D&D 4E Two Camps of 4e Players (a rant)

[Infiniti2000]

It doesn't matter what descriptive information you use. There will always be a metagaming aspect on the players' part when they decide to engage the monster or not. A big monster doesn't equate to 10 levels above party level. Certainly, farmers providing their evaluation of the strenght of the monster is irrelevant. What non-metagaming information that doesn't rely on a knowledge check can you give players that will help them ALWAYS make the right choice? Do you for example always put the same qualifiers on certain tiers? Do you always tone down descriptions of lower level monsters?

A monster's description should be the same whether the party itself is 1st level or 30th. So, how by the description alone could it help them out? What series of information are required to understand all the hints?

For example, is a walking mushroom that can see over the farmer's house a threat that the 5th level party can't handle?

 

[ExploderWizard]

It doesn't matter what descriptive information you use. There will always be a metagaming aspect on the players' part when they decide to engage the monster or not.

True. Assumed metagame knowledge has been the death of several characters, and not just with 4E. " How was I supposed to know that fire giants got 3 attacks per round now!" Good times

A big monster doesn't equate to 10 levels above party level. Certainly, farmers providing their evaluation of the strenght of the monster is irrelevant. What non-metagaming information that doesn't rely on a knowledge check can you give players that will help them ALWAYS make the right choice.

Who says they will always make the right choice? Wrong choices are part of the fun of the game. If the players are not clueless then a wrong choice doesn't have to mean a TPK.

Do you for example always put the same qualifiers on certain tiers? Do you always tone down descriptions of lower level monsters?

No reference yet. I have only run 2 sessions of 4E so far, the party is still 1st level.

A monster's description should be the same whether the party itself is 1st level or 30th. So, how by the description alone could it help them out? What series of information are required to understand all the hints?

Not exactly. The description depends on the point of view of the viewer. The description of a bugbear might be the same for anyone who has never met one but the impressions of those details will have a different meaning to the newb vs PC's who have fought and killed dozens of them. Threats that have been faced in the past will always influence perceptions of current threats.

For example, is a walking mushroom that can see over the farmer's house a threat that the 5th level party can't handle?

Maybe, and maybe not. The description of the creature perhaps with some evidence of what it can do might answer that. More importantly, is there an urgent NEED to handle it? What makes it a threat, its mere existance in the vicinity of the PC's? If something attacks the PC's on sight obviously there is no time to decide on combat. In these cases what happens early in the fight are the biggest clues to inform the PC's that staying to finish the fight isn't the smartest move.

 

[mneme]

There are a few of ways to signal this stuff.

First, you can describe things comparatively -- "the dragon ate that group of bandits over yonder" might very well be a threat the PCs can handle; "Beowulf, the great adventurer from the North, came to slay the beast hoping for a prize, but it cooked him and his men and ate him raw", probably not so much for a few levels.

You can, in fact, look at scale (not size); at the very least, heroic tier adventures are local; paragon are political, epic adventures are planar. So a heroic-level dragon has been messing with farms; a paragon level dragon might have razed the town previously on this site to the ground, or attacked cities; an epic dragon might -rule- a kingdom, or have several paying tribute to it, etc. Just as the scale of the PCs adventures rise as they do, so does the scale of their foes.

Finally, you can use the rules organically to signal to players that certain challenges may be too tough for them -- in some ways, this can act like the MMO "you can't enter this area yet; it's too tough" hard block but without feeling purely mechanical. Skill rolls around an high-level foe require similiarly high requirements -- this includes everything from knowledge rolls (to, say, find the creature) to climbing rolls to get to it, and so on, and so forth. You -can- take this as the artifical scaling construct it (in some ways) is, but it's just as easy to say that high level foes tend to pick less hospitable homes, hide their lairs better, guard themselves better, etc.

If the party has to, say, get through a level+10 skill challenge before they can face a level+10 monster, they might very well not even win their way into suicide -- not to mention just maybe getting the message that this challenge is bigger than they are. Obviously, not everything about a high level creature needs to be similarly high levelled (after all, you can have a skill challenge that involves -convincing- the high level creature of something rather than fighting it directly) -- but everything on the direct road to opposition of it should be.

 

[KarinsDad]

It doesn't matter what descriptive information you use. There will always be a metagaming aspect on the players' part when they decide to engage the monster or not. A big monster doesn't equate to 10 levels above party level. Certainly, farmers providing their evaluation of the strenght of the monster is irrelevant. What non-metagaming information that doesn't rely on a knowledge check can you give players that will help them ALWAYS make the right choice? Do you for example always put the same qualifiers on certain tiers? Do you always tone down descriptions of lower level monsters?

A monster's description should be the same whether the party itself is 1st level or 30th. So, how by the description alone could it help them out? What series of information are required to understand all the hints?

For example, is a walking mushroom that can see over the farmer's house a threat that the 5th level party can't handle?

I think that any group of players who hear that a monster can see over a farmer's house will typically have at least someone in the group say "Err guys, that thing's huge!!!"


Knowledge skill checks are for information that the PCs can live with or without. You fail the skill, oh well.

DM descriptive information is for information that the players need to have in order to make informed decisions or to have the adventure continue (DMG page 26). If the players absolutely need the information for some adventure reason, give it to them.

I consider the fact that a monster is way too powerful for the PC's current levels and that fighting that monster will almost definitely result in a few PC deaths or even a TPK information that the players need. YMMV.

Personally, I play the game to have fun. If my PC dies because of random events, oh well. If the DM outright kills him with way too powerful of a monster, that's the fault of the DM.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I consider the fact that a monster is way too powerful for the PC's current levels and that fighting that monster will almost definitely result in a few PC deaths or even a TPK information that the players need. YMMV.

Personally, I play the game to have fun. If my PC dies because of random events, oh well. If the DM outright kills him with way too powerful of a monster, that's the fault of the DM.

I agree. But inserting monsters at something like level+10 is for very experienced DM's only. I consider myself a very experienced DM and I can't even figure out how to describe such things to the players appropriately enough, in game. As you point out, dragons come in all experience levels, so simply saying 'dragon' doesn't work, and identifying a dragon of a particular size doesn't help without a knowledge check (perhaps) or metagaming information. Anything else I can come up with I think simply hampers my descriptions of other, level-appropriate monsters. I can't embellish other descriptions for more dramatic play without the fear that the party will skip out on a carefully planned but doable encounter.

I think for maybe 95% of the DM's (and groups) out there, that never using a too-high-level encounter is a good thing. Simply, never having the option to engage in said encounter. It's just not worth the effort and likely degrading of your game to try and maintain some perceived notion of realism.

Also, I don't want to get into an edition war, but make sure that if you like the concept of level+10 encounters (potentially), you're also not one of those people who want the save-or-die effects back in the game. Then, I simply can't agree at all.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I can't embellish other descriptions for more dramatic play without the fear that the party will skip out on a carefully planned but doable encounter.

It may be a big playstyle difference but in regular ongoing campaign play I don't have any encounters planned to the point of worrying about them not happening. If the players avoid a big encounter then they may miss out on some good rewards and thier avoidance might have consequences in the campaign but the world keeps turning (at least until the big encounters involve literally saving the world )

I think for maybe 95% of the DM's (and groups) out there, that never using a too-high-level encounter is a good thing. Simply, never having the option to engage in said encounter. It's just not worth the effort and likely degrading of your game to try and maintain some perceived notion of realism.

It is one viable option certainly but a steady campaign of nothing but encounters that are readily handled may give the players a feeling of invincibility which make them less likely to think of solutions to a problem that don't involve just hacking through it. Adding a bit of realism to the gameworld is merely a bonus. The real benefit to the campaign is having players who will at least think before attacking. If the PC's never encounter anything to give them a reason for doubt then the DM can only blame him/her self for the table full of murderous hack & slashers who solve every obstacle with an axe.

Also, I don't want to get into an edition war, but make sure that if you like the concept of level+10 encounters (potentially), you're also not one of those people who want the save-or-die effects back in the game. Then, I simply can't agree at all.

I have run games for just a bit under 30 years and many of them ran just fine with save or die effects. My new 4E campaign seems to be running just fine without them so far. I don't see the connection between these effects and a very diverse spread of encounter power levels.

 

[eamon]

I consider myself a very experienced DM and I can't even figure out how to describe such things to the players appropriately enough, in game. As you point out, dragons come in all experience levels, so simply saying 'dragon' doesn't work, and identifying a dragon of a particular size doesn't help without a knowledge check (perhaps) or metagaming information.[...]

...and dragon's are a best-case scenario, really; being well-known in the meta-game sense and thus probably notorious in-game as well. Also, for dragons, bigger=badder, so they're one of the few monster types where a description might reliably be used to judge its power.

Anything else I can come up with I think simply hampers my descriptions of other, level-appropriate monsters. I can't embellish other descriptions for more dramatic play without the fear that the party will skip out on a carefully planned but doable encounter.

The same reasoning holds for other subjective aspects too; such as judging by whether an encounter seems "local" "global" or "interplanar" or whatever: such clues are meaningful, but if you rely on them, that straightjackets your storyline - and Players are bound to misunderstand. I mean, misunderstandings even over obvious clues are common, and tricky clues sometimes seem much more obvious to PC that I expected. Its hard to "hide" information in narrative but nevertheless communicate to the players precisely what you mean.

I think for maybe 95% of the DM's (and groups) out there, that never using a too-high-level encounter is a good thing. Simply, never having the option to engage in said encounter. It's just not worth the effort and likely degrading of your game to try and maintain some perceived notion of realism.

Too true!

I think that's D&D's baseline. Encounters are presumed level-appropriate. (BBEG's which the DM essentially guarantees the party won't encounter "until its safe" don't count - those are plot devices which the party presumably can't encounter unless they actively try to be stupid). Various narrative techniques may help you differentiate roughly between easy, hard, and almost impossible encounters, but don't provide sufficient accuracy to differentiate between 30 levels of difficulty. If you insist upon "realism" in the sense that an encounter may not be level-appropriate, then you'll need to think of some extra way of communicating an encounters presumable difficulty. The players need to know the levels of their opponents. You can choose to present this information via some more-or-less flavored skill check, but, mechanically, the players simply need to know to avoid dying all the time.

 

[KarinsDad]

It is one viable option certainly but a steady campaign of nothing but encounters that are readily handled may give the players a feeling of invincibility which make them less likely to think of solutions to a problem that don't involve just hacking through it. Adding a bit of realism to the gameworld is merely a bonus. The real benefit to the campaign is having players who will at least think before attacking. If the PC's never encounter anything to give them a reason for doubt then the DM can only blame him/her self for the table full of murderous hack & slashers who solve every obstacle with an axe.

There is a difference between a campaign of readily handled encounters and one with a auto-TPK just waiting in the wings and if the players decide wrong, oh well. TPK.

An n+5 encounter is supposed to be extremely threatening, but doable. Sure, someone might die and a TPK might occur. But, once the players understand their PCs and get used to how the other PCs work, a TPK is less likely at n+5. It's not that hard to have enough extremely hard encounters so that the players will look before they leap without going to auto-TPK land.

An n+10 encounter in the campaign at all? Why play the game just to kill off the PCs (unless of course all of the players want to start new PCs)?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Too true!

I think that's D&D's baseline. Encounters are presumed level-appropriate.

Not entirely. I think that is certainly 4E and perhaps 3E's baseline.

If you insist upon "realism" in the sense that an encounter may not be level-appropriate, then you'll need to think of some extra way of communicating an encounters presumable difficulty.

Yes.

The players need to know the levels of their opponents. You can choose to present this information via some more-or-less flavored skill check, but, mechanically, the players simply need to know to avoid dying all the time.

Not at all. The levels of NPC's do not have to be communicated to the players for any reason.

As far as dying all the time is concerned, the law of averages says that the more often combat is chosen as the first solution to a problem the more likely death is to occur. Those who live by the sword and all that.

On the flipside, a DM who provides hordes of unbeatable opponents as standard obstacles to PC's and puts them in "must fight" situations is being a turd.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't see the connection between these effects and a very diverse spread of encounter power levels.

Make your monster knowledge check or die in a horrible unescapable encounter gruesomely played out .... make your saving throw or crumple to the effects of a death spell.

Both allowing a single die roll to dramatically dominate the game flow.

There is a connection.