Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Oni]

Goes down in 1 soft hit = helpless little girl. That helpless little girl may look like a girl, a kobold, an ogre, or a large winged demon. The appearance isn't important, the vulnerability to a pimp slap is.

To which I would say, see my post prior to that one, about the totality of challenge rather than strength of its parts.

I wonder why the assumption about soft hits and barely poking things and them dying. A soft hit would be a miss, a blow that's so feeble it slides off of armour, successful hit implies a forceful blow with intent to harm IMHO.

 

[ST]

Prep is absolutely essential to play. It does inform and shape that play. I disagree that it is a part of play, specifically the play at the table. Hm, I think I see something, in 3.x the rules for play could be used as implied rules of prep. Whether the rules were actually strictly followed is not the issue, just that they could be.

This makes sense, as 4e has rules for prep that are specifically not part of the rules of play. (Well, guidelines, few traditional games have concrete prep 'rules'.) I feel they work pretty well, specifically in that they offer advice for bridging stuff like "What is the in-world thing that these monsters are doing" to "How do these monsters behave in combat", although it's not extensive.

Okay, so in my head I phrase it as a philosophical difference in how the prep phase of the campaign (which I'm not calling 'play', because there's only one person involved) is done. That makes sense. The two editions give very different GM advice on how to handle this phase, with 3.x expecting the GM to apply the rules effects to simulate the world, and 4e expecting the GM to apply the prep advice to create the scenario. Yeah, okay, put that way the huge difference in approach is obvious.

My contention is that whichever approach a group uses for a campaign will work, and provide consistent, believable, and complex results -- if the group buys into the approach. So, yeah, if a GM personally feels that the 4e approach, or the 3.x approach, does not give him the tools he needs to build a world with proper vermillisitude, then it doesn't. It's not really up for debate, it really won't work for that group because they do not want to buy in to it. I'm just saying that is a very different thing from "It won't work, period."

 

[MrMyth]

AFAICT, the crux of the argument you are responding to is that minions change the context of the "ogre" you are facing, so that your ability to hew it in half ceases to have any real meaning.

That's one of the problems with minion-type rules. Batman should be able to plow through common criminals, but if the common criminals are such that a feebleblow butterfly can do the same, does it really make Batman seem all that powerful?

I think the problem is, you are operating from a profound misunderstanding of the concept of minions (they are equally killable by PCs as by NPCs), enhanced by the introduction of entirely made-up rules (butterflies that do fractional amounts of damage).

In short: Batman can take out those minions because that is their purpose in the rules - to be defeated by the hero. A butterfly won't do so because, to the butterfly, those enemies don't exist as minions. The rules don't typically present us what stats are fitting for the criminals to have in regards to butterflies because we don't need to know that.

Minion's having 1 hp is not intended to represent the survivability of the monster within the context of the setting, but the survivability of the monster in the context of a battle with PCs. It is a simple mechanic by which monsters can remain a legitimate threat while being easily removed from the fight, in a manner seen in countless fantasy stories, games and movies.

A group of PCs can encounter an Ogre Guard at a low level, and have a difficult fight with it. Many levels later, they might return to the Ogre Camp and find themselves facing all the Ogre Guards within - which now are minions. They have not changed in their context to the setting, but in their context to the PCs.

Now, the claim seems to be being made that by creating stats that indicate minions die in 1 hit, the DM has to represent that in a monster's interactions with NPCs and the environment. The Ogre village could never prove a threat to the local town, obviously, because enough farmers throwing rocks would eventually hit them and take them all out - right?

Well, no. You aren't supposed to be running them as minions against the farmers. You honestly shouldn't be spending time rolling out a combat between NPCs in the first place! Whether the ogres are a threat to the local village should be decided by you, as the DM, based on the priorities of plot and whatever is appropriate to the setting. You don't need to compare some arbitrary variables against each other to determine what should happen within a setting entirely manufactured by your own agency.

If you do have a butterfly flitter past an ogre minion and kill it, the fault isn't on the system - it is on you, for applying the minion rules in a manner other than intended and deliberately creating a circumstance to undermine their use.

Meanwhile, you have bypassed one of the common arguments against your point here - that this was arguably more of an issue in past editions where commoner's did have 1 hitpoint, 'for reals' within the context of the setting. You have done so with your hypothetical butterfly that does a fractional amount of damage, focusing on the weakness of a minion as 'dies upon receiving any amount of damage', while ignoring the fact that 4E assumes that 'any amount of damage' will always equal at least 1.

I don't know whether this is outright stated anywhere within the rules, but it is nonetheless clearly an assumption of the game as evidence by the fact that every single monster in the game, when using attacks that deal damage, does at least 1 damage with those attacks. Inventing something outside of this, again, isn't a problem with the system, but with your deliberate choice as a DM to bypass the system and create something outside of its normal guidelines.

 

[Fifth Element]

Goes down in 1 soft hit = helpless little girl. That helpless little girl may look like a girl, a kobold, an ogre, or a large winged demon. The appearance isn't important, the vulnerability to a pimp slap is.

Assuming the pimp can hit the minion's AC, which is typically much higher than a helpless little girl's, maybe. And that the pimp beats the minion's initiative or survives the minions's first strike, which is far more powerful than tghat of a helpless little girl. Have you always defined monsters based solely on their hit points?

 

[ST]

The minion rules are crystal clear that they apply to monsters being fought by players during a combat encounter. Period. As someone said upthread, the HP of a minion outside of that situation is undefined.

Of course you can come up with silly situations by extrapolating this to something that isn't in the rules. That's trivial to do with almost any rule. But that's just houseruling in something that you don't like, which seems needlessly masochistic to me.

And again, if you're talking about a minion taking damage somewhere other than "On the table, in an encounter against PCs", you're not talking about play. Then again, it does feel like play, with a GM and players at the table, is almost totally tangential to this entire argument.

 

[jgbrowning]

Prep is absolutely essential to play. It does inform and shape that play. I disagree that it is a part of play, specifically the play at the table.

I think you may want to explore this idea more, because, as a designer and publisher I really do believe the actual power of a role-playing game comes down to not how it plays at the table, but how it plays out in the heads of the people away from the table. In my experience, the games that people really want to play are the games that get stuck in their heads when they're away from the table. The concepts, conceits, scenes, and flexibility of a shared world in which they want to explore and experience.

Of course the at table play is very important and don't think I'm taking any importance away from such, but I think it is secondary to a strong sense of "I want to go there" when people think of the game when away from the table.

My contention is that whichever approach a group uses for a campaign will work, and provide consistent, believable, and complex results -- if the group buys into the approach. So, yeah, if a GM personally feels that the 4e approach, or the 3.x approach, does not give him the tools he needs to build a world with proper vermillisitude, then it doesn't. It's not really up for debate, it really won't work for that group because they do not want to buy in to it. I'm just saying that is a very different thing from "It won't work, period."

"It won't work, period" can be true for some people. Really, for some people some things just simply do not work and cannot work and will never work. It's how some people actually do not like bacon.

So, IMO, instead of looking at what can and cannot work when viewing a system (I think one can role-play and have a lot of fun with just about any system imaginable) perhaps look and ask, "what style of play does this rule system support better and what style is it more counter to?"

joe b.

 

[ExploderWizard]

To which I would say, see my post prior to that one, about the totality of challenge rather than strength of its parts.

I wonder why the assumption about soft hits and barely poking things and them dying. A soft hit would be a miss, a blow that's so feeble it slides off of armour, successful hit implies a forceful blow with intent to harm IMHO.

Totality? OK a mountain of 150 "little girls". No change.

Soft hit in this case refers to causing very little (1hp) damage on a successful hit. A soft hit is still a hit in game terms. It's no different than saying "the axe cleaves through bone and brain, take 1 point of damage".
Remember that hp are abstract and forcing an opponent to use vital energy defending against a glancing blow can still be a " hit" and deal "damage".

 

[ST]

I respect your opinion, but there's no way I will budge from "The game part of a roleplaying game is the part where everybody's there, together, playing". I spent a long time looking at it the way you described, and I'm done with that, at least in the context of producing what I find to be functional prep material that drives interesting play.

There's a lot of value in solitary creative activities, writing a novel or a RPG supplement or, yes, even the super fantastic setting that all the players will (hopefully) love. But fundamentally those activities are not the same as multiplayer play. From experience, I don't even find that their outputs correlate very well.

I'm not interesting in creating a game where my players will go "Oh, man, I just like to sit back and think about what it'd be like to be in that world." I want one where my players go "Oh man, when are we playing again?" From my perspective, it sounds like the "not-playing, but thinking about it" parts are more important in your approach than the parts with people, together, at the table. I have not in the past found play that resulted from such methods to be satisfactory to me. I have no doubt they work for other folks, though.

So yeah, pretty much we just have a fundamental difference in approach as to the entire purpose of the hobby, no biggie.

 

[Scribble]

In my experience, the games that people really want to play are the games that get stuck in their heads when they're away from the table. The concepts, conceits, scenes, and flexibility of a shared world in which they want to explore and experience.

I kind of agree here- but I don't think the rules have anything (much) to do with them getting stuck in the player's heads. From what I've experienced, this has more to do with the flavor/story elements of the game then the rules.

Example: World of Darkness

World of Darkness stuff NEVER fails to make me dream about game sessions... The rules are eh... (Mostly eh because I get bored of 1 die type games quickly.. I wanna use my DICE man!!!!)

The point being that the rules don't inspire my dreaming. The weird little snippets of half story White Wolf puts in the books, and the pictures and stuff do that.

Another Example? GURPS...

I can read the GURPS sourcebooks at any given moment and be inspired by all the info in them... But when it comes to the actual rules? I find them kind of cumbersome. In fact when it comes time to translate my dreams into game session with GURPS... Usually it's a LOT of work.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think the problem is, you are operating from a profound misunderstanding of the concept of minions (they are equally killable by PCs as by NPCs), enhanced by the introduction of entirely made-up rules (butterflies that do fractional amounts of damage).

AFAICT, the butterfly can do 0 hp damage, and the effect be the same in 4e.

You are apparently under the impression that if a party consists of 4 PCs and 2 NPCs, the NPCs cannot kill minions the way that the PCs can. I am curious as to where I can find this in the RAW.

A group of PCs can encounter an Ogre Guard at a low level, and have a difficult fight with it. Many levels later, they might return to the Ogre Camp and find themselves facing all the Ogre Guards within - which now are minions. They have not changed in their context to the setting, but in their context to the PCs.

You seem to be advocating using common sense to interpret rules. I have a thread I'd like to see you make that claim in.

Now, the claim seems to be being made that by creating stats that indicate minions die in 1 hit, the DM has to represent that in a monster's interactions with NPCs and the environment. The Ogre village could never prove a threat to the local town, obviously, because enough farmers throwing rocks would eventually hit them and take them all out - right?

The PCs are fighting the ogres while the NPC farmers throw rocks. According to RAW, what happens to the ogres?

Meanwhile, you have bypassed one of the common arguments against your point here - that this was arguably more of an issue in past editions where commoner's did have 1 hitpoint, 'for reals' within the context of the setting.

They sure did, but the DM was also admonished to use common sense when determining what an effective attack was. Indeed, pre-WotC-D&D, rules were intended as guidelines to aid the DM in making reasonable rulings.

If the rules suggest wacky things, as all rules do, but the DM adjudicates to remove the effects of those wacky things, then the system can work. If the rules suggest wacky things, as all rules do, but the DM is not supposed to adjudicate to remove the effect of those wacky things, then large problems can ensue.

I will grant you freely that playstyle is the largest determinant as to whether wacky things will occur.

You have done so with your hypothetical butterfly that does a fractional amount of damage, focusing on the weakness of a minion as 'dies upon receiving any amount of damage', while ignoring the fact that 4E assumes that 'any amount of damage' will always equal at least 1.

Where should I look for that in the books? If not, it is your assumption that this is an assumption of the game. I could likewise say that, because PC gnomes didn't come out in the 1e PHB, 4e assumed that there would be no PC gnomes. Of course, we know that to be false, and we knew (or should have known) that it was false then.

But, in the case of 4e in particular, we cannot know what the basic assumptions of the core rules are on the basis of what is currently included, because the core rules are always being expanded upon.

The lamejoke butterfly might well be in the Monster Manual XXVII.




RC