Clerics can't heal (NPCs)?

[GnomeWorks]

That's an interesting hobby. How do you call it?

I don't know. Worldbuilding? Absurdity?

GnomeWorks: you are not playing D&D.

For the time being, I beg to differ.

You are a world-builder, and want WotC to create a set of mechanics and guidelines to allow you to build a world to your liking. This is your purpose, this is your goal, and the reason why you are unsatisfied with the direction of 4E.

That sounds about right, sure.

In the game of D&D a world is built for the players, in either or both the general and specific sense. Otherwise there is no game (which requires an interaction between two or more entities).

You want to build a world because you want a release for your creative energies. And you want WotC to help you do that. Since WotC is not helping you, you are dissatisfied.

I'm not of the impression that the two tasks are incompatible. I can create a world as a "release for my creative energies," as you put it, that can then also be used for gaming purposes.

Oh, nuts. The slimy adviser rolled an 8. Looks like the plot thread I had in mind will never happen...

Yep. Now he failed, so what else is he going to try? When you approach a game without knowing exactly where you want to go with it, it feels quite a bit more organic, rather than forced.

 

[hbarsquared]

but I need to be able to generate that information, and it needs to make sense and produce results consistent with the world and its mechanics.

But... But, you can.

In fact, it makes more sense in 4E. Your master smith does not need to have 112 hit points in order to make the finest sword in the land. You do not need to be a Ranger12/AspirantSavant3/HierophantLord1/Expert1/EldritchSpirtualWielder2 in order to have that one ability that lets you use a bow an arrow to shoot a flying creature.

You decide what make sense in your world, and 4E (far better than 3E, and I confess to not have experience with previous editions) allows you to "generate that information" as well as "producing consistent results with [your] world."

 

[HeinorNY]

This is a great text about the ongoing issue. The writer is a EnWorld member.

Is your homebrew setting an Art Gallery or an Amusement Park?
http://rycanada.livejournal.com/#entry_613

 

[ruleslawyer]

mods please remove.

 

[hbarsquared]

Yep. Now he failed, so what else is he going to try? When you approach a game without knowing exactly where you want to go with it, it feels quite a bit more organic, rather than forced.

Well sure, I play out scenarios all the time. Sometimes for my own benefit, sometimes for story hours, sometimes to stimulate the creative energies. But I'm not constrained by it.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I didn't read much Shakespeare, and I really don't care to. Just not my style.

Then it's not worth accusing hong of "misattributing" the Hamlet quote, right?

You're right - all those things might be in the final rules document. I'm willing to bet that they're not, because that doesn't seem to jibe with the general feel of the 4e philosophy.

Probably not a good bet on the crafting rules at minimum, since there's already been discussion at I-Con of stuff like that.

I don't like the idea of the PCs being heroes right out of the gate. You want to be a hero? Prove that you are. Earn it. Heroes are made, not born.

And yet this has nothing to do with "consistency" or "simulation" in the game world, but with a philosophy on PC power level. You want PCs to be at pig-farmer power level? Fine. Just drop 'em to 1/3 hp and nerf their powers and skills into oblivion, just like starting 3e PCs using NPC classes. Personally, I don't like that approach, since I prefer my PCs to be like the heroes in pretty much every fantasy novel or film out there; they're either tougher, or stronger, or have a unique talent, or are just really lucky/favored by the plot, than hoi polloi. But it's a flavor thing, not a "level of consistency of simulation" thing.

Building NPCs with the same building blocks as PCs is part of the idea that everyone follows the same rules. Cite OotS all you want, but that is an absurdist (albeit rather humorous) view on 3.5 mechanics. Characters in the world don't know that they have stats, but they are aware of facts of the world that correlate to mechanics. If you don't have NPCs follow the same rules as PCs, you enter into an inconsistent setting, and that irks me.

You hit the nail on the head with the OotS reference. The problem is that everything you're bringing up is a metagame issue. You're assuming that the PCs use the same metrics that the players do in interacting with the game world, and worse still, you're also assuming that the PCs/players have the same information available to them about the mechanics of the game that the DM does. This results precisely in the absurd narrative situation that OotS mocks all the time: Players do things that make sense ONLY in the context of the rules and not in any sense that bears a relationship to the setting or the narrative.

Three problems with the above: First, players that do this sort of thing (like, say, ask the DM "how could that guy do that? He's got two levels of rogue? What did he have ten years ago, and why don't all his lieutenants also have rogue levels, 'cause he could have taught them!") are being obnoxious, are strongly metagaming, and will be merely encouraged to indulge in this sort of thinking if the ruleset actively supports it. Second, monster stats shouldn't be transparent to players. Period. If there is an actual, in-game reason why a designed monster has a stat that needs to be shown to the players, then the DM *should* intervene to provide the stat, whether or not it's present. As others have mentioned, all RPGs that involve a sufficiently complex world have situations that aren't covered by the rules. Pregnancy is a good one, but there are many, many more.

Finally, PCs and NPCs *do* "follow the same rules"; they roll d20s to determine the resolution of actions, they have hp, attacks, defenses, AC, et cetera. The mechanics that determine how those stats are allocated is... well, irrelevant. The guys who are being run by the players happen to use one generation and advancement method; the NPCs use another one. Big deal. They also do different things; the PCs are played by people who show up and earn XP, and the NPCs/monsters just exist in virtual space. So?

[EDIT: And really, it is the final paragraph that's what's important. I'm fully aware that players need to know that when their PC hits x wall, it has y impact and can cause z effect; likewise with a player who makes the necessary history/thievery/nature check knowing that a Knight of the Chase/Scarlet Brotherhood assassin/dire bear has p, q, or r power. But the 4e rules have no more problems handling that then the 3e rules did. It's simply the generation mechanic for PCs and NPCs that differs, just like it does for a Bbn2 vs an ogre in 3e, or a 25th-level rogue vs. a gloom. Given that the DM doesn't sit there running virtual encounters and leveling up NPCs by virtue of CR/EL and XP earned, I see no reason why NPCs can't just be created sui generis, so long as players have a reasonable set of expectations to work with.]

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, upthread I was saying that 4e (not unusually, and not really unexpectedly to my mind) reinforces the idea of PC's being exceptional from level 1. The dial has been turned up to 11, or at least to 8.5.

The idea is that some people have never really enjoyed that style, and it's thusly harder to ignore in 4e. I'm not one of those people, but I can kind of see where they're coming from (even if they have been salmon on the waterfall for 30 years. ).

IMO, the fact that every town had a cleric was not only bogus, it was diminishing to any sense of specialness the PCs might have had. Why does every town need a miracle worker when a guy that knows a few helpful rituals or spells is fine? It was also a strain on the imagination when a base town is full of hero-like guys who just fail to do anything about trouble.

There are two weird things about this statement.

#1 is that we get a dose of 4e-ish schizophrenia: this is a place, like the halfling height, where suddenly simulating realism is MORE important than it was in 3e? "It's not realistic to have a population of clerics in the world, but screw realism, 1-1-1 diagonals?"

#2 is that, similar to the halfling height issue, this hasn't been a problem for the people I mention above, or even for players like me who love the heroic feel.

The reason it isn't a problem for the people above is because the idea of "normal people facing the eerily supernatural" is a very strong fantasy staple that people want to play, and D&D has fit it "best" for them. Your 5th level fighter might just be a mid-ranking official in the town guard, but he'll fight a dragon where the captain of the guard will not: what makes him heroic isn't the abilities he has per se, it's the things he's willing to do. The captain might be able to face, the dragon, too, but the captain isn't a hero, so he will choose to run away. In 4e, D&D becomes a worse fit for them because of the dial getting turned up.

The reason it's never been a problem for dudes who like their heroes to chew butt and kick bubblegum like me is because (a) the 3e demographics rules made it clear that, when compared to 90% of the world, I WAS exceptional, (b) it gave a reason for escalating challenges when the nine hells didn't invade because someone else was still keeping them at bay, and (c) because the idea of a world where people raid ruins for treasures is a kind of melieu I really enjoy, and think is rather exemplary of D&D.

I'm no huge fan of epic-level tailors in my D&D necessarily, but I really do not have a problem with a world where the orcs still attack when my PC's aren't around, where some rogue somewhere in the world is finding the Hand and Eye of Vecna when my PC's aren't around, where the capital city is home to the miracle-working wunderpriest of the overgod even if my PC's only hear about him through the miracles he performs and don't actually go there (though they could someday), and they perhaps eventually learn how to become miracle-working wunderpriests themselves, just like their characters have heard about in legends.

In fact, I really enjoy such a world.

Oddly enough, I really enjoy itsy bitsy halflings, too.

And after nearly a decade of playing that way and loving it, I'm not going to receive the news that what I was doing isn't the way the designers think the game SHOULD be played very well.

PC's should be almost completely unique? NPC's shouldn't be having their own off-screen epic quests that they might need PC classes for?

I think that's where I share some sympathy with the "5th level heroes ain't that special" camp. They're definitely being told, not for the first time, but perhaps more loudly than before, that the way they've been playing isn't the way that D&D should be played in the new edition. No one's going to come to their house and make them change, but their style goes farther against the grain. I'm wondering, as I debate switching to 4e, if I'm in that same camp all of a sudden: do the experts think my game should be different, too? Do they think that taller halflings and exclusive PC-only content is going to improve my game?

I remain unconvinced, but willing to be convinced.

 

[AZRogue]

My personal take:

The style shown so far by 4E gives me MORE freedom, as a DM, to be creative when designing my worlds, IMO. Why? Because I can decide the cause and effect (the basis of nearly all my design) of situations based upon WHAT villains/NPCs ARE and not have to worry about their stats. I know what I want them to be, what I want them to do, and when it comes time for the PCs to encounter them I can give them the necessary 10% that will best portray this.

Lizard, IMO, if that hobgoblin captain you mentioned was encountered again as a general I would make sure that the powers and abilities I gave him conveyed his signature as I understood it and grant him the skills necessary to fulfill the role I imagine for him. I don't think that I need mechanics to help me do that, personally.

The game seems to have had most of the 'design' complexity taken out, with a focus placed on statting out only that which is necessary. This, to me, is an amazing thing and probably the single most attractive aspect of the new edition. The PCs are much more complex, because the PCs are 'under the hood' so to speak. Everyone else is as complex as you want them to be.

 

[hong]

One time, I used Cry Havoc (or whatever the mass combat d20 ruleset was called) to determine the outcome of a war that the players had almost no hand in, and in which they were not directly involved in.

I spent three hours working on generating an outcome using that ruleset. Because they would've had to deal with it if they were there.

Mmm, simulationist fanfic.

 

[ruleslawyer]

#1 is that we get a dose of 4e-ish schizophrenia: this is a place, like the halfling height, where suddenly simulating realism is MORE important than it was in 3e? "It's not realistic to have a population of clerics in the world, but screw realism, 1-1-1 diagonals?"

Don't particularly feel like diving into this, but halfling height, cleric population, et cetera, are world-building assumptions, whereas 1-1-1 diagonals are a tactical simplification. I really, really think that folks need to take a second look at the idea that the grid is merely a pure abstraction of the combat environment that exists in the "actual" game world.