What causes (or prevents) death (resurrecting) IG?

[Toddo]

Mike, you're using "cheating" to refer to unintentional mistakes and I don't consider people who accidently throw an extra Web to be cheating. As you said yourself, mistakes happen. Cheating implies an intent to deliberately break the rules, and those who make honest mistakes should not be labelled as cheaters. It's hard for a marshal to catch things like overcasting in a wave battle situation, but I have a player or two pretty much every event who will come up to me after a fight and tell me that they accidently cast an extra spell. Unless it's a life spell or the spell that dropped the big bad it's usually a non issue and I'm not going to come down on them for cheating.

 

[Toddo]

Cheating probably isn't quite the right word, since it implies deliberate intent. I would go with "err" or "boo-boo".

Beat me to it. inch:

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

'Cause I was more terse. Like Zoe.

 

[Air Raksa]

I can think of ten recent situations off the top of my head where Cheating and Marshals caused resurrections. Luckily we have the adjudication process, which is as fair as it can be.

Even incidental cheating causes resurrections, though not very frequently.

Having more Marshals is desirable, though not practical for a small player base. Most Marshals I know would rather be playing than standing by with a white headband.

I don't think anyone has an expert opinion in this discussion. For the most part it is entirely a matter of point of view, because of the number of factors that go into running a weekend. Player Experience (PC and NPC) is a big part of it. Most of us have PCed events where the PCs are mostly veterans and all the NPCs are new, nobody Resurrects at these events.

Adjudications are a great part of the game because they allow a Staff to admit that they were wrong. Just like a player who takes their hits, a staff should be gracious enough to accept that they can't do everything right.

-Brian Bender

 

[Dreamingfurther]

Your point about winter 'rust' is a good one Brian. It always seems like I hear about more resurrections happening in the spring. So far I've been at college to avoid the spring 'rust'... But I'll be back from now on. :wacko: lol

 

[Avaran]

"Do you know the definition of a hero? It is someone that gets other people killed."

Serenity.

 

[Darkcrescent]

The 7 deaths was a fluke I'd say. Everyone was spread out and leadership was divided. I'm not mad at all that my first pc game I died on the first night. I did the same thing Davion did, distract a Chimaric Spirit away from others. I had 2 sanctuaries up but didn't even consider them as I was lost in the action. If you look at the other battles SoMN did that weekend we had excellent team work in our Town Sat mods and definitely learned from Friday's raid.

Also Brother Marsters got stuck in traffic, and he has 4 life spells at least. Would of cut the deaths by a significant amount with his healing I'm sure.

 

[mikestrauss]

I can think of ten recent situations off the top of my head where Cheating and Marshals caused resurrections. Luckily we have the adjudication process, which is as fair as it can be.

Even incidental cheating causes resurrections, though not very frequently.

Having more Marshals is desirable, though not practical for a small player base. Most Marshals I know would rather be playing than standing by with a white headband.

I don't think anyone has an expert opinion in this discussion. For the most part it is entirely a matter of point of view, because of the number of factors that go into running a weekend. Player Experience (PC and NPC) is a big part of it. Most of us have PCed events where the PCs are mostly veterans and all the NPCs are new, nobody Resurrects at these events.

Adjudications are a great part of the game because they allow a Staff to admit that they were wrong. Just like a player who takes their hits, a staff should be gracious enough to accept that they can't do everything right.

-Brian Bender

True enough, but it has me wondering something.

I wonder if anyone has ever or ever will ask for an Abjudication to receive a death. When staff or NPCs screw up, deaths get abjudicated. But when a PC screws up and avoids a death (oops, I didn't actually have a Cloak Gift left for that Arcane Death), I've yet to hear of a situation where the PC requested the death. Of course, I certainly haven't heard every story and it might have happened.

Just curious really.

-MS

 

[Morganne]

I chose not to take an offered adjudication because I thought the story I got from the death was way cooler a number of years back with my first character - not quite what you are getting at, though.

 

[Deadlands of Old]

I wonder if anyone has ever or ever will ask for an Abjudication to receive a death. When staff or NPCs screw up, deaths get abjudicated. But when a PC screws up and avoids a death (oops, I didn't actually have a Cloak Gift left for that Arcane Death), I've yet to hear of a situation where the PC requested the death. Of course, I certainly haven't heard every story and it might have happened.

Once upon a time, in Syraandor-that-was, we had a player who got hit with 1000 points of damage from a single weapon blow. It was a fluke sort of thing, kind of an accident, meant to be a dramatic effect. But no big deal. Nothing a cure light wounds couldn't fix....right? Silly hypothetical reader.

Regardless, the player fell over, put his hand on his head, stood up and dropped all his gear. He strolls over to the earth circle to await the guild master's return. A player notices and explains to him that he didn't die. To which the pc responds, "Nope. I died." A staff member walks over to see what's going on at this point. "What's up, Shaun?" this staff members asks? Shaun, the intent on rezzing player, says, "nothing, just waiting to rez." The surprised staff member explains it's a misunderstanding, that technically, as odd as it might seem, conceptually speaking, Shaun's character actually just needs a little healing. To which Shaun replies, "Uh huh, yeah. I have 8 body. No armor. I got hit with enough force to to crack a mountain. I'm rezzing."

A few minutes of polite arguing goes on until the owner at the time is told about it. He responds with a solid laugh and, "Dude, he'll probably quit if we don't let him rez." And thus a rather bizarre, sort of reverse adjudication was allowed.

That's the only time I can think of, off the top of my head.

 

[markusdark]

I'd like to buy Shaun a drink.

 

[Gilwing]

From my rather extensive experience in the game, here is what I have seen that causes and prevents resurrection:

Causes:
--Wave Battles
----NPC Ratio: The closer the NPCC ratio gets to 1:1, the higher likelihood of resurrections. At even 2:1, I expect a few resurrections in a weekend. At anything truly approaching 1:1, even a massively underscaled wave battle has a reasonable chance of causing resurrections.
----Mass Loss Groupings: This is a theory I learned from Battletech, but applies to Alliance as well. For the most part, combatants fight at close to 100% efficiency until the very moment they drop. As such, it is common for many to be fighting "on fumes" until suddenly a large swath are incapacitated at once. Resurrections ensue.
----Repeated Delivery Types/Carriers: There are enough defenses that the PC population of most games can face an entire wave battle of creatures swinging Drain or throwing Poison Sleeps (so many defenses to that it is crazy). But, if that is the main type of opponent for the weekend or multiple wave battles use that mechanic, eventually every hit is basically an unstoppable disable. That is "run for the wards" time.
--Modules
----Bad Scaling: Module scaling is significantly harder than weekend or wave battle scaling. Non-combat skills, time since reset, and player skill has a much higher influence on PC ability than in wave battles. Also, there is basically no safety net. In plenty of modules, the nearest help is more than five minutes away (round trip).
----Disorganization: Ever see a module team with 4 earth casters and 2 rogues? I have. Unless the module involves undead, it is usually referred to as a TPK. Teamwork is important, but balance is even more important. A poorly balanced module group is basically begging to hear a 15 minute long story.
--Random
----Dark Clothes at Night: Skulking has got to be the number one way to earn a resurrection. PCs don't see you when you are lying on the ground, but some NPC does and lands a Terminate on your back.
----Heroics: I forget what movie it is from, but there is a great quote: "Do you know the definition of a hero? It is someone that gets other people killed." Yep. Heroics are cool, but they very often get someone (possibly you) killed. You want to live longer? Don't be a hero and avoid heroes.

Prevents:
--Magic Items: As much as I hate to admit it, it is the elephant in the corner. The more you glow like a Christmas Tree, the less likely you are to die in any given situation.
--Rules Knowledge: Not rules lawyering, but rules knowledge. The game has a crazy number of effects. Knowing precisely what counters what and most efficiently is key to survival. Similarly, knowing exactly how dangerous an effect is also keeps you alive. For example, against a large group, Fear is rarely deadly. Don't waste resources removing it. Let the time run out. That Awaken may be much more essential to remove a Berserk from Super Beat Stick Man later.
--Buddy System: Better yet, team system. If you are always responsible for the whereabouts of one or more people and one or multiple people are responsible for your whereabouts, you are much less likely to die, unless large swaths of people are dying.

-MS

Mike, I have to agree with every thing you have listed except for the MIs. While MIs help you out, its your experience with them that makes them work. You can have 10 dispells and not knowing that you can use them while withered or drained can be a matter of life or death.

Every thing else is spot on brother.

 

[markusdark]

Mike, I have to agree with every thing you have listed except for the MIs. While MIs help you out, its your experience with them that makes them work. You can have 10 dispells and not knowing that you can use them while withered or drained can be a matter of life or death.

Every thing else is spot on brother.

My thought about MI's is that they can actually cause more deaths too. A player with a mentality of "Oh, there's dozens of life spells out there, if I fall down, I'm sure I'll get one" may lead to a character's death. Or someone stating at the beginning of a battle "My Life Item is here, if I drop, someone can activate it for me." and then no one does.

 

[Talen]

----Mass Loss Groupings: This is a theory I learned from Battletech, but applies to Alliance as well. For the most part, combatants fight at close to 100% efficiency until the very moment they drop. As such, it is common for many to be fighting "on fumes" until suddenly a large swath are incapacitated at once. Resurrections ensue.

-MS

*Mechwarrior brofist for using CLG properly.*

 

[Talen]

Talen, isn't it true though that when there were 200-300 player events larp was a much newer 'type' of game and there were less larp's out there to play? Since then there are literally dozens of different types of larps and it always seems like starting a 'fresh' larp gets people excited, even if historically something like that does not always work out at all.

Part of the reason for that is that LARPs fragmented over time. I still see events with 100+ players. Good rules systems can attract even more players, to the point where there are games that attract twice that, ten times that, even over twenty times that. Seeing people form games from fragments of your player base on a repeated basis is a sign that somewhere, you're Doing It Wrong. Heck, that's how Alliance formed in the first place!

It is certainly a good point and I would agree that magic items and more build ext ext give you more 'chances' and mean you can get farther 'in the hole' and still pull yourselves out of a mess. But ultimately it still seems like knowing the system, and having good tactics/organization is more of an affecter than sheer magic items in determining that people live or die.

You can finesse your way through more situations than brute force, but brute force does work. Anyone who's seen what happens to a bunch of goblins just before the end of an event has seen the "brute force solution" at work. MI's are very brute-force friendly. Organization is more a case of finesse- using your resources better, vs simply drowning your opponents in sheer amounts of resources. PC's often have options where overwhelming force is actually simpler and less time-intensive...lazy, you might call it. Wandering monsters where half the town can pile on a half-dozen PC's, or cases where the PC:NPC ratio is generally severely favoring the players. Stuff like that is very good (bad) training for players to simply adopt the "drown them in firepower" method all the time...and when they can't, they die in droves. When the NPC: PC ratio approaches 1:1, this gets more and more likely...and when it does get near there, you really do need to focus on organized efforts if you don't want to bleed the ground red and carpet it with your dead buddies.

 

[IvanDrake]

In short, cheating is rampant. Intentional cheating, thankfully isn't. Since cheating occurs on both sides regularly, it sort of washes. Also, because it is unintentional, it tends to help and hinder about equally (ask Eric about when he was entangled but thought he was paralyzed).

-MS

Um, yeah, I make at least one mistake every single game, it seems. Sometimes it's because I can't hear the calls. Sometimes I just simply mess up. But I am very sensitive to mistakes giving me, as a player, an unfair advantage, so when I make a mistake, I prefer to penalize myself, often rather harshly.

Isn't it funny how if you are nice one time, but a jerk every other time, that doesn't doesn't make you a nice person.

But if you "cheat" one time, but are honest every other time, you are a cheater?

--- Eric Stehle / Ivan Drake

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Labels tend to be warnings first and foremost, so negative traits hold more weight than positive or neutral.