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Would classic RPGs be viable without the random factor?

Would classic RPGs be viable without the random factor?


  • Total voters
    77

VanDerVaals

Literate
Joined
Jan 5, 2018
Messages
10
*through sheer bit of luck

OK, so you tried your best but everything was falling apart, when out of a sudden you got a crucial and successfull roll, right? With RNG you could as well play like a dumm dumm, but thankfully you managed to get that bit of a luck to win this time. Even the best strategy and tactics can't save you from the bad roll, you know.

Do you people believe that the die rolls live in vacuum? The statistics of your character help to push things in the direction they need to go. The better you are at something, the more likely you are to succeed. The way you guys talk, it all comes down to the dice, but that's really not true at all. Someone in with a +25 to spot something is consistently going to spot things much better than someone with a +2. And just because there's the rare occasion where the +2 person spots something the +25 missed doesn't mean the system doesn't work. Same is true with hit chances and saving throws, etc.
.
Imagine that you're fighting a guy with the same HP as yours, both of you do the same amount of damage. You have 95% chance to hit the other guy 5%. 10 hits kill one of you. Now you miss the whole time with your mighty 95% and the other guy hits every time with his pathetic 5% . That kind of situation, as far as maths work, can occur. And the whole of your character building and planning has gone to shiet in such a humiliating way. That's rubbish for me.
Jesus, another newfag. This time we're going for the "'''''realistic"""" shit, eh? Because absolute determinism is totally realistic, of course.
If the only thing you have is this extreme example, then you have nothing. Just a typical cluelessness of how RNG works.
And planning gone to shit? How the fuck? You plan around RNG.
.
Cluelessness? THAT'S how RNG works. No matter how small the chance for failure is it is STILL possible and INEVITABLE by the long term. I'd rather die 10 times before I get to know how to beat a boss in Dank Souls, knowing that's it solely my effort, patience and skill, than lose my 5th level character in 2th level dungeon in Dankest Dungeon just because my "95% to hit character" missed a crucial blow.

Maths time "oldfag"!

95% for an event to occur applies ONLY for an INFINITE number of trials or should I say it's AVERAGE for 100 number of trials, and real life doesn't work that way because REAL randomness doesn't exist in our ordinary world, where everything is related - you can't have output without input. Randomness consists of unrelated events. When you roll a dice you grant it a momentum and angle of incidence from which you can predict it's movement, nevertheless it is very precise operation.
 
Last edited:
Joined
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In a videogame, however, you can be in control of your character, and "did that hit land or not?" doesn't have to be resolved by a dice, but by actual gameplay.
Well then it becomes less of an rpg if player skill overwrites character skill. it becomes a hybrid either towards popamole or towards adventure genre depending on how you shift the mechanics.



I was this close to say "the only advantage of tabletop-inspired cRPGs is that you can actually make a character that sucks at what he does",
:retarded:



but then I remembered Gothic already implements this fairly well (with the player being a complete paperdoll at the beginning).
As mondblut so aptly puts it, Gothic is glorified Tomb Raider. It is an enjoyable glorified Tomb Raider imo, but its mechanics veers away from a cRPG.



At the end of the day, it boils down to a simple question: do you want to let the game do the work for you (just like cRPGs already do by rolling the dice instead of you), or do you want to play the game yourself and be in charge of your failures?
At the end of a day it boils down to a simple question, do you want to play a cRPG, or some hybrid popamole trash?



As incredible as it sounds, some of us like playing our RPGs as opposed to simply barking orders at avatars.
As incredible as it sounds, some of us like playing cRPGs, PnP RPGs without friends on a computer, as opposed to some reflex twitcher/popamole.



As I try to comprehend the logic behind your retarded arguments, i realize that you cannot into cRPGs. There are plenty of Shooters with RPG elements which cater to your tastes. please play them, and leave my cRPGs with dice rolls alone.
 

Castozor

Augur
Joined
Nov 12, 2014
Messages
202
Listen dog, it's like this. We got approximately 9 million RPGs where you can already do that. Can't we have one where shit is a lil' different? That's all I ask.

Shit, I'd take it as a modded project for NWN at this point. I feel it could be interesting if done well (I had this idea while playing Swordflight btw. Dope module, quite challenging in more ways than one and sparked a lot of ideas related to this.) It could be good, trust me.
It's probably never tried because making believable, non-derpy AI companions is hard, although I guess you could choose not to command your party members in DA:O and in wasteland 2 your three non-ranger members can play their own turns if they fail a leadership test. More importantly most players don't want to lose a fight because their mage decided to "lolrandom" nuke the party backline and to develop all their characters how they want it.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,735
Well then it becomes less of an rpg if player skill overwrites character skill.

cRPGs are already much less of an RPG than tabletop RPGs by virtue of lacking most of the things that make PnP so fun and unique. They are "RPGs" in combat only, and you can very much have an RPG without dicerolls, as stats can dictate your combat prowess easily without the need of dice. Denying this is denying the truth.

Gothic does not play like Skyrim beyond the superficial elements. If ponytail dude has bad stats and equipment, he will have an awful time during the game. No different than games like Fallout.

The idea is to make the player feel like he won a battle, as opposed to making him feel like the game won the battle. In cRPGs, it is always the latter. In "popamole trash" it is always the former. And likewise: in cRPGs you can always put the blame on the game ("the rolls were shit"), and in "popamole trash" the blame is always on you ("you failed; git gud").
 

Sigourn

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Messages
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And anyone advocating for such popamole trash can go play Mass Effect Andromeda or whatever.
And anyone advocating for such outdated dice-rolling trash can go play Bard's Tale. :roll: It's easy to make anything look bad by proposing the worst game of the bunch.
Except that Bard's tale is superior to basically any action-RPG.

laughing-gifs-foolish-human.gif
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
And in tabletop, 'luck' is no more than a powerful illusion cast by the DM. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That lucky critical miss from the evil dragon which saved your character was mandated by God. Not by the false idol of the Dice.

And yet you are all blissfully ignorant. Fools.

My DM in our D&D group makes most combat rolls public so we can see it. If she doesn't make them public, she does ask us "what's your AC right now?" and she grins and giggles when she lands critical hits on us. She enjoys putting us into trouble.

Pretty much every character in our group has died at least once during our campaign which has now been running for years. I died twice. The bard and rogue died thrice. We always carry a diamond around with us, which is a required material component for the resurrection spell. We once had to sell our bard's lute to afford his resurrection after he drowned in a river while being grappled by a kelpie. I managed to get him out by trying a rope around our halfling rogue and throwing him into the water to grab our bard so I could pull them both out, but it took me three tries to throw the halfling far enough to catch the bard. Once, almost our entire party was close to death (most were unconscious) in a fight against a giant salamander, and our rogue saved the day with a lucky critical hit. In that fight, all rolls were open so our DM didn't cheat to grant us mercy.

She's completely merciless and enjoys throwing hard challenges into our way. Death is always a possibility. When the dice say you die, you die. Pay 5000 gold for a resurrection spell and lose a level. Sorry mate.

Oh, and once we even managed to completely ruin the plan she had for us. She planned for us to be captured by drow, even prepared an entire side-plot for it. The drow attacked us as we camped, hitting us in the neck with paralyzing poison. Only I and our wizard chick managed to stay conscious. We fought the small hit squad off, and dragged our knocked-out party members through a heavy door into a chamber in which we fortified ourselves for the night. We decided to rest in there, and put up as many defences as we could manage. It was only me and the wizard chick now, everyone else was conscious but paralyzed, so they could only watch but not move. It seemed almost hopeless.

Our wizard chick put explosive runes on the outside of the door. Any drow who read it would get a big explosion into their faces before they stepped through the door. There was a narrow flight of stairs going up to the door from our room, so we'd be able to block the passage so they couldn't easily swarm us. Thusly prepared, we went to rest.

When the explosive runes got triggered, wizard chick and I jumped to our feet immediately. I grabbed my sword, she threw a fireball at the door as soon as it opened, greeting the drow with some massive damage. It had been her last spell - now, she was out. But our cleric, even though he was paralyzed, asked the DM if he could still cast a spell that required neither verbal nor somatic elements. She said yes - he was conscious, after all, so such a spell was castable if it required no movement and no talking. So our cleric of Lathander chose to emit light which did some minor damage to the drow and, more importantly, blinded them for two turns. Half of them resisted the blindness effect, but at least it was something. Then I charged in and attacked. I got a critical hit on my charge attack and killed an already wounded drow with my first blow; I cleaved, had a critical hit *again* and killed another. Cleave, I hit a third drow for some solid damage. When it was their turn, three of them attacked me - and the rest of course couldn't, since the entryway was too narrow for more than three people to stand next to each other. I took only one hit, but my HP were already down so every hit was bad. Next turn, I killed another drow and severely damaged a second.

And then they decided to run away because, after expecting easy prey, they got utterly fucked by just one fighter, one wizard chick, and some barely conscious glowy boi. They had no idea our wizard chick was out of spells. They had no idea it was just me holding the line and they'd have us overwhelmed within two, maybe three turns. All they knew was that they were getting slaughtered after expecting no resistance, and they ran away.

Our DM had planned for them to take us. She had prepared a story arc for when they imprisoned us. But, thanks to our extremely well-played and lucky defense (those critical hits of mine pretty much saved the day), we won and she didn't get to play out the story as she had planned it. Our playing, coupled with some lucky dice, changed the DM's plans.

So no, you're wrong. If you have a good DM the dice actually matter. How you approach situations actually matters. A good DM will spend a lot of effort on cool setups that are designed to challenge you, but if you overcome the challenge by either skill or luck, you've overcome it and that's that. Or, if you die to a stupid decision or to severe bad luck, you die. Better pay up for that resurrection.

The games she runs are some of the best I've ever played, cause we players know exactly: if we fuck up, we have to deal with it.
 

Delterius

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for the record, calling the dice a 'false idol' and everybody 'blissfully ignorant' was supposed to be where we all laughed at how facetious and silly the post was

i might kill myself over the lack of funny ratings
 

Alex

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for the record, calling the dice a 'false idol' and everybody 'blissfully ignorant' was supposed to be where we all laughed at how facetious and silly the post was

i might kill myself over the lack of funny ratings

Erm... uh... my post was sarcasm as well! Even though I really meant everything I typed...
 

Delterius

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Entre a serra e o mar.
for the record, calling the dice a 'false idol' and everybody 'blissfully ignorant' was supposed to be where we all laughed at how facetious and silly the post was

i might kill myself over the lack of funny ratings

Erm... uh... my post was sarcasm as well! Even though I really meant everything I typed...
TBH, I think the original post was silly enough that it elicited a bad response from you. If people can't resist the temptation to constantly reload and torture themselves with the search of perfection... well. That's probably not a problem, they are having fun regardless and there's no real point in forcing ironman and checkpoints just for that. Rogue is fine. Planning a game around checkpoints like Dark Souls is also fine. But, say, adding those to a sequel of a game because of some misguided complaints online isn't a good idea IMO.

There's also value in a 'homebrew ironman'. I had fun playing BG a second time and resolving not to reload, ever, once I was more comfortable with the game/rules. I learned to do the same thing with IWD down the line.
 
Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

Self-Ejected
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Messages
7,407
The ability to immediately reload a fight is traditionally something that marks a cRPG out as a quality RPG and those that try and hamper this are usually the shit ones (or console ones that might not be shit but are just following console rules and norms).

Have a huge unskippable cut-scene or loading screen/s before an important battle? Fuck you game, you asshole.
Force someone to replay 20 fights just to get back to the one where you clicked the wrong spell by mistake? Fuck you game, you asshole.

You want a do-or-die focused game with a death-is-death approach? Hey look, you have an entire genre already, they're called roguelikes, now fuck off and go play them, you asshole.

And has been stated a million times before, it's not difficulty which makes something hard, it's unfamiliarity. And what do people love most about [good] RPGs? The exploration of the unknown. QED.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
I would like to see RPGs encourage permadeath and ironman type options without having to reload in the future. Unfortunately that's probably a pipe dream for all but the One Bro In His Bedroom development studios, but it's a wish nonetheless.

Example, Darkest Dungeon. You are expected to lose characters along the way, but it encourages you to train others and keep a team ready. That approach leads to emergent gameplay and story features, a "create your own story" if you will.

I would have loved to see more of that in something like Baldur's Gate. Sure, you can deal with a dead character when they chunk, but I feel this aspect can be improved more in the overall design to further encourage swapping party members in and out, and dealing with your losses. Either the game balance is on point to where it's harder to lose a character permanently but then there is no reloading to save them (as an option), or what have you. Further exploration in this area would be welcomed by me.

So in other words, an RPG that is designed to deal with losses of party members, even if they are "key" members at the time, rather than re-loading or just choosing to not re-load. Either a properly balanced Consequences Mode or something like that, but the overall design still being a story-based RPG like Baldur's Gate with unique characters (unlike something that employs mostly generic characters to achieve this type of gameplay.)
 

anvi

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Death should be done better but not permadeath. They should be made so there isn't a savegame option at all. The game saves your progress automatically every time something changes on your character. When you die, you should respawn back at a town or altar or something with a long term penalty. This is how it worked in EQ and no other game has ever come close to the intensity of that game. People have actually killed themselves in real life over that game... I think single player RPGs should be similar, not as brutal, but similar.
 

Kea

Novice
Joined
Jun 22, 2016
Messages
27
for the record, calling the dice a 'false idol' and everybody 'blissfully ignorant' was supposed to be where we all laughed at how facetious and silly the post was

i might kill myself over the lack of funny ratings
We got a cool D&D story out of it so it so I'd hold off on the suicide.

The only big problem with RNG in games is if a single bad roll can just kill you before you can react with no Mulligan (eg ambushes by Poison Giants or such in Wiz). In the long run it all trends towards the median, but the occasional outlier is what makes RPGs interesting and makes for memorable stories.
 

laclongquan

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Tying AI behaviors to the D&D character sheet so companions act autonomously has been done before? Where? I didn't think it had been.

Anyway, my idea isn't to just have stupid companions (although Intelligence can play a role, no doubt.) It's about having companions that act on their own interests and behalf. You can't just take your Evil Drow Cleric and say, "Hey, you're going to stand right there and cast a spell WHEN I TELL YOU. Got it?" You'd have to respect all the characters in your party. In other words, it's more of an adventure sim with "real" companions, rather than the player being the "omnipotent authority figure" as Jaheira so lovingly points out in Baldur's Gate. :)

Fuck you fluent! I have equal respects for every NPC in my party same as my MC. They are to fucking move where I fucking tell them, not where they damn well please.

If they shoot me in the back, that is because I fucking tell them too, with intent. not because they decide to do so just for the heck of it.

Listen dog, it's like this. We got approximately 9 million RPGs where you can already do that. Can't we have one where shit is a lil' different? That's all I ask.

Shit, I'd take it as a modded project for NWN at this point. I feel it could be interesting if done well (I had this idea while playing Swordflight btw. Dope module, quite challenging in more ways than one and sparked a lot of ideas related to this.) It could be good, trust me.

Your demand project a good, readable writer(s) for the team (in order to create good dialog in order to breath personality into those rng-ed AI jerks). Which in game industry is a huge and impossible requirement. Every failed authors and writers from the book industry gathered here because of the very low bar of entry. It doesnt mean you can find a good, readable RPG

Stableful of failed writers? Check. One reasonably readable writer? Ummmm... let me get back to you on that.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
Death should be done better but not permadeath. They should be made so there isn't a savegame option at all. The game saves your progress automatically every time something changes on your character. When you die, you should respawn back at a town or altar or something with a long term penalty. This is how it worked in EQ and no other game has ever come close to the intensity of that game. People have actually killed themselves in real life over that game... I think single player RPGs should be similar, not as brutal, but similar.

I was talking about permadeath for companions and party members. I'd like to see enough characters in the game and written in a way that lets permadeath or losing a character not be an auto-reload situation. In games like Tactics Ogre, I distinctly remember some battles being so difficult that you may lose a story character or two, yet there were sooo many interesting and effective party members you could eventually recruit, as well as ones you already had waiting in the wings, that it wasn't too bad to replace the fallen character with another one and keep it moving. It made it more of a "make your own story" because you rolled with that character but now they were gone, this new one would have to prove themselves etc. etc.. (Yes I get nerdy like this in RPGs, fuck you, it's fun.)

Although Ironman aka permadeath for the main character could be another option, but one I'm less concerned about (altering the save system to add more risk/reward and not be as easy to manipulate is higher on my list.)

I thought Xulima did very well with the Ironman system. Only being able to save in town combined with the Food mechanic (a resource needed to rest, consumed when you move in the "turn-based" world) made for a great experience of managing resources, a bit more careful planning before adventuring and also adding tension to the world (you could also be jumped by Cursed Hounds, a difficult encounter at first that could also Curse your characters, which was expensive to remove.) Limited fast travel (teleporters) and so on. This is the best CRPG design and games should take it further in this direction (Xulima could do even more, but it's on the right path.)
 

Elex

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
2,043
And in tabletop, 'luck' is no more than a powerful illusion cast by the DM. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That lucky critical miss from the evil dragon which saved your character was mandated by God. Not by the false idol of the Dice.

And yet you are all blissfully ignorant. Fools.

My DM in our D&D group makes most combat rolls public so we can see it. If she doesn't make them public, she does ask us "what's your AC right now?" and she grins and giggles when she lands critical hits on us. She enjoys putting us into trouble.

Pretty much every character in our group has died at least once during our campaign which has now been running for years. I died twice. The bard and rogue died thrice. We always carry a diamond around with us, which is a required material component for the resurrection spell. We once had to sell our bard's lute to afford his resurrection after he drowned in a river while being grappled by a kelpie. I managed to get him out by trying a rope around our halfling rogue and throwing him into the water to grab our bard so I could pull them both out, but it took me three tries to throw the halfling far enough to catch the bard. Once, almost our entire party was close to death (most were unconscious) in a fight against a giant salamander, and our rogue saved the day with a lucky critical hit. In that fight, all rolls were open so our DM didn't cheat to grant us mercy.

She's completely merciless and enjoys throwing hard challenges into our way. Death is always a possibility. When the dice say you die, you die. Pay 5000 gold for a resurrection spell and lose a level. Sorry mate.

Oh, and once we even managed to completely ruin the plan she had for us. She planned for us to be captured by drow, even prepared an entire side-plot for it. The drow attacked us as we camped, hitting us in the neck with paralyzing poison. Only I and our wizard chick managed to stay conscious. We fought the small hit squad off, and dragged our knocked-out party members through a heavy door into a chamber in which we fortified ourselves for the night. We decided to rest in there, and put up as many defences as we could manage. It was only me and the wizard chick now, everyone else was conscious but paralyzed, so they could only watch but not move. It seemed almost hopeless.

Our wizard chick put explosive runes on the outside of the door. Any drow who read it would get a big explosion into their faces before they stepped through the door. There was a narrow flight of stairs going up to the door from our room, so we'd be able to block the passage so they couldn't easily swarm us. Thusly prepared, we went to rest.

When the explosive runes got triggered, wizard chick and I jumped to our feet immediately. I grabbed my sword, she threw a fireball at the door as soon as it opened, greeting the drow with some massive damage. It had been her last spell - now, she was out. But our cleric, even though he was paralyzed, asked the DM if he could still cast a spell that required neither verbal nor somatic elements. She said yes - he was conscious, after all, so such a spell was castable if it required no movement and no talking. So our cleric of Lathander chose to emit light which did some minor damage to the drow and, more importantly, blinded them for two turns. Half of them resisted the blindness effect, but at least it was something. Then I charged in and attacked. I got a critical hit on my charge attack and killed an already wounded drow with my first blow; I cleaved, had a critical hit *again* and killed another. Cleave, I hit a third drow for some solid damage. When it was their turn, three of them attacked me - and the rest of course couldn't, since the entryway was too narrow for more than three people to stand next to each other. I took only one hit, but my HP were already down so every hit was bad. Next turn, I killed another drow and severely damaged a second.

And then they decided to run away because, after expecting easy prey, they got utterly fucked by just one fighter, one wizard chick, and some barely conscious glowy boi. They had no idea our wizard chick was out of spells. They had no idea it was just me holding the line and they'd have us overwhelmed within two, maybe three turns. All they knew was that they were getting slaughtered after expecting no resistance, and they ran away.

Our DM had planned for them to take us. She had prepared a story arc for when they imprisoned us. But, thanks to our extremely well-played and lucky defense (those critical hits of mine pretty much saved the day), we won and she didn't get to play out the story as she had planned it. Our playing, coupled with some lucky dice, changed the DM's plans.

So no, you're wrong. If you have a good DM the dice actually matter. How you approach situations actually matters. A good DM will spend a lot of effort on cool setups that are designed to challenge you, but if you overcome the challenge by either skill or luck, you've overcome it and that's that. Or, if you die to a stupid decision or to severe bad luck, you die. Better pay up for that resurrection.

The games she runs are some of the best I've ever played, cause we players know exactly: if we fuck up, we have to deal with it.
if the campaign is running for years the DM is not actually trying to kill you all, you all still have the same characters just ressurrected them.

trouble, hard fight, bad plans etc etc, are supposed to happen, this is why there is a DM and is supposed to have alternate plan in mind: exactly like players.

you think dice matter: but what matter is the DM.

THE DROW RUNNED AWAY IN FEAR.

THE DROW.
 

Elex

Arbiter
Joined
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Messages
2,043
Death should be done better but not permadeath. They should be made so there isn't a savegame option at all. The game saves your progress automatically every time something changes on your character. When you die, you should respawn back at a town or altar or something with a long term penalty. This is how it worked in EQ and no other game has ever come close to the intensity of that game. People have actually killed themselves in real life over that game... I think single player RPGs should be similar, not as brutal, but similar.
well never played ultima online?

the death was managed even better.

sad how mmorpg today cancelled any meaningfull mechanics connected to death.
 

anvi

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UO is good too with the ghost thing. The main thing that bugs me about single player games is savegame scumming which it kind of forces you into doing.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
And in tabletop, 'luck' is no more than a powerful illusion cast by the DM. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That lucky critical miss from the evil dragon which saved your character was mandated by God. Not by the false idol of the Dice.

And yet you are all blissfully ignorant. Fools.

My DM in our D&D group makes most combat rolls public so we can see it. If she doesn't make them public, she does ask us "what's your AC right now?" and she grins and giggles when she lands critical hits on us. She enjoys putting us into trouble.

Pretty much every character in our group has died at least once during our campaign which has now been running for years. I died twice. The bard and rogue died thrice. We always carry a diamond around with us, which is a required material component for the resurrection spell. We once had to sell our bard's lute to afford his resurrection after he drowned in a river while being grappled by a kelpie. I managed to get him out by trying a rope around our halfling rogue and throwing him into the water to grab our bard so I could pull them both out, but it took me three tries to throw the halfling far enough to catch the bard. Once, almost our entire party was close to death (most were unconscious) in a fight against a giant salamander, and our rogue saved the day with a lucky critical hit. In that fight, all rolls were open so our DM didn't cheat to grant us mercy.

She's completely merciless and enjoys throwing hard challenges into our way. Death is always a possibility. When the dice say you die, you die. Pay 5000 gold for a resurrection spell and lose a level. Sorry mate.

Oh, and once we even managed to completely ruin the plan she had for us. She planned for us to be captured by drow, even prepared an entire side-plot for it. The drow attacked us as we camped, hitting us in the neck with paralyzing poison. Only I and our wizard chick managed to stay conscious. We fought the small hit squad off, and dragged our knocked-out party members through a heavy door into a chamber in which we fortified ourselves for the night. We decided to rest in there, and put up as many defences as we could manage. It was only me and the wizard chick now, everyone else was conscious but paralyzed, so they could only watch but not move. It seemed almost hopeless.

Our wizard chick put explosive runes on the outside of the door. Any drow who read it would get a big explosion into their faces before they stepped through the door. There was a narrow flight of stairs going up to the door from our room, so we'd be able to block the passage so they couldn't easily swarm us. Thusly prepared, we went to rest.

When the explosive runes got triggered, wizard chick and I jumped to our feet immediately. I grabbed my sword, she threw a fireball at the door as soon as it opened, greeting the drow with some massive damage. It had been her last spell - now, she was out. But our cleric, even though he was paralyzed, asked the DM if he could still cast a spell that required neither verbal nor somatic elements. She said yes - he was conscious, after all, so such a spell was castable if it required no movement and no talking. So our cleric of Lathander chose to emit light which did some minor damage to the drow and, more importantly, blinded them for two turns. Half of them resisted the blindness effect, but at least it was something. Then I charged in and attacked. I got a critical hit on my charge attack and killed an already wounded drow with my first blow; I cleaved, had a critical hit *again* and killed another. Cleave, I hit a third drow for some solid damage. When it was their turn, three of them attacked me - and the rest of course couldn't, since the entryway was too narrow for more than three people to stand next to each other. I took only one hit, but my HP were already down so every hit was bad. Next turn, I killed another drow and severely damaged a second.

And then they decided to run away because, after expecting easy prey, they got utterly fucked by just one fighter, one wizard chick, and some barely conscious glowy boi. They had no idea our wizard chick was out of spells. They had no idea it was just me holding the line and they'd have us overwhelmed within two, maybe three turns. All they knew was that they were getting slaughtered after expecting no resistance, and they ran away.

Our DM had planned for them to take us. She had prepared a story arc for when they imprisoned us. But, thanks to our extremely well-played and lucky defense (those critical hits of mine pretty much saved the day), we won and she didn't get to play out the story as she had planned it. Our playing, coupled with some lucky dice, changed the DM's plans.

So no, you're wrong. If you have a good DM the dice actually matter. How you approach situations actually matters. A good DM will spend a lot of effort on cool setups that are designed to challenge you, but if you overcome the challenge by either skill or luck, you've overcome it and that's that. Or, if you die to a stupid decision or to severe bad luck, you die. Better pay up for that resurrection.

The games she runs are some of the best I've ever played, cause we players know exactly: if we fuck up, we have to deal with it.
if the campaign is running for years the DM is not actually trying to kill you all, you all still have the same characters just ressurrected them.

trouble, hard fight, bad plans etc etc, are supposed to happen, this is why there is a DM and is supposed to have alternate plan in mind: exactly like players.

you think dice matter: but what matter is the DM.

THE DROW RUNNED AWAY IN FEAR.

THE DROW.

They were male drow.
 

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