D&D 4E Thing I thought 4e did better: Monsters

[pemerton]

Comments like this are maddening to me, because it's you who is refusing to do something but demand everyone else cater to your exception and on top of that constantly complain about how the system is broken or the designers are bad.

Find a single post where I have "demanded" anything of anyone. Or complained about the system being broken or the designers bad. Hint: you won't. (My most recent comments on the designers were something about Mearls, and on Crawford in the current hiding thread - of the latter I described him as obviously very intelligent, and the former I described as one of the leading RPG designers of all time.)

Maybe you're projecting some issue you have with someone or something else onto me?

If you go and buy a race car, and call yourself a race driver but never actually ever race the car, then no, it's not a pejorative for someone to say, "No dude, you're not a race car driver. You're a race car owner." It's simply pointing out a fact.

Here's a fact: you, Sacrosanct - despite your username - don't get to define what RPGing is.

So when you tell some other poster - me or anyone else - that we're not roleplaying even though that's how we describe what we're doing, you're being pejorative. Because you have no licence to decide what counts as RPGing and what doesn't.

There are many FRPGs in which the mechanical design of creatures is quite central to their expression at the table, and thus to establsihing their place in the fiction. Here are some that I'm familiar with: AD&D, B/X D&D, 4e D&D, Rolemaster, HARP, Runequest, Burning Wheel. The only FRPG I'm familiar with that does not rely on mechanics for this, but purely on GM narration and adjudication of the fiction, is HeroQuest revised. (As I think I noted upthread, T&T comes pretty close but uses some tweaks to its core engine to deal with magical AoEs.)

If someone is complaining that they think the design of 5e monsters doesn't deliver in this respect, it doesn't follow that they're not roleplaying. Maybe they think a dragon should be mechanically threatening without having to make it into a spellcaster.

Here's a letter to Dragon no 101 (Sep '85):

After reading #98 and seeing the following quotes, I feel moved to comment.

“Adventurers should give dragons a healthy degree of respect.” — Roger Moore

“The largest and oldest dragons are tougher, and they provide an even greater challenge to high-level characters . . .” — Leonard Carpenter​

I agree, but even mid-level (7-11) AD&D game characters go dragon hunting. Where are the wyrms of fairy tales, the great dragons who once commanded fear and respect?

Glad you asked. Answer — in the D&D® game system, specifically the Companion Set. Parties of 20th, 25th, and even 30th level hear tales of big dragons with incredible hoards — and go elsewhere, to save their skins! Doubt me? Picture this:

The seven 25th-level characters are all invisible, flying, wearing +5 everything, and carrying the mightiest weapons known to man. They cautiously proceed up a mountainside, toward the dragon’s reputed lair. Suddenly and soundlessly, gliding over the sprawling arms of the mountain on the gusty air currents, a great red dragon appears. In mere seconds, it swoops down, picks
up three victims — one in each claw, and one hapless soul in its jaws — and flies on, disappearing over the next ridge.

The survivors know that a single breath from the beast may inflict over 150 points of damage. Thus, though still well-equipped, they quickly retreat towards town for as many reinforcements as they can gather. But the dragon returns after its short snack, much sooner than expected. The characters spot it coming, this time, and prepare . . . but there is not enough time. A vast winged fury, the beast breathes as it swoops in. As it hovers briefly, it kicks over two characters with its rear feet, knocks another head over heels with its great tail (disarming him in the process), and adds the usual attacks from bite and claws. End
of round one.

In round two, the beast lands squarely on the cleric, crushing her. Though the two victims of the kicks are fleeing, now 60 feet away, the dragon lashes out at them with its wings, buffeting the victims soundly and stunning them. It then looks around, deciding which to eat first, and gets ready to breathe again, to have a nice hot meal . . . but that’s enough of this sad tale.

They’re not indestructible, but they are powerful. Woe to the unwary traveler, who heeds not the tales of the great wyrms of the far mountains. And it is lucky that the dragons avoid the cities of man, knowing full well the inherent danger of that species, hazardous even for them. Let us hope that they continue to live far away, out of the reach of all but the bravest and most powerful of adventurers.

The new, revised D&D game — it’s not just for kids.​

The author of that letter? Frank Mentzer. He recognised that, in a mechanically heavy game like D&D, for a creature to be expereinced as threatening in the fiction it needs corresponding mechanical capabilities. The dragon he describes has action economy (claw, bite, rear leg, wing and tail attacks), action denial (disarm, stun) and AoE (powerful breath weapon). I think this is the sort of thing that posters have in mind when they express a desire for more mechanically sophisticated/threatening monsters in 5e.

The bottom line is D&D is designed, and built with expectation that you as the DM will assume the role of the monsters/NPCs and play them like they were living beings and everything that goes along with that (motivations, reactions, out of combat behavior, etc). If you refuse to do that and instead play monsters/NPCs as pieces on a battlemap that can't do anything other than what's listed as a power in a statblock, then you're playing outside of that expectation and it's up to you to modify things to make them work.

This is all just verbiage. I mean, take "can't do anything other thant what's listed as a power in a statblock" - if you really meant that, why would you make your dragon's spellcasters? (As per your post 129, four posts on in the thread from the one I'm replying to.) I mean, why can't the dragons at your table mesmerise enemies with their eyes (like Glaurung in the Silmarillion) unless you equip them with some sort of Charm or Dominate spell. Are you just playing your dragons like pieces on a battlemap? Shame on you!

Take ownership man. There's nothing wrong with taking D&D and playing it like a boardgame if that's what you want.

I posted links to about three-dozen actual play threads. Before you start talking nonsense about how I play D&D, read one or two of them.

 

[pemerton]

Another thought on how to deal with Tucker's kobolds, that doesn't even need high-is level spells like Dig, Cloudkill or Transmute Rock to Mud: blockade.

Presumably their supplies of oil, alchemical fire, wire, etc - not to mention food - are coming from somewhere. Mid-to-high level PCs, such as those described by Roger E Moor in his Dragon editorial, should be able to establish a fairly effective blockade (between themselves, hired mercenaries, and effective use of whatever magic - especially druidical magic - that they have access to).

Again, whether that really makes for fun gameplay is something I leave up for grabs.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Find a single post where I have "demanded" anything of anyone. Or complained about the system being broken or the designers bad. Hint: you won't. (My most recent comments on the designers were something about Mearls, and on Crawford in the current hiding thread - of the latter I described him as obviously very intelligent, and the former I described as one of the leading RPG designers of all time.)

Maybe you're projecting some issue you have with someone or something else onto me?

If you haven't said them directly, you're the first one to come defending them and to argue with the other side. Like right now. Another reason why I said I don't believe you earlier, because you participated in threads that you in this thread acted like you had no idea who or what was being argued. Of course you do. For someone who constantly cites other posts and threads, I don't buy that suddenly you don't remember anyone making arguments that aren't convenient for you.

Here's a fact: you, Sacrosanct - despite your username - don't get to define what RPGing is.

So when you tell some other poster - me or anyone else - that we're not roleplaying even though that's how we describe what we're doing, you're being pejorative. Because you have no licence to decide what counts as RPGing and what doesn't..

I already explained this in the previous post, an explanation that I can't help but notice that you removed from your quote of me. Let's try this again. I'm not determining what role playing is or isn't. I'm using the common definition. Not sure why that's difficult for you to grasp. Do you think more people would consider wrath of ashardalon a board game, or a role playing game? Well, it's classified as a board game. So when someone ignores the aspects of what makes a role playing game a role playing game and plays it like a roll playing boardgame (like WoA), then they are playing a boardgame. That's not me being a gatekeeper, that's me using the proper definitions of what things are. It doesn't matter what you say you're doing, it matters what you ARE doing. If I'm washing my car, I can't tell people I'm painting it and then accuse them of insulting me if they point out that no, I'm not painting my car.

This whole attitude of "you need to accept whatever I say or you're the bad guy" needs to stop, especially when said opinion is not factual. I think it was Neil DeGrasse Tyson who said (and I paraphrase), "The problem is people need to stop holding their opinion on equal footing and importance as fact." So when someone describes their play absent of role-playing aspects, it's not pejorative at all to tell them that's not role playing. That's pointing out a fact.

Oh, and when I say "you" in my earlier posts, I was talking in the general you, not you specifically. I thought that was apparent by my sentence structure.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'll confine my reply to this bit of your post - partly because I think I've made my views about "narrative thread", "railroading" etc clear enough and so don't need to reiterate them; and partly because I think replying to this bit is on-topic for this thread.

So, focusingon the Death Star as unwinnable. My basic problem with that is that it's not. At the end of the movie, the Death Star is beaten.

Mutatis mutandis for a death knight, or ancient dragon, or whatever. Ultimately, in fatnasy fiction, these "unbeatable" creatures are defeated.

Sure. The specifics of their defeat are obtained through adventure, and then later they are defeated. They are not simply killed/destroyed on first meeting with the heroes of the tale. There is growth or progress on the part of the heroes that allows them to win.

So if I have a threat that has been designed to only be defeated after the PCs obtain certain information, then that's how I'll treat it. To tie this into my point about mechanics, the Death Star doesn't have any stats until the rebels have shared the plans and the flaw with Luke and the other pilots. Or, as RPGs often do, the PCs cannot defeat threat X, until they have gained sufficient experience and level in order to do so.

The Death Star example is breaking down, I suppose, but that's the best way I can explain it. I generally don't design enemies that don't have stats; usually, it's a matter of PCs encountering a foe that is simply beyond them. So when my 4th level PCs encountered Tenebrous, who is essentially Orcus reborn through connection an unlimited power source called the Last Word, near the end of the module "Dead Gods", yes, they are free to try and fight him. I don't know if I'd bother rolling such an encounter out or not. I mean, what would be gained by doing so? Perhaps a fluke of nothing but 1s for me and nothing but crits for the PCs would result in a PC victory? Meh. I'd rather save the time and explain that they are utterly destroyed.

They'd be better off hiding his wand for long enough that the Last Word consumes him, which is something that they've found out through their adventures, or by using the item that they found that allows them to destroy the wand, though it would be at great cost (which is how it played out).

Having the players face him and defeat him in straight up fight given that the adventure presents this as impossible is, to me, counter to how I want the game to work. In my world, level 4 heroes cannot kill Orcus because of a quirk of some die rolls.

(1) Winning the "unwinnable" fight requires the GM-specified MacGuffin (the info from the R2 unit, the arrow of slaying, etc). In this case, the mechanics of the Death Star or Smaug become very unimportant.

So why do your PCs level up? I realize that with 5E, there is bounded accuracy and monsters tend to remain viable at more levels, but do you ever see any threat as beyond the PCs? If your level 4 group charges Demogorgon when he first rises from the lake in "Out of the Abyss", do you allow them to win? Do you actually roll that encounter out?

I mean, it's something else entirely when they face him later in the adventure, no?

(2) Winning the "unwinnable" fight is just the same as winning any other fight - so in D&D, it requires the players to reduce the enemy's hp to zero before the same thing happens to their PCs. In this case, the mechanics (in the richest sense of that term) are pretty fundamental, because they set the parameters within which the competion of hp attrition taks place. If the mechanics are wonky, things won't work out: get the maths for housecats wrong - eg two attacks for 1 plus 1-2 (with a like follow-on attack on a hit) - and it becomes as dangerous as a goblin with a shortsword or a hammer-wielding soldider, which is rather implausible; get the maths for Smaug wrong, and he withers under a round of concentrated bowfire.

I disagree about winning the unwinnable fight is the same as winning any other fight. There are varying degrees of difficulty for any encounter relative to any group of PCs. The scale goes from trivially simple to impossible.

I feel that focusing on enviromental or tactical considerations doesn't really deal with this basic issue about the maths of hp attrition; and for people who feel they have this issue, pointing out that approach (1) doesn't have it doesn't really help either.

I don't think that is what I did. Separating tactics and environment and isolating just the math of the PCs versus the monsters is probably going to cause issues, no? That was my point. So, for instance, if you throw a dragon at the PCs and he hovers within their range and chooses never to use his breath weapon....then yes, that encounter will favor the PCs. Unless they are incredibly low level for the dragon they're facing.

If changing the environment a bit or varying up the tactics of the enemies and playing them as thinking beings doesn't help people, then oh well. At least I tried to help. It's advice....anyone can take it or leave it.

That's not to say that WotC need to change anything: it seems to me that there is a widespread disparity of mechanical effectiveness across PC builds, perhaps at least loosely correlated with broader gameplaying experience, and it's probably reaosonable for WotC to assume that more experienced players who have some issues can sort it out - especially if they're already familiar with 4e! (Eg combine 4e's off-turn actions, auras and hp numbers with 5e's legendary action mechanics.)

Yes, I agree. I don't think a familiarity with 4E is required, but certainly that can be one source of inspiration for people to tinker with monsters to try and get what they'd like.

This is not contradicting anything I said, though - as I said, in my 4e game I statted up a phalanx of around 20 hobgoblins as a 3sq x 3sq swarm of level 15 or thereabouts, because I thought (i) that would provide a satisfying experience at the table, both mechanically (in that it would feel like a hobgoblin phalanx) and fictionally (in that it would produce the right sort of flavour for the game). And it did.

But presumably sometimes the mechanics determine the world. Eg presumably, in your game, the question of whether this particular character can climb this particular cliff-face is answererd by making a check.

No, the mechanics don't determine the world. They determine outcomes of actions in doubt within the world. The world (the cliff face and the PC at the bottom) determine the mechanics (a climb check to determine success), not the other way around.

I have a question for you: how do you determine if the outcome of an action is in doubt? How do you decide that the character needs to roll to climb that cliff or if he just succeeds and no roll is needed? Do you decide this based on the fiction, or on the mechanics?

And presumably if a 12th level fighter in your game came up against 20 hobgoblins, you would roll the dice to see what happens rather than just fiating it, wouldn't you (maths in sblocks below)? Or, if a 18th level wizard launched a meteor swarm against a band of orcs, I'm guessing you wouldn't do that simply through narrative fiat either.

Yes, I'd roll most such encounters out, because they are within reason of the world we have established. At 12th level, a fighter is so skilled that he can take on a large number of foes. What was mentioned in the original discussion was an orc horde. Not a set number of enemies, but a horde.

In the fictional world of my game, a group of 12 level characters facing a horde of humanoids is simply going to lose in a straight up fight. I don't care that if at your table, you rolled it out and the mechanics determined that the PCs won. At my table, they're done....unless they come up with a plan to isolate small groups and take them out, and use hit and run tactics, and so on.

The reason for this is because I don't view a horde of orcs as 1000 creatures with a CR of 1/8. It's a horde of orcs.

In the Iliad, Ares or Achilles or one of the other gods or major heroes can reasonably assume that the bulk of the soldiery will fall before them.

I don't know if I'd agree. Ares is a god, and Achilles is a demigod. What about Hector? He defeated plenty of opponents because he was an incredible warrior. However, he expressed fear of dying throughout, especially in scenes with his wife and infant son. Certainly, when he faced an unbeatable foe he knew fear.....he ran away and circled the city three times trying to get away from Achilles.

But just because it took a demigod to beat him doesn't mean he was not afraid of falling to any other enemy.

So the idea that the PCs are somewhat unique in being demigods (or Conan-esque paragon-tier characters) is not something I find that absurd. I feel it has firm roots in the broader fantasy genre.

Sure. The broader fantasy genre is exactly as you describe it.....there are a broad numbers of interpretations. Having heroes who are far more mortal than the demigod heroes of classic myth is pretty common. My game doesn't have PCs slaughtering enemies by the hundreds.

I think focusing on the details of the fiction can become a distraction.

That's fine. I actually see it as the whole point. We differ on this, clearly.

I think it is more helpful to focus on the dynamics of play at the table. In the context of this discussion, I would ask what is wrong with the players haveing some genral sense of what their PCs are capable of (which is, at least in part, expressed in mechancial terms)? Or, to flip it around, How does it improve the game if the players aren't confident - at least in general terms - of the threat posed by a band of orcs? I mean, you seem to be implying in your posts that the players, in your game, would have reasonable confidence that their PC couldn't defeat a band of orcs. So why do things become any worse for play if the players do have confidence that they could take on the band with at least some prsopect of success?

Because the band of orcs in question.....why can they not be a band of level 10 fighters paired with a couple of level 10 clerics of Gruumsh? In your example, the CHARACTERS are gauging their chance on victory based on what the PLAYERS know from the Monster Manual. I generally don't like that approach.

Now, this is not to say that I don't expect them to make such decisions....the players know what level they are and how skilled, and they decide things based on that, and on their past experiences with orcs or with other monsters. If they see a group of 20 orcs, I'd expect them to assume they could take them. I just don't want that to get out of hand, and I like to keep the possibility that they make a mistake in such situations. I've found that serves my purpose well....where my players view the fictional world more in line with how I think their characters would.

 

[pemerton]

The specifics of their defeat are obtained through adventure, and then later they are defeated. They are not simply killed/destroyed on first meeting with the heroes of the tale. There is growth or progress on the part of the heroes that allows them to win.

So if I have a threat that has been designed to only be defeated after the PCs obtain certain information, then that's how I'll treat it.

<snip>

the Death Star doesn't have any stats until the rebels have shared the plans and the flaw with Luke and the other pilots.

That seems to be the approach I called out as (1) - the MacGuffin approach - even down to the mechanics not being very important.

Or, as RPGs often do, the PCs cannot defeat threat X, until they have gained sufficient experience and level in order to do so.

<snip>

So why do your PCs level up? I realize that with 5E, there is bounded accuracy and monsters tend to remain viable at more levels, but do you ever see any threat as beyond the PCs? If your level 4 group charges Demogorgon when he first rises from the lake in "Out of the Abyss", do you allow them to win? Do you actually roll that encounter out?

I mean, it's something else entirely when they face him later in the adventure, no?

I see levels as basically a pacing device. The pacing has two dimensions - mechanical and fictional - and they can be decoupled at least to some extent (as eg the 4e Neverwinter Campaign Guide illustrates).

From the mechanical point of view, as PCs gain levels they typically become more mechanically complex, more mechanically specialised (those two can often go together) and more mechanically effective in relation to baseline elements of the gameworld (eg 10' pits, sailing across a sea without drowning, etc).

From the story point of view, as PCs gain levels the challenges that they face escalate. In D&D, I see it (speaking roughly) as a trajectory from kobolds at 1st level to demon princes somewhere about or above name level. 4e rather formalised this through the idea of tiers (Heroic, Paragon, Epic) which bring PC-build elements with them (paragon paths, epic destinies) that not only give mechanical growth but also (mostly if not always, depending on the details of the particular path/destiny) frame the PC into the developing story in a particular way. (Eg when I describe the PCs in my 4e gods as demigods this is not just a metaphor: one of them is literally a demigod, another is the chief Marshall of the Raven Queen (god of death), another is the Eternal Defender of the mortal realms from the threats of chaos, and has recently taken on the mantle of god of imprisonment and punishment also.)

If I wanted to use an epic level threat (eg Demogorgon) in a Heroic tier encounter, it would be a relatively hard scene frame, and I wouldn't pretend anything otherwise to the players. But I would also be very cautious about this, becaus the risk of railroading is (in my view) extreme - because the capacity of the players to take charge of and direct that fictional situation, when their mechanical resources are so slight compared to the resource I as GM have in virtue of Demogorgon being on the table.

A related reason that I would be very cautious in this sort of situation is that, if I want the players to engage the situation via their PCs, I need to signal in some way what is at stake for them (eg if they insult Demogorgon, or in any way oppose him, is he going to just blast them into smithereens with his gaze?). And if what is at stake is TPK, and if I frame things as Demogorgon making some demand of the PCs, then (in effect) I as GM am telling the players what they have to do with their PCs. Which I prefer not to do.

Something like that could be a consequence of failure, though - more on that below.

I'd roll most such encounters out, because they are within reason of the world we have established. At 12th level, a fighter is so skilled that he can take on a large number of foes. What was mentioned in the original discussion was an orc horde. Not a set number of enemies, but a horde.

In the fictional world of my game, a group of 12 level characters facing a horde of humanoids is simply going to lose in a straight up fight. I don't care that if at your table, you rolled it out and the mechanics determined that the PCs won. At my table, they're done....unless they come up with a plan to isolate small groups and take them out, and use hit and run tactics, and so on.

Presumably a horde contains a countable number of enemies, even if the PCs haven't actually counted them. And if one 12th level fighter can take on 20 with a real prospect of success, then maybe five of those characters could take on 100 (or more - by fighting back-to-back they might reduce the number of attacks each suffers per round).

At 15th level the PCs in my 4e game defeated about 160 hobgoblins, arranged in 4 phalanxes, plus 40 other "rabble" in a looser formation; although in the course of the fight (which also included an angel of battle sent by Bane) they did suffer a PC death.

That victory was possible because of the way I statted the creatures: each phalanx was a 17th level gargantuan swarm; the rabble were statted as minions. Given the trajectory of the campaign to that point that seemed the right way to go; the players certainly didn't think there was anything absurd about their mid-paragon tier heroes being able to do this.

The PCs didn't have to fight the hobgoblins, of course. They could have tried to bargain with them. Or to trick them (which is how they got past them the first time, to get into the temple they were raiding, before then fighting them on their way back out).

Generally I would only confront the PCs (and thus their players) with a combat threat, like a hobgoblin army, that they have no prospect of defeating, as a consequence of failure. Eg if the PCs decide to try and bluff the hogbolins, and fail, then maybe sufficiently many hobgoblins become visible around the corner of the ravine that the PCs realise they have no choice but to retreat. (Again, more on this below.)

Because the band of orcs in question.....why can they not be a band of level 10 fighters paired with a couple of level 10 clerics of Gruumsh? In your example, the CHARACTERS are gauging their chance on victory based on what the PLAYERS know from the Monster Manual. I generally don't like that approach.

Now, this is not to say that I don't expect them to make such decisions....the players know what level they are and how skilled, and they decide things based on that, and on their past experiences with orcs or with other monsters. If they see a group of 20 orcs, I'd expect them to assume they could take them. I just don't want that to get out of hand, and I like to keep the possibility that they make a mistake in such situations. I've found that serves my purpose well....where my players view the fictional world more in line with how I think their characters would.

I guess I don't really have a strong handle on what "get out of hand" means.

Generally I don't like metagame uncertainy - eg the players know their PCs can see orcs, but wonder whether or not they are MM orcs or something tougher the GM has served up. I think it tends to increase the GM's control over the way events and unfolds and makes it harder for the player to make decisions.

I prefer uncertainty to be statistical/mechanical uncertainty (eg following a successful knowledge check I give the players a runddown of the monsters abilities and they say "Uh oh, I think we might be toast now!") or dramatic/fictional uncertainty (eg the PCs, and hence players, have reason to think there is a group of powerful Disciples of Gruumsh in the vicinity, and so when they see these 4 orcs they wonder whether they are those Disciples).

If the trajectory of the game gave no reason to think that powerful orcish clerics would be around and doing things, I woudln't see any point in using them.

No, the mechanics don't determine the world. They determine outcomes of actions in doubt within the world. The world (the cliff face and the PC at the bottom) determine the mechanics (a climb check to determine success), not the other way around.

But the mechanics tell you whether or not it is climable, don't they?

Eg the GM sets the DC for climbing the cliff at 20. Let's say the 12 level rogue has a +9 bonus (+8 from expertise, +1 from STR). Suppse he d20 rolls a 1 to 10, and hence is treated as a 10, and so the total is 19. The rogue fails to climb the cliff (let's say the GM is intepreting failure, in this case, as "no progress" rather than "progress with a setback). Isn't that one way we learn whether or not the cliff has sufficient handholds for this rogue to be able to climb it?

This is similar to Gygax's example of narrating saving throws in his DMG: if the fighter is chained to a rock and breathed on by a dragon, a successful save might indicate that there was a crevice in the rock in which the fighter was able to hide.

Another example would be a failed check to jump a long distance being explained as a sudden gust of wind, or an unnoticed piece of soft ground at the point of take-off which causes the take-off to be poor.

I find that if success and failure are never attributed to hitherto unspecified elements of the gameworld, and instead are always attributed to the effort/capabilities of the PC, then (i) the gameworld becomes very austere (eg it has no crevices in the rocks to which PCs are chained), and (ii) the performance of the PCs varies far more from circumstance to circumstance than I personally find plausible.

I have a question for you: how do you determine if the outcome of an action is in doubt? How do you decide that the character needs to roll to climb that cliff or if he just succeeds and no roll is needed? Do you decide this based on the fiction, or on the mechanics?

Most of the time I decide based on pacing/drama, as per Vincent Baker and Luke Crane's motto "Say 'yes' or roll the dice" - that is, assuming the action is genre-appropriate, then if nothing is at stake in the situation the GM says 'yes', the PC (and player) gets what s/he wants, and events continue.

But if there is something at stake, then I set a DC and the dice are rolled. Setting DCs depends on the system: in 4e, there is a table of level-appropriate DCs, so first one sets the DC and then one supplies the narration that establishes the in-fiction logic of that DC; in Marvel Heroic RP the DC is always an opposed check, either aginst an opposing character or (if no character is acting) against a roll of the GM's "Doom Pool"; in Burning Wheel, DCs are set "objectively" ie based on the objective difficulty of the situation in the gameworld. These different ways of setting DCs produce different dynamics of play: 4e is the most gonzo, because PCs if the action is genre appropriate at all then PCs always have a chance; MHRP has complex (and quite hard to manage, I find) escalation, because the Doom Pool tends to grow over the course of the scenario; BW is the most gritty, because quite often PCs want to do stuff that is objectively hard, and hence it produces the most failures - as a resut it has a far more subtle and extensive suite of advice and techniques for GMs to determine the consequences of failure (if PCs are going to fail a lot of the time, one needs ways of implementing that failure which keep things moving, rather than stall with a TPK or an impassable door or whatever).

I also use a "no retries" rule (what Luke Crane, in BW, calls "Let it Ride"). Stephen Radley-McFarland published a piece of advice along similar lines for D&D, during the 4e era. So if a PC has tried and failed then there is no doubt - some other approach will have to be identified.

And, developing a point I was making above, I see failure as the best place for the GM to make hard moves against the players. As I mentioned, already, if the PCs fail to successfully bluff the hobgoblins on their way out of the temple, then an unbeatable force is fair game.

Or, suppose that at lower levels - when it's obvious from the logic of the fiction and the genre - that the PCs couldn't take on even a phalanx of hobgoblins, then if the players declare an attempt to scout out the hobgoblin camp, and that goes wrong, that again becomes licence for me as GM to confront them with an unbeatable force - the consequence of their failure is that certain options, like physical force, is ruled out - whereas if the PCs were successful then maybe they can get away with ganking the sleeping hobgoblins one-by-one.

Getting caught in the Death Star's tractor beam, likewise, is something I'd be far more likely to do as an adjudication of failure (in this case, a failed AstroNavigation roll) than just as a hard frame. (Alternatively - mabye the PCs want to sneak abord the Death Star, and so getting sucked in by the tractor beam is one possible narration of a successful check - it is very dependent on context.)

And again, none of what I'm describing is unique to me. It's pretty much the stanard "indie" approach to RPGing, which I personally began to discover for myself around 1986, running Oriental Adventures, and have been using and developing since - over the last 10 or so years with the help of much better thinkers about RPGing than me, like Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker and Luke Crane.


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Separating tactics and environment and isolating just the math of the PCs versus the monsters is probably going to cause issues, no?

<snip>

If changing the environment a bit or varying up the tactics of the enemies and playing them as thinking beings doesn't help people, then oh well. At least I tried to help. It's advice....anyone can take it or leave it.

In some contexts it's probably good advice. But I don't think it exhausts the range of possible discussion, and its salience can depend upon the question being asked or point being made by the other poster.

For instance, if you look at low-level fighters - the designers didn't think that environment and tactical choices were the be-all and end-all of playing a fighter. They also gave the fighter some action economy manipulation (via Action Surge). If you look at the CR2 Bandit Captain, that NPC has some action economy manipulation too (via Parry). And also has 3 attacks per action, which gives it a degree of flexibility relative to the action economy that (say) an ogre lacks.

I don't think there's anything unreasonable in thinking and talking about these mechanical elements of the game. Clearly the designers don't think they're irrelevant or even marginal. They're fairly front and centre.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not determining what role playing is or isn't. I'm using the common definition.

No. You're using your own favoured conception.

In a recent thread on these boards, I set up a pole that contrasted two possible approaches to RPing - narration/characterisation, vs function/capability/action. Which is to say, roughly, your favoured conception compared to my favoured conception. As it currently stands, with 165 votes, more than a third think of roleplaying similarly to me. Fewer than two-thirds think of it similarly to you.

So, as I said, you're not an authority here. If someone thinks that the bandit captain becomes more interesting when we don't just have flavour text talking about what a great fencer s/he is, but also add in a defensive Parry ability, that doesn't show that that player is a boardgamer rather than a roleplayer.

And you still haven't told me why your dragons need spells. Why don't you just add the flavour text "Dragons are sorcerers of might and power"?

(And presumably you think it would be better if fighters didn't have Action Surge. Instead, when rolling their d20s to hit, players of fighters would just say, "This time I'm trying relally hard to win the fight.")

 

[Sacrosanct]

No. You're using your own favoured conception.

In a recent thread on these boards, I set up a pole that contrasted two possible approaches to RPing - narration/characterisation, vs function/capability/action. Which is to say, roughly, your favoured conception compared to my favoured conception. As it currently stands, with 165 votes, more than a third think of roleplaying similarly to me. Fewer than two-thirds think of it similarly to you.

So, as I said, you're not an authority here. If someone thinks that the bandit captain becomes more interesting when we don't just have flavour text talking about what a great fencer s/he is, but also add in a defensive Parry ability, that doesn't show that that player is a boardgamer rather than a roleplayer.

Do you recall that quote I made from NDT earlier? You should go back and read it. Short version: opinion does not equal, nor should be held at the same level, as fact. I don't care how people voted, it's irrelevant because it doesn't change the definition of what role playing is. You can have a million people say they believe X means this, but that doesn't make it so because it's just opinion. Not sure how more clearer I can make it. Although, so far you are showing a strong aptitude for ignoring half the things I say, such as...

And you still haven't told me why your dragons need spells.

Yeah I did, at least twice. And right there in the same post. Because I prefer them to be like 1e. That's the only reason I need. You also seem to think that because I'm adding something new mechanically, that somehow means I'm contradicting myself. Which I'm not. I've never once said that mechanical abilities and/or powers aren't needed/don't impact the encounter. I've said that the actual role-playing aspects (personality, intellect, motivations, environment, etc) all DO have an impact in the combat encounter, contrary to what people are arguing. I.e., just because I'm arguing that the flavor text matters, does not mean I'm arguing that the mechanical bits don't. That's a fallacy assumption on your part.

 

[pemerton]

Do you recall that quote I made from NDT earlier? You should go back and read it. Short version: opinion does not equal, nor should be held at the same level, as fact. I don't care how people voted, it's irrelevant because it doesn't change the definition of what role playing is.

Quotes about the difference between fact and opinion don't actually show that your opinion is fact. You might be wrong. On this occasion, you are wrong in the narrowness of your understanding of what RPGing involves. I don't know what RPGs you're familiar with (other than 5e and AD&D) - but I'm getting the sense that perhaps its not a tremendous range.

In any event, when you're telling 60-odd ENworld posters, out of 165 who repied to that poll, that they don't know what roleplaying is, I think the issue is with you, not them. Mabye you could take it as a sign need to re-visit your understanding of what RPGing might consist in, and what RPG mechanics are for.

I prefer them to be like 1e. That's the only reason I need. You also seem to think that because I'm adding something new mechanically, that somehow means I'm contradicting myself. Which I'm not. I've never once said that mechanical abilities and/or powers aren't needed/don't impact the encounter.

In that case, why do you get so angry at every poster who expresses some dissatisfaction with some mechanical ability, and tell them that they wouldn't have the issue they're having if only they roleplayed better.

After all, you don't seem to think that you wouldn't need to give your dragons spells if only you could roleplay better! So maybe a poster who expresses a preference for the way that 4e did monsters has the same relationship to their preferences as you have to your AD&D-derived preference for draconic sorcery. It doesn't mean that that poster doesn't know how to run an encounter with a monster.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Quotes about the difference between fact and opinion don't actually show that your opinion is fact. You might be wrong. On this occasion, you are wrong in the narrowness of your understanding of what RPGing involves. I don't know what RPGs you're familiar with (other than 5e and AD&D) - but I'm getting the sense that perhaps its not a tremendous range.

Again, I'm not using my opinion. I'm using the actual definitions. A game like Wrath of A is a boardgame, not an RPG. That's how it's classified. Your opinion or my opinion doesn't matter. What differentiates that boardgame from an RPG like D&D? Go ahead, I'd like to see your list.

My argument is that if someone ignores and/or doesn't play with any of those things that differentiates a TTRPG from a boardgame, then they are playing a boardgame. Because that's what's happening by the definition. Sorry, but you don't get to change how things are defined because you feel insulted by people pointing out facts to you. For the life of me, I have no idea why you think a boardgame is worse than a TTRPG, or not a "legit" or whatever because you assume someone pointing that out is a pejorative. I like boardgames. I like RPGs. Neither is better or gives more geek cred than the other. They're just different. So if someone take an RPG and removes the role-playing elements (effectively turning that into a boardgame), pointing out that they are playing a boardgame is not an insult in any way unless that person somehow thinks boardgames are inherently worse than TTRPGs.

In any event, when you're telling 60-odd ENworld posters, out of 165 who repied to that poll, that they don't know what roleplaying is, I think the issue is with you, not them. Mabye you could take it as a sign need to re-visit your understanding of what RPGing might consist in, and what RPG mechanics are for.

Again, that's completely irrelevant. This is not a subjective topic. What defines an RPG is objective. It has clear elements to it. It doesn't matter what people think. Lots of people think the earth is flat, that doesn't mean we should go around and accept their opinions, and it doesn't mean we insult them when we say that the earth is in fact round.

In that case, why do you get so angry at every poster who expresses some dissatisfaction with some mechanical ability, and tell them that they wouldn't have the issue they're having if only they roleplayed better.

I don't get angry just because someone is dissatisfied with a mechanical ability. I'm dissatisfied with several mechanical functions. However, if someone describes having a problem while ignoring the things that address that problem, then you're right I will point that out. Because that's not a game issue, that's a player issue choosing to create the problem for themselves.

After all, you don't seem to think that you wouldn't need to give your dragons spells if only you could roleplay better!

What? This makes no sense, and I never said anything remotely close to this.

So maybe a poster who expresses a preference for the way that 4e did monsters has the same relationship to their preferences as you have to your AD&D-derived preference for draconic sorcery. It doesn't mean that that poster doesn't know how to run an encounter with a monster.

Again, show me one quote where I said people don't know how to do it. I'm still waiting for you to provide the other quotes you accused me of. Saying "you don't know how to do this" and "you're choosing to ignore this part that addresses your issue" are two completely different things. I've never said the former.

So I'm going to ask you one last time. Stop constantly creating strawmen and refer to what I actually said.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I trimmed down your post for the sake of clarity and space.

That seems to be the approach I called out as (1) - the MacGuffin approach - even down to the mechanics not being very important.

Sure, it is. However, I don't think that the approach has the negative connotation that you seem to be implying. I don't really see any limitation in the players' choice due to the "MacGuffin". I also don't really see it as a MacGuffin so much as a bit of lore relevant to the game, but that's a rather semantic matter.

If I wanted to use an epic level threat (eg Demogorgon) in a Heroic tier encounter, it would be a relatively hard scene frame, and I wouldn't pretend anything otherwise to the players. But I would also be very cautious about this, becaus the risk of railroading is (in my view) extreme - because the capacity of the players to take charge of and direct that fictional situation, when their mechanical resources are so slight compared to the resource I as GM have in virtue of Demogorgon being on the table.

Well th example I gave is straight out of the published adventure "Out of the Abyss". I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but there is an encounter with Demogorgon early in the adventure. The PCs are of course free to react however they like, but the expectation (and rightly so) is that they get out of dodge before Demogorgon notices them.

A related reason that I would be very cautious in this sort of situation is that, if I want the players to engage the situation via their PCs, I need to signal in some way what is at stake for them (eg if they insult Demogorgon, or in any way oppose him, is he going to just blast them into smithereens with his gaze?). And if what is at stake is TPK, and if I frame things as Demogorgon making some demand of the PCs, then (in effect) I as GM am telling the players what they have to do with their PCs. Which I prefer not to do.

Well, no, it need not be a TPK at stake. If the PCs foolishly attack Demogorgon, it can simply be narrated that the last thing they see is a giant tentacle crashing down on them, and then they wake up along the shore of the lake a little further down from the town, which is burning from the demon's rampage.

The adventure makes it very clear that you should describe things to encourage the PCs to flee. Just because there is a clearly superior choice to be made does not mean that the players' choice has been removed. They can go right ahead and make the stupid choice if they like. And they need not be punished severely for their failure.

Presumably a horde contains a countable number of enemies, even if the PCs haven't actually counted them. And if one 12th level fighter can take on 20 with a real prospect of success, then maybe five of those characters could take on 100 (or more - by fighting back-to-back they might reduce the number of attacks each suffers per round).

At 15th level the PCs in my 4e game defeated about 160 hobgoblins, arranged in 4 phalanxes, plus 40 other "rabble" in a looser formation; although in the course of the fight (which also included an angel of battle sent by Bane) they did suffer a PC death.

That victory was possible because of the way I statted the creatures: each phalanx was a 17th level gargantuan swarm; the rabble were statted as minions. Given the trajectory of the campaign to that point that seemed the right way to go; the players certainly didn't think there was anything absurd about their mid-paragon tier heroes being able to do this.

The PCs didn't have to fight the hobgoblins, of course. They could have tried to bargain with them. Or to trick them (which is how they got past them the first time, to get into the temple they were raiding, before then fighting them on their way back out).

Generally I would only confront the PCs (and thus their players) with a combat threat, like a hobgoblin army, that they have no prospect of defeating, as a consequence of failure. Eg if the PCs decide to try and bluff the hogbolins, and fail, then maybe sufficiently many hobgoblins become visible around the corner of the ravine that the PCs realise they have no choice but to retreat. (Again, more on this below.)

In the original discussion, the amount of creatures varied as each person involved tried to make their point, of course. My comments were made with the idea that a horde consisted of hundreds or thousands of individuals.

Your 160 member horde is at the outer edge of what I think is feasible. I think that for truly high level characters, I'd be more inclined to roll it out and see what happened. Your example used 4E terms and expectations, so perhaps I'm wrong, but I'd equate 15th level in 4E with 10th level in 5E. To me, that's still within the realm of mortal hero that I don't want defeating armies.

I despised the codified tiers of 4E. I want to decide what scope my players will have in the world at any given level. So this is total opinion, and I think we just view things differently.

I guess I don't really have a strong handle on what "get out of hand" means.

The horde. 5 PCs attacking and killing a horde of orcs....meaning hundreds of enemies. To me, that is out of hand. It involves the players making the decision to attack based on the mechanics of the game more than the characters making the decision based on the world in whcih they exist.

Your example where your PCs defeated 160 hobgoblins pushes things a bit for me. I by no means am saying it is wrong, just that I wouldn't do that in my game. I would expect the PCs to have to engage such a large number of enemies in a different way than simply a straightforward conflict. The fact that 4E had a mechanical means for you to make the encounter more manageable by clumping the enemies into swarms is cool for those who would like to do that. But just because it can be done mechanically doesn't mean I want to do it.

But this is now more about differing themes or play styles, which is a bit different from the original discussion about tactics and environment as tools to help make monsters more effective.

Generally I don't like metagame uncertainy - eg the players know their PCs can see orcs, but wonder whether or not they are MM orcs or something tougher the GM has served up. I think it tends to increase the GM's control over the way events and unfolds and makes it harder for the player to make decisions.

I agree that it gives the DM a bit more control over the game, yes. As for the decisions being harder for the players.....on one hand, that is exactly what I am going for. That does not mean that I am asking them to make these decision in a vacuum. I give them information and they make the decision accordingly. My goal is that they decide based on that information more so than on what they as players know of monster stats and other game mechanics. But I do not expect such meta-knowledge to be removed entirely, just that it be secondary.

Now, the fact that their decision is harder does not inhibit play in any way, so if that is your concern, then I would disagree.

I prefer uncertainty to be statistical/mechanical uncertainty (eg following a successful knowledge check I give the players a runddown of the monsters abilities and they say "Uh oh, I think we might be toast now!") or dramatic/fictional uncertainty (eg the PCs, and hence players, have reason to think there is a group of powerful Disciples of Gruumsh in the vicinity, and so when they see these 4 orcs they wonder whether they are those Disciples).

If the trajectory of the game gave no reason to think that powerful orcish clerics would be around and doing things, I woudln't see any point in using them.

Yes. I would hint in some way at the existence of a powerful group of orcs, or what have you. What you are describing in this sense is the exact kind of thing I try to achieve....the fiction shaping things.

But the mechanics tell you whether or not it is climable, don't they?

No. Essentially, the DM determines a DC for the check. That right there is the DM deciding by fiat how likely or unlikely a task is. The DM may take several factors into consideration....weather, the surface of the cliff, time pressure, etc.....all of which are fictional elements. The fiction determines the DC, which then determines the likelihood of teh cliff being climbed.

Eg the GM sets the DC for climbing the cliff at 20. Let's say the 12 level rogue has a +9 bonus (+8 from expertise, +1 from STR). Suppse he d20 rolls a 1 to 10, and hence is treated as a 10, and so the total is 19. The rogue fails to climb the cliff (let's say the GM is intepreting failure, in this case, as "no progress" rather than "progress with a setback). Isn't that one way we learn whether or not the cliff has sufficient handholds for this rogue to be able to climb it?

You could choose to frame it that way, certainly. You could also just say that despite the presence of handholds, the PC is unable to position himself to best use them. Or that the sea spray from teh nearby ocean has made the rocks slippery....or any other reason that is present.

It's a matter of preference how you describe the outcome of a skill check. This doesn't change that the initial DC is determined by the DM.

But if there is something at stake, then I set a DC and the dice are rolled.

Do you determine such a DC in some way other than how I described above?

Getting caught in the Death Star's tractor beam, likewise, is something I'd be far more likely to do as an adjudication of failure (in this case, a failed AstroNavigation roll) than just as a hard frame. (Alternatively - mabye the PCs want to sneak abord the Death Star, and so getting sucked in by the tractor beam is one possible narration of a successful check - it is very dependent on context.)

Yes, this is why I said I would probably wait and see what the players did before having the tractor beam come into play.

In some contexts it's probably good advice. But I don't think it exhausts the range of possible discussion, and its salience can depend upon the question being asked or point being made by the other poster.

I didn't ever say it exhausted the range of possible discussion, nor was it the only option I offered. The original discussion was about a scenario where a group of high CR monsters were soundly defeated by a group of PCs that were low for the threat level the monsters posed. The discussion was about how to address this. Considering the description of the encounter, it seemed that terrain perfectly favored the PCs, and that the supposedly intelligent and formidable villains waltzed into range for the PCs to utterly destroy them before they themselves could use any of their rather potent abilities. Many posters offered ideas about how to change the monsters' stat blocks in order to make them more effective. I said yes, you can do that, but my first step would be to mitigate this through encounter design and NPC behavior.

I don't even see how anyone could disagree that terrain and tactics should perhaps be considered in such a case as a first step. You could have given the villains a nuke and it wouldn't have mattered....they were barely able to act. I'd even go so far as to say that in that specific example, if any other outcome was desired, then environment and tactics MUST be the first step.

So it's hard to see how my advice was not sound. But again, this was in another thread and another discussion....here, this seems a bit off topic and that the discussion is a bit different.

For instance, if you look at low-level fighters - the designers didn't think that environment and tactical choices were the be-all and end-all of playing a fighter. They also gave the fighter some action economy manipulation (via Action Surge). If you look at the CR2 Bandit Captain, that NPC has some action economy manipulation too (via Parry). And also has 3 attacks per action, which gives it a degree of flexibility relative to the action economy that (say) an ogre lacks.

I don't think there's anything unreasonable in thinking and talking about these mechanical elements of the game. Clearly the designers don't think they're irrelevant or even marginal. They're fairly front and centre.

My view is not a binary one, as you seem to think. I don't think that mechanical elements or considerations should be abandoned. Nor should narrative elements or tactical and environmental elements. My view is that the mechanics are there to simulate the fiction. They serve the fiction. My fiction does not serve the mechanics. Hence, when mechanics take too strong of a role in the game, I consider it a case of the tail wagging the dog.

However, I think the lines between two topics are blurring. Mechanics versus narration in how I prefer my game to be presented to players and for them to make decisions for their PCs, and the other discussion of monster abilities and tactics/environment and how each impacts monster efficacy.