# Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.



## fissionessence (Sep 27, 2008)

So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)

It seems there should come a time where only extraordinary examples from among mortal races should pose any threat to the PCs.

~


----------



## ExploderWizard (Sep 27, 2008)

This is one area where 4E kind of doesn't deliver on the promise that the heroes are "special". The PC's are special because they are doing the deeds that no one else is doing and not always because they are the only ones who can. 

Eventually PC's will face NPC's with classes and levels much like them in ability but on the other team. From a logic standpoint there have to be NPC's with the same abilities and skills as the PC's, or else they never could have trained.


----------



## Zsig (Sep 27, 2008)

The same way you justify an acrobatics check to avoid slipping on a pool of water at lvl 30 having a DC of 28 while, a lvl 1 character on the very same pool of water would need only to roll a 10.

Short answer: just don't.


----------



## malraux (Sep 27, 2008)

I have no problem with the idea that some pirates raid mind flayer islands on the astral sea.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Sep 27, 2008)

> malraux wrote:
> I have no problem with the idea that some pirates raid mind flayer islands on the astral sea.




brave pirates.


----------



## Dausuul (Sep 27, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)




Generally speaking, I don't.  I despise that crap and always have.  If you don't want high-level PCs being able to wipe the floor with the city guard, then don't use a game system where the PCs' combat power increases exponentially with level.  (Or else ratchet down the PCs' advancement rate, or cap their advancement at a point you're comfortable with.)

In my campaigns, random guards are mooks.  Previous to 4E, they were in the level 1-3 range.  Now that we have the minion rules, they can be up to level 8-9 minions (but that's for very tough, disciplined soldiers; remember that legion devils start at 6, and any fighting force tougher and more disciplined than legion devils has to be pretty bad-ass).

To me, this is vital for maintaining immersion.  Players have to have a sense of how powerful their PCs are in the grand scheme of things.  If you're a 15th-level PC, you should be able to say confidently that you can carve your way through a bunch of guardsmen without breaking a sweat.  The guardsmen should not suddenly shoot up ten levels because some paragon-tier PCs wandered through town.  I would mercilessly mock any DM who pulled that kind of baloney.

Now, that doesn't mean PCs will never face high-level NPC foes.  But when they run up against such enemies, there should be a definite sense that they are facing people who are really special - like the PCs themselves.  These folks are not random guards or wandering thugs.  They are important characters with reputations, maybe even legends.

I remember when I was playing the first expansion pack to NWN2, I got into a bar fight.  My party consisted of four or five 19th-level characters (and remember, this was under 3.5 rules).  Properly speaking, a bar fight at that level in 3.X ought to go something like this:

"The fighter sends the thug and fifteen of his buddies sailing across the room with one swing of his barstool, looking rather like Sauron in the movie version of _Fellowship of the Ring_. The cleric utters a brief prayer and everyone in the bar is dazzled by a flare of holy light, leaving them stunned. Then the wizard wiggles a finger and the building explodes. Meanwhile, the rogue has picked the pockets of everyone in the room, emptied the till, and found the tavern owner's secret stash under the floorboards."

Instead I found my party of supreme bad-ass heroes having a rough time with a bunch of lowlifes in a bar.  It totally yanked me out of the game world and killed my interest in the story (not permanently, but enough that I quit out of the game and didn't get around to starting up again for a while).


----------



## frankthedm (Sep 27, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is one area where 4E kind of doesn't deliver on the promise that the heroes are "special".



Agreed in that the language specifically indicated even 1st level PCs are special.


----------



## Aristotle (Sep 27, 2008)

I agree that the standard "guard" shouldn't go up in level just because the party did. The force of 2nd level minions who manned the guard towers at 1st level is still mostly comprised of 2nd level minions at 9th level. Of course, if you run afoul of them and they sound the alarm... you might find yourself facing the 10th level special forces division that recruits adventurers and veterans and adheres to strict training programs. In a more well established city, or a more militant culture, higher levels would be reasonable as well.

Also, a single stat block for all guards is a little generic. I'll throw in a 4th level character now and then. An up and comer with a violent past or a natural aptitude for combat. The players don't know all of that of course... they just know this one can take a hit and dish out more of the same.

The captain of the guard could totally be 30th level, a veteran with a solid reputation locally but little renown elsewhere. The men who travel with him and assist him might be 26th level. They are not just subordinates; they are trusted allies who have seen battle more than once with their captain.

There was a 3rd edition thread about an epic level inspector. I very much follow the philosophy that an individual can achieve high levels without being known around the world.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 27, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)



What is this, Oblivion? Blech. 

My answer: I don't. This is bad adventure design.




fissionessence said:


> It seems there should come a time where only extraordinary examples from among mortal races should pose any threat to the PCs.
> 
> ~



Agreed.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 27, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)
> 
> It seems there should come a time where only extraordinary examples from among mortal races should pose any threat to the PCs.
> 
> ~





As others have said, I don't do this as such.  The Imarr City Guard are ca 3rd level when the PCs are 1st, and still 3rd level when the PCs are 20th.

I do create rare ultra-elite military units, such as the 15th level Malgedan Sunguard - the personal Emperor's guard of a 10,000-year-dead inter-dimensional empire awoken from a Stasis Vault for one final battle... But I don't think that's what you're thinking of.  

The general rule with City Guard police types is that, if they are successfully keeping order (not, eg, Rio de Janeiro police) then they must be tougher than their typical opposition.  So these days I try to avoid the Gygaxian trope of zero-level city guards, unless the city is inherently very peaceful & orderly.  In 3e, 3rd level Warrior is typical, if I ran 4e something like the MM Human Guard looks reasonable.  The interdimensional metropolis Nexus has city guards who are 6th level Fighters.  

Likewise, with pirates - most typical pirates are going to be low level, in 3e 1st or 2nd level Warriors is typical.  Inter-dimensional Reavers like the crew of the Rogue Mistress might be 6th or even 8th level Fighters and such, but I'm not going to go above that.  9th level characters are Lords, in any D&D game I run, and aside from Emperor's-Personal-Bodyguard are almost never encountered in multiples.

Edit: I haven't run 4e but I'm satisfied from reading rpgnet threads that 4e is not intended to function with fixed NPC stats.  So rather than keep the NPC Guard/Pirate stats constant, the trick is to keep their XP award constant and change the stats to fit the XP.  As the PCs advance in levels the same pirate may go from being a Solo to Brute to Minion - durability goes down, offense goes up, overall threat stays constant.


----------



## blargney the second (Sep 27, 2008)

I have mid- to high-level NPCs all over the place when I'm DMing.  They're just not on stage until they're needed.  Heck, I usually assume that any adult starts at 3rd to 5th level, and they simply range upwards from there.

I suppose it comes down to a personal threshold of believability.  I set mine high and just play the game. *shrug*
-blarg


----------



## Jack99 (Sep 27, 2008)

IMC, level 15 minions (if I would ever use them) would be something like the private guard of something/someone really powerful. Regular guards (minions) won't make it past 6th-8th level at the most.


----------



## Isildrae Kyuss (Sep 27, 2008)

Keeping the level of such guards as a constant is a good idea. scale the xp accordingly. You should find that the players last longer having to battle through critters below their level but will get worn down by attrition. Through in the odd high-end scale one-off monster, a lurking monster or trapped demon and the players won't stay complacent.


----------



## Gort (Sep 27, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> It seems there should come a time where only extraordinary examples from among mortal races should pose any threat to the PCs.




Make them drow. The entire race is 150-year old badasses who've trained in combat for a century each, but someone still has to pull guard duty.


----------



## DragonLancer (Sep 27, 2008)

I don't see a problem up to a point. Without some guardsmen, assassin's... etcto challenge the party whats the point? I don't see that players get enjoyment out of their 25th level characters beating the snot out of a bunch of 1st/2nd level guards more than once. To some extent, the campaign world does need to escalate along with the characters.


----------



## Runestar (Sep 27, 2008)

I think the question is - where do they come from, and why are they doing mundane tasks such as guard duty when their talents would obviously have them promoted to much more important responsibilities? 

You won't see a lv20 fighter doing guard duty at the entrance of a mall...it would be a simple waste of resources!


----------



## Gold Roger (Sep 27, 2008)

Just to clear things up a bit, the adventure in question doesn't have a bunch of mid paragon level guards just standing there on duty or anything like that.

It does have an assassination attempt and a bunch of pirates at the level, which I have no problem. I'd assume that these are no ordinary pirates, but one of the "finest" pirate crews out there, a true terror of the sea.

It should also be noted that in 4th edition equal level npcs are by no means true equals to the PCs. PCs are more like elites of their level. And a 15th level minion certainly isn't really a 15th level character. He's more like a tenth or eighth level character that is stated differently because at that level he represents a different kind of challange to the PC's.

Also I'd say that 15th leve is, over all, of a different quality than it was in other editions. In older editions 15th level was the beginning of the very high level, while today a 15th level char is only at exactly mid level.

The bottom line is that for me normal human and humanoid npcs of paragon level and minions into early epic level are ok if they represent elites and exceptional groups.

I'd be willing to even accept groups of epic level npcs if they represent ruly legendary organisations. An example for this would be a truly exalted order of knights, whose normal members could be about one hundret epic level minions in relation to epic PC's (paragon characters in "real" levels) and whose inner circle would be about 10 to 20 epic npcs, maybe led by an elite.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 27, 2008)

Gold Roger said:


> I'd be willing to even accept groups of epic level npcs if they represent ruly legendary organisations. An example for this would be a truly exalted order of knights, whose normal members could be about one hundret epic level minions in relation to epic PC's (paragon characters in "real" levels) and whose inner circle would be about 10 to 20 epic npcs, maybe led by an elite.




Yeah, I think that's the best approach in 4e.  The same NPC can be classed as an Elite Solo, Paragon regular NPC, or Epic Minion, depending on the level of the PCs when they interact with him.


----------



## cangrejoide (Sep 27, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is one area where 4E kind of doesn't deliver on the promise that the heroes are "special". The PC's are special because they are doing the deeds that no one else is doing and not always because they are the only ones who can.
> 
> Eventually PC's will face NPC's with classes and levels much like them in ability but on the other team. From a logic standpoint there have to be NPC's with the same abilities and skills as the PC's, or else they never could have trained.




Well I don't see what's different now from earlier editions, just pick any high level old module and you will see a lot of high level guards/mooks. This has been a staple of D&D as long as I can remember.

But if this bothers you , just change the guards nature to high level creatures or just make em into mooks and try to challenge your PCs another way.


----------



## Weregrognard (Sep 27, 2008)

Short Answer: Like people said: it's a metagame thing, don't think about it.

Long Answer: Tougher heroes attract the attention of tougher enemies.  Ex. 1: You may have bested Lord Shacklethorne's  lowly goons in the past, but now he has spared no expense in getting rid of your meddling selves.  He has  hired the dreaded Shadow Knives of Zalthur Mountain.  Once you're marked by the Shadow Knives, you might as well write your will.   Ex. 2: It is said the fortress of Greyheim is impregnable, not so much because of its formidable defenses, but also because it is the home of the elite Order of the Cracked Anvil, whose members have pledged their lives to guard it.  Ex. 3: Mate, yer takin' on Bloody Salvros?!  They say his crew is made up not only of the cruelest scallawags this side of the Four Seas, but that he also tortured a sea hag into giving him the secret of controlling strange and unwholesome things from beyond the Deep.


----------



## Fallen Seraph (Sep 27, 2008)

I view it just like I view the PCs. If the PCs exist at such levels then others must as well, some off ill-repute included. Not many but some.

They simply are less relevant in earlier levels since the PCs have not yet entered into such a range of responsibility as to be noticed by them.


----------



## Mercule (Sep 27, 2008)

Because the PCs are facing tougher organizations.  If a group of 15th level PCs wanted to attack a large city, they could mow through the entirety of the city watch, the militia, 90% of the lord's soldiers/knights, 90% of the clergy, and 90% of the wizard guild without breaking a sweat.  Of that remaining 10% of the elites, 90% would be a gentle workout.  That last fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction would be a reasonable match for the 15th level party.

For most PC-race-centric adventures, you're only dealing with that ultra-elite portion.  It may be because they're plotting evil away from prying eyes, because they're secreting themselves in an otherwise good town, because the PCs get by the lesser guards with a swagger and grin that's not worth mentioning, or some other reason.

I haven't read the Sea Reavers, yet, but if they truly are just shlubs statted as 15th level foes, it's bad adventure design.  On the other hand, if there's something special about them, even if it's just that they're essentially adventurers with a pirate motif, then I'm perfectly fine with one ultra-elite pirate ship out there.


----------



## Spatula (Sep 27, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level?



They're very good at their job, elite pirates or what have you.  But I think this is why paragon and epic games are (by the book) supposed to shift the action aware from fighting humans and towards adventures against bigger and badder monsters.

Generally speaking though, it doesn't bother me, up to a point.  Really high level humans should be something special and rare, but what qualifies as "really high level" will differ from person to person.  Dausuul and cangrejoide make a good point in that this is a problem inherent with D&D's power curve, and always has been an issue with the game.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (Sep 27, 2008)

Zsig said:


> The same way you justify an acrobatics check to avoid slipping on a pool of water at lvl 30 having a DC of 28 while, a lvl 1 character on the very same pool of water would need only to roll a 10.
> 
> Short answer: just don't.




This


----------



## Silver Moon (Sep 27, 2008)

The short answer is $, when the main villain has enough of it and wants to really keep his home/treasure/family safe he'll pay top dollar for high calibur guards.   

There are lots of other reasons too why other high-level characters might just happen to be hanging around a palace/keep/ship/headquarters - relatives, friends, friends of relatives, even rival adventurer simultaneously breaking in.


----------



## Treebore (Sep 28, 2008)

Its because my campaign world is a world, not a vacuum in which the players play. There are 100's of millions of classed races in  my world and they are all doing something to improve themselves, to get ahead, to become rich or richer.

If my players expect a town guard to be the same level he was when they were last here 6 months ago thats their fault. He survived a vampire break out and actually survived in helping killing 8 vampire spawn, 3 full vampires, and hopefully the vampire lord herself! The PC's missed out on one heck of a battle! If they buy the guard a few beers after his shift he'll tell them all about it. Oh, and that was just last week! The week before were rats broke out from the sewers and started kidnapping, killing, burning, etc...! Buy me dinner and I'll tell you about that one too!

So I have high level guards, low level guards, etc... because my world is dynamic, not a vacuum form fitted to my players PC's.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

I think some of you are missing the point of what levels represent.

They're not a measure of the absolute power of the NPCs in a game world; they are a measure of their power relative to the PCs. That's all.

When the PCs aren't 'on-screen' nobody has levels. When the PCs do appear, levels are assigned to anybody who interacts with them but those levels *are not* tattood on the NPCs' foreheads.

As for PC levels, they are just another way of distributing reward - as you gain levels you gain new abilities though your absolute power level doesn't necessarily scale (in reference to the game world) the way it appears to on the character sheet.

So if your PCs never fight the guards then nobody ever needs to know their level. If they *do* fight the guards, the players still needn't know their level - it is an *abstraction*. So your 10th level party fighting 6th level minions only knows that the guards are an easy fight. If a 2nd level party came by the next day and fought *the exact same guards* they'd find the now-1st-level-minions slightly less easy.

And if the 2nd level PCs had to interact with the 10th level PCs, shattering the house of cards? Now *that's* poor adventure design. 10th level PCs and 2nd level PCs shouldn't exist in the same universe.

4e is a game, not a simulation. That might suck for those who like to spend all their spare time statting up their entire game world when they should be outside getting some exercise but that's the way it is. Follow the DMG's advice - "don't overprepare your campaign" (151).


----------



## Kishin (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> I think some of you are missing the point of what levels represent.
> 
> They're not a measure of the absolute power of the NPCs in a game world; they are a measure of their power relative to the PCs. That's all.
> 
> ...




QFT, a hundred times over.

4E doesn't concern itself with the 'off screen interaction' of NPC on NPC. Just how the NPCs interact with the PCs. Its deliberate design within the system.


----------



## Jack the Red (Sep 28, 2008)

S'mon said:


> The general rule with City Guard police types is that, if they are successfully keeping order (not, eg, Rio de Janeiro police) then they must be tougher than their typical opposition.




Hey, brazilian policeman are not low-level, they are just CE.

I think it depends on the setting, I've DMed a pirate fantasy setting for 3.5 that had all the pirates level 5+, (partly that was what kept them stronger then any city guard). So when the players were facing a pirate, they knew it was serious business.


----------



## Walknot (Sep 28, 2008)

You play in a world where your PC's can progress quickly, could be a week per level if events allow constant adventuring, so that in less than 1 year in game you are a legendary PC.  Given that NPC's could do the same (or even at 1/10 the speed), then you are gonna have plenty of high level foes.  

As to why you are not encountering these high level NPC's and getting killed off early on, well that would not be much of a story.  Anyway, the hi-level evil leader won't pay any more attention to your group than the hi-level good leader.  In both cases, they have people for that sort of thing, and that is who you interact with.


----------



## Delta (Sep 28, 2008)

cangrejoide said:


> Well I don't see what's different now from earlier editions, just pick any high level old module and you will see a lot of high level guards/mooks. This has been a staple of D&D as long as I can remember.




I'd like to see an example of that in a Gygax 1E adventure.

One thing that was nice in the 1E DMG was tables for city guard/wilderness patrol groups with specific levels attached for soldiers vs. leaders (maxed out at around 8th level for army captains). That set a very nice baseline for what everyone could expect playing AD&D. It looks like that kind of thing is anti-4E-philosophy.

Personally I got highly aggravated when, playing under one DM in 3E, we walk into a random room and there's three 15th-level goblins.  I mean, sore the mechanics support that -- but those should be the emporers of 3 different goblin kingdoms surrounded by armies in the tens-of-thousands (compare to leader levels documented in MM), not rolling dice around a fire.


----------



## Oni (Sep 28, 2008)

Perhaps the player's characters aren't as exponentially badass as they think they are from leveling.  

You 2nd level character goes to the city fights and gets in a fight with the guards who are 2nd level minions.  

A little while later he comes back as an 8th level character and gets in another dustup with the city guards which are now 8th level minions for some reason

If someone insist on thinking in terms of mechanics and not story it might seem odd, but if from a character perspective consider this.  You're a little bit tougher, the guards still pose somewhat of a threat but you've got more ways to deal with them and they're going to have a little harder time bringing you down.  Your character isn't going to have any conception of levels, or think it's weird that he can't beat up on the guards now without a care in the world.  The mechanics are just there to run the game, not dictate the world.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the rules only need to function relative to the PC's nothing else really matters.  

IMO anyway.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Oni said:


> Perhaps the player's characters aren't as exponentially badass as they think they are from leveling.
> 
> You 2nd level character goes to the city fights and gets in a fight with the guards who are 2nd level minions.
> 
> ...





Great post.

I'm amazed that people still can't grasp this.. levels, hit points, the old Vancian magic system, the current x/day powers system, etc, etc, etc... It's all an abstraction designed to facilitate quick gameplay.

I guess it's the stereotypical geek absolutist empirical mindset at work. Some people just need everything to fit neatly into an absolute structure. I'm often guilty of it myself.


----------



## jdrakeh (Sep 28, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level?




I don't need to justify them. Luckily, for me, anybody who is familiar with popular media can easily cite examples of such folks across fiction. 

For example, a great many espionage novels and films hang _entirely_ upon the trope of a lone assassin or a group of assassins supposedly unmatched by others in the world. Look at almost any Bond film. 

Similarly, elite guards are a common fixture in military novels and films, both those set in the present day _and_ in worlds of sci-fi or fantasy. A good example, I think, would be the current television series _The Unit_. 
Also, in both of these types of fiction, the protagonist is almost _always_ set against opponents who can match them blow for blow, not a bunch of petty yahoos.  

I suspect that this model for adventure served as a driving force in the design of D&D 4e, as its rules for minions and NPCs both seem to model the aforementioned tropes of adventure fiction.


----------



## Benimoto (Sep 28, 2008)

I do tend to agree with the OP.  Saying that everything is relative to the PCs can only go so far.  Part of the fun of playing an RPG is character development, and part of that is watching the numbers go up and expecting that they mean something.  If everything stays exactly relative, then those numbers don't really mean much.

I think, that to justify those kinds of high levels among otherwise fairly mundane types of people (guards, pirates, etc.) that you really have to emphasize what is extraordinary about this particular bunch.  Like it's been said, just play up how much better this particular group of pirates/assassins/ninjas/monkeys is than is typical.  15th level PCs are high level and their adventures should reflect it.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Benimoto said:


> I do tend to agree with the OP.  Saying that everything is relative to the PCs can only go so far.  Part of the fun of playing an RPG is character development, and part of that is watching the numbers go up and expecting that they mean something.  If everything stays exactly relative, then those numbers don't really mean much.




Where do you get "exactly relative" from?

Nobody said anything about "exactly relative" - your DM determines just how relative the NPCs are when he assigns levels to them based on how challenging he wants the encounter to be.

Your PCs still get more badass as they level (more powers, meaning more options, for a start) and assuming NPCs don't level at exactly the same rate as the PCs (which should only happen for your super-villains) they will get easier as the PCs level.

So while 1st level town guards might be a mild challenge for your 2nd level party, they will be much less of a challenge for your 10th level party when said guards are 'only' 6th level.


----------



## Delta (Sep 28, 2008)

Oni said:


> If someone insist on thinking in terms of mechanics and not story it might seem odd, but if from a character perspective consider this. You're a little bit tougher, the guards still pose somewhat of a threat but you've got more ways to deal with them and they're going to have a little harder time bringing you down. Your character isn't going to have any conception of levels, or think it's weird that he can't beat up on the guards now without a care in the world. The mechanics are just there to run the game, not dictate the world.




Give me OD&D/Basic/1E over this any day. Once I hit 9th level, I'm recognized as a ruler among men.

As the 40-year-old friend I introduced D&D to said, "If the NPCs all get better at the same rate as me, what's the point?"


----------



## fissionessence (Sep 28, 2008)

> Your character isn't going to have any conception of levels, or think it's weird that he can't beat up on the guards now without a care in the world. The mechanics are just there to run the game, not dictate the world.




OP here. I agree with this to a point, and I think the minion rules are especially good at representing this kind of relativity. As someone said, a solo monster now could be a brute later and a minion after that. I'm okay with this . . . to a point.

However, when PCs enter the _paragon_ tier, non-extraordinary humans, elves, etc., really shouldn't (IMO) even pose enough of a threat to be a minion of equal level. If we applied that theory consistently through epic tier as well, we'd come to a point where these NPCs would pose a threat to Orcus and even the gods themselves, as well as the PCs. This is not something I'm comfortable with.

And to those who justified high level NPCs by saying that they have challenges and gain XP just like PCs do, what are these challenges that they're facing? The PCs continue to go on tougher and tougher adventures in order to increase their power, whereas a town guard or even average knight would reach a plateau; he'd reach a point where there's not really anything nearby that would grant him enough of a challenge to get a significant amount of XP in order to continue leveling. When such a challenge did come along . . . well that should be what the PCs get called in for.

~


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

fissionessence said:


> OP here. I agree with this to a point, and I think the minion rules are especially good at representing this kind of relativity. As someone said, a solo monster now could be a brute later and a minion after that. I'm okay with this . . . to a point.
> 
> However, when PCs enter the _paragon_ tier, non-extraordinary humans, elves, etc., really shouldn't (IMO) even pose enough of a threat to be a minion of equal level. If we applied that theory consistently through epic tier as well, we'd come to a point where these NPCs would pose a threat to Orcus and even the gods themselves, as well as the PCs. This is not something I'm comfortable with.




I agree that town guards and the like should eventually be level-capped in relation to the PCs, but whether or not they are mechanically a threat to Orcus is irrelevent - NPCs interact as the story (and the DM) dictate.

So when the guards are called to evict Orcus from the pub because he's drunk and rowdy, the DM doesn't need to roll to resolve combat between them - the DM is a busy person - he should just describe Orcus sucking the guards' souls out through their lower intestines (or whatever his primary attack is; I don't have the Monster Manual right in front of me), regardless of the guards' level relative to the PCs. Because between NPCs there are no concrete levels - just relative power as determined by the DM.



> And to those who justified high level NPCs by saying that they have challenges and gain XP just like PCs do, what are these challenges that they're facing? The PCs continue to go on tougher and tougher adventures in order to increase their power, whereas a town guard or even average knight would reach a plateau; he'd reach a point where there's not really anything nearby that would grant him enough of a challenge to get a significant amount of XP in order to continue leveling. When such a challenge did come along . . . well that should be what the PCs get called in for.




The DMG makes it clear that not everyone levels the way the PCs do. Hell, most NPCs don't even have a character class.


----------



## Vegepygmy (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> I'm amazed that people still can't grasp this...



Don't confuse distaste for something with the inability to grasp it.



Dausuul said:


> Generally speaking, I don't. I despise that crap and always have. If you don't want high-level PCs being able to wipe the floor with the city guard, then don't use a game system where the PCs' combat power increases exponentially with level. (Or else ratchet down the PCs' advancement rate, or cap their advancement at a point you're comfortable with.)
> 
> In my campaigns, random guards are mooks. Previous to 4E, they were in the level 1-3 range. Now that we have the minion rules, they can be up to level 8-9 minions (but that's for very tough, disciplined soldiers; remember that legion devils start at 6, and any fighting force tougher and more disciplined than legion devils has to be pretty bad-ass).
> 
> To me, this is vital for maintaining immersion.



This sums up my feelings quite well.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Vegepygmy said:


> Don't confuse distaste for something with the inability to grasp it.




Oh I understand that distaste is the likely cause of the _denial_ that hinders peoples' understanding.

But if they truly grasped the concept of relative mechanics they would describe their aversion to it in different terms, ie. "I don't like it" rather than "It doesn't make sense".

Because it makes perfect sense and works just fine. It just requires the point of reference to shift from the individuals' beloved gameworlds to the PCs.

Essentially, 4e is a game for those who actually want to *play* D&D as opposed to endlessly thinking and talking about it.


----------



## Korgoth (Sep 28, 2008)

Delta said:


> Give me OD&D/Basic/1E over this any day. Once I hit 9th level, I'm recognized as a ruler among men.
> 
> As the 40-year-old friend I introduced D&D to said, "If the NPCs all get better at the same rate as me, what's the point?"




Well said.

When you're first level, pirates are first level. When you're 15th level, pirates are 15th level. When the campaign started it was pointless... and 14 levels later, it's still pointless!

If my players attain Conanic levels of badness (which they will have worked for, because I'm not in the habit of tossing softballs) I'll let them revel in it. Your average joe workaday guard is not now a 12th level lord just because the PCs are. Average Joe Guard is a threat at low levels; but when you're a Being Of Legend, the guards aren't all beings of legend too. Instead, they fall like wheat before the thresher.

If everything autolevels with the PCs (like Oblivion) then the PCs aren't special at all. They're in the same boat as they were when they were noobs, and they're just running the treadmill of the DM's plot.

For my scale, 4th level is a "hero". That's like Boromir or Theseus. 8th level is a "superhero". That's like Beowulf or Conan. On that scale, your average guard is a Normal Man or a 1st level veteran. The wiry, grayhaired swordmaster at the Ducal Palace is a 3rd level badboy.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Korgoth said:


> Well said.
> 
> When you're first level, pirates are first level. When you're 15th level, pirates are 15th level. When the campaign started it was pointless... and 14 levels later, it's still pointless!




Are you even paying attention?

They scale at a different rate.

So when you're first level the pirates are first level. When you're 15th level the pirates might only be level 7 or 8. Not only do you have better BAB/hp/saving throws than them, but you have a far greater range of powers.

It's functionally the same as what the E6 guys have tried to do, without making things grim'n'gritty'n'dull.


----------



## Imp (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Oh I understand that distaste is the likely cause of the _denial_ that hinders peoples' understanding.
> 
> But if they truly grasped the concept of relative mechanics they would describe their aversion to it in different terms, ie. "I don't like it" rather than "It doesn't make sense".



Have the minimal grace of not putting straw thoughts into people's heads.

I don't see the appeal of an approach to roleplaying that says "look! The set is made of cardboard cutouts! Don't you ever forget that the set is made of cardboard cutouts!"

And in this particular case, it's not even edition-specific. There's nothing I'm aware of in 4th edition that says that random town guards can or should range from 1st to 30th level. And some DMs in 3e had high-level "average" soldiers and citizens (not an approach I favored, but it didn't seem too rare)

Additionally, thinking and talking about "what if" with imaginary constructs is part of the fun of roleplaying. If you don't get to do that, why not just hammer on things in the garage, or something? No self-indulgence there!


----------



## Drowbane (Sep 28, 2008)

Gort said:


> Make them drow. The entire race is 150-year old badasses who've trained in combat for a century each, but someone still has to pull guard duty.




That goes for many of the PHB races as well...
Dwarven (or elven, or eladrin, or...ick...dragonborn) guards should be just as badass as Drow guards.

Human guards... should be mookish.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Imp said:


> Have the minimal grace of not putting straw thoughts into people's heads.




Forgive me. Analysis of motive and behaviour is part of my job and it often intrudes into my hobbies.



> I don't see the appeal of an approach to roleplaying that says "look! The set is made of cardboard cutouts! Don't you ever forget that the set is made of cardboard cutouts!"




I don't really follow here. I mean, if this is a criticism of 4e it should be a criticism of fantasy roleplaying games in general.

Personally I think the criticism should be directed at players who see their characters in terms of mechanics first and story second.



> And in this particular case, it's not even edition-specific. There's nothing I'm aware of in 4th edition that says that random town guards can or should range from 1st to 30th level.




It doesn't and they shouldn't. Have a look at chapter 4 of the DMG, specifically page 56. Town guards should be whatever level and role the DM deems most appropriate for the type of encounter he is building.

So if he wants an easy encounter (and it's up to the individual DM to determine whether 'x' number of guards is an easy, standard or hard encounter for PCs of 'y' level in his gameworld) then he sets the total encounter level "one or two levels lower than the party's level" (56).

The DM can build this encounter in a couple of ways - either add or subtract guards, make them minions, elites or solos, or adjust the levels. Though as the DMG says, "Monsters... more than four levels below the party's level... don't make good challenges." (57)

If you decide that in your world twenty town guards aren't just an easy challenge for your 10th level party, but are in fact no challenge at all (which is fair enough) then don't bother wasting valuable gaming time on combat. Just describe the massacre and get on with the repercussions (if there are any).

Likewise if the same 20 guards accosted your 1st level PCs. In my view of D&D, if a 1st level party doesn't (or can't) run from 20 town guards then they face more than a "hard" encounter and so I wouldn't waste time running it as a combat encounter - "The guards tackle you to the ground, beat you up, and drag you away to the cells."

You might decide that the same encounter in your world is "merely" a hard encounter and so build it as a level 5 encounter - "A hard encounter is two to four levels higher than the party's level." (56)



> And some DMs in 3e had high-level "average" soldiers and citizens (not an approach I favored, but it didn't seem too rare)




I had the same problem in 3e/3.5e and wasted a lot of time trying to come up with a baseline standard for the Average Joe. I'm happy 4e has solved it all through changing the way I look at the game.



> Additionally, thinking and talking about "what if" with imaginary constructs is part of the fun of roleplaying. If you don't get to do that, why not just hammer on things in the garage, or something? No self-indulgence there!




Mate, if you haven't noticed I'm here thinking and talking about D&D too. I'm just saying if that's all people are going to do with the game they shouldn't complain when it is reworked to make it easier to play and *especially* to DM.


----------



## Delta (Sep 28, 2008)

Korgoth said:


> For my scale, 4th level is a "hero". That's like Boromir or Theseus. 8th level is a "superhero". That's like Beowulf or Conan. On that scale, your average guard is a Normal Man or a 1st level veteran. The wiry, grayhaired swordmaster at the Ducal Palace is a 3rd level badboy.




Totally agree. 

Now admittedly old-school D&D requires that DMs actually change how the game gets played as levels go up (a scaling issue). So maybe you just need to talk-through/roleplay the fact that at 8th level you can easily carve through 20 guards when need be. Or you need to start using mass wargaming rules. Or you need to just ignore the man-to-man interaction scale and start dealing with week-by-week strategic decisions.

I can see how some folks wouldn't like that, it's not for lazy DMs. It's certainly a lot easier to just act like the game plays exactly the same at both 1st level at 20th.


----------



## AndrewRogue (Sep 28, 2008)

Given that I run a world where "heroes" are, at worst, uncommon, I prescribe a bit more to the theory that the people at the top are the people with the power. And the people with the power are the highest level people. 

Furthermore, given that my world has a far gentler curve (mid level individuals are uncommon, rather than rare), most civilized areas have special task forces and such for dealing with extraordinary individuals.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> as you gain levels you gain new abilities though your absolute power level doesn't necessarily scale (in reference to the game world) the way it appears to on the character sheet.




This seems like a bad idea to me, why bother with the paperwork of levelling up the PCs if only their range of options has increased?


----------



## S'mon (Sep 28, 2008)

Jack said:


> Hey, brazilian policeman are not low-level, they are just CE.




My point was about relative not absolute capability - if the police are keeping order, they must be tougher than their typical opposition.  The Brazilian police could be the SAS but then the gangs are made up of Rambos.  My argument is against the kind of thing I saw a lot in 1e, where in supposedly fairly orderly cities the typical rough-area thugs were 4th level Fighters but the city guards were zero level.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> I guess it's the stereotypical geek absolutist empirical mindset at work. Some people just need everything to fit neatly into an absolute structure. I'm often guilty of it myself.




No, what it is, is that levelling up and increasing all those numbers is a reward mechanic *because* it represents greater power in the game-world.  Without that it's pointless for me.  I would not be interested in playing D&D in a game where the GM levelled up everybody in tandem around my PC.

There are perfectly good games out there where PC power does not increase exponentially in relation to the world, like Runequest.  If I want a game where after a year's play the pirates are still nearly as much of a threat, I'll play a game like that, not one where I have 20 times the hit points yet in practice everything stays the same.  To me that's extremely unattractive game design.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 28, 2008)

Delta said:


> Give me OD&D/Basic/1E over this any day. Once I hit 9th level, I'm recognized as a ruler among men.
> 
> As the 40-year-old friend I introduced D&D to said, "If the NPCs all get better at the same rate as me, what's the point?"





That's exactly how I feel.  

Furthermore, in the softer version where the faceless NPCs are gaining 1 level for every 2 I gain, you can save a lot of bother by only having me gain 1 level and they gain none, because half my levels are pointless.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

S'mon said:


> No, what it is, is that levelling up and increasing all those numbers is a reward mechanic *because* it represents greater power in the game-world.  Without that it's pointless for me.  I would not be interested in playing D&D in a game where the GM levelled up everybody in tandem around my PC.




That's a fault of the GM then, isn't it?



> There are perfectly good games out there where PC power does not increase exponentially in relation to the world, like Runequest.  If I want a game where after a year's play the pirates are still nearly as much of a threat, I'll play a game like that, not one where I have 20 times the hit points yet in practice everything stays the same.  To me that's extremely unattractive game design.




No, you were right the first time. It's a poor DM.

I mean, it's a matter of personal choice. Either the pirates are still going to be a challenge a year after you meet them or they won't.

And if they're not a challenge then why bother with combat mechanics? You could either make them a skill challenge or just narrate the encounter.

And if said pirates *are* still going to be a challenge then their levels will necessarily have to still be close enough to the PCs for combat not to be a foregone conclusion.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

S'mon said:


> That's exactly how I feel.
> 
> Furthermore, in the softer version where the faceless NPCs are gaining 1 level for every 2 I gain, you can save a lot of bother by only having me gain 1 level and they gain none, because half my levels are pointless.




I think you'll find that half of one is more than zero.


----------



## Oni (Sep 28, 2008)

A lot of what is being said here is merely a matter of personal taste in regards to how gritty the feel of the game vs. how superheroic.  The mechanics are more than capable of supporting either.  You want to see vast increases in power static levels for npc's you want a more even keeled gentle approach to scale relative levels similar to what I described in my first post.  Mechanically speaking either of these are viable.  

However I think that it is a silly arguement to make to say it doesn't make sense that NPC's are such and such a level, or that it's weird that they gained levels on guard duty because Level is a construct for running the game and has no context in the game world (well most anyway, I'm sure there are campaigns out there were the characters have a conception of levels).  

For me personally I find that a sudden huge power gap can do more to pull me out of a gameworld in terms of how illogical it is (and somewhat cartoonish depending on the setting), than a change in level behind the scenes.  I don't see leveling as pointless in a relative world situation, breadth and depth are an increase in power, even if one isn't given over to sheer numerical superiority.  

Is the scale between a level one character and a level one minion the same as the scale between a level 30 character and a level 30 minion or has there been a relative increase in power, if so I guess leveling wasn't pointless.


----------



## Psion (Sep 28, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is one area where 4E kind of doesn't deliver on the promise that the heroes are "special". The PC's are special because they are doing the deeds that no one else is doing and not always because they are the only ones who can.




This, along with the "epic slime" thing, are two very unsatisfactory things about 4e to me.

The attitude in 3.x seemed to be that monsters would fill in the void at high level (I remember SKR saying as much). But even in 3e, they botched this stupidly in the Epic Level Handbook, with the city Union, guarded by men who elsewhere would be generals in charge of great armies, and bards with hanger-ons that would a "mere" 15th-20th level.

Unfortunate to see that 4e is carrying on the worst traditions of 3e. Ones you won't see emulated in my game.


----------



## Xath (Sep 28, 2008)

A friendly Mod reminder to keep it civil.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 28, 2008)

The problem with the "do not bother with thinking, all is just relative to the PCs" approach is that not everyone is swallowing this in every situation.

"Hey... what do you mean, we are the only ones who can save the city? Last week, when we got falsely accused of trying to kill the emperor we were outfought by the palace guards, and harried by the city guard until we could escpae and clear our name. If we can handle the Red Dragon, then they can handle him as well- they handled _us_. What do you mean, they are powerless against the dragon?"


----------



## Korgoth (Sep 28, 2008)

S'mon said:


> No, what it is, is that levelling up and increasing all those numbers is a reward mechanic *because* it represents greater power in the game-world.  Without that it's pointless for me.  I would not be interested in playing D&D in a game where the GM levelled up everybody in tandem around my PC.
> 
> There are perfectly good games out there where PC power does not increase exponentially in relation to the world, like Runequest.  If I want a game where after a year's play the pirates are still nearly as much of a threat, I'll play a game like that, not one where I have 20 times the hit points yet in practice everything stays the same.  To me that's extremely unattractive game design.




We're on the same page.

One of the interesting things about guys like Conan (or Beowulf, had the Geats not been upstanding sorts that he was happy to protect) is that _there's not a lot you can do about them_. To borrow from an old joke: Where does Achilles sit on the trireme? *Anywhere he wants*.

If you somehow survive to 8th or 9th level in one of my games, I want to reward you with the feeling that you have joined the ranks of Conan, Aias and Chuck Norris. A marauding troll could probably tear through the town guards... and you can kill that troll all by yourself. Thus you could (if you wanted) tear through the town guards also.

I think it can serve to highlight the personality of the character: do you just murder half the town because you can? Villains do so. True heroes often put themselves at the (inconvenient) service of people that they could easily slay (it's called "humility"). Greek-type tragic heroes also use their powers to preserve the civil order, but sometimes go off the leash and the gods have to put them down. Conan-types are generally benevolent unless you mess with them, and then all heck breaks loose.

So high level play can give you the chance to show what kind of character you're playing. A hero? A villain? A tragic figure? A roughneck antihero? A character experiences a new-found freedom in the world when he has all that hard-won power. Now what will he do with it? I find that interesting.


----------



## Delta (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> And if said pirates *are* still going to be a challenge then their levels will necessarily have to still be close enough to the PCs for combat not to be a foregone conclusion.




No, here's the option you're overlooking: There could be _more_ of them. Hundreds of them. In an armada of ships. 

That's exactly how it worked in core OD&D/1E. Ideally you'd want a new combat mechanic that easily dealt with that scale, however. (As was provided with things like original Chainmail/ Swords & Spells/ Battlesystem.)


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Oh I understand that distaste is the likely cause of the _denial_ that hinders peoples' understanding.
> 
> But if they truly grasped the concept of relative mechanics they would describe their aversion to it in different terms, ie. "I don't like it" rather than "It doesn't make sense".
> 
> ...




This is probably the most arrogant and close-minded post I've seen on EN World in about the last year and a half. I am rendered speechless by both the strength of your conviction and the degree to which you are wrong.

Suffice to say I am with Korgoth, S'Mon and others on this one. Rather than restate my arguments for why here I suggest you upgrade to community supporter account and do so searches. The evidence for why you are wrong is quite commonly stated on these boards, for those who care to look.

Good day.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 28, 2008)

I have a simple solution for anyone who wants to squash down the difference between being 20th level and being 1st level:

Don't advance Attacks & Defenses.

That's it. More HP and increased Damage are all you need to fight Trolls and Giants. The "reason" we have Minion rules in 4E is so that "1st level guards" can be dangerous at 10th level by calling them "10th level minions." But the only difference between 1st level guards and 10th level minions is +10 attack and defense. They (essentially) have the same number of HP and do the same damage.

If you don't advance Attacks & Defenses you avoid this problem in the first place. Adjust monsters in the Monster Manual accordingly by removing -1/2 per level.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 28, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is one area where 4E kind of doesn't deliver on the promise that the heroes are "special". The PC's are special because they are doing the deeds that no one else is doing and not always because they are the only ones who can.




I don't see how this is a system issue and no an adventure design issue? The game rules don't tell you to use 15th level Human NPCs. They allow you to create them, but they don't proscribe you to flavor them as random city guards. 

Or do you complain that the rules don't make it impossible to do this? 


I don't know yet how I would handle such situations, but my general approach is to use "scale" monsters approximately by tier. If the Human Guard is a 4th level Soldier, and I want to still use him at Paragon Tier, I'd make him a 14th level (or so) Minion. If for some reason I'd use him at Epic Tier, I would probably make him a level 14 Swarm/Mob (meaning that the PCs actually fight 12+ guards instead of just 1). But I suppose most of the time I just wouldn't use them any more.


I remember a terrible NeverWinter Nights 1 mod. It was designed for epic levels. You entered some demiplane or alternative material plane, where you suffered some heat damage when travelling through the desert (huh - an epic level hero having problems with that), and children would be able to cast fireball spells! *shudder*


----------



## Treebore (Sep 28, 2008)

It seems it depends on the concepts of the game being run by the DM.

If the conception is something like a Conan novel then your constrained to keep everyone weak enough for Conan to beat the crap out of them.

I for one like to go for realism in this regard. For campaigns it just improves my players ability to suspend their disbelief. It is much easier to think in terms of the real world. Yes, there are a vast majority out there that are simple farmers, tech guys, mechanics, etc... However there are also a lot of people out there gaining a lot of experience. These are what I refer to as the "movers and shakers". PC's fall into this group by default.

Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and most published settings all have numerous "movers and shakers". Some are even written up as NPC's in the setting books. I do not assume these NPC's are "frozen" until, or unless, they encounter the PC's. They are doing something, big or small, they are active much like the PC's.

So what is the players motivation in such a world? The same as it is in the real world. Wealth, power, morality, etc...

So just like people aspire to be the next Bill Gates, Eli Manning, Einstein, etc... the PC's aspire to be the next Elminster, Merchant King, Thieves Guild Master, Ruler of the World, etc...

How the PC relates to these others is measured by their level versus their level. Their resources versus the resources of their opponent.

There is no need to detail everyone, just having the assumption there are many adventurer types gaining XP's all the time established for your campaign is enough to make it work for when you do need to write up an NPC.

A really cool thing to do is a weekly newspaper. Go on the internet and copy and paste about a dozen news articles and then rewrite them to fit your campaign world. Insert names you create (Gygax's Extrordinary Book of Names, or any name generating website is great for this) and make sure to save these papers.  Hand copies over to your players and recommend they read them. Then have PC's meet the town guard who was involved in the fight in last months bank robbery attempt, or meet someone who survived that big fire caused by the dragon attack, etc... Story hooks will explode from doing this newspaper, and having the PC's meet some of these NPC's will help with world immersion in a big way. Being able to "copy and paste" most of the story helps speed up the process. By your 3rd issue of your paper you should be zooming through it.

Adding all of these extra little touches adds depth to your campaign world but also helps reinforce that your world is dynamic and that lots of other people are doing things too, and gaining levels.

plus players get a big kick out of it when things their PC's do make the newspaper. Especially if they are head line news. Except for the Rogue, they usually are upset that their identity is so public.


----------



## Pseudopsyche (Sep 28, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I don't know yet how I would handle such situations, but my general approach is to use "scale" monsters approximately by tier. If the Human Guard is a 4th level Soldier, and I want to still use him at Paragon Tier, I'd make him a 14th level (or so) Minion. If for some reason I'd use him at Epic Tier, I would probably make him a level 14 Swarm/Mob (meaning that the PCs actually fight 12+ guards instead of just 1). But I suppose most of the time I just wouldn't use them any more.



This approach seems to be one adopted by the adventure that inspired this thread, Sea Reavers of the Shrouded Crags.  The guards and soldiers of PC races are level 13-15 minions (200-300 XP).    All the enemies of PC races who are not minions are assassins, enemy agents, or even higher in rank (trying to avoid spoilers).  Not all of them are named, but presumably it's not worthwhile to give every enemy a name even if they're close to a paragon-level PC in power.

Personally, I use the XP-equivalence method.  The MM describes a typical human guard as a level 3 soldier (150 XP).  IMC, paragon-level PCs will experience typical human guards as level 11 minions (still 150 XP).  Of course, as in the Sea Reavers adventure, the guards of nobility may be tougher.  I think it'll be neat for my players to see how far they've come in comparison to the typical human warrior, and I'm confident I can find other ways to challenge them.  Even if I want them to fight pirates, they don't have to fight any "normal" pirates....


----------



## Shades of Green (Sep 28, 2008)

You probably have to strike a balance between believability and heroism. On one hand, if the common types of rampaging monsters (the types attacking settlements relatively often) could easily tear through most settlement defenses, then the monsters would rule and settlements would either be ruined or enslaved - surviving in such a harsh world without protection would hurt the setting's believability. On the other hand, PC heroes need plenty opportunities to shine and do heroic deeds; if the town watch or king's men could easily deal with all major threats to civilization, heroes won't be needed - after all, if King Hrothgar's knights could slay Grendel, Beowulf would get no chance to perform his heroic deed.

So I'd probably divide guards, soldiers and so on into three main types: soldiers (or guards), shock troops and special forces.

Soldiers would be just strong enough to deal with the really common threats of the surrounding area; that depends on how common higher-level monsters are, but well-organized level 1-3 warriors with decent equipment (chainmail, shields, long swords, bows) would be sufficient to deal with kobolds and goblins, while for stronger humanoids like hobgoblins and orcs you'll probably want level 2-4 warriors or level 1-2 fighters. These forces would also have a handful of higher-level leaders and support, especially casters. Soldiers would exist in sufficient number to more or less protect the major settlements and main roads, but the frontier would get coverage at best due to their limited number.

Shock Troops would be called to deal with somewhat more significant threats, such as ogres, orc/goblinoid heroes (i.e. orcs/goblinoids with several class levels), resourceful criminals and so on. Again, their capabilities should depend on the opposition which they are expected to fight, but level 4-7 NPCs (mostly Fighters with a few casters) would probably work well. Shock Troops would come in far fewer numbers than Soldiers, and thus couldn't be everywhere at once.

Special Forces would be high-level NPC adventurers (of sorts) employed by the state for high-level missions. While very few in number they'd have very good capabilities, and could tackle some of the major threats to the realm. But they definitely can't be everywhere at once. They'll probably be level 8-11 and have good magical gear. They'll still be outclassed by really high-level PCs, but at that stage the PCs would be real superheroes - and would go against things that could eat th king's best knights for dinner.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 28, 2008)

Delta said:


> No, here's the option you're overlooking: There could be _more_ of them. Hundreds of them. In an armada of ships.




Sure.

But when you get down to it, if the pirates' levels are far enough below that of the PC's, then there may as well be *thousands* of them - they will not be a challenge.

When you build your encounters for your game you can do it however you want, as I stated earlier.

If you want the pirates to be a combat challenge they need to be able to hit your PCs. That requires their levels be within a certain range of the player characters (no more than 4 below according to the DMG).

Or you could decide that such pirates are no combat threat, in which case they don't need levels - and therefore don't have levels - and the battle between your PCs and the pirate armada becomes a skill challenge, or an exercise in narration.

It's really up to you. DMG chapters 4 and 5 are your friends. You can build an encounter as challenging as you need it to be.

4e is a lot more versatile than you give it credit for.



> That's exactly how it worked in core OD&D/1E. Ideally you'd want a new combat mechanic that easily dealt with that scale, however. (As was provided with things like original Chainmail/ Swords & Spells/ Battlesystem.)




I get paid to play wargames. Damned if I'm going to do it in my spare time.


----------



## Toras (Sep 28, 2008)

Honestly, I like having varying but relatively static levels for groups and types of NPC.  Honestly your standard commoner is going to be a 0-2 level NPC with the appropriate skills.  The retired campaigner turned Blacksmith might be a bit higher level than average and being his son might be a decent backstory for our PC.  

A small village guards are probably going to be tougher than your average commoner.  Say around 4-6 perhaps, depending on how regular the raids on the village by humanoids or other such occur.  (Yes this means that there will be a period of your character's history where the guards will be able to kick you around)  

As they get higher, they start to travel to the larger towns or the borders with hostile nations.  You'll see regulars from the army who will be higher still.  That will take you into the Paragon tier.  There is likely to be elite troops for the kingdom that are in.  By the upper end of the Paragon level, PCs are the just that, paragons of the kindgom or realm.    Epic is where you start to deal with the forbidden places in the world, ancient evils, and world enders directly.  You might know a handful of people like you in the world or around it.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 28, 2008)

I prefer entertaining (which may entail challenging plots) adventures to challenging encounters.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 28, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> I get paid to play wargames. Damned if I'm going to do it in my spare time.




  Well, most of us don't.  And most of us have a different take on the game than you do.  And we are paying attention to what you've been writing.  We *disagree* with you.  And it is a matter of us not wanting that sort of game, not a matter of us not understanding your points.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> When you build your encounters for your game
> you can do it however you want, as I stated earlier.



This is where you and I (and others) part ways. The way we play D&D the DM is bound to certain rules as surely as Odysseus is bound to the mast. We cannot build an encounter "however we want"; we must build it according to the mutual agreement between DM and PC about how the world works.




Snoweel said:


> I get paid to play wargames. Damned if I'm going to do it in my spare time.



Now we come to the crux of the disagreement.  You have emotional hangups that we don't. Please don't assume that the rest of us play wargames professionally. We do it in our spare time, and so we are looking for different things in D&D than you are. How we choose to play D&D has _ZERO _to do with our inability to realize the "correct" way of doing it and everything to do with the fact that we're looking to get different things out of it.


----------



## IceFractal (Sep 29, 2008)

The counter to this...







> Your character isn't going to have any conception of levels, or think it's weird that he can't beat up on the guards now without a care in the world.



Is this:







> "Hey... what do you mean, we are the only ones who can save the city? Last week, when we got falsely accused of trying to kill the emperor we were outfought by the palace guards, and harried by the city guard until we could escpae and clear our name. If we can handle the Red Dragon, then they can handle him as well- they handled us. What do you mean, they are powerless against the dragon?"




If the PCs _only_ fought the town guards, then it wouldn't be at all odd for the guards to level as fast as the PCs.  However, the PCs fight monsters.  And those monsters have a clear heirarchy.  Fighting an Orc is not the same thing as fighting the Tarrasque.  You can't pretend that there's only a minor power difference between someone who has a tough time defeating a couple wolves and someone who managed to stomp though an army of demons and force Orcus to retreat.


While NPCs don't have exact levels tattooed on their heads, they do have a relative heirarchy.  For instance:
Party fights guards, basically a tie.  Party ~= Guards.
Party fights Ogre, forced to retreat.  Ogre > Party, Ogre > Guards.
Several levels later, party fights group of Ogres, defeats them handily.  Party > Ogre.
Party fights a Dragon, barely able to survive.  Dragon > Ogre.
Several levels later, party fights several Dragons, and wins.  Party > Dragon.
...
Party goes back to town and gets in a fight with similar guards.  Now the PCs know that Dragon > Ogre > Guards, and they can defeat dragons by the dozen.  So if you suddenly say the guards are roughly as tough as the party, that's going to be nonsensical not only to the players, but to their characters.


Modern Day Example:
On the way to work, you sometimes pass a homeless guy who asks you for spare change.  Then one day you win the lottery and become a multimillionaire.  On your way back to work (to quit), you pass the same homeless guy, except he's now a moderately wealthy executive who asks you for a spare million dollars to buy a yacht.  But he's still sitting on the curb next to a shopping cart, with a cardboard sign.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I prefer entertaining (which may entail challenging plots) adventures to challenging encounters.




Do you feel you can't have both?



S'mon said:


> And most of us have a different take on the game than you do.




And I'm sure most of us have a different take on the game than you or anyone else does. Unless you're claiming to be part of a monolith?

I think it's fair to say that no two people game exactly alike. But nice appeal to the masses anyway.



> And we are paying attention to what you've been writing.




I don't think you are.

I think you've built up so much preconceived resistance to 4e that you're unwilling to try and look at it from a different point of view. You're married to your gripe that "OMFG TEH WHOLE WORLD LEVELS AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!1!!!"" and can't see that the mechanics now serve the game, not the other way around.



> We *disagree* with you.




Obviously.



> And it is a matter of us not wanting that sort of game, not a matter of us not understanding your points.




My *point* is that you can have any sort of game you want. You create the campaign world, you write the adventures, you build the encounters.

You do all this with your own view of how the world works and when it comes time for the PCs (the protagonists of the story, remember?) to swing their swords you start with the question "How challenging would this encounter be?"

If you're attached to the idea that a party of 15th level characters pwnz0r 100 pirates then you can handle it in a number of ways, depending on how much time (preparation and gaming time) you've got or whether anyone could be arsed rolling a combat involving 100+ combatants.

If you really want to roll initiative, attacks, saving throws and damage for 100 3rd level pirates against your 15th level PCs then fill your boots. The rules are there, it's all very straightforward. Nobody's going to stop you.

Just bear in mind that your PCs aren't really going to be chalenged. If you're happy with that and your players are too then go for it. But you could save a lot of time and dice rolling by turning the encounter into a skill challenge (or a series of them).

How about if your PCs meet the Pirate King's honour guard? Tougher pirates right?

How tough? Can you really give an absolute answer? Are they 5th level? 8th level? 10th level? 15th level? Are your players ever going to know without fighting them? Will it kill your verisimilitude if the pirates are 5th level or 15th? What the **** is a level anyway?

Decide how tough you want the encounter to be ('easy', 'normal', 'hard') and then build the encounter around the PCs. It'll be a bit of a downer if you come to the climactic battle and your 15th level party mauls the Pirate King and his mates in 2 rounds because you decided they just *had* to be 5th level.




Irda Ranger said:


> This is where you and I (and others) part ways.




Surely you mean "This is where you (and others) and I (and others) part ways"?



> The way we play D&D the DM is bound to certain rules as surely as Odysseus is bound to the mast. We cannot build an encounter "however we want"; we must build it according to the mutual agreement between DM and PC about how the world works.




How is that any different to what I've said?



> Now we come to the crux of the disagreement.  You have emotional hangups that we don't.




I might have emotional hangups but they've got nothing to do with your understanding of D&D 4e.



> Please don't assume that the rest of us play wargames professionally. We do it in our spare time, and so we are looking for different things in D&D than you are. How we choose to play D&D has _ZERO _to do with our inability to realize the "correct" way of doing it and everything to do with the fact that we're looking to get different things out of it.




I'm not sure that the majority of people who play D&D *do* want a wargame. I'm talking about rules to simulate theatre-level conflict.

Sure they've popped up from time to time in the past but they don't exactly fly off the shelves do they?

I mean, I'm hardly one to subscribe to the rational actor approach to capitalism, and I'm firmly convinced the majority of consumers are dupes, but ultimately the market is driven by demand.

If people really wanted a wargame there'd be something decent on the market, don't you think?



IceFractal said:


> Party goes back to town and gets in a fight with similar guards.  Now the PCs know that Dragon > Ogre > Guards, and they can defeat dragons by the dozen.  So if you suddenly say the guards are roughly as tough as the party, that's going to be nonsensical not only to the players, but to their characters.
> 
> 
> Modern Day Example:
> On the way to work, you sometimes pass a homeless guy who asks you for spare change.  Then one day you win the lottery and become a multimillionaire.  On your way back to work (to quit), you pass the same homeless guy, except he's now a moderately wealthy executive who asks you for a spare million dollars to buy a yacht.  But he's still sitting on the curb next to a shopping cart, with a cardboard sign.






Funny.

You've made it clear what you think I'm trying to say but I ask you to look a bit closer.

I don't for a second suggest that town guards and the like should level at the same rate as the party. I believe I've made that clear.

What I am saying is this - town guards should be a varying challenge for a range of party levels.

This is what the PCs will notice.. how hard the guards are to fight. They won't see the guards' levels or any of the numbers, they will only see how hard or easy the fight is.

Who determines how hard the fight is? The gaming group. There are several different schools on how tough a 1st level PC is. Is it a kid with a sword? A highly trained soldier? Something in between?

That's for the group to decide beforehand.

So with your party's expectations in mind, the DM builds an encounter featuring the PCs and the town guard.

How tough are four guards against four 1st-level PCs? 'Hard', 'normal', 'easy'?

That's up to you. Choose your difficulty level and then assign levels. If you have levels in mind first then the difficulty level is decided for you. Easy.

How about 10th level characters? Are four guards an 'easy' encounter? No challenge at all? How many is 'easy'? Ten? Twenty?

Your call.

Just keep it in mind that if you decide you're not happy with 'no challenge at all' (which you can still play out using the combat rules, or turn into a skill challenge, or narrate through the encounter) and instead want the encounter to be 'easy' then you have to give the guards levels (or should I say "levels") that enable them to at least be a token threat to the PCs.

Then you make them X-level minions and off you go. Easy encounter. Your heroic, dragon-slaying party wiping the floor with a bunch of guards (4 x 10th level PCs vs 20 x 7th level minions = 'easy' encounter).

At what point of that encounter are the players or their characters going to wonder about metagame concepts like 'levels'?

But if that doesn't sit well with you then assign the guards whichever level makes you happy and resolve the encounter to your heart's content. Flip a coin, whatever. I don't really care.


----------



## Daniel D. Fox (Sep 29, 2008)

First, I decide if the encounter is going to easy, medium or hard. Then, I create the stats for the encounter. I scale everyone practically in the game. Meaning, climbing a wall at 1st level is no different than 14th level. The same goes for foes; I simply increase their level and abilities as according to the DMG for scaling monsters.


The "Oblivion Effect" failed in Oblivion because mundane foes were replaced with really, really strange foes that used to not wander around. In application for 4E, I use the Easy,Medium,Hard DC table for all skill challenges and "climbing walls, bluffing guards", therefore ignoring the DCs as set by the Player's Handbook. I scale damage in accord with the foe's level depending if I want it to be an easy romp, a middling fight or a complete challenge.

In my games, the only thing that high levels truly equates to for PCs is dynamism and more options (via Powers and Feats). A Paragon hero is always going to be just as susceptable to falling off of a ladder as a 1st level character (but the caveat is that he will always be better than mundane folk).


----------



## Daniel D. Fox (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> . DMG chapters 4 and 5 are your friends. You can build an encounter as challenging as you need it to be.




THIS,


----------



## Delta (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> If you want the pirates to be a combat challenge they need to be able to hit your PCs. That requires their levels be within a certain range of the player characters (no more than 4 below according to the DMG).




First, I don't play 4E and I won't pay money to own any of the books. So no references to 4E will be useful to me. I'm assuming this discussion is relevant to any edition of D&D (as per the OP).

Second, you keep saying we "need this" and "need that" and it's untrue. All you need is the fact that natural 20's automatically hit anything, and enough of a pirate army to pile up the natural 20's probabilistically.

So fine, play the game a different way, that's cool. All I'm doing is playing by the 1E DMG where army captains are 8th level maximum (p. 30), city guard leaders are 5th level maximum (191), and the leader of a pirate fleet is 10th level maximum (MM p. 67). Just don't sit there and tell me I "need" to do things your way because I really don't.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> The problem with the "do not bother with thinking, all is just relative to the PCs" approach is that not everyone is swallowing this in every situation.



Snoweel is not saying "do not bother with thinking." S/he (? - the tone of the posts suggests a man to me) is saying that the 4e rules probably won't produce an optimal RPGing experience if level is treated as a measure of something ingame. Rather, it is a character-building and encounter-building device.



Irda Ranger said:


> Now we come to the crux of the disagreement.  You have emotional hangups that we don't. Please don't assume that the rest of us play wargames professionally. We do it in our spare time, and so we are looking for different things in D&D than you are. How we choose to play D&D has _ZERO _to do with our inability to realize the "correct" way of doing it and everything to do with the fact that we're looking to get different things out of it.



I don't think that Snoweel is questioning your gaming preferences. S/he is saying that it is wrong to say that it makes no sense for high-level PCs to face predominantly high-level NPCs. This only makes no sense under a certain assumption about the ingame meaning of levels, which 4e is not designed around.

4e levels are intended as a meta-game device, for encounter and character building.m Treating them as measures of ingame prowess seems apt to produce a slighly wonky play experience.

I think that 4e does have aspects of character/NPC build that are meant to correlate to ingame phenomena, namely, Heroic, Paragon and Epic tiers. It also gives a slight nod to the simulationist reading of levels, by suggesting (via the monsters listed in the MM) that PCs at different tiers should be facing different sorts of challenges (eg the Underdark monsters such as Drow, Mind Flayers and Grimlocks seem to be mostly paragon-level threats), thus meaning that no play group is forced to confront the non-simulationist understanding of levels.



Moniker said:


> In my games, the only thing that high levels truly equates to for PCs is dynamism and more options (via Powers and Feats). A Paragon hero is always going to be just as susceptable to falling off of a ladder as a 1st level character (but the caveat is that he will always be better than mundane folk).



I think that the Heroic/Paragon/Epic distinction is intended to have some sort of ingame meaning (and Paragon PCs probably don't climb many ladders, so that particular issue can be dodged - just as the transition to the Underdark allows dodging the whole "what does level mean" issue to a certain extent).



Delta said:


> No, here's the option you're overlooking: There could be _more_ of them. Hundreds of them. In an armada of ships.
> 
> That's exactly how it worked in core OD&D/1E. Ideally you'd want a new combat mechanic that easily dealt with that scale, however. (As was provided with things like original Chainmail/ Swords & Spells/ Battlesystem.)



The problem with this is that it has the following implication: the reward for having your D&D character level successfully is to get to play a different game (a wargame rather than an RPG). That's not necessarily a recipe for a popular game. I certainly know that it wouldn't interest me.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> I think you've built up so much preconceived resistance to 4e that you're unwilling to try and look at it from a different point of view.



Oh? Is that what you think? 



			
				Snoweel said:
			
		

> Forgive me. Analysis of motive and behaviour is part of my job and it often intrudes into my hobbies.



I’m going to guess what you do professionally and hope that you're professional attempts at analysis show better results than you've shown here so far. Otherwise I fear for the safety of Australia. There are some things you’re just not grokking.

 The OP asked "How do you justify 16th level castle guardsman?", and many folks answered "We don't, because they'd simply never be 16th level in our campaign." The way we play D&D, NPCs' levels are determined by the shared assumptions among the group of how the game world "is".
 Many who has posted here start encounter design with the question "Given how I've explained the world to my PCs, how tough should these guys be?" For run of the mill pirates, assassins and guards that usually means levels 1-5. *NPC levels don’t scale with the PCs levels at all.*
This has nothing to do with 4E, or our assumptions about the edition.  It has to do with D&D, and how we choose to play.  4E is just a different set of rules for playing the same game we’ve been playing for decades now.
We understand where you’re coming from. For those of us who have played Oblivion we’ve even experienced it. And we do not like it.
We _can _give “absolute answers” about what level certain NPCs are, and our players can too. NPC "level" is the ability to challenge PCs of a similar level.  PCs know that most city guards will be levels 1-4.  If those guards suddenly pose a challenge to 15th level PCs, yes, the players will notice. They’re not idiots. And they’ll rightly ask me “Dude, WTF?”
My players (and I, and others here) expect the world to show some consistency from one game session to the next, rather than warp and twist from one day to the next. That’s how we like it. That’s how we’ve played it for many years. And the fact that we’re playing 4E these days has nothing to do with it.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> 4e levels are intended as a meta-game device, for encounter and character building.m Treating them as measures of ingame prowess seems apt to produce a slighly wonky play experience.



Can you summarize the difference between "Encounter difficulty" and "In game prowess"?  

As far as I can tell, they're the same thing.  NPCs capable of presenting a challenging encounter to 16th level PCs possess a great deal of "in game prowess".  Unless you subscribe to the philosophy that NPC toughness can vary from one day to the next (which I do not - I expect a little consistency in my worlds), NPCs that can fight 16th level PCs can wipe the floor with 99% of the population, and my players expect the in-game world to reflect that.





pemerton said:


> The problem with this is that it has the following implication: the reward for having your D&D character level successfully is to get to play a different game (a wargame rather than an RPG). That's not necessarily a recipe for a popular game. I certainly know that it wouldn't interest me.




How does switching from fighting Orcs to fighting Drow suddenly make D&D a wargame?

Further, I think the 4E DMG (and posts from the designers) was pretty clear about the fact that different Tiers will have different styles of play. If you don't want to graduate to Paragon Tier style adventures, cap level advancement at 10th level and play the 4E equivalent of E6.


----------



## Staffan (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> Many who has posted here start encounter design with the question "Given how I've explained the world to my PCs, how tough should these guys be?" For run of the mill pirates, assassins and guards that usually means levels 1-5. *NPC levels don’t scale with the PCs levels at all.*



This is mostly where I stand, except I allow "different perspectives" on what would be the same "stock" NPC. This is pretty much as shown in the MM: a level 4 party might go up against an orc tribe and fight, among other things, orc raiders (level 3) and orc berserkers (level 4). Later in their career (level 8-9), they are fighting an ogre tribe that has ogre savages and skirmishers (level 8), but the tribe also has a bunch of enslaved orc warriors (level 9 minions) they use for cannon fodder.

These orcs could very well have been survivors of the original tribe, but instead of being level 3-4 "full" monsters, they are now level 9 minions. They supposedly offer roughly the same threat value (150 XP for orc raiders and 100 XP for orc warriors), but as minions they work better against higher-level PCs.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> How does switching from fighting Orcs to fighting Drow suddenly make D&D a wargame?
> 
> Further, I think the 4E DMG (and posts from the designers) was pretty clear about the fact that different Tiers will have different styles of play.



I musn't have been clear - I agree with this. This is what I meant when I talked about a "nod to the simulationists".

My wargame comment was directed at Delta - in the quote from Delta that my reply was posted beneath, Delta talked about using a new mechanical system (eg Chainmail) to play out fights between Superheroes and hundreds of normals.



Irda Ranger said:


> Can you summarize the difference between "Encounter difficulty" and "In game prowess"?
> 
> As far as I can tell, they're the same thing.  NPCs capable of presenting a challenging encounter to 16th level PCs possess a great deal of "in game prowess".  Unless you subscribe to the philosophy that NPC toughness can vary from one day to the next (which I do not - I expect a little consistency in my worlds), NPCs that can fight 16th level PCs can wipe the floor with 99% of the population, and my players expect the in-game world to reflect that.



I'm not objecting to ingame consistency. Thus, I want a consistent answer to the question whether or not a given NPC can wipe the floor with 99% of the population. But the answer to this question turns on the NPC's ingame prowess. And I think that, in answering this question, the game can toleratee a degree of flexibility in the correlation of stat block to ingame reality.

To give one example - I don't think it follows from the fact that the PCs can more-or-less handle a fight with a 12 level Adult Green Dragon, and then have a bit of trouble against the level 13 Drow encounter set out on p 95 of the MM, that we have to infer that that Drow patrol could itself have taken on and beaten the Green Dragon. The fact that the game mechanics give the PCs the advantage over the dragon needn't be taken to correspond to entirely to the ingame prowess of the PCs - it might be taken as a narrative conceit, intended to yield the ingame outcome that it is the PCs who are the dragon slayers of the world.

Obviously that sort of flexibility is limited in what it will allow for - I think that the tiers of play can be seen as setting rough boundaries on the tolerable slippage between game and metagame in this respect.

Related to this idea of slippage between game and metagame: the exponential growth in game-mechanical power of PCs is, in part, a consequence of the desire to have a certain sort of reward system that stresses character build as the main vehicle by which rewards are played out (in this respect, a very strong contrast can be drawn with a game like classic Traveller). This, in turn, mandates that monsters be statted with the same mathematical spread, if the game is to work.

But the ingame interpretation of these variations in capability will probably be more credible, and less gonzo, if the numbers are taken to be compressed a bit. Again, the tiers provide a rough guide here. A paragon PC should, in the gameworld, have more prowess than a heroic PC. But the degree of ingame increase in power needn't correspond to the mathematical transformation on the character sheet, the purpose of which is mostly to serve a metagame purpose of rewarding the player.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Moniker said:


> First, I decide if the encounter is going to easy, medium or hard. Then, I create the stats for the encounter. I scale everyone practically in the game. Meaning, climbing a wall at 1st level is no different than 14th level. The same goes for foes; I simply increase their level and abilities as according to the DMG for scaling monsters.
> 
> 
> The "Oblivion Effect" failed in Oblivion because mundane foes were replaced with really, really strange foes that used to not wander around. In application for 4E, I use the Easy,Medium,Hard DC table for all skill challenges and "climbing walls, bluffing guards", therefore ignoring the DCs as set by the Player's Handbook. I scale damage in accord with the foe's level depending if I want it to be an easy romp, a middling fight or a complete challenge.
> ...




I completely disagree with this. The idea of a paragon or epic rogue who has been wall climbing for half his career having any trouble at all with a ladder, looks incredibly stupid to me. How can he scale the icy cliffs of the Fortress of Frost if he risks falling off a ladder in town?

Are heroes never gonna learn anything? If they can't tie their shoelaces as toddlers, they can't tie their shoelaces as heroes? What about the bully from recess? Will he always be a threat, even to the epic PC?

Part of becoming a hero is outgrowing some challenges. A ranger who can shoot three arrows into the three eyes of a god during a hailstorm shouldn't be challenged in a archery competition held in a small famr, where the best archer is a peasant doing some hunting at the side.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> Related to this idea of slippage between game and metagame: the exponential growth in game-mechanical power of PCs is, in part, a consequence of the desire to have a certain sort of reward system that stresses character build as the main vehicle by which rewards are played out (in this respect, a very strong contrast can be drawn with a game like classic Traveller). This, in turn, mandates that monsters be statted with the same mathematical spread, if the game is to work.
> 
> But the ingame interpretation of these variations in capability will probably be more credible, and less gonzo, if the numbers are taken to be compressed a bit. Again, the tiers provide a rough guide here. A paragon PC should, in the gameworld, have more prowess than a heroic PC. But the degree of ingame increase in power needn't correspond to the mathematical transformation on the character sheet, the purpose of which is mostly to serve a metagame purpose of rewarding the player.




I would expect at least a few players who like a more consistent world, where the fact that A beat B and B beat C can be a strong hint that A will beat C (leaving the "rock paper scissor" theme out) won't exactly be that concenred with getting mechanicall rewarded if it means sacrificing their enjoyment of the game.

Also, those who take a big part of ther enjoyment of the game from the rewards of levelling may not like it if they never feel like they got stronger. As was posted - what's the point in levelling up and braving danger if one will never outstrip the town guard?


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> the degree of ingame increase in power needn't correspond to the mathematical transformation on the character sheet,



At my table it does. I see the character sheet numbers as a contract I have with the PCs. I can't change them. 

For instance, would you ever, in a million years, simply take away the player's character sheets and rewrite all the stats as you saw fit? "_Hmm, this AC is too high - I'm making it 17._"  I think people would be pretty pissed if you tried that.  Well, simply giving NPCs an extra +3 to attack just because you feel like it is exactly the same thing as decreasing the PC's AC from 20 to 17. There's no difference.  Therefore I don't do it.

And no, it doesn't matter that "they'd never know." Cheating doesn't stop being cheating just because you get away with it.




pemerton said:


> the purpose of which is mostly to serve a metagame purpose of rewarding the player.



The purpose of XP, NPC admiration and gold is to reward the players, but the purpose of writing down 2d6+9 (as opposed to 2d4+1) is to accurately describe how badass a N/PC is.  Like inflating attack penalties, inflating enemy HP to wipe out the difference between 2d6+9 and 2d4+1 is to take away any and all improvement the PCs (mistakenly believed) have achieved.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

Staffan said:


> I allow "different perspectives" on what would be the same "stock" NPC. This is pretty much as shown in the MM: a level 4 party might go up against an orc tribe and fight, among other things, orc raiders (level 3) and orc berserkers (level 4). Later in their career (level 8-9), they are fighting an ogre tribe that has ogre savages and skirmishers (level 8), but the tribe also has a bunch of enslaved orc warriors (level 9 minions) they use for cannon fodder.
> 
> These orcs could very well have been survivors of the original tribe, but instead of being level 3-4 "full" monsters, they are now level 9 minions. They supposedly offer roughly the same threat value (150 XP for orc raiders and 100 XP for orc warriors), but as minions they work better against higher-level PCs.




Minion rules are a kludge. If you want to play a game where orcs are dangerous at 10th level stop advancing Attacks and Defenses past 1st level. Much simpler and straight-forward.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> Minion rules are a kludge. If you want to play a game where orcs are dangerous at 10th level stop advancing Attacks and Defenses past 1st level. Much simpler and straight-forward.




Actually, just cutting down all the buff spells works best. Without all the magical natural armor, deflection and dodge bonuses, and without mithril full plate +5, AC doesn't skyrocket.

My current level 16 PCs have ACs that range from 13 to 20 or so, more if they go defensive. An Orc Barbarian doesn't need to roll that high to hit them. It's sort of a minion in effect, without using a minion mechanic.


----------



## Staffan (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> Minion rules are a kludge. If you want to play a game where orcs are dangerous at 10th level stop advancing Attacks and Defenses past 1st level. Much simpler and straight-forward.



But that's not something I want to do. And while 9th level minion orcs are about as relevant as threats as the 3rd level orc raiders, they are dangerous on a different level. They don't have the endurance of the low-level orcs (1 hp instead of 46 + Warrior's Surge), and they do less damage (6 instead of d12+3), but as compensation they have better defenses (2-4 points higher) and more accurate attacks (6 points higher).

An orc raider will hit a 9th level PC about 1 roll in 3 (plate +2, heavy shield = AC 22 vs attack bonus +8: hit on 14+, or 7/20) for an average of 9 points, or 3 points per round. The orc warrior hits about 2 out of 3 attacks for 6 points of damage, aslo 3 points per round. The raider can take more hits, but he will also be hit more often. The raider is, on the whole, a bit nastier, but three warrior vs two raiders (which is what the XP values would give) are a pretty even match.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Delta said:


> Just don't sit there and tell me I "need" to do things your way because I really don't.




No but you *do* man. You need to play D&D exactly the way I tell you to.






Irda Ranger said:


> Oh? Is that what you think?




Ok I'll come clean.. it's what I know. Am I right in assuming you think I'm wrong?

The poster in question has made his views on 4e very clear.



> I’m going to guess what you do professionally and hope that you're professional attempts at analysis show better results than you've shown here so far.




My analysis in this thread has been first rate. Top notch, even.



> Otherwise I fear for the safety of Australia.




You and me both mate, but internal security is more of a political issue than military and we're not at liberty to discuss politics here. So we won't.



> There are some things you’re just not grokking.
> The OP asked "How do you justify 16th level castle guardsman?", and many folks answered "We don't, because they'd simply never be 16th level in our campaign." The way we play D&D, NPCs' levels are determined by the shared assumptions among the group of how the game world "is".




Bear in mind that a level 16 minion is roughly equal to a level 8 standard monster (to use the official terminology). Just more suitable for use against a 20th level party. They are essentially the same creature, expresed in slightly different mechanics.

For a game where PC careers now span 30 levels, this isn't such a stretch unless your conception of levels is rooted in some previous edition.



> ]Many who has posted here start encounter design with the question "Given how I've explained the world to my PCs, how tough should these guys be?" For run of the mill pirates, assassins and guards that usually means levels 1-5. *NPC levels don’t scale with the PCs levels at all.*




What level do you feel a 20th level character under 3.5e would translate to under 4e?



> ]This has nothing to do with 4E, or our assumptions about the edition.




Not for you maybe but be careful thinking you can speak for everybody.



> We _can _give “absolute answers” about what level certain NPCs are, and our players can too. NPC "level" is the ability to challenge PCs of a similar level.




So you concede that NPC level is directly tied to PC level?

That without the existence of PCs, NPCs have no need for levels?



> PCs know that most city guards will be levels 1-4.  If those guards suddenly pose a challenge to 15th level PCs, yes, the players will notice. They’re not idiots. And they’ll rightly ask me “Dude, WTF?”




That's quite a leap from 4th to 15th level. Such a leap that this example could be considered flippant.



> My players (and I, and others here) expect the world to show some consistency from one game session to the next, rather than warp and twist from one day to the next.




Who here has described a gameworld that "warps and twists from one day to the next"?



> That’s how we like it.




As opposed to how I allegedly think you should play, in a gameworld with absolutely no consistency or internal logic?


----------



## pemerton (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I would expect at least a few players who like a more consistent world, where the fact that A beat B and B beat C can be a strong hint that A will beat C (leaving the "rock paper scissor" theme out) won't exactly be that concenred with getting mechanicall rewarded if it means sacrificing their enjoyment of the game.



I adressed this in my post. Consistency in the gameworld doesn't require treating the mechanics as an infallible guide to ingame power. For example, the mechanics can be interpreted as giving effect to certain narrative conceits (such as that the PCs are the dragon slayers of the world). Other examples are given in the replies to Irda Ranger below.

There are a lot of threads in which non-simulatoinist play gets described as not having a consistent gameworld. This is not true (and, to be honest, comes across as a bit derogatory). What is true is that non-simulationist play does not use the game mechanics as the measure of consistency in the gameworld. That doesn't mean the gameworld is inconsistent.



Irda Ranger said:


> I see the character sheet numbers as a contract I have with the PCs. I can't change them.



No one is disupting that. The question is - what do those numbers mean in the gameworld?



Irda Ranger said:


> giving NPCs an extra +3 to attack just because you feel like it is exactly the same thing as decreasing the PC's AC from 20 to 17. There's no difference.  Therefore I don't do it.



Who is talking about not following the encounter building and XP rules?



Irda Ranger said:


> Cheating doesn't stop being cheating just because you get away with it.



I don't understand how this relates to anything in my post. I am talking about the correlation between metagame (ie mechanics) and game (ie what is true within the gameworld). It is of the essence of an RPG that the former has an impact of some sort on the latter. But my claim is that there is room for slippage (ie for non-simulationist play).

For example: who is to say that a PC's +0.5 per level doesn't represent moral authority against deserving foes (a thematic device, not an ingame phenomenon), that a dragon's +0.5 per level doesnt represent physical prowess (an ingame state-of-affairs), and that a drow's +0.5 per level doesn't represent the fact that underworld faeries are dangerous foes for the most seasoned traveller (a genre convention, not an ingame phenomenon)?

If the stats are read in that way, then from the fact that the PC handily beats the dragon, and barely beats the drow, it doesn't follow that the drow would have a good showing against the dragon. That is what I mean by "slippage" between game and metagame. It has nothing to do with disregarding the rules of the game. The notion that non-simulationist play is cheating is even more bizarre than that it involves an inconsistent gameworld.



Irda Ranger said:


> The purpose of XP, NPC admiration and gold is to reward the players, but the purpose of writing down 2d6+9 (as opposed to 2d4+1) is to accurately describe how badass a N/PC is.



Nowhere do the rules state this.

The purpose, as I see it, is to set the mechanical parameters for the resolution of combat. But nothing in the rules stops me interpreting those stats as I would spiritual attributes in The Riddle of Steel. Indeed, some of the Paladin, Cleric and Warlord attacks, which use CHA as the stat, actively encourage a TRoS-type reading.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Ok I'll come clean.. it's what I know. Am I right in assuming you think I'm wrong?



Yup.




Snoweel said:


> My analysis in this thread has been first rate. Top notch, even.



I guess we'll just have to add that to the list of things we disagree on.




Snoweel said:


> You and me both mate, but internal security is more of a political issue than military and we're not at liberty to discuss politics here. So we won't.



Not here, no, but I will say good luck.




Snoweel said:


> So you concede that NPC level is directly tied to PC level?
> 
> That without the existence of PCs, NPCs have no need for levels?



Without the existence of PCs we don't even need dice.




Snoweel said:


> Who here has described a gameworld that "warps and twists from one day to the next"?



You did.  And I quote:

"_So your 10th level party fighting 6th level minions only knows that the guards are an easy fight. If a 2nd level party came by the next day and fought the exact same guards they'd find the now-1st-level-minions slightly less easy.

And if the 2nd level PCs had to interact with the 10th level PCs, shattering the house of cards? Now that's poor adventure design. 10th level PCs and 2nd level PCs shouldn't exist in the same universe._"

I don't build "house of cards" worlds.




Snoweel said:


> As opposed to how I allegedly think you should play, in a gameworld with absolutely no consistency or internal logic?



Hey man, I'm just going by what you say.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> I adressed this in my post. Consistency in the gameworld doesn't require treating the mechanics as an infallible guide to ingame power. For example, the mechanics can be interpreted as giving effect to certain narrative conceits (such as that the PCs are the dragon slayers of the world). Other examples are given in the replies to Irda Ranger below.
> 
> There are a lot of threads in which non-simulatoinist play gets described as not having a consistent gameworld. This is not true (and, to be honest, comes across as a bit derogatory). What is true is that non-simulationist play does not use the game mechanics as the measure of consistency in the gameworld. That doesn't mean the gameworld is inconsistent.
> 
> No one is disupting that. The question is - what do those numbers mean in the gameworld?




You did not really adress it. Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.
Anyone in my group, and I suspect in other groups as well, would not accept this as anything other than an attempt by the mayor to kill the Pcs. If the guards can trash the PCs, then the PCs are not suited for tasks that could trash the guards.
Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> If the stats are read in that way, then from the fact that the PC handily beats the dragon, and barely beats the drow, it doesn't follow that the drow would have a good showing against the dragon.



The way I (and my friends) prefer D&D, yes it does.




pemerton said:


> That is what I mean by "slippage" between game and metagame. It has nothing to do with disregarding the rules of the game. The notion that non-simulationist play is cheating is even more bizarre than that it involves an inconsistent gameworld.



I didn't mean "ignoring the rules" of the game so much as I meant "ignoring the rules of the world."  The world as you've described it to the PCs.  And I didn't mean "cheating" in the sense that you fudged dice, but rather in the sense that you changed the rules of the world to suit your story.

From my point of view (and others who share it), city guards being 4th level is just as much a "rule" as the rules governing Bull Rush, or how much damage a Fireball does. It's a "game world" rule as opposed to a "game system" rule, but it's still a rule.  It's a rule because I've told me PCs that "Anything over level 5 is really heroic." I can't take that back without "cheating."

I hope that helps. I wasn't being derogatory, just trying to describe the style of play. In our style actions which would be "cheating" are obviously not cheating in other styles.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

For me, roleplaying also means that PCs act as if living in a world, not being in a game. That means they do not make decisions based upon game or narrativist concepts, but upon the "world mechanics".

OotS is a very funny comic, but I'd rather not have my PCs start to reason and talk like those characters.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> "So your 10th level party fighting 6th level minions only knows that the guards are an easy fight. If a 2nd level party came by the next day and fought the exact same guards they'd find the now-1st-level-minions slightly less easy.
> 
> And if the 2nd level PCs had to interact with the 10th level PCs, shattering the house of cards? Now that's poor adventure design. 10th level PCs and 2nd level PCs shouldn't exist in the same universe."
> 
> I don't build "house of cards" worlds.




From your rigid paradigm this might constitute a shiftng gameworld, but that's because you're placing your world (and the mechanics you use to represent it) at the centre and trying to make the characters and the story fit.

The world I describe is the same for each party; the guards are the same. Only the numbers used to describe them are different. 

In this edition, the difference between 2nd level PCs and 10th level PCs, all members of the Heroic tier, aren't as massive as they were in previous editions. So my old views of the levelling system have had to be revised.

A PC can advance from level 2 to level 10 in 64-80 encounters. That could be just a couple of weeks in game time.

Can you *really* get so badass in a couple of weeks? Sure you might learn a few tricks but don't kid yourself that you could PWN the self that you were 3 weeks ago.

But you have improved - your character sheet says so. Fights against the same old foes get easier. But not at the ridiculously exponential rate you've written into your "contract" with your players.

See the difference? For me, level is a guide to relative power; the guards could be described as 1st level or 6th level depending on the PCs. For you, level is a straightjacket that helps your gameworld determine absolute power relationships between any and every being in the setting.

God forbid your players are unable to predict the exact mechanical outcome of every encounter they find themselves in.

They might sue for breach of contract.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> You did not really adress it. Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
> A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.




But from a story point of view this is stupid regardless of mechanics. The town guard *wouldn't* think that the characters could beat the ogre if they just beat them up.

If you're going to criticise the narrativist point of view, you can't come from your own. Applying your logic to somebody else's paradigm will never make sense.



> Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.




And by this logic, if Chelsea beats Arsenal by 2, and Arsenal beats Manchester United by 2, then Chelsea will beat Man U by 4? It's bull**** mate. We all have our good days and bad days as, I assume, do dragons and drow.

Mechanical relativism is an attempt to hide the predictability inherent in an absolutist interpretation of the levelling system.




Irda Ranger said:


> From my point of view (and others who share it), city guards being 4th level is just as much a "rule"




Why do they need to be any level? Why can't they just be city guards?



> It's a rule because I've told me PCs that "Anything over level 5 is really heroic."




Why did you feel the need to tell them that? The rules state that levels 1-10 are merely 'heroic'. Why is level 6 "really heroic"? Especially when, at that level, the PCs still have 80% of their potential to fulfill?



> I can't take that back without "cheating."




Or, god forbid, defaulting on your "contract".




Fenes said:


> For me, roleplaying also means that PCs act as if living in a world, not being in a game. That means they do not make decisions based upon game or narrativist concepts, but upon the "world mechanics".




I think your analogy is a bit off.

Basing their actions on "world mechanics" is absolutely gamist. It encourages metagame thinking.

But you're right - players basing their actions on the knowledge that they are in a 'story' encourages a narrativist type of game, but it is the type of game I'm happy to play.

It's true that either can be seen as a fault, depending on your preference, but it is false to say that one is more like "living in a world" than the other.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> The problem with this is that it has the following implication: the reward for having your D&D character level successfully is to get to play a different game (a wargame rather than an RPG). That's not necessarily a recipe for a popular game. I certainly know that it wouldn't interest me.




That the nature of play changes slowly as you progress in levels is a big attraction of D&D for me.  I love BECMI's approach where each new set of levels adds a different sort of play experience (dungeon-wilderness-dominion-planar), which 1e also had to a lesser extent, and I strongly disliked 3e's "20 levels of dungeon-bashing" approach, which 4e seems to follow.

I guess this is why I don't like MMORPGs.  Nothing ever really changes, the nature of play stays the same, the numbers just get bigger.  Tabletop play gives you the chance to experience far more variety; to me it's strange and sad that D&D seems to have moved away from that.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> I’m going to guess what you do professionally and hope that you're professional attempts at analysis show better results than you've shown here so far. Otherwise I fear for the safety of Australia.




ROTFLMAO!!!!  

I have a friend who works for Australian MoD.  I wonder if he knows Snoweel.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> That the nature of play changes slowly as you progress in levels is a big attraction of D&D for me.  I love BECMI's approach where each new set of levels adds a different sort of play experience (dungeon-wilderness-dominion-planar), which 1e also had to a lesser extent, and I strongly disliked 3e's "20 levels of dungeon-bashing" approach, which 4e seems to follow.



3E was coined as "Back to the Dungeon". 
I sure hope that this won't be the 4E paradigm, too - I thought the goal of the tiers was to get away from that. But I suppose this is more a question of the adventures that will be put out then the actual game design. 

One of my players said he read through an Epic Level adventure that felt like it could have been a level 1 adventure about 2 farmers quarreling on a piece of land, just that the farmers happened to be gods... That's probably not what anyone really wants, is it? (Very "Discworldy", if not done seriously - The Gods are angry on the Frost Giants because they didn't give back their lawn mowers...)


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Staffan said:


> This is mostly where I stand, except I allow "different perspectives" on what would be the same "stock" NPC. This is pretty much as shown in the MM: a level 4 party might go up against an orc tribe and fight, among other things, orc raiders (level 3) and orc berserkers (level 4). Later in their career (level 8-9), they are fighting an ogre tribe that has ogre savages and skirmishers (level 8), but the tribe also has a bunch of enslaved orc warriors (level 9 minions) they use for cannon fodder.
> 
> These orcs could very well have been survivors of the original tribe, but instead of being level 3-4 "full" monsters, they are now level 9 minions. They supposedly offer roughly the same threat value (150 XP for orc raiders and 100 XP for orc warriors), but as minions they work better against higher-level PCs.




Yes, I think that this is the right approach for 4e - overall NPC threat level and in-setting prowess is constant, but precise stats are determined by the PCs' relative level.  If the PCs are much tougher than the NPCs, make the NPCs minions.  If they're much weaker, make the NPC a Solo.  This is a big change from 3e, but it's still very different from making City Guards 3rd level Soldiers when the PCs are 3rd and 10th level Soldiers when the PCs are 10th.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

pemerton said:


> . A paragon PC should, in the gameworld, have more prowess than a heroic PC. But the degree of ingame increase in power needn't correspond to the mathematical transformation on the character sheet, the purpose of which is mostly to serve a metagame purpose of rewarding the player.




I don't understand where the reward comes from, though?  If I have x10 hp and do x10 damage but the same pirates now have x10 hp and do x10 damage, why should I feel rewarded?  Where's the cookie?


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> You did not really adress it. Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
> A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.
> Anyone in my group, and I suspect in other groups as well, would not accept this as anything other than an attempt by the mayor to kill the Pcs. If the guards can trash the PCs, then the PCs are not suited for tasks that could trash the guards.
> Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.




I'd be willing to accept this on a rock-paper-scissors basis.  For instance, a dragon with an area-of-effect breath attack and good offense/defense can destroy an army, but is vulnerable in its lair to the lone hero or small band.  Maybe the ogre can power attack & great cleave and easily kill guardsmen, but the PCs have better AC and hit points so the ogre is less effective against them.   Arguably 3e handled this rather well while maintaining consistency.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> And by this logic, if Chelsea beats Arsenal by 2, and Arsenal beats Manchester United by 2, then Chelsea will beat Man U by 4? It's bull**** mate. We all have our good days and bad days as, I assume, do dragons and drow.
> 
> Mechanical relativism is an attempt to hide the predictability inherent in an absolutist interpretation of the levelling system.




Actually, sports is the best example. If Cheslea beats Arsenal soundly, and Arsenal beats MU soundly, then one can expect Chelsea to beat MU. Not 100% sure, of course. But such rankings do work in the real world, to the degree of being reliable indicators for decisions.

At the very least, good and bad days aside, one can assume that Chelsea is at least as good as MU, and not weaker.



Snoweel said:


> I think your analogy is a bit off.
> 
> Basing their actions on "world mechanics" is absolutely gamist. It encourages metagame thinking.




I said "world mechanics", not game mechanics. "World physics" works as well as a term. The opposite of gamist, actually.



Snoweel said:


> But you're right - players basing their actions on the knowledge that they are in a 'story' encourages a narrativist type of game, but it is the type of game I'm happy to play.




That could be seen as advocating the "He's got a name, so he's an important NPC" metgame thinking. If one would use your way of thinking and twisitng words around.



Snoweel said:


> It's true that either can be seen as a fault, depending on your preference, but it is false to say that one is more like "living in a world" than the other.




I disgree.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> I'd be willing to accept this on a rock-paper-scissors basis.  For instance, a dragon with an area-of-effect breath attack and good offense/defense can destroy an army, but is vulnerable in its lair to the lone hero or small band.  Maybe the ogre can power attack & great cleave and easily kill guardsmen, but the PCs have better AC and hit points so the ogre is less effective against them.   Arguably 3e handled this rather well while maintaining consistency.




That's why I added that this was without "rock paper scissors" effects. In a fight not affected by this - similar numbers of drows and PCs - and similar "level", both should be equally effective against the dragon.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> 3E was coined as "Back to the Dungeon".




I was in favour of that, because I thought what Monte & co meant was that they wanted to get away from the 1990's plot/story-on-rails model of adventure design (I own an appalling example of this, _Rogue Mistress _for Stormbringer) and re-establish the dungeon crawl as a legitimate mode of play.  I didn't realise it meant 20 levels of _nothing but_ dungeon crawls - which is a regression back to something that never existed.  1e DMG has rules for D&D PCs entering Boot Hill and Gamma World.  OD&D has encounter tables for ERB's Mars!  Both were commonly used for all sorts of adventures, even if a mega-dungeon was often a unifying campaign element.  Dungeons remained common at all levels of play, but were never the only thing you did.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Actually, sports is the best example. If Cheslea beats Arsenal soundly, and Arsenal beats MU soundly, then one can expect Chelsea to beat MU. Not 100% sure, of course. But such rankings do work in the real world, to the degree of being reliable indicators for decisions.
> .




Most team sports are designed to artificially level the playing field to keep things interesting, by making the outcome unpredictable.  Those sports which more resemble actual warfare are better examples of predictability - American Football for instance seems less variable than football/soccer, and professional boxing is better again.  In boxing, if A easily beats B, and B easily beats C, it would be very surprising for C to beat A.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> That's why I added that this was without "rock paper scissors" effects. In a fight not affected by this - similar numbers of drows and PCs - and similar "level", both should be equally effective against the dragon.




Oh, I agree 100%.  I'm just thinking of the case where the King's Guards capture Conan and the King sends Conan to kill Thulsa Doom.  It's easy enough to see ways that it's simultaneously true

(a) The King's guards en masse are tougher than Conan and 
(b) Conan has a much better chance of killing Thulsa Doom than the King's guards do.

But if 5 guards easily beat up 5 PCs, it's hard to justify why those 5 guards can't take on the ogre instead of the PCs.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

I also think there's a fundamental difference in how we approach an adventure. I don't see an adventure as a series of encounters. I do not even see it as a series of challenges. I see it as a bundle of NPCs and their goals and means. If any encounter occurs it is a result of the actions and reactions in game, not the result of an encounter design.

If the PCs manage to foil the plots of the BBEG without a battle, then that's not a problem for me. If they manage to kill the BBEG in a fight in 1 round that's also ok for me.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> ROTFLMAO!!!!




Laughing at your own joke? How indulgent.



> I have a friend who works for Australian MoD.  I wonder if he knows Snoweel.




Let's keep the personal speculation to a minimum shall we? We'd all hate this thread to be closed.



> This is a big change from 3e, but it's still very different from making City Guards 3rd level Soldiers when the PCs are 3rd and 10th level Soldiers when the PCs are 10th.




It is indeed. Thankfully nobody in this thread has been advocating such a strawman.




S'mon said:


> I don't understand where the reward comes from, though?  If I have x10 hp and do x10 damage but the same pirates now have x10 hp and do x10 damage, why should I feel rewarded?  Where's the cookie?




There is no cookie if it was a straight one-for-one increase for both parties.

Yet another strawman S'men?



Fenes said:


> Actually, sports is the best example. If Cheslea beats Arsenal soundly, and Arsenal beats MU soundly, then one can expect Chelsea to beat MU.




Not at all. The results of one game mean very little in the grand scheme of things. That's why the league is nearly always won by the best team but a cup almost never is (cups featuring knock-out games).



> Not 100% sure, of course. But such rankings do work in the real world, to the degree of being reliable indicators for decisions.




The results of one game a reliable indicator of the relative strengths of each team? Rubbish.



> At the very least, good and bad days aside, one can assume that Chelsea is at least as good as MU, and not weaker.




Once again, rubbish. Hull beat Arsenal away the other day. Does that say anything about the relative strengths of the two teams? All it says is that Hull has the *possibility* of beating Arsenal away.

If they played again tomorrow at the same venue I'd have my house on Arsenal (don't worry, it's a rental) if they were paying evens.

And no bookie in the world would offer odds like that.




> I said "world mechanics", not game mechanics. "World physics" works as well as a term.




Yet you said "mechanics". A Freudian slip?

How do levels have anything to do with world physics? They are an abstract concept representing likelihood of achievement.



> That could be seen as advocating the "He's got a name, so he's an important NPC" metgame thinking. If one would use your way of thinking and twisitng words around.




No twisting involved mate. That's exactly what I'm advocating and that's why I said it "can be seen as a fault, depending on your preference". I know some people like to play as though their characters were subject to the same impersonal random chance we are in real life but that's hardly how things work in any other entertainment medium.

Fortune might favour the bold (especially so in movies and books) but in real life, if you continually risk your life you will end up dead.

The reward: risk ratio is far higher for the PCs than it is for anyone else in the universe. So they should already know they're in a story.

Tangential to this is the fact that if the PCs decide that unimportant NPC #237 is *important to the story* then he just might be. 

I'm flexible. I like plot twists as much as the players do. I'm willing to rework something if the players give me a good idea.




S'mon said:


> Most team sports are designed to artificially level the playing field to keep things interesting, by making the outcome unpredictable.  Those sports which more resemble actual warfare are better examples of predictability - American Football for instance seems less variable than football/soccer, and professional boxing is better again.  In boxing, if A easily beats B, and B easily beats C, it would be very surprising for C to beat A.




Excellent point.

But you neglect to mention what would happen if A narrowly beat B on points, and B only just got a split decision over C?

C has beaten A on many occasions. Even more so in a team sport.



Fenes said:


> I also think there's a fundamental difference in how we approach an adventure. I don't see an adventure as a series of encounters. I do not even see it as a series of challenges. I see it as a bundle of NPCs and their goals and means.




This sounds more like a plot than an adventure.

The adventure is what happens when your PCs interact with the plot.

And encounters are what happens when they interact with places and characters described therein.

Don't start trying to claim "creative highground" or whatever it is you're doing. It's a form of 'Alpha-geeking', and if you want to play that game I'll concede without a fight.



> If any encounter occurs it is a result of the actions and reactions in game, not the result of an encounter design.




Ah... so... encounter design = railroading?

Wow. Your elaborate game, with its undesigned encounters is just so... superior. 

Encounter design has nothing to do with *why* the encounter occurs, it is concerned with *how* the encounter will play out. ie. will it be worth rolling dice for or not?



> If the PCs manage to foil the plots of the BBEG without a battle, then that's not a problem for me.




I've got no problem with this but I'd prefer a boss fight somewhere between the middle and the end of the adventure. Whether that's with the BBEG, his henchmen or someone avenging his downfall doesn't matter so much, but I like a bit of combat with my D&D.



> If they manage to kill the BBEG in a fight in 1 round that's also ok for me.




I've always found this sort of thing a terrible anticlimax.

It's been enough to make rewrite the rest of the adventure to cause an appropriately climactic climax.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Ah well, twisting words again. Coupled with the arrogant barb earlier in the thread that called everyone dumb for not liking 4E, it's time to do another small step in improving my EN World experience, and add Snoweel to my ignore list before the thread degenrates.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Got nothing?

lol


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Laughing at your own joke? How indulgent.




Er, no.  Laughing at Irda Ranger's comment, which I quoted.  You're not paying attention.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> Er, no.  Laughing at Irda Ranger's comment, which I quoted.  You're not paying attention.




Forgive me. I assumed that anyone laughing so heartily at such a banal comment can only have been the author.

Either that or you're an Irda Ranger fanboy. Or you just want to build the illusion that I GOT PWN3D!!!!!

Whatever makes you happy.

Anyway, you didn't answer my question.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Yet another strawman S'men?




Nice.  On the ignore list you go.


----------



## Rel (Sep 29, 2008)

You guys are invited to stop sniping at each other immediately.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

Looks like we reached an impasse.

Rel, I'll paypal you fifty bucks if you make him agree with me.


----------



## Rel (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> Looks like we reached an impasse.
> 
> Rel, I'll paypal you fifty bucks if you make him agree with me.




I DO appreciate the attempt at bribery.  Given the state of the economy, the Australian dollar goes far and your offer is tempting.  However I've now seen that there was an earlier moderator instruction to "keep it civil" and I've read some of your subsequent posts.

As such I've decided that you are doing more harm than good in this thread and I'm kicking you out.  This assumes that your bribe cannot be substantially increased of course.

I further urge you to post carefully if you post at all in the near future.  Not that I'll be following you around, examining your every word (I'll most likely be drinking coffee and watching porn).  But if word gets back to me that you went into another thread and snarked up the place, I shall be vexed.

Do not vex me, Snoweel.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 29, 2008)

This is an outrage!


----------



## Rel (Sep 29, 2008)

Snoweel said:


> This is an outrage!




Yes, well I figured you wouldn't take it lying down.  Enjoy the vacation.


----------



## GlaziusF (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I completely disagree with this. The idea of a paragon or epic rogue who has been wall climbing for half his career having any trouble at all with a ladder, looks incredibly stupid to me. How can he scale the icy cliffs of the Fortress of Frost if he risks falling off a ladder in town?
> 
> Are heroes never gonna learn anything? If they can't tie their shoelaces as toddlers, they can't tie their shoelaces as heroes? What about the bully from recess? Will he always be a threat, even to the epic PC?
> 
> Part of becoming a hero is outgrowing some challenges. A ranger who can shoot three arrows into the three eyes of a god during a hailstorm shouldn't be challenged in a archery competition held in a small farm, where the best archer is a peasant doing some hunting at the side.




Hey man, you don't know what that ladder's been up to! It could have been adventuring in the Elemental Chaos and getting ethereal rungs and a frame made of elemental water! 

But seriously, just like the classic Oblivion Scaling -- which might actually have gone unnoticed if not for like the second plot event where the guards could help unless you got up to like level 10 at which point they were horribly outmatched -- with great number-tweaking power comes great number-tweaking responsibility. As long as your PCs are doing things and going places they couldn't have seen, done, or eaten before, the quick and easy difficulty curve will stick together.

But this isn't to say you can't use the same difficulty several levels apart. In fact, I could see a situation where near the end of paragon tier the PCs come back to the same castle town they kicked around in at early heroic tier. To stop a giant demon-summoning ritual at the center of town. That's slated for midnight. And they just entered the gates. And the clocktower just started striking the hour, so grab your skills and *run like hell*. 

And when the rogue fails his acrobatics check to get over the rooftops in a reasonable amount of time (defined as 2.6 seconds) then that old rickety ladder Old Man Findlay forgets to take in on Tuesdays can't put up with the guy who climbed the Ice Fortress of Jarl Slipovich racing up it at speeds usually reserved for firework launches, and the rogue gets dumped into the same old fountain basin he did when he was just a little cutpurse. It's like nostalgia except the county might get pulled into the churning elemental maw of chaos!


----------



## Phaezen (Sep 29, 2008)

Back on topic,

I did a quick comparison in the stats between a Human Guard, LV3 Soldier (MM) and a Human Soldier, LV 15 Minion (Sea Reavers of the Clouded Crags), to see how comparible a high level minion is to a normal human.

If you were to swap xp equivalent 2 Guards for 1 Soldier, the guards need 20's to hit and are hit on everything but a 1 by 15th level characters, they do on average 8.5 hps on a hit, seeing as they can only crit they end up doing 17 per crit.  I estimate they should be able to survive 3 to 4 basic hits or at will hits each. This compared to the soldier who has more chance of hitting (22 vs AC) doing 7 damage, better defenses (AC30) so the party might miss him once or twice before he goes down (from one hit).

From a simulationist point of view you would be more comfortable with 2 Guards, as this would make more sense in a structured world, even though they provide less threat but need more work to get through.   From a gamist and a narrativist(sp?) stand point,  the minion provides a bit more  of a threat if he is ignored, but can be dealt with more easily, which I think should provide a more interesting fight with a meaningful decision to be made.

So yes, I think I can live with high level humans.

Phaezen


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Slipping because one attempted an epic feat of acrobatics involving a ladder is not the same as slipping while trying to climb a ladder just like a level 1 character does.


----------



## Daniel D. Fox (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I completely disagree with this. The idea of a paragon or epic rogue who has been wall climbing for half his career having any trouble at all with a ladder, looks incredibly stupid to me. How can he scale the icy cliffs of the Fortress of Frost if he risks falling off a ladder in town?
> 
> Are heroes never gonna learn anything? If they can't tie their shoelaces as toddlers, they can't tie their shoelaces as heroes? What about the bully from recess? Will he always be a threat, even to the epic PC?
> 
> Part of becoming a hero is outgrowing some challenges. A ranger who can shoot three arrows into the three eyes of a god during a hailstorm shouldn't be challenged in a archery competition held in a small farm, where the best archer is a peasant doing some hunting at the side.




I think I didn't word this quite right. Let me try again...

The Rogue will always become better at "climbing ladders"; particularly, at the level tiers. Meaning, if he wants to climb the icy cliffs at the Heroic level, it's a hard DC challenge (and all the foes on top of the cliff are likely hard to unbeatable. If he's Paragon, it's a medium difficulty (and the foes will be hard to beat, but closer to medium difficulty). At Epic, climbing is a cinch and the foes will be easily conquered.

I do this so that I am not constantly "adjusting" encounters as players explore. Meaning, the Fangorn Forest (for LOTR fans) will always be populated by Paragon or Epic difficulty monsters. That never changes, even if the players decide to go romping/traveling/exploring at Heroic levels. Farmlands will always be plagued by Heroic-level foes (with the occasional Paragon-level foes).

Naturally, the characters themselves, nor the PCs, will ever know exactly what areas are dangerous in a metagame sense, but know well-enough through talking with locals to stay out of Shelob's lair because she eats even the most "fortuitous" adventurers. 

edit - I agree with the poster above.


----------



## Prism (Sep 29, 2008)

This has been one of the most interesting and thought provoking threads for a long while IMO. Shame some of you guys couldn't share your toys nicely 

I started off with the mindset of the majority (I reckon) but what Snoweel and Permeton have said have given me a lot to think of. 3e sometimes disappointed me really with the speed at which you left older challenges behind and the relative level of advancement and I can see a lot of benefit in 'certain' campaigns flattening the progression. I can see 4e being the same so far - my current character is 5th level and I don't expect to fight kobolds again enmass, which is a shame

When I read the first post about high level humans it did sound ridiculous to me but now I'm getting it. Don't know if I would do it .... but I'm not opposed to that style of play if done well


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.


----------



## Mallus (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.



And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded). 

Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take _work_.


----------



## Korgoth (Sep 29, 2008)

One thing that I enjoy in a campaign setting is rarity of high levels. That's something that I actually liked about Eberron: there were very few uber-NPCs. There's no lazy Elminister to send you on missions and then swoop in to save your hash like he could have handled it all by himself anyway, etc. There are a few very powerful dudes/beings, some of which are suitable as ultimate foes, but for the most part the world is populated by the sorts of beings you'd expect.

That entails, for example, that if the safety of the world is actually threatened, it really does have to be the PCs who save it. It also gives the PCs the opportunity to establish themselves as living legends.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Mallus said:


> And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded).
> 
> Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take _work_.




Work I already did. Although we are using Bo9S, so melee fighters - which are all the pcs we have - are not supposed to stand next to giants and trade full round attacks.  Not that I am using many giants anyway - most of my enemies in the sword & sorcery campaign are classed npcs.


----------



## Delta (Sep 29, 2008)

Mallus said:


> And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st)




Of course, you've picked on a particularly broken detail in 3E. Giant stats are pretty much broken powerful (if you compare them to other creatures of the same size; there's a history of 2E->3E sequential power creep to blame for that). If you fix giants and dragons in particular, there's not really another standout example you can point to with quite as extreme a problem.

(See the DimD20 link for an example where I did that in the monsters section.)


----------



## Pseudopsyche (Sep 29, 2008)

Prism said:


> 3e sometimes disappointed me really with the speed at which you left older challenges behind and the relative level of advancement and I can see a lot of benefit in 'certain' campaigns flattening the progression. I can see 4e being the same so far - my current character is 5th level and I don't expect to fight kobolds again enmass, which is a shame



It's true that kobolds don't last too long as respectable enemies, but I will point out that a level 3 solo (750 XP) is worth more XP than a level 20 minion (700 XP).  So if the DM is willing to restat monsters, the same legion devil legionnaire that almost took out your entire party on their first adventure could still be a component of a challenging encounter in the early epic tier.  It's more likely that a monster might go from being a normal monster (level 3 brute) to a minion (level 11 minion), but that still provides a +8 boost to its level, greatly increasing the longevity of that monster type in the campaign.


----------



## Mallus (Sep 29, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Work I already did. Although we are using Bo9S, so melee fighters - which are all the pcs we have - are not supposed to stand next to giants and trade full round attacks.  Not that I am using many giants anyway - most of my enemies in the sword & sorcery campaign are classed npcs.



Sounds pretty cool, actually. I can see how your approach would work well, given that kind of campaign set-up. My comments were made with an assumption of more typical campaign parameters: caster PC's, monstrous opponents, etc.


----------



## Mallus (Sep 29, 2008)

Delta said:


> Of course, you've picked on a particularly broken detail in 3E.



Well, I was trying to emphasize a point... 



> If you fix giants and dragons in particular, there's not really another standout example you can point to with quite as extreme a problem.



The problem I was illustrating remains, even if you take giants and dragons off the table. Without something that boosts AC, melee character rapidly become unable to face competent melee opponents (in part thanks to the joys of two-handed weapon Power Attack). I didn't need to use giants in my example, a competently-built half-orc with a great axe would have sufficed.


----------



## Delta (Sep 29, 2008)

Mallus said:


> The problem I was illustrating remains, even if you take giants and dragons off the table. Without something that boosts AC, melee character rapidly become unable to face competent melee opponents (in part thanks to the joys of two-handed weapon Power Attack). I didn't need to use giants in my example, a competently-built half-orc with a great axe would have sufficed.




Obviously you're playing 3.5 with its even-more-broken Power Attack rule. There's part of your problem right there.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 29, 2008)

Delta said:


> Obviously you're playing 3.5 with its even-more-broken Power Attack rule. There's part of your problem right there.




Maybe we should just stop ignoring the "broken" parts of the various games and editions?
Otherwise we're sitting here all day...




Okay, I suppose that means I'll see you all here again tomorrow?


----------



## Prism (Sep 29, 2008)

Pseudopsyche said:


> It's true that kobolds don't last too long as respectable enemies, but I will point out that a level 3 solo (750 XP) is worth more XP than a level 20 minion (700 XP).  So if the DM is willing to restat monsters, the same legion devil legionnaire that almost took out your entire party on their first adventure could still be a component of a challenging encounter in the early epic tier.  It's more likely that a monster might go from being a normal monster (level 3 brute) to a minion (level 11 minion), but that still provides a +8 boost to its level, greatly increasing the longevity of that monster type in the campaign.




You are right and this is exactly the way to deal with it for me. The first page of this discussion focused on the level of the human opponents yet in 4e the way of representing toughness is by xp - since level is such an abstract number for monsters. So rather than saying that in general city guards are 5th level or lower (as I would have in 3e and earlier), saying that a guard is up to 200xp gives much more flexibility at upper levels when using minions. In fact, as a player I could accept a mix group of 5th level soldiers and 13th level minions without worrying about the numbers

However to add to an argument some others have already used. The A beats B which beats C analogy is too simplified I would say. In a typical adventure at low level its more consistent than that. By the time you have waded through a kobold adventure for example its more like:-

enc 1 adventurers struggle to beat the kobolds
enc 2 adventurers struggle to beat the kobolds
enc 3 adventurers beat the kobolds
enc 4 adventurers easily beat the kobolds
enc 5 adventurers easily beat the kobolds

So by this point the PCs have set an expectation that they have overcome the general threat of kobolds, elites and bosses being exceptions. Now you could argue that in another part of the world kobolds are harder but that to me would stretch it. It would be like saying wolves in Canada are harder than those in Russia. So, at high levels I would use the minion rules to bring back kobolds but never to create a challenging encounter. As an easy encounter or maybe a filler to something much harder but not as a challenger, again solo and elite excepted. To do so would be to change the proven expectation that the players are harder than average kobolds

Until this thread I was struggling still with the use of minions and I now have some good ideas. I never bought the whole how to have a bigger fight argument since in 3e many of the fights were mass brawls with multiple opponents anyway. However minions providing a way of using lower 'level' creatures as fodder in higher levels fights (and occasionally lower level fights too) is a good use


----------



## Spatula (Sep 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> I was in favour of that, because I thought what Monte & co meant was that they wanted to get away from the 1990's plot/story-on-rails model of adventure design (I own an appalling example of this, _Rogue Mistress _for Stormbringer) and re-establish the dungeon crawl as a legitimate mode of play.  I didn't realise it meant 20 levels of _nothing but_ dungeon crawls - which is a regression back to something that never existed.



Well, maybe not in your experience, but I've never played in a game that ever moved away from monster killing, and I've been playing since the early 80's.  Sure in 1e my high level illusionist / thief had a "thieves guild" but only because the rules said so.  I didn't do anything to earn it (aside from gaining levels) and never made use of it aside from drawing up maps and adding it to my massive list of possessions.  3e (and 4e) have the right idea, because that's how the game is played IME.  And it's easier to ditch their assumptions and move into the political realm (for which you don't need rules) than it is to spin appropriately challenging encounters out of a dearth of high-level creatures.  So it is, in effect, the best of both worlds, and it doesn't force the group into a different game at higher levels if they don't want it to.


----------



## Mallus (Sep 29, 2008)

Delta said:


> Obviously you're playing 3.5 with its even-more-broken Power Attack rule.



Guilty as charged.


----------



## Kishin (Sep 29, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I’m going to guess what you do professionally and hope that you're professional attempts at analysis show better results than you've shown here so far. Otherwise I fear for the safety of Australia.




For someone who railed against arrogant and condescending statements, you sure had no trouble making one yourself.

All this is is yet another argument over how 4th edition doesn't prioritize simulationism (A fact which Mike Mearls himself has admitted in that podcast interview that really is becoming more like a mantra than anything else).  Some people are totally OK with this (Snoweel and others). Some are not (Irda Ranger and others). For what it's worth, I believe you can still have a deep, engaging world without being overly concerned about simulationistic elements. Novelists do it all the time. YMMV, though.

Having an epic thread on this every two weeks isn't really going to change anyone's stake, though.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 29, 2008)

Spatula said:


> Well, maybe not in your experience, but I've never played in a game that ever moved away from monster killing, and I've been playing since the early 80's.  Sure in 1e my high level illusionist / thief had a "thieves guild" but only because the rules said so.  I didn't do anything to earn it (aside from gaining levels) and never made use of it aside from drawing up maps and adding it to my massive list of possessions.  3e (and 4e) have the right idea, because that's how the game is played IME.  And it's easier to ditch their assumptions and move into the political realm (for which you don't need rules) than it is to spin appropriately challenging encounters out of a dearth of high-level creatures.  So it is, in effect, the best of both worlds, and it doesn't force the group into a different game at higher levels if they don't want it to.




I'd say in the age of MMOGs, there are more guidelines and examples needed for non.dungeon crawls than for hack&slash encounters. Just about everyone knows how to run dungeon crawl adventures, but I doubt many have experiences with political adventures.


----------



## Dausuul (Sep 29, 2008)

Kishin said:


> All this is is yet another argument over how 4th edition doesn't prioritize simulationism (A fact which Mike Mearls himself has admitted in that podcast interview that really is becoming more like a mantra than anything else).  Some people are totally OK with this (Snoweel and others). Some are not (Irda Ranger and others). For what it's worth, I believe you can still have a deep, engaging world without being overly concerned about simulationistic elements. Novelists do it all the time. YMMV, though.
> 
> Having an epic thread on this every two weeks isn't really going to change anyone's stake, though.




Except that 4E says nothing either way on the subject of whether to level-up random city guardsmen to keep pace with (or partly keep pace with) the PCs.  The question is not a new one and has nothing to do with the 4E rules.


----------



## Kishin (Sep 29, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Except that 4E says nothing either way on the subject of whether to level-up random city guardsmen to keep pace with (or partly keep pace with) the PCs.  The question is not a new one and has nothing to do with the 4E rules.




Well, for starters, the thread was actually about high level humanoid NPCs in adventures as threats to the party, not levelling up the town watch so that they can always incarcerate the players. It has nothing mechanically (directly speaking) to do with the 4E rules (again, mechanically) but everything to do with how 4E's design philosophy of 'Whatever is good for the story'. It is 100% Straczynski 'Traveling at the Speed of Plot' (Traveling At The Speed Of Plot - Television Tropes & Idioms). If a good story calls for it, go for it. I happen to think the adventure that prompted this Thread is the best written for 4E yet, and thus I wholeheartedly approve.

Also, some folks prefer humanoid threads in our campaigns, but that's neither here or nor there.


----------



## Prism (Sep 29, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Except that 4E says nothing either way on the subject of whether to level-up random city guardsmen to keep pace with (or partly keep pace with) the PCs.  The question is not a new one and has nothing to do with the 4E rules.




Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension. At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it


----------



## S'mon (Sep 29, 2008)

Mallus said:


> And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded).
> 
> Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take _work_.




In my 3e campaign I solved the too-powerful-monsters problem by using Classic/pre-3e D&D monster stats instead.  This instantly solves the paper-bag-Fighter-PC problem.


----------



## Dausuul (Sep 29, 2008)

Prism said:


> Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension. At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it




That's a bit different, though.  The solo/elite/regular/minion system is designed on the idea that, power-wise, a 1st-level solo equals a 6th-level elite equals a 10th-level regular monster equals an 18th-level minion.  (Whether this is actually true is left as an exercise for the reader.)  So a guardsman who was a 1st-level regular monster can be "abstracted" into a 9th-level minion; his power level isn't changing and he still presents the same level of threat to the PCs.  He's just been simplified for DM convenience.

This thread seems to be more about what happens and how it's justified when you run into a guardsman who's a 9th-level regular monster, not a minion.



			
				Kishin said:
			
		

> Well, for starters, the thread was actually about high level humanoid NPCs in adventures as threats to the party, not levelling up the town watch so that they can always incarcerate the players. It has nothing mechanically (directly speaking) to do with the 4E rules (again, mechanically) but everything to do with how 4E's design philosophy of 'Whatever is good for the story'. It is 100% Straczynski 'Traveling at the Speed of Plot' (Traveling At The Speed Of Plot - Television Tropes & Idioms). If a good story calls for it, go for it. I happen to think the adventure that prompted this Thread is the best written for 4E yet, and thus I wholeheartedly approve.




Hmm... as long as one bears in mind that when a story breaks the reader's suspension of disbelief, that's not generally good for the story.  Traveling At The Speed Of Plot is a very handy technique and I use it regularly; but it is also dangerously seductive, because it can lead you to get increasingly careless about details until suddenly the PCs say, "Hey, wait a minute.  It took us three days to get to the Darkhold last time and all we had to do was walk down a level road.  How come now it's a five-week journey and there's a mountain range in the way?"

NPC power levels are similar.  You can fudge them to some extent for the convenience of the game.  But if you do it too much, and too extensively, it will break suspension of disbelief.  At least in my experience, players expect a certain consistency in the world.  Epic-level heroes expect that if they have trouble with it, it's an epic-level threat, with everything that entails in terms of its impact on the game world.

Moreover, as a DM, consistent NPC power level is a useful tool.  If I send a band of 15th-level non-minion assassins at my PCs, and I've established that I am consistent with power levels, they won't shrug it off as just another fight.  They'll say, "Holy crap, those guys were _good_.  Way too good for a bunch of hired thugs.  Somebody big is out to get us."  I've just created dramatic tension and a plot hook, simply by using high-level foes.  Every time you sacrifice consistency for story, you're sacrificing a chance to drop clues like that - chances for the PCs to figure out something about your game world.  Call it the Worf Effect. 

None of this is to say the NPCs mentioned by the original poster are suspension-of-disbelief-breaking.  I haven't read the adventure, so I can't say; and I can certainly imagine situations where it would be wholly appropriate to have the party attacked by 15th-level assassins.  But if I were a PC in such a group, I would have the above reaction: "Holy hell, those guys were bad-ass.  Where did _they_ come from?"  If the adventure didn't offer a reasonably satisfying answer eventually, I would feel cheated.


----------



## Prism (Sep 29, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> This thread seems to be more about what happens and how it's justified when you run into a guardsman who's a 9th-level regular monster, not a minion.




You're right that in the thread some people are talking about minions and other are not. As for the original post, the adventure includes (without giving too much away) a high level assassin squad of non minions which I have no problem with and all the other high level human fodder when they do appear are minions. There are some named NPC types too, but I guess we aren't really worried about types like that. If an encounter included lets say 5 15th level human archers (non minions) I would have a problem with that as an encounter


----------



## Daniel D. Fox (Sep 29, 2008)

Prism said:


> You're right that in the thread some people are talking about minions and other are not. As for the original post, the adventure includes (without giving too much away) a high level assassin squad of non minions which I have no problem with and all the other high level human fodder when they do appear are minions. There are some named NPC types too, but I guess we aren't really worried about types like that. If an encounter included lets say 5 15th level human archers (non minions) I would have a problem with that as an encounter




Why is there an issue with fighting five 15th level Shadar-Kai and five 15th level Human archers? Or for that matter, five high level Orc chieftains or five dragons or five demons or five Remorhaz?

There really isn't much of a difference, unless the _flavor_ of your game is man versus monster, as opposed to man versus foe.


----------



## Prism (Sep 29, 2008)

Moniker said:


> Why is there an issue with fighting five 15th level Shadar-Kai and five 15th level Human archers? Or for that matter, five high level Orc chieftains or five dragons or five demons or five Remorhaz?
> 
> There really isn't much of a difference, unless the _flavor_ of your game is man versus monster, as opposed to man versus foe.




To expand, I wouldn't have a problem if those 5 archers had a name/reason/explanation of some sort. I would like to think that those 5 archers were reasonably unique. If those 5 archers are 5 random hired thugs or 5 standard city guards then players are going to start to wonder where they came from. The encounter itself might be fun but the story isn't going to fit. They are going to question why the city guards in one city were weak (the ones they encountered 3 years ago at 3rd level and beat) whereas these ones are rock hard

In 3e we played an adventure from the FR moonsea book which had an encounter in a cave with 4 high level barbarian ogres which caused the party more problems than the previous room with an elder elemental in it. It just didn't feel right. We were wondering why 4 of the hardest ogres we had ever met (having fought plenty of ogres before) been in a room together in a dungeon. So the fight itself was challenging and fun but the adventure would have been better without it at all. If we had been playing 4e and those 15th level ogres were minions along with some other stuff I doubt we would have even worried about it

If you can come up with a reason why 5 orc chieftans are hanging in a room and its a good fight and thats whats important, then go for it. From experience I have found encounters similar to that very disappointing campaignwise


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> The way I (and my friends) prefer D&D, yes it does.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I wasn't being derogatory, just trying to describe the style of play. In our style actions which would be "cheating" are obviously not cheating in other styles.



To me, though, that seems to confirm my initial view, that statting up foes in a way that is, to some degree or other, relative to the PCs, might be distasteful but is not nonsensical. It makes sense given certain views about what is desirable in play. It's just that you don't desire those things.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 30, 2008)

Prism said:


> Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension.  At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it.



Where you see a "new dimension" I see muddying the water between D&D and RuneQuest.  

Put a bit less cryptically, in previous editions of D&D you strove to become Achilles (a God among men).  A 20th level character only had to worry about CR15+ monsters (or their OD&D/AD&D peers).  But in 4E you have to worry about level 6 brutes that have been promoted to level 15 Minion.  Minions are a way for the DM to say "_You're not so tough after all - these orc pirates can hit you. You know that AC 25 you've spent 10 levels builting up to? Well it's not worth anything to me 'cause I got more minions where that came from_."

I'm exaggerating of course.

There are fundamentally two different games here. To use terms from last year I'll call them the "Classic D&D Progression" where you go from Gritty --> Heroic --> Wu Xia --> Supers, and the "E6 Progression" where you stop at Heroic.  In the Classic D&D Progression Kobolds just aren't a threat past a certain level.  Neither are pirates or city guards.  But in the E6 Progression you stop getting better after a certain point and city guards are always dangerous (even if "less" dangerous).

Do you see how that's what Minions do?  They prevent the PCs from being Wu Xia and Super.  "What do you mean pirates can hit me?  I'm Superman in full plate!!"

You should also notice that in E6 there is _no need to justify high level guards and pirates_.  Regular old 2nd level Pirates can still hit your AC and do a bit o' damage, so pile enough of them on and they will eventually cause you to "Pull a Boromir."  Being 16th level doesn't mean that you can't be hurt by 2nd level characters, it just means you take more of them with you before going down.

Now that's a perfectly fine way to play, but many of the problems that have arisen in this thread arose from the fact that some people really ought to be playing* E6 instead of 4E, but since they're playing 4E they find a way to justify high level opponents to get the effect they're looking for. That's an admirable goal, but you're going about it a bit backwards.

If you really want to allow for Kobolds and  Orcs to be a threat at all levels, just remove the +1/2 to Attacks and Defenses from the game.  Strip it out of monsters and PCs.  Really, it gets you the effect you're looking for and it's much easier than fussing with Minions and all the headaches of justifying monsters that suddenly warp between 5th level brute and 12th level minion depending on which cardinal direction they're facing. 



*By which I mean the rules were written to achieve your goal, and no shoe-horning is required, so you "ought to" in the sense that it's just easier and smart to use the proper tool for the job you've chose.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

Fenes said:


> I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.





Mallus said:


> Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take _work_.





S'mon said:


> In my 3e campaign I solved the too-powerful-monsters problem by using Classic/pre-3e D&D monster stats instead.  This instantly solves the paper-bag-Fighter-PC problem.



I don't fully see how it's a defence of an issue with 3E that there is a way of rewriting significant parts of the game (eg spell lists, magic items, monster stats) under which the problem goes away.

By analogy - in many ways HARP plays more smoothly than Rolemaster, I think. That's not a point in favour of Rolemaster, regardless of the fact that HARP heavily follows Rolemaster's design paradigm.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> Where you see a "new dimension" I see muddying the water between D&D and RuneQuest.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



As I said upthread, by compressing the gaps in the gameworld, relative to the gaps in the numbers on the statblocks for PCs and monsters, you make the game less gonzo.



Irda Ranger said:


> You should also notice that in E6 there is _no need to justify high level guards and pirates_.  Regular old 2nd level Pirates can still hit your AC and do a bit o' damage, so pile enough of them on and they will eventually cause you to "Pull a Boromir."  Being 16th level doesn't mean that you can't be hurt by 2nd level characters, it just means you take more of them with you before going down.
> 
> Now that's a perfectly fine way to play, but many of the problems that have arisen in this thread arose from the fact that some people really ought to be playing* E6 instead of 4E, but since they're playing 4E they find a way to justify high level opponents to get the effect they're looking for. That's an admirable goal, but you're going about it a bit backwards.



Well personally I agree with Snoweel that it's the other way around:



Snoweel said:


> It's functionally the same as what the E6 guys have tried to do, without making things grim'n'gritty'n'dull.



That is: the notion is one of having non-gonzo play without grim & gritty. Runequest can't deliver that. E6 can't. 4e can.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

S'mon said:


> Yes, I think that this is the right approach for 4e - overall NPC threat level and in-setting prowess is constant, but precise stats are determined by the PCs' relative level.  If the PCs are much tougher than the NPCs, make the NPCs minions.  If they're much weaker, make the NPC a Solo.  This is a big change from 3e, but it's still very different from making City Guards 3rd level Soldiers when the PCs are 3rd and 10th level Soldiers when the PCs are 10th.





S'mon said:


> I don't understand where the reward comes from, though?  If I have x10 hp and do x10 damage but the same pirates now have x10 hp and do x10 damage, why should I feel rewarded?  Where's the cookie?



A quibble: Snoweel and I were primarily suggesting a compression of the gap, not an elmination of it. So the ratios wouldn't be 1:1 as you're suggesting. But they would be less gonzo than 10:1.

But where's the reward? It depends what the player wants from the game.

If the player primarily wants to play the game to win, then s/he is doing that: her PC is more complex, using more interesting and intricate powers and combinations thereof, with more feats and magic items, and the foes are also tactically more interesting and complex (compare Heroic tier to Paragon tier monsters). So the player is getting a bigger challenge from the game. The fact that that challenge is still flavoured as a pirate or a town guard is, at the end of the day, not the main point.

If the player primarily wants to play the game to explore certain thematic issues, and to make thematic or aesthetic points through his/her choices in the course of play, then many of the same points still apply: the player has a more complex character to do these things with, and has had the chance to take the game in the direction that s/he wants. If that direction still involves pirates, well, that's up to the player.

If the player primarily wants to play the game so that his/her PC wins, in the gameworld, by becoming a more powerful person in the gameworld, then there isn't as much reward for such a player (although there is some, given that the ratios won't be 1:1). Hence my view that 4e is probably not the best game for players with simulationist preferences.



S'mon said:


> That the nature of play changes slowly as you progress in levels is a big attraction of D&D for me.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I strongly disliked 3e's "20 levels of dungeon-bashing" approach, which 4e seems to follow.



I don't particularly enjoy wargaming, and don't look for that in an RPG.

Nor do I enjoy dungeon-bashing. The best 4e module I have seen so far is Heathen, in one of the online Dungeon magazines. I like 4e because it can do this sort of thing better than any other version of D&D.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

Fenes said:


> For me, roleplaying also means that PCs act as if living in a world, not being in a game. That means they do not make decisions based upon game or narrativist concepts, but upon the "world mechanics".
> 
> OotS is a very funny comic, but I'd rather not have my PCs start to reason and talk like those characters.



Who is talking about PCs metagaming? That is a category error. I am talking about players metagaming. That is pretty much a given, even if the metagame is limited to "Now that we've all picked up our character sheets and recapped on last week's session, no more metagaming!" Runequest plays well in this fashion. I don't think that D&D 4e plays all that well in this fashion, though undoubtedly it can be done (just as I'm sure that some people somewhere have metagamed Runequest).



Fenes said:


> Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
> 
> A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.
> 
> Anyone in my group, and I suspect in other groups as well, would not accept this as anything other than an attempt by the mayor to kill the Pcs. If the guards can trash the PCs, then the PCs are not suited for tasks that could trash the guards.



There are a couple of possibilities here.

One is what Snoweel mentioned - that this is just bad adventure design because the world is inconsistent.

Another is that the game has some sort of "redemption through outrageous comeback" motif going, and the drunk and slovenly PCs who got trashed by the town guards redeem themselves by saving the town from the ogre despite the mayor wanting them dead (think Rocky or The Karate Kid).

Another is that the PCs, appearances notwithstanding (after all, the town guard just trashed them), have been prophecied to be ogre slayers. In 4e one way to mechanically model this prophecy is to make the ogres of a level that the PCs can beat them in a tough fight. (In TRoS it would be done using Spiritual Attributes. In HARP it would be done using Fate Points. In HeroWars it would be done using augments from a Destined to Slay Ogres ability. Diffferent game systems have different mechanical ways of handling such a situation.)



Fenes said:


> Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.



Merry and Eowyn beat the Witchking, not through force of arms, but through force of prophecy. There's no reason to think that they could beat Glorfindel in combat, even though Glordindel couldn't beat the Witchking. 

One way to model this sort of thing is to give them big bonuses to hit. Another (functionally equivalent) way is to stat up the foes at the right level to provide the right sort of challenge. Nothing need follow from that about how anyone else in the gameworld would handle the foes in question.

Now the prophecy examples still involve some sort of ingame explanation for the mechanics (ie the prophecy). But it is just as easy to imagine that there is no prophecy in the gameworld, but it is the desire an intention of the players of the game that events unfold according to a certain narrative logic. (This would be a slightly more modernist approach to the narrative.) Appropriate allocation of stats to the PC's foes will do this as well.


----------



## pemerton (Sep 30, 2008)

Prism said:


> I started off with the mindset of the majority (I reckon) but what Snoweel and Permeton have said have given me a lot to think of.



Thanks.



Prism said:


> The encounter itself might be fun but the story isn't going to fit. They are going to question why the city guards in one city were weak (the ones they encountered 3 years ago at 3rd level and beat) whereas these ones are rock hard





Dausuul said:


> as long as one bears in mind that when a story breaks the reader's suspension of disbelief, that's not generally good for the story.  Traveling At The Speed Of Plot is a very handy technique and I use it regularly; but it is also dangerously seductive, because it can lead you to get increasingly careless about details until suddenly the PCs say, "Hey, wait a minute.  It took us three days to get to the Darkhold last time and all we had to do was walk down a level road.  How come now it's a five-week journey and there's a mountain range in the way?"
> 
> NPC power levels are similar.  You can fudge them to some extent for the convenience of the game.  But if you do it too much, and too extensively, it will break suspension of disbelief.  At least in my experience, players expect a certain consistency in the world.  Epic-level heroes expect that if they have trouble with it, it's an epic-level threat, with everything that entails in terms of its impact on the game world.



Both the above quotes assume that the players are making an assumption, namely, that difficulty of an encounter for their PCs equates to relative ingame prowess. That is, both are assuming that the players have simulationist expectations.

If players do not have simulationist expectations - that is, for example, if the players have embraced alternative metagame explanations for the +.5 per level that various creatures receive, such as those canvassed by me upthread - then the players won't draw the inference that difficulty of encounter corresponds to ingame prowess. And thus no damage will be done, and no consistency will arise in the gameworld.

To repeat: the frequent suggestion that narrativist play involves a sacrifice of ingame consistency for story verges on the derogatory. What narrativist play abandons is a consistent ingame interpretation of the mechanics. But that has nothing to do with the consistency of the gameworld. It is just a different, non-simulationist, set of metagame expectations.



Kishin said:


> All this is is yet another argument over how 4th edition doesn't prioritize simulationism
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Having an epic thread on this every two weeks isn't really going to change anyone's stake, though.



Agreed. For the past year or so, my participation in these threads has simply been aimed at (i) pointing out that coherent narrativist play is possible, (ii) pointing out that 4e supports it better than 3E, and that 4e supports simulationism less well than 3E, and (iii) that narrativist play does not mean abandoning consistency of the gameworld.


----------



## IceFractal (Sep 30, 2008)

The problem with considering level as destiny or luck rather than increased prowess, is that the PCs get in a lot of fights, against a lot of different foes.

If you fought one dragon and defeated it, that could be for a lot of reasons.  Maybe you were destined to slay it.  Maybe you got lucky.  Maybe the dragon was overconfident.  

But if you've fought half a dozen dragons, scores of orcs, goblins, ogres, and drow, several demons, a giant thunder-breathing snake, some berserk wolves, a 500-year old vampire swordsman, a couple giants, and some kind of ooze made of lava ... the law of averages starts coming into it a bit.  Either it isn't luck, or it's _really_ consistent luck.  And either way, it makes little sense for it to suddenly fail when you fight some random pirates/highwaymen/guards/whoever.

Additionally, many people like to play characters who are actually competent enough to survive the challenges they face - not just ridiculously lucky or saved by destiny.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 30, 2008)

I have to point out that I do not consider a world where the PCs are the prophecised ogre slayers, then the prophecised Umber Hulk Slayers, then become the prophecised Ork Raider slayers, all while being knocked around by the town guard, as that convincing. Good concept for one campaign, but I'd rather not repeat it X times per level, Y times per campaign. (It also may feel a bit contrived, and "let good kind DM tie those ogres down for you with prophecy so you can slay them and feel like heroes, kids" themed)

I'd rather have the PCs being heroes instead, and reserve the prophecy for the really unique battles.

I also prefer if a story fits into a game world, instead of the other way around. Often, good stories used as a base for a game world lead to terrible game worlds - and games - because the elements that make a story good are too unique to work as a base for a more open campaign.

In my campaign, I don't need to use minions, and other narrativist tools. I can set the "thoughness" of an NPC at a value I consider fitting, and see where the PCs and players drive the story.

(Which, as an aside, also means that while my job as DM might beharder, it also leaves me surprised more often, and is more fun for me than trying to juggle prophesy and balanced encounters all day.)


----------



## S'mon (Sep 30, 2008)

pemerton said:


> I don't fully see how it's a defence of an issue with 3E that there is a way of rewriting significant parts of the game (eg spell lists, magic items, monster stats) under which the problem goes away.




I don't see particular monster stats as a core part of the game.  Certainly not a part that should be inviolate.  That my hill giants have 8 hit dice, attack +8 and do 2d6+7 damage and are CR 4 instead of CR 7 isn'y rewriting the core.  Nor am I saying that this in defense of 3e mind you - I think it's a major failing of 3e that the default 'melee brute' monsters' stats are way too tough compared to core Fighter PCs.  If Skip Williams as author of the 3e Monster Manual was the man responsible, he screwed up badly I think.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 30, 2008)

IceFractal said:


> The problem with considering level as destiny or luck rather than increased prowess, is that the PCs get in a lot of fights, against a lot of different foes.
> 
> If you fought one dragon and defeated it, that could be for a lot of reasons.  Maybe you were destined to slay it.  Maybe you got lucky.  Maybe the dragon was overconfident.
> 
> But if you've fought half a dozen dragons, scores of orcs, goblins, ogres, and drow, several demons, a giant thunder-breathing snake, some berserk wolves, a 500-year old vampire swordsman, a couple giants, and some kind of ooze made of lava ... the law of averages starts coming into it a bit.  Either it isn't luck, or it's _really_ consistent luck.  And either way, it makes little sense for it to suddenly fail when you fight some random pirates/highwaymen/guards/whoever.




Unless of course it's your one weakness, being vulnerable to a few mortal men - but then, the whole party having the same weakness, and the next party having all the same weakness stretches this idea very thin - and isn't exactly a good story anymore.


----------



## Fenes (Sep 30, 2008)

As far as 3E is concerned - I don't really see it as Pemerton does. I don't see this monolith 3E that somehow has all that stuff as core. 3E for me stands for d20, which means a lot of possible options, from which I pick and choose what I use for my game. Core 3E for me is that flexibility, not the text in one book.

I do not rewrite it as much as I write my ideal game from the elements it provides to me.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but it works for me.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 30, 2008)

pemerton said:


> If the player primarily wants to play the game so that his/her PC wins, in the gameworld, by becoming a more powerful person in the gameworld, then there isn't as much reward for such a player (although there is some, given that the ratios won't be 1:1). Hence my view that 4e is probably not the best game for players with simulationist preferences.




"Playing to win" is "simulationist"?  

I think what you said about increased complexity as a reward is interesting.  Personally I don't get any satisfaction from my PC's stats growing more complex - that makes them harder to run, which takes more brain-power, which for me quickly becomes a disincentive not an incentive.  Deciding how much to Power Attack in 3e is about as much mechanical complexity as I want to deal with.  Actually I think this is a big reason why I have struggled to 'get into' 4e.  If it's predicated on the notion that increasing PC mechanical complexity is good, and I think it's bad, then me and the game clearly have a major disagreement.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 30, 2008)

pemerton said:


> As I said upthread, by compressing the gaps in the gameworld, relative to the gaps in the numbers on the statblocks for PCs and monsters, you make the game less gonzo.



Yeah, I get that. I know what you're trying to accomplish.




pemerton said:


> That is: the notion is one of having non-gonzo play without grim & gritty. Runequest can't deliver that. E6 can't. 4e can.



There isn't an ounce of difference between what you're doing and E6 except number inflation. You're just giving both sides illusory +'s to their d20 role. Why bother with the sleigh of hand?




pemerton said:


> To repeat: the frequent suggestion that narrativist play involves a sacrifice of ingame consistency for story verges on the derogatory.



No, "sacrifice of ingame consistency to further story development" is the plain meaning of the word. Whether or no you think that's derogatory isn't my concern.

Just for the record, I think narrativist play is "not my cup o' tea", but that's a different thing than "I think people who play that way are my inferiors."




pemerton said:


> What narrativist play abandons is a consistent ingame interpretation of the mechanics.



So does everyone else is 4E.  Consistent ingame explanations for HP and dmg are flat out against the rules.  The distinguishing characteristic is that simulationists recognize rules like "city guards are between 1st and 4th level" and narrativists don't. For a narrativist a city guard is whatever level he needs to be to advance the plot (within reason).


*********

However, we have gotten very far afield.  My main point of argument is that if you give a player a +1 to attack, it should mean something.  In all previous editions of D&D it meant (1) old foes were more easily bested and (2) new more powerful foes can be challenged.  However by simply scaling old foes up with player advancement (even if at "a reduced scale") you are taking away reward number one.  To quote S'mon, "Where's the cookie?"

If you feel the urge (as a DM) to give players a +1 attack, and then immediately give all their foes a +1 to all defenses to compensate, you should probably just not give out the +1 attack in the first place.  It's fools' gold.  Frankly I would find it a bit insulting.

If you want to play a campaign where city guards and pirates are threats at 16th level _that's perfectly fine_, but it's an illusory reward to give +'s with one hand that you're simply going to take them back with the other.  Just be up front with the players about what kind of campaign you want to run.

Otherwise you might as well play a version of D&D that grants +11 per level because that's better than +1/2 per level.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Sep 30, 2008)

S'mon said:


> Personally I don't get any satisfaction from my PC's stats growing more complex - that makes them harder to run, which takes more brain-power, which for me quickly becomes a disincentive not an incentive.  Deciding how much to Power Attack in 3e is about as much mechanical complexity as I want to deal with.



The only change I would make to this sentence is that Power Attack in 3e is _more _complex than I want to deal with.  I don't like constantly recalculating odds in my head, which is why I don't play poker.




S'mon said:


> Actually I think this is a big reason why I have struggled to 'get into' 4e.  If it's predicated on the notion that increasing PC mechanical complexity is good, and I think it's bad, then me and the game clearly have a major disagreement.



FWIW, I think 4E is less complex than 3E.  Replacing less powerful powers with more powerful ones reduces complexity _a lot_.  Complexity does increase, but less than linearly, and the baseline is lower than 3E (IMO).


----------



## Delta (Sep 30, 2008)

S'mon said:


> That my hill giants have 8 hit dice, attack +8 and do 2d6+7 damage and are CR 4 instead of CR 7 isn'y rewriting the core... If Skip Williams as author of the 3e Monster Manual was the man responsible, he screwed up badly I think.




And of course some of us would be happy to say you're _returning_ to the actual core since you're recreating OD&D/1E hit dice and attack levels for giants.  

The real screwup happened in the 2E MM when they boosted the hit dice levels originally (whoever that was). 3E did overlook fixing that (when they had Con bonuses to compensate).


----------



## GlaziusF (Sep 30, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> So does everyone else in 4E.  Consistent ingame explanations for HP and dmg are flat out against the rules.




What? Why?

Damage represents shock. Not the electrical kind, the socked-in-the-heart-with-a-boxing-glove kind. Hit points are your capacity to absorb shock and stay conscious. Generally you can shake off shock if you can sit down and rest for a few minutes, but sometimes there's just not enough left in the tank and you need to sleep. At half hit points you begin to show signs of wear, at zero you pass out and will likely go comatose without help. At negative half hit points you've been too badly beaten to regain consciousness unaided, and if you're there or comatose you're also beyond the reach of most conventional healing, unless it happened very recently. You need ritual healing to get you up and running again.

How you paint this on yourself depends on your character - a ranger who only takes bruises and scrapes and even the shot that knocks him out leaves him wondering why his legs stopped working, a paladin whose muscles tear and bones break but is knit back together with divine energy, a warlock who is little more than a spindly husk surrounded by an aura of blue-black flame that flares to repulse blows but gutters and dies....

You can create the explanation you like that is consistent within your character. If you want to enforce a whole-world model, you can probably do that, too, perhaps segregating obvious exceptions like undead and oozes.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> The distinguishing characteristic is that simulationists recognize rules like "city guards are between 1st and 4th level" and narrativists don't. For a narrativist a city guard is whatever level he needs to be to advance the plot (within reason).




But for the simulationist a city guard is whatever level he needs to be to advance the plot, as well. It's just that there are some plots that city guards could not be called on to advance. 



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> However, we have gotten very far afield. My main point of argument is that if you give a player a +1 to attack, it should mean something. In all previous editions of D&D it meant (1) old foes were more easily bested and (2) new more powerful foes can be challenged. However by simply scaling old foes up with player advancement (even if at "a reduced scale") you are taking away reward number one. To quote S'mon, "Where's the cookie?"




And by scaling more powerful foes down to compensate for inadequate player advancement, you're taking away reward number 2. 

But this is about more than just number scaling. Number scaling falls apart after about 5 levels, and the DMG reflects this. This is about role scaling.

Consider the salamander lancer, a level 14 brute worth 1000 XP with 170 hit points. It can stab with its long lance, push with a tail slap, or produce a whirlwind of flame as a long-recharge power. Here's what might happen if a DM wanted to feature this monster in a 4E campaign, perhaps as the iconic servant of a demon prince or somesuch.

For a level 4 or 5 party, the lancer can be reconcepted into a "final boss", perhaps the product of a summoning ritual designed to devastate the countryside. It's a level 5 solo brute worth 1000 XP, with about 300 hit points and lower defenses. In any given turn it can stab twice with its lance and make a tail slap as an immediate reaction against a melee attack. It's surrounded by an aura of flame and flings its whirlwind out every other turn, and immediately when the PCs first wound it.

For a level 10 party, it can be reconcepted into a "lieutenant", a powerful presence among a hidden sect of cultists. It's a level 10 elite brute worth 1000 XP, with about 250 hit points and slightly lower defenses. In a given turn it can stab or slap, but not both, though it still gets the tail-slap as an immediate reaction, but only on a miss. It may have an aura of flames, but the aura doesn't deal damage, and the whirlwind only comes out every three turns, though it does immediately recharge when the lancer is bloodied. 

For a level 14 party it's a run-of-the-mill monster, part of a typical resistance the PCs might face trying to rescue an artifact from the Elemental Chaos. It's a level 14 brute worth 1000 XP with 170 hit points and standard defenses. The whirlwind of flame may come out once in the encounter.

For a level 22 party it can be reconcepted into a "minion", part of a mass of servitors that surround the demon prince for the party's final showdown with him. It's a level 22 minion worth about 1000 XP, and one solid hit will put it away but it has higher defenses. It can stab or lob a bolt of flame, both for relatively minor damage.

Why have it gain and lose attacks, or gain and lose hit points, or gain and lose defenses? Think of it as a quick abstraction on top of a deeper simulation. In the simulation, damage isn't binary. It's a continuum, based on the base damage of the power and base defense of the enemy, that increases with a higher attack roll. You can do things like make multiple attacks per round at a penalty, ready a reactive attack at a penalty, or have an ability that charges up from round to round and can be released whenever. 

To help the simulation resolve faster, some assumptions are made. Binary hits and misses show up - the hits do random damage somewhere in the hit range, the misses would do damage but not enough to be worth keeping track of. The extra abilities the salamander gets at a lower level are models of choices it could make to distribute its attack power and charged power differently. The higher hit points but lower defenses model a lowering of the "it matters" threshhold on the damage continuum. At a higher level, the salamander does small but constant damage because that's all that makes it over the "it matters" threshhold - and the same with it dying to one solid hit, since four misses in the abstraction might well kill it in the simulation, but that's just too much bookkeeping.

In effect you are fighting the same simulated monster as a solo, elite, normal, and minion version, but it's allocating its powers differently and its hit points and defenses scale so you don't have to recompute your damage roll. 

If we actually had the underlying simulation system, things could happen a bit differently, of course. I wouldn't just have to ad hoc what the salamander could do at solo and elite level, I could compute it directly, more or less. But ultimately that's something I'd need a computer for to prep ahead of time, instead of something I can sketch up with a pencil and paper in the coffee shop on my lunch break, or tweak slightly in Notepad.


----------



## SPoD (Sep 30, 2008)

The answer to the opening post is simple: _Poor self-esteem_. 

Our young NPCs feel so much pressure to live up to the glamorous images they see in the rulebooks of heroic PCs that they come to see themselves as ugly and worthless, fit only for guard duty even at 15th level. It's a tragic commentary on the stresses of modern medieval life.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Oct 1, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> What? Why?
> 
> Damage represents shock.



That's not what the PHB says. It's a combo of skill, endurance, physical damage, luck, etc., etc.  It's not any one thing.  And since HP aren't any one thing, Damage isn't any one thing either.





GlaziusF said:


> But for the simulationist a city guard is whatever level he needs to be to advance the plot, as well.



Um, no.  The guard is whatever level "makes sense" from within the context of the presented game world. There is no plot in a Sim game (ever played Sim City?), so plot has nothing to do with it.




GlaziusF said:


> And by scaling more powerful foes down to compensate for inadequate player advancement, you're taking away reward number 2.



To an extent, yes, but take that up with Pemerton. I'm not advocating this play style, he is. I wouldn't mind playing in this "flatter curve" D&D, but I'm also fine with it just the way it is.




GlaziusF said:


> But this is about more than just number scaling. Number scaling falls apart after about 5 levels, and the DMG reflects this. This is about role scaling.
> 
> Consider the salamander lancer, ... <_snip_>
> 
> In effect you are fighting the same simulated monster as a solo, elite, normal, and minion version, but it's allocating its powers differently and its hit points and defenses scale so you don't have to recompute your damage roll.



Recompute the damage roll?   Now who's taking away the cookies?  

Changing the creatures stats to "scale" it to the PCs is the same thing as rewriting their character sheet to take back the gains of leveling.  If you don't want PCs to outgrow monsters _don't give them +x to attacks and defenses when they level up_.  You're doing exactly what I suggested pemerton do, except that rather than not giving the PCs a bonus for leveling you're instead giving it to them and an equal offsetting bonus to their opponents.  What is the point of that?  Why the sham?  If you want a flatter curve D&D just advance all checks at +1/4, or +1/5, or +0; whatever rate makes you happy.


----------



## Korgoth (Oct 1, 2008)

SPoD said:


> The answer to the opening post is simple: _Poor self-esteem_.
> 
> Our young NPCs feel so much pressure to live up to the glamorous images they see in the rulebooks of heroic PCs that they come to see themselves as ugly and worthless, fit only for guard duty even at 15th level. It's a tragic commentary on the stresses of modern medieval life.




Magnar the Acceptable: You know, Trudor, I'm not feeling at all heroic.
Trudor the Fairly OK: For running from the Dire Tarrasque? I think that was a smart move.
Jabin the Average: I hate to point this out, but it was a fair encounter.
Murtir the Passable: You call that fair? A Dire Tarrasque? We're only 15th level.
Jabin: Yes, but there are forty of us.
Yadra of the Belle Curve: It would have killed at least half of us.
Magnar: Right but now it's killing a *whole* country.
Trudor: I say that's none of our concern. I don't know about you, but I'm Chaotic Good.
Murtir: You know, that really is sort of a cop-out alignment.
Trudor: Yeah, well you should know because you're Chaotic Good as well.
Jabin: I think we all just became Chaotic Neutral.
Yadra: What's with this "became"? I'm in this for the gold.
Magnar: So what do you suggest... we become farmers?
Yadra: Farmers? I said I'm in it for the *gold*. The last farmer I saw near any gold was a corpse in Killuthar's lair.
Jabin: We really should have had a go at that dragon.
Trudor: OK, I'll bite, Yadra... now that the realm of Inoffensiva has been destroyed by the Dire Tarrasque, where do you suggest that we seek this gold?
Yadra: Well, are any of you up for some hard, dangerous work?
Trudor: Of course we're not. Cut the rhetorical questions.
Yadra: Fine. Piracy.
Murtir: Piracy? Isn't that illegal?
Yadra: On the high seas, the only law is the cutlass.
Murtir: Really? I just missed my Knowledge: Jurisprudence check.
Yadra: Trust me. And don't bother with Sense Motive. My Bluff is maxed.
Murtir: Works for me.
Jabin: Aren't there fearsome sea monsters?
Yadra: Nothing like a Dire Tarrasque, that's for sure.
Jabin: Sold.
Yadra: Good. We've got enough mid-tier paragons to crew up two or three fast vessels. It's easy pickings from here on out, boys!


----------



## GlaziusF (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> That's not what the PHB says. It's a combo of skill, endurance, physical damage, luck, etc., etc.  It's not any one thing.  And since HP aren't any one thing, Damage isn't any one thing either.




Those are ways you can model shock and your character's ability to recover from it. 

Actually, maybe shock is the wrong word there. The term I'm looking for I don't believe actually exists in English or maybe even language, but there's an adjective, and it is "sudden". Damage is "a suddenness", which does not destroy you on a fundamental level but can overwhelm you.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> Um, no.  The guard is whatever level "makes sense" from within the context of the presented game world. There is no plot in a Sim game (ever played Sim City?), so plot has nothing to do with it.




Every Sim City game is the story of a city and how it grew. Everybody playing Sim City, unless they have fundamental brain damage, is making up their own story in their own head about their city and how it is growing.

This is because they are human, and humans make up stories about everything. It's what they do. There is no practical difference between a narrativist who for consistency's sake decides a city guard is not a credible participant in a story and a simulationist who runs the numbers and decides a city guard could not be a credible participant.



> Recompute the damage roll?   Now who's taking away the cookies?




Just to make sure we're on the same page, this is still in reference to using the "same monster" as a solo, elite, normal, and minion-class enemy, right? Not scaling the same enemy up or down a few levels to account for plausibly stronger and weaker versions?

Remember, in the "underlying simulation" there is no binary hit or miss. You deal damage based on the end result of your attack roll, after factoring in any modifiers and subtracting enemy defense. For modeling's sake that's being converted into a binary hit or miss with a damage roll to pick a random result from the hit range.

It'd be just as possible to provide everyone with the Master Statistical Damage Table By Attack Class Vs Armor, or to have a fixed hit threshhold and a Master Damage Expression By Attack Class Vs Armor Incorporating Level Difference Table. This way just makes it easier for people to get their damage dice ready while the attack roll's still spinning.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> Changing the creatures stats to "scale" it to the PCs is the same thing as rewriting their character sheet to take back the gains of leveling.




It's actually the same "underlying simulated" monster each time. At solo and elite class it's taking attack penalties to make more attacks and use powers in more complex ways, and the lower defenses and increased hit points model an identical durability but preserve the idea of "binary hit or miss with respectable hit chance and invariant damage expression". At minion class PC damage is basically off the charts and the higher defenses are just there because anything less won't instakill them and tracking hit points for 20 dudes is kind of a hassle. (Why doesn't the "solo" monster decide instead to instagib PCs? Maybe it can't, since only PCs and not monsters get severity bonus or the damage curve is just "kinder".)


----------



## Irda Ranger (Oct 1, 2008)

GlaziusF said:


> Those are ways you can model shock and your character's ability to recover from it.
> 
> Actually, maybe shock is the wrong word there. The term I'm looking for I don't believe actually exists in English or maybe even language, but there's an adjective, and it is "sudden". Damage is "a suddenness", which does not destroy you on a fundamental level but can overwhelm you.



If you want to call it "shock" in your game, peachy, but that's neither the official interpretation nor the consensus opinion (from what I can gather).





GlaziusF said:


> Every Sim City game is the story of a city and how it grew. Everybody playing Sim City, unless they have fundamental brain damage, is making up their own story in their own head about their city and how it is growing.
> 
> This is because they are human, and humans make up stories about everything. It's what they do.



I know.  But making up a story about stuff isn't determinant of the stuff. I can tell a story about how a rock ended up in my front yard, but it wasn't the story that put in there.

In narrativist play the rock is in the yard because of the story.

In simulationist play the rock it there because it "makes sense" within the world context. Whether we choose to tell a story about that is not germane to this thread.




GlaziusF said:


> There is no practical difference between a narrativist who for consistency's sake decides a city guard is not a credible participant in a story and a simulationist who runs the numbers and decides a city guard could not be a credible participant.



Yeah, there is. It matters whether cause comes before or after effect.




GlaziusF said:


> It's actually the same "underlying simulated" monster each time.



Other than pure role-play, the rules are the only means the players have of interacting with the monster.  If you give it more HP, or a lower AC, it's a different monster.  It looks the same, but this one's tougher (or weaker), or has Action Points and more actions per round, whatever.

My litmus test here is: what happens to the monster if you swap out the PC (or have both the 5th level and 22nd level version of the PC in the same room)?  If suddenly the monster implodes under the inability to be two different things at once, different monster.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> The distinguishing characteristic is that simulationists recognize rules like "city guards are between 1st and 4th level" and narrativists don't. For a narrativist a city guard is whatever level he needs to be to advance the plot (within reason).



This is consistent with my remark that narrativists do not have an inconsistent gameworld, but do not have a consistent interpretation of the ingame meaning of metagame notions such as "level".

Also, the notion of "advancing the plot" has nothing to do with narrativist play as that phrase is generally used. It seems connected to what The Forge calls high concept simulationism. Whereas in this thread "simulationism" is being used to refer to what The Forge calls purist-for-system simulationism combined with more-or-less sandbox play.

A related point: many of the posts on this thread seem to assume that it is up to the GM to decide what the ingame meaning of the mechanics is (eg is the +0.5/lvl a "destiny" thing, or prowess, or ...?). In narrativist play a reasonable amount of that responsibility falls on the players.

As to why scale by +0.5/lvl at all? It allows advancement.

As to why not compress the scale, as opposed to compress its ingame interpretation? The scale as currently implemented interacts with bonuses from feats, from stats, from powers, from items. These other numbers, in turn, interact with damage dice, with hit point totals, etc.

I don't feel any great urge to build my own simulationist game around different numbers when WoTC have already worked out a set of numbers for me, and the non-simulationist use of those numbers is fairly straightforward.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Oct 1, 2008)

pemerton said:


> metagame notions such as "level".



It may be a metagame term, but that doesn't mean it's effects are unobservable by the PCs.  If you give a monster a +1 AC without granting the PCs an offsetting +1 Attack, you've changed the world in a measurable way. You made something harder to hit.  It's different.  Ergo, your game world is inconsistent if you did that for a reason that maps to the story you're telling rather than an "in game" cause & effect.

Like, for instance, if you promoted a city guard from 3rd level soldier to 10th level minion just so your players could have a fight with a little risk in it.  His Attacks and AC are higher.  A 1st level PC would have great trouble hitting his AC.  The world is inconsistent.




pemerton said:


> I don't feel any great urge to build my own simulationist game around different numbers when WoTC have already worked out a set of numbers for me, and the non-simulationist use of those numbers is fairly straightforward.



It's actually pretty straight forward.  4E doesn't have the same baked-in dependencies that 3E had.  It's a bunch of separate boxes that can be tweaked independently with minimal inconvenience to the rest of the system. It's actually really well designed for that.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> It may be a metagame term, but that doesn't mean it's effects are unobservable by the PCs.  If you give a monster a +1 AC without granting the PCs an offsetting +1 Attack, you've changed the world in a measurable way. You made something harder to hit.  It's different.  Ergo, your game world is inconsistent if you did that for a reason that maps to the story you're telling rather than an "in game" cause & effect.
> 
> Like, for instance, if you promoted a city guard from 3rd level soldier to 10th level minion just so your players could have a fight with a little risk in it.  His Attacks and AC are higher.  A 1st level PC would have great trouble hitting his AC.  The world is inconsistent.



You seem to be saying that the gameworld is inconsistent anytime the game-mechanical likelihoods of some outcome do not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities.

On this notion of consistency, any game with a Fate Point mechanic, or with a mechanic such as TRoS's Spiritual Attributes or HeroWars's Relationships delivers an inconsistent gameworld.

Needless to say, I don't accept that the gameworld is inconsistent anytime the game-mechanial likelihoods of some outcome do not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities. For example, the game-mechanical likelihood of an PC in my game dying from a heart attack on the toilet, or from falling out of bed after waking up in the morning is zero. That does not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities which, I assume, are the same as in the real world. It doesn't follow that the gameworld is inconsistent. Rather, for metagame reasons (eg thematic significance) certain things that are possible in the gameworld never actually happen.


----------



## Rangoric (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> It may be a metagame term, but that doesn't mean it's effects are unobservable by the PCs.  If you give a monster a +1 AC without granting the PCs an offsetting +1 Attack, you've changed the world in a measurable way. You made something harder to hit.




Harder to kill. Not harder to hit, harder to kill.

If you have to hit them 2 times to kill them and you need a 11 to hit, it's about the same as 1 hit to kill and a 16 to hit isn't it?

Giving a monster 1 hit point but making them harder to hit does about the same thing. The PCs deal enough damage now to kill them in one hit, but getting that one hit is harder.

This way damage doesn't have to scale up OMG FAST to generate that 1HKO.

You are looking at it very close up and detail oriented (great for 3e/3.5e) while 4e is more end result oriented.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 1, 2008)

Rangoric said:


> You are looking at it very close up and detail oriented (great for 3e/3.5e) while 4e is more end result oriented.



I agree with this. One implication is that the mechanics can't be taken as being in literal correspondence with ingame causality - because for the same ingame causal process we have multiple mechanical implementations available.


----------



## Delta (Oct 1, 2008)

pemerton said:


> You seem to be saying that the gameworld is inconsistent anytime the game-mechanical likelihoods of some outcome do not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities.
> 
> On this notion of consistency, any game with a Fate Point mechanic, or with a mechanic such as TRoS's Spiritual Attributes or HeroWars's Relationships delivers an inconsistent gameworld.




Well, yeah, I'd agree with that. Or at least it's too complicated a game. Anytime a game wanders in a direction where people have to distinguish at great length between "in-game" and "out-of-game" terms and numbers having different meanings, it's gone more complicated than I care to deal with. Same with Fate Points, etc.



pemerton said:


> For example, the game-mechanical likelihood of an PC in my game dying from a heart attack on the toilet, or from falling out of bed after waking up in the morning is zero.




I think that example fails because the probability is "undefined" inasmuch as the game rules don't simulate that one way or the other; it's actually not part of the game. I'd need to stick to actual events simulated by the game rules to have definable game-mechanical likelihoods.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 1, 2008)

pemerton said:


> Also, the notion of "advancing the plot" has nothing to do with narrativist play as that phrase is generally used. It seems connected to what The Forge calls high concept simulationism.




Well, almost no one uses Narrativism to mean what Edwards says it should mean.  It's usually used to mean Dramatism in the threefold GDS model, which as you say the Forge model shoehorns into Simulationist play, ignoring that games like Buffy the Vampire Slayer have very different design goals from Twilight: 2000 or Runequest.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Oct 1, 2008)

pemerton said:


> You seem to be saying that the gameworld is inconsistent anytime the game-mechanical likelihoods of some outcome do not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities.



That's part of it.  The main point I'm getting at (as have been said 10 time already) is that it's "inconsistent" when city guards show wild swings in competency relative to the PCs' level without any rhyme or reason within the game.  It's inconsistent if guards > PCs, and PC > dragon, and dragon > guards.  That's my sole argument on this point.  End stop.




pemerton said:


> On this notion of consistency, any game with a Fate Point mechanic, or with a mechanic such as TRoS's Spiritual Attributes or HeroWars's Relationships delivers an inconsistent gameworld.



I'm not familiar with those, but you could be right.




pemerton said:


> For example, the game-mechanical likelihood of an PC in my game dying from a heart attack on the toilet, or from falling out of bed after waking up in the morning is zero. That does not correspond to the ingame causal probabilities which, I assume, are the same as in the real world. It doesn't follow that the gameworld is inconsistent. Rather, for metagame reasons (eg thematic significance) certain things that are possible in the gameworld never actually happen.



There are a billion^34 things that are outside the rules.  I don't expect the rules to model everything.  But they things they do model they should model in a way that doesn't make my brain hurt.  Minions do.  So does making your players fight and strive for +'s while handing them out like candy behind the DM screen to every little pirate and city guard.  Do you even remember why we started this thread?


----------



## pemerton (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> The main point I'm getting at (as have been said 10 time already) is that it's "inconsistent" when city guards show wild swings in competency relative to the PCs' level without any rhyme or reason within the game.  It's inconsistent if guards > PCs, and PC > dragon, and dragon > guards.  That's my sole argument on this point.  End stop.



Right. And my response is that this is true only if certain assumptions are made. You want to describe those assumptions as "consistency in the gameworld". I disagree with this - the assumptions can be abandoned, yet the gameworld remain consistent, if the mechanics are allowed to depart from being a strict model of the gameworld.



Irda Ranger said:


> I don't expect the rules to model everything. But they things they do model they should model in a way that doesn't make my brain hurt.



What's being discussed here is, in part, what the +0.5/lvl models. Just because a game is played in which it doesn't mean the same thing every time for every different PC or monster doesn't mean that the gameworld is inconsistent. But once that sort of liberalisation is introduced into the game/metagame relationship, than it may become false that guards>PC, PC>dragon therefore guards>dragon. (One example - the PC is Bard Bowman, who is able to kill Smaug with a single arrow although still vulnerable to town guards.)


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 1, 2008)

I'd rather not justify scaling such foes like that. I think it's rather more interesting once the PCs hit high level if each of them has personal power equivalent to that of a small nation - and then examine the consequences of this.

But then again, I _have_ been playing Exalted a lot.


----------



## GlaziusF (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> If you want to call it "shock" in your game, peachy, but that's neither the official interpretation nor the consensus opinion (from what I can gather).




Okay, how does "shock" fail your simulation?



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I know.  But making up a story about stuff isn't determinant of the stuff. I can tell a story about how a rock ended up in my front yard, but it wasn't the story that put in there.




On the contrary.

All you will ever have is a story about how a rock ended up on your front yard.

It may or may not be consistent with a later story about your investigation of the rock in your front yard and what you found there.

It's better if it is consistent, or if you retell it to be consistent, because that makes it easier to remember.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> Yeah, there is. It matters whether cause comes before or after effect.




Hahaha, 'cause and effect'. Next you'll be talking about 'reality' and 'time'. None of those things actually exist, though I find it easier to act as if they do as it's very convenient.

On a differently philosophical bent, there's really no difference between a narrativist who plots out the world and a simulationist who stats it out. Both are establishing relationships between ideas, the narrativist with applied set theory (that is, language) and the simulationist with numbers. And it means the same thing when the narrativist's plot is inconsistent and the simulationist's numbers prove unworkable - there's a problem with the relationship.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> My litmus test here is: what happens to the monster if you swap out the PC (or have both the 5th level and 22nd level version of the PC in the same room)?  If suddenly the monster implodes under *the inability to be two different things at once,* different monster.




Can I riff on the whole 'cause and effect' thing by introducing the idea of 'simultaneous quantum superposition'? 

The monster's waveform collapses when it comes into contact with PCs, under the assumptions of the "damage continuum -> binary hit and miss with random damage" conversion. If you have a 5th level and a 22nd level PC together, somehow, the assumptions of the conversion are violated and the waveform doesn't collapse. Facing, say, the level 14 version of the monster, the level 5 never hits and isn't missed, and the level 22 never misses and isn't hit, and in neither case do they deal or take an appropriate amount of damage. If we had access to the complete and complex rules for the underlying simulation then we could run the monster encounter anyway, at the expenditure of disproportionate time and effort for everyone involved, but we don't so we can't. 

The guidelines for party composition and encounter design are there to make sure the assumptions of the conversion to binary hit and miss hold. When you violate the assumptions, of course you get an unworkable encounter. It would be surprising if you didn't!


----------



## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 1, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:


> It may be a metagame term, but that doesn't mean it's effects are unobservable by the PCs.  If you give a monster a +1 AC without granting the PCs an offsetting +1 Attack, you've changed the world in a measurable way. You made something harder to hit.  It's different.  Ergo, your game world is inconsistent if you did that for a reason that maps to the story you're telling rather than an "in game" cause & effect.



I don't believe it is observable by the PCs.  The PCs observe: "I swung at the monster, it parried the attack at the last second....if only I'd been a bit faster."  That's all they observe.  I don't believe every PC has a probability detector that lets them know that THIS time they only had a 35% chance of hitting instead of the 40% they had last time.  Nor do I think that PCs look at an Ogre and think, "Wow, something has to be wrong, the last Ogre I fought I killed easily and THIS one is hard, even though I've gotten better.  This world is totally inconsistent, all Ogres should fight exactly the same."

All those ideas are entirely metagame thinking.  They have nothing to do with in game consistency and everything to do with out of game consistency.



Irda Ranger said:


> Like, for instance, if you promoted a city guard from 3rd level soldier to 10th level minion just so your players could have a fight with a little risk in it.  His Attacks and AC are higher.  A 1st level PC would have great trouble hitting his AC.  The world is inconsistent.



It is if you have 1st level characters involved in the fight.  And even then from the characters point of view all they know is that the guards fight better than the blacksmith or an average goblin.  On the other hand, in the average D&D game where all the PCs are the same level and the action revolves entirely around them, no one should notice.

Luck being what it is, sometimes less skilled opponents beat more skilled ones.  Most people accept that as a fact and are willing to accept that the town guard managed to get a lucky shot in on the dragon because they closed their eyes, pointed their sword in the direction of the dragon and it charged in and didn't see the sword in time.  It happens rarely, but I don't think anyone in my group would be yelling at me for a lack of consistency if they were able to beat the guard.  There's no good in game way of measuring "skill".


----------



## IceFractal (Oct 1, 2008)

> What's being discussed here is, in part, what the +0.5/lvl models. Just because a game is played in which it doesn't mean the same thing every time for every different PC or monster doesn't mean that the gameworld is inconsistent. But once that sort of liberalisation is introduced into the game/metagame relationship, than it may become false that guards>PC, PC>dragon therefore guards>dragon. (One example - the PC is Bard Bowman, who is able to kill Smaug with a single arrow although still vulnerable to town guards.)





> There's no good in game way of measuring "skill".




This works fine when you fight *a* dragon - which is the case in quite a few stories.  But in most campaigns, that's not what you do.  You fights lots of monsters, of many varieties, and you go on quests knowing that they will involve those fights.  

And what this means is that the PCs have to know that they're powerful.  Because if they didn't know that, they wouldn't go on 90% of the quests out there.  If you believe you're a normal person, and a giant attacks the city, do you:
A) Go stab the giant in the foot.
B) Do something that has a chance in hell of working, like helping people evacuate.

Would someone who just got "lucky" before ever decide to go explore a tomb full of undead that have killed everyone within a 10 mile radius?  Not unless they were suicidal.  So if it's "luck", it has to be luck that works every time, and the PCs have to know that.  And then we get back to the same situation.  If their "luck" has held out for dozens of fights against many varieties of foes, and is consistent enough for them to explore places no sane person would go near ... then why doesn't it work against random bandits/guards?


----------



## Delta (Oct 1, 2008)

I got it. On tvtropes.org, this is basically the same as the "Power Creep Power Seep" problem: Power Creep Power Seep - Television Tropes & Idioms


----------



## pemerton (Oct 2, 2008)

IceFractal, what you say is probably true if the game is a sandboxish sequence of fights in which the PCs' main motivation is tomb-looting and treasure-hunting.

But the game needn't be played like that.

Each level requires 10 level-equivalent encounters. If we instead put in one major quest, five minor quests and skill challenges totalling to 2 encounters worth, we are then down to 6 level-equivalent encounters. If we make two of them slightly higher level, we can bring it down to 5 level-equivalent encounters.

Now integrate all of that into a single sequence of events (perhaps with one extended rest part way through), and we have one day in the life of the PCs in order for them to get a level.

Intersperse enough such days into the life of the PCs - separated by periods of ingame time in which know encounters take place and thus no at-table play occurs - and we have the story of how this band of heroes rose from obscurity to reach their epic destinies. And in that sort of game the prophecy/fate/genre-convention interpretation of the 0.5 per level bonus, at least for some of the characters involved, might not be out of place at all.


----------



## IceFractal (Oct 2, 2008)

How do the encounters going by faster change things?  If you asked me, personally, to go find and slay a band of demonic ogres and a pair of dragons, I would say "No, that would be crazy, I'll help in some way that isn't guaranteed death."  If you then said, "But it'll go by very quickly, in the course of a day or two.", that wouldn't really change anything.

It's not just that characters wouldn't go explore the undead-filled tomb for loot, it's that any sane character is unlikely to go on a quest that appears to be certain failure and death, even for the noblest reasons, and especially not more than once.  Because if the monsters really can kill you with one claw behind their backs, then you'd do more good by carrying messages or helping build fortifications.

The way I can see this making sense, is if PCs keep being thrown into situations they have to fight their way out of, with no chance to avoid them or go get backup.  And that sounds rather like railroading, something which most players are no fan of.


----------



## IceFractal (Oct 2, 2008)

Also I should note that simply having a flatter power-curve, for the entire game world, is completely legitimate if you want to play that way.  If you want to say that by level 30, you have the power and foes of a 10th level character, there's no inconsistency - although in that case you may as well just cut XP to 1/3 and stop at 10th level.

The inconsistency comes from asymmetrical power, where you end up facing creatures that can destroy towns with a single rush, and calling yourself an "Archmage" or "Demigod", but when it comes to bandits/guards/miscellaneous-humanoids, you're suddenly just fairly skilled and lucky, and had better watch out if some alley thugs attack.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 2, 2008)

The thought wasn't just that things go by faster, but that in that sort of game it wouldn't be absurd to suppose that the PCs were driven/aided by fate/destiny etc.

As to why the PCs would get involved in adventure - ingame the explanation can be whatever you like (it happended to Bilbo, after all, so it can happen to anyone), and at the table the explanation is "Because we came to your house to play D&D".


----------



## Allister (Oct 2, 2008)

re: Oblivion aspect 

Er, I think people are REALLY reading pg 42 wrong and interpreting stuff like the blue slime incorrectly as well.

Pg 42 is for the DM and what the DM needs is different than what the player sees.

Keep in mind that the skills in the PHB actually have physical/concrete characteristics. But this is NOT what a DM needs to craft an adventure.

Think of it like this...You're designing an encounter where YOU the DM wants the PCs to be trying to keep their balance. Going to the PHB first and selecting a DC makes no sense since you will have no idea if the PC can attempt it.

IT makes more sense to select the DC first and THEN translate it back via the skill DC lsting in the PHB.

If the blue slime was some type of schroedinger cat, then it makes no sense to even have set DCs as seen in the PHB since you wouldnt need them...The only reason you have the  blue slime as an obstacle/encounter is because the DM wants to challenge the player.


----------



## Anthraxus (Oct 2, 2008)

I just think you should be fighting something appropriate for your level and situation. I was suprised and a little bit put off when in an adventure(I'm not saying what or where), we fought two 14th level priests of Hextor, who were *waiting to ambush us in a sewer*... HUH? Two guys who could practically be high priests of their own temple- hanging around in a sewer waiting to ambush some adventurers. 

Was it a challenge? Yes. Did it make any sense? No.

Now, high level guards/pirates/soldiers/assassins... I can see one every once in awhile(the mentioned "retired adventurer"), but not the norm. 

How could the king have ten 20th level guards??? To protect him from the super rare 20th level party that comes in and doesn't act properly for their station? Blah.


----------



## IceFractal (Oct 2, 2008)

> The thought wasn't just that things go by faster, but that in that sort of game it wouldn't be absurd to suppose that the PCs were *driven*/aided by fate/destiny etc.



That's the thing - not everyone wants to be driven by destiny.  Some people want to steer their own course.  Now if destiny beckons, they might follow, but they don't want to be railroaded into it.



> (it happended to Bilbo, after all, so it can happen to anyone),



So you're going to send a squadron of dwarven warriors and a high level wizard along with the PCs to help?  This has issues as an example:
A) He was hired as a burglar, not to go slay the dragon by himself.
B) As seen in DM-of-the-Rings, the same plot that makes for an epic story can also make for epic railroading.  Not everything that works in a novel is right for a game.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 2, 2008)

To infest this thread with my inapproriate* Torg fanboyismn: 

Torg had an interesting mechanic to make low level monsters more difficult threats. There were two types of Scenes - Standard and Dramatic Scenes.
The Drama Deck that is also used for determining initiative and special effects each round had a line for Standard and one for Dramatic Scenes.

In Standard Scenes, most of the effects are benefitial for the PCs - get an extra rerolls, win initiative, or get an extra action, or the enemy gets setbacks, breaks off or is fatigued.
In dramatic scenes, the enemies suddenly get intiatives, extra actions or extra rerolls, while the party gets setbacks and fatigue. (Not all cards are bad for the PCs, but the ratio gets worse).

Of course, Torg is not a level based system, so bringing a similar idea to D&D would be hard. But from a simulation perspective - the NPCs don't become more powerful in the dramatic scene. They just have more luck this time.
If the .5 bonus per level (and the +6 hp per level) for some NPCs just stand in for the extra luck they have in the particular scene, the same could apply here, and I suppose that goes in the direction of pemertons point of view. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if pemerton just takes this point to facilitate an interesting discussion - considering he at least used to play a lot of Rolemaster which certainly doesn't use much of these assumptions.  )

Of course, I am not so much a fan of assuming that all of the .5 bonus per level or the +6 hp per level represent extra luck for any NPC. But I can live with a "trade" between hit points and the level bonus, and support "minionizing" regular monsters and similar things, possibly treating the XP value of each monster or NPC as the sum of their luck, skill and destiny, allowing to "transform" it into Solo low levels, Elite Medium Levels, Regular High Levels, and Minion Extreme High Level monsters. (At least that's one of my approaches. I might also be willing to change the XP value. Honestly, I'd prefer a move up/down along the Tiers - a 3rd level Elite becomes a 13th level Regular and a 23rd level Minion. But maybe using the XP value feels more... "honest" or fair? The XP gained from an encounter against the city guard stays consistent, but at low levels, you would need to beat 4 encounters with a lot of regular NPCs, and at high levels, only one encounter against a lot of minions...  And I think as a player, this shouldn't feel "cheated" - you will notice quite a difference between finding the fight against 5 guards challenging and the difference of finding the fight against 20 guards challenging...)



*)inappropriate because I did play it less then 4E by now. And Torg is around for a decade or more, 4E for a few months.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 3, 2008)

IceFractal said:


> That's the thing - not everyone wants to be driven by destiny.  Some people want to steer their own course.  Now if destiny beckons, they might follow, but they don't want to be railroaded into it.



This seems to be assuming a degree of player/PC identity which wouldn't make sense using the sort of approach I am talking about.

To try and be clearer: the PC has a destiny (reflected by the +0.5/lvl); the player chooses her PC's path. The player is therefore not railroaded.

And I'm not saying that anyone has to play this way. I'm saying that the game can be played this way, and if it is played this way then the NPC guards having increasing levels as the PC's gain levels needn't be seen as leading to an inconsistent gameworld in which things get tougher as the PCs get tougher.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But from a simulation perspective - the NPCs don't become more powerful in the dramatic scene. They just have more luck this time.
> If the .5 bonus per level (and the +6 hp per level) for some NPCs just stand in for the extra luck they have in the particular scene, the same could apply here, and I suppose that goes in the direction of pemertons point of view. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if pemerton just takes this point to facilitate an interesting discussion - considering he at least used to play a lot of Rolemaster which certainly doesn't use much of these assumptions.  )



It's true that Rolemaster doesn't use many of these assumptions, though it's parrying rules and spell overcasting rules are (in my opinion) a clever use of simulationist-friendly rules to confer a degree of narrative control on players that is unusual for a simulationist-oriented game (it contrasts markedly with Runequest, for example).

But I'm not _merely_ trying to facilitate an interesting discussion - I'm trying to defend the legitimacy of a certain (non-simulationist, non-railroaded) approach to fantasy RPGing, and the utility of various mechanics for that sort of play.


----------



## dead (Oct 4, 2008)

This thread makes me think of Gygax's novel, Saga of Old City.

At the start of the story, Gord is a lowly street urchin who is beat up by a bully in the Slums of Greyhawk. Gord breaks out of the Slums, however, and goes on many adventures in Greyhawk and beyond. After honing his skills and becoming a battle-hardened rogue, he returns to the Slums to face his fear: that original bully. Needless to say, Gord kicks his butt and the coward runs away in terror.

I believe Gygax was suggesting that Gord earned his confidence and power (ie. game levels) from his adventures while the bully stayed at status quo (the same level) by just staying in the Slums and, well, being an ordinary thug.

Gord's increased power is the previlige and reward of all adventurers. His higher level in relation to the lower level of the thug is a game rule that reflects this.


----------



## I'm A Banana (Oct 4, 2008)

The reason why is just because the PC's need an XP-worthy challenge.

There's nothing deeper.

Well, maybe one thing deeper:



> This is bad adventure design.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Oct 4, 2008)

This is something, like Schroedinger's Wounding or never meeting mundane creatures, that is less of a problem in episodic play than in sandbox play.

In episodic play, the DM and players can decide that the world is completely normal (whatever that is, in context) outside of the gamed "episodes", and that, therefore, anything that happens in-game is exceptional.

In sandbox play, whatever happens determines what is normal and what is exceptional.

In episodic play, the DM is crafting encounters specifically to challenge _these_ PCs at _this_ level.

In sandbox play, the DM is crafting locations in the campaign world, and it is up to the players to determine what challenges they can face.  Moreover, because the DM isn't predetermining the challenges that they face, it is reasonable to assume that the 10th level PCs might return to their 1st-level home base, where they reasonably expect to be more powerful in relation to the stay-at-home characters around them.  Not only does this give the PCs a sense of accomplishment, but it means that the DM doesn't have to design the same village repeatedly every time the PCs level.

RC


----------



## pemerton (Oct 6, 2008)

Raven Crowking said:


> This is something, like Schroedinger's Wounding or never meeting mundane creatures, that is less of a problem in episodic play than in sandbox play.



I agree. One of several reasons why I think that 4e is better suited for some playstyles than others.


----------



## Allister (Oct 6, 2008)

Again, I think people are misunderstanding the use of the Blue slime and pg 42

The way I understand it (supported by both the PHB and the DMG) isn't that the blue slime scales mysteriously between levels.

It's the same challenge as before but the fact that pg 42 provides a way to tell DMs what is an appropriate challenge for that level PC. If the PC encounters the blue slime at level 5 first and then come back 10 levels later, there's no reason to have the blue slime as a challenge since the PC no longer need to roll and the DM shouldn't even bother having the blue slime there.

It doesn't have anything to do with episodic or sandbox play IMO. It has everything to do with realizing that the DM needs guidelines as to what an appropriate encounter would be for that level of a group.

It's looking at encounters from the perspective that a DM is the one that determines what a challenge is. 

If the skill system was an Oblivion style system, then there's no point in actually having specific DCs as the PHB does.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 6, 2008)

Allister said:


> If the skill system was an Oblivion style system, then there's no point in actually having specific DCs as the PHB does.



I think that this is right to an extent - you can combine the DMG and the PHB DCs to extrapolate from the page 42 DCs back to particular flavour descriptions stated in the PHB.

But I also think that there is a degree of tension between the two books in their approaches to skills. And in his discussion of Blue Slime in the Dragon article on writing the DMG, James Wyatt says some stuff which is perhaps closer to the sort of approach I am defending the coherence of.


----------



## Fenes (Oct 6, 2008)

Allister said:


> If the PC encounters the blue slime at level 5 first and then come back 10 levels later, there's no reason to have the blue slime as a challenge since the PC no longer need to roll and the DM shouldn't even bother having the blue slime there.
> 
> It doesn't have anything to do with episodic or sandbox play IMO. It has everything to do with realizing that the DM needs guidelines as to what an appropriate encounter would be for that level of a group.
> 
> It's looking at encounters from the perspective that a DM is the one that determines what a challenge is.




That thought that unless something is a challenge it shouldn't be there has everything to do with sandbox play, or rather the opposite of sandbox play. The essence of sandbox play is that things are there not because they serve a game role (aka xp/challenge source, which they can and often do as well) but because there's a world role they play. 

You don't have to play out the combat against the non-challenge blue slime, but in a sandbox game, it should be there, and be mentioned, or there should be a reason for its absence - especially if the PCs saw it before.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 6, 2008)

I remember years ago running high level 3e, the ca 12th level PCs discovered that the BBEG had a bodyguard of 5th & 6th level orc warriors.  These orcs were no threat to the PCs, but the players complained that 6th level orcs were unrealistic.  I was annoyed as I had actually gone through the level demographics of the local orc tribes and had the BBEG recruit a suitable percentage of them as his guards!


----------



## AllisterH (Oct 6, 2008)

Fenes said:


> You don't have to play out the combat against the non-challenge blue slime, but in a sandbox game, it should be there, and be mentioned, or there should be a reason for its absence - especially if the PCs saw it before.




But what purpose does it serve though? 

When even a blinded PC on a roll of a 1 will auto-hit the monster, and the monster itself can't even hit a PC when it has combat advantage, why bother with it? The PCs won't get any experience with it and other than  

From a DM perspective, I don't think they should be expected to run a persistent world a la MMORPG since persistent worlds tend to be static.

re: James comments
Honestly, when I first read James comment, I thought it was understood the first step in using the Blue Slime wasn't setting the DC but in determining that you wanted a Blue Slime as an obstacle in the first place.

I got the impression from reading the DMG that unless you as a DM want stats for obstacles/encounters, you're not supposed to be using said stats. You're supposed to freeform it since it falls outside of the task resolution system.

Sure, you could mention it, but you're not going to be using the stats in any way so you don't use pg. 42.

It's the same reason why when WOTC designers talked about non-combat abilities of the monsters, they don't give guidelines since the DM is expected to handle that via power of the plot.


----------



## Fenes (Oct 6, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> But what purpose does it serve though?
> 
> When even a blinded PC on a roll of a 1 will auto-hit the monster, and the monster itself can't even hit a PC when it has combat advantage, why bother with it? The PCs won't get any experience with it and other than
> 
> From a DM perspective, I don't think they should be expected to run a persistent world a la MMORPG since persistent worlds tend to be static.




Does your world have beggars in the streets? Passer-bys in cities? Guards at the gate? Peasants on the fields? Cobblers, tailors, pottery merchants? Fishermen and bakers? Children playing in a side alley, cats and dogs taking naps in the sun? Birds hunting insects?

What purpose do they serve?

The same purpose as a blue slime has in a dungeon even though the PCs won't get experience for killing or bypassing it, and might do that without rolling any dice: To turn a _world map that links encounters_ into a _world_.


----------



## Rel (Oct 6, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> But what purpose does it serve though?
> 
> When even a blinded PC on a roll of a 1 will auto-hit the monster, and the monster itself can't even hit a PC when it has combat advantage, why bother with it? The PCs won't get any experience with it and other than




I'll echo Fenes comments from above.  The reason for including the Blue Slime is not to be a challenge.  It stopped being a challenge a while back and turned into scenery.  It brings the world to life and gives it internal consistancy.

I realize that those are not priorities for all gamers but they happen to be for me (and many others).  So that is the point of including them.

If the PC's abilities now outpace a challenge to the point where it isn't a challenge, there is no need to roll any dice.  As you say, this isn't a MMORPG and there is no need to "click on" the Level 1 Wolves in the starter zone.  The GM simply describes that the Blue Slime is there and that it now poses no threat to the PC's thanks to their rise in power.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart (Oct 8, 2008)

Rel said:


> I'll echo Fenes comments from above.  The reason for including the Blue Slime is not to be a challenge.  It stopped being a challenge a while back and turned into scenery.  It brings the world to life and gives it internal consistancy.
> 
> I realize that those are not priorities for all gamers but they happen to be for me (and many others).  So that is the point of including them.



True.  You can certainly do this and there is nothing wrong with it.  I will often skip through the details of such things because my players get bored pretty quickly unless interesting stuff is happening all the time.  They want things that are a challenge to defeat to fight.  They want the things that happen in the adventure to be important to an interesting story.

We've tried a sandbox like game before and our DM had a lot of fun describing what happened....for the first 3 or 4 hours.  Until she realized that she was going to be describing, in detail, our one night at the inn for multiple sessions straight unless she took some control of the game.  It was around the same time in the game that half the table was beginning to get bored of sandboxing it as well.  I was looking at the clock and thinking "We've been talking to people in a bar, picking up women, drinking, playing darts with locals, role playing our characters now for..how many hours?  Wow.  I mean, it was fun for a while, but I'm a fighter and I'd like to use my sword at some point."

Then the DM had someone come up to us and recruit us to go into a dungeon and we were all happy for the change in pace, and we proceeded with the dungeon crawl.  All the monsters in the dungeon were level appropriate and there was a big puzzle to be solved to get to the end.

The point is that you can use "color" monsters as long as they don't spend much time on screen and don't occupy much time.  It's fair enough to say "You are so powerful, the guards don't even stand a chance, you kill them all and take all the treasure out of the vault, you have have 300,000,000 gp, what are you going to do now?"  It's another to have an entire campaign where you don't make attack rolls because it is all roleplaying or fighting enemies too weak for you.

But for me, it makes a much more exciting story(which is what I'm trying to tell by playing the game) if the PCs go through trials that challenge them.  Much in the same way you rarely see great heroes fighting things that are no problem at all for them in movies.    But I am aware that this concept is pretty much the exact opposite of sandbox play(which is generally pretty simulationist).  The idea of simulationism and sandbox play is that "things are there because they are there...I'm not about to skip description of them simply because the PCs are too high level to care about them."  But, I agree with other people that say 4e has been designed from the other point of view first:  The PCs encounter things that challenge them and you make a story up around that.  Game first, story second, simulation third.

When I implement this idea it goes like this:

The PCs are 15th level, they are in Paragon tier so their adventures should revolve around issues that affect entire regions of the world.  They should fight monsters around 12-18th level.  An Elder Black Dragon is level 18 and the adventure might take a level or 2 to get to the point where they actually meet the dragon, I'll use one of those.  He likely has a bunch of minions, they should be around the same level so that they are a challenge for the PCs.  There are a bunch of Cyclops scattered from Level 16 through 18.  They sound like worthy minions.  The dragon maybe conquered them or made a deal with them to....search for an item he wanted.  Now they are rampaging across the countryside destroying village after village looking for it.  The PCs are called to deal with it.  I don't want the encounters to get boring, so I won't use JUST Cyclops, they likely have some pets, some allies, and the PCs will randomly encounter other things(also around level 15) on their journey.  And there we have the skeleton of an adventure.  We then fill in the where and how and why.  What village are the Cyclops attacking when the PCs confront them?  How do the PCs hear about it?  Why do the PCs want to stop them?  Where does it go from there?

But if I was going for simulation first, I'd go about designing that adventure completely differently.  After all, there probably aren't that many Cyclops around in my world, so a large number of them banding together wouldn't be realistic.  The minions that the dragon could likely gather from the surrounding area would all be orcs.  Which couldn't challenge the PCs at their current level.  But I'll describe the orcs as attacking the PCs anyways, and describe them as being completely destroyed with no XP.  Then, when the PCs finally convince an orc to tell them that a dragon asked them to do it, they'll likely attack the dragon's cave and the dragon will kill them since they got no XP from anything before this battle.  But that's fair, the Dragon SHOULD kill them because they should be smart enough to know they can't just take on a DRAGON just because they are 15th level.  And so the game likely ends in a TPK.  Maybe they all get brought back to life and they start looking for a different problem that is closer to what they can handle, and so on.

Of course, I know my friends and I don't want to play in the second game.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 8, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> But if I was going for simulation first, I'd go about designing that adventure completely differently...




Why does simulation require that orcs are no threat, and dragons are invincible?  This sounds a lot less plausible than your original non-simulation adventure - firstly, no reason orcs shouldn't have elite types same as humans.  Secondly, if orcs are no threat, they're no use to the invincible dragon, so he wouldn't have bothered recruiting them.  Finally, why is a band of cyclops unrealistic?  Did you number-crunch the amount of food the cyclops need, plausible population density et al?  I don't think so.  

We had a discussion here recently about the plausibility of the 2,000-strong frost giant army in "Test of the Warlords".  A 15' frost giant with human-type physiology will need around 10-12 times as much food as a human.  Thousands didn't seem very likely, but hundreds seemed reasonably plausible, given a vast tundra roamed by herds of mammoth etc for them to eat, and fishing for wales, seals, etc.  Certainly I can't see any reasonable simulationist objection to a few dozen cyclops, as long as your map leaves a reasonable amount of space for them to dwell in.  Ulysses' cyclops was a cattle-herder, there's a likely food source.  Which then leads into scenarios like stealing the cyclops' cattle so they starve...


----------



## AllisterH (Oct 8, 2008)

Rel said:


> I'll echo Fenes comments from above. The reason for including the Blue Slime is not to be a challenge. It stopped being a challenge a while back and turned into scenery. It brings the world to life and gives it internal consistancy.
> 
> I realize that those are not priorities for all gamers but they happen to be for me (and many others). So that is the point of including them.
> 
> If the PC's abilities now outpace a challenge to the point where it isn't a challenge, there is no need to roll any dice. As you say, this isn't a MMORPG and there is no need to "click on" the Level 1 Wolves in the starter zone. The GM simply describes that the Blue Slime is there and that it now poses no threat to the PC's thanks to their rise in power.




Keep in mind, THIS is my position on the subject.

I'm in 100% agreement with you here.

Which is why when people use the Blue Slime example, my understanding if that they WANT it to be a challenge and this is what pg.42 gives them guidelines on.

If a challenge has become sceneary, you don't need pg 42 at all, but if for some reason, the Blue Slime has evolved into the Azure Gel which looks like a Blue Slime and you want to challenge the Pcs, then g 42 gives you the stats needed...


----------



## knightofround (Oct 9, 2008)

I'm surprised that so many people have objections to there being high-level humanoids in campaigns. It's never come up as an issue in any of the campaigns I've been in.

My rationale is this. If there are truly epic threats in the world, there has to be forces that can take care of them when the PCs aren't around for the world to make sense. If all guards are level 3 mooks there's literally nothing stopping a level 12 dragon from destroying entire villages, castles, etc -- nobody can hit its AC. So there has to be guards that actually hit this thing, even though individually they're useless. So I see guards as paragon-level minions, or heroic standard-level creatures.

Another point is that I like PCs who are essentially normal people who are put in extraordinary circumstances. If by level 8 you're already Conan, then by level 16 you would be....well, more superhero-y than I would like D&D to be. I want the PCs to have figures that they can look up to, so when they gain levels and go back to their home village and size up the local guard they can realize how much they've improved.

For my style of humanoid level progression, 4E is perfect. A basic commoner is a level 1 minion. A commoner that might have some battle experience (like a tavern bouncer, or a new PC) is a level 1 character. Traditional guards/pirates/soldiers/assassins are level 5-10 characters. This is perfect, because all I have to do when the PCs come back to the same guards/pirates/etc, is change the from "standard" to "minion". So these mooks continue to be useful in paragon tier.

It's when the PCs make it into epic tier that they truly get that "Conan" experience, where they are so freakin awesome normal people can no longer touch them. So I would say characters like Conan/Achilles/Gandalf would be epic, Chuck Norris/Drizzt(early in series)/Boromir would be paragon, and Tanis/Jack Sparrow/Hobbits would be heroic.

IMHO, if you allow the PCs to morph into Conan-esque characters by such a low level, it takes alot of the motivation out of the game. I get more enjoyment from taking a small fry and turning him into conan than starting with conan and making him even more superhero-y.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 9, 2008)

knightofround said:


> My rationale is this. If there are truly epic threats in the world, there has to be forces that can take care of them when the PCs aren't around for the world to make sense. If all guards are level 3 mooks there's literally nothing stopping a level 12 dragon from destroying entire villages, castles, etc -- nobody can hit its AC. So there has to be guards that actually hit this thing, even though individually they're useless. So I see guards as paragon-level minions, or heroic standard-level creatures.




Umm, the unstoppable dragon is a classic fantasy trope!  Dragons are *supposed* to be immune to mooks!  That's how they get to sit in their cave and be fed virgins, a la _Dragonslayer_.
A world where any threat can be handled by NPCs, has no need of PCs.


----------



## Shades of Green (Oct 9, 2008)

S'mon said:


> A world where any threat can be handled by NPCs, has no need of PCs.



Quoted for truth.

Sure, there would be high-level NPCs around, but they won't be able to be everywhere at once. And when the PCs are really high-level, they're superheroes - and fighting goblins or the town's watch is far less superheroic than fighting supervillains and epic monsters.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 19, 2009)

S'mon said:


> A world where any threat can be handled by NPCs, has no need of PCs.




Yet you previously said that in your sandbox game there is no distinction between PCs and NPCs.

The concept of there being a "need" for such metagame concepts as player characters is intrinsically narrativist.


----------



## Rel (Sep 19, 2009)

Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!


----------



## S'mon (Sep 19, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> Yet you previously said that in your sandbox game there is no distinction between PCs and NPCs.
> 
> The concept of there being a "need" for such metagame concepts as player characters is intrinsically narrativist.




I am probably going to regret this, but...

1.  My 4e sandbox campaign, being 4e, has very different rules for PCs than for NPCs.  Whereas my Labyrinth Lord sandbox campaigns use the same rules for both.

2.  I didn't mean a need for PCs as such, but for "Heroes", as in the blurb to the 4e PHB "The World Needs Heroes". ie:  The PCs are the (potential) heroes, without them bad things will (continue to) happen.  Eg the Points of Light will (continue to) wink out, consumed by the Darkness.  
Edit:  Which is a dramatic conceit.  I guess you could say it was Dramatist in terms of GDS Threefold Model, but nothing to do with Edwards GNS Narrativism.

3.  Now that I have actually run 4e, my actual approach is a bit different from my opinionatings of a year ago.  I've been happily using 9th level Orc Warrior minions against 1st level PCs in my sandbox game; treating them as a status quo encounter, and feeling no need to turn them into 1st level brutes (who are worth the same 100 XP).


----------



## Ferret (Sep 19, 2009)

DrunkonDuty said:


> brave pirates.



Brainless Pirates...



fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)
> 
> It seems there should come a time where only extraordinary examples from among mortal races should pose any threat to the PCs.
> 
> ~




Do you read Terry Pratchett? Vimes, and Carrot are certainly 10+ level guards. Tea Time is (or was) a highish level Assassin. People above this sort of level can't really be random, at least in their own world. That is to say that it may seem like some random guard, but this guard has seen things in the city that would have shaken his peers. He was the one who went into the sewers when those people went missing, and _unlike_ his patrol he came back. He was there when the adventurers weren't.


----------



## Oni (Sep 19, 2009)

I think a lot of this kind of question could have been avoided if the 4e designers had decided to go with a flatter power curve rather than feeding the need for ever increasing bonuses as a sign of progress.  If you simple lost the +1/2 level that gets tacked on to nearly every roll and defense then I think questions like, how can I miss the guard, or how is he hitting me, or why do things become more difficult as I level up would simple fade into the background either from not being necessary, or not being nearly so mechanically obvious at the table.  

Is there something I'm missing about why this wouldn't work and be perfectly reasonable?


----------



## S'mon (Sep 19, 2009)

How steep is the 4e power curve really?  A level 10 monster is 500 XP, only 5 times the value of a level 1 monster.  In B/X a 10 hd foe is 1000 XP, a 1 hd foe is 10 XP - that's 100:1, which is about how much more powerful a B/X 10th level Fighter is than a Fighter-1.

I embraced a simulationist approach to 4e Minions when I realised how flexible high level minions are - they can both threaten high level PCs and be threatened by low level NPCs!  Finally, you can see how the bad guys don't wipe out civilisation.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 19, 2009)

fissionessence said:


> So right now I'm reading through the Sea Reavers adventure from today's Dungeon article. Not to give away any spoilers, but there are some high level (15th) human enemies. How do you justify random guards, assassins, etc. or whatnot being above, say 6th or maybe 8th level? (In 4E terms; adjust the level/power based on your system of choice.)




I don't really.

That isn't to say that there aren't 8th and 9th level NPC's out there, but an assembalage of 8th level NPC's would to me always be extraordinary.

NPC's of that level are generally the ones in charge of running the world, or at least the immediate and trusted servants, councilors, and senschals of those that are.  They are also usually older than PC's of equivalent level.  In fact, many 8th level NPC's are reaching the point where their health and vigor is beginning to fail.   So, while an 8th level character isn't necessarily in and of itself that unusual (at least in the since that most NPC's have at lest met another NPC of 8th level), being 8th level and to still by young and full of unfulfilled potential is.

Eighth level in my campaign means 'Knights of the Round Table', it means 'Robin Hood's Merry Men', it means the 'Rangers of the North', it mean's David's band of 30 heroes, it means a gathering of some of the most heroic, renowned, and experienced people in a whole nation or the whole world.  So, that's how I would justify it.  Eighth level characters just don't hang out waiting to die in a pointless encounter.  They are important people and they know it.  At the beginning of a campaign, this is probably the highest level NPC in the PC's vicinity, and I'll try to play up how aweinspiring and fearsome the character is.  That way, if the PC's get there and suddenly they are treated as a peer or even superior, they feel like they've gotten somewhere.  If on the other hand, they get to 8th level, and random gaurds are 8th level, then they've gotten no where - only the numbers have changed.


----------



## Fanaelialae (Sep 19, 2009)

I use "quantum state" NPCs in my games.

IME, down-ranking NPCs does make the PCs feel like they've grown stronger.  Let's assume, for example, that I decide the average King's Guard is worth 500 xp (a level 1 solo).  
At level 1, Joe the fighter needs all four of his buddies to take down one of these Solos.
By level 6, Joe and Bob the rogue can beat the Elite just working together.
Level 10 and Joe can beat a Standard King's Guard all by his lonesome.
Once he's level 18 Joe can easily take on 5 of these Minions (DMG2 guidelines) without breaking a sweat.

There's nothing saying you _can't_ use the Solo version at level 18, beyond that the DMG points out that it'll be pointless and boring (Joe will have to deal over 400 pts of damage to Guards he can only miss on a 1 and who can only hit him on a nat 20; quite grindy and lacking any semblance of threat IMO).  Neither the level 18 minions nor the level 1 solos stand a snowball's chance in hell of beating Joe, but at least the minions can't be ignored and die quickly (with the solos he can lay down and take a nap as even a coup de grace isn't a legitimate threat from them and their damage will be minimal; the minions can't coup de grace him either but will beat his hps to a bloody pulp for deciding to take a nap in the middle of a fight).

IMO being able to fight off 5 of the King's Guard simultaneously is a clear improvement over eight levels ago when a single King's Guard posed an equivalent threat, and it's pretty clear to my players even if they still need to roll the same 10 to hit that they needed 8 levels ago.  Eight levels ago the guardsman would have dodged the blow and merely gotten scratched; now he is skewered by the "same" attack.

I confess, I don't really comprehend the complaint about NPCs scaling with you.  AFAIK, D&D has always done this.  You improve your attack and defenses so that you can take on bigger and nastier threats, not so you can hunt down endless level 1 goblins until they stop granting xp.  Shifting the odds from 1:5 to 5:1 over 18 levels is a healthy improvement as far as I'm concerned.


Regarding Blue Slime, I see page 42 as offering DCs for relevant challenges.  At level 1, the Blue Slime in the Kobold Warrens is a DC 10 to avoid slipping.  If at level 19 the PCs start feeling nostalgic and visit the Warrens to look around, the slime is still DC 10 but I don't bother asking them to roll; they have a +9 from 1/2 level alone so what would be the point?  On the other hand, if they decide to go hunting frost giants, I might decide there's DC 21 Black Ice in the Fortress of Frost.  _Black Ice, now with more than *twice* the slipperiness of Blue Slime!  Accept no substitutes!_

At heroic tier I might ask the PCs to make a roll when hopping over a brook filled with pointy rocks on a sunny day.
At paragon it might be a rushing stream during the middle of a hurricane.
At epic it may be a river of lava while blinded and choking on a constant downfall of burning ash.


That said, I do think that NPCs of unusually high level should be restricted.  I would be bothered by a group of random level 25 street thugs.

The guards from the module in question don't seem like a big deal though since they're only minions.  As I stated earlier, I have no issues with "quantum state" NPCs since IME they make the game more fun than using tons of meaningless, low level creatures.  A 13th level minion and a level 5 standard can be the same creature in my world with no issues.  I wouldn't have a level 5 PC running with a level 13 party (or vice versa) so no worries there either.

For me, NPCs of levels 1-10 are pretty reasonable.  Certainly, this doesn't apply to Farmer Average, but I don't see why the grizzled veterans of a frontier fort on the edge of the Forest of No Return shouldn't be level 10.  After all, these are the guys keeping the more common, dangerous frontier threats (like ogres and trolls) out of the kingdom proper.  It would break my sense of consistency if the fort under weekly troll attacks was manned by inexperienced level 3 chumps who can barely hit their foes.

Why don't these level 10s just handle the troll threat themselves?  Standard NPCs are not as strong as individual PCs in 4e.  In an equal level, one on one fight the NPC will lose to a PC every time unless he gets lucky.  PCs are overall stronger than NPCs, and this is exponentially truer when those PCs are working as a team.  

In addition, it's often easier to defend than attack.  Holding the trolls back from behind sturdy fort walls using flaming arrows is a world of difference from trying to invade the caves where those trolls live.  Home turf advantage.

The example of the drunk and disorderly PCs who get beat up by the guards and then asked to deal with trolls, is IMO a bad one.  I think this is a case where the DM ought to try to identify _why_ the PCs became drunk and disorderly in the first place, rather than just using super-guards to beat them into submission and force them to do his will.  

In any case, in my campaigns the guards are never individually too strong for the PCs to handle (because that would indicate that the PCs are in an area where the threats are completely out of their league).  They may or may not be higher level than the PCs, but they'd have to come en mass to have a realistic chance of beating the PCs.  IME, unless heavily drained of their resources (surges and dailies), PCs can take on sizable forces of reasonably over-leveled NPCs and still win.

I base my guards on the threats that they have to deal with.  Guards dealing with Kobolds and Goblins would be levels 1-5.  A town that is threatened by frost giants on a regular basis would either have guards in the 17-22 level range, or it wouldn't be a town for very long.  A reasonable objection would be not to build towns in frost giant territory, of course, but if one did then either that town should have some treaty with the giants, or a means to defend the town from their predations.


Finally, regarding the assertion that E6 would be a better fit, I respectfully disagree (at least in my case).  Saying I want 25 of the King's Guard to be viable threat at 18th level (whereas 5 were a threat at level 10) isn't the same as saying I don't want my Archmage to turn into a ghost and kick butt before coming back to life again, when I hit level 24.  Show me the E6 character that can do *that* and I might consider giving it a second look.  It's instead saying that I'm not interested in slogging through 400+ hp that I could just as easily ignore, when I could instead be fighting a horde of minions that might actually present some semblance of a challenge and will die quickly at the very least.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 20, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Eighth level in my campaign means 'Knights of the Round Table', it means 'Robin Hood's Merry Men', it means the 'Rangers of the North', it mean's David's band of 30 heroes, it means a gathering of some of the most heroic, renowned, and experienced people in a whole nation or the whole world.  So, that's how I would justify it.




I think this paradigm is a throwback to previous editions, where 9th level fighters were called 'Lords' for example.

My interpretation of the 4e power curve isn't that, in the transition from 20 levels to 30, they've tacked on 10 more levels of awesome, but rather, that 4e level 30 is equivalent to 3.x level 20.

So I have no problem with more-or-less mundane NPCs occupying the entire span of heroic tier levels (1st-10th), though obviously a 9th level guardsman will naturally rise to the top.

Paragon tier is where I see the regional movers and shakers - the Knights of the Round Table and so on.

Epic tier NPCs (and PCs) are truly legendary - like living gods. There may be only a handful of them in the gameworld; there may be none.

Obviously your mileage may vary.



Fanaelialae said:


> Finally, regarding the assertion that E6 would be a better fit, I respectfully disagree (at least in my case).  Saying I want 25 of the King's Guard to be viable threat at 18th level (whereas 5 were a threat at level 10) isn't the same as saying I don't want my Archmage to turn into a ghost and kick butt before coming back to life again, when I hit level 24.  Show me the E6 character that can do *that* and I might consider giving it a second look.




I'm with you.

Suggesting E6 as a superior alternative to 4e misses the point that grim'n'gritty = dull.

4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 20, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> I think this paradigm is a throwback to previous editions, where 9th level fighters were called 'Lords' for example.
> 
> My interpretation of the 4e power curve isn't that, in the transition from 20 levels to 30, they've tacked on 10 more levels of awesome, but rather, that 4e level 30 is equivalent to 3.x level 20.




Well, I'm what you might call a 'throwback'.  My prefered system is 3.25.  I think 3.5 got more wrong than it got right.

The original poster didn't seem to address the question in 4e terms alone, so I answered based on my experience in 1e-3e.  If I was speaking of 4e, I'd be speaking of something I really have no experience with or interest in, but if I were going to run 4e then I agree with you about the power curve and would be speaking about something along 12th to 15th level.  In any event, whatever the edition, there is some level above which no one with that level is mundane.



> So I have no problem with more-or-less mundane NPCs occupying the entire span of heroic tier levels (1st-10th), though obviously a 9th level guardsman will naturally rise to the top.




As I have no real problem with more or less mundane NPC's occupying the entire span of heroic tier levels (1st-4th) from earlier editions, with a scattering of more or less mundane heroic leaders of 5th and 6th level.  Beyond that, and I feel like I'm cheating and cheating the players.

And even a 4th level character is something somewhat special, heroes (of a sort) in their own right - the member's of the King's Own Cavalry, elite mercenaries, successful businessmen, leaders of local churches, and so forth.  But even so, these will be middle aged individuals with stats generally below those of the PC's.



> Paragon tier is where I see the regional movers and shakers - the Knights of the Round Table and so on.




For earlier editions, I'd consider the 'Paragon Tier' to be roughly 7th to 12th level.  At that level, you start becoming a force to be reconned with; you begin acquiring fame beyond your local region; and the people in charge start to take notice and begin treating you as something like a peer.  Beyond that is truly rare.  Above 15th level, and there are countable numbers of individuals of that level across the whole world. 



> Suggesting E6 as a superior alternative to 4e misses the point that grim'n'gritty = dull.




Well, obviously your milage may vary, but as a player when my character acquires a certain level of power it stops being interesting and starts getting silly.  I perfer lower levels of play for much the same reason that the most popular superheroes are somewhat less powerful, somewhat grittier than the 'Superman' tier superheroes like Captain Marvel, Black Bolt, Martian Manhunter, etc., etc.  Above a certain level of play it becomes all about the character, and really the numbers start to get meaningless and the play becomes rather cheesy if you aren't careful.



> 4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly.




I'm not sure we can agree on a definition of 'cinematic'.  To me cinematic means, 'consistantly causing the player to imagine things in his head as if there was a movie of the game'.  I'm very very very unconvinced that 4e does this well.  I'm even less convinced that does emersive cinematic play, by which I mean that the player tends to imagine a first person camera perspective as if he was seeing through the character's eyes.  I can't speak for how well E6 does it, but in my experience producing emersive cinematic play is a function of the game master more than the game system so the whole question may be off base.  However, I will say that in my experience game systems which are heavily tied to the use of minatures and tactical positioning tend to be poorly emersive at best and non-emersive generally.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 20, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I'm not sure we can agree on a definition of 'cinematic'.  To me cinematic means, 'consistantly causing the player to imagine things in his head as if there was a movie of the game'.




Ah, this is why we disagree then.

I alwasy understood 'cinematic', at least in the context of rpgs, to mean something like 'modelling the conventions of drama more than modelling the conventions of real life'.



> I'm very very very unconvinced that 4e does this well.  I'm even less convinced that does emersive cinematic play, by which I mean that the player tends to imagine a first person camera perspective as if he was seeing through the character's eyes.  I can't speak for how well E6 does it, but in my experience producing emersive cinematic play is a function of the game master more than the game system so the whole question may be off base.  However, I will say that in my experience game systems which are heavily tied to the use of minatures and tactical positioning tend to be poorly emersive at best and non-emersive generally.




I don't consider the terms 'immersive' and 'cinematic' to share any direct relationship, although neither do I think that 4e is particularly conducive to immersive play.

Immersion is, in my experience, directly tied to preparation time - players, DMs and especially world-builders who are able to spend more time on their game _away from the game table_ than at it, meticulously preparing down to the finest detail.

4e seems to have been made to cater to the people who just don't have that kind of spare time (or inclination). 3.X could be seen to be more encouraging of immersive play because it practically *demanded* that sort of attention to detail.

I know my own frustration with 3.X RAW started when I realised just how much prep time it was costing me to play, and how much of my work was wasted by never appearing at the table. Many of the bandaid solutions I found or came up with led me to focus on the PCs as opposed to the environment. I later learned that this is considered the 'cinematic' style.

When 4e came out I was so impressed that I started playing again. This is interesting, because when 3e was released it made me want to start playing again because it provided a lot of the simulationist fixes for what turned me off BECMI D&D.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (Sep 20, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> I don't consider the terms 'immersive' and 'cinematic' to share any direct relationship, although neither do I think that 4e is particularly conducive to immersive play.
> 
> Immersion is, in my experience, directly tied to preparation time - players, DMs and especially world-builders who are able to spend more time on their game _away from the game table_ than at it, meticulously preparing down to the finest detail.





While I agree that immersion and cinematic don't share a direct relationship, your second paragraph is just...what?

No.

Immersion is a word that exists and means something.  It has nothing to do with prep time.  I.  You.  What?

How did you get that?

That said, the immersion argument reminds me of the game Oblivion, which some people touted as being incredibly immersive, and others, such as myself, stated that it was one of the least immersive experiences we had played.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 20, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> I alwasy understood 'cinematic', at least in the context of rpgs, to mean something like 'modelling the conventions of drama more than modelling the conventions of real life'.




I'm not sure that there is a fixed definition.  Alot of the terms bandied around with RPG's end up serving double or triple duty.  I've certainly heard 'cinematic' used in that sense, but I never have really thought it very useful used in that way.  For one thing, movie/dramatic conventions are not tightly established for fantasy, and certainly not for swords and sorcery, so I'd have a very hard time knowing what was being modeled.

Perhaps you can site for me the dramatic works which set the conventions of fantasy so I'd know what you meant by 'cinematic'.

For my part, I consider the game 'cinematic' (in my sense) if the rules encourage envisioning what the players do.  For example, one area of play in D&D that I've always considered poorly cinematic is the attack.  In D&D, the attack is abstract, so its up to the DM/player to provide the cinematic description.  Very usually, this gets dull and so D&D defaults to, "I attack ... hit... and do 18 damage."  This description, which is closely tied to the rules, is not cinematic.  By contrast, game systems with called shots, contested active defenses, and tables of outcomes tend to have highly cinematic combat.  So one argument for 4e being more cinematic would be, 'The manuevers provide cinematic details."  While I think that they can, in practice though, I think the manuevers are abstract enough that in most cases they are simply different sorts of attacks, "I perform manuever X... hit... and 18 damage."


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 20, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> While I agree that immersion and cinematic don't share a direct relationship, your second paragraph is just...what?
> 
> No.
> 
> ...




The more you are able to prepare the gameworld - the more time spent working on its development - the more immersive the play experience. The DM who knows the most detail about the gameworld is most able to deliver immersive description at the table. The more the players know about the gameworld, the more details will mean something to them, the more immersed they will be in the game.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 20, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Perhaps you can site for me the dramatic works which set the conventions of fantasy so I'd know what you meant by 'cinematic'.




[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Cinematic-Storytelling-Powerful-Conventions-Filmmaker/dp/193290705X]Amazon.com: Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know (9781932907056): Jennifer Van Sijll: Books[/ame]

In broad strokes, all the conventions of fiction are essentially the same. This applies to print as much as to film.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 20, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> IME, down-ranking NPCs does make the PCs feel like they've grown stronger.  Let's assume, for example, that I decide the average King's Guard is worth 500 xp (a level 1 solo).
> At level 1, Joe the fighter needs all four of his buddies to take down one of these Solos.
> By level 6, Joe and Bob the rogue can beat the Elite just working together.
> Level 10 and Joe can beat a Standard King's Guard all by his lonesome.
> Once he's level 18 Joe can easily take on 5 of these Minions (DMG2 guidelines) without breaking a sweat.




I used to think this was the way to go, before I actually started running 4e.  But really is there any reason not to make the King's Guard akways level 18 minions, whatever the PC's level?  That indicates they're highly skilled but non-heroic.  They operate in groups.  If 1st level PCs get in a fight with some, they'll certainly get the 'they're out of our league' message, but maybe they'll get lucky and roll some 20s, and take down a few. As level 18 minions, they remain a threat at all levels.  And you avoid grind.  Edit:  I probably wouldn't give more than 250 XP each; but minions are generally over-XP'd at all levels.

The only reason I can see to make one a Solo would be if you really needed them to fill a Solo roll in the adventure, eg they are the BBEG (in which case Elite stats would probably be better) or the party is being hunted by a bounty-hunter who's ex-Royal Guard.

Personally I'm very sceptical over use of Solos, except as dragons and similar huge lone beasties who might plausibly be extremely hard to kill.


----------



## Gort (Sep 20, 2009)

S'mon said:


> I used to think this was the way to go, before I actually started running 4e.  But really is there any reason not to make the King's Guard akways level 18 minions, whatever the PC's level?.




Yes. It stinks to miss a guy every time you attack him, which is what you'd get if you ran them as 18th level minions. It would also mean anyone who has an "auto-damage" aura, like fighters do, can mow through them like they were nothing.

If you make one a level 1 solo, people can attack and hit them without ending the fight, and the rather strange minion rules don't upset stuff.


----------



## Fanaelialae (Sep 20, 2009)

S'mon said:


> I used to think this was the way to go, before I actually started running 4e.  But really is there any reason not to make the King's Guard akways level 18 minions, whatever the PC's level?  That indicates they're highly skilled but non-heroic.  They operate in groups.  If 1st level PCs get in a fight with some, they'll certainly get the 'they're out of our league' message, but maybe they'll get lucky and roll some 20s, and take down a few. As level 18 minions, they remain a threat at all levels.  And you avoid grind.  Edit:  I probably wouldn't give more than 250 XP each; but minions are generally over-XP'd at all levels.
> 
> The only reason I can see to make one a Solo would be if you really needed them to fill a Solo roll in the adventure, eg they are the BBEG (in which case Elite stats would probably be better) or the party is being hunted by a bounty-hunter who's ex-Royal Guard.
> 
> Personally I'm very sceptical over use of Solos, except as dragons and similar huge lone beasties who might plausibly be extremely hard to kill.




What Gort said.

Also, King's Guard was just a name I picked out of a hat to use for my example.  It could have just as easily been Elite Guild of Assassins in the employ of BBEG.  While I've never actually used any creature in the above manner (having it appear as all 4 types: solo, elite, standard, and minion, at different levels in one campaign) I think it would be a pretty interesting way to demonstrate for the players just how much they've improved.  

"Remember how this all started, when that Shadow Hand Ninja came after us and it was all we could do to fight him off and protect our town?  Then there were those two Ninja brothers who nearly killed us.  And who could forget the Five...  But now we just hacked our way through their entire ninja guild and killed their leader... craziness!"

I've reskinned elites to standards to similar effect with success.  (I've also had success with Solos, though I admit it's tricky in that you usually don't want them to actually go it solo).

The whole point of the above idea is to use a recurring enemy type to denote the PCs growth.  You could use a level 18 minion in place of a level 1 solo, but then instead of giving the PCs the impression that the elite ninjas are mega bad*** you instead give them the impression that the ninja are mega pansies (albeit very skilled mega pansies only hit on a natural 20) who drop after one lucky shot or from getting too near a Flaming Sphere.  The solo will give them a real battle whereas the minion gives them a whiff-fest until someone thinks to bring out the auto-damage or gets lucky (which could just as well be the first round of combat as a later one).  High level minion is not the impression I want to give regarding an elite order of assassins that I intend to hunt the players into late paragon.  

My PCs will feel plenty special after they exterminate the jerks that have been hounding them the past 18 levels without me arbitrarily restricting assassins to level 4 (or minion status).  As I stated in my earlier post, IMO, restricting NPCs to such low levels produces an incoherent world (where everyone ought to have been eaten by ogres because they can't fight them off).  NPCs should at least have the capacity to maintain their status quo under normal conditions.  PCs are the people that get called in when those conditions change or when the NPCs decide they are tired of the status quo; the PCs are the movers and shakers.

Try thinking of it this way... when you alter a creature from standard to minion you increase its ability to hit while reducing damage (and conditions) and increasing its defenses while reducing its hps.  Ability to hit and potential damage are both factors of its capacity to hurt you, just as defenses and hp are both factors of avoiding hurt.  By increasing one but lowering the other you're (hypothetically) keeping the creature at the same hurt dealing and taking capacity, it's just that now it's more interesting to fight if you've scaled it right (because the PCs can hit it and it can hit the PCs).  IME, fights are always better in D&D when both sides can hit.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 20, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> Amazon.com: Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know (9781932907056): Jennifer Van Sijll: Books
> 
> In broad strokes, all the conventions of fiction are essentially the same. This applies to print as much as to film.




Ok sure, but earlier you were stating that 'cinematic' was in some way opposed to 'realistic'.  But surely at least some films made according to those 100 most powerful film conventions have an air of gritty realism?

And even more to the point, is it really a convention of good 'cinematic' role play that the heroes always enter stage left?  Is that what you were talking about when you said, "modelling the conventions of drama more than modelling the conventions of real life"?


----------



## S'mon (Sep 20, 2009)

Gort said:


> Yes. It stinks to miss a guy every time you attack him, which is what you'd get if you ran them as 18th level minions. It would also mean anyone who has an "auto-damage" aura, like fighters do, can mow through them like they were nothing.
> 
> If you make one a level 1 solo, people can attack and hit them without ending the fight, and the rather strange minion rules don't upset stuff.




As a player I'd much rather be trying to roll a '20' than trying to plow through the ca 200 hp that even a low level Solo gets.  Especially if there are ten of them.  Maybe in some kind of comedy bar fight with a drunken royal guard the solo rules would work ok. 

I'm not sure what 1st level auto damage there is that would skew the fight?  Missed attacks don't damage minions.  All I can think of is something cheesy like hitting the barmaid so you can Cleave the adjacent royal guard?


----------



## S'mon (Sep 20, 2009)

Hmm, I think the reason I've enjoyed using high level minions vs low level PCs is that it effectively signals "We're not in kansas anymore" to the players, and encourages them to withdraw quickly after a short, dramatic fight.  Whereas using a bunch of elite or solo pinatas would have the opposite effect.

Now, the 9th level minions are Orc Warriors, who have a great to-hit (+14) and I increase their damage to 9 rather than 6, but a poor AC (21) - so they can be killed by 1st level PCs easily enough, but they also put a lot of hurt out.   I do like the idea of the low level PCs encountering a horde of AC 34 20th level minion ninjas, though, and maybe killing one or two as they flee in terror.


----------



## Fanaelialae (Sep 21, 2009)

S'mon said:


> Hmm, I think the reason I've enjoyed using high level minions vs low level PCs is that it effectively signals "We're not in kansas anymore" to the players, and encourages them to withdraw quickly after a short, dramatic fight.  Whereas using a bunch of elite or solo pinatas would have the opposite effect.
> 
> Now, the 9th level minions are Orc Warriors, who have a great to-hit (+14) and I increase their damage to 9 rather than 6, but a poor AC (21) - so they can be killed by 1st level PCs easily enough, but they also put a lot of hurt out.   I do like the idea of the low level PCs encountering a horde of AC 34 20th level minion ninjas, though, and maybe killing one or two as they flee in terror.




I can't think of a single time that I've felt the need to use creatures that utterly outclass the PCs in order to signal that they're "no longer in Kansas".  IMO, outside of "Kansas" is better handled out of combat (free form role play or perhaps a skill challenge).  If the PCs have no chance of winning, why play it out; isn't it more straightforward to say they get their butts kicked and skip to the daring but strategic withdrawal?

Short I can see, but what's so dramatic about missing with virtually every attack the PCs attempt?  There's no tactics that one can employ when you need a nat 20 to hit; it's completely up to random chance (no player input).  That's not the kind of drama I want to spotlight at my table (IMO the key to good drama is *choice*).

As for auto damage at level 1, the finest example I can think of is the Wizard's Flaming Sphere, which automatically deals damage to creatures that start their turns next to it and would probably eat your squad of level 20 ninja minions alive.  Under ideal conditions it can kill up to 8 minions in a single round.  The wizard conjures a ball of fire and suddenly half a dozen of the world's deadliest assassins go down like scarecrows... epic...

My reference regarding the level 1 solo was an NPC that the PCs are _intended_ to fight (perhaps the campaign centers around a rebellion and the that King's Guardsman has been hunting the PC rebels).  It wouldn't be a comedic bar fight in the least.  It might be a bit of a slap in the face to know that the King assumed it would only take one of his elite guards to wipe out their little insurrection, but that will just give the players even more reason to hate him.  A _well made_ solo impresses on the PCs that it was a very tough opponent, minus the virtual guarantee of a TPK (which I try to avoid as a routine occurrence as I find it impedes investment in the characters on the part of the players).  That's assuming that he's properly paired with a few complementary creatures (perhaps some merc bounty hunters the Guardsman hired to assist him); it can be a very tough fight which the PCs will remember for some time.  The trick to solos is to _never_ use them alone if you want a tough fight.

If "over-leveled" minions work for you, great!  I definitely don't see it as being a good fit for my games at the very least, for the aforementioned reasons.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 21, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> I can't think of a single time that I've felt the need to use creatures that utterly outclass the PCs in order to signal that they're "no longer in Kansas".  IMO, outside of "Kansas" is better handled out of combat (free form role play or perhaps a skill challenge).  If the PCs have no chance of winning, why play it out; isn't it more straightforward to say they get their butts kicked and skip to the daring but strategic withdrawal?




I don't know how that would work in conjunction with the status-quo sandbox campaign I run.  I rarely know from one session to the next where the PCs are going to go; I certainly didn't know they were going to explore the Underdark at level 2 and encounter the elite Crushed Skull orcs.  And part of running a sandbox is that the PCs have free choice, including on when to retreat.  Saying:  "You are outclassed and flee" would negate that.  Once they withdrew I did do skill rolls to see if they escaped, BTW.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 21, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> My reference regarding the level 1 solo was an NPC that the PCs are _intended_ to fight (perhaps the campaign centers around a rebellion and the that King's Guardsman has been hunting the PC rebels).
> 
> The trick to solos is to _never_ use them alone if you want a tough fight.




Yes, the solo guard hunting the PCs was my example above of an appropriate use.

Re never using them alone, surely elites are the ones you're supposed to use in conjnction with other monsters?  I think it may depend on party composition, for a Striker-heavy party a Solo + allies may work well.  With my party I find even Elites make for grindy fights, unless I halve every foe's hp.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 21, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Ok sure, but earlier you were stating that 'cinematic' was in some way opposed to 'realistic'.  But surely at least some films made according to those 100 most powerful film conventions have an air of gritty realism?




I think you're confusing the use of 'realism' regarding PC power level (as in, PCs are only as powerful as real-life people might be) with 'realism' in the sense of real-life instances of random chance being "stranger than fiction".

There are many real-life stories that, while being unbelievable personal anecdotes or news items, fail to translate to entertainment media. The reason for this is that random chance can ruin an otherwise good story. So while *true* stories about random chance saving the day might excite us, the same mechanism of resolution in fiction is immensely dissatisfying - and is known as _deus ex machina_.

So the main reason grim'n'gritty play is anti-cinematic is because users of a grim'n'gritty system almost exclusively desire to remove the advantage to PCs inherent in just about every system and replace it with more random elements.

In much the same way, sandbox play removes the traditional story structure from the PCs' adventures and replaces it with the same organisational force that ultimately guides our real-life day-to-day experience - random chance.

In cinematic terms, this doesn't provide for good storylines because good stories, unlike real-life, are organised along specific lines and contain specific elements - beginning, middle, end, set-up, payoff, rising action, turning point, denouement, etc, etc

The more narrative-style adventure design espoused by most published game designers (and so scorned by sandboxers) makes it more likely that these dramatic elements will occur.



> And even more to the point, is it really a convention of good 'cinematic' role play that the heroes always enter stage left?  Is that what you were talking about when you said, "modelling the conventions of drama more than modelling the conventions of real life"?




See above.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 21, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> In much the same way, sandbox play removes the traditional story structure from the PCs' adventures and replaces it with the same organisational force that ultimately guides our real-life day-to-day experience - random chance.
> 
> In cinematic terms, this doesn't provide for good storylines because good stories, unlike real-life, are organised along specific lines and contain specific elements - beginning, middle, end, set-up, payoff, rising action, turning point, denouement, etc, etc
> 
> The more narrative-style adventure design espoused by most published game designers (and so scorned by sandboxers) makes it more likely that these dramatic elements will occur.




I basically agree, but I think it's just as hard to create a linear scripted adventure tha doesn't deprotagonise the PCs through railroading, as it is to create a sandbox that creates interesting stories at least of the picaresque/Vancian/short-story mold.  You don't get Lord of the Rings in sandbox play, but you can get something like "The Eyes of the Overworld".


----------



## Imban (Sep 21, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> I can't think of a single time that I've felt the need to use creatures that utterly outclass the PCs in order to signal that they're "no longer in Kansas".  IMO, outside of "Kansas" is better handled out of combat (free form role play or perhaps a skill challenge).  If the PCs have no chance of winning, why play it out; isn't it more straightforward to say they get their butts kicked and skip to the daring but strategic withdrawal?




It's more straightforward, but it might lead to less hurt feelings depending on your players and what kicked their butts. I know quite a few people in my group would get a bit pissed if they thought they could take whatever it was that "just kicked all their butts."

I mean, if they run into a *horde of dragons* things are a bit different, but ideally that doesn't really get to the point where they get their butts kicked and they start the strategic withdrawal immediately.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 21, 2009)

S'mon said:


> I basically agree, but I think it's just as hard to create a linear scripted adventure tha doesn't deprotagonise the PCs through railroading, as it is to create a sandbox that creates interesting stories at least of the picaresque/Vancian/short-story mold.  You don't get Lord of the Rings in sandbox play, but you can get something like "The Eyes of the Overworld".




So true.

As a narrativist who has to constantly remind himself not to railroad, the quality of stories I expect to emerge from my games are never better than what you describe.

I'm not sure that a story like LotR ever could emerge from a fantasy RPG. I know that when I DM I'm happy with the occasional flash of something that ends up reading like a piece of generic fan-fiction.

And really, there are two secrets to not railroading - all roads should lead to Rome, and dangle the biggest carrot in the direction you want the donkey to go.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 21, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> And really, there are two secrets to not railroading - all roads should lead to Rome...




Running Vault of Larin Karr, my players have cottoned on to this:

"Oh look!  _Another_ hidden exit?!  Wonder if it goes to the Underdark, eh?  Like the last three..."


----------



## Fanaelialae (Sep 21, 2009)

S'mon said:


> I don't know how that would work in conjunction with the status-quo sandbox campaign I run.  I rarely know from one session to the next where the PCs are going to go; I certainly didn't know they were going to explore the Underdark at level 2 and encounter the elite Crushed Skull orcs.  And part of running a sandbox is that the PCs have free choice, including on when to retreat.  Saying:  "You are outclassed and flee" would negate that.  Once they withdrew I did do skill rolls to see if they escaped, BTW.




See, that seems odd to me.  I don't run a status-quo sandbox myself, though I usually have a general idea that the entrance to the underdark will be guarded by Crushed Skull orcs (to use your example).  

However, in my games the PCs wouldn't ever go looking for the underdark at 2nd level because they'd be well aware that it's way out of their league (that's where drow and hook horrors live).  I like to give my players not-so-subtle hints so that they know ahead of time where not to go (until they're higher level).

Additionally, if they did for some reason go, I'd be worried that by using over-leveled minions the PCs might get lucky in the first round and get the mistaken impression that they have a realistic chance of victory.  If I wanted to give the players the impression that the Crushed Skulls are elite, I'd probably have them encounter a lone Elite or Solo orc out on patrol that they can defeat with some real effort.  Then I'd point out that they see evidence that there are dozens more like this guy up ahead.  If they proceeded I'd probably just tell them to cut to the retreat unless they came up with a truly brilliant plan (though if someone complained I'd let them try playing out combat with a half dozen higher-level solos/elites).  Cutting straight to the escape is just my way of trying to keep them from dying needlessly in a battle that I know to be quite unfair (as I've stated before, I've found too frequent death tends to impede good role playing).

I've never seen it come to anything like that though, since I make it abundantly clear that the underdark is a location that's out of their league, guarded by things that are also out of their league (for now) when they first seek directions to an underdark entrance.


----------



## Fanaelialae (Sep 21, 2009)

S'mon said:


> Yes, the solo guard hunting the PCs was my example above of an appropriate use.




Yeah, I was just pointing out that while you kept referring to minions the PCs aren't really meant to fight, my original point was about a solo they are intended to fight.



S'mon said:


> Re never using them alone, surely elites are the ones you're supposed to use in conjnction with other monsters?  I think it may depend on party composition, for a Striker-heavy party a Solo + allies may work well.  With my party I find even Elites make for grindy fights, unless I halve every foe's hp.




IME, Solos can be great and terrifying opponents, but usually only if they have support.  4e is a very team-oriented game and that applies as much on the DM's side of the screen as it does for the players.  Using an elite boss just means that you can use more non-elites than you could using the solo (IMO it's a matter of what fits the scenario/fight dynamic best).

I've only once had success with using a lone solo and I believe the unusual terrain had a lot to do with that fight being a success.

The solo I used was a bulette which I'd upgraded to solo status.  The terrain was a crumbling stone rampart that abutted the cavern wall on one side and surrounded a boiling lake on the other.  On the far side of the rampart was the PC's goal- a portal that would take them where they needed to go (it wasn't necessary to kill the bulette assuming the party could reach the portal).

The fight was very tense as the party made a break for the portal but were slowed by the plate wearing fighter.  One of the bulette's upgrades allowed him to burrow through stone and collapse portions of the rampart, so it was able to drop the fighter into the scalding mud below.  The party fired back with some forced movement that slid the bulette into the burning mud as well, forcing it into a momentary withdrawal that allowed the fighter to scramble back onto the rampart.  From there on it was a very cat and mouse battle, with the bulette doing its best to divide and conquer.  The PCs won, but half the party was unconscious (including the fighter) and the other half was bloodied.  Did I mention that the fighter was a pre-errata Battlerager?  

Nonetheless, I would describe all of my other attempts at using a lone Solo as bland at best.  I've found they work well with support, but otherwise you need to go out of your way to tailor the encounter to the solo to make it fun.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 22, 2009)

Contrary to what I've been saying above about status quo minions, this morning I converted a bunch of elven archers from their original stats as 2nd level artillery to 10th level minions.  They'll be accompanying the PCs into battle vs a dragon next week, and tracking 8 of them looked like a pain so I decided to minionise them - they'll hit hard and go down fast.

Edit:  I did it because otherwise the fight looked like being a royal pain to run.  Actually another way of looking at this is that it supports my view that most NPCs should be minions, with only heroic types 'normally' statted.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 22, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> I think you're confusing the use of 'realism' regarding PC power level (as in, PCs are only as powerful as real-life people might be) with 'realism' in the sense of real-life instances of random chance being "stranger than fiction".




Then I wished you'd use some descriptor like 'dramatic', because when I hear 'cinematic' it immediately conjures for me the idea of an RPG which has a certain visual texture - not the idea of an RPG which follows a narrative story arc.

And in this use of cinematic/dramatic, I now fully disagree with you that 'E6 does this badly' and that 4e does this well.  There is nothing that keeps you from running LoTR as an E6 game and some reason to think it makes a better E6 game than any other version of D&D - "Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard and all."

As for the rest, as I've always said, "Good fiction has the virtue of being more believable than reality."



> So the main reason grim'n'gritty play is anti-cinematic is because users of a grim'n'gritty system almost exclusively desire to remove the advantage to PCs inherent in just about every system and replace it with more random elements.




I disagree with this.  I think most players/refs want the game to be grim'n'gritty to increase its immersiveness - the since that you are deeply connected to the story world - without the need to vastly increase the ammount of preparation you do.  Grim'N'Gritty things, like keeping track of encumberance, what people are holding, ammunition, food, suffering from mundane hazards like disease, inclimate weather, rough terrain, horror, dehydration and such, and forcing the players to overcome challenges through more mundane means (heavy clothing, pack animals, rope, torches), all serve to ground the story in a basic reality which is familiar to our own reality.  It keeps us inside the story instead of 'merely' playing a game.  I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with more 'random' elements.



> In much the same way, sandbox play removes the traditional story structure from the PCs' adventures and replaces it with the same organisational force that ultimately guides our real-life day-to-day experience - random chance.




Except that, for any number of reasons, PC's tend to have vastly more control over their destinies than most real people do.



> The more narrative-style adventure design espoused by most published game designers (and so scorned by sandboxers) makes it more likely that these dramatic elements will occur.




I don't think sandboxers necessarily scorn narrative-style adventures, provided that the don't expect to ride rails.  And good sandboxing usually involves having multiple narrative arcs available as hooks to keep the action moving.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Then I wished you'd use some descriptor like 'dramatic', because when I hear 'cinematic' it immediately conjures for me the idea of an RPG which has a certain visual texture - not the idea of an RPG which follows a narrative story arc.




I know what you mean. I first read 'cinematic' used that way in a GURPS sourcebook and it was confusing at first.

But I've since gotten used to it and if you play around with Google you'll find plenty of other rpg discussions where it's used in the same way.

'Dramatic' more implies the quality of tension in a particular moment.



> And in this use of cinematic/dramatic, I now fully disagree with you that 'E6 does this badly' and that 4e does this well.  There is nothing that keeps you from running LoTR as an E6 game and some reason to think it makes a better E6 game than any other version of D&D - "Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard and all."




Again, I think you're confusing the power level of the protagonists with the structure of the adventures they participate in.

Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is.

However, if Gandalf really was a 5th level wizard then he would have been destroyed in 1 round by the Balrog.

In truly cinematic play, an encounter like that would most certainly have been level-appropriate, because then the moment would have been sufficiently _dramatic_ for an adventure's climax (see my use of the word 'dramatic'.)



> I disagree with this.  I think most players/refs want the game to be grim'n'gritty to increase its immersiveness




How is that a disagreement then?

I said that fans of grim'n'gritty want to remove the adavntage to PCs inherent in most rpg systems. I thought it was implied that this was to increase immersiveness.

After all, there is no inherent advantage to us, the protagonists, in real life. And it is often our mundane day-to-day troubles that thwart us. I assume replicating this daily struggle is the appeal of grim'n'gritty.



> Grim'N'Gritty things, like keeping track of encumberance, what people are holding, ammunition, food, suffering from mundane hazards like disease, inclimate weather, rough terrain, horror, dehydration and such, and forcing the players to overcome challenges through more mundane means (heavy clothing, pack animals, rope, torches), all serve to ground the story in a basic reality which is familiar to our own reality.  It keeps us inside the story instead of 'merely' playing a game.  I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with more 'random' elements.




Put it this way - the Fellowship of the Ring were *NEVER* going to fail due to dysentery or dehydration.

Neither will any PCs in any game I ever run.



> Except that, for any number of reasons, PC's tend to have vastly more control over their destinies than most real people do.




The only way through the Misty Mountains led through Moria, where Gandalf encountered a Balrog (no save).

Had he been insufficiently powerful to deal with it the story would have ended there.



> I don't think sandboxers necessarily scorn narrative-style adventures, provided that the don't expect to ride rails.  And good sandboxing usually involves having multiple narrative arcs available as hooks to keep the action moving.




Any good campaign has multiple story arcs.

The difference with sandboxing is that Gandalf and the Fellowship, faced with no other choice in the Misty Mountains, would have encountered the Balrog whether they were level 5 or level 25.

I put it to you that any DM that allows a 5th level party to survive such an encounter is not playing the Balrog to character and therefore isn't _really_ running a sandbox.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 23, 2009)

Balrogs only have 8 hit dice (OD&D)  

In fact the original Wilderlands setting had balrogs as random wilderness encounters.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 23, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> Again, I think you're confusing the power level of the protagonists with the structure of the adventures they participate in.
> 
> Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is.




I don't think I'm the one that is confused.  

_Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._

Hense, E6 - which is a system primarily defined by its level limitations - cannot be said to be handicapped in producing 'cinematic' adventure or style of play because of its level limitations.   



> However, if Gandalf really was a 5th level wizard then he would have been destroyed in 1 round by the Balrog.




Not if the Balrog used its 1st edition stats.  The smaller sort of Balrog (we may assume that the Balrog of Moria was not a Lord amongst its own kind) would have had like 6HD IIRC.  Definately a tough fight, but if you are have a magic staff of some sort (as Gandalf appears to) then certainly doable.

The Balrog you know is a victim of stat inflation, of the notion that large scale 'cinematic' play can only be the result of larger numbers or that larger numbers are somehow inherently cooler.  It's happened in every edition of D&D thus far.  In early 1st edition, 100 h.p. was just an insane amount of hit points for a PC.  By late 1st edition or 2nd edition, people could concieve of PC's breaking the 200 h.p. mark.  By 3rd ediition, most characters of any class would concievably break the 200 h.p. mark, and you could reasonably expect to have a 300 h.p. PC's. if they were built to maximize hitpoints.  I have no idea what the theoreticals for PC's in 4e are, but I do know that the hit points of the monsters have inflated again and that the number of expected levels have increased yet again.



> In truly cinematic play, an encounter like that would most certainly have been level-appropriate, because then the moment would have been sufficiently _dramatic_ for an adventure's climax (see my use of the word 'dramatic'.)




Look again at what you just said.  Once again you've tied cinematic play to level.  _Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._



> After all, there is no inherent advantage to us, the protagonists, in real life. And it is often our mundane day-to-day troubles that thwart us. I assume replicating this daily struggle is the appeal of grim'n'gritty.




Why would you assume that?  Do you regularly scale Mt. Everest, or regularly follow the Amazon to its source, or treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara?  Do you regularly descend down the big drop into the depths of Fern Cave (because some of us probably do), and if you do do you consider this your mundane day-to-day troubles?  Do you regularly face off against tribes of cannibals, thugs of secret snake cults, incarnated nightmares, insane undead serial killers, and monsters of legend?  Is that what you call your mundane day-to-day troubles?  Yet, what about that is incompatible with 'grim-and-gritty' roleplaying?  In fact, it is precisely capturing those sorts of challenges that 'grim-and-gritty' DMs/players want.  It's precisely because in high level play, players don't treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara - they greater teleport, wind walk, take a flying carpet, etc. - that you do 'grim-and-gritty' play.  Not because the adventures are more mundane if they are solved by mundane means, but because they are less mundane and more 'cinematic' when treking out into the Great Erg actually happens and the players are conscious of the great adventure that this represents rather than treating it as a trivial obstacle which is easily put out of the mind.



> Put it this way - the Fellowship of the Ring were *NEVER* going to fail due to dysentery or dehydration.
> 
> Neither will any PCs in any game I ever run.




Put it this way - the Fellowship of the Ring were never going to fail for any reason.  Hense, the whole analogy is false, but to the extent that you want to site the LotR as canonical, then I would say that the closest the adventure ever came to failure, the root cause was dehydration.  In the last sixth of the book, the overriding concern of the PC's was food and water, and pretty much every chapter is focused on their attempts to overcome the limited water supply.



> The difference with sandboxing is that Gandalf and the Fellowship, faced with no other choice in the Misty Mountains, would have encountered the Balrog whether they were level 5 or level 25.




First of all, no they wouldn't, because in a good sandbox campaign and unlike a good story, nothing ever happens 'no save'.  In something other than a story, its quite possible to traverse Moria without meeting the Balrog.  In fact, within the story, it was also possible, because both Gandalf and Aragorn had done it before and concievably had the party been more stealthy ("Fool of a Took!") they could have done it again.  But what does that have to do with anything?  If I'm a DM in a sandbox campaign, I probably won't present the hook of an NPC coming to the characters and saying 'You possess the One Ring of Power' until I suspect that some path allows them to accomplish the quest they are likely to take if they bite the hook.  However, if you go to Moria, there is a Balrog in the depths and that will be true regardless of when you go to Moria.

Secondly, if their is a Balrog in Moria or a Dragon in the Mountain, then if you go to Moria or go to the Mountain you potentially find a Balrog or a Mountain.  It's not like you are going to randomly stumble into Moria or Smaug's Lair.  There are huge freakin' campaign sign posts in front of Moria and the Lonely Mountain saying, "Beware adventurer!".  However, quite arguably neither the Balrog nor Smaug are level appropriate encounters for 'the party', and quite arguably no truly dramatic conclusion involves a level appropriate encounter regardless of the character's level.

Thirdly, what does level have to do with a discussion of 'cinematic' gameplay anyway.  Remember, _the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> It's precisely because in high level play, players don't treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara - they greater teleport, wind walk, take a flying carpet, etc. - that you do 'grim-and-gritty' play.  Not because the adventures are more mundane if they are solved by mundane means, but because they are less mundane and more 'cinematic' when treking out into the Great Erg actually happens and the players are conscious of the great adventure that this represents rather than treating it as a trivial obstacle which is easily put out of the mind.




Well put, and absolutely correct.



> In the last sixth of the book, the overriding concern of the PC's was food and water, and pretty much every chapter is focused on their attempts to overcome the limited water supply.




Yes.  And hiding from encounters.  

I also agree with your comments re: Moria.  Had it not been for Pippen, the group might have made it through Moria without encountering a single orc, let alone the Balrog.

Note also that Gandalf, in addition to the magic staff (which is reproduced in AD&D, including the ability to burst it for extra damage), Gandalf had one of the great artifacts of Middle Earth to aid him -- one of the three Elven Rings.  


RC


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 23, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> I also agree with your comments re: Moria.  Had it not been for Pippen, the group might have made it through Moria without encountering a single orc, let alone the Balrog.




This is something of a digression, but that's strictly speaking, not true.  The orcs were gaurding the lower gate (they didn't feel the need to gaurd the upper gate, because of the watcher).  However, the Balrog was presumably in the depths (presumably hoarding or working/smithing mithril), and had not Pippin created a disturbance, the main body of the orcs and the Balrogs probably not would arrived in time to prevent the parties escape.  Let's also recall that the Balrog was unsure enough of itself that even after it was awakened again by Balin's companions, it required a rather extended campaign to crush the drawves.  It apparantly considered a small dwarven army to be 'a level appropriate encounter'.



> Note also that Gandalf, in addition to the magic staff (which is reproduced in AD&D, including the ability to burst it for extra damage), Gandalf had one of the great artifacts of Middle Earth to aid him -- one of the three Elven Rings.




Although, in the context of "Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard", 'one of the great artifacts of Middle Earth' might be stated out as a 'ordinary' Ring of Wizardry or something alike.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Let's also recall that the Balrog was unsure enough of itself that even after it was awakened again by Balin's companions, it required a rather extended campaign to crush the drawves.  It apparantly considered a small dwarven army to be 'a level appropriate encounter'.




A very good point.


RC


----------



## Imban (Sep 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> if you (...) go to the Mountain you potentially find a (...) Mountain.




I'd hope so!


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 24, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I don't think I'm the one that is confused.
> 
> _Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters alone is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._
> 
> Hense, E6 - which is a system primarily defined by its level limitations - cannot be said to be handicapped in producing 'cinematic' adventure or style of play because of its level limitations.




You might not be confused but judging by some of your responses in this thread your comprehension appears to be lacking. I understand English may be your second language so please don't take this the wrong way.

The key to understanding my statement is one little word - "the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant".

The sentence reads very differently without that word - 'alone' - so its inclusion *should* have drawn the reader's atention. Clearly you didn't even notice it and I accept all responsibility.

When I say "the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant" I mean to say that it is the *relative levels* of the characters and the threats arrayed against them.

The implication then is that encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play.

Another factor, that is related to the first, is that adventures that aren't structured narratively by some external agent (ie. the DM) will only follow cinematic conventions by sheer accident.

It follows then, that E6 *will* produce cinematic play when it involves mostly level appropriate encounters *and* when adventures are written as such, rather than just arising from a freeform sandbox interplay between the PCs and the various world elements.

In my (entirely anecdotal) experience, grim'n'gritty games tend to go hand-in-hand with sandbox play. This means that they involve an amount of too hard/too easy encounters (because the encounters aren't tailored to the party) as well as lacking any kind of adventure structure (because that's the opposite of sandbox play).



> Not if the Balrog used its 1st edition stats.




I believe E6 is a D&D 3.x modification.



> The Balrog you know is a victim of stat inflation




Even if I was running E6 I would give Durin's Bane over 10HD.



> the notion that large scale 'cinematic' play can only be the result of larger numbers




'Cinematic' has nothing to do with scale either. I think the word you're looking for is 'epic'.



> or that larger numbers are somehow inherently cooler.




To be honest with you I'm not a fan of the massive numbers either and I was quite impressed with E6 and Wulf Ratbane's Grim'nGritty system before it.

But after leaving 3.x and playing some Exalted I decided that it's just fun to play in games where super powered PCs fight ancient dragons and demiliches and armies of demons.

So you could say I'm a reformed grim'n'gritty snob. 



> I have no idea what the theoreticals for PC's in 4e are, but I do know that the hit points of the monsters have inflated again and that the number of expected levels have increased yet again.




I think, if you're looking at 30 levels through the 1e paradigm, then it will look overblown and obscene.

Personally I first played BECMI, which went up to 36 levels. After that I played 3.x with its 20 levels and so now I see level 30 in 4e as equal to level 20 in 3.x

The big difference I see between 3.x and 4e (regarding levels) is the levels of 'typical' NPCs. Where in 3.x the typical guardsman was level 1, I now see him as level 3 or higher. Even higher than that using minion rules.

Certainly I don't see 5th level as particularly heroic because that's only halfway through the Heroic tier; that character has 25 levels of potential to fulfill.

Then again, I didn't have my view of character levels set by 1e or 2e, which would admittedly make it hard to cope with the idea of a 9th level fighter that doesn't own a vast swathe of countryside.



> Look again at what you just said.  Once again you've tied cinematic play to level.  _Try and look at it this way: the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._




Emphasis mine.



> Why would you assume that?  Do you regularly scale Mt. Everest, or regularly follow the Amazon to its source, or treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara?  Do you regularly descend down the big drop into the depths of Fern Cave (because some of us probably do), and if you do do you consider this your mundane day-to-day troubles?  Do you regularly face off against tribes of cannibals, thugs of secret snake cults, incarnated nightmares, insane undead serial killers, and monsters of legend?  Is that what you call your mundane day-to-day troubles?  Yet, what about that is incompatible with 'grim-and-gritty' roleplaying?  In fact, it is precisely capturing those sorts of challenges that 'grim-and-gritty' DMs/players want.  It's precisely because in high level play, players don't treck out into the Great Erg of the Sahara - they greater teleport, wind walk, take a flying carpet, etc. - that you do 'grim-and-gritty' play.  Not because the adventures are more mundane if they are solved by mundane means, but because they are less mundane and more 'cinematic' when treking out into the Great Erg actually happens and the players are conscious of the great adventure that this represents rather than treating it as a trivial obstacle which is easily put out of the mind.




All those things are cool, I agree, but let me share an anecdote with you.

I am a soldier in the Australian army. When I was in the infantry I pushed my body to extremes and did some insanely cool things. But if I'm honest with you, aside from being shot at from well outside small-arms range, the most serious threats to my health and safety were dehydration, hypothermia, vehicle accidents and snakebite.

None of those things are worthy (in my opinion) of being published in any sort of entertainment medium - only my mother found them interesting. Although if they'd occurred in conjunction with insane undead serial killers I'm sure it'd be a different story.



> Put it this way - the Fellowship of the Ring were never going to fail for any reason.




Not if I was running it as an adventure.



> Hense, the whole analogy is false, but to the extent that you want to site the LotR as canonical, then I would say that the closest the adventure ever came to failure, the root cause was dehydration.  In the last sixth of the book, the overriding concern of the PC's was food and water, and pretty much every chapter is focused on their attempts to overcome the limited water supply.




Yeah?

That's probably why Jackson cut it out of the movie.

Personally I loved the movies but found the books dull and weird - I could never get past the inane Tom Bombadil scene.

Incidentally also cut out of the movies.



> First of all, no they wouldn't, because in a good sandbox campaign and unlike a good story, nothing ever happens 'no save'.




Why not? If NPC peasants can be eaten by dragons despite their best efforts, what's stopping the same thing happening to 1st level PCs? DM fiat? So much for letting the dice fall where they may.



> In something other than a story, its quite possible to traverse Moria without meeting the Balrog.  In fact, within the story, it was also possible, because both Gandalf and Aragorn had done it before and concievably had the party been more stealthy ("Fool of a Took!") they could have done it again.  But what does that have to do with anything?  If I'm a DM in a sandbox campaign, I probably won't present the hook of an NPC coming to the characters and saying 'You possess the One Ring of Power' until I suspect that some path allows them to accomplish the quest they are likely to take if they bite the hook.




Sounds narrativist to me. Or are certain of your NPCs omniscient?



> It's not like you are going to randomly stumble into Moria or Smaug's Lair.  There are huge freakin' campaign sign posts in front of Moria and the Lonely Mountain saying, "Beware adventurer!".




Ultimately, how do the PCs know whether they can handle the threat? Honestly, how can they ever truly know unless they face it?

Do they run from every unknown threat? Very heroic.

Do they boldly step up and face the threat? (Because we are all sitting around the table for *something* right?) What if the threat is 10 levels above the party? Is it going to offer them a chance to get out alive? What a coincidence.

Why is it only level appropriate enemies that refuse to show the PCs mercy in sandbox campaigns.



> However, quite arguably neither the Balrog nor Smaug are level appropriate encounters for 'the party', and quite arguably no truly dramatic conclusion involves a level appropriate encounter regardless of the character's level.




Don't confuse "level appropriate" with "standard difficulty". There are extremely difficult encounters that are still "level appropriate".

But I maintain that an encounter overwhelmingly hard or easy can never be anything but an anticlimax.



> Thirdly, what does level have to do with a discussion of 'cinematic' gameplay anyway.  Remember, _the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant to how cinematic - or not - an adventure or style of play is._




Emphasis mine.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 24, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> When I say "the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant" I mean to say that it is the *relative levels* of the characters and the threats arrayed against them.




Let's imagine that Celebrim didn't understand you.  Then, all that would determine if something was "cinematic" is relation of threat to PC level.  Indeed, any threat, so long as it held the proper relationship to PC level, would be equally cinematic.

Only "encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play."

Now, as you say, perhaps English isn't your primary language, but if this is what you mean to say, it becomes strange that E6 would somehow be less cinematic than any other game.  Surely, if only "encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play," E6 is as capable of delivering cinematic play as any other edition.

Hence Celebrim's comment that he doesn't seem to be the one confused.  Either only "encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play", and E6 is as conducive to cinematic play as any other game, or there is something else involved.  Your statements, as given in previous posts ("4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly."), are mutually contradictory.  That indicates confusion.

An examination of your statements leads one to believe that it isn't merely the relation of threat to PC level that you view as conducive to fun play.  You clearly are looking as specific types of threats as acceptable, and others as not acceptable.  Perhaps you meant to clearly demark this part of your statements from those related to "cinematic" play, but it is (I think) understandable if there is some confusion here.



> Suggesting E6 as a superior alternative to 4e misses the point that grim'n'gritty = dull.
> 
> 4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly.




The above seems to strongly suggest some relationship between these opinions.  It is no disparagement on anyone's language ability to be able to see that suggestion.  In specific, it suggests that the more "realistic" something is, the less "cinematic" it is, and vice versa.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 24, 2009)

One could, of course, then contest the idea that "encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play", depending upon what one means by "too easy" or "too difficult".  Is an encounter "too easy" if the PCs can easily defeat it?  If so, parts of _*Tomorrow Never Dies*_ are apparently not cinematic.  Is an encounter "too difficult" if the PCs must run away from it?  If so, parts of _*Tomorrow Never Dies*_ are apparently not cinematic. 

And I can example running away or easy dispatching from a lot of flims, from _*Raiders of the Lost Ark*_ to _*District 9*_.

Funny, but I would have thought that James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Peter Jackson could be counted on for providing "cinematic" fare!


RC


----------



## S'mon (Sep 24, 2009)

I agree with RC - modern cinema is full of "too easy" fights there just to show how powerful the hero/villain is.  Likewise cinema has always had lots of "too hard" encounters where the protagonists run away.  Running away from the orc horde was one of the most cinematic-feeling things IMC recently, much moreso than the level appropriate battles.


----------



## S'mon (Sep 24, 2009)

Snoweel:
"If NPC peasants can be eaten by dragons despite their best efforts, what's stopping the same thing happening to 1st level PCs? DM fiat? So much for letting the dice fall where they may."

While there's absolutely nothing wrong with DM fiat, smart players know that the way to win is often to _avoid_ any dice being rolled.


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 24, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> The key to understanding my statement is one little word - "the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant".




Unfortunately, that doesn't make your essays as a whole any clearer.



> When I say "the levels of the characters *alone* is irrelevant" I mean to say that it is the *relative levels* of the characters and the threats arrayed against them.
> 
> The implication then is that encounters that are too easy for the PCs, as well as encounters that are too difficult for them, make for other-than-cinematic play.




To which I can only respond, "Hogwash."  Dramatically speaking, climatic encounters are always against 'overwhelming odds'.  This is true in movies, in books, and in video games because it makes for good drama.  Chase scenes are staples of cinema, so the good director always gives the hero plenty of oppurtunity to be chased by something which he doesn't want to face directly if he can help it.  It doesn't matter if we are talking Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or the Bourne Identity, there are always moments when the hero overwhelms the opposition, moments when retreat is the better part of valor, and moments where the hero is given no choice but to face overwhelming odds.  

But even more than that, since you might argue that such battles are still within the realm of 'level appropriate', I think every campaign needs at least point where a previously overwhelming threat returns just so the now more experienced PC's can mop the floor with it.  I also think every campaign needs a few points where running away is the only reasonable option.   These moments are very cinematic.



> Another factor, that is related to the first, is that adventures that aren't structured narratively by some external agent (ie. the DM) will only follow cinematic conventions by sheer accident.




It sounds to me like you are quite deliberately suggesting that the DM squash any chance of following cinematic conventions.  Your definition of 'cinematic' is increasingly divorced from the one you provided when you referenced 'cinematic conventions'.  I think we get a really good clue to what your real definition of 'cinematic' is later on.



> 'Cinematic' has nothing to do with scale either. I think the word you're looking for is 'epic'.




I agree that 'cinematic' has nothing to do with scale.  I'll happily accept 'epic' to mean 'large scale'.  Are you certain that to your mind 'cinematic' has nothing to do with scale?



> But after leaving 3.x and playing some Exalted I decided that it's just fun to play in games where super powered PCs fight ancient dragons and demiliches and armies of demons.
> 
> So you could say I'm a reformed grim'n'gritty snob.




Wait a minute, didn't you just say that 'cinematic' had nothing to do with scale??  Allow me to organize the information I have.

Snoweel doesn't like E6 because its not 'cinematic'.
Snoweel doesn't like 'grim-and-gritty' because its 'dull'
Snoweel doesn't believe mundane hazards have a place in RPGs.
Snoweel does like Exalted.
Snoweel likes Exalted because he does like fighting "ancient dragons and demiliches and armies of demons."  (This isn't 'dull').
Snoweel admits that E6 can provide balanced encounters, but seems hesitant to suggest that in E6 this includes 'ancient dragons, demiliches, and armies of demons'.  

Could it possibly be that Snoweel rejects E6 and likes Exalted because he equates 'cinematic' with 'epic'?  Hmmmm.



> *Certainly I don't see 5th level as particularly heroic* because that's only halfway through the Heroic tier; that character has 25 levels of potential to fulfill.




Hmmmm.



> I am a soldier in the Australian army.




Sidebar:  My full respects and gratitude to you for your service.  It's not unnoticed in the USA which country is the only country to stand with us in every conflict since WWI, nor is it unnoted that when their was talk about deploying our troops to East Timor, the Aussies manned up and said, "This is our backyard.  We'll handle it."  Advance Australia Fair.



> Personally I loved the movies but found the books dull and weird - I could never get past the inane Tom Bombadil scene.




Sidebar 2: Personally, I hated the movies but found the books exciting and richly interesting.  I could never get past the inane turnip eating scene, or Arwen warrior princess, or the dimunition of Frodo's character, or the dwarf tossing, or the fifth time Aragorn fell off something and we got a slow motion closeup of his unconscious form, or the vertical exagerration of the CGI so that everything looked like a technicolor movie with the credits rolling, or...  Well, suffice to say that I found the books to be one of the great works of epic literature, and the movies retarded matinee popcorn fluff.



> Ultimately, how do the PCs know whether they can handle the threat? Honestly, how can they ever truly know unless they face it?




You never truly know unless you beat it.  That's life. 



> Do they run from every unknown threat? Very heroic.




Well, the smart ones learn that living heroes are much more heroic than dead ones.  They run from every unknown threat unless they have a compelling reason not to.  Or at the very least, fall back, regroup, and reassess.

One thing to keep in mind is that the NPC's are in the same boat.  They don't know how threatening the PC's are either, and they generally assume the worst (which, if you think about it, is pretty close to correct).  This creates a strong cinematic feel, among other things that the villains occassionally get a chance to talk, and the PC's have strong reasons to talk with them.



> Do they boldly step up and face the threat?




If doing so helps them achieve some goal, then, "Yes."  If this is just some random threat, then probably not if they want to live a long time.  



> Because we are all sitting around the table for *something* right?




Yes, and generally, its a more cinematic reason than, "Let's kill things and take their stuff."



> What if the threat is 10 levels above the party?




Hope it can't run fast?  Hope that it would rather eat the ponies?  Hope that it isn't willing to fight to the death either?  



> Is it going to offer them a chance to get out alive?




Often that depends on the result of a bluff, diplomacy, or intimidate check. 



> What a coincidence.




Not at all.  How many of your NPC's survive encounters?  Maybe its not my NPC's that are stupid unrealistic and uncinematic?



> Why is it only level appropriate enemies that refuse to show the PCs mercy in sandbox campaigns.




Because you've had bad DMs?  It's certainly not the case that my level appropriate enemies wildly charge up and fight in a beserk rage to the death either.  Besides which, there are quite a few things that never show mercy regardless of the level of the PC's - zombies, ghouls, gelatinous cubes, man-eating plants, giant spiders, purple worms, etc. aren't exactly amicable dungeon dwellers.  

In part I just see this as a matter of taste.  Snoweel likes big epic wildly fantastic escapist fair, not because there is something wrong with Snoweel, but because apparantly Snoweel has had oppurtunity to be the mundane hero and can't romaticize that any more or at the very least, doesn't want to relive in a game what he's done in real life.  That's fine, but I don't see how that means E6 does 'cinematic' poorly and 4e does it well.   It just means that maybe 4e (and Exalted) does big epic over-the-top wildly fantastic escapist fantasy better than E6, to which I would agree.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 25, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Dramatically speaking, climatic encounters are always against 'overwhelming odds'.




But they're not, are they? The term 'overwhelming' used here is a cliche. If it was truly 'overwhelming odds' then the protagonists would lose wouldn't they?



> Chase scenes are staples of cinema, so the good director always gives the hero plenty of oppurtunity to be chased by something which he doesn't want to face directly if he can help it.  It doesn't matter if we are talking Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or the Bourne Identity, there are always moments when the hero overwhelms the opposition, moments when retreat is the better part of valor, and moments where the hero is given no choice but to face overwhelming odds.




Ok but do you see that the chase is now a conflict between the protagonist's ability to get away vs the antagonist's ability to catch the protagonist?

Either way, the chase is designed to build tension and if this scene is at the end of the film then it always ends with the hero and the baddie in a confrontation - ie. the chaser wins the chase.  



> But even more than that, since you might argue that such battles are still within the realm of 'level appropriate', I think every campaign needs at least point where a previously overwhelming threat returns just so the now more experienced PC's can mop the floor with it.  I also think every campaign needs a few points where running away is the only reasonable option.   These moments are very cinematic.




Agreed.



> It sounds to me like you are quite deliberately suggesting that the DM squash any chance of following cinematic conventions.




It sounds to me like you are only seeing what you want to see. Later on you accuse me of equating cinematic with high-powered. Strawmen are becoming a common theme.



> Your definition of 'cinematic' is increasingly divorced from the one you provided when you referenced 'cinematic conventions'.




How so?



> I think we get a really good clue to what your real definition of 'cinematic' is later on.




I already gave my definition of cinematic. You've said so yourself.



> I agree that 'cinematic' has nothing to do with scale.  I'll happily accept 'epic' to mean 'large scale'.  Are you certain that to your mind 'cinematic' has nothing to do with scale?




Well since I was the one who said 'cinematic' has nothing to do with scale, yes I am.



> Wait a minute, didn't you just say that 'cinematic' had nothing to do with scale??




I did. My enjoyment of high-powered gaming has nothing to do with how cinematic - or otherwise - it is.



> Allow me to organize the information I have.




And I shall watch the meticulous construction of a man made of straw...



> Snoweel doesn't like E6 because its not 'cinematic'.




Not at all. I don't like E6 because it's dull. I've already said E6 *can* be cinematic but usually isn't.

And even when it is played in cinematic style I still find it dull.



> Snoweel doesn't like 'grim-and-gritty' because its 'dull'




True.



> Snoweel doesn't believe mundane hazards have a place in RPGs.




Absolutely false and a complete fabrication. I think anything and everything has a place in RPGs, but mundane hazards are particularly anti-cinematic.

Not that every RPG has to be cinematic. People can play however they want.



> Snoweel does like Exalted.




False. I like the setting but can't stand the mechanics.



> Snoweel likes Exalted because he does like fighting "ancient dragons and demiliches and armies of demons."  (This isn't 'dull').




True.



> Snoweel admits that E6 can provide balanced encounters, but seems hesitant to suggest that in E6 this includes 'ancient dragons, demiliches, and armies of demons'.




True.



> Could it possibly be that Snoweel rejects E6 and likes Exalted because he equates 'cinematic' with 'epic'?  Hmmmm.




No.

I like cinematic and I like epic. They are two different things.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 25, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> But they're not, are they? The term 'overwhelming' used here is a cliche. If it was truly 'overwhelming odds' then the protagonists would lose wouldn't they?




So, is "cinematic" taken to mean "the protagonists always win" or "the protagonists always survive"?  Because I can easily point to cinema where either is not the case.  Also, you seem to be ignoring the opposite part of your previous statement -- that too easy is not cinematic.....as though Batman or Bond ploughing through mooks never happens, and Indiana Jones never just shot a guy rather than have a big fight scene.

You seem to be arguing along a sliding definition here.

EDIT related to STRAWMEN:  

Celebrim is not attempting to misrepresent your position.  He is suggesting, rather, that you are not representing your opinion adequately or honestly (intentionally or not) because what you are saying is not logically consistent.  And what you are saying is not logically consistent.

For example, despite what you claim is a strawman above, you did not say that you didn't like E6 merely because it was dull.  Your exact words were "4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly."

One can hardly blame someone for thinking that Snoweel doesn't like E6 because its not 'cinematic' if Snoweel said that E6 does cinematic play "extremely poorly".  One can hardly blame someone for thinking that Snoweel equates 'cinematic' with 'epic' if, he also says "grim'n'gritty = dull" and "I don't like E6 because its dull".

The full statement

Suggesting E6 as a superior alternative to 4e misses the point that grim'n'gritty = dull.

4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly.​
suggests more than slightly that cinematic and grim'n'gritty are polar opposites, and the remainder of your statements strengthen this suggestion.  That you then change terms to "epic" to oppose grim'n'gritty, strongly suggests that you equate the two.  Again, any examination of your statements reinforces this suggestion.

Perhaps you could supply a definition of "cinematic" and "epic" that are both meaningful and not co-equal?



RC


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 25, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> So, is "cinematic" taken to mean "the protagonists always win" or "the protagonists always survive"?




Now you're equating 'cinematic' roleplaying with the entertainment medium known as 'cinema'. They are related (obviously) but they are not the same thing.

Why are you trying so hard to prove me wrong? I have stated my opinion and you continue to misrepresent me in some kind of puerile game of one-upmanship.



> Because I can easily point to cinema where either is not the case.




True. Some cinema breaks with cinematic conventions. Can you believe we live in a world where there are exceptions?!?!?



> Also, you seem to be ignoring the opposite part of your previous statement -- that too easy is not cinematic




Not at all. 'Too easy' is part of establishing the protagonist's credentials - to show how badass he is.

It's been discussed numerous times on these very boards. But a 'too easy' conflict during the dramatic climax is most certainly not cinematic.



> Celebrim is not attempting to misrepresent your position.  He is suggesting, rather, that you are not representing your opinion adequately or honestly (intentionally or not) because what you are saying is not logically consistent.  And what you are saying is not logically consistent.




What I am saying might not appear to be logically consistent because you are looking for logic trails where they are not intended.

You might notice I am holding a 3 way discussion here and as such I am responding and commenting on a myriad of points.

So while you are eagerly searching for what appears to you to be a contradiction, I have to tell you that at the moment I'm just commenting for discussion's sake. I am not attempting to build any kind of overarching argument here because I have already stated my position, and no amount of misrepresentation will change that.

If you're not sure what I think go back and have a look. I haven't edited any of my posts after the fact.

And my logic is tight - remember I'm the one who first pointed out the logic flaws of others here - which wouldn't be possible if I didn't have an intuitive grasp of it.



> For example, despite what you claim is a strawman above, you did not say that you didn't like E6 merely because it was dull.  Your exact words were "4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. E6 does it extremely poorly."




I also modified my position later when I said

"It follows then, that E6 will produce cinematic play when it involves mostly level appropriate encounters and when adventures are written as such, rather than just arising from a freeform sandbox interplay between the PCs and the various world elements.

In my (entirely anecdotal) experience, grim'n'gritty games tend to go hand-in-hand with sandbox play. This means that they involve an amount of too hard/too easy encounters (because the encounters aren't tailored to the party) as well as lacking any kind of adventure structure (because that's the opposite of sandbox play)."

Seems to me to be a pretty clear concession but you glossed over it in your desperate pursuit for hidden meaning. Do I need to restate my position ad nauseum? Because last I checked, you don't pay my salary.

E6 *can* produce cinematic play.

And if you care what I think I can also tell you that epic-level play can be decidedly un-cinematic.

I think what's confusing you in this thread is that you are projecting your own assumptions onto my position.

And I maintain that 4e models cinematic play better than any previous edition.



> One can hardly blame someone for thinking that Snoweel doesn't like E6 because its not 'cinematic' if Snoweel said that E6 does cinematic play "extremely poorly".




True. But when I later say "It follows then, that E6 *will* produce cinematic play when blah blah blah..." then it should become obvious that I don't like E6 for other reasons. And those reasons _may_ be inferred from the conditions attached to E6's likelihood of producing cinematic play.

And they also _might_ not.



> One can hardly blame someone for thinking that Snoweel equates 'cinematic' with 'epic' if, he also says "grim'n'gritty = dull" and "I don't like E6 because its dull".




For the record, I consider E6 and grim'n'gritty to be virtually synonymous. They are both low-powered 3.x alternatives aren't they?



> The full statement
> 
> Suggesting E6 as a superior alternative to 4e misses the point that grim'n'gritty = dull.
> 
> ...




Once again, you are looking for patterns where they do not exist. Don't feel bad though, I do it too - it's a human trait that makes most deceptions possible.

E6 is inferior to 4e because grim'n'gritty (as stated earlier, a synonym of E6) is dull. This is my opinion.

4e models cinematic play better than any edition to date. This is also my opinion.

E6 does it (models cinematic play) extremely poorly. Also my opinion, though I have since qualified this with the admission that E6 can produce cinematic play under certain conditions.

Three absolute statements (of opinion) comparing the relative merits of 4e and E6 (in my opinion). Any causal links you've inferred are your own, though I appreciate the tendency to look for patterns.

It is telling that you refer to the three as one statement.

So when you say my statement (which is actually three) "suggests more than slightly that cinematic and grim'n'gritty are polar opposites, and the remainder of your statements strengthen this suggestion" you miss the fact that I see two separate pairs of opposites at play here:

Grim'n'gritty/E6 is the opposite of epic tier play,

and

cinematic play is the opposite of sandbox play.

I have my preferences out of both pairs. I'm sure you're aware what those preferences are.



> That you then change terms to "epic" to oppose grim'n'gritty, strongly suggests that you equate the two.  Again, any examination of your statements reinforces this suggestion.




Good logic corrupted by a flawed assumption - I have explained above that I *don't* consider grim'n'gritty to be the opposite of cinematic play, rather that grim'n'gritty is the opposite of epic play. In light of this I'm sure you can see that cinematic play =/= epic play.



> Perhaps you could supply a definition of "cinematic" and "epic" that are both meaningful and not co-equal?




Are you still unsure of my position?

Be aware that I have provided my opinion here, free for others to s--t on, should they wish. I am also aware that nothing can be proven, only disproven (or stand up to repeated attempts at disproof). Therefore I have allowed my delicate opinions to remain deliberately vague. Why should I present my opinions as hard, unambiguous statements just so some whiny hater on the internet can dismantle them? If you were to present your opinions that way I'd make them look ridiculous too. That's why you're asking for definitions here instead of giving your own.

But what do you expect? I get paid to make ambiguous statements; I'm regularly sent on courses to help me be more vague.

Do you really think I'm going to be drawn into making endless statements of fact for you to scoff at? Like I'm some kind of proxy for you to vent your rage at WotC at? I like 4e. I think it's fun. I don't like grim'n'gritty systems or systems that support sandbox play. I especially don't like grim'n'gritty systems that support sandbox play. I find them dull *and* anti-cinematic. Whatever the reasons are, they are just my opinion. You will not draw me into making bold statements of fact where I have only my 'best guess' and I understand you might disagree with my definitions.

I guess we're looking at D&D from very different viewpoints which is naturally shaping the language we use to discuss it. I wonder if the different editions of D&D have led to these differing viewpoints or if the differing viewpoints have driven the creation of new editions? I'm going with the former.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 25, 2009)

Snoweel said:


> Why are you trying so hard to prove me wrong? I have stated my opinion and you continue to misrepresent me in some kind of puerile game of one-upmanship.




How can I prove you wrong, even if that was my goal?  What I am trying to do is gain a _*clear and consistent*_ idea of what your opinion(s) related to these matters actually _*are*_.

Being logically consistent doesn't require intentionally setting up logic trails -- it merely requires a series of statements which, when taken together, do not mutually contradict each other.

You imagine that I am "eagerly searching for....a contradiction", but my pointing out the contradiction (and, AFAICT, Celebrim's doing the same) is rather an opportunity to explain either (1) why what appears contradictory actually is not, and/or (2) to refine your position so as to remove the contradiction.  

There have certainly been times on EN World where others have pointed out the inherent contradiction in views I've held, and I've changed my mind accordingly. There have also been times on EN World where others have pointed out what seemed contradictory to them, allowing me the opportunity to refine my statements so that the apparent contradiction is resolved.  This is just part of trying to communicate clearly.

Presumably, since you're making cracks about English as a first language, your goal is to communicate _*clearly*_?  And, if not, what is the point?



> I have already stated my position, and no amount of misrepresentation will change that.
> 
> If you're not sure what I think go back and have a look. I haven't edited any of my posts after the fact.




Perhaps your logic is tight, but if it is not communicated in such a way as to allow us to follow it, it is hard to understand what you mean.  That's why I asked you to provide some form of definition for "cinematic" and "epic" that will allow us to differentiate what these terms mean, to you.

Saying that _*what you are saying*_ is logically inconsistent is not the same thing as saying that _*what you are trying to say*_ is logically inconsistent.

Showing you where you lose the reader, and why the reader is drawing the assumptions they are is, again, not intended to misrepresent your position.  Rather, it is "AFAICT, this is what you are saying.  Is this what you really _*mean*_?"



> Are you still unsure of my position?




Yes, because I cannot tell at all what you mean by "cinematic".

Rather than saying "we're looking at D&D from very different viewpoints which is naturally shaping the language we use to discuss it", I would suggest that we are trying to discuss D&D from different language definitions, which is hampering our ability to share viewpoints.  AFAICT, we might actually all _*agree with you*_ if the terminology barrier were overcome.

When I read "cinematic" I think "Of or of a quality related to the cinema", which is a pretty broad and inclusive definition.  It seems to me that your definition is a lot tighter.  Indeed, it must be for you to hold your stated opinions.

Personally, if "cinematic" means one thing to you, and another to Celebrim, and yet another to me, I am more than willing to go with your definition for the purpose of this discussion.  It doesn't matter how we individually define it for other purposes; all that matters is that we understand how you define it _for this purpose_.  

For this purpose, I am willing to accept any definition you care to use, so long as I can then relate it to your statements, and see where they make sense.



RC


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 25, 2009)

Perhaps this might help understand the problem:

popular culture gaming » Can you define cinematic???

I found it searching for some form of useful definition related to gaming.


RC


----------



## Celebrim (Sep 25, 2009)

I said from the first that I thought the problem would be that we couldn't agree on a definition of 'cinematic'.  The problem has since become worse than that though, in that I don't understand the term 'cinematic' as you have been using it.  As you use it, Snoweel, it seems to encompass so many different ideas that it just leaves me confused.

For my part, 'cinematic' has a very particular and specific meaning.  A few nights ago I played Settlers of Cataan.  When I remember playing Settler's of Cataan, I remember throwing dice, the position of peices on the board, and talking with my friends.  I remember the actual experience of playing Settler's of Cataan.  This is because Settler's of Cataan is not cinematic.

But when I look back at a particularly enjoyable session of playing a role playing game, I don't remember throwing dice or even talking with my friends.  Instead I remember the movie created in my mind by the experience of playing that role playing game.  Instead of remembering the actual experience, it is as as if I instead had watched a movie which I can now remember as vividly as any other movie I have watched.   This is because, when a role playing game is done really well, it is 'cinematic'.  It creates for me the experience of watching a movie, a movie I am creating and sharing with my friends so that, after the movie is over I can talk to them about the movie and (while each of us will have seen a slightly different movie) we will be able to discuss the movie just as if it was any other shared cinematic experience.

Thus, to me, the definition is utterly divorced from game elements like 'level'.  

I don't believe 4e to be especially cinematic at all, because in my experience the use of minatures is especially crushing to cinematic play.   When you use minatures, you end up creating a separate reality with elmenates the need to create the 'cinematic' experience in order to understand play.   When you look back on the game, you tend to remember looking down on the minatures, moving around the minatures, and the position of minatures on the board.  The game becomes no more cinematic than chess, because the imagined reality which is otherwise necessary to successfully play the game is rendered largely superfluous.  While playing the game what you end up imagining is different board configurations that the board can be in, just as you do when playing chess or Settler's of Cataan.

In any event, whether this is the standard definition of 'cinematic' in RPG's (I think it pretty close), this definition has the virtue of speaking concretely about some aspect of the experience of playing RPG's which is completely undependent on 'Epic', 'Dramatic', 'Sand Box', 'Grim-N-Gritty', 'Balanced', or any number of other terms that we could use to describe the experience of playing RPG's.  I don't feel that you've successful disentangled your definition of cinematic from other game concepts, because they keep coming up when you try to describe what you mean.

Likewise, you tried to define 'cinematic' by referencing another written work, but you never addressed my (serious but silly sounding) question as to whether that meant you always thought dungeons should be entered from the 'east' or 'left' side of the map to be properly cinematic.


----------



## Snoweel (Sep 26, 2009)

Clearly we have different definitions of 'cinematic'.

The definition I use, which I took from Steve Jackson's GURPS, equates to "following dramatic conventions". As Celebrim said above, you could use the term 'dramatic', except I believe 'dramatic' is clearly-enough defined to refer to the quality of tension in a given moment.

Therefore, 'cinematic' as I see it refers to the nature of the stories that play out from sessions of gaming.

In 4e this is driven by the game mechanics, in fact the very game mechanics that many of you say break verisimilitude - encounter and daily powers, PC-centric conflict resolution, etc.

I therefore don't equate 'immersive' with 'cinematic' though neither do I believe them to be inversely related.


----------



## Raven Crowking (Sep 27, 2009)

Well, that helps somewhat, but unless you then elaborate on what you mean by "dramatic conventions", I am still at a loss.

Unless you are referring to the three-act structure, which is more difficult to perform in a sandbox setting than not?  Your comments earlier suggest that you are perhaps thinking of the protagonist's relative plot immunity as well?


RC


----------

