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Pros and Cons of Epic Level Play?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6284321" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>You seem to be treating flavour as mere colour. I don't see why it should be treated that way. For instance, a 1st level Basic D&D PC cannot move through, or break down, a dungeon wall (at least, not deploying the standard resources of that system, including typical tools in typical ingame timeframes). Yet such a PC can clearly move through a forest, or for that matter burn it down. So unless the GM is in some way stipulating that such actions are impossible (I believe this is [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s "wrought iron fence made of tigers"), the dynamics of the "Basic" wilderness adventure should be extremely different from those of the Basic dungeon adventure.</p><p></p><p>All the Expert ruleset adds is monsters with bigger numbers, and rules for wilderness evasion, getting lost and sailing in boats. None of the last three is really that crucial (for instance, evasion could be handled by application of the Basic rules, and getting lost could be handled under the same mapping procedures as are used in Basic).</p><p></p><p>OK. And this has what bearing on any actual example of Epic play being discussed in this thread? Who is even talking about dungeon crawling?</p><p></p><p>What do you mean "the way you relate to the game doesn't change"?</p><p></p><p>For instance, to refer to your example:</p><p></p><p>Why are these any more epic than, say, "The world is on the cusp of a new Dusk War, in which the world may be undone (and perhaps rebuilt) by elemental chaos, or rendered into perfect stasis by construction of the Lattice of Heaven, or [insert whatever other possible outcomes are salient to the campaign in question], and the players - via their PCs - will determine which outcome eventuates"?</p><p></p><p>Upthread you talked about "the rules of the game system". Now you're talking about "the rules of the setting". These are different things, as is shown by the fact that a transition of the world from monotheism to polytheism clearly doesn't require any change in the mechanics (eg the 3E DDG offers the rules to handle both forms of cosmology, and clearly could be used to manage the mechanical aspects of transition from one to the other; 4e doesn't really use mechanics to handle its cosmology at least in this particular respect, and likewise therefore could handle the transition described without any changes to the rules of the game system).</p><p></p><p>I personally don't understand why that is more epic than "You just killed Torog. Now the elemental chaos is not being held back from the underdark, and hence the world is threatened with dissolution." Or "You just killed Torog. Now that the god of chains is dead, the chained primordials will be bursting free." That is, I don't see why "access to fire magic" - or even "access to fire", which in my view would be considerably more interesting - is a higher, deeper or richer stake than the dissolution of the world's order.</p><p></p><p>To some extent I don't disagree with this. But I think that the attitude you seem to associate with epic play - for instance, that the players via their PCs are responsible for driving the game and making fundamental choices - is something that I favour as part of play at all tiers.</p><p></p><p>For instance, at Heroic tier the players - via their PCs - wouldn't be driving the transformation of the world from monotheistic to polytheistic. But they might be driving some comparably significant change in their local situation, for instance by negotiating a resolution to a dispute that has riven a community.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Who asserted otherwise? The whole point that was made, by myself and other posters, is that epic is not about bigger numbers but about changing scope of the story.</p><p></p><p>I don't see how this is radically different from the Dusk War scenario I describe earlier in this post, such that one is "epic" and the other not.</p><p></p><p>I'm also not sure what difference the presence or absence of a fight makes. D&D in general has more robust action resolution mechanics for combat than for other conflicts (though I find that 4e narrows this gap), so it is natural enough to look to the combat rules to introduce tension and dynamism into a situation. But in one of the posts I linked to upthread, the freeing of the Baron from the influence of his advisor took the form of a social skill challenge, not a combat.</p><p></p><p>The players goaded the advisor into attacking them so that his true colours would be revealed to the Baron. <em>That</em> is how they freed the baron from his influence - in mechanical terms it was a skill challenge, not a combat.</p><p></p><p>Their subsequent battle with the advisor mattered too - it meant that he was no longer a threat, and also that the hobgoblin armies he was leading would suffer from a loss of leadership. It also enabled them to have free run of his rooms and libraries. But that battle happened <em>after</em> they had freed the baron from his influence.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6284321, member: 42582"] You seem to be treating flavour as mere colour. I don't see why it should be treated that way. For instance, a 1st level Basic D&D PC cannot move through, or break down, a dungeon wall (at least, not deploying the standard resources of that system, including typical tools in typical ingame timeframes). Yet such a PC can clearly move through a forest, or for that matter burn it down. So unless the GM is in some way stipulating that such actions are impossible (I believe this is [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s "wrought iron fence made of tigers"), the dynamics of the "Basic" wilderness adventure should be extremely different from those of the Basic dungeon adventure. All the Expert ruleset adds is monsters with bigger numbers, and rules for wilderness evasion, getting lost and sailing in boats. None of the last three is really that crucial (for instance, evasion could be handled by application of the Basic rules, and getting lost could be handled under the same mapping procedures as are used in Basic). OK. And this has what bearing on any actual example of Epic play being discussed in this thread? Who is even talking about dungeon crawling? What do you mean "the way you relate to the game doesn't change"? For instance, to refer to your example: Why are these any more epic than, say, "The world is on the cusp of a new Dusk War, in which the world may be undone (and perhaps rebuilt) by elemental chaos, or rendered into perfect stasis by construction of the Lattice of Heaven, or [insert whatever other possible outcomes are salient to the campaign in question], and the players - via their PCs - will determine which outcome eventuates"? Upthread you talked about "the rules of the game system". Now you're talking about "the rules of the setting". These are different things, as is shown by the fact that a transition of the world from monotheism to polytheism clearly doesn't require any change in the mechanics (eg the 3E DDG offers the rules to handle both forms of cosmology, and clearly could be used to manage the mechanical aspects of transition from one to the other; 4e doesn't really use mechanics to handle its cosmology at least in this particular respect, and likewise therefore could handle the transition described without any changes to the rules of the game system). I personally don't understand why that is more epic than "You just killed Torog. Now the elemental chaos is not being held back from the underdark, and hence the world is threatened with dissolution." Or "You just killed Torog. Now that the god of chains is dead, the chained primordials will be bursting free." That is, I don't see why "access to fire magic" - or even "access to fire", which in my view would be considerably more interesting - is a higher, deeper or richer stake than the dissolution of the world's order. To some extent I don't disagree with this. But I think that the attitude you seem to associate with epic play - for instance, that the players via their PCs are responsible for driving the game and making fundamental choices - is something that I favour as part of play at all tiers. For instance, at Heroic tier the players - via their PCs - wouldn't be driving the transformation of the world from monotheistic to polytheistic. But they might be driving some comparably significant change in their local situation, for instance by negotiating a resolution to a dispute that has riven a community. Who asserted otherwise? The whole point that was made, by myself and other posters, is that epic is not about bigger numbers but about changing scope of the story. I don't see how this is radically different from the Dusk War scenario I describe earlier in this post, such that one is "epic" and the other not. I'm also not sure what difference the presence or absence of a fight makes. D&D in general has more robust action resolution mechanics for combat than for other conflicts (though I find that 4e narrows this gap), so it is natural enough to look to the combat rules to introduce tension and dynamism into a situation. But in one of the posts I linked to upthread, the freeing of the Baron from the influence of his advisor took the form of a social skill challenge, not a combat. The players goaded the advisor into attacking them so that his true colours would be revealed to the Baron. [I]That[/I] is how they freed the baron from his influence - in mechanical terms it was a skill challenge, not a combat. Their subsequent battle with the advisor mattered too - it meant that he was no longer a threat, and also that the hobgoblin armies he was leading would suffer from a loss of leadership. It also enabled them to have free run of his rooms and libraries. But that battle happened [I]after[/I] they had freed the baron from his influence. [/QUOTE]
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