Building Bhakashal - Finding Holes in Plot Armor
One of the purposes of this blog is to work through materials that may or may not end up in Bhakashal. One of the sections of the game I am planning addresses game design and play style choices. One of the joys of TTRPGs is that they support multiple play styles, and each one creates a different experience at the table. So when game design and play style issues come up on social media, I will periodically comment upon them here.
Twitter has been very helpful for me to clarify my playstyle. BITD, when I ran AD&D games I had no idea how anyone else ran their games. There was a bliss in ignorance. Twitter has, for the last 3 years, exposed me to a whole set of gamers who play D&D very differently than I do. This is, in the main, a good thing. Contrasting your style with others is a great way to pick up new ideas for how you play, hone your approach to the game, and it’s a great reminder that there is a world outside your window where TTRPGs can be very different.
And let’s be clear, PLAY AS YOU LIKE. There is no “right” or “wrong” about playstyles, I really believe that.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t disagree with many things that are being said about the game.
I saw a Tweet this week that made me think about game mechanics a bit. I generally don’t quote tweet or directly address people on Twitter when I disagree, as I have been told in the past that QT’in someone can lead to them being “piled on” by people looking to start a fight. I have zero desire to “start fights” on Twitter. So rather than identify the OP, I will discuss it here.
The Tweet in question suggested that PCs should always die in a glorious or heroic way, and that the DM should make that happen, and that D&D without “plot armor” might as well be a video game.
I don’t play that way, but I get how one might feel the need to. It’s fun to be the hero, and it’s fun to go out doing something heroic. So while I may not fudge dice or save PCs, I understand how some people like playing this way. So from a playstyle perspective, I have no objection to any part of the argument.
However… three things stood out about the argument, and are worth a bit of digging.
1. Plot Armor
The argument is that the DM should be giving their PCs “plot armor” so they don’t die a mundane or unremarkable death. The issue I have with this is that D&D WAS DESIGNED WITH PLOT ARMOR FOR YOUR PCs. So going further, “adding” plot armor to the PCs, is doubling down on an existing design feature. You can, of course, do this if you like, but I would argue that it distorts the gaming experience in important ways.
Allow me to elucidate.
Take an average peasant farmer in D&D. They will have 1-6 hp, they need to roll an 11 to hit AC 10, so that means they have a flat 50% chance to hit and damage an opponent with no armor. Their saving throws are all 16 and above (translation, their best save odds are 25%). Most will die from a single successful hit with a longsword.
Nasty, brutish and short.
Now, take your average 3rd level fighter. Not a mid level or high level fighter, just 3rd level.
Ignoring stat based bonuses, that fighter has 3d10 hp compared to 1d6, they have a 65% chance to hit an unarmored opponent, and their saves are 15% to 20% better across the board.
Hit points and saving throws are plot armor! Think it through for a moment. In 95% of the game world, farmers, burghers, merchants, etc. are extremely vulnerable and will never have more than 1-6 hp. PCs have HP to burn in BTB D&D, and HP are plot armor! They allow you to survive fights that would easily slay regular PCs, they allow you to fight at full strength for long periods of time where an average person would have long ago died.
But HP are only the start! Saving throws, as a mechanism, are entirely plot armor. Gygax states this as clear as day, PCs should ALWAYS have a chance, no matter how small, to survive. A PC, chained to a rock, with a dragon approaching to breathe fiery death upon them, should STILL get a saving throw to see if they survive. They always have a chance.
THAT’S PLOT ARMOR!!!!
HP and saving throws represent the game design manifestation of plot armor, their expressed purpose is to make heroes heroic, to ensure that your game character has a shot at surviving the crazy dangerous game world.
So what does it mean to suggest, despite this, that the DM STILL needs to give the PCs “plot armor”?
First off, it represents the DM working against the game design. To be clear, have at it if that is what play style your players enjoy at the table. But also be clear that you are making a play style decision that doesn’t align with the game design. The game is already biased towards giving the PCs plot armor, to give them MORE plot armor is to effectively ignore the point of the game design decision.
Again, not a problem if that is the way you want to play, but worth pointing out.
What this does, IMO, is lead to a game that feels less challenging, where the excitement can be drawn right out of the game. D&D characters are perceived as superheroes, not fantasy heroes, and this is one of the reasons. D&D PCs become superheroes as you are doubling down on the design, taking characters that were already wearing a good amount of plot armor and you are ensuring (through fudging dice, decreasing monster HP on the fly, etc.) that they have even more.
If combat is a chore in your D&D game, this might be one reason why.
2. Killer DMs
Problem number 2 is that using “plot armor” like this means that it is the DM, AND ALWAYS THE DM, that kills PCs. This makes sense if you think it through, if you are treating D&D like a story, and the DM controls the story, then the DM decides when important things happen, as they influence the results to “tell a story”. Letting the dice decide, however, means that the DM doesn’t decide when a PC dies.
But wait, you say, “The DM controls the game world, creates the encounters, populates the tables, etc, etc, etc, so the DM is always responsible for PC deaths, even if they ‘let the dice decide’.” I’ve seen people go so far as to claim that DMs who disagree with this position are “self-deluding” or attempting to “hide behind the dice”
I think this is both childish and a fundamentally flawed understanding of D&D game mechanics.
The reason it seems to be the case that the DM in an old school game kills the PCs is that people are playing D&D in a playstyle where the DM HAS TO BE THE ONE TO KILL THE PCs, as they are giving out plot armor like drunken sailors and serving a “story”. It makes sense, if the DM is to intervene to make sure that every PC gets a “dramatic” death, by definition the DM is responsible for every PC death.
Or, put in another way, if you DON’T give your PCs plot armor, you just rely on HP and saving throws to “protect” the PC, then you are leaving it up to an independent factor to determine if PCs get lucky. For a referee that does not protect the PCs (e.g. rolls in the open, doesn’t fudge, doesn’t adjust monster HP on the fly to help the PCs), an independent element of the game is the one that decides the fate of the PCs.
In “plot armor” D&D, the referee decides.
Roll that one over in your mind for a moment. In one game, the environment created by the DM, the choices made by the players, and independent, random dice rolls decide the fate of a PC. In the other, the DM decides the fate of the PCs, as any result could be turned over to protect them or give them a “glorious death”. So when someone suggests you should give PCs in D&D plot armor, they are essentially saying that the life and death of their PCs is in the DM’s hands.
Gygax believed that heroes should ALWAYS have a chance to cheat death, so he interpreted this game mechanically in terms of hit points and saving throws, he built plot armor into the game.
Why do that? Why not just let the DM “save” or “condemn” the PCs as they saw fit?
My belief is that Gygax did this as he wanted the DM to be impartial, a neutral arbiter, not a “killer DM”, nor a “Monty haul DM”, but a referee that adjudicates the game to ensure that it’s challenging and fair. Because D&D is, for Gygax at least, a GAME, and games should be fair. So even though the DM controls quite literally the WHOLE GAME WORLD, they don’t decide PC actions (players do that) and HP and saves mean that PCs have a leg up on survival.
Even though a DM can in principle structure the environment such that the PC dies no matter what the dice say, when you give things over to a dice roll of any kind, whether it be for HP or for a save, the DM is giving up control of the game at that precise mechanical juncture.
This giving up of control, this moment where EVERYONE at the table is beholden to a random factor dice roll, is the heart of old-school D&D. The DM creates the environment and challenges, the players decide on the PCs actions, but at specific points in the game like HP rolls and saving throws, neither the DM nor the players determine outcomes, the dice do.
It’s a beautiful thing. And it is, IMO, a significant source of verisimilitude and immersion, just like real life, sometimes you have no control over what happens, the world is independent of you. At the table, the dice rolls are the analogue to this independence of the world to your will. They represent reality pushing back against or rewarding your desires. I would never remove the agency of the dice in the game, they breathe life into it.
3. The Weight
But perhaps my largest objection to this interpretation of the game, and the reason I dislike the play style choice it represents, is that it puts too much responsibility on the DM’s shoulders. I DON’T WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PC’S DEATHS. I have seen any number of Twitter posts from DMs who are sad and guilty about “killing PCs”. I never really understood this, it made as much sense to me as someone being guilty about rolling on a weather table or rolling 2 dragons in the number appearing for an encounter.
But now, of course, it makes perfect sense. If you run your D&D as a storytelling exercise, then the narrator, or in this case the DM, is responsible for the eventual outcome at the table. So of course a DM who experiences a character death will feel guilty and responsible, BECAUSE THEY ARE! Why? Well, if the DM is expected to intervene to maintain “story”, then any character success or character death is the result of them saying either, “I will change this result as it doesn’t agree with what the story demands” or “I will leave this result as it agrees with what the story demands”. But it's the DM’s responsibility either way, if they choose to let the dice stand that’s their decision as well.
I think this is an incredible amount of power to give to one person at the table. As a matter of fact, given the “story game” crowd’s propensity to worry about safety tools and “toxic gaming”, it blows my mind that they advocate for this sort of refereeing. The potential for abuse is off the scale.
Now that I think of it this way it’s obvious. How many tweets have I seen where people ask, “But what if my players short-circuit the challenge of the game by doing X”, the need for control is so complete that they can’t handle it when players outsmart their opponents, or avoid a challenge in the game. Because the DM controls everything.
Think about it, you are a referee for a game that gives YOU control over the ENTIRE GAME WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT, and gives you the ability to MAKE UP NEW RULES OR ADJUDICATE OLD ONES, and you decide it's a good idea to let the referee OVERRULE THE ONLY COMPONENTS OF THE GAME THAT ARE NOT WITHIN THEIR POWER.
It’s madness. I was once accused of having a “god complex” because of running an old-school game, you know, those grognards, they are power tripping losers who want to play god. Then I see people saying stuff like this, that the DM should have the ultimate power over players, the ability to save or destroy their avatars in the game, the power of life and death, to extend, or end their story.
And grogs have the “god complex”.
Please.
“But wait, story focused DM’s only want their players to have a good time, they wouldn’t use their power to be abusive or play favorites, they want to tell a good story”. I would normally agree with this, but I’ve sat through endless threads where old-school DMs said the same thing, “hey, the DM may be “god”, but they are a benevolent god”, and were told that this was naïve, privileged, toxic, made excuses for abuse, etc., etc., etc.
The lack of self-awareness around these issues is wild.
Play as you like, if you want to take on the responsibility of deciding life or death, if you want to run a game where you have to vet each result and decide if it “fits the story”, and if you want to remove the ability of the game to surprise YOU that comes from using random dice rolls to determine certain results, have at it.
But in my opinion this works against the design of the game and puts far too much responsibility on your shoulders.
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