Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Reflections on a Lazy Day Off...


...just catching up on some "stuff" (like blogs and forums and chores around the house). I might also take a nap later.
: )

In reading over yesterday's post, I'm a bit surprised that no one made comment on the fact that my Baranof game has resulted in 40 player character deaths over nine months of play...especially considering that we took several months off during that time frame (due to having a baby or the urge to play Boot Hill or Shadow Run or one-off S1: Tomb of Horrors, whose character kills were NOT counted in the final tally).

That's a whole lot of death. Does anyone else's regular game look like that? Just wondering.

Okay...time to take that nap.

15 comments:

  1. Couldn't say, for me. I helped a friend playtest a 4e module recently, but as that was a playtest, it doesn't really count (much like your Tomb of Horrors run-through). Other than that, we've just reached my first combat of the PbP AD&D game I'm in, and that's it for my gaming recently.

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  2. My LL game has on average one PC death or more per session. We've had (I believe) one session where nobody died, and at least two or three TPKs.

    So yeah, I imagine after 30 or so sessions we might be up in that area :)

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  3. I don't think I've ever presided over a single TPK, even in Call of Cthulhu; one campaign ended with a different group of characters to that which started, but that was more of a Theseus' Paradox type of situation.

    I don't kill many characters, and when I do, it seems to only be in Cthulhu.

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  4. @ Kelvin: Well CoC is designed for the masochistic player from what I gather; players are expected to go into the game with an understanding that it will cost them their life, sanity, or both.
    ; )

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  5. I rarely have player death in my later-edition games. But the characters feel pretty fragile based on typical encounter sizes/difficulties in Labyrinth Lord.

    I envision our death count slackening off, especially once some folks start hitting second level, but we'll see!

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  6. @ Taketoshi:

    The monsters on the 3rd level Wandering Monsters list are all TPK material...mediums and medusae? Holy cow!

    And I'll tell you one thing about that 2nd - 5th level range: PCs tend to get a little cocky. ESPECIALLY if they haven't learned to function without a "sleep spell" primed and ready. Their first owl bear will tear 'em apart.
    : )

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  7. Actually... the last player deaths, no player character deaths I remember are some time ago. I think there were none this year, and maybe none last year either. There were close calls, but... nope, I guess it's another game I play, with my Dark Dungeon 2nd ed ruleset.

    On the other hand, at the time I still played vanilla D&D, in the eighties, there weren't that many deaths either. More, but still less than ten a year. Maybe our GMs were easier, maybe our parties were better trained, maybe we ran away more often.

    BTW thanks for the Panzer Bear idea, I'll do a variation on it tomorrow :-)

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  8. I've never gamed for nine months and had so little forward momentum in a campaign. That's due to game switching as much as characters deaths though.

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  9. @Kelvingreen:

    "This is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow! Where shall we find the concord in this discord?"

    (Sorry, I was in A Midsummer Night's Dream last year as Philostrate. I ended up memorizing that particular line of Theseus', and it seemed somewhat relevant.)

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  10. @ Luke: Game-switching, campaign-switching, one-offs, etc. There's a lot that's gone in to hamstringing the "forward progress"...including the learning curve for more than a few of our players.

    I think the folks showing up right now have enough "foundation" at this point that progress should be swift, so long as the DM is making sure to provide treasure (i.e. "XP") commensurate with the challenge. Once the characters reach a point where "death isn't an option" (i.e. once they have the spells to return dead characters to life), you'll probably see a different game.
    ; )

    @ C'nor: A thespian! Rock on!
    : )

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  11. Hmm... Cthulhu 1595 or, a Mythos' Night's Dream. There's potential there.

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  12. I ran my first Classic D&D session this past weekend (I got started with Holmes and have played every edition of D&D since - mostly as a DM).

    I DM'd three sessions over three days, three stabs into the Caves of Chaos, with four to six PCs/NPCs per run mostly played by four family members. Eight out of ten of the characters to delve into the caves perished. So, I think your mortality rate is probably spot on.

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  13. @ Greyic: Thanks!

    See people? I'm not the only one!
    ; )

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  14. Old post, yadda yadda, but it got me thinking. I've run something very close to 15 sessions of Mentzer's red box and OSE combined, and during that time, have seen seven player characters die. And also far too many retainers and charmed monsters to remember... But I'd say a session without one of the "good guys" dying has been a rare beast indeed.

    (And yes, 15 is a shockingly low number. I thought it would me more by now, but nope... Oh well, at least the number is on the rise :))

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