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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5850071" data-attributes="member: 22779">I've just been listening to SF Signal's Podcast on Sword and Sorcery <a href="http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/02/the-sf-signal-podcast-episode-108-2012-sword-sorcery-mega-panel-part-1/" target="_blank">Episode 108</a>  ((Note, episode 108 has author James Sutter of Pathfinder fame and 112 has Ari Marmell, the Vampiric Mouse of EN World fame)) and they were discussing the differences between S&S fantasy and Epic fantasy.  One of the big differences they talk about is scale - S&S focuses on the individual, local scale.  It borrows from the tradition of the Western - the lone gunman comes to town, saves the town and rides off into the sunset, only with swords and a demon instead of a nasty sheriff.  Epic fantasy, OTOH, deals with much broader vistas - it's a cast of thousands throwing down for the fate of the world.  Now, that's obviously painting with a very broad brush, I realize that, but, it does tend to cover the bases.Now, what does this have to do with D&D?  Well, as is mentioned in the podcast, D&D leans much more heavily on S&S tropes because it doesn't, by and large, have any real support for doing Epic Fantasy.  You don't have rules for managing kingdoms or empires (well, outside of Companion rules and some other material).  You don't really have much in the way of rules for dealing with a cast of dozens or hundreds, a la Steven Erikson or George R. R. Martin.  Heck, even Tolkien features lots of mass battles and organizing thousands of people on several stages.  D&D has never really done this very well.So, this is what I propose.   Make Epic Fantasy what Epic levels are about.  IMO, Epic D&D has always been something of a failure because all it really does is make the numbers bigger.  Your 24th level fighter isn't really doing all that much different than your 4th level fighter.  He's just killing something with an extra couple of zeros in the hit points.  What if we changed that?  What if, instead of making your character get more personally powerful in Epic Tier (to use the 4e term, that's not required), we siloed off character power and added a few new silos?I'm not sure if you could do this in core to be honest.  I think you could get the basic framework, but, I do think there's enough here to make it an entire book as well.  Epic supplements, instead of featuring new feats and spells, would feature new areas of expansion for your character.Here's a bullet list of the features I'd like to see in Epic Tier:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guidelines for creating large scale, macro level campaign elements - kingdoms, power players, organizations, etc.  Something along the lines of Traveller's planet creation rules, only for fantasy.  You need more than the local to do Epic Fantasy, so, the DM needs all the help he can get to get this off the ground as soon as possible.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guidelines for mass combat.  I'd probably go cinematic, a la Heroes of Battle, just because you want the players to have as much screen time as possible.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guidelines for empire management.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guidelines for changing time scales.  How long does it take to raise your army?  If you want to send diplomats to a neighbouring kingdom, how long does that take, and how do we resolve that?  That sort of thing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guidelines for handing campaign level changes.  When Empire A takes over Kingdom B, just how do we resolve that?</li> </ul>I'm sure there's more needed, but, that's got the basics, AFAIC.  Epic gaming would be an effectively different game than Heroic gaming.  The scale alone necessitates the change.  Trying to stay focused on the four or five PC's the way you do in Heroic Tier gaming just doesn't capture Epic Fantasy.</blockquote>

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