Ahnehnois
First Post
What heresy is this?
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)
- Thread starter cross ofth carpenter
- Start date
What heresy is this?
Ranes
Adventurer
Look, I'm only 49 and I've only been playing since the seventies but the words 'circles', 'in' and 'talking' spring to mind. Yes, there's a lot of carefully considered and articulately framed opinion on all sides but it's surely time to take a breath and remind ourselves of what's important here, which is that there are no gnomes in Sweden.
Well, let's bear in mind that 3E carried over a ton of legacy issues from the TSR days, plus a bunch more issues that were created in the course of radically overhauling the system. If I were setting priorities on Rules Issues to Fix, "infinite wishes" exploits would be very low on the list, because they're corner cases that don't come up very often, and DMs can smack them down without having to take the whole system apart. I'm not saying they shouldn't be fixed--they should!--but they'd have to wait in line behind systemic issues that are much harder to solve at the gaming table; stuff like class balance (the original reason for this thread), cascading modifiers bogging down the game, spells and abilities that are too powerful when used as intended, etc.
I mean, ideally, yes, such exploits would be found and fixed by the designers. And I expect 5E to be held to a higher standard, as 4E mostly was. But let's not be too hard on 3E-era Wizards.
Dandu
First Post
But why is there a need to fix those issues at all if the DM can rule zero them away, as you just did with the Astral Projection exploit I posted?
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
I don't think the goal is to somehow convince each other, but at least we can look at what we think, and have it picked apart by others who disagree to make sure we really believe it. Plus, it can serve to be enlightening to others reading the thread. I know similar threads led me to embrace 4e when I had serious reservations before its release.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Regarding the king and his vastly-overworked chamberlain:
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] talks (in one of the very long posts a page or so back) about the DM framing the scene with the chamberlain. To me, "framing" implies the DM had some sort of advance warning the scene was coming, and-or that it is actually part of her planned plot, and-or that the DM had any choice in the matter, and thus the scene could be set up in advance e.g. reactions determined, DCs pre-set for various things, even stats rolled for key people, etc. But what if there is no warning? What if on a whim the party decides while in town "Hey, let's drop by the palace and see how ol' Kingy's getting on", and the next thing the DM hears is "We're heading for the palace!". The DM can't really be blamed for what happens next, can she?
Ditto for any non-adventure situation where the players-in-character get to decide what they (will try to) do next.
Lan-"do chamberlains get paid for overtime in this country?"-efan
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] talks (in one of the very long posts a page or so back) about the DM framing the scene with the chamberlain. To me, "framing" implies the DM had some sort of advance warning the scene was coming, and-or that it is actually part of her planned plot, and-or that the DM had any choice in the matter, and thus the scene could be set up in advance e.g. reactions determined, DCs pre-set for various things, even stats rolled for key people, etc. But what if there is no warning? What if on a whim the party decides while in town "Hey, let's drop by the palace and see how ol' Kingy's getting on", and the next thing the DM hears is "We're heading for the palace!". The DM can't really be blamed for what happens next, can she?
Ditto for any non-adventure situation where the players-in-character get to decide what they (will try to) do next.
Lan-"do chamberlains get paid for overtime in this country?"-efan
Systemic issues are much more difficult to rule-zero away for a couple of reasons. First, changes to these areas often affect large swaths of the game in ways the DM can't easily predict. Second, they don't involve obvious silliness like infinite wishes, so players have a reasonable complaint if the DM changes how things work without warning. In addition, these problems crop up more often--they don't require you to have access to 9th-level spells or high-powered magic items--so they're more of a headache.
But in any case, if something requires Rule Zero or tortured rules lawyering to fix, it's a problem. Wish-exploits certainly qualify! But there are bigger problems that should take priority.
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
Aenghus
Explorer
Rpg sessions are ideally greater than the sum of their parts. One of the reasons that posters end up talking past each other is they can't see context in the narrow bandwidth that forum posts allow. Different campaigns aim for different levels of directness, action, plottedness, PC importance, rules importance, grittiness etc. etc. These differences mean that situations that on paper are the same work out very differently in different games.
For instance, the status of adventurers varies from DM to DM. In my game adventurers are anomalies in society even at 1st level - they aren't peasants, most aren't nobles, they may be technically commoners, but they are heavily armed and free to travel and make decisions for themselves. They are a potential threat to the rulers, but also useful as expendable troubleshooters to deal with problems like goblin raiders. The typical campaign world isn't as socially stratified as the real medieval world was. And most of the rulers in my worlds have class levels, as it makes it easier to justify them having power in D&D worlds where class levels grant raw power.
In a fast-paced action game, guidelines common in TV shows like "the obvious solution never works" can be inappropriate. It's bad for games like this to stall, which can happen when there's no obvious way to the players to solve a problem and it has to be solved for the plot to proceed. It's better to avoid a situation like this in the first place, but once in it, DM force is one way to solve it, whether it's "ninjas attack" or help from a mysterious stranger, just to keep the action moving.
Now, my take on the Chamberlain dilemma (the poor guy is horribly overworked, I know, I hope he gets overtime). The choices on how to evaluate this in a particular campaign are affected by many, many factors, too many to go into comprehensively in a short post.
How I would evaluate it in one of my campaigns depends primarily on the level of the PCs at the time. I generally run a conventionally heroic campaign so the PCs will become local heroes in the early levels. Normally they are offered petty nobility by mid levels. Low level adventurers in my games typically won't need to meet kings for plot reasons, and aren't important enough to get special treatment, barring special PC backgrounds. I will cheerfully tell the players this OOC if they come up with the idea themselves - if they fixate on it I may work out something to keep everyone content.
At mid levels they may want or need to see the king for something, and should have sufficient reputation, resources, favours earned and allies to have some chance to do so if they haven't become outlaws or something. It's the chamberlain's job to stop time wasters from seeing the king, so the PCs appearance, reputation and knowledge of protocol will have a bearing on their success. If the chamberlain doesn't pass them, there are other alternatives depending on what they know of the court - calling on contacts with other members of the royal family or their personal friends,influential nobles, information from servants, ambassadors, merchants, etc. I run long campaigns and if I mean the royal court to be important in play I will arrange early adventures so the PCs have allies who owe them favours which will by useful at this point. Maybe the king is ultimately unwilling to listen to them, but the crown prince is and offers them aid. Later in the campaign the king dies, and the PCs have already befriended the prince and are able to help him gain his crown in the succession war that follows.
If it's not important to the campaign, I won't put as much work into it and may run it as a skill challenge or simply narrate what happens if its ultimately unimportant. The more players are invested in the issue, the more attention I will pay to it.
At high levels they may already be known to the king, they may be nobles, and they are sufficiently powerful and famous that they will be given special treatment by the functionaries of the court and can expect to see the king in short order unless something is up. Epic level PCs can do whatever the hell they want at the mundane kingdom level. The particulars of different settings will modify this, of course.
For instance, the status of adventurers varies from DM to DM. In my game adventurers are anomalies in society even at 1st level - they aren't peasants, most aren't nobles, they may be technically commoners, but they are heavily armed and free to travel and make decisions for themselves. They are a potential threat to the rulers, but also useful as expendable troubleshooters to deal with problems like goblin raiders. The typical campaign world isn't as socially stratified as the real medieval world was. And most of the rulers in my worlds have class levels, as it makes it easier to justify them having power in D&D worlds where class levels grant raw power.
In a fast-paced action game, guidelines common in TV shows like "the obvious solution never works" can be inappropriate. It's bad for games like this to stall, which can happen when there's no obvious way to the players to solve a problem and it has to be solved for the plot to proceed. It's better to avoid a situation like this in the first place, but once in it, DM force is one way to solve it, whether it's "ninjas attack" or help from a mysterious stranger, just to keep the action moving.
Now, my take on the Chamberlain dilemma (the poor guy is horribly overworked, I know, I hope he gets overtime). The choices on how to evaluate this in a particular campaign are affected by many, many factors, too many to go into comprehensively in a short post.
How I would evaluate it in one of my campaigns depends primarily on the level of the PCs at the time. I generally run a conventionally heroic campaign so the PCs will become local heroes in the early levels. Normally they are offered petty nobility by mid levels. Low level adventurers in my games typically won't need to meet kings for plot reasons, and aren't important enough to get special treatment, barring special PC backgrounds. I will cheerfully tell the players this OOC if they come up with the idea themselves - if they fixate on it I may work out something to keep everyone content.
At mid levels they may want or need to see the king for something, and should have sufficient reputation, resources, favours earned and allies to have some chance to do so if they haven't become outlaws or something. It's the chamberlain's job to stop time wasters from seeing the king, so the PCs appearance, reputation and knowledge of protocol will have a bearing on their success. If the chamberlain doesn't pass them, there are other alternatives depending on what they know of the court - calling on contacts with other members of the royal family or their personal friends,influential nobles, information from servants, ambassadors, merchants, etc. I run long campaigns and if I mean the royal court to be important in play I will arrange early adventures so the PCs have allies who owe them favours which will by useful at this point. Maybe the king is ultimately unwilling to listen to them, but the crown prince is and offers them aid. Later in the campaign the king dies, and the PCs have already befriended the prince and are able to help him gain his crown in the succession war that follows.
If it's not important to the campaign, I won't put as much work into it and may run it as a skill challenge or simply narrate what happens if its ultimately unimportant. The more players are invested in the issue, the more attention I will pay to it.
At high levels they may already be known to the king, they may be nobles, and they are sufficiently powerful and famous that they will be given special treatment by the functionaries of the court and can expect to see the king in short order unless something is up. Epic level PCs can do whatever the hell they want at the mundane kingdom level. The particulars of different settings will modify this, of course.
