New Game Boxed Set GM Advice: hey we intend fights to be challenging, yet beatable, in the vein of our source material. But sometimes things go wrong. If you end up with your adventuring party defeated, you can do a couple things! If you've planned ahead, you might have a story in mind, but we recognize not everyone has practiced that skill, and this might be your first tabletop game. If you're good at improvising, you might want to play it out - but just like above, that's a skill that takes developing! You aren't expected to magically have that.
Boxed Set: So look, what you can do if the unexpected happens and your party loses, you can have an NPC come in and save the day - that's in line with our source material, it's super legit, here are some examples - but also, that's not always something players appreciate, and who can blame them, they're the viewpoint characters and if you don't pull it off with a good vibe, it can feel like you're stealing their thunder and then billing them for it, so use this one with caution and read your group. You know them better than we do!
Boxed Set: Honestly, there's nothing wrong with going wow, friends, you weren't supposed to lose there. How about we reset the fight and try it again? That's also super in line with our source material. Sometimes, parties in Acclaimed MMO Final Fantasy 14 With a Free Trial Etc Etc wipe out on a boss or even on random enemies, that's okay, you reset and try again, right? And it's not like we track that in-character, haha, can you imagine the Griffin not only chiding you for being Sloppy but being like "and this is the fifth time you've all grouped up to fight me, what makes you think it'll go any better", no it's always the First Time, good gracious. Similarly, taking a moment to talk about enemy mechanics is fine, and if it's really overtuned, giving players a buff could be very good!
Boxed Set: And frankly, if all else fails, or even if you just feel like it, there is nothing wrong with saying "and we are going to skip this encounter and move on, would you like to describe how it went?" because ultimately, being stuck on a fight is just no fun. Again, that might not ALWAYS be what you want to do, check with your group, but you are explicitly permitted to do so and it's not a mark of shame.
Some Rando Who Had A Website Once And Still Has A Platform For Some Reason: This game gives the most horrible DM advice out there. It's awful. It's terrible. It's the worst, it's horrid, you should buy my book instead, where I give REAL DM advice.
A whole bunch of people: whoah hey fucko, this is actually good DM advice, and more importantly it's targeted towards this specific game, which is ALWAYS more useful than some broad principles when it comes to running the game in question. Also, the game is explicitly aiming to emulate the experience of playing this specific finals fantasy game, and we think it kinda does a decent job at that, especially with the advice to help... with that experience? Of being the final fantasy MMO RPG?
SRWHAWOASHAPFSR: This game emphatically DOES NOT do ANYTHING to emulate Final Fantasy! If it did, there would be game mechanics in place to emulate save points. Instead, the game designers offloaded the problem on the shoulders of the poor GM. GMs deserve better game design, not bad advice. And I say that as a FF fan. Buy MY BOOK.
Me, right now, throwing my witchly hands up in a curse: You block-headed fool! You are confusing non-mechanical in-world representational talismans for game mechanics! What could be more Save Point than "ah! reset to how things were before we began the fight"? Indeed, what could be LESS work on the 'poor GM' than "refill your HP and MP and reset conditions, while I reset the boss fight"? No! You are fixated on the aesthetic and your sad and pathetic pixel-fetishism will forever lock you into a cycle of samsara while you ignore anything that does not fit your rigid, decrepit vision of how things must be and look! A pox on you! May your intestine crawl up your gastric passages and strangle what is left of your brain so the shit coming out of your mouth may be literal instead!
More seriously, like - what... what mechanics could you NEED to emulate a Save Point other than "ok, let's reset"? If you really want to dress it up, sure, you can: you can say 'you register your party and the world-state at this point and we reset FROM HERE' but what's stopping the DM from putting one of those before every boss fight - and even if they don't, with the way this RPG is structured, it's not that hard to just rewind the fights, since it gestures at "these are all staged setpiece fights, here are the staging directions for this adventure" as a practice for the game? Do you want "maintaining multiple save files" because that's cool in a way, but also much more work for the DM? Do you want to track some sort of consumable that lets you save but only when you have a typewriter ribbon or cassette tape? The "mechanics" of a "save point" are "WELCOME BACK, THINGS ARE AS THEY WERE"! That's all you need! What the FUCK are you talking about, mister former Escapist fuckoff man?
Ultimately I don't even need the answer; I KNOW that you're talking shit because you are a grifter; you don't care that you dug yourself into a discussion grave, because you don't need to be right, you just need to be loud enough for people to see your posts and you may or may not be a final fantasy fanperson, that's immaterial, what's important is that you SAY you are in order to score quick points with the gullible
And the ONLY reason this bothers me is that it mirrors some mistaken good-faith beliefs that I keep running into, mistaking diegesis for mechanics, mistaking aesthetics and setting for mechanics, and also that loud foolishness vexes and tasks me but what is anyone supposed to do about that other than endure, lmao
and yeah it kinda fuckin bothers me that ACTUAL GOOD USEFUL ON-TARGET SPECIFIC DM ADVICE is being singled out by hidebound jargon-fetishist grifters, because the more that shit gets ingrained in the public consciousness the less likely we are to see actual movement outside the would-be mystery-cult (who has no idea what a mystery cult IS but sure would like to grift as one) mythified Magical DM Thinking Advice grift movement but just
Auuuuuurgh.