Yay! More Counter Monkey!

Loving the Counter Monkey stories !!

I remember playing a cleric in 4.0. I hated it. I hate having so many possible rituals to learn that it took me hours to level up. I hated having to be “nice”.

I remember I once after a fight I found a bunch of humans that were kept as food and “entertainment”. They were basically torture victims. My fellow party members wanted to “put them out of their misery”. Instead I used rituals to teleport all of them to the church I’m from.

I will never be “good” or use rituals again. Too much of a pain in the ass.

*sigh* I understand the one spell plight. I played a wizard/thief in The original baldur’s gate & some table top….3 hours of throwing one magic missile/hiding in the game and  alot  of sitting there  during games :P

i have no idea about D&D but that does sound pretty lame :P its probably ok for people who just started out with the game but for more advanded players that really IS nothing but jerking off :P

Ah. The good old days of 3.5 ed. It could have been worse. Clerics were so horribly broken from ad&d until 4th ed. A 3.5 cleric could default to either harm or heal spells, had bonus spells and weapon proficiencies from their deity, and could wear any armor in the game. They were incredibly imbalanced for early level play.

Sounds like the RGPA sucks monkeynuts. If you can’t lose, you can’t win either. All you can do then is just do it. And then it ceases to be a game but rather becomes occupational therapy and I for one don’t see what is fun in that.

Sounds like the cancer that is level scaling and Elder Scrolls Difficulty sliders finally spread out to traditional p&p games.

We can run away from it but where can we hide?

heheheh, I love a guy that claims to be old-school…and started in 2nd. Edition D&D….or gods help us 3.5…

Ok, as apparently the ‘old guy’ here, I started in the RPGA back when Penny still run the club and the Living City (that campaign Spoony was talking about) was not even in operation yet. Basically, the RPGA started as a newsletter and catalog you got every month.

The catalog was the drool-worthy bit of the time, as it sold EVERY RPG available in the US, even things not of TSR. ALL OF THEM. Some catalogs had over 200+ books you could order. Bonus was, you got a discount with your membership…and the books were the same price as in the stores. As a young gamer without internet, THIS was my mental masturbation list for role-playing. At least half my library in the early 80s was from that book.

The newsletter had a few fun bits. It listed local conventions (which was a massive boon so early on, as many were too small and poor to advertise even in Dragon Magazine), local RPGA clubs, and even had player-made adventures and articles for use. Some of these again were for systems outside of TSR. No one cared. A great resource for people that lived to area with low population and few players nearby (like me).

The club system was a bit of a bitch, as you needed a LOT of people (I seem to remember you had to have a minimum of 8-10 RPGA registered members) and the fees were steep for someone without a job. The main reasons for making one was recruiting and a larger discount in the catalog…and the larger the club, the bigger the discount (hitting 25% I think..and when books could be 10-15$ hardcover, THAT is worth it.)

The Living City started just before I fell out of the RPGA and started to find game stores closer to me that I preferred to support. It was as Spoony said, altered and created through RPGA member actions and adventures, and even through content made by member. I never played an event of it, because at the time I was less into D&D and far more into other games like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, The Morrow Project and Twilight:2000. If what you say is true Spoony…I’m glad I got out.

BTW I’m looking to get into role-playing I’m in Plymouth in the UK, my friends don’t play and I would be a complete newbie. I’ve been doing all sorts of google searches and I’m going to ask in at a store called Antics but on the off chance anyone knows of anything about UK role-playing groups and reads this comment…

To be honest, clerics were always kinda overpowered until 4th ed and I always found it hilarious that growing up ‘Noone wanted to play the healer’ in the groups I played in. 

this is my favorite spoony series <3

While I frowned over the spell selection in 4th edition I still thought they were REALLY generous with the HP wizards could get. I do consider 2nd edition’s rules to be subpar to the newer rules however. I like that the random element is minimized so that you don’t have to risk ending up with a clearly inferior character in your party, even if that costs you the risk that all the classes feel the same. Then there are always different kinds of Wizards like: Battlemages, Druid types, Harry Potter, Magicka, Lord of the Rings and Arthurian Legend. 2nd edition didn’t leave that much space for that type of Wizards (perhaps focusing too much on Merlin type Wizards in the end).

I never played real 2nd edition D&D however, but I did play the computer games that had the ruleset like Baldur’s Gate 2 and the Icewind Dales games. I know the games are kinda like the aRPG ideal (this goes double for neverwinter nights 2), but I got very intimate with the rules and I played mostly just for fun of experimenting with the system, so I feel that what I say have a measure of weight in the discussion. If that isn’t so then well… take my words as an uninitiated and slap me across the face.

The encounter were pretty cool though, the lame hardarse of the convention should have given Noah a damn medal for turning a very boring encounter into something memorable. Besides, can’t PCs just resurrect their dead allies anyways? I know where he’s coming from though. Obviously he just wanted to make the adventures easy so that D&D becomes more appealing to the general public or to make D&D more marketable (with lack of a better word).

After you were kicked out, did you get your money back?

As an Aspiring DM…  I actually try to do what you do.  I don’t want my players to die.  I really don’t.  But if they do something monumentally stupid, or don’t work together properly…  They’re more than likely GOING to die.  I go with what the manuals recommend to throw at players, but if an encounter seems to easy, the next room is going to be a bit harder.  It’s a fact of D&D that characters die.  I’ve had my players have to roll new characters.  One of my players had to roll three characters for a single campaign just because he was placing his stats in stupid fashion and getting murdered for it.  Or, he has notoriously bad luck with dice, so sometimes the dice just murder him.  It happens, it’s part of the game.  Yeah, in 4E, you get “saving throws” for death…  But enough damage negates those.To tell a good story, you have to have proper challenge.  A story is boring if nothing is overcome.  If there are no obstacles or threats.  Players will just go through the motions and start “meta-gaming” instead of actually role playing, or caring about the story and about their actions.

Honestly, if they run the organization with the intent of “nobody is supposed to die”, then I don’t want any part of it.  Besides, it’s not like it’s not included in the game that you CAN ressurect the dead players.  You just have to do it within a certain timeframe.  A good DM can help facilitate this if they want, adding a new Quest for the other players to accomplish.

I don’t know, I just can’t imagine an organization telling you “you can’t let them lose, ever” for a game.  Disappointment is a fact of life.  You teach it to children early on by not letting them win.  It also gives players something to strive for.  To get better at the game, to not make the same mistakes twice, and to value victory a lot more.

To let players win all the time only makes it that much harder for them when they lose.  It’s the equivalent of telling a spoiled child that “no means no” for the first time.  They become so used to getting their way that you’re a total jerk for not letting them get their way.  And they don’t have the ability to even deal with disappointment other than through whining until they do get their way.

Now, if you want to run an “introductory campaign” to get players used to the rules, it makes sense to not kill them off if possible…  But if it’s “official”, then it’s not really “introductory”.  When I first started D&D, we had several “intro characters” and “campaigns” just so I could get used to DMing and so they could get used to the rules involved with the game.  After that we rolled new characters, I designed a new campaign, and we started.

Do I want my encounters to be punked out in one hit?  No.  Do players want their characters murdered? No.  But, it’s a fact of the game.  If you have something to lose, you have incentive to win.  The difference between a DMs incentive and a Players is that victory for a DM is a memorable experience that the players will talk about and enjoy for years to come.  The incentive for a Player is to make it to the last level and achieve some recognition in game or from players for what they’ve done.

AD&D was never “balanced” nor meant to be so. Still, up until 4th edition, the rules as written presented a panorama that expected players to go against monsters, and even there rules were rather wonky.

Add in other people with PC abilities or, as 3rd edition puts it, monsters with class levels, and everything goes to hell and back: three level 1 wizards are ultimate pussies, three level 1 wizards with a sleep spell each are a total party kill waiting to happen. Having every monster encounter include someone that can cast sleep, even once, means the GM is out to get you and murder you and he’s a real asshole.

This is because spells and PC abilities are balanced following the idea of linear warriors and quadratic wizards that you explained very well in the video: 1 sleep spell per day isn’t much, but when it’s the monsters using them on you, it’s potentially 1d4 dead PCs per encounter, because it doesn’t matter if the monsters have only one in the entire day since they’re either going to be dead within a minute or the players are.

There’s a reason if 4th edition monsters don’t have encounter and daily powers: it doesn’t matter if it’s just “once per day” to someone that you fight to the death, it only matters for the PCs who are supposed to manage their resources, not on enemies that are supposed to blow through all they have to murder the players. This should be extremely simple but I’ve met lots of people that couldn’t get it for the love of them.

Still, what a lot of wankers to kick you out of the organized play for that reason, but then again organized play is prone to such horror stories.

I completely agree with you Spoony and I’ve had some similar problems before.  My group are a bunch of guys who I have been solely responsible for teaching roleplaying gaming to, and I found that though they enjoyed my games but they thought it was too easy, and since then I’ve tried to be less merciful on them.  A problem I keep having though is when I throw smaller easier enemies (encounters they should be able to walk through) at them they get beaten nearly to death.  Thus far their biggest loss came from goblins, hobgoblins, and demonic bunnies (long story).  Yet when I through big bads at them (demons, devils, dragons, horrible terrors from beyond the veils) they all crit like mad rip the bosses apart.  Its not anything planned, its just the role of the dice.

I agree with you on the changing of adventures or rules when you see it benefits the situation. And it’s fun to have a challenge, it’s not fun if you know you will win the prize right…

Spoony, your stories made me wanna start playing D&D, but I dont know how
any suggestions?

I just killed one of my players’ characters in Pathfinder this sunday (D&D 3.75, but none of that “don’t kill the pcs” bullshit.), and it to blatantly stupid actions on the part of the party. The party is going through and area known as the Greenbelt, and they know they need to go back to town to get a boat, which is a pretty straightforward thing, until this moment of idiocy from the elven Ranger: “Wait, we can leave Maia (The half-elf druid, and daughter of the ranger) while we go back to get the boat, and Maia can scout ahead.”

……. Okay, so they left a lone caster in the wilds, with her only other protection being her two Thylacines, but oh, that doesn’t matter, because she wild shapes into a bird so she can fly up over head for a lay of the land. I pre-roll my random encounters, so I’m looking down at my map, and sure enough here’s the creature: Wyvern. It’s a CR 6, and she’s 5th level. So she’s flying along, and I give her a perception roll to note the wyvern’s presence. She fails. The Wyvern dives down from above, and bites for 10 points, droping her to 26. But then it also gets to do a grab, and that succeeds with ease.

She shifts back to human, but by then, it’s really pretty much over, cause she has like no CMB, and takes a full attack, 2 claws, 2 wings, and the tail, which is poisoned, but Maia is a druid, and thus has pretty strong saves against poisons, so she’s okay there, but both claws hit which gives him a rake attack… and out goes Maia. One full round action later, it’s over completely.

… and the entire party is just staring at me. Next game’s gonna be SO much fun.

Damn, that’s fucking retarded.  I remember when a friend ran a low level module with what he later called a “paper, rock, scissors” puzzle in it.  We had 3 options of shafts to climb through. I remember one had frickin glass imbedded in the shaft, one had a trap, and the only one we could go through dumped a glowing liquid on us which made us easier for the kobolds to see.  that module was a goddamn grinder, because we sucked at figuring out the puzzle.  But it was still fun. In part BECAUSE it was a pain in the ass; so the rewards were worth more to us.

Huh, first story of yours I’ve been inclined to comment on, as a former player and DM – and also one that points out a number of fundamental problems with the RPGA, which seem to have only been further emphasized with current editions and remain one of my biggest issues with the way 4th Edition games tend to be run. I understand wanting the players to win the encounters, and even the occasional fudged die roll to speed things along, but the way 4th Edition is structured neuters a lot of the arsenal that DMs used to bring to the table in favour of the players, and I’m not a fan of this.

Now, granted I grew up on 3rd and later 3.5, but I played AD&D and always had DMs coming from the AD&D school working with me, and that’s the style I tended to emulate – and in that particular school, you wanted to throw everything and the kitchen sink at your players because you wanted their triumph to be all the sweeter. Knowing that there is a real edge, an ‘Anyone-Can-Die’ element to your campaign, really lends a good air to your setting. Now, granted, you will run into PCs that will test your limits (and your patience), but that’s part of the challenge. 

And let me make one thing very clear, the way you told your story, that fighter character really didn’t do a good job in this case. Even with the odds stacked against him, why the hell didn’t he try to wake up one of those hyper-powerful clerics? If anything, he should have relied on his high AC and hit points to weather the wizard attacks, and then worked to revive his team before the third wizard slaughtered them (and frankly, they’re lucky they weren’t playing with 3rd Edition rules with coup de grace). He did the right thing by flooring the thief, but he should have really woken at least one of the clerics to help him, even if it meant causing some minor physical damage to get him up (don’t have my sourcebooks on me explicitly to check – was fairly certain in AD&D there were actions that can be taken to wake characters).

If anything, Spoony, I think there’s a real difference between the ‘old guard’ DMs like you (and where I’ll include myself, simply growing up with those sort of mentalities) and the DMs that want their players to succeed regardless of anything. Frankly, when I DM, I’m not going to cater to the stupidity of the players, and if they lose, they lose legitimately. But if they win… yeah, those are the games they remember.

Psh. Let’s get a Dark Souls/Demon’s Souls RPG going, then people will really die :3

There is no such thing as not killing the Pcs, my last session included not only the death or a Pc but a horrific reanimation of said PC as a Shadow which then became an epic encounter for the surviving players, as talked about on my blog.
http://www.redbrick-limited.com/cms/index.php?categoryid=10&action=showsingleentry&blog_id=3&entry_id=1004&pointer=0&showall=1&confirmdeletion=0

As for DnD First Level Arcane/Mage spells Sleep>Charm Person>Magic Missile. Magic Missile isn’t even second best.

SPOONY! DO MORE COUNTER MONKEY VIDEOS!! Seriously I was kinda mad that you weren’t doing LP’s but now I’m like fuck that, make more CM’s!! If I had the funds I would pay you minimum wage to tell me these stories!

yo im trying to start a dnd group with friend still amassing books though. Since i would be the most fomiliar with rules id be dm. any pointers besides dont try to let them win

I feel like someone here should go off on an aDnD bullshit quest wherein they make all the WRONG moves, and just see how far they can get. And then when you die, get the particular DM in shit for it. And then do it all again.

In my little group when we start a campaign we set the starting level and roll characters from scratch every time. and if a PC dies mid campaign he can roll a new lvl equivalent character and somehow work it into the plot. Of course equipment would not necessarily carry over and a new clas mix is encouraged. Also we never use prebuilt modules except when teaching the games. always custom plots and campaigns. Those are infinitely more interesting since your gm is not as “bound” as usual. Although currently the GM for my spycraft campaign has explicitely stated he is going to try and kill us off if the opportunity presents. And i find this is making for a lot more fun encounters sicne we are not rolling through everything despite one our friends who knows how to break the game mechanics into making near unstoppable weapons and machines of destroyers.

I’ve played in a 4e RPGA event before once ran by my local game shop, and my god do these guys not know what they’re doing. Not only do they give out weak encounters, but now they give out pre-generated characters. Now, being that my 3 friends and I that went didn’t anticipate pre-gen characters, we made our own. Now the other guy that didn’t on the other hand was basically dead weight in the party.  I got a look at the pre-gen’d sheet that got out, it was a Paladin. Already the character is pointless, because as a joke either two or all three of my friends made Paladins flavored as 40K Space Marines. Space Wolves to be precise, if I remember correctly. Beyond that, This was a clearly Strength-based Paladin with all Charisma powers, and the guy had like a 12/14 in Cha. No one at the table could believe it. The store Employee who was DMing was actually calling over other guys to get a load of it, and eventually were just apologizing to the player left and right.

So, my friends and I are just chewing up these easy encounters between the Marines just pasting things beneath their boots, and meanwhile I built a Chainmail-wearing Warlock, so basically I’m just an Anti-Personnel Cannon and the DM is about ready to eat the miniatures because he can’t fucking touch any of us except for Sir Useless of Crappington. In the end, we weren’t really that satisfied, the monsters basically laid down for us. So after we left we played out own game and basically resolved to not play in those again after that.

Hilarious story! Who the hell would get upset over the death of a 1st level character? Remove character death and you eliminate the fear and excitement of a fight. 

And dying during Lord Kat’s campaign? Isn’t his catch-phrase “you’re going to die… alot”?

I played 2nd ed D&D and no one played magic-users from level 1. The secret: multi-class. Elven Fighter/Mage FTW!

Great video Spoony, and I completely agree with you. A campaign with no risk is not going to be worth the Players’ time, and its a waste of the DM’s time. If that’s the way that RPGA is set up, they exist purely to get bodies into the RPG realm and buying their sourcebooks. They don’t appear to be in it for the game at all, if your experience is anything to go by.

Well, I’m off to DM a Star Wars RPG game with some friends. Wish me luck!

I have terrible luck when it comes to DnD. I have a Ranger and in his first quest he got mauled by a dire weasel,Trounced by all sorts of vermin, and nearly got killed by an infested cleric orc. But when I saw the ending of the quest I was proud of him. He overcame terrible dice rolls. He was a giantic brute who grunted instead of talked due to his incredibly terrible Charisma.

Those games you remember.

I only played 2nd edition very briefly, but I do recall, old-school wizards had a hell of a time.  I seem to also remember that they required more experience points to level up.  But once you passed that 5th level mark, man….
Anyway, I’ve always just played with friends, and we’ve always had sort of an unspoken rule that characters should be kept alive (unless they died at low level… then you just make a new one).  Fact is, in 3rd edition, it’s not too hard to bring a character back after a certain level threshold.  If you happen to have a cleric and a couple thousand gold, there’s a spell for it, so there you go.  You’ll get a level penalty, but that’s about it (unless you’re really high level, in which case you just spend a day and bring them right back to full health, no penalty).  So I always made it a choice; if you want a new character, go ahead and make one, otherwise, spend the money for a resurrection.
In terms of being a hardass DM… well, I have, at one point, annihilated my entire party.  It was a challenge within their capabilities, but there were some failed reflex saves, a couple poor battle decisions, so they all died.  Now, I decided to go easy and give the last surviving character a couple rerolls, because I didn’t want my whole campaign to collapse in on itself, but man… that was some tough luck, right there.  I think that would have gotten me kicked out of the RPGA.
And yet, those are the stories people remember.  No one remembers that one time we all beat up those three 1st level wizards who feebly tried to hit us with sticks.  So yes… keep rocking it old school, man.

Wow, the group I played with had no real problems with dieing.  For us a game wasn’t complete unless the person running it was crying or had yelled out “why won’t you die!”.  Or when my character had killed another guy’s character and he complained about it.  He never won those arguments.  Those were the best.

okay, simple story, Tomb of horrors 3.5ed, we had all made characters my friend makes a thief with all stats geared towards finding traps,
front door he searches and finds nothing. “Lets go guys.” was his last
words as he fell into a pit trap and landed on spikes. that didnt kill
him, the poison on them however did when hes making a save VS death at
lvl 1. we looked at the DM and said “We turn around and get the F*** out
of there.” we played an underdark campaign after my buddie rolled a new
character lol. good times.

Game Design 101: The player must always have a reason for their avatar to live. Once that is established, they must have their avatar put in an environment that challenges their ability to live. If that ability goes unchallenged, you have effectively separated the physical player from their avatar. that separation ruins any narrative structure or tension that most successful games are designed to build. 
TLDR: Putting the kiddie gloves on tends to disengage players from the experience. Give them a challenge or don’t bother making that kind of game.

We always tried to avoid Total Party Kill or TPK.  We had a guy who had an unbelievable knack for getting the whole party or himself killed.  I never liked the whole “players VS DM deathmatch” roleplaying.  I’m one of those “Storyteller” guys who cares more about story and playing the role.
However, PC death is unavoidable sometimes.

That is such BS. Where’s the fun of a game with no possibility of losing? I’m with you. People need to “Man up” and deal with it. I can’t name any person I’ve rped with who hasn’t lost characters. 

 It’s like playing an old video game using an “invincibility” cheat code.  Sounds more fun than it actually is. 

I’ve played with good DM’s (story was tight and the fighting meant somebody might die) and bad DM’s (either you fought nobody worth fighting or 1000 nobodies worth fighting that murdered you) and the big difference is the challenge of winning.  The threat of dying is a real thing.  
**SPOILERS AHEAD**I just listened to Spoony’s DM game with some of the TGWTG crew and the moment when  Lord Vane I (Angry Joe) gets killed due to bad role play is a definitive one.  After he realized the threat of death, Joe became a much better player (hilariously named Lord Vane II, the original’s kid) because he understood the world was for keeps.  

Also, I get why RPGA would want to foster new players, but they are not making good players.  They are making the same type of players that expect every “good” game to be like Bioshock, with spawn points immediately near the player in case of emergency.  (To clarify, loved Bioshock, but it was really, really, stupidly easy.)  This is not compelling fiction, which is what RPGs are: player generated fiction.  

I also must mention the death of Wil Wheaton’s character in the Penny Arcade game last year and the fact that they brought him back.  The character was D-E-D, dead, and while they did bring him back to life, they did it within the narrative.  Nobody cast a spell and immediately brought him back and the DM did not pull punches when it came time.  Fan reaction probably caused the resurrection, but I applaud the DM for allowing the characters to bring him back, not buffed stats.

When I played, character death was a part of the fun.  You never knew when it could happen, the next roll of the dice could be Steve the Destructor’s last.  Hell, one campaign ended when we all got thrown into D&D Thunderdome and I ate it against a bunch of bugbears.  It was one of the most fun nights of role-playing I ever had with my clothes on.

When my brother and I would play D&D we knew that it was going to be a shit storm and that’s what builds a real connection with your friends, characters and setting of D&D!

I admit i wanted to be babied through any D&D campaign when i first started. You want your character to be awesome like drizzt or gandalf. But alas DM’s play fair and never give special treatment. I had a Tiefling ranger once that i was very proud of, went into a tavern, and the DM tells me of this very potent wine on the menu that even strong warriors can’t handle, i took it as a challenge…. my self proclaimed ‘awesome ranger’ blacked out after one sip, the tavern explodes with laughter and i died a little inside.

Dude, I wouldn’t play a game if my character couldn’t die! Dying is part of the game, sometimes the best part! Without the risk of death, the game is pointless.

I killed off a player in the first session of my campaign because he gave the head NPC lip. The head NPC cut his throat.

You make me want to DM things again.

Actually from what I’ve seen it’s ok to kill players in the 4e RPGA mods.  That being said they’re still too easy and the penalty for death is fairly insignificant (free res IF you cannot afford it) but at least the games are allowed to feel, and actually be, challenging as long as your DM has good tactics.

And I have seen TPKs with no rule changes made to the mod (ran one even) so they aren’t all too easy just al lot of them.

RPGA = Pussies?

You’re a killer GM Spoony!
Seriously though, this is like a KODT type story. The group is always bitching at B.A. for him being a killer GM when he’s really just letting the dice fall where they may.

You know what I have to say that is just not fun. I DM for my group all the time, sometimes we get to meet once a week, sometimes we only get to meet once a month if not less, and honestly I run some pretty story intensive games that take A LONG time to complete. I believe the storyline that my current game is based on has been running on and off for three years now, and only one of my players still has the character they started with. Do they complain? Well a little, but its how the dice fall. If I’ve ever found an encounter that was way too difficult for them sure I make it easier, however I’ve seen ridiculously easy encounters go horribly wrong for them too. I’ve seen a confusion cause our strongest fighter to lob off the head of the Ranger standing next to her. My point being, flat out the games are just fun. My players always tell me how much fun they have when they play with me as  DM, and there is always a risk of dying with me. The RPGA’s no death to PC rules takes so much out of the game its not even fun anymore. You were right to do what you did Spoony because you did it for the point of it being FUN.

i don’t get why they couldn’t be revived. With that many clerics one should know that spell. Ah, the old days of THAC0 D&D. i started playing in ’87 and lost my group in ’93, when we graduated from High School. (yes i’m ancient) I can not tell you how many of my PC’s died or how many more i have killed while being DM. You sucked it up and went on. Roll a new one if you can’t res. i saw an entire party of 6 players fall to one Kobold! The dice were on his side that day.

I wonder if anyone here is familiar with John Wick’s “Play Dirty” series of articles?  They were originally written for the old Pyramid Online webzine, but were recently collected into a pdf book.  It’s basically a collection of anecdotes from Wick’s various RPG games presented with suggestions for gaming, to make things more interesting.  One of his first articles presents the following statement:

“A Killer GM is someone who takes glee in destroying characters. He kills
them without remorse, without compassion, without care. He does it
because he can. Gives him some sort of sick rush.
This is bad.
A Dirty GM, on the other hand, is someone who uses every dirty trick in
the book to challenge the players. Keeping them off balance with guerrilla
tactics, he increases the players’ enjoyment with off-beat and unorthodox
methods, forcing them to think on their feet, use their improvisational skills
and keep their adrenaline pumping at full speed.
This is good.”

I liked his “Dirty Fighting” article, which is all about using narrative tricks to make combat more exciting then “Roll to hit, Roll for Damage, Roll to dodge, etc.”  I also liked his Cyberpunk game story about a whole party that ended up with a nanovirus infection that would kill them off one by one in increasingly destructive ways, which ended with the last survivor barricaded in a corporate office with the villain, a gun in the villain’s mouth as he says “I’m gonna detonate in less than
two minutes, I don’t even know what’s gonna happen to me. But I do know one thing. Whatever happens to me is gonna happen to you.”  A brilliant ending.

Point I’m trying to make is, I see where Spoony’s coming from: if the game’s too easy, it can get boring.  But there’s a fine line between making things challenging for the players and just whacking off their characters for the sake of whacking off their characters.  Especially at the start of the game, when the PCs haven’t even entered the actual dungeon yet.

I’ve dabbled a little in D&D, and what I have done in the game, I’ve enjoyed. I am fully aware that the role of the DM is NOT to outright kill the players, but to make it a challenge for them. There’s no satisfaction to be had in just getting to the end of the adventure, steamrollering over everything that gets in the players’ way. You want it to be an epic and challenging quest with danger and excitement at every turn. When I played, I lost a couple of characters (one was after a party member bodged both throws to save me as I hung by my fingernails on a ledge, so I fell down the cravasse! The other, we were facing a boss and I was slain in battle) but it was no big deal, I just made another one, and was introduced as such in the campaign we were doing. 

Man, I love AD&D wizards.  I mean, they’re pretty shit early on, but you can deal some pretty hefty damage with a good sleep spell.   Once they get into their high level shit, they’re pretty much unstoppable forces of mass destruction while all the other characters are pretty much impotent weenies in comparison.

Mn, I play Dark Heresy.  Players die.  All the freakin’ time.  A DM who wanted to “let you win” with NO casualties, even no major injuries, in Dark Heresy wouldn’t be respected.  We’d tell ‘em to shove off so a real DM would play.

Sure, I want my players to do heroic and awesome things.  But if they do something stupid?  Ohohohoh man, they can practically see me rubbing my hand like some sadist torturer grinning at the prospect of getting their knife out and carving up their next victim.

Hey, man I understand your side fullyand if they guys you were playing with were like new to the game and you were suppose to get them into the game and join the club then I’d be on the other dude’s side but from the sounds of it every one involved were already seasoned players!
You’re some sort of evil genious we must kill you before you try something really drastic!
You should start posting these on TGWTG so others can see/hear these!
I’ve never played but you’re selling e on the idea! If there were people in my area. 

Man I went through a time were I would lose a character almost every play session.  It became so bad the DM gave me a beholder to run just to keep me alive.  Its not that I was a bad player I was just getting an unusual amount of ones always at the wrong time. And I never once cried over it. In fact I just used it as an excuse to create more and more exotic characters.

Id keep an eye on your dog biting her tail, could be a sign of worms if she keeps doing it

Damn, sounds like the RPGA really SUCKS. Fuck, it’s bad enough where I live nobody plays anything BUT Warhammer 40k. grrrr

AND ANOTHER THING! The Orc example you mentioned, that could be handled so much better. Like (just as a basic example) Instead of outright killing the players, the Orcs can capture the party and lock them up and then the thief or whatever must break the group out. 

First thing I explained to my party. It’s not my job to keep you alive. In total I think I’ve said that twice. After that they got it. Now I’m not a harsh DM. I provide a challenging encounter with the real possibility of player death. An example last game I had a skeletal dog hurl a PC on an open pit of fire. He stood up and charged back to the skeletal dog and the dog tossed him again (recharge ability). The dog’s going to do that. It’s his best option. After that they got smart and pushed the dog and kept him the fuck away from a open pit of fire which he could easily toss a guy on.

I understand of course that if I play D&D it will be a challenge. That’s what makes it fun, though. You strive to win and try your hardest and think of plans and strategies to things.

What makes me NOT want to play, though is when people who have been playing act like pompous ass-fucks. Nobody new is going to want to play with your grumpy ass if you act high and mighty and keep rambling on about the ‘good old days’.

You’d think the regional corporate jackass would have told Spoony beforehand that he can’t make any changes to the module. Or at least write it in there. Because I mean a DM who plays outside of the RPGA and who is new to the association, would naturally assume that the spells and encounters are open to being changed at their discretion, like a normal DnD game.   

i agree that player characters should die, as long as they go down fighting in a fair way. one of my characters died due to another player basically trading me to a Dragon as food for information. that whole campaign was just unfair and everything was brought to that player on a silver platter. fucking bullshit

Spoony’s talk about players taking character death like a man actually reminds me of the roleplaying forum I’m on. It’s based off of Battle Royale, wherein high school students are forced to kill each other so there can be only one, for those who don’t know. It’s not exactly in the same league as tabletop games; there’s no real stats, so the players decide events based on who’s rolled to die and how they can make the best story out of it.

Twice a month, a handful of characters are randomly chosen to die, and aside from a limited number of opportunities players have to swap out doomed characters or save them entirely, in rare cases, they pretty much have to go with the rolls and kill them off, or else the moderators will do it for them. I can’t remember the last time anyone on the boards actually complained about it. They took it like men, as you recommended.

But it’s probably easier in this case, because the players tend to be resigned about killing characters. Unless a character wins the game or gets rescued, which takes a lot of work and a lot of luck, it’s just a matter of when they die. There’s no such guarantee in D&D, which is probably why it’s more of an unpleasant surprise.

I agree with the “you should make a challenge and not let people win just because” comment. Games with no challenge are no fun.  You can’t overcome obstacles if there are no obstacles. People do not take things seriously if there are no consequences. In games there are losers and losers and players should be aware of it.
However consider this: in Kirby Epic Yarn it is impossible for you to lose and it was not reviewed as a bad game.

That’s pretty funny. I like NPCs who act smart and work together. Of course, it wold have been even smarter for them to ambush instead of leaping out of the bushing yelling, but if that was the way the encounter was written in the source material, well.. *shrug*

Why didnt the mage just slits the PCs’ throats? I’m trying to remember if AD&D 2nd Ed had something like 3rd Edition’s coup-de-grace rule. It did have rules for bleeding per round; although bleeding could not usually be caused by a normal dagger wound.

Admittedly, the encounter was not probably not *supposed* to kill off any 1st level player characters. However, if the players were so arrogant that they thought their characters invincible, they deserved to be taken down a peg.

I wonder if immediately after putting everybody to sleep, that the players thought, “Oh shit.”
Great story Spoony, thank you.

I remember 2nd. Ed. being lethal like that.  All it takes is the right combination of non-damaging spells and bad rolls to bring a party down.  A spellweaver almost took the entire party down after using nothing but non-damage spells and misdirection to get a mid level party toting around a lot of damaging items in a spot where even things they may not normally bother them became lethal.  All the RPGA modules I’ve seen in my days are always a bit safe for the PCs.  Anyone I have talked to that ran or played in the RPGA always said it was a bit too easy to get through.  When you get down to it the RPGA is really something built to try to recruit new players through their friends and what not so killing them right off would probably not be in their best interest.  

You know, if I notice my DM doing something that makes me live, Ill tell him, No, if I die, I die, dont make it where I live if I wasnt going to live, characters die, people reroll. It sucks, but thats the game.

I wish Spoony was my GM. Then again I am the GM at the moment… and I wish that didn’t sound like it does to me. Regardless the events described in this story sound perfectly fair and, in the RPGA at least, it should be decided between the GM and the players whether they want to deal with the consequences of death or not. By the sounds of things the party were pretty cool with what happened, especially considering how ridiculously weak the encounter was so the RPGA guy was just being an arse. having heard this story I’ve ripped up my RPGA membership card.

I very much enjoyed this story. I can’t believe that the RPGA had modules that you absolutely could not win. That’s ridiculous. I’m not old school gamer, but I started with 2nd Ed, and I had DM’s that absolutely will not let you die. Like, you die, but you don’t DIE. We always have reincarnate, or you had impressed a deity so you got a one time resurrection, or you were forever cursed some some major battle scar that hindered/cursed you for the rest of your life (eg. you survived, but your left leg’s tendons were cut so severely that you know move at half from this point on).

Good on you for changing up the wizards that way you did. That was genius.

I play in conventions, and you almost never survive the games there. They’re not RPGA approved though, so that probably helps. But when you walk into that game, chances are you will die. Very likely it’ll be in a very horrific fashion. I know I’ve had that happen to my characters. If I had to compare it to anything, it certainly wouldn’t be an RPGA game. More like a Gygax game. If you’re smart, you’ll survive my Tomb of Horrors. If not, you’re going to get disintegrated. That’s that game. Can’t take it? Shouldn’t play it.

While this is mostly true, I can assure you that the RPGA is not always kid-gloves.

With Encounters, the DMs are only gentle with new player. Older, more veteran players are treated as such.
In LFR, our group consists almost entirely of people who are quite good at D&D, we tend to play the “high” version of any module that gets run and the fights can get rough. It’s not uncommon for players to die, and I’ve seen a few TPKs in our play. (Though it is worth mentioning – death is not a very permanent problem. Your character is just working with a penalty for the next adventure and a half)
And Lair Assault is run like it says on the tin – don’t get attached to the character, because it’s going to die.

I gotta say if I was a part of RPGA and I found out that they were specifically letting me win I’d be kinda pissed. As you said if the adventure isn’t an actual challenge then it isn’t fun, if you have a fair DM he’ll give you a chance but he’s not gonna pull crap like this (Seriously, Magic Missile?). If I had been in that group I’d be congratulating you on a well done ambush, not complaining to you manager.

People get very attatched to their characters sometimes. It doesn’t have anything to do with “being a man” to those who are really passionate about their character design and story and such. No offense, but you just sound a bit like a prick in this one. I actually saw a forum discussion on the nature of character death. It’s a bit split on those who allow death and those who don’t.

How did your character get killed in Lordkats game? I could not find that episode, why did you not make a new character?

my first game of D&D ended when our psion switched sides, dominated our fighter, and had him massacre the rest of us (I was a low level thief so I dropped almost instantly). I have had so many characters die and it sucks, but it also makes a good story in hindsight.

That said I understand some of the “no killing” thing but only under specific situations. For the past few years I’ve ran D&D campaigns at the summer camp I work at (which is where the above campaign took place). I usual end up running the campaign for the new players starting at first level and I have a standing rule not to kill off anyone in a 1st level campaign and I try not to kill off anyone in anything under 4 or 5. This is not easy because these kids can be stupid. You could put 30 guys in front of a gate and they will still try to charge in and kill all of them instead of looking for another entrance. At one point I had a party, despite my advice, sleep on top of a watchtower in the middle of a goblin lair. What’s worse is when the sorcerer, who took first watch, saw a group of goblins coming toward the tower, instead of waking his party up (me-”Okay you see 3 goblins, do you want to wake your party,” him- “no,” me-”…are you sure,” him-” yup,” rest of party-”yeah that’s fine.”) he decides to run forward and take them on himself, and surprisingly he won without taking a hit and without me fudging any roles. 

Or their was campaign where the cleric starts the encounter against a gnoll chieftain by trying to run up and attack him directly oblivious to the two bodyguards standing by him. The cleric provoked 3 attacks of opportunity, and was being flanked by the bodyguards. He blocked at least one and sucked up a bunch of damage (gnome clerics are hard to kill) and then missed the chieftain with his own attack. And then the bodyguards got to attack. That was the closest I came to having a character die. By the time he stabilized he was at -8 or -9 and the dwarf had to drag him and the more recently unconscious half ork to safety (and a convently placed box of healing potions).

The unintentionally hilarious and yet still angering thing about this story, by the way… is that the way you describe that dude from the RPGa, honestly makes him sound like Bill Lumberg from Office Space, Spoony.

Even though the RPGA has that “don’t kill the players” policy BS, I think that regional jerk owes you an apology letter. Honestly, i think you went above and beyond the call of duty to actually make a game fun and interesting. To me, if a DnD game doesn’t have some kind of massive “WTF?!?” moment, be it good or bad for the PC’s, then its a bad campaign. Thank you for sharing all your awesome Role-Playing moments Spoony. :]

On a side note, if you were to make and sell a “Leaping Wizards!” T-shirt, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. :D

I loved the encounters that went wrong.  Provided the most awesome stories.  I remember the very first 3.5e game I played.  It was just a mini dungeon with my Ranger and an Cleric.  Horrible team setup for a dungeon, but we went through it anyway.  There were like 4-5 rooms in this dungeon, and about 12 goblins or some shit.  Very first room, I kick the door down and stumble into the room, and get my back slashed wide open.  survived that encounter barely and the goblin ran off. So 5 minutes into the dungeon and we’ve both dropped our daily heals.  

Second room had a pit in it with skeletons in it.  As were looking down into the hole, the SAME DAMN GOBLIN AMBUSHES US! Freaking Leonidus kicks the Cleric into the hole and tries to attack me again.  I’m pissed at this bastard and somehow roll a crit, doing something like 20 damage, almost cleaving the bastards arm off.  He runs away again and I’m stuck taking pit shots at skeletons while my Cleric climbs his way out.  

After that we’re both like “this bastard has to die”  so we enter the final room where Leonidus calls upon like 5 goblins to help him.  For some reason, I never drew my sword in time, so Leonidus charges me and I’m stuck in close combat with the Goblin boss while the Cleric is fighting off the other goblins (forgot to mention, in the time it took Leo to charge me, I got two shots off, killing one goblin and wounding another).  Leo tries to spartan kick me, I dodge, and have the greatest idea ever.  Instead of trying to fight him, I take my bow, wrap the string around Leo’s neck, and proceed to strangle him. And I won.  The Cleric did some boss shit where he like burned to death the other goblins or some shit, but it was an epic fight, that we almost lost on several occasions.  I even brought that character into the next real adventure with a goblin head as a trophy strapped to my pack.  Thats right, I took the bastards head!

But to get back on track, despite the fact we almost dies like 3 times, The DM never made it easier then he already planned.  And that made chocking out Leo that much more satisfying.  So I really agree with you, dont coddle the players unnecessarily.  Yeah make it easier if they are getting thier asses handed to em, but dont make it a sure fire win.  

So RPGA = Royal Pussy Gamers Association. Good to know.

I really enjoyed this episode :)

Bravo. There’s no point in playing a game that is impossible to lose. I don’t see a point in playing a game where the outcome is already a given.

Dude,Damn stright, I’ve made my own D&D world,its two binders of PC’s,NPC’s,World Maps, Cities and dungeons,ect.And god damn if I didn’t get there through a pile of PC’s. No one complained,they loved the tougher campaigns even for the challnges .

Perhaps someone should introduce the RPGA to a D&D Clasic Cald “Tomb of Horrors” and teach people that PC’s die,get used to it and Re-roll

I agree dude, and not just with D&D. In my current VTM game we lost a character some time ago who had been with the campaign for an extremely long time. Yes, he did get upset at the time, but he moved on and made a new character, while the rest of us faced the idea that we could all go like that.

I would like to know more about your MTG deck ;)

My favorite character death ever was when one guy we couldn’t stand got killed by bad luck early on in the game and he pitched a fit XD I admit, I can get butthurt about a character death too, but nobody wants to play with a whiner. I’ve only been playing D&D for the last 2 years, and I’ve noticed but the differences between 3.5e and 4e really reflect this “players always win” thing Spoony’s describing. Also, 4e just really seems like it breeds Mary Sues, especially with how easy it is to play exotic races, but that might just be me XD

I dunno, I’d like to learn how to GM/DM soon, and I really hope my games didn’t end up so devoid of peril the way your describing. I think I could see myself trying to keep someone from dying, but I’d also like to make sure they got good and bloodied at the cost of winning. Though is that over manipulation? I’d be worried about finding a balance between organic gameplay and micro managing my players. Does this mean I shouldn’t bother attempting to learn how to lead a game? Spoony, do you think you could make a video about transitioning from a player to a DM/GM?

I’ve played a 2nd AD&D campaign that was suppossed to last until we reached level 12 end in two hours. A combination of an epic amount of bad luck, and our paladin being an absolute idiot. We all thought it was pretty funny.

This is the RPGA police! You have the right to remain silent and let me win!

LET ThEm WIN! hell no you enter a dungeon looking for treasure and a spider the size of a fucking house pops out of the shadows…. if i knew no matter what i was going to win….. I would just get pissed… like ok spider with 10 times my hit points…. 8 times my size……. (Wcw finger point of doom you) spider erupts in flames…. i would leave the fucking table i dont think i would even come back for my dice i would just leave

Well, Pathfinder has something similar as I’m sure most players know: Pathfinder Society. Those adventures challenge players, but they’re fair. I’ve player 3 adventures, 2 with my paladin and 1 with premade gunslinger (my first touch of tabletop roleplaying ever).
In all 3 sessions I was downed, I thought I was going to die. But I didn’t. and I loved it, I feared for my character and it was all the more victorious when I survived it. Once I survived since the construct only attacked someone at it’s level, not when I was on the ground and others managed to take down the baddie and just lure away the construct after, once our Oracle healed me back up since I was the best fighter in the group with my broadsword so I had best chance of fighting back. Each time I was downed by a fair fight.
I think GM went a bit easy on us once. We were facing a yeti which seemed to just keep steamrolling us. 3 of us had exhaustion from mountain air, but we were all unharmed (our fighter died earlier, but he was basically killed off since the player had to leave, seems Valeros always dies in any session he’s in) at the point, though we had to skip one encounter due to lack of time. We started fighting and it has such a good attack bonus and 2 fists we were getting hit all the time. When the yeti had knocked down 4 out of 5 players (all stabilized) and only one left was wizard, the yeti fled instead of killing us. Might have been since the Yeti used it’s spear and wizard had used the “spider climb” scroll to get out of reach and just ranged attack, but the yeti fled. If it hadn’t missed the wizard with that spear, I think we would have died.
I think that was okay, we had 3 newbies left so it might be best not to kill them off on their first adventure and the yeti had a reason to flee: there was opponent, whom the yeti couldn’t touch, attacking him and by staying and killing the downed players, it would also risk dying, it had self-prservation instinct.
So, challenge them, show them “you might die so buck up” but make it a fair challenge.
I hope my current casual GM shows that soon, so far we’ve steamrolled all encounters except one where 3 other guys (I was guarding our prisoners who were unbound at the moment) had abysmal rolls and didn’t get a single hit to the last guy in 3 rounds.

OMG!!! You killed the pwecious wittle chawaters? Shame! Shame! Don’t you know that PCs are special snowflakes who should never be at any risk at all?

Ok, I grant you that I tend to try and let the players survive, simply because I think it’s logical for monsters to move on to a target that’s still a threat rather than finish off a fallen foe. However, if you fight dumb then you will get owned in my games.

I used to DM in more organized games like the RPGA and even now I’m somewhat more lenient than I should be with my characters. It becomes a hard habit to break even after years of running games. As DM’s we need to balance our desire to see the players succeed against a campaign that has enough difficulty to make the characters feel like they are making real accomplishments.

really, theres only one way to lose in D&D: being a jerk. You win by having fun and playing the game, not being a jerk. It’d be like flipping over the Candy Land box because you were in the molasses swamp and drew the Plumpy card.

Man I love that story, if only for the visual of three idiot dressed like stereotypical storybook wizard, with the conical hat and the blue robe with stars and shit, just leaping out of bushes and going OUGA BOUGA BOUGA…then beating the shit out of a group of highly trained murderhobo.

To be fair to the RPGA, you were kicked out because you made changes that resulted in some character dying, they probably would have been ok with it if the same character had been killed by magic missiles. I think the main goal behind organised play like the RPGA is to introduce new player to the hobby and the game in general, so the generally low difficulty does make some sense. I mean, imagine if the PC wizard in this story was a new player and that was the first encounter? Dude barely had time to play before his character gets incapacitated then killed, not while fighting like men, not because he did something dumb, just because he failed one check against a random encounter. Most experience player would go “Well, shit” and reroll, but a total newcomer may very well go “That was a waste of time” and just not see a point in playing anymore. From the way Spoony tell the story though, seems like the players were not new to the hobby and that they were ok with the deaths, so really the RPGA goon should have let it slide.

That said, I’m with Spoony that the encounter as written was fucking stupid and I find it shameful that someone actually got paid to write it. What kind of idiot write a low-level encounter against a group of level 1 wizards? With a dumb spell loadout like in the original module, it’s less a fight and more a one-sided massacre. Even if you give them a smart loadout like Spoony did, you end up with an encounter that’s pretty much entirely decided by luck. A much better fight would have been one wizard with two fighters, the wizard having sleep as his chosen spell and a crossbow instead of his poking stick.