Baldur's Gate Combat encounters in IE games vs. pnp AD&D?

[Norfleet]

No reloads with PnP.
Usually.

Yeah, but you're kidding yourself if you think fudging the system isn't there. There might not be an explicit reload, but you're generally offered wiggle room and an exit which will be utterly lacking in CRPGs. BECAUSE there's no reloading, if the DM TPKs the group, the campaign comes to an abrupt halt, if not an outright end. Even the most bloodthirsty DM offers an exit to any situation that the players haven't seriously dug themselves so far into that there's no way out. In contrast, CRPGs never offer you an exit. You win, or you die.

 

[Matalarata]

No reloads with PnP.
Usually.

Even the most bloodthirsty DM offers an exit to any situation that the players haven't seriously dug themselves so far into that there's no way out. In contrast, CRPGs never offer you an exit. You win, or you die.

Actually I have a long story of TPK. I have been a Cthulhu Keeper for many years
But to stay on topic... What you say is only partially correct. It depends on the game you play more than the DM or PNP vs CRPG debate... Some PnP games are designed around High PC mortality, and brutally short adventures.
I concour that in a long standing campaign a TPK spells the end, but basically is all about who you play with...

For example, the only game I'm running now is Pathfinder (Custom Lovecraftian setting, low magic, gritty) we are around level 5 atm, two player already died in this last year and half. They seriously think about everything, accepting missions, random encounters and explorations are all tackled in a "roguelike" way. They know they can get sick scavenging a battlefield, they pack warm blankets and waterproof sacks, they value rations and healing supplies.

I don't want to turn this into a wall of text to actually explain some of the mechanics, but we have mental sanity rules and a high chance of losing control of your character if you do something against common sense.
What I'm trying to say is that high mortality can be a thing (a "FUN!" thing) in pnp, but you need experience on both GM and the player side to make this work.

 

[Prime Junta]

PnP combat in all flavors of D&D is slow. A medium-sized BG2 encounter would take up pretty much an entire session. Consequently, much less combat.

Another major problem for PnP are the sudden-death effects, especially at lower levels when Raise Dead isn't available. I houseruled and occasionally fudged the fuck out of this just so my players wouldn't die all the time, 'cuz rerolling characters and thinking up plausible ways to get them into the party is only fun when done occasionally.

Encounter difficulty in PnP is of course entirely up to the DM. I ran several AD&D campaigns that ran for about 20 years real-time; some were relatively combat-heavy, others were relatively story-heavy with combat an occasional distraction. I think my favorite one was set in a heavily modified Al-Qadim setting, which had a nice mix of story and combat.

 

[vivec]

I'm thinking about making a mod that would cut down the amount of trash combat in PST IE games.

Would be totally a blast. Please do it.

 

[Xenich]

Usually number of encounters is massively inflated in cRPGs (IE and others alike). PnP usually will have significantly fewer encounters, especially since larger fights can take some time to resolve. Of course it also depends a bit on the game master or the adventure module you are playing.

This. Death and the ability to recover from it is extremely limited until much higher levels in PnP, so constant combat can result in a lot of new character creation.

 

[Xenich]

Presumably people playing PnP don't sleep for 8 hours everytime they walk a few yards.

Haven't played much PnP, have you?

Random encounter rolls make resting constantly far too risky in PnP games I have played.

 

[Perkel]

PnP is different in a sense that everything is allowed. It is kind of eye opener for someone playing only computer games for years.

Closed door ? You tried to pick it, try to destroy it but its steel and you can't do anything else with it. That is end for Crpg.
In PnP: You have big hammer, try to use it to destroy actually brick wall near it. Success.

 

[Copper]

The big difference is reactivity - I've played pre-written modules run by very inflexible DMs, one of which resulted in a TPK, because our party was sub-optimal for that particular scenario (and we were down two players), whereas just having a cleric would have swung stuff much more our way (4th ed, so we had a leader, but an Eberron artificer that wasn't really pulling his weigth - it's the lack of radiant damage that really screwed us). In PnP you can (and should, unless your group is very into powergaming and character building) take the class and abilities of your characters into account.

I've thrown immune to normal damage enemies at 1st level players, and seen them have great fun finding creative ways to dispose of them. On the other hand, I've seen many groups where players have been drafted to make up numbers by siblings or partners, and are not exactly super-engaged in what's going on - to the point of saying '3rd ed clerics can't do anything!' - so you can rarely depend on one person executing cunning tactics - that tends to degenerate into 20+ minute debates on who should do what in PnP, unless one/two people can dominate the rest.

In the same vein, you can cater to the party's strengths or attack their weaknesses - undead are problems for rogues, but not for clerics. Wizards have tons of potential, but can be countered by making sure they're up against something similar, not just a bunch of fighters/melee monsters.

 

[SwiftCrack]

When I played PnP, we used the critical failure on a roll of 1 rule, which resulted in breaking non-magical weapons. There was one time, after a series of unlucky dice rolls, I was without weapons breaking both the primary and back-up, and had to fight off an ogre with bare hands.

The closest proximation of that experience I've found in a cRPG is the Champions of Krynn Gold Box game, where characters would lose their weapons when killing a baaz draconian, which turned to stone.

I still think the Gold Box games were as satisfying an emulation of tabletop as one can get, even compared to the Infinty Engine's expanded spellbook and classes.

The iron crisis in BG1 (unknowingly) tries to emulate this in a very roundabout way.

 

[Grimwulf]

Probably you've seen it already, but just in case



Not as hardcore as some other nerdy GM's, but I like Chris Perkins.

 

[Dorateen]

When I played PnP, we used the critical failure on a roll of 1 rule, which resulted in breaking non-magical weapons. There was one time, after a series of unlucky dice rolls, I was without weapons breaking both the primary and back-up, and had to fight off an ogre with bare hands.

The closest proximation of that experience I've found in a cRPG is the Champions of Krynn Gold Box game, where characters would lose their weapons when killing a baaz draconian, which turned to stone.

I still think the Gold Box games were as satisfying an emulation of tabletop as one can get, even compared to the Infinty Engine's expanded spellbook and classes.

The iron crisis in BG1 (unknowingly) tries to emulate this in a very roundabout way.

I remember the posioning of the iron ore story arc, and of course the Infinity Engine did have critical misses on rolls of 1. But did lowl level weapons break? It's been so long since I played BG, heh.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

When I played PnP, we used the critical failure on a roll of 1 rule, which resulted in breaking non-magical weapons. There was one time, after a series of unlucky dice rolls, I was without weapons breaking both the primary and back-up, and had to fight off an ogre with bare hands.

The closest proximation of that experience I've found in a cRPG is the Champions of Krynn Gold Box game, where characters would lose their weapons when killing a baaz draconian, which turned to stone.

I still think the Gold Box games were as satisfying an emulation of tabletop as one can get, even compared to the Infinty Engine's expanded spellbook and classes.

The iron crisis in BG1 (unknowingly) tries to emulate this in a very roundabout way.

I remember the posioning of the iron ore story arc, and of course the Infinity Engine did have critical misses on rolls of 1. But did lowl level weapons break? It's been so long since I played BG, heh.

It had breaking weapons.

 

[Lilura]

Normal metal weapons had a chance of breaking, but you could just carry wooden ones around for backup (clubs, staves etc). Magical metal weapons never broke and it was pretty easy to find +1s early on.

 

[mastroego]

Yeah, but you're kidding yourself if you think fudging the system isn't there.

Well I just said "no reloads".
Some parties will be extremely cautious because of that, some won't.
Some DMs will help the players out from behind the DM Screen, some will go all out for blood :D

Probably you've seen it already, but just in case

Not as hardcore as some other nerdy GM's, but I like Chris Perkins.

Never seen before, but I'm liking it.
While they're obviously there making a show, they do capture some of the crazy that can happen during a real game.
And that DM is great. He can talk, he can entertain, he can add flavor and improvise, he uses a moderate amount of rules, and is somewhat of a thespian. The essence of his job.
Who would want a more "hardcore" DM?

 

[SwiftCrack]

Normal metal weapons had a chance of breaking, but you could just carry wooden ones around for backup (clubs, staves etc). Magical metal weapons never broke and it was pretty easy to find +1s early on.

Yep, this is exactly how it is.

 

[Xenich]

Yeah, but you're kidding yourself if you think fudging the system isn't there.

Well I just said "no reloads".
Some parties will be extremely cautious because of that, some won't.
Some DMs will help the players out from behind the DM Screen, some will go all out for blood :D

Yeah, fudging is one thing, but giving a pass on poor play is another. You can fudge from time to time to keep away the really bad luck on situations that would destroy the entire adventure, but a poor party deserves to learn and I have seen GMs many a time instruct a group of players on the consequences of being fucktards.

Never seen before, but I'm liking it.
While they're obviously there making a show, they do capture some of the crazy that can happen during a real game.
And that DM is great. He can talk, he can entertain, he can add flavor and improvise, he uses a moderate amount of rules, and is somewhat of a thespian. The essence of his job.
Who would want a more "hardcore" DM?

See, not my cup of tea. The people I played with were all hardcore science majors. Everything was technical right down to extreme arguments over terminal velocity. We played more as a "board game", not a theatrical first person larping narrative (though we had a couple of English/Drama majors from time to time who loved to act out in first person, to which the GM would oblige).

When White Wolf came out with their games, I had some friends that loved to go dress up and play that game, but it lacked technical aspects of play, so It had no interest for me. Closest thing I got to more "role playing" and story over technical play was Warhammers PnP system which was hard story driven. It was ok, but I preferred AD&D, Gurps, Cyberpunk/Shadowun systems with all the glory of detailed character development.

Those guys in the video seem as if they are more interested in the "social" event than they are the game play. /shrug

 

[mastroego]

See, not my cup of tea. The people I played with were all hardcore science majors. Everything was technical right down to extreme arguments over terminal velocity. We played more as a "board game", not a theatrical first person larping narrative (though we had a couple of English/Drama majors from time to time who loved to act out in first person, to which the GM would oblige).

Those guys in the video seem as if they are more interested in the "social" event than they are the game play. /shrug

Well, that's because that one IS a social event. There's an audience, and the session appears to be a promotional one shot, so it obviously turns into something else (jokes, theatrics and all).
Anyway, my old DM used to be a lot like that Perkins guy.
I mean, obviously we would not wear custumes nor larp any, but we would play a "mathematically relaxed" game and interactions between the characters (and villains) were the main point. I believe that's the truest way to play a RPG, after all to go all mechanical there are indeed scores of board games to play instead.

That said, right now I'm playing Pathfinder on Roll20 with a group of younger players: naturally the game is more mechanical, but not exceedingly so, and I'm having lots of fun anyway.
Also Roll20 offers a few handy automated features so even playing with the grid maps and more "anal" rules doesn't end up feeling like a drag.

 

[Norfleet]

Actually I have a long story of TPK. I have been a Cthulhu Keeper for many years
But to stay on topic... What you say is only partially correct. It depends on the game you play more than the DM or PNP vs CRPG debate... Some PnP games are designed around High PC mortality, and brutally short adventures.

Well, we're talking about your standard D&D campaign. If you're playing Paranoia or running a bloodbath score-attack game, then sure. Even still, "high mortality" is not the same as a TPK. If you kill 5 out of 6 partymembers, that one survivor lives to revive the party somehow. If you kill them all, the adventure is over. Everyone is dead. The effort you put into designing the rest of the adventure is wasted. Unless you're playing it as as score-attack game where the party is not meant to succeed at all and the goal is just to see how long they last, such as a one-shot promotional event, this is generally to be avoided from a DM standpoint.

Yeah, fudging is one thing, but giving a pass on poor play is another. You can fudge from time to time to keep away the really bad luck on situations that would destroy the entire adventure, but a poor party deserves to learn and I have seen GMs many a time instruct a group of players on the consequences of being fucktards.

It's not just fudging the dice itself, though. It is generally the rule that unless players are being utter fucktards, they're offered an out: They can retreat without being too aggressively pursued, surrender and be sold into slavery from which they will have an adventure escaping from, aid may appear in some form, etc. The CRPG offers little or none of this: Every battle is a battle to the death. You win, or you die and the game ends.

 

[Prime Junta]

High-mortality (A)D&D is not much fun simply because it takes a quite a bit of time to roll up a character, especially if it's not for level 1. Games which are made for murderous campaigns should come with commensurately light character mechanics or have other ways to deal with it (cf. Paranoia's clone delivery mechanism).

You could of course work around that e.g. by having a roster of pre-built characters to grab if a PC gets croaked. Most players I've played with extremely strongly prefer to roll up their own characters though.

 

[Xor]

As others have said, combat in PnP tends to take a lot longer than combat in a cRPG. This should be obvious, because everything is being done under the hood in a cRPG whereas in PnP you often have people taking time to decide what they're doing, the GM has to describe what's going on, there's a lot of bullshitting between players, dice rolls, people coming and going to smoke, drink, etc, people stopping everything so they can look up a rule, and so on. I just wrapped up a campaign last week, and the final boss fights (there were two in a row) took about 12 hours. And the GM said he shortened the second fight from what he originally planned because it was getting late and we didn't want this to spill over into another session. And then it did anyway because the epilogue took a long time.

PnP games also offer a lot more freedom compared to cRPGs: you're still limited by the game's systems, but since those systems are being interpreted by a human rather than just coded to work a certain way, you're given a lot more freedom in what you can do. This can actually get annoying, when players decide to start remodeling a dungeon to find a way out of a room rather than just solve the goddamn puzzle I spent an hour coming up with.

Things like depth of storytelling, time spent in and out of combat, mortality rate, etc, depend largely on the system. And probably quite a bit on maturity as well - when I was a kid playing AD&D, our games were basically kill-and-loot fests with character deaths being notable, but not hugely significant affairs. In one campaign we lost around a character per session on average, but that GM was a sadist. As I've grown older, though, I tend to become more attached to my characters, and I've found the people I play with feel the same way, so (permanent) character deaths become big cinematic events with significance to the plot, when they happen at all.

Tabletop RPGs and cRPGs are very different creatures, and I enjoy both for different reasons. Coming from a background of PnP, I find it very difficult to actually get "into character" with a cRPG because I'm pretty much forced to play out the character as written by someone else - I'm basically choosing between being a saint, an asshole, or a psychopath. But I can appreciate the writing, the speed of play, and the 'gamey' aspects - combat, figuring out quests, exploring, etc.

 

[Lilura]

Tabletop RPGs and cRPGs are very different creatures, and I enjoy both for different reasons. Coming from a background of PnP, I find it very difficult to actually get "into character" with a cRPG because I'm pretty much forced to play out the character as written by someone else - I'm basically choosing between being a saint, an asshole, or a psychopath. But I can appreciate the writing, the speed of play, and the 'gamey' aspects - combat, figuring out quests, exploring, etc.

From my experience, people like you are quite rare. I haven't met many TRU pen and paper role-players/DMs who don't think cRPGs are a load of nonsense, they won't touch them with a ten foot pole. Congrats on enjoying both.

 

[Norfleet]

I've thrown immune to normal damage enemies at 1st level players, and seen them have great fun finding creative ways to dispose of them.

Yeah, with enemies are that are immune to damage, you can still grapple them and tie them up, whereupon you can begin subjecting them to abnormal damage, or simply fling them off a cliff, whereupon they hopefully become someone else's problem. Just because someone is immune to normal damage doesn't mean you can't find some abnormal damage you can administer...in a CRPG, this is pretty much entirely absent. Very few CRPGs allow you to do anything abnormal, and when you CAN do abnormal things, those things tend to become downright exploitative (Cough D:OS Cough).

 

[Slow James]

It's not just fudging the dice itself, though. It is generally the rule that unless players are being utter fucktards, they're offered an out: They can retreat without being too aggressively pursued, surrender and be sold into slavery from which they will have an adventure escaping from, aid may appear in some form, etc. The CRPG offers little or none of this: Every battle is a battle to the death. You win, or you die and the game ends.

THIS. How the DM can deal with failure in a unique and non-scripted way is why capturing PnP in video game form is so difficult. The continuous feedback loop, where the DM makes changes to the situation and characters is something that can't be replicated without an AI exponentially more advanced than what we see today.

The alternatives cRPGs have is to give the player lots of options and flexibility in how they design their character and do their best to not step on toes when creating content and encounters. A video game runs the length of dozens of campaigns, if not more. To do so in a vacuum and still be as reactive is a task in insanity.

 

[Daemongar]

There are so many things it's just too hard to capture in CRPG's, that it would be hard to describe the event. Especially when you play with the same group. I played for a long, long time and still go to conventions and partake here and there. The fun isn't in the mechanics of the game itself, but just trying to overcome obstacles as a group, and doing whatever you can to enhance the adventure. Starting a castle library on fire two rooms into the adventure, when you were supposed to find the diary of the vampire who lives in the basement there. Killing important NPC's or missing a dexterity roll and having the entire party fall into a pit. Lots and lots of dice rolls leading to crazy shit the module designers never envisioned.

I really liked this movie, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Hammy acting, but captures how much time is spent arguing and fighting. However, it has a lot of good parts.

 

[Ludo Lense]

There are so many things it's just too hard to capture in CRPG's, that it would be hard to describe the event. Especially when you play with the same group. I played for a long, long time and still go to conventions and partake here and there. The fun isn't in the mechanics of the game itself, but just trying to overcome obstacles as a group, and doing whatever you can to enhance the adventure. Starting a castle library on fire two rooms into the adventure, when you were supposed to find the diary of the vampire who lives in the basement there. Killing important NPC's or missing a dexterity roll and having the entire party fall into a pit. Lots and lots of dice rolls leading to crazy shit the module designers never envisioned.

I really liked this movie, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Hammy acting, but captures how much time is spent arguing and fighting. However, it has a lot of good parts.

I disagree with you on the mechanics bit. The ruleset of a PnP game is made to facilitate that sort of thing. I mean sure you have games like D&D 4ED that play like MMOs on paper but from what I saw D&D 5ED (haven't played it just read the rulebook) goes towards much more player driven interaction. Systems and mechanics are just as much about the experience they try to create as they are about the abstract values which they use.