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Heroic Knight
 
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| I think this is a pointless question because the answer will differ not only from encounter to encounter but from system to system and genre to genre. For example if I am playing "Scavenger LRP" I wouldn't even flinch about being stabbed to death by a monster while I'm down because it is the status quo of the system. It is a high player death, gritty, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, horror system. If a zombie takes me down I deserve to get eaten, otherwise people wouldn't be so shit scarred all the time and the atmosphere would be nowhere near as tense. If I am playing "Bladelands LRP" and I'm on a linear killing some Orcs I wouldn't expect it. It is a system that rewards heroism and if I go charging into a group of 20 orcs, get taken down and get my throat slit, I'd be a little miffed. However if I was in a specific encounter against the Uber Outsider Number 1, I again wouldn't flinch at being mercilessly throat slit and killed in an instant. Its all situation and game dependant, there will never be a hard and fast rule for the hobby. I think half the stuff alot of people have written on this thread is incorrect because what some people have put applies to one event/situation but not to another. Matt J
If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!
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Prodigal
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ChessyPig (5/1/2008)
Ooh, can I kill the thread by resorting to theory wibble bollocks?
Do you have to? Its a new version of Godwin's Law you know.
_____________________________________________________ It is not a competition. It is a web forum.
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Knight
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If NPC roles are just as real in the setting as PC roles then hell yes unless it goes against the role in question.
Most combat-centric PCs I know will put at least a couple of extra hits on or out and out dismember an opponent after they've apparently gone down assuming another threat isn't right in their face. It's not worth the risk that the enemy is faking and will get up as soon as your back is turned to either run away or to stab the careless character in the back. Why should any intelligent NPC behave any differently unless their own motivation explicitly demands it?
Your traditional unintelligent NPC 'monster' roles have even less reason to stop. Is the average zombie going to be particularly quick on determining that it should stop hitting someone just because it's stopped hitting back? Is a blood crazed fanatic going to stop until you're chunky bits unless someone else hits them? Is the starving wolfman going to ignore the nice meal that's just hit the ground in front of him?
As for any PC unfortunate enough to be down with no backup close enough to lay down covering fires of some kind... In the average high combat PvM event, by the time PC resources have been depleted to the point that one of them has gone down with out back up they'll have killed a significant number of what ever their main foe is locally. It's going to be a rare opponent who isn't going to take that at least a little personally.
PCs should be very much hoping that the NPCs want them alive or they should expect exactly as much quarter as they give to the NPCs.
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Heroic Knight
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Well thats understandable from a roleplaying persective, that monsters would attack downed players, and I can see why.
But being a meta gaming fool i am, i dont, partly out of a sense of sportsmanship, as a monster I'm there to entertain the players not kill their characters, but because invariably in most encounters I dont have time, and if i do its better to keep em as hostages and let the ref decide their fate.
Weak I know but still its only a game.
____________________________________As the old robot saying goes "does not compute"
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Wag
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Xollob (5/5/2008)
partly out of a sense of sportsmanship, as a monster I'm there to entertain the players not kill their characters
That depends on the game - "sportsmanship" will mean different things in different games. I would say that a major part of sportsmanship is grasping that different games have different mores - if you attend a game where people have paid to face serious monsters who won't back down from killing and you back down from killing, you haven't been "sportsmanly" - you've just been as big a jerk as if you've engaged in a killing spree in a game where such things were not expected.
Marios
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Champion
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| In Insurrection, we've decided that we see the setting as one where, yes, if you get taken down then there's a fair chance that you will get murderised. However, we don't think that just anyone should be stabbing folks on the ground, so: 1. You can't stab folks on the ground, unless you have the Coup de Grace skill
2. You can't "play dead" and lie on the ground if you're conscious, unless you have the Feign Death skill So you can choose to be a murderer, and you can choose to be a sneaky sort...
---
Joe Rooney
Insurrection LRP: high fantasy in a dystopian setting. First event: 24-26 October 2008, in Leicestershire. Book online before August 1st for maximum discount!
Bladelands: Raoul Ortez, dubious scumbag, and Alessandro the deathknight
EOS: staff
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Knight
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Xollob (4/30/2008)
Simple as, should monsters attack downed players, or just leave them and focus on other players?
Personally I think that monsters should not as if a player is down, then either the entire party is about to be smegged, or the player is a wizard or scout and the rest of the party are more of a threat, that and the fact that this is a game and its just not sporting really.
Feel free to discussWell ten out of ten for opening a can of worms here. Basically what you are asking depends on the system you are in and what is trying to be achived by monsters attacking you in the first place. Far too often people say that the funtion of a monster attack is because the players want a 'mosh' In other words the attack is only a footnote in the campaign, the outcome is predetermined (IE the monstrs get slaughtered to a man ) then no .. Monsters shouldent attack downed players.. but the people briefing the monsters should remember to tell the people monstering that they have no hope of victory, they are only there for recrteational reasons.. and not to try to influence the game in any way. However if the organisers are attempting to run a more realistic system.. (where orcs dont have a lemming like tendancy to attack the heavily fortified command groups of powerful nations) then this behaviour is not only allowable but should be expected. (IF it is within the characterisation of the monsters to do so) IE if you want to survive.. Learn to rout, beg for mercy, bribe your enemies in order to let you live etc etc Now there is a massive grey area between these two extremes.. and im not trying to say one end of the scale is any better than the other. What I AM saying is that event organisers should be more honest about where they are trying to be. IE you either say.. We have brutally realistic fights where if you enter one there is a real chance your character will snuff it OR you say that you can have Amazingly unrealistic fights where you can personally slay 50 kobolds each with no chance of death. (or somwhere inbetween)
PD: Head of economics
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Knight
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Sarah (5/1/2008)Its a new version of Godwin's Law you know. Godwins law? Wasnt that invented by the Nazi's?
PD: Head of economics
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