D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[Micah Sweet]

Unlikely. Aside from the feel of the adventure, those are all higher level enemies. It’s possible there will be some humans amongst the humanoids, but really, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need alignment for there to be conflict.

Despite what some people say, this was never ruled out in the original module.

There was no “good” and “evil” in Basic, Sword & Sorcery inspired as it was.

The biggest change is the word “heroes” in the title. The assumption in the original was that the PCs were mercenaries, not heroes (which is why they killed children if the price was right).

Demons and undead run the gamut of CRs. And I was never a fan of the game forcing heroism. That should be a choice.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Demons and undead run the gamut of CRs. And I was never a fan of the game forcing heroism. That should be a choice.

Well, the choice appears to be in the title here, so you can choose not to play it, but I doubt heroism will be any more forced than the antiheroics in the original is.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Of course not. I just don't see why we need to remove non-combatants from the adventure when the intention was clearly that they were there because it was where they lived. Just don't have them be there if you don't want to deal with them at your table.

Also, I would really appreciate it if folks would stop assuming that, "I like the original adventure" and "I want the PCs to murder children" are equivalent statements.

They aren't "just" noncombatants. They're the children of the goons the group just killed, which is a real friggin buzzkill, particularly for new people and grinds the game to a halt both in and out of character for a moral and ethical debate rather than buttkicking for goodness. Unless they subscribe to Gygax's odious belief that killing kids is a GOOD aligned act, the party now has to immediately deal with a bunch of crying/mad kids which derails the momentum and rubs their face in the violence they just committed.

I'm confident the adventure will still have non-combatants in it, like all the others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They aren't "just" noncombatants. They're the children of the goons you just killed, which is a real friggin buzzkill, particularly for new people and grinds the game to a halt both in and out of character for a moral and ethical debate rather than buttkicking for goodness. Unless you subscribe to Gygax's odious belief that killing kids is a GOOD aligned act, the party now has to immediately deal with a bunch of crying/mad kids which derails the momentum.

I'm confident the adventure will still have non-combatants in it, like all the others.

I see your point, but honestly narrative flow in a game is not a big concern to me. Games are not stories, and don't need to be designed the same.

 

[mamba]

Games are not stories, and don't need to be designed the same.

Monopoly and Risk can tell stories, I’d say TTRPGs do, that is their intent, the difference is that there usually is not a single author

 

[Micah Sweet]

Monopoly and Risk can tell stories, I’d say TTRPGs do, that is their intent, the difference is that there usually is not a single author

You can end up with a story after a game, but I don't feel the game needs to be designed with story in mind. At least, that's not what I want.

 

[mamba]

You can end up with a story after a game, but I don't feel the game needs to be designed with story in mind.

First of all, this is about an adventure, not the game rules, just to be clear on that.

Adventures can be heavy handed in their story telling or not, but what they always have to provide is some jumping off points / hooks for a story to happen. Depending on what hooks you provide, you nudge the story in different directions.

If you want heroes doing heroic things, fight evil and free the countryside, then goblin babies get in the way of that story. If you want to tell a story about the evils of war and the dangers of painting strangers as the enemy, then goblin babies might drive home that point. You choose your hooks based on the story you want to emerge.

You can ignore that and say ‘my campaign is simulating a world, goblins have kids, so there are goblin kids living in these caves’ but that still will affect the story that plays out at your table.

It’s one thing to wipe out a war camp, it’s another to wipe out a peaceful settlement that is just minding its own business, even if there are conflicts with the neighbors over who is allowed to take how many fish from the lake they share

 

[Micah Sweet]

First of all, this is about an adventure, not the game rules, just to be clear on that.

Adventures can be heavy handed in their story telling or not, but what they always have to provide is some jumping off points / hooks for a story to happen. Depending on what hooks you provide, you nudge the story in different directions.

If you want heroes doing heroic things, fight evil and free the countryside, then goblin babies get in the way of that story. If you want to tell a story about the evils of war and the dangers of painting strangers as the enemy, then goblin babies might drive home that point. You choose your hooks based on the story you want to emerge.

You can ignore that and say ‘my campaign is simulating a world, goblins have kids, so there are goblin kids living in these caves’ but that still will affect the story that plays out at your table.

It’s one thing to wipe out a war camp, it’s another to wipe out a peaceful settlement that is just minding its own business, even if there are conflicts with the neighbors over who is allowed to take how many fish from the lake they share

My preference obviously is the "my campaign is simulating a world" stance. Any given adventure is just a place and situation the players can interact with via their PCs. IMO it doesn't need to have any sort of "story" built into it, because games should let people make any choice the setting allows.

 

[mamba]

My preference obviously is the "my campaign is simulating a world" stance. Any given adventure is just a place and situation the players can interact with via their PCs. IMO it doesn't need to have any sort of "story" built into it, because games should let people make any choice the setting allows.

Would you create a different world if you wanted to play horror / survival vs fairytale vs heroic fantasy? This is not all that different, the caves can be a stand in for a town or for a war camp, depends on the type of story you want

 

[Scribe]

You can end up with a story after a game, but I don't feel the game needs to be designed with story in mind. At least, that's not what I want.

?

The game literally is an unfolding story.

I cannot grok your position at all.

What do you play for?