Killing PCs

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Bengt

Another problem that I see with detailed stats for big guys (like a Duke of Hell) is that it's easy, as a lowly human, to forget something. And if you add stats on the fly anyway, what was the point of making detailed stats to begin with?

For reference I would use a mix of stats and notes for most things, with mostly stats for lower level big things (e.g. Marvel's Thor) going up to just notes for really big things (e.g. the Abrahamic God).

I can indeed be a problem for a lowly human to rember everything, but writing out the stats forces you to think through the problem in a way that just some vauge notes don't. It also specifies how the capabilities you have assigned interact with the rest of the game (for example, it is easier to figure out the results of a contest of strength if you know that the opponent has ST 50, than if you just have notes which say "really strong!"). Those advantages of stats remain, even if you have to make some adjustments later.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Then what did you mean with the "If you give something stats the PCs will try to kill it." quote? Was that not a way of trying to say that not having stats is better?

See the "Lord British Postulate" for better understanding.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Stats in the notes is still stats.

Being cheeky doesn't lend any credence to your point. It just comes across as struggling to make your point valid. Putting "plays chess at skill 15" is less a "stat" and more a "this is one of the few things that a player might be able to deal with." It can also mean "will sometimes let someone beat them at chess, to give them a false sense of security," and I would specifically call that out in the notes with a statement like:
"Plays chess at skill 14. If they lose, they allowed the opponent to win to give them encouragement. The next time they play, the skill will increase, cumulatively, by one."

Originally Posted by Andreas

If you just never want him to fail a Law roll, then just give him a high enough skill level and an appropriate level of Super Luck (limited to use for the Law skill if that is all he is infallible at).

As others have pointed out, that's irrelevant. It's easier to simply state "always wins cases" instead of "has a law skill of 30+ in all specialties, and 3 levels of Super luck to ensure that they always win." The latter means that there are mechanics the players can still operate around, the former means he always wins cases and is not open to interpretation.

Originally Posted by Andreas

No, I haven't said that it is necessary. Just that it is better to have good stats than not having any stats.

It is not "better." That is simply your opinion.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I have nothing against collaborative storytelling, but RPGs are poor instruments for doing that, because dice have no sense of story. You're better off with something diceless or mostly systemless if your actual goal is a story, rather than a game.

If the goal was to tell a story that was pre-scripted and had to flow from A to B to C to D, then yes. An RPG is an awful way to do it. But that's not the kind of story you should try to tell with an RPG.

Dice don't generate drama, they introduce randomness.

It is not important for the party to succeed at all endeavors. Failures can move the story in unexpected, interesting directions.

Originally Posted by Andreas

A custom advantage which says "always succeed and always has an infinite margin of success, for Law rolls" is also stats.

That, specifically is, but stating "always wins cases" is not a stat. It's not open to mechanics, it's a fiat statement.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Better in general, not necessarily for everyone in every situation. It is certainly possible to think of edge cases where stats doesn't add any value, but in those situations you could just ignore them.

You are, again, insisting that your opinion is fact. It is not "better."

Originally Posted by Andreas

Nor do I. From the descriptions I have gotten this far, there does seem to be some value to be had from stats. This is of course just speculation though since Mark hasn't told me enough about that campaign.

It's not "a" campaign, it's all of my campaigns. Plot devices don't need stats. You are welcome to give them stats, but they don't, ever, need them. Insisting otherwise doesn't make it true.

Originally Posted by Andreas

I can indeed be a problem for a lowly human to rember everything, but writing out the stats forces you to think through the problem in a way that just some vauge notes don't. It also specifies how the capabilities you have assigned interact with the rest of the game (for example, it is easier to figure out the results of a contest of strength if you know that the opponent has ST 50, than if you just have notes which say "really strong!"). Those advantages of stats remain, even if you have to make some adjustments later.

Again, you assume that the numbers would actually matter.

It certainly is easier to figure the results of a contest of strength if there are numbers, but, you're assuming it's a contest. If there's any reason that the party should be able to succeed, then numbers are relevant, but when it's not in the realm of the possible, why waste your time?

It's obvious that your mind doesn't work in a way that allows you to run a game without detailed statistics for everything. That's fine. However, that's just you. Not all of us are limited in that way. It doesn't mean your way is better than ours. It isn't. It's just different. Sure, it may be better for you, but it isn't better for everyone. Or, as is evidenced from the thread, pretty much anyone who isn't you. And maybe Anthony. But, he's always hard to read.

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally stat out anything that makes an appearance in a campaign. If a 2,000 CP Demon Lord is going to show up, then it is going to have a stat sheet.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Being cheeky doesn't lend any credence to your point. It just comes across as struggling to make your point valid. Putting "plays chess at skill 15" is less a "stat" and more a "this is one of the few things that a player might be able to deal with." It can also mean "will sometimes let someone beat them at chess, to give them a false sense of security," and I would specifically call that out in the notes with a statement like:
"Plays chess at skill 14. If they lose, they allowed the opponent to win to give them encouragement. The next time they play, the skill will increase, cumulatively, by one."

The part I responded to didn't say "plays chess at skill 15". It was about giving the character a skill level.

As others have pointed out, that's irrelevant. It's easier to simply state "always wins cases" instead of "has a law skill of 30+ in all specialties, and 3 levels of Super luck to ensure that they always win." The latter means that there are mechanics the players can still operate around, the former means he always wins cases and is not open to interpretation.

Always wins cases is much vaguer. It doesn't tell you how high the margin of victory is, it doesn't tell you what qualifies as a "case" and it doesn't tell you what happens if the character gets into a contest with some other plot device with a similiar power etc.

Of course it is easier to simply state some vauge fact about the character, but you pay for that in ambiguity, which is part of why I said having stats is better.

You are, again, insisting that your opinion is fact. It is not "better."

It is no more opinion than your claim that it isn't better. Both are obviously value judgements. Repeadely pointing that out isn't very productive though since I haven't claimed otherwise.

It's not "a" campaign, it's all of my campaigns. Plot devices don't need stats. You are welcome to give them stats, but they don't, ever, need them. Insisting otherwise doesn't make it true.

When did I say that they need them? I just said that it is generally better to have them than not having them.

It certainly is easier to figure the results of a contest of strength if there are numbers, but, you're assuming it's a contest. If there's any reason that the party should be able to succeed, then numbers are relevant, but when it's not in the realm of the possible, why waste your time?

It's obvious that your mind doesn't work in a way that allows you to run a game without detailed statistics for everything. That's fine. However, that's just you. Not all of us are limited in that way. It doesn't mean your way is better than ours. It isn't. It's just different. Sure, it may be better for you, but it isn't better for everyone. Or, as is evidenced from the thread, pretty much anyone who isn't you. And maybe Anthony. But, he's always hard to read.

Winning and losing isn't all that matters, how much you win by is also important for how a contest plays out. It is also important for the range of options availible for the character. For example, can the villain with unmatchable strength destroy the entire world by punching the ground?

I have already said that it can make sense not to give every character full stats due to time constraints, so it seems you are just adressing a straw man here when you speculate about what I need to run games.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Always wins cases is much vaguer. It doesn't tell you how high the margin of victory is, it doesn't tell you what qualifies as a "case" and it doesn't tell you what happens if the character gets into a contest with some other plot device with a similiar power etc.

I suppose that could be a problem in cases where, say, I were to take Asmodeus' "character sheet" and try to run him in a different world than he was designed for. If Mark doesn't make any notes of what MoV Asmodeus tends to have, and doesn't make any notes of how he interacts with other super-lawyer plot devices, I'd assume that means the MoV doesn't matter for legal cases in his setting, and other super-lawyer plot devices either do not exist or instead have notes in their "character sheets" indicating how they interact with Asmodeus (which I suspect would be something like "Always wins cases, unless against Asmodeus, because he's the freakin' Devil").

As a general rule of thumb, fully statted-out character sheets only matter when points matter, such as for PC's and their Allies/Enemies/etc. Some GM's - like AlexanderHowl, based off his posts - favor building all (or at least all important) characters/creatures on a set number of points, of course. Outside of that, how detailed the "character sheet" needs to be depends on the GM's preferred play style, as well as the role of the character. Directly-confronted adversaries, and allies who make a lot of rolls, need to be closer to fully statted-out, although they can be fairly simplistic. Plot devices really don't need to be anything close to fully statted-out, but some GM's are going to favor more detail than is necessary for other GM's.

...

As to the original topic of the thread, the longest-running campaign I ever GM'd, back in That Other Game, had two instances of character death... which I cheated and reversed. The first was a poorly-planned encounter on my part, which also showed one of the failings of relying on DnD's CR system to create encounters. I threw the party up against a group of Shocker Lizards who were, all together, of a CR just a level below the level of the characters. I think I had 8 lizards, which implies level 6 characters, which in turn sounds about right. The lizards managed to sneak up on the characters and blast them with their Lethal Shock... which I discovered to my horror did enough damage to kill every character who failed a Reflex save, and left the rest horribly injured. The text also implied that each lizard could initiate the shock itself. I quickly decided the ability automatically used up the turns of every lizard (not just the one who initiated, or even the 6 involved, but all 8) and was only usable once a day, and I also lied through my teeth about the amount of damage it dealt, calibrating it so the weakest character (or, rather, the character that took the highest damage relative to their HP, after considering the results of the Reflex save) was reduced to single digits. I let the players know what had happened after the fact, and resolved to make certain I checked for things like that in the future before throwing such an encounter at them again.
The second instance happened later in the same campaign. Common courtesy at our table was that, when you're really low on HP, you let everyone at the table know that (it's technically metagaming, but not damagingly so). One character got reduced below 0 during a fight, but the rest managed to defeat the enemy. The player never let anyone know how far below 0 he was, so when the last surviving enemy fled, I had the NPC who was helping them (and was set to eventually become the Big Bad, but the campaign ended long before then) pursue. The player then cheerily informed us that his character was dead, as he had failed his last roll to stabilize and reached -10 HP. As it was out of character for the NPC to pursue an enemy when his friend was that close to death, I rewound the clock and had him render aid and stabilize the character instead, allowing the enemy to escape.

Were I to run into similar situations in the future, I'd do the same thing again with the lizards (TPK shouldn't be the result of poor planning by the GM), but I'd let the silent player's character die. Granted, I think I'd be better about not having my NPC's metagame (his friend was down and bleeding, he would have probably at least checked on him before pursuing instead of assuming the character was far enough from -10, as the player hadn't warned anyone otherwise), which would have avoided the whole issue.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Andreas

The part I responded to didn't say "plays chess at skill 15". It was about giving the character a skill level.

Which is irrelevant. I said you could put a level in there if you wanted to ("If you feel that it needs a skill level, then go for it"). And you insisted that meant I was stating the character up ("Stats in the notes is still stats"). Which is not what was said or even implied. I was simply replying to your "argument." I did not say "oh, I guess you're right, I'll have to fully stat them up so I'll know what the RAW says their skill level should be." When you tried to claim victory on this point, I simply refuted your claim and clarified your misinterpretation.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Always wins cases is much vaguer. It doesn't tell you how high the margin of victory is, it doesn't tell you what qualifies as a "case" and it doesn't tell you what happens if the character gets into a contest with some other plot device with a similiar power etc.

It doesn't need to. See, you're always creating the strawman by assuming that the MoS matters. In your games, it might. But, these are plot devices and the margin doesn't matter.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Of course it is easier to simply state some vauge fact about the character, but you pay for that in ambiguity, which is part of why I said having stats is better.

See, here, you're making a claim that something is better than something else. And it isn't. It's just different. Because you keep creating the strawman that exact numbers matter in all cases. That is not true, and counters your claim that one is better than the other.

Originally Posted by Andreas

It is no more opinion than your claim that it isn't better. Both are obviously value judgements. Repeadely pointing that out isn't very productive though since I haven't claimed otherwise.

But, you do keep claiming that it is better. You claim it three times in the post this is quoted from, alone. And it isn't. It's just different. The previous quote clearly makes a claim that "having stats is better." That is simply not true. In order for it to be better, it must provide more tangible benefits than the other option. And it doesn't. It simply provides different benefits.

The one time I made a claim about my method being "better" than your method was in direct response to your argument "In some works of fiction, they blatantly change depending on the direction the author wants the plot to go at the time, to the detriment of the quality of the work." In that case, it is better to have comprehensive notes than to have stats, as the notes will give you a framework for what the character has done in the past and what they could, potentially do in the future. Stats indicate that it is possible for the character to have failed the roll previously, and their abilities might actually fluctuate depending on the roll of the dice. This is why many shows and comic series have production bibles and not detailed character sheets from a variety of RPGs.

For RPGs, the two methods are simply different. You are making the claim, and if you want that claim to be taken seriously, you must prove your point. You keep making claims which I debunk. You attempt to claim victory when the opposing side articulates that you are free to do what you want. I clearly stated "If you feel that it needs a skill level, then go for it."

Originally Posted by Andreas

When did I say that they need them? I just said that it is generally better to have them than not having them.

And by stating it's better to have them, you are giving a tacit acknowledgement that they are needed. And, again, you are claiming that your method is better than the other. And many people in the thread disagree with you, indicating that you are not right, and that it is not better.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Winning and losing isn't all that matters, how much you win by is also important for how a contest plays out. It is also important for the range of options availible for the character. For example, can the villain with unmatchable strength destroy the entire world by punching the ground?

Again, strawman. Again, you're assuming that it's a contest. If I had a villain with unequaled strength, I would probably have defined an upper limit and would know if they could destroy the entire world. But, being as that probably wouldn't come up in most games, and wouldn't happen by accident, it just wouldn't be relevant.

Originally Posted by Andreas

I have already said that it can make sense not to give every character full stats due to time constraints, so it seems you are just adressing a straw man here when you speculate about what I need to run games.

You're the person creating and addressing strawmen. I decided to address them as they occurred.

I'm addressing the way you posit the need for full stats.

[Purple Snit]

RE: Killing PCs. Honestly, in 25 years of GMing, I can honestly say I've never deliberately set out to kill a PC, and it rarely happens in my games for the same reason that the star of the movie rarely dies; it's just a lot more fun if the heroes survive the threat through luck, skill, and a bit of BS, then tell the tale at the tavern/bar/water cooler afterward. The point is to tell a great story with interactive protagonists, not toss everyone in a meat grinder just because the GM can. On the other hand, if someone is leaving the group, or wants to change characters, then absolutely you can and should sketch out an "exit scene" as much as possible [within constraints of the dice inevitably making things go pear-shaped, of course].

RE: Stats vs. No Stats. Stats matter if you are requiring the NPC to compete with the PCs. I don't stat the bartender who might talk to them in passing, because they aren't likely to fight her. I don't stat the disembodied voice that haunts them, because they can't affect it - it's just a plot point. But if there is a thug to fight, or a ghost to banish, or a demigod to haggle with, and the PCs skills are to mean anything, then the NPC needs stats, even if it's just a "Monster" style crib sheet. If you aren't going to use stats and skills, why play GURPS, a stat- and skill-oriented game? What do you do in the even that one of your PCs is a super-skillful Action Movie attorney? Tell them, "Don't bother rolling, you can't win"? I'm not a fan of "you can't influence this situation, because GM Ex Machina says the NPC is unbeatable", if only because it makes a lot of players want to prove you wrong, which derails the story. And if the "Ultimate Law Skill" isn't going to come up in the game, why bother including it at all? It just sets a bad precedent, and sucks all the fun out of the game, because why even bother trying to deal with something you can't ever have a hope of defeating/foiling, because the GM says you can't?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

It doesn't need to. See, you're always creating the strawman by assuming that the MoS matters. In your games, it might. But, these are plot devices and the margin doesn't matter.

Straw man

No, that is not a straw man. In order for it to be a straw man, it would have to be a missrepresentation of your previous claims in the discussion. As far as I know, you had not made the claim that margin of victory doesn't matter for plot devices. It is also not something that is an obvious property of plot devices. Thus it is not a straw man.

See, here, you're making a claim that something is better than something else. And it isn't. It's just different. Because you keep creating the strawman that exact numbers matter in all cases. That is not true, and counters your claim that one is better than the other.

This is also not a straw man I made. I'm even having trouble following your reasoning for this one. "exact numbers matter in all cases" is neither something I have claimed to be true, nor have I implied that it is your position.



etc.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Then what did you mean with the "If you give something stats the PCs will try to kill it." quote?

A lot of players have the mindset that "anything with stats is just a source of XP for me to kill."

As an example: In D&D 3.5, their Planescape book gave the Lady of Pain (basically a plot device for keeping the gods out of the central city, Sigil) stats. At a convention, a table of power gamers made epic-level characters designed to defeat and destroy her. They succeeded because the GM was going "by RAW", which meant going by her stats.

The PCs basically decided to go up and defeat "God", and won because they gave God stats.

I've met dozens of players that are "if it has stats, I know how to counter those stats and kill it." Half of them are able to back that up. This is why for the high-level plot device characters (like Death!) I don't give them stats. Someone somewhere will decide "removing Death from the world/universe will be a good thing", and if Death has stats they will try and half the time succeed! If Death doesn't have stats, then the GM is free to say "okay, you killed a physical manifestation, but Death still lives" when the PCs try the stunt.

[edk926]

If Death is required of Life, is it really possible for Death to die?