there's a desire for a semblance of what has been called
Gygaxian naturalism, for instance, which would suggest that there's a Great Chain of Monster Being but that a given monster's toughness (abstractly represented as it may be) exists separate from the PCs.
The toughness of a 4e ogre exists "independently of the PCs". I even described it arleady - it's quite a bit tougher than a town guard (or a goblin or even a gnoll) but quite a bit less tough than Sir Lancelot (or a giant or a vrock demon).
I'm pretty familiar with the
Gygaxian Naturalism blog. Here's what seems to be the salient passage:
to go beyond describing monsters purely as opponents/obstacles for the player characters by giving game mechanics that serve little purpose other than to ground those monsters in the campaign world.
This naturalism can take many forms. For example, OD&D often tells us that for every X number of monster Y, there's a chance that monster Z might also be found in their lair. In the case of the djinn and efreet, as another example, we find that they both can create nourishing food and potable beverages, as well as many other kinds of materials through the use of their innate powers. In AD&D, these sorts of things get expanded upon greatly, with the Monster Manual telling us how many females and children can be found in a monster lair and giving many creatures powers and abilities that don't serve a specifically combat-oriented purpose, such as a pixie's ability to know alignment, for instance.
Gygaxian naturalism - at least as stated - isn't a doctrine about how hit points or HD are assigned. It's a doctrine about the assignment of non-encounter-relevant abilities to creatures. Nothing stops a 4e GM using the AD&D MM figures for number appearing, demographics, etc. Nor from giving pixies an ability to know alignment.
There is also this:
you can't build a "real" world without stats for sheep and cows and horses and such, because you never know when the PCs might need to kill one.
If we put aside the rather narrow thought that you only need mechanics when killing is in the offing (eg we could easily have a mechanical system that reflects that sheep are easier to herd than cattle), nothing prevents there being stats for sheep and cows and horses in 4e. (Horses are statted in the MM. Sheep and cows could pretty easily be extrapolated from that by someone who wanted to.)
Gygaxian naturalism (as defined in the link I provided) is NOT realistic. It doesn't pretend to be. The reason I used "secondary reality" is because there's an internal consistency to it.
There is no lack of internal consistency in an ogre being beatable only by a whole host of fresh-faced heroes, while being barely even a speed-bump for Sir Lancelot. That was my initial point to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
Thus ogres having dramatically different stats depending on the PCs' stats is quite alien and runs counter to the secondary reality established by, say, the monster stats.
Only if you don't understand the system, and so assume - contrary to the system design - that stats are an opponent-neutral description of a creature.
This is really the crux of it.
Naturalism - Gygaxian or otherwise - is a property of fiction. Blade Runner has naturalism in a way that (say) the Princess Bride doesn't. It's not about mechanical methodologies.
Thus, and to reiterate, JRRT created "secondary realities" without needing game stats. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a "secondary reality" without needing game stats. The connection between
stats and secondary reality is a prison of your own making, inherent in neither the notion of secondary reality nor the notion of RPG stats. It's either an inability or an unwillingness to think about the fiction, and the mechanics as a device for engaging and changing the fiction, outside of one particular paradgim of RPG mechanics.
4E adapted the world around them, much like a computer game that has dynamically scaled adversaries who appear roughly the same but hit differently, as opposed to having the adversaries change in some way, say getting better armor and weapons as time goes on. It would also introduce monsters like orcs that were statted at very different tiers.
What are you talking about? Whose game are you describing?
You do realise that the epic tier orcs in The Plane Above are Gruumsh's einheriar. They are not mortal orcs. That the paragon tier goblins in MM3 (I think) are drow goblin slaves, exposed to the radiations and travails of the Underdark. They are not ordinary goblins.
The fiction of 4e, its tiers of play, the correlation between creature level, creature status (minion, standard, solo, swarm) and fiction, is all crystal clear. The books don't hide it, they trumpet it!
In my 4e game the PCs opposed goblins and hobgoblins from heroic through mid-paragon, first as individual creatures but finally as phalanxes (statted as swarms). They fought gnolls at mid-heroic; at epic, the only gnoll they would confront in single combat would be Yeenoghu. At epic, the vrocks they fought were in great flights (statted as swarms); and the single foes they fought were Ometh, Torog, Orcus, Lolth, Miska, great primordial hydras, etc.
If
you ran or played in 4e games contrary to every express and implied precept found in the PHB, DMG and MM; where, at epic, your PCs fought levelled-up goblins living in steadings whose pallisades required DC 30 checks to climb, and still went back to a village to collect astral diamond bounties from the mayor (or other similarly heroic tier fiction), that's on you and your GM. If you play contrary to the game's precepts, instructions and advice, it's only to be expected that the experience will fall short of ideal.
