A post on Grognardia yesterday has given us an indication that the forthcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG will have a similar assumption of low-level PC mortality ("The author has playtested this adventure with groups of up to 28 PCs and experienced one complete TPK and several sessions with only a handful of survivors.").
As James M. points out, old school RPGs tend to suffer from a slightly inflated perception of extreme lethality. The degree to which this is true can be debated, but the one constant is the assumption that said lethality is a bad thing. Yet a little memory, no doubt summoned up from all this TPK talk, burbled up in my brain today that indicates, in my experience at least, extreme lethality was (for some, myself included) actually a selling point for D&D back in the day.
The setting is my elementary school playground. I am in fifth grade, either 10 or 11 years old. I'm about a year out from buying the Mentzer Red Box, but I'm already extremely interested in this whole Dungeons & Dragons thing. Imagine my excitement, then, when this particular recess I am privy to tales related from an acquaintance whose older brother actually plays D&D.
I remember quite distinctly the fiendish glint in my schoolyard chum's eyes as he described one particularly gruesome trap: "There was this giant statue carved out of black stone. The statue was kneeling down and its hands were held in front of it like stairs." He demonstrated the statue's pose before continuing. "Its eyes were two giant rubies. My brother's character was a thief, so he climbed up the statue's hands and pried the rubies out." He paused for effect as my friends and I held our collective breath. "Then the statue came alive and grabbed the thief and ripped his skin off!"
"COOL!" we all intoned.
I'm not too keen on extreme lethality anymore - I think I'll give the DCC RPG a miss, thanks; LotFP is enough lethality on my shelf alone - but back in the 80s to a young boy on the cusp of adolescence it was a sign of D&D's "mature" nature; clearly this was not a game for little kids, and that made it all the more desirable!
Cool story!
ReplyDeleteI recall different DMs competing to come up with ever more fiendish ways to kill off PCs in my early games (ages 10-13).
My first adventure with a real RPG (after two or three systemless sessions) involved my character being killed by a bunch of orcs in a mine, pretty much first combat. I was HOOKED.
ReplyDeleteI think the lethality is a critical component of the game. 2nd level is not a given in early editions, and it gives the player a sense of accomplishment on surviving the first couple sessions and gaining that level.
ReplyDeleteI honestly do not see the enjoyment in newer editions where the game, and a lot of DMs, are afraid to kill off one PC, much less the entire party. What the hell kind of wuss players quit the game because of one failed attempt. To me and my players, the death of a PC or a party is just that more reason to roll up new PCs, start over, and finally beat that damn (insert monster/trap/etc here)!
A momentous occasion - Countess Elaine of Hertford swore fealty to King Nanteleod in tonight's session (505.)
ReplyDeleteGermane to this post, we had one player character death tonight. A second player character was knocked unconscious, saved only through the heroics of his squire - who is also a cousin and rightful heir of the lands the player knight now guards. The players took it in stride as they each already had a backup character that occasionally saw action on his own.
Sir Gailen of Chesham, a country knight from deep in the Chiltern Hills, fell to a saxon axe in the back. He died gloriously in the saddle after serving Countess Elaine faithfully for seven years.
The second casualty, Castellan Jocelyn of Percy, took a massive club to the head. His skull was cracked; but, he lives to fight another day. By the winter he was hale enough to ride again, though he occasionally suffered debilitating headaches the rest of his life.
Lethality is nearly a requirement for early DnD, and it's a good thing too. There are no rules differentiating characters from each other up until you get secondary skills in later AD&D - the only differences were in experiences and one of the major experiences available is merely surviving.
ReplyDeleteYou don't start your PC off with a huge personality and back-story lovingly crafted through thousands of hours of research, no you vomit him up onto a 3x5 card and he only becomes special when he's achieved something notable.
It's personality through play, and getting PCs through the meatgrinder is part of that.