenges that attack player entertainment somewhat
> like character death or long character creation, I feel.
>
> A half-finished thought, in any case.

If it is clear that the opposition is no match for a party I don't see
anything wrong in cutting the fight short, maybe making it less about
every single roll, but having the attacks determine how long and with
what effort or expense they manage the fight.
It depends on the situation, but if a fight drags on too long and new
forces arrive this might change the tides of the fight. If there is no
help coming and no problem, maybe just roll for some appropriate damage
for the PCs and cut the whole thing short.
You want to keep the game moving.

As an aside: there was some discussion about attacking all parts of the
character sheet on the OSR blogs at one point, which meant to have
status effects that did not only damage hp, but actually modified other
parts of the character (one example was a bureaucratic orc who didn't
attack but made necessary paperwork that took up inventory space,
another was a monster that ate names)

[Alex Schroeder]

kyonshi, 2023-12-31 11:26:

> If it is clear that the opposition is no match for a party I don't see
> anything wrong in cutting the fight short, maybe making it less about
> every single roll, but having the attacks determine how long and with
> what effort or expense they manage the fight.
> It depends on the situation, but if a fight drags on too long and new
> forces arrive this might change the tides of the fight. If there is no
> help coming and no problem, maybe just roll for some appropriate damage
> for the PCs and cut the whole thing short.
> You want to keep the game moving.

I think it depends on what you want out of the game. If you want an
action filled ride with the referee acting as the master of ceremony,
then that is a legitimate conclusion – and it is what I used to do. But
these days I’m looking at it from a challenge-based perspective and from
this point of view – and given an environment where picking paths is an
option – it is up to players to avoid the time drain. I asked them twice
whether they wanted to turn the skeletons, for example, and they did
not. Shouldn’t that decision habe consequences in some way, good and
bad? I’m not so unhappy about the turn of events. It was simply
surprising to me that this was the outcome as I had not considered it
before.

[kyonshi]

While I am also into the simulation aspect of the game, sometimes the
time drain is really not worth it.
I come from this from a different perspective: rolling the dice puts the
fate of the player characters up to random chance, and if this roll is
inherently meaningless (because barring a series of very unlikely
events) why would I make them roll all this?
Now I am only speaking about play procedure, of course there still are
consequences. A prolonged fight with no chance of losing might trigger
random encounters, might deplete resources, and decrease stamina of the
characters. I just think as a GM I'd rather have them progress further
to another challenge than spend my time with a fight that's already won.

[Justisaur]

On 1/3/2024 6:51 AM, kyonshi wrote:
>
> While I am also into the simulation aspect of the game, sometimes the
> time drain is really not worth it.
> I come from this from a different perspective: rolling the dice puts the
> fate of the player characters up to random chance, and if this roll is
> inherently meaningless (because barring a series of very unlikely
> events) why would I make them roll all this?
> Now I am only speaking about play procedure, of course there still are
> consequences. A prolonged fight with no chance of losing might trigger
> random encounters, might deplete resources, and decrease stamina of the
> characters. I just think as a GM I'd rather have them progress further
> to another challenge than spend my time with a fight that's already won.

I view it differently. I like the odd fight that is easy and a forgone
conclusion to illustrate just how powerful the PCs have become. It also
allows time for the PCs to show their character, do they toy with the
enemy, have mercy, try to convert them, capture, show off with fancy
moves etc.

I had a DM who's view was every fight should be a challenge, my god the
game started to feel like an endless slog and I lost all enjoyment from
the play and only played to hang with friends.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

[gbbgu]

On 31 Dec 2023, kyonshi wrote:

> Death is always something to dislike in the game, easier character
> generation makes it easier to get back into the saddle though.
>>

I don't get to play much anymore, and char gen is way easier now than ever
before with online tools.

Back in the day when you had to do everything by hand the most annoying part
of PC death to me was the time it took me away from the game to create a new
char. It never bothered me I was weaker and had less than the others in the
group, a good GM would take this into account and adjust.

Missing out on solving a tricky puzzle or participating in something
interesting while I was rolling stats, buying equipment and selecting spells
etc felt like I was on the sidelines watching while the team went on to win a
big sporting event without me.

--
gbbgu

[kyonshi]

On 1/11/2024 2:02 AM, gbbgu wrote:

>
> Missing out on solving a tricky puzzle or participating in something
> interesting while I was rolling stats, buying equipment and selecting spells
> etc felt like I was on the sidelines watching while the team went on to win a
> big sporting event without me.
>

One of the reasons why I switched to older editions of DND (OSR stuff)
is the reason that it is so much easier to create characters. At least
it's only rolling stats, buying equipment, and selecting spells, instead
of sitting there for multiple hours trying to work everything out. You
can do a B/X-like character generation in maybe 15 minutes or less. But
back in 3e days it would take hours.