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Players are much tougher than standard enemy units.

7 (53.8%)

Introduce a Fatigue system.

1 (7.7%)

Options 1+2

5 (38.5%)

No Change

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 13

[Yourmaster]

It's alive?

[Playergamer]

What Rolep said.
I would actually like to see this continue, since it's an interesting concept.

[TCM]

The thing is, with the recent developments, it seems that there's a conflict between my own interests and those of the players.

Players: Strategize, Survive, make player characters tougher and NPCs weaker to enhance lifespan.

Me: Tough Enemies, create scenarios in which characters die in unique ways, instill a sense of desperation in the player characters.

While I'm sure you guys want to survive as long as possible, I feel that doing so takes away from the Desperation, which I wanted to highlight as a key feature of the game. No matter how well you're doing, I wanted to make the players know that at any time they could catch a spear through the chest or a bullet to the head. Makes things exciting.

[Playergamer]

Whatever you want TCM.

[Remuthra]

Conflict of interest is sort of a hallmark of a game like this . Many GMs want to murder their players creatively and feast on their tears, and many players want to gain power and thwart their GMs and their plots.

[Rolepgeek]

Desperation is well and good, but so far we haven't been feeling desperate so much as futile and helpless. Which is frustrating.

[TCM]

Desperation is well and good, but so far we haven't been feeling desperate so much as futile and helpless. Which is frustrating.

Futile and helpless in what regard?

[Rolepgeek]

As in it feels like we can't accomplish anything and rather than it being possible to catch a bullet in the face at any moment, it feels like we're catching bullets in the face at every moment. It makes you feel more along the lines of 'what's the point?' than 'ohshitohshitcomeon...!'.

[Remuthra]

I think maybe the desperation thing would work better in a situation where combat is difficult but not unavoidable or constant, and the goal is independent from the battle. Maybe try to escape across a war-torn city or something. If you make combat suicide, it serves to discourage it, which conflicts with the game's purpose if you make that combat the main component. For example, Call of Cthulhu has difficult combat, but the point is to avoid confrontations and try to survive investigations, so the difficulty serves to shape the experience and deemphasize that aspect.

[TCM]

I think maybe the desperation thing would work better in a situation where combat is difficult but not unavoidable or constant, and the goal is independent from the battle. Maybe try to escape across a war-torn city or something. If you make combat suicide, it serves to discourage it, which conflicts with the game's purpose if you make that combat the main component. For example, Call of Cthulhu has difficult combat, but the point is to avoid confrontations and try to survive investigations, so the difficulty serves to shape the experience and deemphasize that aspect.

An interesting notion. I appreciate the feedback, as I do feel like the game needs to be amped up in one regard or another. One issue with the concept of having a "Last Stand" is that the players are pretty much static, stuck to one location. If there were more mobility and more goals, I feel as a GM I could do more than just "Spawn more enemies and attack players" each turn. That would change the whole course of the game, but I feel like that may be necessary to keep it fresh and engaging.

[kj1225]

Like Mario.

Although I thought of Pokemon first and now I'm trying to figure out a Pokemon scenario for this.

[Remuthra]

In that case, perhaps the solution is an objective system of some sort? Offer rewards such as lives and better equipment for performing specific tasks such as capturing X position or killing Y unit. That way, the goal changes and the players are focused not on winning combat but on manipulating the system to accomplish a goal. That would also make things such as lighter-armored, more mobile troops more viable.