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How woulda Chromatic Dragon react to the theft of its eggs?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6472557" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The real world I would argue is a situation with both lots of threats and no high level characters. I won't get into philosophy or theology here regarding the observable state of the world, but the point is that the game world could presumably emulate the state of a world in conflict by doing the thing you say that it can't.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Those NPC's do occasionally arise, but surviving the process of rising in levels - which ever 'team' you play for - is not easy. Heroes occasionally arise as well. The NPC bad guy is an 18th level Wizard, the first to rise to that level in this part of the world in 4 generations. Yet, the NPC bad guy knows that party probably could beat him down if they caught him by surprise. Keep in mind he doesn't know the level of the party. He does know Sir Gareth took a finger of death and a quickened lightening bolt to the chest and DID NOT DIE - which scared the heck out of him as it was entirely outside his experience (and though he doesn't know it, it scared Gareth at least as much, as in "OMG am I in over my head"). He's incredibly powerful, far beyond the player's current imaginations, but I know and he's knows he's not invincible by any means, nor are the PCs - after all, I've had 9 deaths in the campaign so far. Talernga as a nation state is a half-million people strong. While as a single character he's capable of largely thwarting one of the world's super-powers, he can't face such a power entirely without risk. The PC's are just one of many threats he's currently facing. Talernga hasn't survived for this long for lack of resources. Thus the BBEG, despite being really powerful, has to hide. He can't hunt his enemies and does so, but the enemies can also hunt him. The PC's have seen what happens to his organization when it gets cornered by its enemies - 20 or so mid-level clerics, a half-dozen mid-level wizards, a couple of dozen mid-level knights, a couple of dozen mid-level elf rangers, and the PC's make a pretty overwhelming fighting force. The organizations CR 14 defenses pretty much melted. EL 14 encounters may be deadly to 5th level characters, but 60 or so such characters if well organized and backed by the wealth of a nation state do quite quickly carve through them. </p><p></p><p>But even so, as he's told the PC's, "I'm not scared of you. It's the bloody gods that you serve that scare me."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>One of the things Talernga is famous for is that much of the city is actually lit up by magical lanterns of multicolored glass. When the PC's investigated the dungeons, under Talernga, they often found ancient rooms lit by them 1000's of years ago. There is an entire side quest around the construction and maintenance of these lamps the PC's never stumbled upon. Large and prosperous cities do in fact have street lamps. That's something FR actually gets right, for the record. </p><p></p><p>So yes, you either integrate the magic of your world into your world, or else you have a simulation problem. But I don't accept that very high degrees of simulation credibility is a problem you just have to accept. It's possible for a simulation to be credible enough that even a picky person can agree to suspend disbelief. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No. When I initially brain stormed the starting location of the PC's, I came up with a list of about 20 threats the land was currently facing. The PC's were far from involved in every one. They probably only addressed 5, and have at this point only really pursued strongly 1 (my primary threat, the most existential one). Presumably other NPCs are addressing the other threats - indeed they've witnessed some of this when they went to other NPC's seeking aid. "I'll help as much as I can. I'd love to help you more, but as you can see, I'm tied up with other problems." When the PC's moved to Talernga, there were again 20 some odd other threats the land was facing, from turf wars between rival drug gangs, to an outbreak of Republican Idealist seeking government reform and elimination of the monarchy, to a genocidal plot against the elves, goblin raids on border towns, to a sinister serial killer. Some of the threats were allies of the BBEG and so got taken down by the PC's in pursuit of him. But others were entirely tangential are presumably left for other NPCs (or PCs in a different campaign) to address. Some threats the PCs would like to face, like the discovery that one of the PCs relatives were lycanthropes, the PC's must put on a back burner and put a 'someone else's problem' field around, in order to pursue the BBEG whom they currently believe is a risk to the whole world. </p><p></p><p>The point is that since the world contains millions of people, it also almost perforce - not even examining the inhuman monsters - contains thousands upon thousands of threats. But it also most certainly contains thousands upon thousands of people defending themselves against the threats. The PC's pick one path through the sand box of threats. Presumably other people pick others and have varying degrees of success.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Even granting this is true, and admitting that I can't simulate a planet even if I wanted to, this isn't a black and white sort of thing. It's not, "Because you can't be perfect, then you have no choice but to be ridiculous."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6472557, member: 4937"] The real world I would argue is a situation with both lots of threats and no high level characters. I won't get into philosophy or theology here regarding the observable state of the world, but the point is that the game world could presumably emulate the state of a world in conflict by doing the thing you say that it can't. Those NPC's do occasionally arise, but surviving the process of rising in levels - which ever 'team' you play for - is not easy. Heroes occasionally arise as well. The NPC bad guy is an 18th level Wizard, the first to rise to that level in this part of the world in 4 generations. Yet, the NPC bad guy knows that party probably could beat him down if they caught him by surprise. Keep in mind he doesn't know the level of the party. He does know Sir Gareth took a finger of death and a quickened lightening bolt to the chest and DID NOT DIE - which scared the heck out of him as it was entirely outside his experience (and though he doesn't know it, it scared Gareth at least as much, as in "OMG am I in over my head"). He's incredibly powerful, far beyond the player's current imaginations, but I know and he's knows he's not invincible by any means, nor are the PCs - after all, I've had 9 deaths in the campaign so far. Talernga as a nation state is a half-million people strong. While as a single character he's capable of largely thwarting one of the world's super-powers, he can't face such a power entirely without risk. The PC's are just one of many threats he's currently facing. Talernga hasn't survived for this long for lack of resources. Thus the BBEG, despite being really powerful, has to hide. He can't hunt his enemies and does so, but the enemies can also hunt him. The PC's have seen what happens to his organization when it gets cornered by its enemies - 20 or so mid-level clerics, a half-dozen mid-level wizards, a couple of dozen mid-level knights, a couple of dozen mid-level elf rangers, and the PC's make a pretty overwhelming fighting force. The organizations CR 14 defenses pretty much melted. EL 14 encounters may be deadly to 5th level characters, but 60 or so such characters if well organized and backed by the wealth of a nation state do quite quickly carve through them. But even so, as he's told the PC's, "I'm not scared of you. It's the bloody gods that you serve that scare me." One of the things Talernga is famous for is that much of the city is actually lit up by magical lanterns of multicolored glass. When the PC's investigated the dungeons, under Talernga, they often found ancient rooms lit by them 1000's of years ago. There is an entire side quest around the construction and maintenance of these lamps the PC's never stumbled upon. Large and prosperous cities do in fact have street lamps. That's something FR actually gets right, for the record. So yes, you either integrate the magic of your world into your world, or else you have a simulation problem. But I don't accept that very high degrees of simulation credibility is a problem you just have to accept. It's possible for a simulation to be credible enough that even a picky person can agree to suspend disbelief. No. When I initially brain stormed the starting location of the PC's, I came up with a list of about 20 threats the land was currently facing. The PC's were far from involved in every one. They probably only addressed 5, and have at this point only really pursued strongly 1 (my primary threat, the most existential one). Presumably other NPCs are addressing the other threats - indeed they've witnessed some of this when they went to other NPC's seeking aid. "I'll help as much as I can. I'd love to help you more, but as you can see, I'm tied up with other problems." When the PC's moved to Talernga, there were again 20 some odd other threats the land was facing, from turf wars between rival drug gangs, to an outbreak of Republican Idealist seeking government reform and elimination of the monarchy, to a genocidal plot against the elves, goblin raids on border towns, to a sinister serial killer. Some of the threats were allies of the BBEG and so got taken down by the PC's in pursuit of him. But others were entirely tangential are presumably left for other NPCs (or PCs in a different campaign) to address. Some threats the PCs would like to face, like the discovery that one of the PCs relatives were lycanthropes, the PC's must put on a back burner and put a 'someone else's problem' field around, in order to pursue the BBEG whom they currently believe is a risk to the whole world. The point is that since the world contains millions of people, it also almost perforce - not even examining the inhuman monsters - contains thousands upon thousands of threats. But it also most certainly contains thousands upon thousands of people defending themselves against the threats. The PC's pick one path through the sand box of threats. Presumably other people pick others and have varying degrees of success. Even granting this is true, and admitting that I can't simulate a planet even if I wanted to, this isn't a black and white sort of thing. It's not, "Because you can't be perfect, then you have no choice but to be ridiculous." [/QUOTE]
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