[RPG Theory] The Folly of the Saving Throw

[stevekenson]

One curious aspect of RPG design and play is the idea that everything—every hazard or danger—should be, at least potentially, survivable. You get a saving throw, soak roll, resistance test, or what have you. There’s always a chance, even if it’s a slight one. Thus you have RPGs defining saving throw DCs for things like cyanide (or fictional toxins defined as the deadliest in the world) and damge values for molten lava and nuclear blasts. Now, of course there are genres of fiction (notably comic books) where such things are entirely surviveable by characters with the right powers, but for others is there really something so wrong with having “instant kills” in the game, much as there are in real life?

One brilliantly humorous example of this is the Fire and Brimstone “supplement” (subtitled “The Comprehensive Guide to Lava, Magma, and Superheated Rock) that makes fun of this attitude in RPGs by offering the simple “rule” of: if you fall into lava, you die. Similarly, if you’re jettisoned into space, or dropped from 30,000 feet without a parachute... you die. Is there really a point in calculating and “reality checking” the amount of damage involved per second (round, minute, what have you)?

Similarly, a colleague and I were discussing modeling certain poisons with all sorts of resistance and “attack” rolls and whatnot and I asked: Is this really necessary? Aren’t the effects of a given poison on a given metabolism (as measured by a game trait like Constitution, Stamina, or the like) pretty clear-cut? Barring some kind of medical intervention, many poisons are simply lethal; your Stamina score is just a measure of how long you have to live, or how long medical attention has to arrive before it’s too late. In some cases, the answer is “not very long.”

Am I saying the GM, like nature, should be sometimes cruel and merciless? Perhaps, sometimes. After all, what really creates dramatic tension in fiction is the potential for death at the hands of such dangers. The hero dangles over the lake of lava, but doesn’t fall in and somehow manage to suffer only half damage long enough to swim ashore. The heroine nearly drinks from the poisoned goblet; she doesn’t take a hearty swig but somehow manage to make her save vs. poison.

Ah, but what about the heroic resistance, the one-in-a-million avoidance of certain death? Well, in some heroic genres that should certainly be an option, but I think it would be easier to have an overall “avoid certain death” mechanic than to define every means of “certain” death in detail and build a slight (and often different) chance of survival into each one.

There’s a great deal of derision directed at “killer Gamemasters” who dispense death without mercy, and “railroading” plots that have certain moments where the heroes have no way out, no chance whatsoever, but I wonder whether or not those things add a certain excitement to the game. I wonder if they help to break down the notion that player characters are somehow entitled to their survival and success simply by virtue of being “important,” the kind of “everybody wins” mentality that encourages a “fairness” wherein no one is challenged, and nothing is ever really at risk.

Comments

[jediwiker.livejournal.com]

The main problem I see with the "instant death" threat is that a lot of GMs don't quite grasp that they don't need to accurately model every last danger out there. Sure, there are caterpillars in South America that can cause paralysis and anaphylactic shock, but putting them in the adventure doesn't make the adventure any more exciting ... unless it's there *specifically* to create a "ticking clock" scenario (find the right medicine and get it to the victim before he/she expires).

In fact, in my experience, putting that kind of threat in adventures only teaches players to behave like PCs. ("Before we go into the empty room, we throw in several flask of oil, then set them on fire. After the fire burns out, we blow flour dust in, to see if anything is moving on the floor or walls. Finally, I put my mirror through the doorway on a stick. Assuming the mirror isn't instantly disintegrated, I use it to check the ceiling for signs of monsters or other potentially dangerous activity.")

Another problem, though, is the binary condition between "succeed" and "fail." PCs fighting on a swaying rope bridge is dramatic, but only if they have to make checks to avoid falling off the bridge and into the lava. If the check is too low, it's not scary. If it's too high, then the PCs run the risk of just plain dying--unless, of course, you introduce either a "partial exposure" rule, or you give characters yet another check to make to see whether or not they catch themselves on something before they are immersed in lava.

Really, I think I would go with something similar to the Warhammer FRP "Fate Point" mechanic, where instant death isn't fatal, but it does put the character at a temporary disadvantage. ("You fall of the bridge, but your foot catches a trailing loop of rope. You're suspended, upside down, about 120 feet over the lava, and about 10 feet below the bridge. As the fight goes on above you, you're swaying back and forth, and you're not sure the rope is going to hold much longer.")

JD

[xomec.livejournal.com]

Another problem, though, is the binary condition between "succeed" and "fail." PCs fighting on a swaying rope bridge is dramatic, but only if they have to make checks to avoid falling off the bridge and into the lava. If the check is too low, it's not scary. If it's too high, then the PCs run the risk of just plain dying--unless, of course, you introduce either a "partial exposure" rule, or you give characters yet another check to make to see whether or not they catch themselves on something before they are immersed in lava.

Sure, and that's actually how I tend to run games, but it begs the question: how many saves do you get before you take a dip in molten rock? Two? Three? More? If there is a point of no return, it has to come sooner or later, and will eventually crop up in play. If there isn't one, then what's the point?

[kosmic.livejournal.com]

In my old AD&D 1e campaign, we had a solution for that. You're suspended in a death trap and halve a limited amount of rounds to save yourself. How many? Let the player roll a d6, and that was how many rounds they had. Basically we would let the player roll to set their own death timer.