D&D - Iron Heroes...between the poles

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Sorry to threadjack, but what is this Player's Guide to the Middle Ages that you speak of?

Not at all, I consider a potentially excellent complement to Iron Heroes though I understand there are other supplements out there that might work as well.

There are plenty of reviews around, it's been out for a while.

But basicly it functions as an intellectual/social complement to a medieval campaign. Plenty of rules for church and academic politics, education, art, and magic appropriate to Medieval ideas on how the supernatural functioned.

Supposedly there's another book in the series that covers secular politics and that would be nice to own but you can actually do a lot with the institutionally flavored stuff in the book.

It also has some really great treatments of medieval spirituality (at least from an RPG standpoint) so there's a good saint class and a very nice treatment of a miraculous priest.

It is designed solely as a supplement so its very amenable to cutting stuff out, but I you couldn't rely on it alone for a campaign unless you were planning to do something like a campaign of lettes.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

To be quite frank, I don't know which one of us isn't understanding what lies "beyond".

I don't think either of us is not understanding the point; I just think we're approaching the issue from different mindsets.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Sorry to threadjack, but what is this Player's Guide to the Middle Ages that you speak of?

It may be the Medieval Players Guide from Green Ronin which is being referred to. It's a fantastic sourcebook for playing a game set in Medieval Europe, and heavily emphasizes the influence of the Church on the setting. I highly recommend it.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

It may be the Medieval Players Guide from Green Ronin which is being referred to. It's a fantastic sourcebook for playing a game set in Medieval Europe, and heavily emphasizes the influence of the Church on the setting. I highly recommend it.

That's the one. My copy of it as well as my dice are missing. I suspect a player is out there having a field day with them and that I'll get 'em back at the next session.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Why view it as a DM control issue? I've played characters in games that I'd consider low-powered - CoC, for example - and games that are high-powered - various iterations of friends' D&D campaigns - and there is definitely a distinction beyond DM/player conflict. My CoC characters felt relatively helpless; I knew they were much less capable than my D&D characters in almost any sense. I suppose one could talk about context, but that would still entail acknowledging that one game was more geared to a higher "power" level than another.

So, what is it about the context that makes one game "higher-powered" than another? And (to actually keep this somewhat on topic rather than further derailing it) How does Iron Lore fit on that curve? If Mearls succeeded, the only objective standard we have (what the PCs can or can't kill within the context of the rules) seems to say that Iron Lore is "equivalently-powered" to vanilla D&D. Yet different people seem to feel very differently about how "powered" IL actually is. :\

HellHound, do you see why I think this is an intellectually devoid contruct yet? We have no operational definition whatsoever! It's one of the most undefined, subjective, bloody-hindering-awkward phrases thrown around in gaming circles today.

Your most recent response to me included this: "advance in power without getting incredibly powerful." Now that is a clearer phrase than "low-powered game." But still, I can take that to mean that you would prefer a game with a linear power curve rather than an exponential one, OR you simply don't like the setting assumptions that D&D in particular requires at its high levels, OR any one of a half dozen other things without thinking very hard.

I don't mean to attack you specifically on this point (I did, after all, start out being needlessly rude to someone else entirely), but you've made yourself an obvious target. Maybe I'm the one missing something, but I really think this phrase you are championing is more a hindrance than a help. I am, however, always happy to be proven wrong, as it means I've learned something. Prove to me that this phrase is useful, and I will happily buy you a beer (or a Snickers bar, or whatever suits your personal preferences for recreational consumption, I'm not judgmental that way )

 

[ColonelHardisson]

So, what is it about the context that makes one game "higher-powered" than another? And (to actually keep this somewhat on topic rather than further derailing it) How does Iron Lore fit on that curve?

Context: in one game, characters are not intended to fight or even survive against the evil that confronts them, while in the other they are intended to do so. So, although both games give the characters abilities, one gives them abilities which allows them to effect change upon their environment much more strongly than the other game allows its characters to do so.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Context: in one game, characters are not intended to fight or even survive against the evil that confronts them, while in the other they are intended to do so. So, although both games give the characters abilities, one gives them abilities which allows them to effect change upon their environment much more strongly than the other game allows its characters to do so.

Ehh... so if the game developers expect the players to "win," its high powered, and if they expect them to "lose," its low powered? I don't agree. I could easily make what I would consider to be a "low powered" game fully expecting the players to overcome the challenges presented to them. I could also make "high powered" game where the point was to cause as much collateral damage as possible before you inevitably die in a blaze of glory.

To me, high powered makes me think of flashyness and high numbers, and low powered makes me think of subtlety and low numbers. But, I agree with Canis. It doesn't matter what I consider high power to be, because there are people who thinks D&D isn't high powered until you're level 40, and another who thinks that you get too powerful in D&D at level 5.

In other words, its like saying a meal is big. Once you can convince the world of the definition of a "big" meal or a "long" book or a "small" house, then you'll convince me that we can find a definition of the term "high powered" or "incredibly powerful."

 

[Kaos]

To me, high powered makes me think of flashyness and high numbers, and low powered makes me think of subtlety and low numbers.

The size of the numbers only matter in context. They could easily be large in a low-powered game to provide a greater degree of granularity or averaging of results, or small numbers for a high-powered game but with huge jumps in meaning between the numbers.

For example, an attack that does 20d6 damage sounds fairly big if you're used to standard D&D. But if the system presumes that random commoners/civilians have HP in the hundreds, that attack is piddly. You have to look at why the numbers are the size they are, before using them to judge whether something is high or low powered.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Ehh... so if the game developers expect the players to "win," its high powered, and if they expect them to "lose," its low powered? I don't agree.

It's more about being able to alter one's environment than winning.

I think people understand what is meant by "high" and "low" powered games. I think the argument here is pretty much all about semantics.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I think people understand what is meant by "high" and "low" powered games. I think the argument here is pretty much all about semantics.

Really? If that were so, I don't think there'd be as much confusion about games like Iron Lore. I think each individual person knows what he himself (or herself, if you prefer) thinks the words mean and is assuming that's what others mean when they use the words, but there is in actuality little common ground.

For example, your definition is completely foreign to me. I've been in CoC games where the party had access to building security systems that allowed tremendous alteration of the environment. Still felt like a CoC game. I can still see how your definition might be a useful metric for the typical feel of a game, with CoC on one end and maybe Exalted on the other. After all, even with access to building security, we had little control over the internal states of our characters when the feces hit the fan (and perhaps it IS the fact that the DM has more control than usual over the players' characters that makes CoC seem "low-powered"). But I've also been in "by the numbers" D&D games that felt like CoC (even without a sanity mechanic or a megalomaniacal DM) and others that felt like someone had indeed found a dial that went to 11 somewhere on the back of the Player's Handbook. Is there actually that much flexibility in the "power level" of D&D? Some people would say "yes" others would say "no."

Are people just naturally contrary? Well, I am, but I'd say that not everyone is, so there must be something else going on... like the total lack of a consistent frame of reference.