D&D General A History of Violence: Killing in D&D

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think your premise is valid. I don't think being of equal level is the same thing as equal power. Even apart from different races and classes being stronger or weaker, varying ability scores and spells and found magic items mean PCs always vary in power, even if they're the same level.





(Emphasis mine.)

I think the line between "protagonist" and the way Gary talked about characters is pretty thin.


Really? Why don't you just revisit Ben Robbins' posts about it?

Grand Experiments: West Marches

West Marches was a game I ran for a little over two years. It was designed to be pretty much the diametric opposite of the normal weekly game: There was no regular time: every session was scheduled by the players on the fly. There was no regular party: each game had different players drawn f

arsludi.lamemage.com

Gary's remarks are known to be inconsistent. We have to make our own choices. Seemed like a nice enough guy the one time I met him though. Got him to sign my 1e PH.

 

[Lanefan]

To correct the record, Frostmaiden is largely a sandbox early while the party explores the setting and gains some levels, then gradually funnels into more of an adventure path later.

Correction noted.

Your proposition that "fi the system is going to leave such a wide-open loophole where I can game it so as to advance my character while doing nothing, I'd be an idiot not to take advantage of that" is bizarre. It's predicated on the assumption that the player is more interested in advancing their character power and ensuring their survival than on PLAYING THE GAME.

For many, particularly in the 'gamist' part of the realm, the two bolded things here are exactly synonymous.

Personally, the "ensuring survival" piece is more important to me largely because my playing history shows I'm so bad at it. Advancing power is nice but it's more an occasional - if pleasant - side effect of ongoing play rather than the reason for it.

If you said this at my table the reply would be simple- "A session of adventuring. If you want to stay in town and take no risks, why did I waste my time prepping an adventure and why did you waste yours coming to my house? If you don't want to play the game, why did you agree to?"

Player: You said we'd advance a level per session. That's what we signed up for. It's a bit late to move the goalposts now by adding in that "... of adventuring" piece. We'll adventure when we feel we're good and ready for it; fear not, your prep won't go to waste.

(don't get me wrong - I wouldn't play in a game with advancement that fast in any case; I'm just trying to point out how a by-session advancement model can be gamed with such trivial ease)

Come on. You're a more experienced DM than that. You know that characters who try to hide in the back still take on a share of the risk, and if they act truly cowardly and don't contribute, the other characters will tend to kick them out or give them a lesser share of the rewards.

Long experience both as DM and player tells me this is - with very rare exceptions - not the case.

Characters who don't contribute get - or should get, if the DM is on the ball - fewer xp. But they still get a full treasury share; enhanced by the fact that the dead generally get nothing. Five characters leave on an adventure - a me-first coward and four others. Three of the others die; the fourth and the coward get to split the treasure 50-50 while three replacements are recruited. Result: the coward has more wealth than anyone other than the "fourth" it was shared with. Repeat this pattern long enough and eventually the coward - even though not always getting full xp for everything - becomes the most powerful character in the party or campaign.

Sadly, at-table considerations (and, occasionally, drama) often prevent the party from booting the non-contributor even if it's what they'd do in character.

Same as in 1E. Monster XP is divided among everyone who participated in fighting the monster, no matter how much or how little. Treasure xp is divided based on how the PCs divide the treasure, and that's almost always equal shares, even if PCs take on varying levels of risk. The Fighter at the front tends to take on greater risks, but OTOH their player also tends to get to DO more.

And the risk-taking Fighter* at the front, even if played wisely, is still more likely to die or have other Bad Things befall it; and while other groups might run "party insurance funds" to pay for revivals, restorations, and the like that's rarely if ever been the case around here.

* - or any other class; it's the risk-taking part that matters.

 

[Lanefan]

Promoting it is one thing; objecting to an approach other people do but isn't forced on you in any way, not so much.

Except it is forced on me. Pressure to conform is a thing, whether overt or covert.

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree.

If the goal is for the players to be members of a team in a group game with different positions then it is better for everybody to be equal levels but with different specifics.

Then characters should start out equal power and should stay equal. Characters who come in later should be different but equal to the characters of the team they are joining.

If the goal is not for characters to be members of a team in a group game but to competitively survive and individually advance in the campaign starting from zero at the beginning of the campaign then there is a different should where it can make sense for there to be differences in levels and for existing characters to be more powerful.

After 1st level the party levels will rarely if ever be the same in any case. I use 1e-like advancement tables (and highly support the concept) meaning different classes bump at different times. Once they get to the 3rd-5th level range they'll also start meeting level-draining undead now and then. And now and then someone might get lucky and bump into an effect that gives a level on the spot. End result: a range of levels within the party becomes inevitable.

Also, while they're members of a (term used loosely) team while on that team, players are free to swap out their characters between adventures if-when it makes in-game sense; and not all of their available characters will be the same level. In the game I play in, for example, I-as-player have available-to-play characters ranging from 7th to 13th level (highest in the game is 14th going-on 15th; overall average is probably around 11th but that's just a guess), and for in-game reasons it's fairly likely I'll be swapping out the 13th (which I've been playing for the last adventure or two) for something much lower during the downtime break we just started.

 

[Lanefan]

This made the penny drop for me. You are suggesting that the advancement system needs to be proof against bag-of-ratsing – players who look at the wording of the rules and seek to exploit them in ways not intended. And much like someone suggesting they can use Whirlwind attack + Great Cleave + a couple of dozen 1-hp rats to get a couple of dozen attacks on the boss should be given a stern look and maybe a bop with a rolled-up newspaper, so should someone suggesting they get to level up after laying around in bed just because we're using milestones or session-based advancement. The rules should assume that players are interacting with them in good faith, not that they are trying to exploit them.

The rules should, as far as possible, absolutely be proofed against bad-faith play; so yes, the advancement system needs to be proof against bag-of-ratsing. (also, with proper design the bag-of-rats combo wouldn't exist in the rules in the first place)

My assumption in general is that the players are trying to exploit or work around the rules, and that the rules are there expressly to prevent (or at least greatly inhibit) such exploitation. It's a game, and in any game if you're not looking for an edge you're probably doing it wrong.

 

[Necropolitan]

I mean if we applied the complaints about violence in D&D to an actual campaign:

"Please noble heroes, save my people," begged the villager, "Valdniput's hordes are ravaging the land, enslaving all those they don't slaughter! None are spared, not women, children, or the elderly or disabled! You're our only hope."

"I'm very sorry but we can't," replied the Paladin, "Using violence against the invaders would make us just as bad as them. Besides we're not from your kingdom so it would be imperialism, which is bad even if the only thing we'd be doing is helping defeat a genocidal invasion. And maybe Valdniput the Unrepentantly Evil and Endlessly Cruel grew up poor or was otherwise wronged in the past and thus him slaughtering your people is somehow excusable. Besides, he's creating jobs for the unfairly discriminated against child-eating Torture Demons in his army."

"Um actually us Torture Demons don't NEED to eat children, we just choose to because as our names suggests we are demons who enjoy torturing people," cut in a Torture Demon, "The villagers are entirely correct to want us gone, we reject morality of our own free will. Now if you'll excuse me I have a child to eat."

"MWAHAHA!" laughed Valdniput as he kicked a series of puppies, "ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE ME! Now grovel at my feet and I might let you live the rest of your miserable lives as my slaves instead of putting you all to the sword!"

The Paladin nodded. "See, he's offering a peaceful solution. Clearly it would be wrong of us to fight him. Besides, maybe Valdniput isn't Evil and is instead villain-coded and thus we should side with him against the actually Evil peaceful villagers. After all the status quo is Evil and Valdniput is disrupting it, thus making him Good."

 

[Lanefan]

The best-case scenario I can see for individualized XP given out for specified in-game accomplishments is a West Marches-like context, where parties are ad-hoc groups assembled for individual adventures rather than there being a single "The Party" which is the collective protagonist of the whole campaign.

Yep, that's pretty much how we do it, only there's perhaps a bit less ad-hoc-ness to it sometimes i.e. parties might stick together for a run of a few adventures before turning over their membership or interweaving with one or more other parties.

But that is a very specific context, and one I believe to be pretty rare.

Rare but not extinct, and - I hope - set to return someday.

 

[Lanefan]

You know, I think it would be a good idea for someone to do a deep dive on West Marches. Both the history of the specific term, and the concept in D&D prior to the term.

Given that it's a relatively new term, coined in ...checks .... 2007! .....

Aside- I guess 2007 isn't that recent, is it? The years, they fly by.

Um, well, given that it's a term that was coined coughs this century to describe a style of play that was prominent last century, that would be an interesting topic!

I think "West Marches" as a term for a general style of play/campaign has been around since at least the mid 80s, though its definition has become finer-tuned over time.

 

[Lanefan]

Even without an open table, though, pre-milestone D&D has classically used xp as an incentive to encourage player attendance in a regular, fixed group. You don't show up? No xp for you.

Though this may have been the case elsewhere (can't say, really) I can honestly plead "not guilty" here.

It follows from the dual ideas of a) xp being a character reward rather than a player reward and b) the characters of absent players are still present in the party, played by those who do show up, and still earning xp.

Put another way, your character shouldn't suffer just because you're not present tonight.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean if we applied the complaints about violence in D&D to an actual campaign:

"Please noble heroes, save my people," begged the villager, "Valdniput's hordes are ravaging the land, enslaving all those they don't slaughter! None are spared, not women, children, or the elderly or disabled! You're our only hope."

"I'm very sorry but we can't," replied the Paladin, "Using violence against the invaders would make us just as bad as them. Besides we're not from your kingdom so it would be imperialism, which is bad even if the only thing we'd be doing is helping defeat a genocidal invasion. And maybe Valdniput the Unrepentantly Evil and Endlessly Cruel grew up poor or was otherwise wronged in the past and thus him slaughtering your people is somehow excusable. Besides, he's creating jobs for the unfairly discriminated against child-eating Torture Demons in his army."

"Um actually us Torture Demons don't NEED to eat children, we just choose to because as our names suggests we are demons who enjoy torturing people," cut in a Torture Demon, "The villagers are entirely correct to want us gone, we reject morality of our own free will. Now if you'll excuse me I have a child to eat."

"MWAHAHA!" laughed Valdniput as he kicked a series of puppies, "ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE ME! Now grovel at my feet and I might let you live the rest of your miserable lives as my slaves instead of putting you all to the sword!"

The Paladin nodded. "See, he's offering a peaceful solution. Clearly it would be wrong of us to fight him. Besides, maybe Valdniput isn't Evil and is instead villain-coded and thus we should side with him against the actually Evil peaceful villagers. After all the status quo is Evil and Valdniput is disrupting it, thus making him Good."

It's distressing how real this seems.