Rule of Three finally addresses an important epic tier question!

[Barastrondo]

The thing about the superhero model for epic is that the superhero model is built on recurring characters, especially villains, and D&D... isn't. The players could expect to fight the same characters again and again over the course of, say, ten levels, and that's considered a feature. D&D, on the other hand, is about disposable enemies. You don't usually expect to cross swords with a Black Hand type seven times over the course of a long story, him escaping each time. In a superhero game that's part of the genre; in a D&D game it feels like plot immunity and railroading, because you expect to kill enemies dead in D&D.

(Which is another reason I tend to run epic games in a superhero mold; I'm expected to reuse stat blocks, and the PCs are delighted by villains that survive instead of frustrated. Makes some things easier.)

I suspect that an unrelated part of the trouble epic tier seems to face with many groups is that it lasts exactly as long as each of the other tiers, but is usually inspired by a dramatic tradition that relies on quicker pacing as you approach the climax. When things are much higher-stakes in epic than they were in heroic, it's often a natural reaction to expect the thrilling climax to take place more quickly. The larger the threat, the more pressure there is to have it resolved ASAP. And ten levels is a lot of time to apply fate-of-the-world pressure. It's something a good epic campaign would have to resolve, at least if it wants to woo the kind of players who enjoy spending at least as much time socializing and community-building in character as they do racing against the clock.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I agree with you to a point.

Let's take the old classic Secret Wars.

The Beyonder isn't a standard hero or villain. He's probably not expected to make any other apperances at this time.

Galactus has been fought before, but usually not with as much get out and go as he was this time nor with the same time of minions he brought around this time.

Or Infinite Crisis.

Anti-Monitor has the same role going on, but he's also got Shadow Demons and well, destroying universes thing going on for him.

In super hero stories not based firmly in the big two mainline settings, anything can happen, such as Kingdom Come or JLA/Avengers (although the former did use elements of the later several times).

As independent comics become more sustained on their own, like Invicnible or Savage Dragon, they tend to develop their own problems, but usually aren't that afraid of offing the cast so it provides some interesting alternatives to the standards.

I agree with you about the timing though. One of the biggest problems I had with some of the Adventure Paths in Dragon was that they literally ran right into each other sometimes and I was left going, "when are the players supposed to have downtimes to invesgiate all of this background material or hunt donw some of this cool supplemental material in Dragon."

But once AGAIN, I place the blame of this firmly on WoTC for not realizing the vast differences in game scale where a computer game can do a flash over of a civilization being destroyed in a rain of fire and you moving to a new land (ala Guild Wars), and telling the players, "Uh... yeah, six months have passed."

Without putting the other parts of high level paly into the game, it makes it difficult for newer GMs to know what to do when the Super Friends aren't beating the crap out of the Legion of Doom.

 

[Incenjucar]

Eh. The superhero model is only replete with recurring villains because they tell the same story every five years or so.

 

[pemerton]

As a question, which fantasy novel series would you say hit Epic tier?

I don't know about novel series. But the Iliad probably counts.

 

[pemerton]

DMs and players who want and already do play Epic Tier are the hardest of hardcore D&Ders.

Other than the desire to start at level 1 and play through, I can see no a priori reason for that at all. What makes you think it is so?

I agree that the actual game mechanics of Epic are probably no more (or at least not appreciably so) difficult than Paragon Tier. But there is one place where Epic *IS* more difficult... and that is Story.

We're talking a tier here where the PCs are on epic journeys to fulfill their destinies... destinies that will send them into the annals of history. Now what does that require? Stories and plot custom-tailored to those PCs. The stories are now about them fulfilling their destinies, while at the same time dealing with some massive over-arching McGuffin (whether that be gods, demons, wars across the cosmos etc. etc.) These are much grander and much more grandiose than just "hey, this troll nation has risen over the mountains... go get a bunch of people together and go wipe them out!"

Now to pull this sort of massive epic tale... as a DM you need to be very, very good at what you do.

Whereas I believe the more likely scenario is that casual players and DMs just DON'T WANT to run Epic, regardless of the support available or not.

<snip>

you really have to ask yourself what Epic Tier has that the other two tiers DON'T have, which would necessitate most casual gamers' need to actually play it? And it's my contention that unless a DM has a story that is plane-spanning and demon & god related... there is nothing about Epic that would inspire other people to play it. And this is true EVEN IF there were monsters, modules, and instructions on how to do it. It begins and ends with story. If there's no compelling story to carry you through Epic... there's no reason to play Epic games.

To enlarge on Defcon's point that "epic PC's are on epic journeys to fulfill their destinies... destinies that will send them into the annals of history."

Part of what this means is that epic adventures need to be more closely tailored to the PC's than lower-tiered adventures.

What I find interesting about the above is that it suggests that most of the time, most GMs aren't taking this approach to running their games.

Given how poor WotC's adventures are in any event, it might be worth their while trying to write rulebooks that support GMs in running player-and-PC-centred games from the get go, which would then make the transition to Epic (which would bring with it the purchase of Epic-oriented materials) easier.

I dunno. every group is different I know, but the players I've always talked with have always wanted to go to epic tiers.

<snip>

To me, I think the bigger issue is that a lot of people do not want to run epic as it currently exists, but would love to run epic (at least running a campaign to conclusion at epic) if there were sufficient resources.

This is closer to what I would expect to be the case.

But in combination with the comments about Epic's need for stories, it makes me wonder - who is scared of Epic? Players? Or GMs? Players, I find hard to believe - who wouldn't want to play a game in which the PCs invade the Abyss and kill Orcus? That's got to be at least as gratifying as invading the Caves of Chaos and killing a few dozen orcs.

Is part of the issue GMs? That GMs don't want to run games that turn their campaign worlds into playgrounds for the players to trample over with their PCs? Or is it really true that most GMs don't know how to set up situations that are focused on the players and their PCs, as DEFCON1 suggets?

To complicate things with more anecdotals, for other people finishing a character's story often happens somewhere in paragon. This is most true, to my observation, when you're talking about characters who are tied to people and places in the mortal world.

I think this is one good example of a player who mightn't like Epic - except that, in D&D, even for many such players it would make sense that their wordly concerns are in some sense mirrors of divine or otherplanar situations (eg the craft guild is a reflection of Erathis; the thieves' guild, of Sehanine; the warrior's domain of Kord, etc). The number of D&D players who really eschew these sorts of supernatural aspects of the game I would assume is a distinct minority (though Barastrondo, from other posts of yours perhaps your players are in this minority).

The larger the threat, the more pressure there is to have it resolved ASAP. And ten levels is a lot of time to apply fate-of-the-world pressure. It's something a good epic campaign would have to resolve, at least if it wants to woo the kind of players who enjoy spending at least as much time socializing and community-building in character as they do racing against the clock.

Besides tools and guidelines to help with this issue, others would include: concrete advice on correlating worldy events with otherworldly events, along the lines I sketched in the previous paragraph; advice on quickstarting epic play (to remove the need to start at 1st and work up to it); and building on that, more general advice on how to run a non-continous campaign, where the passage of time and level up are handled in a more abstract way, rather than by actually playing through all the encounters and accumulating the XPs.

It's not as if there are no precedents to draw on in RPG design, and rules text writing, to help with these tasks, or as if WotC lacks the depth of design talent and experience to do them. (But maybe there really is overwhelming demand for still more heroic-tier feats and powers! Who knows?)

 

[S'mon]

To complicate things with more anecdotals, for other people finishing a character's story often happens somewhere in paragon. This is most true, to my observation, when you're talking about characters who are tied to people and places in the mortal world. If you see a character's ambition as something like "take over the thieves' guild and make it a force for good," epic tier goals can seem kind of added on for the sake of having an epic tier.

It really depends on the range of character motivations. Some characters simply fit better into heroic and/or paragon tier, I think; they have all sorts of attachments to local strongholds and low-level NPCs, and no real emotional attachment to storming the gates of heaven or fighting to shape the fate of a continent. While you can encourage the players to Think Really Big, they're not going to care really big unless they're already inclined to do so: and if most of their favorite memories of a character are tied to small-scale, personal victories they might not be as interested in going to battlefields where their old allies can't follow.

That said, I'd certainly be interested in seeing some more material thrown towards epic tier, particularly, as Aegeri noted, talk about how to tie epic tier games to the mortal plane in meaningful, personal ways rather than just washing your hands of all those heroic-level NPCs that the players like and taking a 10-level sabbatical Somewhere Else. Right now, I tend to look to superhero game systems for my more "epic" gameplay, building the world where PCs are epic from round one but not as mechanically complex. A little more attention to keeping heroic-level relationships actively meaningful in epic tier might cause me to reconsider. (And by "actively meaningful" I do not mean "You have to save the world, because that's where your 2nd-level girlfriend that you haven't seen in eight levels lives!")

Lots of interesting thoughts there Ethan. Planning out my upcoming Wilderlands campaign with a swords & sorcery/Conan-esque feel, I have the issue whether I want it to go into Epic or not. The argument you give here would seem to indicate I'd be better off aiming to run it to at most top of the Paragon tier; that this would be plenty for world-changing achievements while staying grounded in the reality of the game-world. And I can still use a few low-Epic monsters at the top of the tier.

 

[pemerton]

Planning out my upcoming Wilderlands campaign with a swords & sorcery/Conan-esque feel, I have the issue whether I want it to go into Epic or not. The argument you give here would seem to indicate I'd be better off aiming to run it to at most top of the Paragon tier; that this would be plenty for world-changing achievements while staying grounded in the reality of the game-world.

Hoping that you don't mind a third party butting in - what you say there makes perfect sense to me. Whatever epic is, it isn't swords & sorcery. I've not run epic level D&D, but have run epic (as in over 20th level) Rolemaster, and in my experience to motivate plots and action at that level, and after so much play, world-shaking mythic and historical forces have to be brought into play. And I think that 4e only reinforces this, given the flavour of its epic monsters, epic powers and epic destinies.

To make the move from swords & sorcery to epic I think you would have to find a way of inserting, perhaps somewhere towards late paragon, otherworldy/mythic significance to what the PCs have been achieving in the gameworld up to that point. But players who signed on for swords & sorcery might justifiably feel that this was robbing them of what they'd achieved in the game for their PCs.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have done many campaigns with a 'ceiling' built in. There is noting wrong with saying this game will run form XX to YY level and not beyond

I find it makes for a very tight game.

Even more if the whole campaign world is set up that way.

 

[Barastrondo]

But in combination with the comments about Epic's need for stories, it makes me wonder - who is scared of Epic? Players? Or GMs? Players, I find hard to believe - who wouldn't want to play a game in which the PCs invade the Abyss and kill Orcus? That's got to be at least as gratifying as invading the Caves of Chaos and killing a few dozen orcs.

I really don't think it's a case of "scared of Epic" all the time. It's frequently a matter of doing something personal. I hate to invoke the specter of video games, but going to a very dangerous place and having a very dangerous boss fight is something I can get elsewhere. I already beat up Satan this year in the latest game to carry the Castlevania name. What keeps me coming back to RPGs are the things I can't do in video games, and that means a heavy emphasis on stuff outside of fighting, and of being able to choose destinies other than "you go to a very dangerous place and have a very dangerous boss fight."

I think this is one good example of a player who mightn't like Epic - except that, in D&D, even for many such players it would make sense that their wordly concerns are in some sense mirrors of divine or otherplanar situations (eg the craft guild is a reflection of Erathis; the thieves' guild, of Sehanine; the warrior's domain of Kord, etc). The number of D&D players who really eschew these sorts of supernatural aspects of the game I would assume is a distinct minority (though Barastrondo, from other posts of yours perhaps your players are in this minority).

Well, take a step back. What this approach does is define players' motivations for them. When someone says they're interested in a thieves' guild, you can't assume that they will be equally as interested in dealing with the divine agents of a god of thieves as they will in the personalities of their various lieutenants and allies that they've built up over the years. Even if it makes little sense for characters to be actively agnostic or atheistic, to many players a profound interest in the divine plays directly against the perception of an affable rogue. It's like romantic interests: I think every player admits that a world needs them in the background to make sense, but that doesn't mean that every player wants to play through a romance at the table.

You have to let the players decide why they're interested in what they're interested in. You can't tell them that they should also care about the metaphysical, otherworldly aspects of their physical, worldly concerns because that's what epic level assumes. If you want epic level to work at all, it needs to be built around their personal assumptions of why they like what they like.

Lots of interesting thoughts there Ethan. Planning out my upcoming Wilderlands campaign with a swords & sorcery/Conan-esque feel, I have the issue whether I want it to go into Epic or not. The argument you give here would seem to indicate I'd be better off aiming to run it to at most top of the Paragon tier; that this would be plenty for world-changing achievements while staying grounded in the reality of the game-world. And I can still use a few low-Epic monsters at the top of the tier.

I have the same issues myself, albeit not for sword-and-sorcery. I'm running a swashbuckling D&D game best described as Assassin's Creed 2 + the Abhorsen series; it's very tied to the character of this one nation, very inspired by Renaissance Italy. If the game goes into epic, I don't think anyone wants it to abandon the country for an extraplanar milieu; it loses a good portion of the characters' point when they're not interacting with their Houses and the various princes and the assassins' guilds and actors' troupes that populate the campaign. I can certainly see how to build an "epic swashbuckler," but mechanically I think all I need for that is paragon tier.

I freely admit I bring this problem on myself when I run highly themed games. Once you start picking out a more specific theme, sometimes limiting the tiers reinforces that theme more than being inclusive would.

 

[cavesalamander]

As a question, which fantasy novel series would you say hit Epic tier?

Not a fantasy series as such, but as my group enters mid-upper paragon and I'm looking ahead towards Epic, I'm drawing more inspiration from the current run of Doctor Who.