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

[Tony Vargas]

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.

Nod. In a story, an item of X that does X, when the story needs X to be done in order to progress to a satisfying conclusion, the item is a McGuffin. In a setting with no story assumed, an item that does X is just a thing that exists in the setting (and information about it 'a bit of lore'). It's up to the players to grab the item and start doing X until they've told a story. Often along the lines of "how I got rich" or "how I got us all killed" by doing X a whole lot in new and and creative ways.

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 think folks are too quick to slam the 'codified' label on 4e like it's a bad thing. Yes, 4e had solid, clear rules that worked, and experience progression through 3 conceptual 'Tiers' was part of that. But, the scope of the Tiers themselves, like all those little italic power descriptions, was ultimately mutable. In fact, it seemed pretty hard for many DMs, or even WotC, itself, to stick to the Tiers' stated fluff. Neverwinter stuffing epic/paragon themes into an arc that only spanned Heroic levels is the instance Pemerton brought up. Another would be Dark Legacy of Evard.

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.

Really depends on the world. (Well, and the relation of mechanics to the world.) In some fantasy genres/worlds a small band of heroes taking on hundreds of enemies would be fine, in others, it'd be an heroic last stand. How well a system lends itself to doing either of those is something it might be judged by.

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.

5e hasn't thrown out the swarm mechanic, either (and 3.x originated it, AFAIK).

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.

Well, 5e is meant to be simpler.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Nod. In a story, an item of X that does X, when the story needs X to be done in order to progress to a satisfying conclusion, the item is a McGuffin. In a setting with no story assumed, an item that does X is just a thing that exists in the setting (and information about it 'a bit of lore'). It's up to the players to grab the item and start doing X until they've told a story. Often along the lines of "how I got rich" or "how I got us all killed" by doing X a whole lot in new and and creative ways.

I don't know....I think our definition may vary. Which is why I mentioned it as possibly being a matter of semantics. But the way I look at it, is that the flaw in the Death Star is a plot device. What's in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction or Ronin is a Macguffin. What is in the suitcase ultimately does not matter other than that we know people want it. The flaw in teh Death Star certainly matters to the plot as being something specific.

But again, I don't know if the distinction is really all that important so much as it is just preference.

I think folks are too quick to slam the 'codified' label on 4e like it's a bad thing. Yes, 4e had solid, clear rules that worked, and experience progression through 3 conceptual 'Tiers' was part of that. But, the scope of the Tiers themselves, like all those little italic power descriptions, was ultimately mutable. In fact, it seemed pretty hard for many DMs, or even WotC, itself, to stick to the Tiers' stated fluff. Neverwinter stuffing epic/paragon themes into an arc that only spanned Heroic levels is the instance Pemerton brought up. Another would be Dark Legacy of Evard.

Perhaps. In this instance, I am indeed slamming it. I don't like the tiers. Perhaps they did not enforce that structure with later products, but I don't like the idea that everyone's game is meant to be at X point or dealing with matters along the lines of Y at set levels. Each game can and should vary.

Really depends on the world. (Well, and the relation of mechanics to the world.) In some fantasy genres/worlds a small band of heroes taking on hundreds of enemies would be fine, in others, it'd be an heroic last stand. How well a system lends itself to doing either of those is something it might be judged by.

Sure, it absolutely depends on the world. I think the mechanics lend themselves to supporting the world you want is a big factor. To me, they are mutable enough to support something like The Iliad or something like Wheel of Time or something like the Gentlemen Bastards or anything in between. This is part of why I view the mechanics as being there to support the fiction.

5e hasn't thrown out the swarm mechanic, either (and 3.x originated it, AFAIK).

Has it? I really am not sure. I may have used a swarm, but if so, my guess is that it would have been of many small creatures. I don't tend to think of a battalion of soldiers as a swarm. I don't think 5E intends that either...but I could be wrong. And even if I'm not, there's certainly nothing wrong with someone playing that way.

Well, 5e is meant to be simpler.

Sure. But I doubt that anyone complaining about the simplicity would use the simplicity to support their argument.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know....I think our definition may vary. Which is why I mentioned it as possibly being a matter of semantics. But again, I don't know if the distinction is really all that important so much as it is just preference.

Nod, I was going for an example of a semantic distinction.

I don't like the tiers. Perhaps they did not enforce that structure with later products, but I don't like the idea that everyone's game is meant to be at X point or dealing with matters along the lines of Y at set levels. Each game can and should vary.

And each game could and did. It's not that scope-by-Tier wasn't enforced in later products, it's that it was never established as a hard-coded thing in the first place. Could be (and has been) seen as a flaw, even - talking the Tier talk, but not backing it up with mechanics.
Same could be said of 5e Tiers.

Sure, it absolutely depends on the world. I think the mechanics lend themselves to supporting the world you want is a big factor.... This is part of why I view the mechanics as being there to support the fiction.

The difficulty I see with that way of looking at it is that the mechanics exist in the book, while the DM decides on the fiction he wants later. The DM can be selective with or change the mechanics, of course...

Has it? I really am not sure. I may have used a swarm, but if so, my guess is that it would have been of many small creatures.

5e has swarms, yes. The only one's I've used (I've yet to run 5e at what I'd consider a high level) have been swarms of tiny critters, but the mechanic is still there if one wants to use much larger swarms of larger individuals.

 

[pemerton]

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.

<snip>

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.

I would not run this adventure as you describe it. It is far too railroad-y for my taste. Given the reasons that I engage in RPGing (primarily, to see how the players respond, via their PCs, to the situations into which I as GM frame them), I would have no reason to frame the PCs into a situation where I already know what I want them to do with their PCs and am encouraging them to do that. It would be self-defeating.

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.

I assume that you are talking here about your game? Or some ideal game?

I mean, in my game the players made a decision to fight the hogboblgins based on the imagined world of the game.

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.

<snip>

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

I thought I explained this in my post to which you replied.

At present I am GMing 4 campaigns across 3 systems. In 4e I set DCs using the DC-by-level chart. In Marvel Heroic RP every check is opposed, either by an opposing character or by a roll of the GM's "doom pool". In Burning Wheel I set DCs on an "objective" basis - there are long lists of DCs for various tasks, which are intended to correlate the "realistic" degree of difficulty with the mechanical expression of capabilities in the game. Because of its different approach to setting DCs BW is far more "gritty" than the other two systems, and produces far more failure - hence a lot of the GM advice and guidelines in that system are about adjudicating failure in a way that keeps things moving on a trajectory that engages the concerns of the players. (This is sometimes called "fail forward". I use that in my 4e game also, but it is less essential because 4e involves a lot less PC failure.)

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

The latter would be the mechanics determining the fiction, wouldn't it? As in, you only know the sea spray made the rocks slippery because the check fails. You didn't narrate that slipperiness prior to the check being made and use it to adjust the DC.

My view is that the mechanics are there to simulate the fiction. They serve the fiction. My fiction does not serve the mechanics.

I'm not really sure what this means. That is, I'm not sure what it means for "the fiction serves the mechanics". I don't know what that would look like. As far as I've experienced, everyone who plays RPGs uses the mechanics to establish, in some fashion or other, the content of the shared fiction.

A game like Wrath of A is a boardgame, not an RPG.

<snip>

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.

But none of the people you are arguing with in this thread are ignoring or not playing with any of the things that differentiate a RPG from a board game.

They just don't share you approach to what the relevant category of things is.

For instance: in post 104, you said "People have described their gameplay more akin to a boardgame, where all the flavor text and lore about the monster is ignored". Paying attention to monster lore and flavour text is not, in my view, very relevant to distinguishing a RPG from a board game. I've played Traveller, for instance, with random animal encounters on random planets. Those animals have no flavour text or lore other than bare ecological description. What makes it a RPG and not a board game is the relationship between the shared fiction and resolution - namely, in RPGing the shared fiction actually matters to resolution. (Here's a discussion by Vincent Baker.)

Let's add to that: the chief function of the mechanics, in a RPG, is to regulate the participants' contributions to the shared fiction.

Then let's relate that to monster mechanics: if the participants in the game (i) think it would be interesting for the game to have (say) a hill giant who can knock enemies prone when it hits them with its club; and (ii) think that they would rather have this be regulated by the mechanics rather than just something the GM gets to make up (eg because they think the latter wouldn't necessarily be fair to the players); then (iii) they might prefer monster design that gives the hill giant that mechanical capability.

This desire, by these imagined RPGers, could arise whether, in their game, the rulebook entry for hill giants had 1000 words or prose, or 10. And it won't be solved by paying more attention to those words of prose, be they few or many. "Monster lore and flavour text" is completely irrelevant to it. It's an issue about whether or not the mechanics of the game support the creation of the fiction they want in the fashion that they want.

And it has nothing to do with board gaming.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But none of the people you are arguing with in this thread are ignoring or not playing with any of the things that differentiate a RPG from a board game.

Yes they are, in that same post you just referenced

For instance: in post 104, you said "People have described their gameplay more akin to a boardgame, where all the flavor text and lore about the monster is ignored"..

How about looking at the whole statement, rather than cherry pick half of a sentence.

It wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be an observation of what's actually happening. We've had TONS of arguments over the years (most recently a thread here from a week or so ago that I'm aware of) where people either outright say, or heavily infer, that unless an ability is in the statblock, then that monster can't do anything else. People have described their gameplay more akin to a boardgame, where all the flavor text and lore about the monster is ignored (as well as attributes unless it involves a save somewhere) because of statements like "monster X is boring because they don't do anything but attack." INT and WIS scores are there for more than just saves. They tell you the intellectual capacity of said monster, which tells you how they would react in the game world. All that flavor text is just as important.

So clearly, as I had also stated several times later on, I'm talking about if a player plays the monsters and NPCs just like pieces on a game board with no additional features than what a boardgame has, then they are playing a boardgame at that point. Which they are. By the definition of how we classify boardgames vs RPGs. So if someone runs their monsters only doing actions that are described as a power in a statblock and doesn't do anything else (prior planning, using motivations to determine choices, interacting with an environment, etc etc--all things that differentiate from a boardgame), then what's the difference between that and Wrath of Asherlon?

 

[powerfamiliar]

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.

I don't thinking this situation the GM is giving the players a choice. There is no way for the player choice to affect the fiction in a meaningful way. As a GM I think situations like this aren't necessarily wrong to use, but you might as well just tell your players. We're playing together and, as GM, I'd rather be upfront about situations that the players can't affect the fiction, and hope my players trust me that it's there for a good reason. I might say "you see Demogorgon, you can't win this fight".

I feel similar about the band of orcs situation. As a GM I have to set up the world expectations for my players. if 10 level PCs are supposed to be significantly more powerful than the populations at large I would not have a roving band of very powerful orcs roaming around the land to be encounters without some foreshadowing. If I describe "orcs", and nothing in my game world should make the players think anything other that "normal orc", I want them to be normal orcs. This makes any decisions the players make regarding them feel like true choices. I feel the more hidden information I have as a GM, the less meaningful my player choices are.

 

[Imaro]

I don't thinking this situation the GM is giving the players a choice. There is no way for the player choice to affect the fiction in a meaningful way. As a GM I think situations like this aren't necessarily wrong to use, but you might as well just tell your players. We're playing together and, as GM, I'd rather be upfront about situations that the players can't affect the fiction, and hope my players trust me that it's there for a good reason. I might say "you see Demogorgon, you can't win this fight".

I feel similar about the band of orcs situation. As a GM I have to set up the world expectations for my players. if 10 level PCs are supposed to be significantly more powerful than the populations at large I would not have a roving band of very powerful orcs roaming around the land to be encounters without some foreshadowing. If I describe "orcs", and nothing in my game world should make the players think anything other that "normal orc", I want them to be normal orcs. This makes any decisions the players make regarding them feel like true choices. I feel the more hidden information I have as a GM, the less meaningful my player choices are.

I'm curious... at what point do you think it's incumbent upon the players to either...

a. Recognize a threat is too much for them... I mean it's a Demon Lord and they are first level is this really "hidden"? Also is choosing certain death affecting the fiction in a meaningful way?
b. Do research and/or gather knowledge on their opponents. In the orc example, do they hear rumors around the feats of said orcs... do they scout out the band... have they seen the devastation they are capable of... heard of the opponents they have defeated?

I'm asking because for me I like having hidden information in my games... as long as there is a way for the players through their characters actions to acquire it. I'm not a big fan of telling the players straight out that they can't beat something, try something, do something, etc. because my players have surprised me before in pulling things off. I also feel that hidden information (again when it is attainable) adds a level of verisimilitude to my campaigns and the investigation and discovery of it by my players helps to draw them into the world more.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm asking because for me I like having hidden information in my games... as long as there is a way for the players through their characters actions to acquire it. I'm not a big fan of telling the players straight out that they can't beat something, try something, do something, etc. because my players have surprised me before in pulling things off. I also feel that hidden information (again when it is attainable) adds a level of verisimilitude to my campaigns and the investigation and discovery of it by my players helps to draw them into the world more.

I admit I have a very hard time grasping the argument that allowing players to make an evaluation and choose whatever they do is actually removing player choice. That seems.....opposite to me, and in fact what removes player choice is telling them flat out what something is or what they should expect. I.e., it seems the "choice" is an illusion. It's not a real choice at all because there's no real decision making evaluation going on. It's just following a desired narrative. If you tell someone straight up that they can't win or succeed at something if it's not already obvious in the game, how is that a choice? Most people won't bother to attempt it if you tell them that. For me, player choice is allowing the players to evaluate and decide what they will do based on information that their PCs would reasonably have in the game. Because then that's them choosing, and not me pushing one direction or the other (which removes choice).

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would not run this adventure as you describe it. It is far too railroad-y for my taste. Given the reasons that I engage in RPGing (primarily, to see how the players respond, via their PCs, to the situations into which I as GM frame them), I would have no reason to frame the PCs into a situation where I already know what I want them to do with their PCs and am encouraging them to do that. It would be self-defeating.

That's fine. I don't really see it as a railroad. They are free to choose how they want to react. Because there is a more optimal choice does not mean there is no choice. The DM is free to adjudicate the results of any other choice as needed.

And just because one moment of an adventure presents such an instance does not make the adventure a railroad. Barring some kind of mythical true open sandbox type of game, there are always going to be such moments. If I understand you correctly, you would simply "cut scene" such moments rather than treat them as an instance of player choice. That's fine....I just prefer to do it the other way.

I assume that you are talking here about your game? Or some ideal game?

I mean, in my game the players made a decision to fight the hogboblgins based on the imagined world of the game.

Yes. I am always talking about my game. Hence why I said "To me, this is out of hand". I am not telling you that your decision to have your PCs face a large force of enemies and win is wrong, jut that I prefer not to have such things happen in my game due to the tone we are going for, which is more akin to something like Game of Thrones or the First Law Trilogy or the Black Company.

I want my PCs to be heroes that are capable of great things....but I don't want them to be so far above the norm that they can slay enemies by the dozens.

This is an example where the tone of the game, the fiction I am going for, trumps the mechanics that may say such a feat is possible.

In 4e I set DCs using the DC-by-level chart.

I limited this to your 4E because I am not concerned with other games and how they are done. As I've said before, my knowledge of 4E is limited, and has become fuzzy now that I haven't played it in about 6 or 7 years.....the chart you are referencing: does it simply say "this is an appropriate DC for a PC of level X"? Or does the DM have to consider environmental factors from within the game world? The way you've described it makes it sound like any level PC is going to see climbing a cliff as equally difficult, no? DC by level seems odd to me.

The latter would be the mechanics determining the fiction, wouldn't it? As in, you only know the sea spray made the rocks slippery because the check fails. You didn't narrate that slipperiness prior to the check being made and use it to adjust the DC.

Not really. Personally, I'd factor all those kinds of things into the DC which is set prior to the roll. Then based on the results of the roll, I'd let the player know what happened. Mechanically, they failed. In the fiction, they slipped due to the sea spray and couldn't progress.

To me, it's front loaded into the DC calculation.

I'm not really sure what this means. That is, I'm not sure what it means for "the fiction serves the mechanics". I don't know what that would look like. As far as I've experienced, everyone who plays RPGs uses the mechanics to establish, in some fashion or other, the content of the shared fiction.

This means that I prefer for teh fiction to matter more than the mechanics. Like in the example above, I don't care if the game mechanics would allow a group of 5 level 10 PCs to defeat 300 orcs. In such a case, the "reality" of the fictional world we are creating is more important to me than the mechanics, and I would have the PCs fail.

However, I don't think that this would be necessary because my players would likely never try to accomplish that.

I don't thinking this situation the GM is giving the players a choice. There is no way for the player choice to affect the fiction in a meaningful way. As a GM I think situations like this aren't necessarily wrong to use, but you might as well just tell your players. We're playing together and, as GM, I'd rather be upfront about situations that the players can't affect the fiction, and hope my players trust me that it's there for a good reason. I might say "you see Demogorgon, you can't win this fight".

Sure there is. They could charge Demogorgon and die, which would end the fiction. Or the DM could determine that Demogorgon simply smashes them with his tentacle and leaves them for dead because he is not in any way concerned about them. Perhaps this opens up an opportunity for the PCs to interact with other survivors of the demon's attack. If they had fled, they may not have met the survivors.

I don't really see the need to stop the game and then describe the scene like a video game cut scene and then resume at some point. I don't see how that preserves player choice any more than the alternative.

I feel similar about the band of orcs situation. As a GM I have to set up the world expectations for my players. if 10 level PCs are supposed to be significantly more powerful than the populations at large I would not have a roving band of very powerful orcs roaming around the land to be encounters without some foreshadowing. If I describe "orcs", and nothing in my game world should make the players think anything other that "normal orc", I want them to be normal orcs. This makes any decisions the players make regarding them feel like true choices. I feel the more hidden information I have as a GM, the less meaningful my player choices are.

I would absolutely put some amount of foreshadowing into the game to give the PCs some info so that they can make an informed decision. But I have no problem with their being hidden information as long as I allow a chance for the players to discover it. To run with the example, I'd probably have rumors of a dangerous band of orcs and describe some of their exploits, and I've have a survivor of one of their attacks describe them; I'd maybe have a formidable seeming group of elven hunters meet the PCs while they are out searching for the orcs...I'd have hte elves behave very haughty and stress how they consider the orcs a very minor threat. Then when those elves are found dead or when one survivor returns to town, it will be clear to the PCs that the threat is significant, and these are no ordinary orcs.

There are any number of ways I would foreshadow something like this. If the PCs do or don't follow up on the info....if the don't heed the warnings...then that is their choice.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I admit I have a very hard time grasping the argument that allowing players to make an evaluation and choose whatever they do is actually removing player choice. That seems.....opposite to me, and in fact what removes player choice is telling them flat out what something is or what they should expect. I.e., it seems the "choice" is an illusion. It's not a real choice at all because there's no real decision making evaluation going on. It's just following a desired narrative. If you tell someone straight up that they can't win or succeed at something if it's not already obvious in the game, how is that a choice? Most people won't bother to attempt it if you tell them that. For me, player choice is allowing the players to evaluate and decide what they will do based on information that their PCs would reasonably have in the game. Because then that's them choosing, and not me pushing one direction or the other (which removes choice).

I want to clarify my comments, because I largely agree with you.

In the situation where my PCs run into 300 orcs, I will do everything in my description to make it clear that they cannot win. If they ignored all of that and charged anyway, I wouldn't say that they cannot do so.....but in this case, I don't know if I'd roll the battle out. It would be such a long and arduous encounter that I don't think it would be worth it to spend the time on that.

However, I've never actually had to do this in a game. Anytime the players have run up against a huge force like that, they've known it was not a winnable fight straight on, and they've used other tactics.