Epic! Yes. Fail? Maybe.

[Jared Rascher]

First off, I want to agree with Ari that this is, indeed, not an edition limited problem. The same discussion has come up on Paizo's boards discussing how Paizo wants to handle epic level rules with Pathfinder.

One of the problems I think we had from the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook is that we had no upper limit, and thus, no scope of what the game should look like. 25th level characters adventuring don't seem like they would be doing something even remotely similar to 50th level characters, and depending on how you look at it, 50th level characters may not even make sense in a given campaign.

Ari also brings up something that James Jacobs has said on Paizo's forums, that the Epic Level game pretty much needs to feel like a major paradigm shift, like something else, not like a bigger version of what has come before, but essentially the same.

Again, this was a mistake that the Epic Level Handbook made. We had things that were like massive beholders, things that were like massive spheres of annihilation, progression for more categories for dragons . . . its more of the same with bigger numbers, which means the GM really has to sell the encounters to make them feel like they aren't just the same thing with bigger numbers.

The BECMI immortal rules did dramatically shift what PCs were doing to run around doing cosmic things instead of just exploring, say, planar dungeons (nothing wrong with that, but I'd argue that's what high level, not epic level, characters should be doing). In fact, its an interesting way of understanding how the cosmic balance works.

Under 3rd edition's epic rules, demon lords and demigods become fairly mundane monsters, but if you move into the demigod spot, even if you can kill off some other cosmic beings, what kind of events are you putting into motion, and how might other cosmic beings react, especially when you can't hide behind being a lucky mortal back on the prime.

Now, here's the rub, and why I don't think any epic level rules have caught on as well as they could have. More of the same with bigger numbers doesn't work, but "almost completely new game" has one built in problem . . . its almost completely a new game. When people sign on to play D&D, they get used to the normal tropes of that game.

It may be fun to say that your character has ascended to demigodhood and now gets to seal planar rifts and travel through time and travel through the synapses of a greater god to cure his insanity, but the more of a different game it is, the more its like saying "convert your D&D characters over to Mutants and Masterminds and we'll build them as PL 20 characters."

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe the "epic level game" isn't destined to be the last part of the regular game, but really should be designed, developed, and marketed as a separate but related game. In a way, the BECMI system did this by having this as a separate boxed set that didn't need to be part of the main rules.

For companies, its desirable to frame the epic game as part of the main rules, because that ties in more sales, but it may not be a realistic goal to honestly see epic level rules as part of the "core" experience.

 

[Klaus]

"that freelancer who can't shut up"

Hey, I resemble that remark!

And as usual, I agree with you, Ari. Epic needs to feel epic. As soon as you take on an Epic Destiny, you need to *be* that thing, be it Demigod, Dark Wanderer or Last Son of Krypton. And here's the tricky part, because you work all Paragon to earn your Epic status, but when you reach Epic, you are in your "last" adventure, where you fulfill the promise of your previous 20 levels. The entire Epic tier becomes a single mega-arc reflecting your Epic Destiny. This is where I think it pays if the entire party selects the same (or similar) Destiny.

 

[pawsplay]

You are correct, sir. And my impression is that the word from WotC is that they have no intention of straying from the "core experience" at least not any time this year.

 

[pemerton]

Was the number of people who played name level AD&D, with castles etc being the central focuse of play, or who played Companion+ D&D (let alone Immortals) any greater than the number who play Epic tier 4e?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I don't really usually bother posting to articles, but... yeah, this is a big problem. The past decade plus of D&D has been the same game experience, getting more complicated as levels went up.

Make "epic" actually be about something different than level 1 or level 15.

 

[Truth Seeker]

There is no need for 'Epic' material. If the GM in question cannot express through description on the adventure, session, or combat scenario on what it feels like.

They do have the greater leap on imagination (speaking figurely), and if anyone wants to know it looks like? Watch the anime called 'Bleach', not only do they do 'Epic', but there's a sufferance on dealing with it. The battles are grand, so grand that sometimes they seems to paint themselves in a corner on some stories. They would leave it for a bit, do another story on a totally different angle, and then come back to it. When they have figure out the 'mess' they got themselves into.

Current story shown in the States, the heroes got their asses handed to them, all of them. And I though there was no way for them to get out of it.

But there was a secret backup of other 'Heroes', the more experience ones, and they are there now, saving the current 'heroes' hinees. At least it was expalined in a way to make it feasible. Great imagination can do that.

The former Epic material was about 'numbers', and that is were it failed.

 

[Lanefan]

Interesting article.

One thing that 1e did with its change of focus from field adventuring at high level to castle-stronghold-laboratory-whatever building, probably unintentionally, might be worth expanding on; and that's that like it or not it made the PCs become more political within the game world. Their focus shifts slightly, from actually being the action heroes all the time to more or less often being the ones who tell other action heroes what to do.

First thing: I think it's a design mistake to have a built-in hard-and-fast point in the game where one minute you're a certain type of adventurer (paragon, or whatever) and the next you've changed to something else. Each campaign is going to hit that tipping point at a different level or stage of its development - in 3e for example it might come at 15th level, or 19th, or 24th, whatever - thus I think the mechanics need to be presented along the lines of "At some point your campaign will most likely have these things happen; here's what to do when you reach this point to transition your game into the next stage, and here's whatthe next stage looks like".

That transition is this: at some point the game somewhat expects the PCs to mostly leave off actual field adventuring and to instead step more into the political arena. The scale could vary; some examples:
1. one campaign might have the PCs become masters of a small village, responsible for its defenses and well-being and for keeping the peace among the locals;
2. another campaign might see the PCs become leaders of armies;
3. in a third they could play a true game of thrones;
4. in a fourth they might found a company of adventurers where the PCs' job becomes recruitment and adventure assignment for the field adventurers rather than being in the field themselves.

You get the picture.

Mechanically, this poses some questions. Political PCs have to be able to earn experience points and advance in level by being political just as field adventurers can advance via killin' and lootin', thus a new form of ExP awarding would have to be developed with less (or no?) ExP given for field action and lots more given for successfully doing whatever it is they've set themselves up to do. So, to tie in with the examples above, the PCs would get ExP for:
1. Each time the village successfully defends itself without the PCs direct aid but as a result of the PCs' training, also gain ExP each time a dispute is resolved, etc.
2. Nice and obvious, the PCs gain ExP when their army or armies win battles due to their planning...provided the PCs do not directly participate in the fighting!
3. ExP are gained when a throne the PC supports somehow makes gains over another, be it politically, on the battlefield, whatever.
4. The PCs get a small share of all ExP earned by their stable of field adventurers while performing adventures on behalf of the company.

Of course, if the PCs do somehow end up in the field through no real choice of their own then they earn ExP as normal for the adventuring but get nothing at all for the other stuff they've abandoned in the meantime.

The more I think about this, the more I feel that any such ideas should be presented as just that: ideas; rather than cut-and-dried rules, that each DM can adapt to suit her own campaign. And as noted in the original article, this isn't for everyone; some campaigns will just keep on bashing foes and taking their stuff until the players die of old age!

Lan-"I'll stop now before I write an epic about epic"-efan

 

[NoWayJose]

First thing: I think it's a design mistake to have a built-in hard-and-fast point in the game where one minute you're a certain type of adventurer (paragon, or whatever) and the next you've changed to something else. Each campaign is going to hit that tipping point at a different level or stage of its development - in 3e for example it might come at 15th level, or 19th, or 24th, whatever - thus I think the mechanics need to be presented along the lines of "At some point your campaign will most likely have these things happen; here's what to do when you reach this point to transition your game into the next stage, and here's whatthe next stage looks like".

I agree with that. (I've also sometimes struggled with the concept of why a PC must attain x levels to gain a stronghold, whereas a 0-level noble NPC could theoretically do the same, meaning that heroism per se does not qualify you to become a ruler)

However, I would say that if you were an epic-level hero with a force of personality that attracts loyal soldiers, a supernatural reputation worshipped by cultists, or a magical aura that charms minions, then you could use those followers in a way that no paragon- or heroic-tier PC can do.

An epic-level adventure that completely ignores those and other creative possibilities is, arguably, a failure of imagination.

In any campaign, I assume lower level PCs and even NPCs can engage in politics, but I think the OP is calling for adventure modules that specifically consider the full spectrum of awesomeness for epic-level heroes.

 

[catastrophic]

The point of having tiers laid out and codified is so that gms can better plan for these different sorts of adventures. That's a positive goal for the design of a turn based system, and just saying 'these things happen at various times' is completly missing the point of it.

That's the idea- to have a clear point where the GM can begin to incorperate various story concepts, to aid them in doing so. It's about helping the gm achieve those goals, and also ensuring that they have ways to bring those factors in, instead of neglecting them as so often occurs. The fact that wotc completly botched that trasition doesn't change it from being a positive goal.

Ultimately the failure is on all tiers. There needs to be far more suppport for noncombat and compaign events, and a revision of elements like rituals and treasure with that in mind. Right now, fighting is all 4e is really about- despite a lot of great campaign advice for dms and players in various forms, wotc is mostly sticking to the lazy, backwards notion that story, plot, characterisation ect are just things that happen and shouldn't be supported by good mechanics, even indirectly. That's a popular copout, but it's still a failure of design.

It's not suprising that by epic tier, that neglect has worn thin, and it becomes clear that there's really nothing going on but yet another slugfest. Certainly, more could be done to improve those slugfests (like having actual mechancs to reflect the vastly greater scope- imagine if every time your pc went below 0 hit points, the lands and peoples they were magically linked to suffered a calamity?), but at some point, it's the story side, and the appaling lack of mechanics support for such, that is the core of this problem.

One of the ideas I had for modding 4e would be to do alternative wealth by the three tiers. Tier one you're after coin, like normal people. But by paragon tier, you're moving beyond money, and gain treasure in the form of things like 'hoards', 'boons', and of course, land and title. Then in epic tier, you'd straight up be after Power- cosmic power in various forms, like divine portfolios, elemental power sources, and the worship (or souls) of millions.

The idea of this system would be to take the broader story assets the pcs rely on for noncombat activities, give them expanded support, and also make them change dramatically between the tiers. That way, the way they do things, and the things they're after changes the same ways. Each tier's kind of treasure woudl act in a unique fashion, and each system could back stacked upon the one before it to a degree.

In such a system, in heroic teir, the pcs are after money, equipment, a good horse, maybe a small stronghold, gold to buy crops for starving peasants, or whatever. In paragon tier, they're looking for vassals, land, politial power, and also sources of vast riches like massive dragon hordes and gold mines. In epic tier, they're doing all the stuff npc powers are always doing- seeking out power, using it to alter reality itself, creating astral dominions, and other epic tasks. That's the kind of setup that would make the tiers genuinly different.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Well, to an extent, in 1E. At "name" level, most of the classes were assumed to acquire a castle/keep/tower/other headquarters, some land, and followers. It wasn't a major part of the game, but it was a core part of it, and it was enough to very clearly tell the players "Hey, the style of play changes at this point, if you want it to."

One of my big complaints about 3e from the start was the fact that they had removed any possibility of this as a 'core' part of the game, and substituted it with just deeper dungeons all the way down. When we played 1e, the name level was aspirational for just this reason, and it became a natural progression to incorporation within a kingdom or political heirarchy, and got the PCs involved in politically based adventures along with the other stuff they normally did (plus castles and such were great money sinks too!)

I never saw BECMI, but in my idealWorld (tm) Paragon would have at least given some clear guidelines for setting up castles and getting into political stuff. Doesn't need lots of rules, just enough to inspire and ideally example adventures in that sphere too. Then Epic would have moved on to situations allowing founding of Empires, battles with thousands, walking amongst the gods and so forth.

Was the number of people who played name level AD&D, with castles etc being the central focuse of play, or who played Companion+ D&D (let alone Immortals) any greater than the number who play Epic tier 4e?

I've got no idea what actual figures might be like, but everyone I knew who started D&D got to name level D&D and played castles etc., including defending your fief, clearing lands of monsters, negotiating with foreign armies (sometimes with extreme prejudice). We all had stables of characters in those days too, so if we fancied a lower level game one week we'd all break out our 5th/6th level PCs for an adventure for a week or two.

I would imagine that the total number playing like that was greater simply because with time more PCs got to those levels during the 70's, 80's and 90's. In 20 years I'd expect the numbers to even out if all else remains the same (which it probably won't!)