Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[The Ghost]

Let's say you've previously established that in the last 200 years, no one has ever gotten in to see the king without a 6 month waiting period and during that time dragons attacked neighboring kingdoms and the king has always refused emergency meetings.

Now, the fate of the world lies in the PCs hands. If they fail, Tharizdun (or whoever) is going to be released and kill everyone. In order to build up a sense of urgency in the plot, you've established that the Ritual will be completed tomorrow. But there is no way they can assault the fortress without an army helping them and the King has the only army.

I am sorry but I do not see a problem here - I see a challenge to overcome. How do I succeed despite the King's restrictions. Maybe there is a general who is sympathetic... Maybe we can find out who is to see the King today and go in their stead... Maybe we sneak into the King's chambers and talk to him there... Maybe we speak with the Queen and have her relay the news to the King... Maybe there is a powerful Wizard/Dragon/etc. who can assist us... Maybe there is a Dwarven/Even/Drow army nearby to assist us. I just see a lot of cool roleplaying scenarios being created here by GnomeWorks and his method. I see a cool challenge and an awesome story to tell here. And I applaude him for it.

As a PC I want to overcome challenges and tell a cool story - That is why I game!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I find little purpose in playing in or running a setting that changes on a whim. Such a setting would lack consistency.

And I know consistency is what is important to you, I understand that. I like consistency too. I just like consistency as a player and not as a DM. As a DM, my job is to create an ILLUSION of consistency without there actually needing to be.

My settings don't change at a whim, they simply aren't defined at all until I need them. I have no idea who the King is until the players meet him, talk to someone who mentions him, and so on. Then he becomes defined and stays the way I define him. I leave the details open on purpose, though, so that he can be whatever I need him to be within the context of the adventure I'm running.

For one thing, I wouldn't do something to "build up a sense of urgency." The ritual would be completed when it is completed.

The games I run are not stories. They are a series of events. I don't care "what makes for a better story."

But that's the thing. When the ritual doesn't have a set finish time except whatever you make up, then it is completed when you want it to be completed. It might take 30 seconds or 10 years to complete if there are no written rules for its duration(let's say it's a ritual you made up yourself).

Then you have to ask yourself: Why am I putting this ritual into the game at all? The god could stay dead forever. There's no reason to believe there is ANY way to release him. But, a game where the cultists never attack the city in order to kidnap people for sacrifices for the ritual and therefore the PCs never learn of the evil plot and instead sit around the inn drinking and discussing the weather isn't all that exciting for anyone.

So, the reason you put these things into your game is an attempt to make things interesting and exciting. So, if you are already willing to arbitrarily make stuff up in order to make the game interesting and exciting, why stop there? Now the ritual HAS to be completed 3 days later even if it kills all the PCs and forces you to start a new campaign? If we are making up stuff to make the game more exciting, isn't it better to "make things up" such that the ritual gets delayed until the moment the PCs arrive so they have an interesting battle against the leader of the cultists for the fate of the world?

I know, as a player, that is much more fun for me than: "You never wake up after going to sleep. It turns out that since you didn't investigate the footprints last night and decided to go to sleep, Tharizdun was summoned by a ritual last night and he wiped out all life on the planet on a whim. I know you were excited to play your character, but he died. Let's start a new game."

I also do not write into my adventures how issues are meant to be resolved. The players may be especially clever and find a way to speak to the king (sneaking in, teleportation, etc). They may say "screw it" and get help elsewhere. Rather than try to get an army they may attempt to sneak in and disrupt the ritual on their own. And so on and so forth; their chosen path may work, or it may not.

Just by writing anything at all, you are favoring some solutions over other ones. If the fortress has a poorly guarded back entrance when you write up the map for it, you are encouraging them to sneak in. If the King has guards that have +30 to their Perception checks, you are discouraging sneaking in. If the King is written as being unreasonable, even if you sneak in, he won't listen to you and will lock you away for sneaking in.

You might not think about it when writing it, but you are almost always giving the PCs one or two options that are much much more likely to succeed or are easier than the others. As a DM, you have amazing power. You can get the PCs to do almost anything, simply by describing something in more sentences than you do everything else in a room.

The only real difference is that I recognize I have this power and I'm willing to use it in order to encourage things to go the way that is the most "interesting". At the same time, they have free choice and can pick other options all they want.

Consistency over what you would like to call playability.

If the players fail to find a way to stop the bad guys, then yes, they have to deal with the aftermath. There are consequences and repercussions. Without these, there is - for me - no point in gaming. I have no interest in running or playing in a setting where failure has no consequences.

To me, "playability" means giving the players more possibilities to do the things they like doing and to continue to have the game run in a manner that they enjoy. If losing means the world ends and the campaign is over, then the world isn't going to end no matter what the players do. Of course, they won't know that. From their point of view, there is a ritual of unknown duration that is taking place in that fortress and they need to hurry to stop it. They made a 3 week trip to find a magic item that would help them break into the fortress and they arrived in the nick of time to stop it.

Even if my original plan was for the ritual to be completed in 24 hours.

Playability, to me, is things like making a kingdom who outlaws spears within its border and then spend an entire campaign set within its walls. It's an interesting quirk and would probably make a fun novel. However, I wouldn't want to explain to a player that they can't be that spear fighter they made up because he'll be searched and the weapon taken away as soon as he enters the kingdom and arrested on sight if he sneaks one in.

I like to have my players enjoy doing what their characters do. If someone enjoys playing their spear fighter, I'm not going to sabotage them by taking away their weapon. If someone playing a wizard has more fun when there is minions in a battle than when there isn't, you'll see an increase in minions in my world. If it is more fun for the game, the players, and me, then it gets added. That's playability.

I could certainly run a game where magic didn't function in an area and send the PCs on a mission to go there. But I won't. A magic dead zone is a fun story/writing concept. It isn't very much fun for the player who is the wizard and has to sit at the table without any powers.

That's what I mean when I say that writing for novels and for gaming have a much different focus. Writing a book where one of the characters is forced to stand at the back of the group and fear for his life because all his magical powers have been taken away could actually be awfully fun to read. It would not be fun to play.

Trying to solve a puzzle can be an interesting challenge in a game. The discussion about how to solve it could go on for an hour or 2 and may still be interesting. If a book is filled with that much text describing the thought processes of everyone involved while solving the puzzle, it gets really boring.

I think you missed the part where I said that the games I run focus on the PCs, because that's what that particular game is interested in. That doesn't mean there aren't things going on in the background, but regardless of events in the world, they are dealt with via the perspective of the PCs in a given game.

I find it ridiculous that a group would get upset if they heard about another group of adventurers doing things in the world.

Of course other things happen. The entire world doesn't revolve around them. But one good way to make the players feel unimportant is to have NPCs be better than them or things more important than them happening around them.

I imagine some players would be close to quitting if I tried to introduce other events in a campaign that weren't about them. Just imagine being on a quest to help a farmer get his horse back while the world was being attacked by armies of giants. You can't fight the giants because you are too low level. But don't worry, there are all sorts of adventurers out there that are better than you fighting the giants for you. I'd feel like a second class adventurer.

When I sit down for a game, I expect it to be about OUR exploits, the group of people who sit down at the table. I expect our exploits to be the most important thing going on at the time. We assume things bigger than us happen all the time, but they don't happen around us and we don't hear about them because all that does is take away from our achievements. What's the point in fighting the 10 Orcs attacking when the guy standing over there could take them all out without breaking a sweat?

The PCs in a given group are not special snowflakes; just because you exist does not mean that you are meant to solve certain things, nor does it mean that you are supposed to be the best just by nature of your existence.

No, but the players ARE special. They are the only ones forced to play the game. As they play, they will gain levels. As they gain levels they should gain in prestige. If they keep playing, it should be a forgone conclusion that they they become important and powerful. Or they die trying and come up with new characters who become important and powerful.

Sure, no one in the game world knows that. But everyone outside of the game does. I may just be some Elf with a sword at 1st level, but I know my character is either going to die or he is going to become one of the greatest swordsman alive and defeat powerful beings the likes of which would defeat hundreds of 1st level people. So, in that aspect, I AM special.

I understand you don't like to consider the PCs special and that it irritates you somehow that they might be special. But the rules make them special.

I don't think I have said, anywhere, that these kinds of things are cut from the games I run.

It's a matter of the game focus. You have stated that the game isn't about the players. It's focus is on them, but it isn't about them. Which means you reserve the right to focus on the consistency of the world over their individual powers, character concepts, and ideas of what makes a fun game.

There's always a tradeoff. If Elves don't live in forests in your campaign world, you've told a lot of players who might join your game that they can't play the character they will have the most fun with and they need to pick something else. Obviously, you can't let the players have EVERYTHING they want. But everytime you choose the needs of your world over the needs of the players, something is lost.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I am sorry but I do not see a problem here - I see a challenge to overcome. How do I succeed despite the King's restrictions.

I agree, there is a possibility for a cool twist and a challenge thrown in. But for any of these options to succeed, you have to allow it to. If you've already established that there is no one powerful enough to break into the fortress anywhere around, there is no Queen, the King absolutely can't be convinced, the guards are some of the best in the world and can see invisible, the castle is warded against teleportation, there are so many monsters that sneaking into the fortress without an army is impossible, then you begin to run out of options.

He is saying that his world and the consistency of the world takes absolute priority over all other concerns. The more detailed your world is, the more that ties your hands. When the information builds up over multiple campaigns it ties your hands more. If your world is detailed enough that sometimes you are corrected by your own wiki because you can't remember it all, then it ties your hands a lot.

I like most of your ideas, I'd use any or all of them. Most of my worlds aren't written enough in advance that I'd need to reject any of them. Which is perfect.

 

[jbear]

How incompatible are the add on d20 rules from 3e? For example, adding sanity in by copying the UA sanity rules. To me, they would fit just as well as they did in 3e. Or just a minor revamp of the taint rules in Heroes of Horror? Obviously, they'll take a bit of tweaking to get right, but my impression is that it should work pretty smoothly.

edit: oh, and my take on Cthulhu-esque adventures is that 4e would probably do a delta green style pretty well.

Hmm, lots of pages, intersesting topic (although dangerous but things are still civil on page2 WoW!)... Probably irrelavant now but just to add my two cents;

I will soon add a tweaked version of Heroes of Horror taint system to my 4e game.
The premice is Bane, having murdered Mystra, gathers the scattered pieces of her shattered body to attach to himself (not unlike Vecnas Eye) and the world will be ripped apart again by a new dark spell plague as this evil fusion begins.

The players will be tempted with access to dark powers that cause taint and I hope at Epic levels they will have bitten the apple and have tracked down and joined parts of Mystra to themselves to the final battle within the body of Bane himself.

I imagine a world going mad, full of horror, twisted and deformed, seduced and corrupted by the easy access to dark powers and the heroes having to walk a fine line between resisting temptation and dipping into the Dark side without abusing the temptation.

I find the beauty of the 4e system is I find it very easy to adjust anything to the way I want it to be. I just built an encounter of Genasí Slavers out of Orcs, Bugbears and Gnomes with a minimum of mechanical change (swapping out a racial ability for a Genasi Racial ability) and then just reskinning. Easy as pie.

As far as 4e being solely combat focused. I personally try and keep a balance of roleplay and combat, because I have quite different tastes in my group, from bloodthirsty killers, to thespians that love nothing better than jumping to their feet and acting out the roleplaying. I don't feel any restriction to the role playing due to the 4e system. Actually I find the rules simple enough that I can wing it well enough that this part of the game seems to flow very naturally.

We had a session last week where the group was able to avoid combat completely, succeed in 4/5 skill challenges and recover from the failed skill challenge by some very enthusiastic role playing which had me being strangled up against a wall with some pretty nasty threats breathed through clenched teeth to gain a +2 on the Intimidate roll (which incidently when rolled came up as a natural 20).

I think even my most stalwart killers enjoyed themselves and not a drop of blood spilled. Which when looking at it mechanically gained only a few points of XP less than the sword-weilding session the week before.

To answer the question directly that the OP puts forward, no I don't feel that 4e limits the scope of my campaign. Actually the more we play the more ideas grow and the adventure gets larger, deeper and richer.

 

[The Ghost]

I agree, there is a possibility for a cool twist and a challenge thrown in. But for any of these options to succeed, you have to allow it to. If you've already established that there is no one powerful enough to break into the fortress anywhere around, there is no Queen, the King absolutely can't be convinced, the guards are some of the best in the world and can see invisible, the castle is warded against teleportation, there are so many monsters that sneaking into the fortress without an army is impossible, then you begin to run out of options.

And I agree with you entirely on that point. If everything is written so that the PCs cannot do anything then the PCs cannot do anything. (I feel like Yogi Berra!) However, you can write things so that it encourages roleplaying opportunities. Just because I closed one door does not mean that there is not a window or two open.

He is saying that his world and the consistency of the world takes absolute priority over all other concerns. The more detailed your world is, the more that ties your hands. When the information builds up over multiple campaigns it ties your hands more. If your world is detailed enough that sometimes you are corrected by your own wiki because you can't remember it all, then it ties your hands a lot.

I do not see consistency discouraging the ability to game and have fun. I am not sure that consistency and good-gaming are related concepts. I think that some people find that a consistent world to be very conducive to roleplaying while others find it hindering. What you call tying of hands I see as freeing my ability to use my feet. His way may not be best for you or your fellow gamers but for him and his fellow gamers - it might be! And I encourage anyone to do what works best for them.

I like most of your ideas, I'd use any or all of them. Most of my worlds aren't written enough in advance that I'd need to reject any of them. Which is perfect.

Thanks, I find these boards are best when they facilitate the telling of stories. I have stolen many a campaign idea from reading other peoples posts. If you choose to use anything I say - I wish you the best of luck!

 

[jbear]

Just a quick word on the scaling of DC's to perform the same task.

Take for example Juggling. I can Juggle with my eyes closed. I can do all sorts of silly things with 3 balls, but damn as soon as someone is watching suddenly the hand trembles, the breathing becomes irregular and the tension in the muscles is not at all conducive to doing those same flashy tricks I was nailing only moments ago by myself.

Now imagine shoving me out into the street and having 200 strangers staring at you while you do it, or shove a television camera in my face and tell me a million people are watching. Or how about in front of a board of expert Russioan circus jugglers, who if impressed could give me a dream job juggling around the world for indecent sums of money in Cirque du Soleil, or in the middle of a massive stadium full to the brim with 40000 screaming fans wanting to be amazed out of their brains...

At each step that same simple task I can do so precisely alone that doing it with my eyes closed is not a problem, is quite a different challenge in each of the situations I've described above.

 

[Lizard]

At each step that same simple task I can do so precisely alone that doing it with my eyes closed is not a problem, is quite a different challenge in each of the situations I've described above.

To my mind, this is best modeled by the "You can Take 10 when you're not stressed" mechanic.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

The PCs in a given group are not special snowflakes; just because you exist does not mean that you are meant to solve certain things, nor does it mean that you are supposed to be the best just by nature of your existence.

Oh, but they are special snowflakes, their existance does mean they are meant to solve certain things, and sometimes they are supposed to be the best just by nature of their existance.

The PCs are not special because they're blessed, or destined, or heroic, or just plain awesome; any of those things may come from the fact that they're special, but the real reason they're special is because they're the PCs. The're different and better and more important than NPCs because the PCs are being run by the players, and the NPCs are not.

The PCs are meant to solve the problems that are placed in front of them in the world the DM places them in.

The PCs are special for exactly the same reason that DMPCs are a Bad Idea: the PCs are the stars of the story, the story should be about them, and the world revolves around them as a result of that. The mysterious stranger in the bar doesn't randomly select the PCs to approach with an unusual buisness proposition; he selects the PCs because they're the PCs. If he selected a party of NPCs who then went on to rescue the princess and save the world and the PCs stayed first-level dirt farmers in their poor village, the game gets old fast.

This doesn't even have anything to do with power level. If the game is in a world where extraordinary adventures are quite common, then those adventures aren't extraordinary anymore; they become ordinary, and ordinary becomes boring. Broadly speaking, players don't play RPGs to role-play the life of an unremarkable person who does unremarkable things in an imaginary world; they want to be an extraordinary person who has extraordiary adventures in an imaginary world.

You have more leeway for this sort of thing in high-magic or high-technology settings like Eberron; Eberron is a sufficiently extraordinary world that, while ordinary things can still get boring, you can get by quite well with merely uncommon things. Extraordniary things are still a good idea, though.

In a low-magic setting, you have almost no leeway for this sort of thing. If you're not extraordinary in a quasi-historical setting like, say, A Game of Thrones, then you're a farmer, and you will be a farmer all your life, and you will not have adventures beyond rounding up the chickens.

The PCs are special snowflakes, because if they weren't special, they wouldn't be doing anything interesting.

 

[GnomeWorks]

As a DM, my job is to create an ILLUSION of consistency without there actually needing to be.

I have a need for consistency. You do not. Fine.

I have no idea who the King is until the players meet him, talk to someone who mentions him, and so on. Then he becomes defined and stays the way I define him. I leave the details open on purpose, though, so that he can be whatever I need him to be within the context of the adventure I'm running.

I define the world beforehand, so that I am able to work with a cohesive and consistent background for events that occur in the course of a game.

So, the reason you put these things into your game is an attempt to make things interesting and exciting. So, if you are already willing to arbitrarily make stuff up in order to make the game interesting and exciting, why stop there? Now the ritual HAS to be completed 3 days later even if it kills all the PCs and forces you to start a new campaign? If we are making up stuff to make the game more exciting, isn't it better to "make things up" such that the ritual gets delayed until the moment the PCs arrive so they have an interesting battle against the leader of the cultists for the fate of the world?

Because that's ridiculous? How likely is it that the PCs happen to get there and stop the ritual just as the countdown hits 00:00:01?

In defining this ritual, I would determine how long it takes, certainly. I would attempt to find a reasonable duration based upon the parameters of the spell; what sort of reagents and foci does it require, how many people involved, is it based upon some kind of astrological alignment, etc etc. I would ask myself questions such as, why now? What has prevented this event from happening before? What events have taken place that have put into place the causal chain that leads to this event? What sorts of defenses would such an organization have in place, and what would their reactions to be to interruptions of varying types?

I don't care to make things dramatic. You might find that interesting; I do not. I find it trite, overdone, and unrealistic.

Just by writing anything at all, you are favoring some solutions over other ones.

Imagine that. You have more than a hammer in your toolbox, as PCs, and not everything is a nail.

The only real difference is that I recognize I have this power and I'm willing to use it in order to encourage things to go the way that is the most "interesting". At the same time, they have free choice and can pick other options all they want.

I do not appreciate the arrogant tone here.

You seem focused on what is "interesting" and "dramatic." I do not care for things that would be termed as such. I am interested in making a vaguely realistic, reasonable, and consistent setting. I am interested in events taking place that make sense, and I am interested in varying groups of "adventurers" interacting with these events, because - in this fictional setting - there are people who fall under the category of "adventurer" and interact with events of varying interest. How they interact with them, and whether it is "dramatic" or not, is irrelevant.

If losing means the world ends and the campaign is over, then the world isn't going to end no matter what the players do.

Then there is no point in playing. Failure has no meaning. My actions - or lack thereof - have no repercussions.

I hold this view from either side of the screen. If a villain in my setting is out to destroy the world, and capable of such, that goal will be accomplished if nothing is done about it. End of story.

I could certainly run a game where magic didn't function in an area and send the PCs on a mission to go there. But I won't. A magic dead zone is a fun story/writing concept. It isn't very much fun for the player who is the wizard and has to sit at the table without any powers.

I really am not a fan of this 4e mentality of "everyone must be able to contribute equally at all times."

Nor am I a fan of this approach. In this instance, I would look at the player and say, "Guess what, you knew - or had opportunity to learn - that this area was a dead magic zone. You went there. It's a dead magic zone. Get over it."

For the example commonly cited in my setting, my setting has about twelve dragons, all epic and gestalt. They are incredibly dangerous, though not all evil (nor are they color-coded for your convenience). If you go to one of the few whose lair locations are vaguely known, guess what - you'll find a probably-irritated epic gestalt dragon. Doesn't matter if you're 1st-level or 100th-level. That is what you find. Deal with it.

I imagine some players would be close to quitting if I tried to introduce other events in a campaign that weren't about them. Just imagine being on a quest to help a farmer get his horse back while the world was being attacked by armies of giants. You can't fight the giants because you are too low level. But don't worry, there are all sorts of adventurers out there that are better than you fighting the giants for you. I'd feel like a second class adventurer.

As you should. Just because you are unable to deal with other things going on in the world doesn't mean they aren't going on, and if they happen to impact the area you are adventuring in... well, sucks to be you. I guess you'll have to figure out how to deal with that in-character, as anyone else in that position would.

No, but the players ARE special. They are the only ones forced to play the game. As they play, they will gain levels. As they gain levels they should gain in prestige. If they keep playing, it should be a forgone conclusion that they they become important and powerful. Or they die trying and come up with new characters who become important and powerful.

What is this "forced" crap? I'm not holding a gun to a player's head and making them roll the dice.

And yes, as a character gains in levels, then yes, they grow in power and importance in the world. At no point, however, does a group or even a single character become the center around which the universe revolves.

I understand you don't like to consider the PCs special and that it irritates you somehow that they might be special. But the rules make them special.

Your tone makes it clear that you do not understand my position.

It's a matter of the game focus. You have stated that the game isn't about the players. It's focus is on them, but it isn't about them. Which means you reserve the right to focus on the consistency of the world over their individual powers, character concepts, and ideas of what makes a fun game.

A player would have to come up with something rather extreme in order for me to decide that it is incompatible with the consistency of the setting.

There's always a tradeoff. If Elves don't live in forests in your campaign world, you've told a lot of players who might join your game that they can't play the character they will have the most fun with and they need to pick something else. Obviously, you can't let the players have EVERYTHING they want. But everytime you choose the needs of your world over the needs of the players, something is lost.

And everytime a player demands something that breaks my setting, something is lost.

If elves do not live in forests in my setting, and someone wants to play an elf from a forest, my response is - give me a background that makes it make sense. There are always exceptions, and I am generally willing to allow for PCs to be exceptions to general rules if the player is willing to put in the effort.

I'm sorry, but I am unwilling to trash thirteen years' worth of setting for some punk who's not willing to write a page of explanatory background.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Oh, but they are special snowflakes, their existance does mean they are meant to solve certain things, and sometimes they are supposed to be the best just by nature of their existance.

No, they're not.

The're different and better and more important than NPCs because the PCs are being run by the players, and the NPCs are not.

No, they are not more important. Different, yes; better, possibly.

So far as the world is concerned, a PC is not more important than an NPC just because of the fact that they are a PC.

So far as the game is concerned, yes, the PC is more important than the NPC, because we are currently interested in the PC's story, not the NPC's.

The PCs are meant to solve the problems that are placed in front of them in the world the DM places them in.

Not necessarily. The PCs are free to walk away at any time; they are free to explore other opportunities and/or challenges.

The PCs are the stars of the story, the story should be about them, and the world revolves around them as a result of that. The mysterious stranger in the bar doesn't randomly select the PCs to approach with an unusual buisness proposition; he selects the PCs because they're the PCs.

I find it ridiculous that you people are unable to fathom the idea of two games set simultaneously in the same setting.

Yes, the PCs are the focus of a given game; nowhere have I really contradicted that idea. The idea that the world revolves around them because of this, however, is just ridiculous.