An Unheroic Death

I just released a session of Thunderspire Labyrinth to RPGMP3 in which one of the characters dies. Now I have been playing fantasy games long enough to realise that a death in the party does not really impact the players too much. Either they just drag the corpse to the nearest priest and pay a huge amount of cash or they just leave it (or if the poor fool is lucky, bury it) and move along after some simple words to whatever deity they are ripping off for powers.

In most cases the character in question has fallen to an unlucky blow from some huge creature or has died poking about in a trap or saving the rest as they fled from something nasty. But it was not what happened here...

Let me set the scene, it is a pretty standard encounter with some dueregar. The party have fought a similar group already and came out pretty well. They know all about the immunity to fire and the perchant for disappearing and popping up to crossbow them in the spine. There is a named duergar in this fight but essentially he is just a tough hit point machine rather than any real danger. More of a speed bump to drag out the combat a little more (I am still not seeing this streamlining I was promised BTW).

Anyway, the fight ensues and there is lots of running around and jumping about and the party manage to split themselves up between two doors rather than all rushing in through one and targeting their attack. I thought they had learned this lesson previously when they managed to TPK becuase they thought attacking from different sides was a good idea only to find that their movement was insufficient to close the ground and that the enemy has anout a gajillion hit points in 4e. That was mistake number 1. The Cleric, the Ranger and the Wizard fought in the northern room, while the Fighter, the Rogue and the Warlock took another. Unfortunately, the Warlock had encouraged the Fighter to kick the door in and not wait for the Rogue who was busy looting a nearby storeroom.

For some reason the combat with the Cleric, the Ranger and the Wizard took forever but no one really took many hits. The Ranger hates to get toe to toe and spends most of the combat dancing about like a fairy and occasionally peppering his enemy with arrows (when he can roll well enough). The Wizard complains bitterly about being in combat again and managed to conjure a Burning Sphere (as he is a fire specialist) and just make it a little warmer for the fire resistant dark dwarves and more tactically difficult for his mates. The Cleric runs in and toe to toes the bad guys and does a decent job.

The other fight is a lot more interesting. This is the room with the aforementioned hit point machine - lets call him Bob. So Bob's monkeys run in and start to fire their crossbows and dissapear as the scout type dueregar tend to do. The fighter starts to close the gap to Bob who is at the other end of the room and gets bogged down on some speed bump combat types with decent AC. The Warlock follows him in as he wants to move around and get his concealment bonuses for Shadow Walking. The Rogue is still stuffing his face with cheese and beer and just barely hears the strains of combat that have started without him. Sneaking becomes not an option and combined with indecision as to which combat to enter it takes him a good 3 rounds to get anywhere useful.

At some point in this fight, the Warlock takes a hit that knocks him down below 0 hit points and he starts making Death Saves. I don't think it was anyone special, just a standard guy with a standard attack. With the Fighter and the Rogue engaged with Bob and his cronies and the Cleric, Wizard and Ranger in a totally different room this put him in a position where rolling over 10 each round became a necessity for survival.

Now you might think that this Death Save busines might be exciting, "Ooooooohh, will his survive, will he not?", but it really isn't. As it is just another save at the end of the turn, like any other save, there is nothing special about it other than the consequences. Essentially the Warlock got knocked down by some faceless mook and bled out on the floor. I mean where is the heroism in that? I like my combat towards the realistic side but it just feels like a huge downer to me as a DM when this happens. I feel like I have not served the player well by giving his character such an ignominious death. I was surprised by how I felt to be honest.

I thought that in a system that seemed designed for cinematic combat that death would seem more of a big deal but it looks as if most characters are just going to bleed out on the floor. Just seems a bit of a let down really - I mean death saves are so 1970s :)

You can listen to the whole situation over at RPGMP3 as part of Thunderspire Labyrinth Session 5.

First Post (Again!)

So here we are kicking off a new blog. I have tried this lark a couple of times in the past and either they fail because I run out of stuff to say or I get distracted by some other project that seems more shiny and interesting. This foray has been inspired by the articles on writing an RPG blog over on the Musings of a Chatty DM blog so you can all head over there and complain!

My aim is to write something every day (or most days, lets not put the pressure on just yet). currently I run the website RPGMP3 which has been recording and podcasting actual play tabletop RPG session for around 5 years now. We have just broke through 1 terrabyte of bandwidth downloaded each month and we are starting a site redesign project to make the place a little more Web 2.0.

I am currently running (and recording) Dungeons and Dragon 4e Keep on the Shadowfell every Thursday evening and Rolemaster 2nd Edition every other Sunday. I have to say at the moment Rolemaster is my favourite, but I always found it nice to GM something that I can make up on the fly rather than having to plan it out too much in advance. The Rolemaster game has just headed into the start of The Grand Campaign and I will consider it something of a personal achievement if the players get anywhere near through the first section of it. The adventure is incomplete but there are some guildlines on where it was supposed to go, so it will allow a good amount of flexibility when we finally get there.

With regards to DnD 4e, I have found the jump from 3.5 a little more difficult than I would have hoped. I think most of that is due to a necessary change of mind set. I have heard 4e refered to; both positively and negatively; as a board game, a minis game, a wargame and even a card game. At the FLGS nearby they run a 4e game and one of the regular Magic players taps his cards as he uses his abilities. I am still on the fence about 4e, I really like some of it, but I am also rather dubious about other bits too.

I have noticed a large increase in traffic on my site due mostly to 4e and the recordings we are putting out, but most of the folks that come through and comment on the forums are more interested in picking us up on rules calls that have since been errataed than on telling a decent story and it is further increasing the divide between the two types of gaming, as I see them.

There are those who like to play a role (I guess I fall into this camp as I will often let players get away with things if it increases their enjoyment and further the story) and there are those who roll to play (where rules and dice and levelling are more important than why you are doing it in the first place). I have met players from both camps, and there is nothing wrong with either style of play but I prefer story over dice rolling. Generally this means I will tweak the rules on the fly to suit the situation. I never break the rules, but my rules calls often fall more towards the drama of the story than the needs of the system. But at least I am always fair.

Anyway, enough for a first post I think. I will try and keep things light and happy round these parts - even thought he background I seem to have picked is a little dark and dreary. And I will try to update this as much as possible.

On a side note, anyone out there who can code PHP or CSS drop me a line as I have some lovely site redesign work that needs some attention.