Re: [HOE] Fudging dice

[Michael Watson <mwatson1@bigpond.net.au>]

At 02:23 PM 26/05/02, Dusarat@aol.com wrote:

> >I think a better movie analogy for HoE would be Aliens or the Road
> >Warrior - it's got more of the horror element than Star Wars does, and
> >yes, the main characters DO die..
>
>
>     And do they die to anonymous mooks at random points in the films?  The
>party is not a main character (Max or Ripley) surrounded my lesser supporting
>characters who are expendible....
>
>     Every character in the party is as important as Ripley.  And so I repeat
>my point, would Aliens be a good movie if Ripley were just as likely to be
>offed by the lesser Aliens as be offed by the Queen?

That's not the case here either. Not just as likely, but possible. I think 
it is a very important part of RPG's that characters can just get killed by 
random things that happen.

>      Killing a character is like killing the main character in a movie.  Do
>it rarely, judiciously, and doing it like that makes it more potent when one
>does die.  Doing it randomly as would be done if no dice were ever fudged,
>would lead to a game where death has no meaning, and where, I ask, is the fun
>in THAT?

I disagree. So long as your players understand that you won't be fudging 
dice to save them I think you get more realistic character choices. The 
choices may not be as over the top heroic any more (but they are still 
going to be better than your average Jo Shmoe with AB and edges etc.) but 
you can start to see the true heroism of people putting their lives on the 
line to help people. I totally disagree with your interpretation that this 
would cause death to become meaningless. Perhaps killing half the party 
every session would lead to this, but I do not think that HoE is a system 
where this is going to happen unless you just keep putting your posse up 
against impossible odds. People dying seemingly meaningless deaths does 
happen in real life, and the exploration of finding meaning in those deaths 
is something that you could do in a RPG, if you and your players are up to 
it. Sure, its not the simple fun anymore, but it can be an interesting, 
rewarding experience. In some ways I think that the "random" deaths might 
haunt the survivors longer than the deaths of those who die are a major point.

Just my opinions though, in the end everyone is free to fudge dice for and 
against, and in most cases I fudge freely as we are just playing for some 
simple comic book style fun, although like I said before, I don't really 
need to do it that much as I let the chips flow fairly freely and my 
players usually like to keep them around rather than spending them, just in 
case ;-)

- michael


"It is unlucky to be stubborn in the face of insurmountable odds."

"Coming to an impasse, change; having changed, you can get through."
- Tao Te Ching