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But is that the correct response? Sometimes combat is the correct response. To me, a lot of the discussion in this thread states that negotiating in the scenario above is the more desired option. I'm not sure that's correct. Both options should be equally desirable, equally different, and equally lethal.
Why? Not for realism/simulation, surely - in real life, jaw-jaw is almost always less lethal than war-war. For fun? All options should be equally fun, and having all options carry similar risks & rewards best achieves that?
Lots of BECMI modules, 2 that come to mind are X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield and CM1 Test of the Warlords.
While this is true thats because domain management was a significant part of the game, the Companion boxed set provided extensive mechanical support for it.
It is however telling that such rules were virtually absent from 1e. There is a nod to it in the PHB with the name level followers if you build a temple/caste/tower etc but thats about it.
2e brought it back in a significant way with Birthright which sank like a stone.
3e got rid of the followers stuff but brought out the Stronghold Builders Guide.
Why? Not for realism/simulation, surely - in real life, jaw-jaw is almost always less lethal than war-war. For fun? All options should be equally fun, and having all options carry similar risks & rewards best achieves that?
I would argue that jaw-jaw is also less successful than war-war (unless you are *very* good at talking). But that is a philosophical point.
My point is that most DMs have much lower standards for roleplay success. As long as the PCs give it the good old college try, they will be far more successful with roleplay than they should be, if we are weighting the tasks equally.
I would argue that jaw-jaw is also less successful than war-war (unless you are *very* good at talking). But that is a philosophical point.
My point is that most DMs have much lower standards for roleplay success. As long as the PCs give it the good old college try, they will be far more successful with roleplay than they should be, if we are weighting the tasks equally.
I think your point is wrong - IRL we spend far more time talking than fighting! Even in the 'state of nature', rival hunter-gatherer bands spend far more time talking to each other than killing each other.
I also don't understand your "weighting the tasks equally" concept. Why wouldn't it be easier to negotiate with a crime lord than kill him? He has a lot invested in not dying, and is probably very good at not dying, else he'd not have reached crime lord status. By contrast, negotiation may reach a mutually acceptable outcome.
When I want to encourage roleplay in a genre like D&D with lots of combat, I make the combat less lethal, so players don't have to worry about min-maxing so much and can get attached to their characters. You usually get something like a typical fantasy/swords & sorcery movie, cheesy but fun.
Another benefit of ratcheting down the lethality is you get a wider variety of characters ie, a wider variety of fictional roles being played. Lethal campaigns tend to produce hard-bitten, paranoid survivalists, which is great for certain people, but less good for the chap who wants to play Westley from the Princess Bride (or, for that matter, Princess Buttercup).
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So I think the relationship between game lethality and role play depends strongly on genre.
A good point, which is further complicated by the way gamers have used D&D to run several different genres, sometimes within a single campaign (say by going from assualting the Slave Lords to tangling w/Strahd in Ravenloft).
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My experience of D&D though is that high lethality is harmful rather than supportive of roleplay, and that taking the pressure off is best.
Mine too.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
There's alot of pent up anger in my PC group. When there isn't combat arround, they LOOK for some. If its a peaceful negotiation, they offer to kill things and trade the stuff they take. If its negotiations for the ownership of land, they Kill the buyer (Because "somthing's fisy about that").
My players crave blood, and I fear if I don't let them kill things in the game, they may rise up and kill me!
__________________
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While this is true thats because domain management was a significant part of the game, the Companion boxed set provided extensive mechanical support for it.
It is however telling that such rules were virtually absent from 1e. There is a nod to it in the PHB with the name level followers if you build a temple/caste/tower etc but thats about it.
The 1st ed. PHB indicates such factors as radius to clear of monsters, and basic tax revenue rate. In the DMG, we have ...
p. 16 ff.: Followers for Upper Level Player Characters; Spying
p. 28 ff.: Hirelings (Standard and Expert, from carpenters to mercenaries to sages); Henchmen; Loyalty of Henchmen and Hirelings, Obedience and Morale; Time in the Campaign
p. 53 ff.: Waterborne Adventures (naval rules)
p. 86 ff.: The Campaign; Climate & Ecology; Typical Inhabitants; Social Class and Rank; The Town and City Social Structure; Economics; Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes and Tolls; Monster Populations and Placement -- These sections mostly treat general principles rather than codifying rules.
pp. 93-94: TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT BY PLAYER CHARACTERS; Peasants, Serfs, and Slaves
p. 105: Use of Non-human Troops
p. 106 ff.: CONSTRUCTION AND SIEGE
Killing things and taking their stuff as an element of the game is a far cry from that being the total essence or the encapsulated description of the game. Used to be the game was about exploration of dangerous places, dealing with traps and tricks, establishing domains, and engaging in special missions in support of massed battles. The game used to have much higher ambitions than killing monsters and taking their stuff.
Aside from the domain building aspect (which I'll grant you, is absent in 4e so far) I'm having trouble understanding where you're getting the idea that 4e de-emphasizes exploration of dangerous places, dealing with traps and tricks, and engaging in special missions in support of mass battles. It seems to me that the 4e rulebooks devote just as much space and attention to rules in support of those things as any edition of D&D has preceding it. In some cases (traps and tricks come to mind) the rulebooks arguably devote MUCH more attention to those subjects than any previous edition has. You'll find new traps and terrain hazards in nearly every rulebook for 4e, whereas most previous editions devoted a small section of the DMG to those things and left the subject at that.
In any case, all three of those aspects of gameplay, to me, fall under the heading of killing things and taking their stuff. Exploring dangerous places is the way to find dangerous foes to fight. Navigating tricks and traps is a prerequisite to getting to those foes. Skirting the edge of a massed battle to accomplish a mission generally involves some amount of killing enemies (and who wouldn't take their stuff afterward?). In addition, I can say from my own personal experience that, as a 4e DM, all three of those activities have occured in my campaign (sometimes with great regularlity) and were fully supported by the 4e rules.
Can you explain how you think the 4e rules are lacking in regard to these things and where you think another edition of D&D has devoted more attention to them or done a better job supporting them in the rules? Because I'm just not seeing what you are seeing.
In a game where a single roll can kill my character, I don't see much point in investing personality and background into the character. Thus the way I rp in a game like that is far more shallow than the way I do it in a game where I can reasonably believe that the time I invest in a character won't be wasted.
The 'high lethality = more role play' theory has other flaws as well. In my experience, in the more lethal versions of D&D, traps are just as lethal(if not more) than combat. While there was less time spent on fighting, the time gained was basically spent on things like 10 foot poles and describing in explicit detail how every single door was opened.
Can you explain how you think the 4e rules are lacking in regard to these things and where you think another edition of D&D has devoted more attention to them or done a better job supporting them in the rules? Because I'm just not seeing what you are seeing.
I can't speak for anyone else, but IMHO speed of play is a real issue, in all WotC editions of D&D. If an average combat takes X time in the real world, and an average session lasts Y time, then X/Y determines the number of potential combats in the game.
Should the potential number of combats be very high, because combats play quickly, then there is more time in each session to devote to traps, tricks, exploration, role-playing, etc. Nobody feels gypped that this material takes away from bopping some orcs on the noggin. IOW, the weight of a satisfying session is balanced among many encounters, so each can be its own thing without dragging the whole down. Like wearing snowshoes.
However, if X/Y yields a very low number, then the weight of a satisfying session is balanced on relatively few encounters, and each encounter must be that much more capable of supporting a satisfying game session by (or nearly by) itself. Like wearing stilts in deep snow. In a game like D&D, this often means combat encounters, at the expense of all other type of encounters.
A low X/Y also means that these combat encounters will often fall within the same "threshold". If it takes half a minute to defeat a giant rat at 10th level, the 10th level character may well encounter a giant rat without thinking it a major waste of time. If it takes 20 minutes, though, things are different. This is why "combat grind" in 4e becomes a source of complaint.....Or why many high level combats in 3e become dissatisfying.
(IMHO, this is the direct result of pushing a grid-based combat system; itself a direct result of WotC's marketing research, which pointed out that a gamer who buys minis tends to spend over 40 times the amount of a gamer that does not.)
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
I can't speak for billd91, but some things come to mind. They are related in complex ways, though, and this is very much a matter of perception and temperament as to whether a design is a help or hindrance.
(A) The equation of lots of number crunching and dice rolls with "support" does not hold for everyone. It can even be seen as distancing players from engagement with a situation via role-playing. This is a common response to 4E, and not always a negative one; many people prefer to see "challenges" directed at their numerically quantified characters rather than at them as players.
(B) The premise that all other aspects of play are but ways to set up combat scenarios does indeed get pushed a bit in 4E, as it was in 3E. However, the pre-2E game was much more clearly nuanced. If combat played too little a role, then much of D&D might be wasted; experience levels, magic and monsters were primarily (but far from exclusively) directed at combat. However, the primary game-oriented objective was gaining experience levels, and the overwhelmingly essential means to that end was securing treasure.
Wandering monsters, lacking treasure, were profitably avoided. Monsters with but little treasure posed a question of risk and return on investment in dealing with them at all, and to get the treasure without a fight was not only preferable but sometimes very feasible.
Monsters standing unavoidably between adventurers and an especially rich hoard (gems, jewelry, magic) posed the significant combat challenges.
Traps were generally to be avoided at least as much as wandering monsters. Sometimes, though, they guarded worthy treasures. Sometimes, bypassing them opened a way to bypass a fight.
Exploration was essential to forming sound strategies. The rich treasures had to be located before one could make an efficient plan to acquire them. Without knowing the disposition of monsters and traps, one could hardly plan and prepare for an assault and extraction. Optimal spell selection depended greatly on intelligence regarding the situations to be dealt with.
Moreover, there were puzzles to solve, both in the "games and puzzles" sense and in the broader sense of mysteries. Either sort might veil advantages, and solutions might entail widely dispersed clues.
(C) The real-time factor is a key practical consideration. The amount of play time demanded by a combat in 4E leaves so much less time per session for anything else -- including multiple fights. That makes wandering monsters and other distracting skirmishes a much greater penalty than formerly.
I can't speak for anyone else, but IMHO speed of play is a real issue, in all WotC editions of D&D. If an average combat takes X time in the real world, and an average session lasts Y time, then X/Y determines the number of potential combats in the game.
Should the potential number of combats be very high, because combats play quickly, then there is more time in each session to devote to traps, tricks, exploration, role-playing, etc. Nobody feels gypped that this material takes away from bopping some orcs on the noggin. IOW, the weight of a satisfying session is balanced among many encounters, so each can be its own thing without dragging the whole down. Like wearing snowshoes.
However, if X/Y yields a very low number, then the weight of a satisfying session is balanced on relatively few encounters, and each encounter must be that much more capable of supporting a satisfying game session by (or nearly by) itself. Like wearing stilts in deep snow. In a game like D&D, this often means combat encounters, at the expense of all other type of encounters.
A low X/Y also means that these combat encounters will often fall within the same "threshold". If it takes half a minute to defeat a giant rat at 10th level, the 10th level character may well encounter a giant rat without thinking it a major waste of time. If it takes 20 minutes, though, things are different. This is why "combat grind" in 4e becomes a source of complaint.....Or why many high level combats in 3e become dissatisfying.
(IMHO, this is the direct result of pushing a grid-based combat system; itself a direct result of WotC's marketing research, which pointed out that a gamer who buys minis tends to spend over 40 times the amount of a gamer that does not.)
RC
I must spread some XP around before giving any to RC again.
There appears to me a curious feature in 4E, that XP awards depend overwhelmingly on purely statistical odds of failure. In other words, "working smarter, not harder" is counter-productive!
This comes to the fore when people get into difficulties considering whether XP ought to be awarded for "avoiding an encounter." In the old days, avoiding monsters or other difficulties in order to get treasure posed no more of a philosophical problem than avoiding the other team's defensive line to score a goal in a ball game.
Actually, my statement regarding "the old days" is not quite accurate. The original set suggested pro-rating experience awards for characters of higher experience level than a dungeon level. The AD&D DMG got a bit more detailed in considering the monster-slaying aspect, which obscured for some readers the subjective nature of the broader topic.
The really fundamental consideration presented was overall degree of challenge posed to players, not merely to game-mechanical resources such as those afforded by character levels. Magical resources facilitating other approaches tended to increase along with fighting power. In general, it might be expected that even if a more cunning scheme were likely to be very much less risky or costly, it would require enough more ingenuity to effect as to make for an appropriate challenge. Creative thinking might be valued more highly than brute force, compared with an assessment in terms of odds of success.
The point of pro-rating was to discourage "XP farming" via trivial pursuits. Personally, I have not found it necessary (which avoids some potentially awkward book-keeping). Simply placing treasures appropriate to the general and relative difficulty of acquiring them seems to work well enough, given the rough doubling of requirements most steps up to "name" level (and the huge numbers needed thereafter). I think the attitude of players counts for much, though. Those preoccupied with scoring XP above all else may have a higher tolerance for dull undertakings than I have seen.
Last edited by Ariosto; 25th June 2009 at 10:06 PM..
There appears to me a curious feature in 4E, that XP awards depend overwhelmingly on purely statistical odds of failure. In other words, "working smarter, not harder" is counter-productive!
My experience is that XP awards are most often determined by the DM, following their own XP muse, rather than the guidelines laid out in rules, whatever they might be. Most DM's I know stopped explicitly following XP guidelines somewhere back during the 1e era to discourage players from random peasant murder and the decimation of the local badger --insert another 1/2 to 1 HD monster here-- population whenever a PC was on the cusp of leveling.
For instance, our 4e DM rewards creativity and thought (with emphasis on the former, I must admit). I suspect we're not alone (though we are probably alone in our attempt to settle a deadly feud with musical theater).
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
I suspect we're not alone (though we are probably alone in our attempt to settle a deadly feud with musical theater).
I could settle a deadly feud with musical theatre. At up to 500 paces, my singing can cause people's ears to bleed. Admittedly, this is because they jam sharpened pencils in them to stop the horrible sound, but the point stands.
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
There appears to me a curious feature in 4E, that XP awards depend overwhelmingly on purely statistical odds of failure. In other words, "working smarter, not harder" is counter-productive!
Ah, but you see, there is where DMs come into play. Only they get to say what is "smart" rather than "hard".
The XP awards suggested in the books are, I expect, based on the statistical odds of failure, assuming a party that works reasonably well together, but does nothing particularly interesting other than use their basic tactics moderately well.
If you know your tactics really well, you can beat the odds. If you are creative such that the DM gives you situational bonuses, you beat the odds. If you beat the odds, you get more XP for less work.
The 4e DMG says you get XP for "completing" or "overcoming" an encounter. The DM gets to decide what counts as overcoming an encounter - generally it means you have to take some risk. If you completely avoid all risk, then no XP.
The 4e DMG says you get XP for "completing" or "overcoming" an encounter. The DM gets to decide what counts as overcoming an encounter - generally it means you have to take some risk. If you completely avoid all risk, then no XP.
It is also pretty explicit that you should be giving out xp for completing quests. It wouldn't be too difficult to expand that to make all xp awards quest based which leaves the method of both completion and advancement entirely in the hands of the PC's.
Making all XP awards "quest" awards could indeed perform the same function as the old XP for treasure. By the standard scheme, XP for a quest are only 10% of what's needed, or 25% of the award for an encounter of the same level.
Otherwise, there is a very basic flaw with -- or, depending one's preference, feature of -- the whole "encounter" concept in 4E. It's compounded by the notion that whatever is not a combat is a "skill challenge", and further by the nature of the skill challenge formalism itself.
An advantage for some is that, because it is incumbent on the DM (or scenario writer) to set boundaries of "encounters" and define what "overcoming" them means, the players are by default heavily directed.
Thus, if one wants to impose a lesser frequency of combat, then simply defining fewer "combat encounters" can go far to do the trick.
What I have seen in play is that players are quickly trained to look to the DM for cues as to the conditions particular to the latest discrete sub-game, taking a reactive role.
One could of course break that mold, but it seems to be a key binding structure in the design and presentation of the game.
Last edited by Ariosto; 26th June 2009 at 03:41 AM..
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