Game Death

[GreyWolfVT]

Surely you cannot call it game death guys i mean come on it's not like we are like this....


oh wait. some of those games really like that.

[Alethan]

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful, informative replies. This has been really helpful, and interesting.

I have some ideas as to what GMs can do to prevent game death, but I'd like to see some suggestions from experienced GMs on the site before I voice my opinion.

Ok. Out with it, sir!

For starters, I think players need to be selective about the games they join - not just jumping into every game that comes along that sounds interesting. Research the GM, see who the other players might be. I speak from experience here, as that's what I did the first year I was on the forum, so I'm not trying to take the piss with anyone. It's a legit suggestion.

Players might want to check out the GMs of the Unseen Servant thread to see if the GM is in there and what they've written. If they aren't, see if they have an existing game (if more than one, you might question joining their game right there since multiple games can take large blocks of time and few GMs can keep up the pace) or an archived game. Or an abandoned game.

On the GM side of things, be somewhat selective as to who you let into your game. Take a half hour to look up posts by any existing players to see what they are like - too brief? too wordy? following GM posting guidelines? in more than X number of games? If the request to join comes from a brand new player, do a quick role-play scenario with them via PM. Throw a situation at them and see how they react, what they do. If their first/only response is always to fight, but your game requires more thought and diplomacy, then they probably aren't a good fit. If you run a basic hack and slash dungeon crawl, though, they might be perfect.

If you set a posting rate for your players, you need to follow that as a GM or you will quickly lose credibility with them. If you can't stick to it, you can't hold them to it. If you set a posting rate, also set specific outlined penalties or consequences if a player doesn't maintain it.

[Inferno]

Thanks, Alethan.

More good points.

[FantasyChic]

A topic dear to my heart <3

Hello everyone, Brittney here. I thought I'd share my 2 cents on this topic.

I am new to RPG pen and paper-type games, PbP, and all of that. I recently joined Roll20 in February and made the journey here only a few months ago, and in my short amount of time playing, I have seen a total of 25 games just...drop dead.

And to make that more of a point, I've only played a total of 31 games, meaning 25/31 games I joined just stopped.

And this got me really upset. I mean, I am an advocate of RL > Game, 100%. Real life should be top priority in everything you do. Games are fun, but they shouldn't control your life. That's one of the reasons I love PbP games so much, because I can dedicate some time to check up on the thread, post if I need to, and go about my day. Heck I can even do it on my phone while I am grocery shopping.

However, I have to wonder why games just stop. It's really frustrating for a few reasons. 1: The games have sounded really fun. They were interesting, new, and exciting. To have that taken away sucks. 2: I put time into my character. I like a game where I can make any character I want (within reason, of course, as per game rules and such. I just meant creating the character I want to play as opposed to a pre-made one). And if a game dies, that character dies too. 3: Time was wasted. Whether it was a weekly session or a PbP game, I put time in to show up, create my character ,read up on lore, study the setting, and show up for my scheduled appointment, meaning I could have been doing a variety of other things, but instead I chose to come to this game.

I can rant for SO much longer, but I won't bore you. I really think it is bad form for a GM or a player to just...stop coming. Real life can get in the way and spoil things, like hardware problems, family, friends, etc., but when you are gone for weeks and months at a time, I have to come to the conclusion that you are purposefully doing it. Unless you had an accident and got amnesia, I don't think you could easily forget you got a game going on.

This is not me saying that they are all bad people. Far from it, if they got bored, they got bored. No big deal. Just if you KNOW you are stepping away or that you have a problem, make sure to let the group know. You don't have to go into detail, a quick "Sorry guys, I need to drop the game for RL reasons" and poof, problem solved. This goes for players just as much as GMs, I've had more than a fair share of games drop due to people just up and leaving it.

So long post is long. Sorry for that, this topic is just one that I hate to see, but can comment on it so much due to my experience, which I imagine hasn't been as long as most people on here.

[Fulci]

I am new to RPG pen and paper-type games, PbP, and all of that. I recently joined Roll20 in February and made the journey here only a few months ago, and in my short amount of time playing, I have seen a total of 25 games just...drop dead.

And to make that more of a point, I've only played a total of 31 games, meaning 25/31 games I joined just stopped.

Wow, that's a frightening statistic!



I think this board has a better ratio, because there are many dedicated GMs and players. Of course, game deaths occur all the time, but not in 80% of the cases!! Roll20 is just a rather "anonymous" place, where not everybody develops a connection (and therefore really has no reason to stick around).

[GreyWolfVT]

I would agree Fulci the boards I think have a better ratio though I have similar ration of my own to match FantasyChic between roll20, google hangouts, and here I have played a large number of games and seen so far only 2 or 3 through to completion some are still going and I'd have to say I've seen about 25 games go to archive or dead status a majority of those are on this site sadly to say 5 are from google hangouts/roll20 some of those games were very active for a year and then died off when a player or two left the game, replacements were hard to find, and then the DM and a couple players had some really bad RL things happen and the game dissolved, others just kinda stopped happening and ended all together.

[Zhym]

Also, if you get attached to your characters at all, check the death rate before signing up for a game.

(Hi, dmw71! )

[GreyWolfVT]

Between three or four DM's on this site yeah I find it appropriate to not fall in love with your characters .... War is Hell, Tomb of Horrors, Ravenloft, Against The Giants, .......Dark Clouds, Dave's Games have I missed any?

[dmw71]

Also, if you get attached to your characters at all, check the death rate before signing up for a game.

(Hi, dmw71! )

Dave's Games

I realize the above are written at least partly in jest, but I will point out that it's clearly stated in my DM profile (which needs to be updated), that:

• "I do not "fudge" rolls, for monsters or players. Half the excitement of the game lies in the random results."
• "I do play monsters intelligently and to the best of their abilities (where even goblins and kobolds can be a challenge if played well)."

I refuse to apologize for games ending in TPKs. I run sandbox games, and follow the player's whims, and sometimes these things happen.

[GreyWolfVT]

It was in jest but perhaps also in warning. You'll notice I didn't exclude Zhym from my list either Dave

[Zhym]

I realize the above are written at least partly in jest, but I will point out that it's clearly stated in my DM profile (which needs to be updated), that:

• "I do not "fudge" rolls, for monsters or players. Half the excitement of the game lies in the random results."
• "I do play monsters intelligently and to the best of their abilities (where even goblins and kobolds can be a challenge if played well)."

I refuse to apologize for games ending in TPKs. I run sandbox games, and follow the player's whims, and sometimes these things happen.

Fair enough (although, goblins and kobolds? Boy, wouldn't that be nice). I'm just pointing out that in some games, mine included, it might not be worth spending too much time working on a back story for your character.

That's true in most sandbox games by the by. Some of my characters who I think are the most interesting—Lug and Harold in Keehnelf's game, for example—started life with basic descriptions and no back stories. The stories that develop through game play are more interesting than anything I could have come up with on my own.

[Keehnelf]

I believe the initial backstory for Lug was: "this guy has low wisdom and very few hit points, and won't live very long."

I still have that PM.

[Zhym]

It can be very liberating if you don't think a character is going to live very long. The low wisdom becomes an excuse to try something because why not?

[AleBelly]

I do notice that players seem to run away from combat far less often than I remember from my few games as a youth. I wonder if this has to do with later editions of DnD becoming more player-friendly, and as time's gone on we've become more accustomed to thinking we can defeat any monsters we come up against.

Don't ease up in your games, Dave!

[dmw71]

I do notice that players seem to run away from combat far less often than I remember from my few games as a youth.

I would have to agree with this.

To be honest, as a DM, I'm not even sure what the rules are to handle fleeing from melee after its been initiated because it happens so infrequently. In the rare situation when a player indicates that's their plan, I always need to look up the rules to see how to officially handle the situation.

Don't ease up in your games, Dave!

First, I'd like it on the record that my plan is never to kill off a party, or character. I have always run adventures with brand new 1st level characters, and there is always a risk of them not being successful. I never like to see games end quickly, and feel guilty when they do, but I accept that sometimes these things happen. And just because games I start are for brand new characters, not every encounter in my game is going to be with an orc, or goblin, or kobold, etc... I will throw in some tougher opponents (e.g. troglodytes, or a giant crab on an island), which kind of ties back to your first point -- not every monster presented necessarily has to be engaged or pursued.

As for changing my style, there's really no risk of that. I really only know how to run games the way I do. My style may not be for everyone, but, as I have a lot of the same players follow me from game-to-game, thankfully it appeals to at least some.

[Zhym]

Don't ease up in your games, Dave!

Ignore that man. Ease up in your games, Dave!

I blame video games and MMORPGs, which carefully keep one's opponents in the challenging-but-beatable range. Of course, that leads to nonsense like killing rabbit after rabbit in early levels, or whatever the stock low-level opponent is in games like WoW.

On the other hand, I think that all DMs try to tune the challenge level of their games somewhat. A truly hardcore "you could meet anything" philosophy would have 1st-level adventurers as likely to meet Tiamat as a kobold (modulo monster frequency). I don't think anyone wants the game to be quite that extreme. I'm (mostly) kidding about easing up, of course, but I think you have mentioned that some of the encounters in your BX game turned out to be much more difficult than you anticipated.

I do notice that players seem to run away from combat far less often than I remember from my few games as a youth.

It's not always clear to me that running away is even possible. Take the recent encounter in Dave's B/X game for example. A giant crab pops up and is 20 feet away by the time the PCs can do anything about it. Running away often gives a free attack, and it's not always clear if a monster is faster than the PCs anyway. So I think we tend to assume that running away just means whatever we're running from gets to attack from behind.

[rredmond]

Running away is a tried and true tactic! Our party just did it Friday night in a Skype game - mind you we ran away from snoring. Weren't quite sure we could handle it and high tailed it.
But the lowly kobold has been a fearsome adversary for a long time. For those who have never experienced the level of evil of DM Tucker, get ready for an excellent read:
http://www.tuckerskobolds.com

Man I dig that story. Also Jim Kramer has an excellent, but deadly kobold lair you can purchase from Usherwood Publishing, it's for OSRIC, I think it's called Yrchyn the Tyrant. It's all about the murder holes, and it's excellent.

[Nordbo]

Unless you had an accident and got amnesia, I don't think you could easily forget you got a game going on.

I agree completely!

[GreyWolfVT]

Running from combat no...it's called a strategic or tactical retreat.

[rredmond]