Working in the Game Mine

Ratskinner · Jul 12, 2012

Fifth Element said:
I've read the posts leading up to this one and what you seem to be saying is that monster roles are bad because they necessarily create very narrow restrictions on the design of said monsters.

I don't think that's true. They can be used in a purely descriptive way, even if 4E didn't always use them that way, because this is a new edition and they can be used any way the designers choose to.

Not that I want to jump into this rodeo, but from the 4e haters I know personally, this impression is part of what they hate about the "roles" aspect of monsters in 4e. Mostly, they see the roles as far too narrow, and have concluded that that is the only way for roles to work.

Not my fight, though, I thought monsters and their design were one of 4e shining strengths.

GMforPowergamers · Jul 13, 2012

GMforPowergamers said:
I would love to know the difference (if everything else was equal) between

Oger-ogers are large size and have the giant sub type 360xp
Oger (large, giant) 360xp
Oger (larger, giant) lv 7 Brute* 360xp
Oger lv 7 Elite Brute (Large, giant) 360xp

Where the star explains he is worth more xp then most 7th level Becuse he is slightly more powerful

I quoted myself becuse this got lost along the way... assuming that the oger had the resst of the entry from the play test, what harm does it do to havenany of those on top?

pemerton · Jul 13, 2012

dd.stevenson said:
Do 4E monsters strictly conform to roles? Are monsters with the same roles likely to have similar powers and vulnerabilities?

<snip>

And if, as a player, I know its role, do I know more or less what to expect from it in a fight?

Basically, the answer is "no". Or "not any more than you already would.

If you see goblins with bows, you know they will shoot you at a distance. Knowing that they have the "artillery" role doesn't add to that information. It is a classification and planning tool for the GM.

Controllers have fiddly stuff, but a very wide variety of it - and (just as defenders and controllers overlap on the PC side) soldiers can also have quite a bit of melee control.

dd.stevenson said:
But my question is--are roles prescriptive?

Yes, in the sense that - for a given level - they determine a monster's hp, and set parameters for its defences and damage.

dd.stevenson said:
Is there such a thing as a brute that does a lot of damage and is hard to hit?

Yes - except in the 4e system it will be classified as a higher level soldier. (Higher level because it is just more powerful.) Or you could just use a higher-level brute. Depending what exactly you want the encounter to look like, you might even use a slightly lower-level elite soldier.

dd.stevenson said:
A controller that is not physically weak?

It's no part of the controller stats to be physically weak, and some of the toughest melee monsters I've used are controllers of one form or another.

dd.stevenson said:
Also, do any monsters have multiple roles at the same time? Might I run into a single ogre that is a brute/controller?

Elites and even moreso solos tend to look like this. Plus, as I noted above, controllers tend to play similarly to some soldiers, but with more complexity. And if you want your controller more brutish (ie more hit points and/or damage) make it higher level or elite.

Crazy Jerome said:
You might say that the monster roles are prescriptive, but only in relation to other monsters of about the same level.

Exactly this.

Balesir said:
I'm going to disagree with some other posters, here, in that I think the intended and primary use of monster roles in 4e is descriptive, not prescriptive.

<snip>

The matter can seem confused because of the table of HPs, AC, attack bonus and so on by role and by level in the DMG - to some this suggests that a monster of a given role and level must follow a prescribed formula. The text of the DMG, though, makes it pretty clear that some variation around these "norms" is not just allowed but expected and positively encouraged; for further evidence of this you have only to analyse published monsters against those tabulated values to see that they are frequently quite different.

The thing is, though, that carelessly applied variation can remove the descriptive value of the role and level labels.

<snip>

Could you design a monster that is better in all categories than the average monster of your selected role and level? Sure - but, in reality, you have just designed a higher level monster. If a DM wants to deceive him or herself and deliberately short the players, they can do that - but why would they?

I think this is correct and consistent with what I've said above.

Crazy Jerome said:
They are descriptive in that nothing stops you from staring with "ogre", adding some particular spells and special abilities, and calling that an "ogre magi". Then if you wanted to publish that thing and/or evaluate it against the 4E encounter rules (which are quite different from 3E in some ways), you'd then decide on the closest role that matched and assign a level. Obviously, if this was for home use, you might not even care.

<snip>

I personally read that as, "If you don't conform to the numbers, level, and role guidelines, your creature won't perform correctly in the quite nifty 4E encounter budget guidelines."

<snip>

By nature, then, the monster manual entries are going to be more prescriptive than what you can do yourself with the same materials, but this is about the encounter guidelines, not the monsters per se.

It worth noting that many 4e books - Open Grave, Demonomicon, DMG2 and others - have "monster themes" which are additional powers that can be added to a monster to give it a certain thematic oomph but aren't so strong as to change it's level/role in a way that will muck up encounter planning.

Which emphasises that the point of roles is to support encounter building, and the point of levels to support encounter building as well as the PC-progression-via-XP side of things.

If you want a different sort of encounter, nothing stops you building it. And the role-and-level rules give you at least a rough-and-ready guide to how it will play.

pemerton · Jul 13, 2012

Missing option from L&L essay

Mearls canvassed two approaches to monster and encounter design - the "mechanical dynamics/pacing" approach, and the "evolves organically from within the fiction of the gameworld approach". He didn't canvass a third approach, which might be called the "narrative/thematic dynamics" approach: designing encounters with the GM's primary attention being paid to the way they reinforce or change or otherwise respond to previously-established fictional and thematic "truths" within the game. This is a bit like the first approach I mention, insofar as it is metagame rather than ingame driven. But the metagame is focused on fictional content and meaning rather than purely mechanical considerations.

The only D&D book I know of that tackles this sort of monster design head on is Worlds & Monsters. Unfortunately other 4e books tended not to follow that books excellent lead in this respect. And we never saw it extended from monster design to encounter design.

I would like D&Dnext to say something about this sort of approach. I also think it provides one angle into making PC backgrounds more relevant in play, and into making the three pillars more equal in play.

Fifth Element · Jul 13, 2012

pemerton said:
The only D&D book I know of that tackles this sort of monster design head on is Worlds & Monsters. Unfortunately other 4e books tended not to follow that books excellent lead in this respect. And we never saw it extended from monster design to encounter design.

Could you elaborate on what you mean exactly? It's been a very long time since I've looked at that book.

Tovec · Jul 14, 2012

Fifth Element said:
Should I now? We are discussing a game in which characters are largely defined by their class. That should be considered when discussing whether monsters could be largely defined by something similar, their role.

Fifth Element said:
That's a point I was trying to get at. Now, character classes tend to be broader in definition than monster roles were in 4E, so if someone were to argue that monster roles should be broadened somehow, I could see that. But presumably if monster roles as a concept are too restrictive, then so too are classes?

Characters are defined by their class. But monsters defined by roll isn't exactly the same.
Classes are defined by roll too in 4e are they not?

Monsters are defined (or should be) by what kind of creature they are. Roles do not articulate that well.

Also, it is prescriptive when the assumptions of a role influence the monster creation instead of assigning a role AFTER the monster has been finished.

I would not be surprised to see a brute ogre with d12 and sneaker ogre to have d8s. That is role defining monster instead of monster defining role.

GMforPowergamers said:
I quoted myself becuse this got lost along the way... assuming that the oger had the resst of the entry from the play test, what harm does it do to havenany of those on top?

The only objections I have to putting "brute" at the top of the monster entry I have is that it is too descriptive, often wrong/inaccurate and often there are multiple titles that fit. I also disagree with the roles that exist.
For example, is a goblin with a spear an artillery, an archer*, or a minion**

As I said before if a dragon shows up in the MM and it has a role attached to the section that applies to its race/type(subtype) and it says "solo" for example then it is going to be wrong/inaccurate assuming that the dragon is used in any other way. If you decide to use the brute monster as something lurking in the shadows, then there are two problems; first that it is no longer being a brute and acting with brutish expectations and that it is going to do the job poorly because it isn't classified (and designed as) a lurker.

*archer being a ranged attacker that doesn't fit into artillery category
**minion in a new "low-HP" way instead of the "1 hit" way of 4e

pemerton · Jul 14, 2012

Fifth Element said:
Could you elaborate on what you mean exactly? It's been a very long time since I've looked at that book.

In general, I'm thinking of the technique of encounter design which is about pushing the players (via the fiction in which their PCs are embedded). It's using the story elements that are part of the game and genre as deliberate devices for creating certain responses, rather than just (in the way Mearls did talk about) thinking of the gameworld as some organic whole. In Forge-y language, I'd say that Mearls has canvassed a gamist approach, and a simulationist approach, but not a narrativist approach, to encounter design.

In Cthulhu, this might be advice on how to use family members as cutlists' victims (and cultists).

In a superhero game, this might be advice on how to use sidekicks/signficant others (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen) as victims, or antagonists (if Lois is trying to learn your secret identity).

In D&D, this is about using the different magical/mythical story elements: demons, devils, undead, elementals, genies, dragons etc. What sort of theme and feel does an encounter with that sort of creature invoke? What PC story components will it pick up on (eg undead encounters for Raven Queen worhsippers, or giants vs dwarves, as easy examples)?

I hope this also makes clear - I'm not asking for anything especially sophisticated or hifalutin in my D&D. I'm not looking for anything that goes beyond standard and classic fantasy tropes and themes (loyatly vs betrayal, honour vs cowardice, law vs chaos, mortality vs immortality, etc). I'm just looking for the designers to talk about how they see the monsters, and the way they are designed as story elements (which includes the mechanical expression of their story significance - one of my favourite things about 4e monsters), instead of putting all only in ingame terms and leaving players to work out the meta stuff themselves.

A non-D&D monster book that illustrates the sort of approach I'm talking about here is the Burning Wheel Monster Burner: each monster entry has backstory/ingame explanation, plus metagame description of the monster in story terms (how you might use it, how you can expect the PCs (and their players) to relate to it, what the likely consequences and ramifications might be, etc) plus mechanics which often include suggested combat tactics as well as the mechanical expression of its personality (in BW this includes Beliefs, Instincts and some Traits).

Fifth Element · Jul 14, 2012

Tovec said:
I would not be surprised to see a brute ogre with d12 and sneaker ogre to have d8s. That is role defining monster instead of monster defining role.

Similarly, I expect a human fighter will have a d10 or d12 hit die and a human wizard a d4 or a d6. But that's all right, is it?

Steely_Dan · Jul 14, 2012

Fifth Element said:
Similarly, I expect a human fighter will have a d10 or d12 hit die and a human wizard a d4 or a d6. But that's all right, is it?

Sounds about right.

pemerton · Jul 14, 2012

Tovec said:
I would not be surprised to see a brute ogre with d12 and sneaker ogre to have d8s. That is role defining monster instead of monster defining role.

<snip>

If you decide to use the brute monster as something lurking in the shadows, then there are two problems; first that it is no longer being a brute and acting with brutish expectations and that it is going to do the job poorly because it isn't classified (and designed as) a lurker.

I don't quite follow this.

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "d12" and "d8". Are you talking about hit dice? 4e doesn't use hit dice. A sneakier ogre can have more hp than a brutish one if you like; it's just that it will be higher level (because having the same number of hp, plus sneakiness, makes a monster tougher, and toughness is described by level).

Second, the fact that you brute will do it's job poorly if played sneakily is nothing to do with it's classificaiton - it's due to the fact that it will have few sneaky abilities (that said, it isn't inherent to the brute role that it have no sneaking - I just recently GMed an encounter involving a Nightcrawler, a 20th level elite brute with quite a good Stealth bonus).

If you want to build a high damage lurker, that's easy - just make it higher level (because level just measures toughness, and a monster that is as damaging as monster X, but sneakier, is tougher than X, and hence higher level).