Gamism vs Simulated Gamism
Warrior Monk:
I have also found myself in this dilemma as a player and as a GM. As a player I got frustrated by character death when I had to create a new character, recalculate the stats, tactics, etc. and then find a feasible excuse with the GM to insert the new character. With a simple system, an experienced master and/or a player not so much into powergaming the process can be done quickly, but this is not often the case.
As a GM a character death somehow interrupts the fun for a while. Even if the death was laughable, game has to be interrupted somehow for that player to reincorpore, or the player has to sit down the rest of the session watching other people play.
Eventually these situations led me to think problem was in the design, so I went for minimalistic designs where powergaming, if not evaded, at least took less time. Story points also worked wonders since players invest them in whatever is important for them in the story and make the GM an other players respect that and keep the game ahead.
However the main issue can remain there as a big elephant in the room. Withouth the feeling of risking something, victory feels empty. Now, since a good part of any RPG is creating the illusion of something, either by fudging or less conspicuous mechanics that illusion should (ok, could) also be fullfiled.
In the end the choice I took as a GM was to use the mechanics of any game to their extent to save players from death, even suggesting ways to use their resources to save their characters or appealing to other players to help their mates. When you add there the choice element "yes, you can survive this way but you won't achieve the main goal now" and the player goes for the goal, that's what they want and as a GM you can't deny them that.
Alas, character death doesn't have to be all bad. For example, if a player risks his character's death on a conflict when I'm GMing, the player still rolls the dice to decide the result BUT even if they roll a catastrophic result I narrate their deaths as something epic and let them accomplish something with it. Perhaps it gave the other characters a clue or a way to defeat the boss, thus giving meaning to their sacrifice.
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone,
This thread needs to be left alone now. Please take all topics you want to discuss from it and start new threads, linking back to this one for reference.
Best, Ron
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