At what point do players know they're fighting Minions?

[Tale]

As a player, it's pretty obvious. Don't bother going out of your way to point it out. We already know. Not only did we notice when it died from 1 hit, but we also noticed you weren't rolling damage. And that you have way too many tokens on the board for it to be a level appropriate battle otherwise. So long as you're using the same token for all your minions and only that token for your minions (such that your non-minions aren't using the same token as minions), we've got it figured without your help.


The exception being when you specifically don't want it realized that the players are fighting a minion. I've heard of a (and have designed my own) Solo minion intended to get players to waste Dailies before realizing that it's a minion. The fun would be ruined if they knew.

 

[DSlash]

Monster knowledge is a good way for me to say 'You know that' vs 'You don't know that.'

I guess what originally threw me off in 4e was the fact that the game was telling me in RAW, what facts I had to give away about the monster, rather than deciding myself what I should give away with the right skill check. It felt a little exploitable (mainly because the power gamer was the first player to try to use it, have to be wary of him ). But the fact that different monsters need different checks keeps that kind of strategy away, so it wasn't so bad and gave players a better sense of they get if they train in certain skills.

 

[DracoSuave]

I guess what originally threw me off in 4e was the fact that the game was telling me in RAW, what facts I had to give away about the monster, rather than deciding myself what I should give away with the right skill check. It felt a little exploitable (mainly because the power gamer was the first player to try to use it, have to be wary of him ). But the fact that different monsters need different checks keeps that kind of strategy away, so it wasn't so bad and gave players a better sense of they get if they train in certain skills.

Interesting.

I think 'Min/maxes for monster skill checks' is a perfectly viable concept for a character.

But... when the choices are 'doesn't know' and 'knows', I'm glad there's a system in place so that players can roleplay out what their characters might know as opposed to what the players know.

I see it as denying the -character- metagame knowledge that comes from the player having played a game before. 'See, trolls are vulnerable to acid and fire!' 'How do you KNOW that, you rolled 10 on your knowledge roll!' 'But everyone knows it!' 'No, everyone doesn't. You, for example, do not. Billy Nature-hugger over there DID tho, so, he DOES know that.'

 

[unan oranis]

It occurred to me that people's take on this issue might be influenced by their mini collection (if any)...

For instance, I have a decent collection (2000ish), and I carefully select my minis before hand.

Minions always get 4, 5 or 6 of very similar or identical pieces.

I can see how my opinions are informed by this... as my players have yet to ask which ones were minions, but they have extra ques other people might not have.

 

[DSlash]

Interesting.
I think 'Min/maxes for monster skill checks' is a perfectly viable concept for a character.

Oh, it is! When I said I thought it was a little exploitable, I meant when I thought it all fell under one skill (was learning some of the rules as I went). If a player wanted to focus on a variety of different skills in order to identify monsters, then its a cool idea. Anywho, getting a little OT there.

For instance, I have a decent collection (2000ish), and I carefully select my minis before hand.

If I had a collection like that, I would totally do that. I don't believe it would change enough of the game to matter. Plus I would have an awesome mini collection .

 

[KarinsDad]

You seem to be missing one fundamental truth about minions. Whether you like it or not, the following statement is 100% truth in 4th Edition:

Minions ARE WEAKER AND LESS THREATENING than non-minions of the same race.

Yup. And Elites are stronger and more threatening than standard monsters. Do you tell your players which monsters are elites and which are not?

Do you never run an encounter with a lower level solo and higher level standard monsters? Even though the standard monsters hit easier and do comparable damage and are harder to hit, do you tell the players in round one that the solo monster is a solo and the rest are standards, even though the solo is actually less threatening?

Where's the mystery?

 

[Mallus]

Where's the mystery?

My response is to ask you "why assume a mystery would be more entertaining or tactically challenging?".

A DM can always obscure the minion status of an opponent, forcing players to discover their minion-ness through trial-and-error. Or through mechanism like a skill check. But neither of those result in particularly deep or clever play.

On the other hand, a well-designed encounter employing 'transparent' minions presents the player with more interesting tactical choices, ie clear the minions or go after the 'stronger' targets, questions which depend more on the current battlefield situation, change over time, and are therefore more complex.

In the "hidden minion" game, the main tactical consideration w/r/t Minions is "don't accidentally waste a Daily on one". You could argue more complex tactical decisions depend on the ability to distinguish Minions from non-Minions. Sometimes giving the players more information rather than less makes for more tactically-rich encounters.

I'm not saying disguising minion status doesn't have its place. But to say it automatically adds some sort of beneficial mystery to the game is too simple.

 

[Mirtek]

Whether you like it or not, the following statement is 100% truth in 4th Edition:

Minions ARE WEAKER AND LESS THREATENING than non-minions of the same race.

However whether they also actually look weaker and less threatening than non-minions is another matter.

Take a look at the picture of the assembled orcs in MM1, the minion orc looks in no way less healthy, equipped, whatever than any of his non-minion brethren. Without the text below the picture it would be pure guessing to tell them apart.

is it wrong for the player to have some sort of a visual cue to tell them this?

It's not automatically wrong, yet it also isn't automatically true.

You seem to be assuming that there's no difference between a minion and a non-minion.

There is definitively a difference, but whether this translate into there also being a visual difference is questionable.

In more civilized armies the best equipped opponent could actually be the minion. E.g. the officer who only is officer due to being the duke's cousin and because of this has better armor than his more combat-capable soldiers (which is actually a case of minions looking different from the non-minions, but with reversed roles (one well-dressed minion among multiple standard-soldiers instead of multiple ill-dressed minions with their well dressed soldier leader)

 

[Tale]

However whether they also actually look weaker and less threatening than non-minions is another matter.

I'd say it's a fairly reasonable position to hold that the concept of "threatening" is inherently based in how one is percieved.

 

[Mirtek]

I'd say it's a fairly reasonable position to hold that the concept of "threatening" is inherently based in how one is percieved.

From the point of view of the threatened. We were talking about the actual threat as known by the omniscient observer (aka us players/DMs knowing their actual game stats).

If talking purely from the incomplete point of view of the threatened PCs, than the statement becomes untrue and a minion is not always less threatening.