Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.

[Fenes]

I adressed this in my post. Consistency in the gameworld doesn't require treating the mechanics as an infallible guide to ingame power. For example, the mechanics can be interpreted as giving effect to certain narrative conceits (such as that the PCs are the dragon slayers of the world). Other examples are given in the replies to Irda Ranger below.

There are a lot of threads in which non-simulatoinist play gets described as not having a consistent gameworld. This is not true (and, to be honest, comes across as a bit derogatory). What is true is that non-simulationist play does not use the game mechanics as the measure of consistency in the gameworld. That doesn't mean the gameworld is inconsistent.

No one is disupting that. The question is - what do those numbers mean in the gameworld?

You did not really adress it. Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.
Anyone in my group, and I suspect in other groups as well, would not accept this as anything other than an attempt by the mayor to kill the Pcs. If the guards can trash the PCs, then the PCs are not suited for tasks that could trash the guards.
Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.

 

[Irda Ranger]

If the stats are read in that way, then from the fact that the PC handily beats the dragon, and barely beats the drow, it doesn't follow that the drow would have a good showing against the dragon.

The way I (and my friends) prefer D&D, yes it does.

That is what I mean by "slippage" between game and metagame. It has nothing to do with disregarding the rules of the game. The notion that non-simulationist play is cheating is even more bizarre than that it involves an inconsistent gameworld.

I didn't mean "ignoring the rules" of the game so much as I meant "ignoring the rules of the world." The world as you've described it to the PCs. And I didn't mean "cheating" in the sense that you fudged dice, but rather in the sense that you changed the rules of the world to suit your story.

From my point of view (and others who share it), city guards being 4th level is just as much a "rule" as the rules governing Bull Rush, or how much damage a Fireball does. It's a "game world" rule as opposed to a "game system" rule, but it's still a rule. It's a rule because I've told me PCs that "Anything over level 5 is really heroic." I can't take that back without "cheating."

I hope that helps. I wasn't being derogatory, just trying to describe the style of play. In our style actions which would be "cheating" are obviously not cheating in other styles.

 

[Fenes]

For me, roleplaying also means that PCs act as if living in a world, not being in a game. That means they do not make decisions based upon game or narrativist concepts, but upon the "world mechanics".

OotS is a very funny comic, but I'd rather not have my PCs start to reason and talk like those characters.

 

[Snoweel]

"So your 10th level party fighting 6th level minions only knows that the guards are an easy fight. If a 2nd level party came by the next day and fought the exact same guards they'd find the now-1st-level-minions slightly less easy.

And if the 2nd level PCs had to interact with the 10th level PCs, shattering the house of cards? Now that's poor adventure design. 10th level PCs and 2nd level PCs shouldn't exist in the same universe."

I don't build "house of cards" worlds.

From your rigid paradigm this might constitute a shiftng gameworld, but that's because you're placing your world (and the mechanics you use to represent it) at the centre and trying to make the characters and the story fit.

The world I describe is the same for each party; the guards are the same. Only the numbers used to describe them are different.

In this edition, the difference between 2nd level PCs and 10th level PCs, all members of the Heroic tier, aren't as massive as they were in previous editions. So my old views of the levelling system have had to be revised.

A PC can advance from level 2 to level 10 in 64-80 encounters. That could be just a couple of weeks in game time.

Can you really get so badass in a couple of weeks? Sure you might learn a few tricks but don't kid yourself that you could PWN the self that you were 3 weeks ago.

But you have improved - your character sheet says so. Fights against the same old foes get easier. But not at the ridiculously exponential rate you've written into your "contract" with your players.

See the difference? For me, level is a guide to relative power; the guards could be described as 1st level or 6th level depending on the PCs. For you, level is a straightjacket that helps your gameworld determine absolute power relationships between any and every being in the setting.

God forbid your players are unable to predict the exact mechanical outcome of every encounter they find themselves in.

They might sue for breach of contract.

 

[Snoweel]

You did not really adress it. Let's make another example: The PCs get drunk and start a brawl in an Inn. The town guards absolutely trash the PCs. They knock them around and out, and throw them into the jail for a day. It is no contest.
A day later, the mayor calls the heroes, and asks them to defend the town against a marauding ogre. The town guard can't handle the ogre, and will defend the twon while they go out and slay it.

But from a story point of view this is stupid regardless of mechanics. The town guard wouldn't think that the characters could beat the ogre if they just beat them up.

If you're going to criticise the narrativist point of view, you can't come from your own. Applying your logic to somebody else's paradigm will never make sense.

Narratist this or that, even a play or novel needs internal logic. If the PCs can slay a dragon, and then in turn are bested by a drow patrol, barring special circumstances such as ambushes or special "dragonslayer" feats, tools or powers, then the drow patrol should manage to slay that dragon as well.

And by this logic, if Chelsea beats Arsenal by 2, and Arsenal beats Manchester United by 2, then Chelsea will beat Man U by 4? It's bull**** mate. We all have our good days and bad days as, I assume, do dragons and drow.

Mechanical relativism is an attempt to hide the predictability inherent in an absolutist interpretation of the levelling system.

From my point of view (and others who share it), city guards being 4th level is just as much a "rule"

Why do they need to be any level? Why can't they just be city guards?

It's a rule because I've told me PCs that "Anything over level 5 is really heroic."

Why did you feel the need to tell them that? The rules state that levels 1-10 are merely 'heroic'. Why is level 6 "really heroic"? Especially when, at that level, the PCs still have 80% of their potential to fulfill?

I can't take that back without "cheating."

Or, god forbid, defaulting on your "contract".

For me, roleplaying also means that PCs act as if living in a world, not being in a game. That means they do not make decisions based upon game or narrativist concepts, but upon the "world mechanics".

I think your analogy is a bit off.

Basing their actions on "world mechanics" is absolutely gamist. It encourages metagame thinking.

But you're right - players basing their actions on the knowledge that they are in a 'story' encourages a narrativist type of game, but it is the type of game I'm happy to play.

It's true that either can be seen as a fault, depending on your preference, but it is false to say that one is more like "living in a world" than the other.

 

[S'mon]

The problem with this is that it has the following implication: the reward for having your D&D character level successfully is to get to play a different game (a wargame rather than an RPG). That's not necessarily a recipe for a popular game. I certainly know that it wouldn't interest me.

That the nature of play changes slowly as you progress in levels is a big attraction of D&D for me. I love BECMI's approach where each new set of levels adds a different sort of play experience (dungeon-wilderness-dominion-planar), which 1e also had to a lesser extent, and I strongly disliked 3e's "20 levels of dungeon-bashing" approach, which 4e seems to follow.

I guess this is why I don't like MMORPGs. Nothing ever really changes, the nature of play stays the same, the numbers just get bigger. Tabletop play gives you the chance to experience far more variety; to me it's strange and sad that D&D seems to have moved away from that.

 

[S'mon]

I’m going to guess what you do professionally and hope that you're professional attempts at analysis show better results than you've shown here so far. Otherwise I fear for the safety of Australia.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

I have a friend who works for Australian MoD. I wonder if he knows Snoweel.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That the nature of play changes slowly as you progress in levels is a big attraction of D&D for me. I love BECMI's approach where each new set of levels adds a different sort of play experience (dungeon-wilderness-dominion-planar), which 1e also had to a lesser extent, and I strongly disliked 3e's "20 levels of dungeon-bashing" approach, which 4e seems to follow.

3E was coined as "Back to the Dungeon".
I sure hope that this won't be the 4E paradigm, too - I thought the goal of the tiers was to get away from that. But I suppose this is more a question of the adventures that will be put out then the actual game design.

One of my players said he read through an Epic Level adventure that felt like it could have been a level 1 adventure about 2 farmers quarreling on a piece of land, just that the farmers happened to be gods... That's probably not what anyone really wants, is it? (Very "Discworldy", if not done seriously - The Gods are angry on the Frost Giants because they didn't give back their lawn mowers...)

 

[S'mon]

This is mostly where I stand, except I allow "different perspectives" on what would be the same "stock" NPC. This is pretty much as shown in the MM: a level 4 party might go up against an orc tribe and fight, among other things, orc raiders (level 3) and orc berserkers (level 4). Later in their career (level 8-9), they are fighting an ogre tribe that has ogre savages and skirmishers (level 8), but the tribe also has a bunch of enslaved orc warriors (level 9 minions) they use for cannon fodder.

These orcs could very well have been survivors of the original tribe, but instead of being level 3-4 "full" monsters, they are now level 9 minions. They supposedly offer roughly the same threat value (150 XP for orc raiders and 100 XP for orc warriors), but as minions they work better against higher-level PCs.

Yes, I think that this is the right approach for 4e - overall NPC threat level and in-setting prowess is constant, but precise stats are determined by the PCs' relative level. If the PCs are much tougher than the NPCs, make the NPCs minions. If they're much weaker, make the NPC a Solo. This is a big change from 3e, but it's still very different from making City Guards 3rd level Soldiers when the PCs are 3rd and 10th level Soldiers when the PCs are 10th.

 

[S'mon]

. A paragon PC should, in the gameworld, have more prowess than a heroic PC. But the degree of ingame increase in power needn't correspond to the mathematical transformation on the character sheet, the purpose of which is mostly to serve a metagame purpose of rewarding the player.

I don't understand where the reward comes from, though? If I have x10 hp and do x10 damage but the same pirates now have x10 hp and do x10 damage, why should I feel rewarded? Where's the cookie?