I had one Shadowrun session where Joe had to do a retcon for something that would have severely messed up my spellcaster, after we all remembered *several* minutes after the fact that my character has been invisible, and that couldn't have happened that way.

Well, yeah, but that wasn't several *sessions* later, so I had no real problem with it.

I've had two incidences (back under D&D 2.0), where a particular fight led to a TPK, which each time prompted the DM to open the next session with the words, "Okay. You all wake up from the terrible shared nightmare where you all died."

Then there was the GURPS Supers game wherein we all died, and it turned out to be a "Danger Room" session.

I played with a guy who did whatever the hell he felt like regardless of whether it fucked with other players and the GM did nothing to correct him. I don't play with that GM anymore.

I just read a passage in an MIT pub that invokes the "nuh-uh factor" in explaining games. Am amused.

Blimey, that's a lot of posts...

"Remember when I did that thing that didn't work out so well and it led us to this course of action and ultimately to where we are now? Well, you read the rules wrong and we should re-do it from there."

I stand here boggled.

"A flaming cow falls from the sky!"

Mooteor!

Sox, insent.

received amych - with thanks! will likely volley tomorrow sometime.

Survey? Do you tabletop gamers expect computer-like do-overs while playing D&D or similar? Or is it more "like real life" and you always deal with the consequences of your actions?

I'm pretty much with Pete and MM here. Unless the DM screwed up by mis-reading a rule or forgetting a key effect/situation/ability/whatever or the player misunderstood something that would be blatantly obvious to his character, there's no take-backs or retcons. I've been known to occaisionally give a player an incredulous "Are you sure?" if they're about to do something really stupid (or else say "Okay" in a tone of voice that suggests it's very much not) but once they confirm their foolish/risky action, they have to accept the consequences. One of my friend's characters managed to die over a dozen times over the course of one my campaigns because he kept doing foolhardy things.

That said, I have been known to fudge things as a DM if things start going to hell in a handbasket through no fault of the players to let them squeak their way out of a situation by the skin of their teeth, but that's for the sake of everyone's enjoyment. TPK are rarely fun outside of one-shots, IMO, at least not in games where everyone has a fully-fleshed out character and have a stake in the story the DM is trying to tell.

Also, from a logistic's standpoint, do-overs are a lot harder in PNP RPGs than on a computer. So much changes from round to round that it's nigh-impossible to do a perfect reset unless you take a dedicated "snap shot" of the party at set intervals. I use a "Fate Point" system in my games that allow players to spend them for re-rolls or to modify rolls they're about to make, but that's a more of a it happens differently before it officially has a chance to happen than a true do-over.

I've been known to occaisionally give a player an incredulous "Are you sure?" if they're about to do something really stupid (or else say "Okay" in a tone of voice that suggests it's very much not) but once they confirm their foolish/risky action, they have to accept the consequences.

Oh, yeah, I've done that. Sometimes, it even works. "Are you sure?" "...not any more..."

Sometimes it fails with disastrous results of course. Like the Shadowrun session with Sean and NoiseDesign and a few other folk where they decided it would be an awesome idea to take on an armored convoy full of gold bullion with just four guys (one of whom was confined to a wheelchair) and a van.

This wasn't even the main adventure. This was a side adventure.

I mean...I described it to them. "There are six attack choppers, heavy armored cars, Ares Citymasters just dripping with weapons, spirits and elementals up the wazoo and, like, forty guys. This is a crapload of bullion worth probably a couple billion dollars and, uh...speaking as the GM here...there is NO WAY I'm letting you get this gold or keep it. Forget it, let's get back to the main adventure."

Sean: "Hell, no, I want that gold."

ND: "I think we can take 'em."

Me: "You can't. You cannot. Never in any world in the multi-verse will this be a possibility. Forget it."

The Party: (group huddle, mumble mumble mumble BREAK)

ND: "We think we can take 'em."

It didn't last an entire initiative pass. They hit one chopper with an elemental's Accident power and were promptly smacked with a couple missiles. Because I am kindly, they did not get splattered across a chunk of Los Angeles geography. They woke up in custody in the hospital and they no longer had a van or any of the stuff they had with them and any cyberware had been suppressed.

Me: "So, guys...what do you do?"

ND: "Well, can we find where the gold went?"

Me: (has stroke, dies)

I once played under a GM who insisted in running in real time. As in, it's your turn to move, you tell him immediately what you're going to do. You don't answer right away, he moves on to the next in order.

Which made a certain sense at one point when the campaign got unwieldy with something like 17 players alone. (He couldn't say no to someone who wanted to join.) But very frustrating if you wanted to ask a question about something your character would know, but you wouldn't.

We accepted it for a long time because he was a very creative GM. Took Runequest and expanded it into a more-or-less universal system. Well, plus, by the time he got too annoying, he and I were both going to graduate in a few months anyway.

I once played under a GM who insisted in running in real time. As in, it's your turn to move, you tell him immediately what you're going to do. You don't answer right away, he moves on to the next in order.

That can suck, but I've had to do a "fifteen-second" rule once or twice myself. Mainly for one player in particular who would wander away from the table or do something else so that when it came time for his move, he would waste a lot of time figuring out what was going on.

At one point it was so ridiculous his character ended up getting hit by a grenade blast that everyone else had run away from some time before. Doofus was just standing out there in the open.

"But I would have ducked!"

"Dude, it took a whole initiative pass until this thing exploded. During that time, you had two chances to move. Had you been paying attention and not off doing whatever, you would have been able to get your character out of harms way. As it is, you stood there like a fucking moron while bullets whizzed all around you and a grenade blew up four feet from you.

Downside: You are near death.

Upside: The blast did throw you behind some cover.

Now you can toddle off and do whatever you please, because your character is going to be incapacitated for some time."