D&D 5E (2014) Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[The Crimson Binome]

Funny, I thought meta-gaming was a bad thing players did, not DMs. If you expect the DM not to think of the game as a game, I'm not sure how that would work.

Treat the world like a living world. Place NPCs and monsters where they make sense, based on how the world works, rather than what you think would make for fun encounters based on the party or their levels.

As DM, you are the laws of nature, impartial adjudicator of all things. You have no objectives, other than to honestly present the world and its inhabitants. You aren't trying to run the PCs down any particular path, or make them jump through any particular hoops. Any conflict or drama that happens around the PCs ("on-screen") is just a byproduct of your honest presentation of the world, the characters, and their goals.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Game rules are not inherently reality models, nor is it a flaw of a set of game rules to not be intended for use as a reality model.

Not our reality, necessarily, but an objective reality. An RPG system which does not model any reality is inherently flawed. It is literally the only point of having a mechanical model in the first place.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...but an objective reality.

Nope. The game worlds of D&D are all the proof needed; in the reality of those worlds, a person falling from a great height dies - yet the rules limit falling damage to only 20d6, for a maximum of 120 damage, which suggests that quite a lot of characters and creatures in the world (those with 121+ hit points, for example my buddy's 11th level dwarven barbarian) would be able to leap from a great height, collide with the ground at terminal velocity, stand up and walk away.

An RPG system which does not model any reality is inherently flawed.

That's not a fact.

It is literally the only point of having a mechanical model in the first place.

No, it isn't. The point of mechanics is to make playing the game an enjoyable experience - which does not inherently mean objectively modeling reality.

 

[Mercule]

A lot of gamers would say designing monster powers as PC abilities is also poor design. Or limiting the balance of monster abilities to what you would permit to a player is also poor design.

4e's NPCs are "poor design" when the audience is 3e fans who expect to be able to do or learn anything their opponent can do. If you don't walk into it with that mindset it's different.

(Personally, I like a middle road design where NPCs are designed like monsters and don't use the PC rules... but are inspired by them. The monsters use a variation of the PC abilities, streamlined for simplicity and tracking.)

I agree with all the above. I had actually intended my post to favor the "middle road", but must not have been clear enough. 3E was too far one way, which is easy to say because you used PC rules for NPCs and even monsters had formulas for stats. 4E was too far the other, but that requires a bit more explanation because it wasn't completely "make stuff up", just too far for my liking.

So, as I initially said, most NPCs could be statted as PCs, even if it involved some squinting and duck tape (as you say, "inspired by"). There are some, however, that would not fit into the PHB rules.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Nope. The game worlds of D&D are all the proof needed; in the reality of those worlds, a person falling from a great height dies - yet the rules limit falling damage to only 20d6, for a maximum of 120 damage, which suggests that quite a lot of characters and creatures in the world (those with 121+ hit points, for example my buddy's 11th level dwarven barbarian) would be able to leap from a great height, collide with the ground at terminal velocity, stand up and walk away.

As I said, it's not necessarily our reality - it has elves and dragons in it, after all - but it is an objective reality.

In the reality of a D&D world, a character falling from a great height probably dies, but might survive in spite of the odds. Superhumanly resilient individuals might always survive, provided they were otherwise in good shape before falling. We know that gravity works differently than it does in our reality, though, or else dragons wouldn't be able to fly and giants wouldn't be able to stand. It is internally consistent, even where it's not realistic.

 

[S'mon]

Not our reality, necessarily, but an objective reality. An RPG system which does not model any reality is inherently flawed. It is literally the only point of having a mechanical model in the first place.

The rules aid GM adjudication. They're not there to model the physics of the game world;
that was a stupid 3e era idea which I'd hope has largely died out by now. All kinds of things can happen in the game world which are not modelled by the game rules.

 

[Jester David]

Not our reality, necessarily, but an objective reality. An RPG system which does not model any reality is inherently flawed. It is literally the only point of having a mechanical model in the first place.

I'd disagree with that.
An RPG system is meant to offer rules to provide random event resolution to facilitate shared storytelling. Nothing in that requires any modeling or representation of reality.
There's a wide range in how much a game simulates reality, with something like FATE occupying the far end of the spectrum where the RPG could be used for a hard reality game or a wild and crazy dreamscape game. The reality of the game world is bounded only by the desires of the players.

D&D tends to be simulationist, but there's still a heft amount of abstraction in the rules. A lot of game logic and funkiness that arises if you assume the mechanics of the game is how the physics of the world actually work. But that's not the only way to interpret the results of the game. As long as the outcome of the story matches the outcome of the rules the how and description is largely irrelevant.

 

[Jester David]

I agree with all the above. I had actually intended my post to favor the "middle road", but must not have been clear enough. 3E was too far one way, which is easy to say because you used PC rules for NPCs and even monsters had formulas for stats. 4E was too far the other, but that requires a bit more explanation because it wasn't completely "make stuff up", just too far for my liking.

So, as I initially said, most NPCs could be statted as PCs, even if it involved some squinting and duck tape (as you say, "inspired by"). There are some, however, that would not fit into the PHB rules.

I do try to keep NPCs in line with PCs but I'm also not going to limit my NPCs because there is fewer PC options. Just because Option X doesn't exist in the game (yet) doesn't mean no NPCs are capable of it.
Plus that's a good way to test mechanics for PC options down the road.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The rules aid GM adjudication. They're not there to model the physics of the game world;
that was a stupid 3e era idea which I'd hope has largely died out by now. All kinds of things can happen in the game world which are not modelled by the game rules.

The rules are not, themselves, the laws of physics. Rather, the rules reflect the natural laws of the game world, in the light of certain assumptions. This is the fundamental principle of any role-playing system, which precedes 3E by decades.

 

[Jediking]

I think we have all seen that CRS are not as reliable as wizards thought they would be. I'm am one of the dms that make the npc or baddy first and then see what the credit is.

Also remember that the DMG and MM were released at different times, so the MM may not follow the exact rules of the DMG (Goblins are an example of not being the 'proper' CR).