thread: 2011-05-11 : The Un-frickin-welcome
On 2011-05-14, Ian Charvill wrote:
The unwelcome will break your character's heart and if you identify with your character, even a bit, it will break your heart too. There are ways you can deal with that afterwards—quitting the game, withdrawing from the character emotionally, rationalising it—but it will get you in the moment.
When I'm playing old-fashioned DnD I might lose in any given encounter, certainly I might lose the scenerio. Death's ever present as is just being forced to retreat back to town to hire new retainers and heal. Now, I don't play to lose and I don't an any time want to lose, every fibre of my being is pulling in the opposite direction. If I lose just because the DM decides it's time for me to lose, that's pathetic because I can't strategise against that. But if the system doesn't have the ongoing risk, that's bathetic—you'll win until you're sick of winning. What's the point of playing in either case? Losing is unwelcome in old-fashioned DnD, but if it isn't there then what's the point of playing? Two different scales: I don't want to lose but I need to lose.
Moment-to-moment I'm never going to choose to lose—or if I do I'm going to lose at the least meaningful moment. Moment-to-moment I'm never going to choose the outcome that gives me the best long-term result. System can take that out of my hands and give me the best long term outcome by making me lose at the time I least want to. It means that I don't have to juggle all of my best-interests at once, and I can focus on the moment of play.
