AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Those confusion spells are a real bummer. Evil wizards get you every time!
D&D General Discuss: Combat as War in D&D
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Serious question: Does this mean "rocks fall, everyone dies" is not "cheating" as you see it? Because in my book it very much is. A bald declaration "oh yeah by the way there's a green dragon patron," which the players could not have learned about, even in principle, because it didn't exist prior to the DM declaring it, is fundamentally DM cheating. It's cheating in a very similar way to how "godmoding" (acting in "god mode") is cheating in a freeform roleplay context, because both fundamentally deny the other participants their ability to respond meaningfully--they must dance on your strings because they literally can't/couldn't do anything else, even if they wanted to.
Again, I have absolutely ZERO problems with:
- you as DM determined in advance that these goblins have a green dragon patron, and made it genuinely possible for the players to know this (even if they didn't actually find out for whatever reason)
- you as DM decided after the fact that these goblins would have a green dragon patron, and either (a) give the players some leeway in how you interpret their past actions so they could have prepared about what they should have known if it were possible, or (b) in the moment provide the players with some way to address or respond to the green dragon (even if that response doesn't include everything the players wish they could do)
Again, that's why I have a problem with BOTH things you described. The first takes away the success of the player(s) (or failure! I have just as much problem with removing an opponent's HP without justification) in ways they could never know, even in principle. The second takes away the knowledge of the player(s), in ways they could never know, even in principle. Both are illegitimate power moves in a context where reciprocity is essential.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
So how do you feel about the time I created a (mini) campaign in which the end result was absolutely certain death for the PCs?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Did they know this in advance, or have the opportunity to learn (even if they failed to take it)? Were they at least capable of preparing for it, even if they couldn't really stop it?So how do you feel about the time I created a (mini) campaign in which the end result was absolutely certain death for the PCs?
If so, then it isn't cheating. Railroading, almost surely, but not cheating. Railroading is another one of those "sometimes food" DMing choices--or, rather, if used very sparingly it can do useful things, like help make sure the game actually happens instead of players faffing about and not ever doing anything. Though that gets into questions like "if you have the players endure the consequences of choosing to faff about instead of stopping the bad guys, is that railroading (because you're 'forcing' them to deal with it), or is that respecting their choices (because you took their choice and responded to it)?"
I am always very concerned about whether I am railroading my players. I offer many suggestions and do my best to either take their requests directly, or find the closest match to a request among the things that make sense to me. My players have always told me they don't feel railroaded when I ask them about it, but...well, you know how anxiety is. How can I be sure they're not just humoring me, etc.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
4e is absolutely a game where that can happen.
Well, any game is if you give the WitchKing of Angmar the weakness “can be ganked by women. Just any hit that would kill a dude, as long as a lady holds the weapon.” So perhaps Davis and Goliath are a better example.
In 4e, the stat block isn’t the creature, the narrative concept of the creature is the creature. The stat block is only ever a model of the creature for a specific scene or set of scenes.
So, if you want PCs to be able to hurt Tiamat but have a hell of a hard fight, you might design her as a combat encounter of party level +6, say. A deadly encounter, that can be won with enough planning, resources, and luck.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Alternatively: You might design an open-ended Skill Challenge (or just a "montage" part of the campaign, however long it runs) to see how many weaknesses the party can discover/exploit/create before she whittles away Bahamut's forces too hard to get you to the fight. Then, you generate a mechanical representation of the kind of threat she poses to the party, based on the spread of results from that process. As a result, a discrete spread of "possible Tiamats" could happen, all depending on what the party has done to prepare for the fight, whether by having tools/resources she's vulnerable to or actually sapping her power.
E.g., Tiamat is specifically the goddess of Greed and Envy, and her domains are Strife, Tyranny, and Vengeance. 4e deities are effectively living concepts, so things that are anathema to those concepts should weaken them. If the party is able to secure the Tears of the Martyr, a set of earrings made from the solidified tears of a martyred pacifist who forgave her killers as she burnt at the stake, then perhaps an element can be added to Tiamat's statblock saying that certain attacks simply can't hit someone wearing them--they literally embody the antithesis of Vengeance, and thus treat Tiamat herself as if she weren't there. Alternatively, if Tiamat is able to corrupt a powerful figure into seeking disproportionate revenge for a previously-forgiven error, she is empowered symbolically and therefore literally, because symbols literally are divine power. Etc. There's no need to shape the combat mechanics for what Tiamat absolutely is, because the party literally cannot encounter her outside of a specific, prepared-for situation.*
Hence @Lanefan why I am so on about "why should it be that there is one-and-only, eternal, ideal Ogre?" (or whatever else), that all Ogres necessarily are or necessarily deviate away from. There is no Platonic Ogre; there are only living ogres. Each living ogre exists in a context. Sure, there are common trends or patterns--they're mostly strong, mostly pretty durable, and mostly not very smart--but trying to make one Form Of The Ogre and acting like that gives you real insight about the workings of the world really does have negative consequences. The abstractions--HP, accuracy, defense, etc.--only matter for the context of kicking (or failing to kick) the PCs' butts. The other stats are either beholden to overall narrative concerns (consistency, as you call it) or to what you know makes sense.
*And, I argue, exactly the same applies to the ogre and the orc and the illithid and whatever else the party fights. If there are ogres in the place the party is adventuring, you should already know what their naturalistic attributes are (such as "how much can it lift?" or "what concepts can it understand?"), and most preferably should have already prepared a statblock specific to that context. You then prepare a different statblock if they return to that area later, because the context has changed; the monster itself has not changed, but the answer to the question, "what is this monster like in a fight?" has changed for this specific party.
And that's all a monster's (combat) statblock IS: the answer to "what is this monster like in a fight?" That answer can and does change as the PCs do. 4e's rules very conciously DON'T tell you what to do with the non-combat attributes of a creature, because you as DM should know better than they do what those are.
"Ogre" is like commoner. An ogre scout ogre veteran ogre druid ogre lumberjack & even an ogre chimneysweep should generally have a different statblox of their own if they differ enough from the base ogre to be rescaledin ways akin to how was being discussed
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, in the specific case it was an element that I had included in the campaign, but I didn't explicitly tell the players. The characters figured it out, it was certainly not hidden. That game was an exercise in character building. It was interesting... OTOH not a typical sort of game, more like something you do ONCE in a career as a GM.
And yes, railroading in a hard sense is definitely something I don't care for, MUCH. OTOH I think I've said before, my best friend was a total puppetmaster as a GM, and yet nobody could ever dispute the fun or popularity of his games. At some level that game had deep characterization and was a vivid and entertaining experience. MAYBE it would have been even better if we'd been equally involved in an explicit way in steering the story. OTOH even I cannot say to what degree he was really just giving us exactly what we wanted. People would roll their eyes a lot when the plot seemed 'on rails', but then it always came to the station you seemed to want to be at...
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Dragons very, very rarely appear out of the blue - I mean they might successfully ambush you, but their presence is generally known by the locals. Knowing where dragons roam (and are probably "no go" areas) is important. And you have to consider how did the dragon hear about the goblins' troubles with the PCs - she might not be able to show up instantly.
So adding stuff to a fight "because it's not hard enough" spontaneously is preeeety iffy as a GM, particularly if you are playing in a combat as war format, because it defeats the PC's ability to plan and prepare. A little bit to spice things up is ok I think (2 goblin archers have flanked the group and are shooting at you from the trees!), but "suddenly dragons!" no. That's not what I was trying to convey.
But let's say that the players didn't do their research and don't know about a dragon. They have been hitting the goblins in a series of hit and run (too many goblins to deal with at once) skirmishes, and are close to moping them up. The goblins send a runner to the dragon Vitriola to get help. The dragon shouldn't just show up at the PC's camp and breathe on them and murderize them...
- Perhaps a dying goblin snarls at the PC that Vitriola will destroy them all. Who is Vitriola? The PCs don't know, but they now know the goblin have some kind of dangerous ally.
- Perhaps Vitriola doesn't care that much about the goblins, and will try to get something from the PCs instead of destroying them all. Tribute? Service?
In a "combat as war" world, fair encounters are not guaranteed... for everyone. This means that although combat can be very cut-throat, it also means that the motivation of NPCs are important. They make mistakes, and are more interested in survival than killing the PCs. The PCs may not have known that the goblin tribe had a dragon patron... but the dragon patron doesn't know if the PCs are level 3 or 10...
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
The philosophy expressed goes deeper though, to the heart of the nature of the game itself. I won't speak for @EzekielRaiden here, but I don't see the 'game world' as a 'thing' at all. It is simply a stage upon which is set the activities of the game, at least the PC RP. The mechanics are simply a tool by which the narrative is evoked. At times they also serve to parameterize challenges, which provides a lot of the 'game' quality. Various rules and mechanics may have different scopes and purposes. The PCs stats probably won't change, except in accordance with some rules for progress, etc. Their supply inventory may change only in accordance with some exploration/logistics rules, perhaps. These can supply constraints on fiction too, where appropriate (IE you cannot have light if you ran out of torches).
But if you need to evoke a certain type of narrative, you can employ whatever statblock is appropriate to the situation. Thus there is no such thing as a definitive 'stat block for an ogre warrior'. It can be a solo today, and a minion tomorrow (though probably those two extremes are separated by a good bit of changing context and thus won't come in close linear proximity in play, unless there are different groups of PCs involved).
Of course, this context should be a pretty open book to the players. They will know that an ogre is an extremely dangerous foe, or that it is barely a speedbump for their mighty heroes. It is also perfectly OK to say that if the narrative is of a long military campaign featuring logistics, numbers and types of combatants, and other similar factors as a primary part of the challenge, then it is entirely conceivable that a consistent ogre warrior may be a feature of that story arc for a period of time. Most narrative focus D&D games however eventually transition between a series of different 'tiers', as 4e puts it. It would be unusual for said ogre to persist unchanged across those.
